Twenty

Fluffy wasn’t speaking to me. We were driving down the little side streets of Wewa, the wind blowing through the T-tops just as it had been an hour ago, but for us, the mood was broken. The yellow hair bow had blown out the window and become a distant memory, but Fluff’s encounter with Iris Strokes was obviously still fresh in her mind. At least we were focused on the same mental image, but Fluffy was dealing with the trauma to her psyche, while I was thinking of another, more deadly trauma.

Ruby Lee Diamond had lived and died in a public fish-bowl. The way I figured it, Iris Stokes was dead wrong if she thought no one but insiders knew who Jane Diamond’s adopted daughter was. How hard could it have been to figure it all out in a tiny spit of a town? Maybe Ruby was the only one who didn’t know what half the town knew. But now I knew, and there was one more link to follow. Ruby Lee’s crazy father.

Finding Wannamaker Lewis wasn’t going to be a problem. Wannamaker didn’t want to be missed. The Honk-If-You-Love-Jesus icon had positioned himself with the canny shrewdness of a professional retailer, right in the heart of town, at the main crossroads, next to Wewa’s only grocery, gas, bait, and tackle shop, the Dixie Dandy.

His studio was a rundown shack that had once sold Tupelo honey. At least that’s what the sign that hung precariously from a pin oak still promised to deliver. The dirt brown hut sported a rusted tin roof, and it might have gone unnoticed if Wannamaker hadn’t taken steps to ensure that didn’t happen.

The entire lot was crammed with whirligigs: wooden cutout Uncle Sams painted every color of the rainbow, huge bears covered with Scripture, and his trademark HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS placards. One whirligig in particular stood out, jutting into the road. It was Jesus, with mobile arms that swung in circles with the wind. At least it must’ve been Jesus. It was a good physical likeness, but there the resemblance to the traditional figure ended. Jesus wore a tie-dyed robe, had fire in his eyes, and an American flag was painted squarely across his chest. Floating above him was a halo and two angels, one with a flashing neon sign that said, OPEN. HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!

Sister Mary Catherine would’ve had plenty to say about this. I crossed myself as a precaution and pulled into the parking lot. Fluffy, sensing perhaps another encounter of a personal nature, jumped down off the seat and crawled to the back of the car so I couldn’t grab her.

“To each his own, girl,” I said. “If you don’t want an extra dose of precaution, if you are not concerned about eternal damnation, then stay in the car.” My answer was a low growl. Fluffy was a heathen and proud of it.

BEWARE! a sign proclaimed, as I stepped out of the car. SATAN IS EVERYWHERE!

“Damn straight,” I muttered.

JOHN 3:16, another placard read.

“Lavotini 24:7,” I said back. I wandered up onto the porch of Wannamaker’s studio, looking for signs of life other than the eternal kind. A ceiling fan whirred slowly inside the studio, moved by the breeze that gusted through the paneless windows.

“Anybody home?” I called, stepping gingerly across the wooden porch planks.

“Yoo-hoo, Mr. Lewis?” I waited another moment, until I was sure that no one was around, and started back to the car. “Too bad for you,” I said out loud. “I just love Jesus!” Still no response. That didn’t make sense. If Lewis’s folk art was worth so much, what was it doing just sitting out in his parking lot unattended? Where were the security guards that hovered around the fancy galleries they always showed on TV?

I reached the Camaro and had my hand on the door when Fluffy started the dog equivalent of screaming.

“He ain’t here,” a deep voice boomed, scaring me into jumping a good two feet straight up in the air.

I whirled around to face one of the biggest, darkest, and tallest men ever to fill a pair of tattered overalls.

“Good grief! Holy Mother of God! Were you trying to scare the living shit out of me, or is it just something you do naturally?”

The man stared at me for a moment, as if it were taking a while for the circuits to connect and formulate an answer.

“It’s his nap time,” the man said slowly. “Don’t take nothin’ and you won’t go to hell.” He stood there, not moving, too close for comfort. There was something not quite right with this cookie. Then he smiled, a beautiful toothy smile that warmed his face. “Jesus loves the little children,” he said. “Come back after nap time.”

“I will,” I said, sliding behind my door and slipping into my seat. Fluffy was still screaming at the top of her lungs, and I wanted to.

“Bye!”

I cranked that Camaro up and spun out of the driveway. Fluffy, emboldened by our departure, leaped up onto the backseat and balanced her front paws on the open window ledge. Her bark changed to a deeper promise of murder and mayhem.

“Yo, Fluff,” I yelled, “you keep that shit up and I’ll bring you back with me the next time.”

There was an abrupt silence from the backseat.

I pulled into the Dixie Dandy parking lot, to the side farthest away from Wannamaker Lewis’s studio, and stopped by a phone booth so I could look up Roy Dell. If Raydean and Ma were serious about staking out Roy Dell’s house, then it was probably time for me to check on them. Knowing Raydean, they were inside drinking tea. Knowing Ma, she was cooking Lulu a real meal and lecturing her on the values of fidelity and the penalties for committing mortal sins.

I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

*   *   *

Roy Dell lived off of State Route 20, away from the racetrack, in a little cluster of brick and wooden-sided house that had been someone’s attempt at a subdivision in the late 1960s. Roy Dell’s place in the one-street neighborhood was not hard to find. It sat at the end of the cul-de-sac, scrubby pines and knobs of grass springing up like errant groundhogs, a big split-level with its siding painted Roy Dell’s vibrant racing yellow, just like his race car.

The piece-of-shit yellow Vega sat in a position of honor in the front yard, its back two wheels up on cinder blocks. Various hulks of cars and car parts lay littered across the front yard, sandwiched in among the used racing tires that had been painted a house- and car-matching yellow and filled with stringy portulacas. It was a vision of poor taste and a monument to sloppy living.

You could view the entire street from the top of a little rise that led down into the Lucky Days Subdivision, a fact that I found faintly disturbing on account of how Ma and Raydean would have no good surveillance point that wouldn’t leave them exposed to their subjects. Ahead of me, just outside the entrance to Roy Dell’s little neighborhood, sat Raydean’s ancient Plymouth Fury. The car was deserted.

“Something’s wrong, Fluffy,” I said. “It don’t feel right around here. They wouldn’t just leave the car and walk onto Roy Dell’s property. No, if they felt good about things, they’d have driven right up to the front door. Especially Ma with her corns.”

Fluffy, still unsure of me, stood on the backseat, sniffing the air. From the look on her face, and the way she bared her teeth, I was thinking she saw things like I did.

“Time for a little reconnaissance,” I whispered. I backed the Camaro down the street, away from Raydean’s cop-mobile, and parked under a thin stand of pines. I leaned down and grabbed a pair of aerobics shoes from under the front passenger seat and pulled off my stilettos. Then I reached under my seat and started rooting around for a weapon, just in case.

I know, if ever there were a case for carrying concealed, it would be me. Dancers are life’s little idea of target practice, and so most of us carry, but not me. The way I see it, an attacker would only use the gun to kill me. The truth be told, I was scared of guns. But for some reason, I wasn’t scared of knives.

My fingers sought and found the Spyderco that lay just under my seat. They curled around the smooth casing, caressing the steel back of the blade. You grow up in Philly, and you learn how to defend yourself with your own hands. A knife is just an extension of my fingernails. My brother Francis gave me the Spyderco. He didn’t say much and I know it set him back a pretty penny, but it was his way of letting me know that while he accepted my decision to dance, he would still worry about his baby sister’s safety.

It was now my turn to worry about Ma and Raydean.

“You stay here, Fluff,” I said. Of course, Fluffy was gonna do what she wanted to do, but it gave me a sense of being in control just to say it.

I got out of the car and started creeping down the street, sticking close to the side of the road and trying not to be seen. When I came up even with the Plymouth Fury, I realized I had every reason to be worried. The front and backseat were littered with pieces of pine branches. An empty Piggly Wiggly grocery sack lay on the front seat along with an empty package of black shoe polish. Ma’s purse was open, the contents scattered in with the pine needles. Worst of all, Raydean’s shotgun lay out in plain view on the backseat. Those two wouldn’t walk off leaving their valuables unattended. Where in the hell was Ma?

As if in answer to my question, an ear-splitting scream filled the air, a scream of terror that could not be mistaken for anything else. It was followed quickly by another unmistakable sound: gunfire.

I took off running as hard and fast as I could, and headed for the glaring yellow house, headed straight for the source of the sounds. I looked up as I hit the driveway just in time to see two soldiers and a naked man. An ugly, naked man.

I jumped behind Roy Dell’s Vega and peered up over the hood. The naked man streaked by me and there was a horrible moment as I realized I knew him. Frank was running full out, heading past the front of the house and making for the back side of it. Following behind him were the soldiers, Ma and Raydean dressed in camouflage that had to date back to World War II, judging from their pine-covered helmets. Their faces were blackened with shoe polish, but their eyes glared out as they ran by, too intent on their quarry to notice me. Ma was carrying something black and square in her left hand. My ma and Raydean, chasing old caught-in-the-act-again Frank. I would’ve laughed had it not been for a sudden complication.

The front door slammed open, flying back against the wall, as Lulu burst out upon the scene, a shotgun in her hands and a murderous look in her eyes.

Ba-boom! The gun discharged and half the flowers in one of the tires scattered to the four corners of the earth. Boom! Ba-Boom! She fired off two more times, and then, as she located Ma and Raydean, she laid her head alongside the barrel and took careful aim.

Lulu did not look like an amateur. She was gonna kill somebody.

At a moment like this, time slows to a crawl. I saw Lulu site Ma’s backside, but I was already in motion. I had the advantage of Lulu’s attention being focused on Ma and Raydean. She didn’t see me coming, and she didn’t hear me as I climbed on top of Roy Dell’s Vega and launched myself into the air, flying toward the porch and the barrel of the shotgun. Too late, I connected. Ba-boom! The gun fired wild, deafening me with its roar. Lulu, now on the ground, was puzzled and incensed. She turned her attention to beating the living crap out of me, which wasn’t going to be hard to do, given Lulu’s size and strength.

I heard a dull roaring sound and I figured I was about to die from Lulu sitting on me. The sound got louder, though, and for a second, my attacker was distracted. I shoved her and she rolled sideways, moving just enough for me to reach my hand into my pocket and wrap my fingers around my knife.

“Baby!” a voice yelled. We both looked over. Frank had materialized in his black Firebird, which must’ve been parked out of sight behind the house.

“Baby! Throw me some pants! I gotta get outta here!”

Lulu looked up, torn between doing what Frank wanted and killing me. That’s when she slugged me hard across the jaw and struggled to stand up.

“Don’t you move none,” she said. “I’ll be right back to kill your ass!”

Yeah, like I was really gonna stay lying there on my back, waiting to get my ass kicked.

“Sierra! Stop him! I can’t get a good shot!” Ma’s voice cut through the haze of red pain. Sweet Jesus, tell me Ma didn’t have a gun!

I jumped up in time to see Ma with a black camcorder held up to her left eye, trying to get Frank on tape.

“Ma, what’re you doin’? This ain’t a wedding down to the Social Club.”

Raydean was right beside her, grinning. “Sierra,” she cried, “we caught him bringing the mother ship in for a landing!”

Frank, suddenly aware that the army was again after him, gunned his engine and popped the clutch, jumping the car forward across the front yard. Only one thing stood between him and freedom: An unmarked police sedan sat squarely in the middle of the driveway and Detective Wheeling stood behind the passenger door, his gun drawn and a seriously pissed-off look on his face.

Lulu picked that moment to come flying back out onto the porch, her shotgun aimed at the spot where I’d just been, and a pair of jeans slung over her beefy shoulders.

“All right, you!” she yelled, not waiting to see if I was still there. Ba-boom! The spot on the porch floor where I’d been lying burst into splinters. I vaulted over the back side of the porch just in time and hit the ground in a crouch. Raydean and Mama, being not quite the fools they appeared to be, ducked down behind Frank’s car.

“Freeze!” Detective Wheeling screamed.

“Baby! Don’t do it!” Frank cautioned. “He’ll shoot you! Drop the gun!”

Lulu looked out into the driveway and saw the barrel of the Glock 9mm, appeared to think for a bare second, and then dropped the gun, a smile quickly replacing the homicidal look on her face.

“Hey, Officer, what’s doin’?”

Wheeling wasn’t having any of it. He remained hunkered down behind the roof of the car, a radio mike in his hand, barking into it. Then he put it down and started issuing orders. In the distance, sirens began to wail as Wewahitchka’s only police car came to the rescue.

“Put your hands in the air! Now!” Lulu raised her hands like a placid schoolchild. “You!” Wheeling yelled to Frank. “Cut the engine and get out of the car!”

Frank shut down the car immediately, but didn’t move to leave it.

“Get out of the car, now!” Wheeling yelled, the adrenaline rush evident in his red face.

“Aw, man,” Frank said, and sighed. “Do I have to?”

“Get out of that damned car right now!”

Slowly the door swung open, and as I saw it from my position lying on the ground alongside Lulu’s porch, one bare foot hit the ground, then another. There was still-as-death silence for about thirty seconds, and then the sound of Detective Wheeling laughing.

“You think that’s something,” Raydean called out, “you oughta see what we got on videotape!”

Wheeling shook his head slowly and raised up a little from behind his car.

“Where’s Roy Dell?” he called out to Lulu.

“He ain’t here,” she answered.

“No, duh!” said Raydean, cackling. “That boy don’t know what he’s missing!”

“But he will,” said Ma, patting the camcorder.

I crossed myself as an extra precaution. I knew Ma was thinking back to the Sons of Italy–Mostavindaduchi fiasco. Poor Pa, I bet he never speaks to another woman again in his life, let alone smiles at one.

Wewa’s finest arrived at that moment, and a young deputy sprang from the car, his gun drawn and a wild-eyed look of pure terror in his eyes. Here he was, at his first gunfight. He looked at Wheeling, then saw naked Frank.

“Damn!” he swore. “What you got here?”

Wheeling looked over at him. “What, boy, you never seen a naked man? Go up on that porch and retrieve that shotgun, would you?”

The young man cut past Wheeling and cautiously approached Lulu, slipping up onto the porch and grabbing the shotgun tenderly.

“Now,” said Wheeling, stepping out from behind the car and walking a few feet up the drive. “Would somebody care to explain what’s going on here?”

Raydean took a step forward and looked like she was about to tell all, but then she stopped suddenly. “Hey,” she said, “ain’t you that boy from over to the drugstore?”

“The very same one,” I answered, stepping out from the side of the house.

“Uh-huh!” Raydean snapped. “I thought as much. Alien!”

I smiled at Wheeling. “There’s really not much to this at all,” I said smoothly.

“Now, there’s a damn lie!” Lulu spit, but just as quickly remembered that she’d been caught in flagrante delicto, and shut her mouth.

“Does anybody here want to press charges against anybody else here?” Wheeling asked, slowly running his eyes over all of us one at a time.

No one spoke. I hesitated, then decided to tell him the details about Lulu and Frank later, when Ma wasn’t around to get any more involved than she already was.

“Well, fine then,” he said. “I’m just interested in catching up with Roy Dell, Ms. Parks. Where might I find him?”

“Why do you want him?”

Wheeling stared at her hard for a moment. “I have a warrant for his arrest,” he said finally.

Lulu stepped to the edge of the porch. “On what charge?”

“The murder of Ruby Diamond,” he answered, his eyes never wavering from hers.

Lulu seemed to teeter for a moment, then grabbed on to the porch rail for support and leaned forward. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life! Roy Dell never laid a hand on that slut!”

“I got evidence to the contrary, ma’am. I’d appreciate you letting us know if you hear from him, on account of I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be an accessory after the fact.”

Lulu opened her mouth to say something, then just as quickly closed it.

“Now,” said Wheeling, turning to face the rest of us, “I’m thinking y’all ought to disperse.”

Raydean and Ma started to walk off toward Raydean’s cop-mobile, obviously anxious to put as much space between themselves and Frank as possible.

“Hey!” Frank said. “They got something of mine! I want that film!”

Lulu tossed Frank his pants and he started struggling to pull them on while Raydean and Ma quickened their pace to a dead run.

“You’ll have to take care of that later,” Wheeling said to him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t it wait?” Frank was looking over Wheeling’s shoulder and seeing his recent past getting away from him, forever preserved in Ma’s camcorder.

“’Fraid it can’t,” Wheeling answered calmly. “I need you to sign that statement you gave us yesterday.” I was starting to walk away after Raydean and Ma, but I was also trying to overhear. “And I need to talk to you, too, Ms. Lavotini.”

I spun around and looked back at Wheeling, who hadn’t even turned away from Frank as he spoke.

“I figure you got your hands full, right now, Detective. Catch up with me later.” After all, he couldn’t actually detain me, not unless he was going to arrest me.

“Don’t leave your trailer,” he said, his command voice returning.

“How about this, Detective. I won’t leave the country.”

I could tell he was mad. The dull red flush was moving across the back of his neck. There’d be hell to pay later, but for now, I had a videotape to watch.