“You said you know where my car is.”
“Scratch, you can stay here… work for me. I ain't Homer. You can trust me.”
Scratch was silent. He didn't even look at Dozen.
“OK,” Dozen said softly, patting Scratch on his lower back. “I'll get Zeke to drive you. Not far from your sister's house.”
“Drivable?” Scratch asked.
“Yeah. You can drive it. From what I understand, your girlfriend is in Mercy Hospital.”
“Why did they take her there and not Johnson Medical?”
“She didn't want to be in a hospital with negroes,” Dozen said. “Her words.”
26
It seemed Scratch couldn't get away from that Frank Sinatra song In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. The radio in the Cadillac was blaring it and Zeke was furiously trying to match the volume.
Zeke kept trying to start up a conversation, but Scratch wasn't interested. He would either nod, grunt, or answer in one-word sentences. For the first time in a long time, Scratch didn't care what happened next. He didn't care if he ever solved the case, he didn't care what was in the hatbox. He didn't give a rat's ass about Oliver Spiff.
He did want to see Betty. For some reason, he wanted to see her, let her know he wasn't mad about her taking his car, or helping Shaw blackmail him and Immy. He wanted to tell her he loved her. None of this shit mattered.
No one mattered.
Not Spiff. Not Shaw. Not Homer. Or any-fucking-body in Odarko, or Darktown. Just them. Betty and Allan. I'd let her call me Allan, if she wanted…
“Hey look, Allan,” Zeke said, looking at Scratch in the rearview mirror. “I know we have some bad blood, but I ain't holding no grudges against you.”
Scratch snorted. “That's good to know.”
“C'mon, motherfucker.” Zeke was exasperated. “I'm tryin' to be amicable. Pleasant, even. Make up, and all that shit, and all I get from you is high-hat.”
“Sorry I'm hurting your feelings,” Scratch said.
Zeke sighed, shook his head. “Lord, Jesus. There ain't no getting' through to this son of a bitch. All he wants to do is agitate me. What should I do?”
Is he talking to me or who? Scratch thought.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
Scratch had to ask. He'd never witnessed anyone doing that except old Miss Winters, the woman who used to help look after him and Immy sometimes when his mother worked late. She had her hands lifted, eyes raised to the sky, asking God, or Jesus what was wrong with her life. Sometimes the conversation was 20 minutes, sometimes it was four hours. Old Miss Winters never let anyone interrupt her talks with a higher being to sort things out.
“You mind? I'm talkin' to Jesus, not you!” Zeke raised his voice. “So sit back, and shut up!”
“I don't mind you talking to Jesus,” Scratch said. “Just don't talk to him about me, especially in front of me.”
“You ain't got no choice, Jack,” Zeke said. Scratch saw large brown eyes with burning embers staring at him in the rear-view mirror. “Now, we can stop this car right now, and I help you get closer to Jesus and you can ask him how he feels about this conversation. But you'll also be tasting rare earth from a grave. Your choice, Jack.”
Scratch didn't have anything to say to that. Mere seconds later, a bizarre spectacle would catch his eye.
The Cadillac eased into the town square. A body was hanging from a flagpole in front of the post office and the general store. The body swung back and forth in the gentle morning breeze. A noose of thick, coarse rope was around the man's broken neck, and his flopping arms were tied loosely behind his back. At first, Scratch thought the Klan had slipped in late at night and strung up somebody from Darktown, as they had done a few years ago, and when he was a little boy. Seeing a lynching always made Scratch feel sick to his stomach.
But the closer the Cadillac got to the scene, the easier it was to see the body hanging from the flag pole was a white man. Then Scratch saw his uniform. Instantly he realized it was Deputy Shaw. Overwhelming guilt slid up from the pit of Scratch's stomach and rose up into a lump in his throat. Only… it had been him or Shaw. Or had it? Could it have gone another way?
Probably not.
Events from last night came to Scratch in snapshots.
Then they'd fade away and a migraine would start. All Scratch could see in his mind was the old Korean man screaming at him and spitting in his face. The Korean man smacked Scratch. He showed Scratch a long, thin stick and pointed it at Scratch's eye. The stick touched the surface of Scratch's eyeball and he jerked away. The Korean man smacked Scratch on his left shoulder with the stick. Scratch screamed.
The Cadillac stopped.
Zeke turned completely around in his seat and glared at Scratch.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Zeke demanded.
“What?”
“You back there hollering like somebody chopped off your big toe or something!”
Scratch rubbed his face, removed his fedora, rubbed his head and returned the fedora, lowering the brim over his eyes.
“Nothing, Zeke,” Scratch said. “Don't worry about it.”
“Oh, I'm gonna worry about it,” Zeke shook his head pityingly. “Got a crazy person in the backseat…”
“We're a pretty pair,” Scratch chuckled. “You talkin' to Jesus and me screaming at ghosts.”
Zeke snorted. “Yeah, only Jesus is real. Ghosts ain't.”
Scratch thought about that. Profound or a foolish thing to say? He didn't know the answer any more than Zeke did, except Zeke was sure of what he was saying and nothing could shake him loose of his faith. Scratch was a whole other animal altogether. His faith or faiths, or lack of, could always be challenged, and dismantled with a whisper or an atomic explosion.
“Why'd you stop the car?” Scratch asked.
“We at your car,
