Fitzgerald’s house. That might be better than this plan of nabbing the Reverend at the carnival with a kid in hand. Whatcha want to bet Hanson gets a warrant, looks hard enough, he’ll find some dead kid’s underwear with the Reverend’s cum in ’em?”
“But if he doesn’t, then the motherfucker’s tipped off and he can get real careful. Hanson plays it his way, he just might nab him. Fitzgerald puts his hands on a kid, kidnaps him, then Hanson’s got something to work with, a righteous reason to bring the bastard in. Then, with a little luck, the rest of it will come out.”
“We’re out of this now, right?”
“You betcha.”
“Hap, not that I’m petty or anything, but I told you Uncle Chester wasn’t the one.”
“I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“I’m a good judge of character.”
“I’m proof of that.”
Leonard was silent for a moment. “Well, even I fuck up now and then.”
The All Black Carnival came to the East Side on a hot morning that threatened storm. The storm lay in the west, dark as an army boot, and the heavens rattled with poisonous thunder.
Our fear was the storm blew in, the carnival might be canceled, and if that happened, Hanson’s plan was gone with the wind, and the Reverend would have to wait for another night. Strike somewhere unexpected.
Me and Leonard were out of it, but we couldn’t resist the temptation to drive over to the fairgrounds early that morning and watch the carnival trucks pull in behind the tall chain-link fence, observe the machineries of fun going up: the Tilt-a-Whirl, the coaster rides, the Slingshot, as well as rides I couldn’t put a name to.
I kept wondering how Fitzgerald was nabbing those kids and getting them away from there to commit murder. He was a high-profile individual. People on the East Side knew him well and weren’t likely to forget him walking off with some kid, but somehow, every year, he was grabbing a kid and taking him up to that death house.
How was he choosing his victim? Was the kid someone Fitzgerald had been watching, someone who’d been attending church activities? Someone Fitzgerald knew would be going to the carnival? Someone whose home life was a disaster, or someone who had no home life at all? Someone whose past would indicate anything could have happened? Someone like the little boy under Uncle Chester’s floor?
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my problem now. It was Hanson’s. We drove back home.
About two in the afternoon, Leonard and I went over to MeMaw’s, and Hiram helped us finish up the porch. There wasn’t a lot left to do. About an hour’s work. It was very hot. The sky was clear and blue except in the west, and from those brooding clouds there came a kind of mugginess that was almost overwhelming, and I couldn’t get my mind off the on-coming night and the carnival and what might happen. I hit my thumb with the hammer three or four times, dropped boards and nails, and cussed enough Hiram had to ask me to stop.
“No offense, Hap,” Hiram said. “But I don’t talk that way, and don’t want that kind of talk around Mama. She might hear you.”
I apologized, truly embarrassed for making Hiram uncomfortable. I hoped MeMaw hadn’t heard me.
When we had driven the last nail, Hiram said, “Come on in. Mama’ll want y’all to have some ice tea.”
“I need it,” I said.
Hiram went inside, and Leonard and I promised to follow, after picking up a few nails and boards. When Hiram was out of sight, Leonard said, “I’m fucking ashamed of you, all that cussing.”
“Yeah, well, you can eat shit.”
Then we heard Hiram yell for us from inside the house.
“Hap! Leonard! Oh, God! Come here, quick!”
We rushed inside. MeMaw was slumped in a kitchen chair, almost falling off of it. There was a pool of urine in the seat of the chair, dripping on the floor. Her walker was turned over, as if she had let go of it in the act of trying to rise.
The stroke had come swift and silent, lethal as a black mamba. She was alive, but comatose. We stretched her out on the floor and packed a pillow behind her head and called the ambulance. They came quick, hauled her off to Memorial Hospital. We followed after, Hiram in his van, me and Leonard in my truck.
At the hospital, we sat with Hiram in the waiting room while the doctors did their work. Which wasn’t much. The bottom line was MeMaw was old and it didn’t look good. All they could do – all we could do – was wait.
When we got the word, me and Leonard went into ICU with Hiram and looked at MeMaw. She was wired up like a spaceman and seemed to be smaller and frailer than was humanly possible. I was somehow reminded of those pictures you see of Mexican mummies, the ones that have been exhumed and put on display because the relatives couldn’t afford to maintain the burial plot. I noted the liver spots on her hands. Why hadn’t I noticed them before? They looked like old pennies viewed through weak coffee.
We stayed for a while, then Leonard said, “Hiram, we’ll check back. You need anything, just ask.”
“Yeah,” Hiram said. “Thanks. Man, I can’t believe this. I mean, I can. Her being old and all, but I can’t believe it either.”
“I know,” Leonard said.
“Need us to call relatives?” I asked.
“No,” Hiram said. “A few minutes, I’ll do that.”
We left Hiram sitting by MeMaw’s bedside, holding her hand.
37.
Late that afternoon, the storm in the west really started to boil, turned darker, and moved our way. We were sitting on the porch glider, watching it, when Hanson drove up.
He walked up on the porch with his cigar in his mouth. The end of it was dead, but I could tell it had recently been lit. There were ashes all over his cheap sports coat.
I said, “I thought you quit smoking.”
“I did,” he said, “and I just did again. Listen here, I wanted to tell you it’s going down. You deserve that much. It’s all over, I’ll tell you how it went.”
“We’d appreciate that,” Leonard said.
He nodded, turned, and looked toward the storm clouds. “Man,” he said.
“It’s moving slow,” Leonard said. “Things could still go all right, he makes his move soon enough.”
“Yeah, well,” Hanson said, “see you.”
He went out to his car, and I watched as he lit the cigar and took up smoking again before he drove away.
“Nice guy,” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thing I like best about him is he took my woman and he sucks on a nasty old cigar. Asshole.”
We watched the storm some more, then got in Leonard’s car and drove over to the First Primitive Baptist Church, telling each other all the way over we were just going to have a look.
We didn’t pull up out front of the place but parked a block down. There wasn’t much to see from there, but before we parked, we drove by once, and I was able to see that the bus and the Chevy were still in the yard. I also noted that a block up from the church, parked on the opposite side of the street, facing the wrong way, was what looked like an unmarked police car. I didn’t recognize the balding white guy behind the wheel, but he looked like a cop and he had his eyes on the church. I thought it was a good thing Fitzgerald wasn’t expecting anything. This guy was about as inconspicuous as a pink pig in overalls.
We drove on by and went around the block and came back the other way and parked. From where we sat we could see the church and we could see the cop car. Gradually we saw less of both. It turned dark and the storm clouds from the west turned it darker yet.
After a while, lights came on inside the church, then outside of it, lighting up the driveway. An hour passed and cars began to pull up at the curb, and one, a tan Volkswagen, drove around back. Men and women and kids got out of the cars and walked up to the church, around the side of it, and out of sight.
