“Can you believe the cost of roses these days?”
“Will you do it?” Britton asked.
“We can offer you protection,” I said. “The Guard.”
“I don’t want those boys hanging out at my shop. It’d be hell on business.”
She gave a little laugh and stepped back from the arrangement, her hands in the pockets of her dress. She smiled at what she’d done and then looked back at us. “Of course I’ll do it. What’s the charge?”
“You remember when Fuller was taking ballots out of voters’ hands a couple years back?” Britton asked.
“Sure, I filed charges then. But Sheriff Matthews just laughed at me.”
“File ’em again,” I said.
“Don’t you all have bigger things to charge that boy with?”
“It’s coming,” I said. “We just want to hold him here awhile. We just need some time to find some witnesses. We can get you before the judge later today. But I warn you, Hilda. You gonna have to stand up there in court, and Fuller may be there. The newspapermen will hound you, too.”
“I understand. I understand. You want me to do it or you want to sit there and try to scare me out of it?”
“So?” Britton asked.
“Don’t you boys want to bring something nice home for your wives? I mean, they put up with all your mess. We are having a sale on the most gorgeous little summer mix.”
“Sounds nice, Hilda,” I said. “Maybe later.”
“Lamar Murphy, I do believe you are the cheapest man I have ever met.”
“I AIN’T EVER BEEN A FAN OF RED PUSSY, BUT I’LL BE GODDAMNED if it ain’t sweet as hell,” Big Jim Folsom told Fannie Belle in the bed they shared at the Capitol Motel in Montgomery. The light barely broke through the shades, and due to the headache Folsom had from the fifth he’d drunk last night he couldn’t tell the time.
“Glad you like it, Governor.”
He leaned over the bed and looked at the watch on the nightstand.
“Baby, you mind turning on the television? I believe it’s time for Gene Autry.”
“You like cowboys?”
“I like his horse, Champion. I believe that’s the smartest damn horse I ever seen.”
Fannie Belle got up in all her white-fleshed nude glory, her sizable but shapely butt swishing to and fro, pulling the knob on the TV on just in time for the theme song “I’m Back in the Saddle Again” to start playing.
Fannie walked to the curtains on the second floor of the motel and moved them out of the way to look at the little horseshoe shape of the two-level units and down into a soft green swimming pool filled with kids splashing around and giving their parents hell.
Over at the little dresser, she poured out a little more Jack Daniel’s, handing Big Jim the glass. He took it but didn’t thank her, and watched as Gene and Pat Buttram found their way into another western town and more adventure. This one having to do with a hidden gold mine and some mean desperadoes beating up an old man.
Fannie, still as nude as a jaybird, lifted her arms up in the weak light of the Capitol Motel neon sign and played with and straightened her red hair, still stiff with spray. She cocked a hip and smoked a cigarette, looking down at the huge man watching a kids’ show, a glass of Jack Daniel’s in his hand.
“What do you say, Governor? You gonna give Phenix a break?”
“Sure thing, baby. Whatever you want.”
She moved over to the TV and pushed in the knob. The shooting and yelling stopped and the screen went dark.
“Now, why’d you do that, baby?”
She kept the cigarette in her mouth, hands on her hips, and stuck her big chest out. “Figured we need to talk a little.”
“I told you not to worry. Them boys will be out of Phenix City before I even take my oath.”
“Your friend Bert Fuller is gonna fall hard.”
“He didn’t kill Patterson.”
“I want your word you’ll get those troops out of Phenix.”
“Let them make their arrests and give a little show.”
“What about Fuller?”
“There is no one in their right mind who would testify against Bert. I have it on rock-solid authority that Bernard Sykes will never make a case for the Patterson killing. Hell, he has about fifty investigators who can’t even turn up a witness. What are the chances of them finding one now?”
“You think you can talk to Mr. Sykes? Get him thinking about his future in politics?”
“I better leave that one alone, sweetie.”
“You wanna bet?”
Fannie opened up the bedspread and crawled inside, laying her body across Big Jim and moving herself against him. She smiled at him and he smiled back.
“You don’t tire much, do you?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. I guess I never get tired of bourbon and pussy.”
“That’s why you’ll always have my vote, Governor.”
Big Jim leaned back and Fannie straddled him, as he hummed the opening notes to Gene Autry’s theme song.
QUINNIE KELLEY STOPPED BY AFTER SUPPER, MAYBE A week after those first raids. He was sweating and hatless, and it was one of those hot summer nights where the temperature only seemed to grow in the darkness. I invited him in, but he shook his head and wanted to talk outside. So I walked him around back, near the shed and Joyce’s beauty shop, and we sat at a little picnic bench right near my canvas heavy bag.
Quinnie took off his glasses and cleaned them on the lip of his light green shirt and put them back on his face. He put his hands in the little pockets of his pants and rocked back on his heels, looking down into the dirt.
“You got something to tell me, Quinnie?”
The night air was filled with night sounds, and among the crickets and cicadas, head still down, Quinnie told me that he was sorry. He said he’d lied.
“I did see someone that night Mr. Patterson was killed.”
I waited.
“I seen a man come around the back of the post office and cross Fourteenth. I was standing right on the stoop of the courthouse, on account of making sure they was done with that Boy Scouts meeting. But I don’t think he saw me ’cause I’d just cut off the lights. He passed right in front of my face, right on the courthouse lawn, and ran around back behind to the jail.”
I rubbed my face and massaged my wrist, which had grown sore from a loose punch on the heavy bag. I walked over to it and let it rock on its chain, and it groaned and squeaked with its weight and gently pushed back on me.
“You see his face?”
He nodded, staring up at me. His face filmed with a light, sweaty sheen. “I haven’t been able to sleep. I prayed about this. I talked to my wife and my minister. Don’t get me wrong, I never met a fella more evil in my life than Bert Fuller. But when I heard y’all was about to charge him with murder, well-”
“Who was it, Quinnie?”
“Ferrell.”
Quinnie stood before me and shook, his glasses fogged from the humidity. But he held his ground and returned my stare.
“You can’t be sure of that. Can you, Quinnie?”
“I heard them shots. I thought they was kids playing with firecrackers, but not ten seconds later did I see Mr. Ferrell in an all-out run pass right in front of my face.”
“You sure it was Arch Ferrell?”
He nodded.
“Will you testify to that?”
