but black cunt. You just step on the worm and keep him outa my way while I learn the bitch a lesson.”
“Don’t underestimate the man,” B.J. warned. “Some of them gimps got strong upper bodies from draggin’ themselves around. ’Member that limp-legged fisherman give you a split lip last August.”
“That’n was a man and this’n’s a pile of shit,” Junior said. He was angered even more by being reminded of whatever trouble last year’s victim had given him. Great, Carver thought, just what we need, more adrenaline for Junior.
Beth hadn’t budged, but now Carver saw her move her hands beneath table level. She was digging in her purse for something. A gun, he hoped; he’d left his back at the motel.
But it was only her keys. A ring of them attached to what he at first thought was a thick ballpoint pen, but was only a cylindrical piece of brushed aluminum with a dull pointed end, large enough to keep her from losing her keys in her purse.
Junior was smiling broadly and sweating hard. He smelled stale and sour, and faintly of fish. There were perspiration stains on his bib overalls. He ducked a shoulder as he got close to Beth. Reached out for her.
Carver slashed with the cane. Felt solid contact with Junior’s wrist. Junior drew back his hand and rubbed the wrist, looking annoyed. He said, “Shouldn’t have oughta done that.” Carver knew the blow would have broken the wrist of an ordinary man, but Junior was a subspecies.
A shadow flitted in the corner of his vision. B.J. rushing him, striking like a snake.
Carver swiveled in his chair, whipped around again with the cane. It caught BJ. across the forehead and sent him reeling back. He looked astounded and enraged. Blood was flowing into his right eye from a cut at his hairline.
He said, “Why, you dirty cocksucker,” and came at Carver again.
This time Carver jabbed with the cane. The tip caught B.J. in the sternum, just below the heart. Breath
Carver turned to keep Junior away from Beth.
But Beth was standing and had moved toward Junior, gripping the aluminum cylinder as if it were a peg she was about to jab into the hard ground. As Junior lunged for her she dragged the sharp keys across his eyes. Wheeled so her back was to him for an instant, and struck at his genitals with the pointed end of the cylinder. All so fast it was like a choreographed and practiced dance maneuver.
Junior released his grip on her arm. He groaned, then let out a long, whistling sigh and doubled over. His forehead was pale and creased in pain. He’d just raised his head to focus his scratched and bleeding eyes on Beth when she screamed, startling and freezing him even if he could have moved quickly. She hacked at his bull neck with the edge of her hand. Carver watched, amazed. Karate bullshit.
Beth brought up her knee and caught the side of Junior’s face. Denim swished over flesh. Carver was standing, supporting himself with his free hand on the table, He glanced at B.J., who was just struggling to his feet, still gripping his stomach. No danger there yet. Carver brought the hard walnut cane down on top of Junior’s head. The vibration of solid contact ran up his arm as he heard the
Junior didn’t go down, but he backed away, looking puzzled and pressing his hand to the top of his head, as if unfamiliar with the bother of persistently uncooperative victims.
B.J. was standing with his lean body swaying, obviously thinking about another charge and how to handle Carver and the cane.
A deep voice said, “ ’Nuff of this shit, you
A broad-shouldered black man was standing near the counter. He was holding a baseball bat in his right hand. Marlene was cowering behind him and looking uncertain, as if someone had threatened to sue about a fly in the soup and she didn’t know what to do.
Junior and B.J. drifted closer together and seemed to lose interest in attacking Carver and Beth. Junior said, “This nigger-lover started it, Whiff.”
Whiffy stared at him with deep brown eyes that showed crescents of blue-tinted white beneath the pupils. He said, “I’d just as leave you didn’t talk that way in here, Junior.”
Junior said nothing, but he couldn’t meet the black man’s steady stare.
B.J. said, “Things just got outa hand, is all, Whiff.”
“You keep control of that brother of yours,” Whiffy said.
“No problem,” B.J. said. “C’mon, little bro. We was about finished here anyways.”
Beth said, “You sure as fuck were.”
Without looking at Carver and Beth, both men walked out of the restaurant. B.J. was pressing a white paper napkin to his head. Junior had one hand on his crotch. The other hand was rubbing the side of his neck where Beth had hacked at him.
Carver looked at Beth. “You okay?”
“You bet.”
Whiffy said, “Don’t imagine they’ll forget this. A black woman an’ a guy with a cane gettin’ the best of ’em, you surely fuckin’ with their machismo.”
The old guy at the end of the counter hadn’t moved. He was still staring into his coffee cup, but grinning now. Without looking up, he said, “Was the Brainard brothers started the pot boilin’, Whiff.”
“Figured such.” Whiffy laid the bat on the counter and moved toward Carver and Beth. He was average height but thick-boned and with a compact muscularity about him. Barefoot and wearing black shorts and a gray T-shirt that said BRAVES. The flesh around his eyes was puffy, as if he’d been sleeping when Marlene had summoned him to deal with a problem in the restaurant. His ebony face was pockmarked and he had a thin black mustache neatly trimmed a half inch above his upper lip. After giving Carver an appraising stare, he smiled with even, white teeth at Beth, and with a different kind of appraisal. “Siddown, you two, an’ I’ll tell you the facts of life accordin’ to the gospel in Dark Glades.”
Carver nodded to Beth and they sat. Marlene brought two Budweisers, and another glass of ice water for Beth. A tough audience like Junior and B.J. found Whiffy worth listening to, so Carver wanted to hear what he had to say.
23
“Guess you worked out my name’s Whiffy,” Whiffy said. “Real name’s Willard Renfrow.”
Carver introduced himself and Beth, and shook Whiffy’s strong black hand. He noticed several fingers were crooked and had oversized knuckles, as if they were arthritic.
“They’s about four hundred folks in Dark Glades,” Whiffy said, after taking a hearty pull of Budweiser and flicking foam from his narrow mustache. “That includes the ones live outside the town proper. “ ’Bout a hundred of the citizens here are black, and they live mostly down Cypress Avenue on the east side of town. Like in a lotta towns, you’ll recognize the poor, mostly black area by the ramshackle houses an’ the old cars. Per capita income ain’t for shit. The black families in Dark Glades are descendants of north Florida slaves moved down here after the Civil War, an’ they still got a slave mentality. Civil-rights movement never really caught on in these parts, an’ these last ten years it’s backslid ’bout as far as it could go.”
A motorcycle downshifted and roared by fast outside. The kid on the Harley? Carver said, “One thing I don’t get. You’re black and you own the town’s main restaurant in the white section. And B.J. and his brother listened when you talked to them.”
“They was listenin’ to a white man.”
Carver sat wondering if there might be something in the water in Dark Glades that impaired reason.
Whiffy glanced at Beth and grinned. He said, “Man don’t understand. I’m good as white here for two reasons, Carver. I got money, an’ I used to play pro ball. Came up from the minors to catch for the Atlanta Braves seven years ago. Went to bat a hunnerd an’ fifty times, till my elbow got broke by a hard-throwin’ Cardinals right-hander. Ended my career. Didn’t matter; I was only hittin’.223, with thirty-five strikeouts, so the Braves were plannin’ on sendin’ me back down. Pitchers soon found out I had a blind spot. Couldn’t hit a high, tight fastball, which is why I
