24

“DID YOU SEE anybody in the house you took the Sunliner from?” Sam was asking Lateesha as they made their way in Sam’s BMW down the narrow gravel road into Greenwood Cemetery. They were looking for Fontaine.

“Nope,” said Lateesha. “I didn’t see a soul. There was another car in the carport, though. A silver Mercedes. A big one, about, oh, I’d say seven years old.”

Lateesha held up as many fingers, each of which bore a ring and was polished a different color. In fact, Lateesha was a kind of Rainbow Coalition all by herself. Her hair, done in a hundred little braids, was intertwined in a scarf of fuchsia and gold. Her blouse was peacock blue, and her micro-mini was the same fabric as her do-rag. The thin shapely legs that stretched for years from beneath her tiny skirt were covered in bright orange tights. Her high-top tennis shoes were purple.

She lit up the cemetery as they passed slabs of black granite, praying angels, ancient oak trees, until finally they came to a green cement-block house surrounded by rhododendrons.

Just as they pulled up, Fontaine stooped through the doorway. “Good Lord,” said Sam. He was the tallest person she’d ever seen close up.

“I told you he was a giant,” said Lateesha. “He could pop your arm off and eat it for breakfast. That’s why I’m glad June wrote us this note.” She was clutching it in her hand. “Though he was really nice when I met him before.”

Sam stepped out and introduced herself to Fontaine, and they exchanged pleasantries, he in a voice that made the earth rumble beneath their feet. Sam said, “I understand you’re the chief caretaker here.”

“That’s right,” said Fontaine. “Been looking after the grounds, the folks, digging holes, oh, fourteen, fifteen years. There’s some nice people buried here. All white people, of course. But some nice white people.”

Sam stared down at her shoes, not knowing what else to do. White Southerners of a liberal bent spend a lot of time inspecting their footwear.

“Some famous ones, too,” said Fontaine. “Like Owney Madden, you know who he was?”

Sam nodded. “The bootlegger who was exiled here from New York.”

“That’s right!” Fontaine was pleased that she knew so much about his most famous charge. “Now tell me, what can I do for y’all?”

“You can do this, Fontaine,” said Lateesha, stepping up with June’s note and handing it to him.

Fontaine read it slowly, then started over and read it two more times, and then he said, “Well, I’d be happy to oblige you ladies, but I’m afraid I can’t hand that car over to you like my wife says here I ought to.”

“Why not?” said Lateesha. She stepped even closer to Fontaine, about to get in his face—that is if she’d been tall enough. Sam reached out to grab the back of her skirt.

“Well…” Fontaine pulled at his khaki work cap. “I’d love to, but, you see, that car’s already gone.”

“We brought you the car at two A.M., and here it is”—Lateesha checked her watch—“thirteen hours later, and you’re saying it’s gone. You told Early you were going to paint it. Now I for one don’t think you painted it and dried it and got it on the road, which was not your job in the first place, but Early’s, not that it was his car to begin with, in that amount of time, and I hate to call you a liar, Fontaine—”

“And she’s certainly not doing that,” said Sam, stepping right in front of Lateesha. “But you see, we’re awfully concerned about the car because it belongs to Olive Adair, who seems to have disappeared.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Fontaine. “I hear you.”

Oh, great. Now he was going to yes ma’am her from here to next Sunday, agreeing with everything she said while not telling her a damned thing.

“And, you see, if we could put our hands on the car, then that might be helpful in finding Olive,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And also might be helpful in somebody getting their twenty thousand dollars,” said Lateesha.

Sam could see that she might have to shake Lateesha to rid her of the notion that she was owed something for the car that she had nabbed.

Fontaine stared at Lateesha, then turned back to Sam. “Yes, ma’am. I can see what the problem is, but I just don’t see as how I can help you.”

“You could tell us where the car is, for starters,” said Sam.

“Like I said, it’s gone.”

Okay. She was just going to have to go find Early Trulove and get him to talk to Fontaine, and if that didn’t do any good, then she’d ask Jack Graham to talk with Early, since Jack certainly owed her something. But, by God, she’d gotten this close to that Sunliner, she was going to find it and find Olive, if it killed her.

“Come on, Lateesha.” She grabbed the young girl’s hand.

“I sure wish I could be more help,” said Fontaine.

“Oh, you do not!” said Sam out the window of her BMW. She was just about to back up, when Early Trulove and his red Cadillac came cruising into her rearview mirror. There were two other people with him; now all of them were stepping out, Jesus, was that Bobby Adair in makeup and full drag?

“Yes, it’s me,” said Bobby, shaking her hand. “Please, forgive the way I look. It’s a disguise.”

Sam nodded, wondering what the hell he’d been up to.

“Good to see you again, Sam. I was telling Cynthia and Early, may I present Cynthia Blackshears, Cynthia, Samantha Adams—whom I mentioned to you before—and Early Trulove, about your helping me look for Mamaw.”

Sam eyed Early, and he eyed her. Did he remember her from the piano bar?

“Miss Adams,” said Early. “Good to see you again.”

“Oh, so you’ve met,” said Bobby, then pushed on. “Now, Early tells me that his friend Fontaine—” He turned and looked up at the man who towered over him. They shook hands. “That Fontaine has been taking care of my grandma Olive’s car, actually, it’s my Sunliner that Mamaw was keeping for me while I was away.”

“Early.” Fontaine shifted his huge body from one foot to the other. “I need to talk with you a minute. If y’all could excuse us, please.”

The two men stepped off, back up toward the little green building with the attached shed, and Sam wondered what kind of double-dealing they were up to, when she saw Early suddenly step back at something Fontaine had said. No! Early said, raising one hand to the heavens. My God! Dear God! And then he sat down atop the nearest tombstone and dropped his head in his hands. Whatever Fontaine had said, the man was obviously stunned—unless he was one hell of an actor. Sam had seen an awful lot of good actors in her time.

“What?” said Lateesha, closing in on Early.

“What?” said Bobby.

“Folks,” said Fontaine, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.”

“No way!” said Lateesha.

“Forget it!” said Bobby. “This has something to do with Mamaw, you’ll have to kill me first!”

In the end, after a lot of screaming and harsh words, it was Lateesha and Cynthia who were sent on their way and Sam and Bobby and Early who stood and watched as Fontaine drove the backhoe over to a plot way in the back of the cemetery and dug up the Sunliner, which he’d buried whole, thinking, understandably, that what he’d found in the trunk was Early’s doings.

Fontaine, who was a whiz with the backhoe, dug a long slow grade for the Sunliner, and then he hooked a couple of big chains to a tractor and pulled the car up the grade. When they opened the trunk, Bobby went crazy. He attacked the Sunliner with his fists and his feet and finally with his head—as if that old car that he’d so loved had been responsible for Olive’s death. Finally Fontaine and Early wrestled him to the ground, and Fontaine picked him up and threw him in the red Caddy, Early saying, Bobby, we’ve got to call the cops, and you don’t want to be in the neighborhood.

Sam was left alone to say a prayer for Olive, whom she’d only seen that once, late the previous afternoon—which now seemed, and in many ways was, some other lifetime.