judge put off proceedings till the following week and appointed a new attorney.
I hung up the phone after talking to Herb. Clouds moved along the sky as though, having misspoken, they were in a hurry to get offstage. Across the street Terry Billings's legs stuck out from beneath his pickup as he worked on his transmission for the third time this month, trying to wring out yet another few hundred miles.
I was thinking about Herb, about Lou Winter, and remembering what Dr. Vandiver had so untypically said.
Sadness.
Not for himself, but for the others, the children. Or for all of us. In some strange manner, Lou Winter was connected to humanity as few of us are, but the connection had gone bad. Small wires were broken, sparks dribbled out at joins.
Once I had wanted nothing more than to see Lou Winter convicted, then executed. I understood why Herb held on: in a world all too rapidly emptying itself of Herb's presence, Lou was one of the few tangible links to his past, to what his life had stood for, what he had made of it.
Was it really any different for me?
Lou Winter had been a part of my life and world for as long. It was altogether possible that in losing him I would be losing some unexplored subcontinent of my self.
That same day, I remember, I stopped Gladys Tate for driving drunk. She was in husband Ed's '57 Chevy and almost fell twice getting out. She'd already run into something and smashed the headlight and half the grille. When I mentioned that Ed was going to be damned mad, she grinned with one side of her face, winked with the other, and said, 'Ed won't care. He's got a new toy.' His new toy was a woman he met at the bowling alley up by Poplar Grove, the one he'd left town with. Gladys looked off at the old church, now mostly jagged, gaping boards and yellowed white paint, though a skeletal steeple still stood. Then her eyes swam back to mine. 'My clothes are in the dryer,' she said, 'can I go home soon?'
CHAPTER FIVE
The business card was for a financial consultant in offices just off Monroe in Memphis. That consultant thing had always eluded me, I could never understand it. As society progresses, we move further and further away from those who actually do the work. Consulting, I figured, was about as far as one could get before launching oneself into the void.
I came here with clear purpose. I'd be on my own, no attachments, no responsibility. Now I look around and find myself at the center of this community, so much so that freeing myself for a few days in Memphis took some doing.
First call was to Lonnie. Sure, he'd fill in, no problem. Be good to be back in harness, long as he knew it was short-term.
'I'll try to keep it down to a minimum,' I said.
'You're going after them, aren't you?'
'You wouldn't?'
'They hurt my daughter, Turner. For no good reason save she was there.'
'Figure they can do whatever they want out here on the edge, I'm thinking.'
'That's what they're thinking too. Just don't forget to give the local force a courtesy call.'
'I'm not sure MPD wants to hear from me.'
'Call them anyway. You still have any contacts there?'
'Tell the truth, I don't know.'
'Find out. And if you do, cash them in for whatever they're worth. Nickel, dime-whatever.'
Next call was to barracks commander Bailey, who pledged to send down a couple of retired state troopers to rotate shifts as deputies. 'Believe me, they'll appreciate the chance to get out of the house.'
Then Val.
'Let me guess. You're going to be away for a while.' She laughed. 'Commander Bailey told me.' She was counsel for the barracks, after all. 'Have to admit it came as no surprise. Any idea when you'll be back?'
'I'll call, let you know.'
'You better.'
'I'll miss you.'
Another rapid burst of the laughter I had come so to treasure. 'It's pitiful,' she said, 'how much I hoped you might say something like that.'
Forty minutes later I was heading up Highway 51 in the Chariot, Lonnie's Jeep, with an overnight bag of underwear and socks, two shirts, spare khaki pants just in case, basic toiletries. The gun I never carried, a. 38 Police Special Don Lee insisted on providing me when I started working with him, lay swaddled in a hand towel, in a quart Glad bag, under the passenger seat. I imagined that I could feel it pulling at me from there, a gravity I was loath to give in to or admit.
I hadn't been back to Memphis in, what, close to two years? At some essential level it never seems to change much. More fast-food franchises and big-box stores pop up, the streets continue to crumble from center to sides, there are ever-longer sc entire office buildings. When the economy goes bad, the first leaks spring at the weakest segments. The Delta's been hard hit for decades. You cruise the main street in small towns like Helena, just down the river a piece, or over by Rosedale, half the stores are empty as old shoes. The river's still impressive, but it ceased offering much by way of economic advantage long ago.
Just inside the city limits, I stopped at Momma's Cafe for coffee and a burger. Place was all but hidden behind a thicket of service trucks and hard-ridden pickups. Even here in the South, central cities become ever more homogeneous, one long stuttering chain of McDonald's and KFC and Denny's, while local cafes and restaurants cling to the outskirts as though thrown there by centrifugal force. Nowadays I find I have to lower myself into the city environment, any city environment, by degrees, like a diver with bends coming up-but I'm going down. And Momma's was just right for it. From there I drove on in and dragged for a couple of hours the streets I used to run as a cop, feeling the city slowly fall into place around me. Drove north on Poplar where East High School once stood, now a nest of cozy aluminum-sided single-family dwellings with tiny manicured lawns front and back. Drove by Overton Square. Cruised down Walnut, took the left at Vance and crossed Orleans. Hit Able and proceeded north past Beale and Union. Swung by 102-A Birch Street where I'd shot my partner Randy.
When I worked out of it, Central Precinct was on South Flicker, second floor of the old Armor Station. Now it was housed at 426 Tillman in the Binghamton section, for many years a hard and hard-bitten part of the city that looked to be, especially with the recent completion of Sam Cooper Boulevard just north, on its way back.
I pulled into a visitor space, went in and gave my name and credentials to a sergeant at the front desk, who said someone would be with me directly. Directly, I surmised, here meant something on the order of any day now back home. Eventually Sergeant Collins came out from behind his desk and escorted me through a reef of battered metal desks to an office at the rear.
Sam Hamill had been a rookie along with me. Now, heaven help him, he was Major Hamill, the watch commander. Forty pounds heavier than back in the day, a lot less hair, deltas of fat deposits around the eyes. Wearing a navy gabardine suit and a charcoal knit tie that would have been the bee's knees circa 1970.
'Turner. Good Lord.'
'Never know who or what's likely to walk into a police station, do you?'
He came up from behind the desk to shake my hand. Took some effort. Definitely the coming up from behind the desk.
Probably, too, in another way, shaking my hand.
'So how the hell've you been?'
'Away.'
He eased himself back into his chair in a manner that brought hemorrhoids or getting shot in the butt to mind. 'So I heard. Guys that told me, it was like, 'Hey, he's gone. Let's celebrate.''
'Don't doubt it for a minute.'
We sat regarding one another across the archipelago of his desk.
