lap. Nelson automatically patted the dog’s head with a thick, clumsy hand. There were liver spots on his hands and the fingernails were ragged, as if he chewed them.
“Married a African nigger,” he said. “I…” He seemed overcome, as much by forgetfulness as by memory. He lost track of what he’d begun to say, and dropped his head and buried his nose in the lowball glass and drank.
“And?” I said.
He looked up as if he were surprised to see me there.
“And?”
“And what happened after she married?” I said.
Again his head dropped. “Jefferson tell you,” he rumbled.
I looked at the black man. He nodded.
“Jefferson,” Nelson said, “you tell.”
He drank again and turned the sound back on, and faced back into the car races, as if I’d vanished. His chin sank to his chest. Jefferson came over and took the whiskey glass from his hand and put it on the table. From an inside pocket he produced a big red bandanna and wiped Nelson’s forehead with it. Nelson started to snore. The dog withdrew his head from Nelson’s lap and went back and lay down with a sigh in the bright sun splash on the bluestone floor.
“Mr. Nelson will sleep now, sir,” Jefferson said. “You and I can talk in the kitchen.”
I followed Jefferson out of the cold room where Nelson lay sweating in his sleep, with his dogs, in front of the aimless car race. Despite what Ferguson said, Jumper Jack no longer seemed a danger to virgins.
chapter twenty
IT WAS A servant’s kitchen, below stairs, with a yellowed linoleum floor and a big gas stove on legs, and a soapstone sink. The room was dim, and bore the lingering scent of kerosene, though I couldn’t find any source for it. A mild patina of dust covered every surface. The old Blue Tick hound I’d met in the front hall followed us down to the kitchen and settled heavily onto the floor near the stove. Jefferson indicated a white metal table with folding extenders on either end, and we sat on opposite sides of it.
“Mr. Nelson has got old,” Jefferson said.
“Lot of that going around,” I said. Jefferson smiled.
“Yessir,” he said, “there is.”
He gazed absently at the old hound lying by the stove.
“He something to see, when he younger,” Jefferson said. “Ride a horse. Shoot. Handle dogs. Not afraid of any man. People step aside when he come.”
Jefferson smiled softly.
“He like the ladies all right,” he said.
I waited. It was a skill I was perfecting down here.
“Always took care of family,” Jefferson said.
The old refrigerator in the far corner lumbered noisily into life. Nobody paid it any mind.
“Been with him all my life,” Jefferson said. “He always took care of me too.”
“Now you take care of him.”
“All there is,” Jefferson said. “Mrs. Nelson gone. Miss Olivia gone.”
“Tell me about Olivia,” I said.
His voice was barely more than a whisper. His eyes were remote, his hands inert on the table looked sadly frail.
“She broke his heart,” he said.
“Married a black man?” Jefferson nodded.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Broke his heart.”
“Doesn’t break everyone’s heart,” I said.
“He couldn’t change, he too old, he too…” Jefferson thought a minute. “He too much Mr. Jack. Wasn’t even one of our Nigras. Peace Corps. She marry an African Nigra.”
“Did you ever meet him?” I said.
“No, sir. They never come here. Mr. Jack say he never want to see her again. Say she dead, so far as he concerned.”
“And now she is,” I said.
Jefferson raised his head and stared at me. “No, sir,” he said.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Jefferson. That’s why I’m looking into her past. I’ll let you decide how to tell him, or if.”
“When she die, sir?”
I counted in my head for a moment. “Ten weeks ago,” I said. “In Boston.”
Jefferson stared at me.
