Earl sighed.
'I did decide to have it out with that old bastard. Didn't seem right for him to go on and on and both his sons dead before him for one damned reason or another. My topkick covered for me. I jumped train in Little Rock, and was here in Hot Springs for four days. I made it back to Pendleton just fine. Top understood. He was a good man. He didn't make it off the 'Canal, but he was a good man.'
'I have it right?'
'Most of it. You only got one thing wrong.'
The boy just looked at him.
'It's like everything you say. I learned the town, I learned all the casinos and finally I picked him up, b'lieve it or not, at the Horseshoe. The Belmont was too fancy for him. I knew about the hill behind the Belmont because I can read a goddamned map, that's all. But I followed my father from dive to dive, from joint to joint. It was a Saturday night and I was going to wait till the crowds died down, then jump him and beat the shit out of him. I wanted him to feel what it tasted like, to get a hard, mean beating. He'd never been beaten in his life, but that night, I would have cracked him a new head, that I swear.'
The train whisded. It was time to go.
'You better get aboard,' said Earl.
'I can't go till I hear it all.'
'Then I better finish fast. You sure you're up to this?'
'Yes sir.'
'Well, we'll see. The old man finally laid up at a place down at the end of Central. Just another no-name whorehouse at the cheap end of the row. I moved on down and waited. And waited. And goddamn waited. I seen him park his car, I seen him go in, and then nothing. Finally, 'bout four, I went in myself. There's something strange goin' on, but I'm not quite figuring it out. It's all dark, and the whores are just shocked-like. It's a run-down whorehouse, all dark, all crappy, all lousy. No johns nowhere, but some whores sitting in a little room, and I got to say, they's scared. They's almost in shock. 'You see a old man come in here?' I ask. I ask 'em, and they just run away, like they can't figure out what the hell is going on. Damnedest thing. I go upstairs. One by one I open doors. It ain't much different than Mary Jane's, and in a couple of rooms, I find other whores, some of 'em drunked up, some of 'em high on juju-weed, and I'm wondering what the hell is going on.
'Finally I get to a last door. Daddy's got to be in there. I kick the door in, and get ready for the fight of my life, because he was a big, mean sumbitch and he ain't going to stand still while his oldest boy goes to whip-ass on him. But he's just lying there and in the comer, this little gal is crying so hard, the makeup on her face is all rim to hell and everything.
'I check Daddy. He ain't dead, but he's almost into the bam. 'Daddy,' I say. He reaches up and grabs my arm and recognizes my voice. 'Earl,' he says. 'Oh, God bless you, son, you come for your daddy in his hour of need. Son, I am kilt dead, get me out of this house of sin, please, son, I am so sorry for what I done to you and your brother, I was a wicked, wicked man. I done such evil in the valley and after and now the Lord has punished me, but for your sake and your mama's sake, git me out of this here house of sm.
'What was the valley?'
'Henderson, I ain't got no idea-Maybe he meant 4Valley of the Shadow,' that's all I could figure, and I puzzled on it for many a year.'
'Go on.'
'Well, I look, and he's shot. Shot above the heart. Had to be a little bullet, 'cause there's a little track of blood, not much. 'What happened?' I ask the girl, and she says, 'Mr. Charles, they busted in on him. They grabbed him and when he drew his little gun, they got it from him and shot him with it, right in the heart. They came to kill him and kill him they did.' This whore was crying up a storm. Mr. Charles, he was so good and kind, he took care of us, all that stuff. 'Who done this?' I asked. 'They done it,' said the whore. 'Gangsters done it. Shot him with his own gun and told me if I squealed they'd kill me and all the gals in the house.' 'Git me out of here,' he screamed. 'I am dying, Lord, I am dying, but son, Jesus, please, get me out of the house of sin.' So that is what I done. I come to beat the man and put the fear of God in him, and I ended up carrying him down two flights of stairs, him crying and telling me what a good son I was and all that, how wonderful I was, how proud he was. Things don't never work out like you expect, know what I mean? I was strong enough to carry him out. But I didn't want to go on the street, so the madam, she takes me down into the cellar, and through a big door and that's how come I got into the underground stream the first time. I carried him to the culvert. 'Thank you, son,' he said. 'Thank you so much.' I went back, got his car, drove it to the station and carried him to it. Time I got him to it, he's dead and gone. His last words was, 'I have been a wicked man and I done evil in the valley and so much evil come from that and I hope Jesus forgives me.' I didn't want him found there. I drove him to Mount Ida, dumped him, tore open the liquor locker behind Turner's. He had his Peacemaker in the car. I jacked off a round so they'd think it was a gunfight, I messed up all the tracks in the dust, and then I lit out cross-country. The next day, I hoboed a train. A week later, I reached Pendleton and four months after that, I hit the 'Canal. That's the true story. I was hunting him, but so was someone else.'
'Jesus,' said the boy.
The train had begun to pull out.
'Why'd they kill your daddy?' Carlo asked.
'I ain't never figured it. Who knows what that man had got himself into? He was a bad man. He beat and hurt people, he did terrible things. Someone finally caught up to him, I reckon. Before I did.'
They rose, and went to the train, where a conductor was calling a last 'All aboard '
'One thing maybe figures into this,' said Carlo. 'I only noticed this 'cause I was looking in newspaper files and I happened to make a connection. But you know that robbery? The Alcoa payroll job?'
'Yeah?'
'It was October 2, 1940. Your brother died October 4, 1940. There's something you might think on.'
'Damn,' said Earl.
Carlo got to the train, and hobbled aboard and for just a bit Earl kept with him as if he didn't want to let his one survivor from the wars escape his protection.
'Earl? Whyn't you let your father just be found in that whorehouse? Why take the risk? Would have served him right.'
'You don't get it, do you, Carlo. Them whores. They wasn't like other whores. None of them.'
The young man's face, still so innocent, knit in confusion.
'They was all boys,' said Earl, stopping at last, spilling his last and most painful truth.
Chapter 52
She was an octoroon from the French Quarter, well schooled in the arts, with oval, wise eyes that bespoke the knowledge of ancient skills. So she had the thunderous savagery of the Negro race, but no vulgar Negro features. She looked like a white girl of special, almost delicate beauty, as if from a convent, but her soul was pure African. And she was extraordinary. She took him places he never knew existed. She took him to a high mesa that overlooked everything, and he could see the world from far away but in precise detail and then she plunged him into a vortex so intense it made that world and its complications vanish.
'My God,' he said.
'You like?'
'I like. I see why Miss Hattie charges so much.'
'I am very good.'
'You are the best'
'I am so pleased.'
'No. I am the one that's pleased.'
Owney wasn't obsessed with the pleasures of the flesh like some, but now and then, in a celebratory mood, he liked to let go. And this one had really gotten him to let go.
'Ralph will take care of you.'
