Southern Gods (3 page)

“Ssshhhh, hush.”

He fished his cigarettes out of his pocket, shook two out of the pack. He lit them with a Zippo, the hard metal sound of it bright in the kitchenette.

Ingram removed a cigarette from his mouth, reversed it, and placed it in Meerchamp’s bloody maw. Smoke drifted weakly from his nostrils.

“Listen. Here’s how it is. You owe Mr. Corso a grand. I don’t know how or why you borrowed it. I don’t care. All I know is that Mr. Corso sent me here to collect.”

Ingram took a deep drag on his smoke. “Now, I’m not a torturer. There’s things I won’t do. But I’ve been told to either get the money, make you see some reason, or throw you out the window. So why don’t you smoke your cigarette and think about it. Here, have another drink.”

Ingram put the vodka bottle again to the wounded man’s lips. Liquor and blood drooled from the corners of the man’s mouth. They smoked in silence until Ingram, taking one last drag, ground out his cigarette.

“Okay, where’s the dough? If you don’t pony up, you’ll fly.”

The man’s eyes grew wide and shifted left.

“In there?” Ingram snatched him up like a doll, and pushed him into the living room.

“Where is it?”

“Ooovah deerah. Pest oo waresh.”

“What? Chest of drawers?” He spotted a chest with a radio on top. “There?”

The man nodded. Ingram sat him on the couch, and went to the bureau and rifled through it. He found a wad of money in a clip, a pint of cheap brandy and a military issue .45, and Meerchamp’s car keys. Ingram counted the money. Eight hundred dollars. He pocketed the cash and keys.

The little man was unconscious. Ingram searched the apartment.

In the bathroom, he found some Vaseline and rubbing alcohol. He poured rubbing alcohol over the man’s mangled hand, smeared it with Vaseline, then bound the mess as best he could with the shredded linens.

Corso won’t be pleased at the short change. But that’s not my fault.

I just collect
.

Chapter 2

“M
r. Ingram! You gots a telephone call!”

An insistent voice from the hall.

“Telephone, Bull! Mr. Phelps from Helios Studios on the line!”

A band of light stabbed into the darkness of the room from a dormer window.

“Mr. Phelps is on the party line for you! You best get up and get it.” The voice was thick, feminine, familiar.

He rose slowly, hair tousled and back hunched. He hobbled over to the wash basin atop his chest of drawers. Ingram’s scars shone silver in the half-light of the room. He splashed water on his face, grabbed a shirt and pulled it on.

“Hold on, Maggie! Go tell him I’m coming, willya? That’s a girl.” He winced at the sound of his own voice.

Downstairs, standing rumpled and bleary in the kitchen, Ingram took up the telephone receiver and said, “This is Ingram.”

“Hold the line, sir. Mr. Phelps will be with you in a moment.” Female, young, and shapely if her voice was any indication.

After a moment of rustling, a man came on the line.

“This Bull Ingram?” The voice was bright and articulate.

“Lewis, sir. And yes, that’s me.”

“My name is Sam Phelps. I want you to come to my studio to discuss a little job.” It all came out quick but measured, each word popping easily, distinct and forceful, firing down the wire, through the receiver into Ingram’s ear.

“Well, Sam—”

“Mr. Phelps to you, son. I know something about you. I’m...friends...with Gene Corso, who you’ve been freelancing for. He recommended you to me.”

“OK, Mr. Phelps. That’s aces with me. Where are you?”

“We’re at 706 Union. I’ll expect you here at three.” He hung up.

In the kitchen, Ingram looked around. Maggie bustled in the communal dining room, cleaning up the remains of breakfast.

“There any way I can get something to eat? Some milk or bread or something?”

Maggie looked at Ingram with lidded, amused eyes.

“Bull, a man as big as you ought get up in time for breakfast. You know Mrs. Fahey’s rules; breakfast is served when breakfast is served. No sneakin’ and no favorites.”

“I was out late.”

“You always out late.” Maggie looked around theatrically, checking to see if an obviously absent Mrs. Fahey was about. “It don’t matter. You go get cleaned up, and I’ll put a plate in your room. There’s some ham and cornbread left.”

For a moment Ingram just stood in the kitchen, helpless, his brain pounding, and marveled at the kindness of near strangers.

“Thanks, Maggie. That’s real...well, thanks.”

Maggie put her hands on her ample hips and looked at him, a little curious, a little sad. Her dark skin shone luminous in the light of the kitchen window.

Voice softer, she said, “Bull, that’s all right. I know you a good boy. You was in the war over there. I’d be a bad person if I didn’t help you out, everything you done for us.”

“I haven’t done anything,” he said.

“Go on, Bull. Go get cleaned up, and I’ll bring you a little plate.”

After a shower in the communal bathroom, Ingram took his time grooming, the white of the shaving cream contrasting starkly with the deep black circles under his eyes. From his closet he withdrew cuffed slacks and a crisp white shirt, open collared. Dressed, he pulled the shades and sat smoking in the dark, filling the small room with smoke, thinking.

Strange man, that Phelps, brusque yet friendly, forceful yet jovial. Ingram remembered Captain Haptic from the USS
Cleveland
, a similar kind of man. Flinty hard, yet able to tell jokes so profane that men had trouble holding in their laughter doing pushups. Forty-five miles out of Borneo, the crew carrier came across that fucking Jap sub with escort, perforating the sides of the cruiser, making her as carious as some rotten tooth. The Marines—doing exercises on the deck—glistened in the sun, Cap Hap bellowing at their side, a continuous froth of good natured bile, vinegar for the soul of the Marine doomed to die. Then the world wrenched, and the
gahn gahn gahn
of 50 cals came, at first distant but growing. Men cursing and bellowing with fear and exaltation after months of boredom, the
gahn gahn gahn
growing louder until it filled all perception and men fell out, scattered in fear. Marines, mean sons of bitches, bailing and scattering, and people yelling, “Bull, get yer ass up!” But he was immobile, still frozen in the half-lunge of a pushup, head cocked and looking up at Cap Hap who, fully reg, still loomed over Ingram, finger pointed, making some profane point about the virtue of a Jakartan whore. The whole world wrenched horribly once more. Ingram looked back at the Cap. He’d been replaced by a mist, a billowing and intangible ghost, drifting up all crimson, rising up into the Pacific air, rising and dissipating into the yellow light, dispersing on the wind while the growl and scream of klaxons beat thinly at the air.

A soft rap sounded at the door. Maggie entered, carrying a wax-paper-covered plate. She placed it on his chest of drawers and looked around the room. Clothes, ashtrays, and empty bottles littered the floor. Out of date newspapers covered the room’s single chair.

She waved her hands in the air dramatically, clearing the smoke, and walked to the window. She drew back the curtains. Light flooded the room, bringing grimaces to both Ingram’s and Maggie’s faces.

“Oooh-ee, you sure ain’t got no house training,” she said. “I’ve been here at Mrs. Fahey’s since before the war, seen many young men, just like you. But none as big. Or as messy.”

She paused, putting her hand on her hip. “I was thinking, Bull.”

“Congratulations.”

She laughed, waving off his comment.

“Bull, you know I got grandchildren.”

He grunted.

“I’d be happy to take care of this room for you, make sure you eat and sleep right, for just a little bit extra.”

Ingram stubbed his cigarette out into an already overflowing ashtray.

“What’re their names?”

“What?”

“Your grandchildren. Their names. What are they?”

Maggie paused. “Fisk and Lenora.”

“Lenora is a pretty name.”

“She’s a pretty girl. So how ’bout it?”

“What’re we talking about?”

“Five dollars. Every two weeks. I make sure your room is clean, even if you’re out late. You’ll have food in the morning, whenever you need it.” Maggie thought for a moment. “But I ain’t gonna cover up nothing for you, or get you no sauce. And I’ll make sure the house is safe. Lord, I do that already.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Whoo-ee. And this room sure looks it.”

Ingram stood, paused for a moment.

“Deal.”

Ingram smiled as mischievously as his blunt face would allow. With a great flourish, he spat into his fist. “Shake on it.”

Spitting into her palm, Maggie grinned back, showing empty teeth.

Ingram laughed, and they shook. Maggie said, “A bargain, then. Five dollars in advance.”

***

Later that day, Ingram pulled his coupe to the curb at Helios Studios, 706 Union, feeling quite underwhelmed. As Ingram approached, two Negroes with guitars exited the front door, shaded by a Bradford Pear. Both men looked upset and angry, faces pulled down in distaste.

What pissed those fellas off
?

One of the black men made the sign of the cross, removed a necklace from his open collar, and kissed it.

Out of the coupe, Ingram’s white shirt began to discolor. The thick summer air was oppressive, stifling. The haze felt almost palpable. The slow-moving Mississippi cast water into the air like some long brown moccasin sloughing off its skin as it crawled downstream.

Inside, the air conditioning beaded the windows with condensation. A blonde woman with heavy eye shadow attended the phone, chewing gum. She looked up as he entered.

“Bull Ingram?”

“Yeah. Lewis Ingram, ma’am.”

“Mr. Phelps is waiting for you in the control room. Right over there.” Her bracelets jangled as she pointed. “Please refer to Mr. Phelps as Mr. Phelps. That is his preference.”

Ingram stopped. “OK, will do. Any other advice?”

She laughed. “Hell yes, sugar. Tell the bastard to give me a raise. And if he asks you to do something, go ahead and do it. It’s easier that way, and nobody gets hurt.”

Ingram smiled, then pulled his shoulders back, brushing his head against the ceiling.

“Hurt?”

“Figure of speech.”

In the control room, Phelps listened to music, strange dark music.

In the Marines, Ingram heard whatever played at the USO Dances and even, when the
Cleveland
was East Indes-bound, the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose. Jensen, Ingram’s bunk-mate, built a quartz radio from Quaker Oatmeal cans and crystals, carefully feeding an antenna from the lower bunk to the floor and then the hull. The metal of the ship itself worked amazingly well as a receiver. In the deeps of Pacific night Jensen and Ingram would listen to the far-off broadcasts of Tokyo Rose, her soft taunting voice loathsome and exciting. But the USO dames and even Tokyo Rose would play music as tame and sanitized as any government meal. Ingram heard this new dark music and felt moved and upset and aroused all at once. The deep beats and rhythms, the mournful wails from Negro mouths singing such plain rhymes so heartfelt, so stark and true, they struck him powerfully. For a moment he felt like he had never really heard music before, like he had been missing some component of his soul that had not come shipped in the original package.

In the room a man sat staring at a pad of paper filled with scribbles and figures. Electronics and speakers cluttered the space; the gray control panels butted up against a large plate window that opened into another room full of cords and microphones and instruments.

Phelps noticed him standing near the door, twisted a knob on the tape machine, silenced the music, and stood up. Phelps wore a dark suit with a thin black tie, hair slicked back into a greasy pompadour. He had an alert, quick face and a compact frame with large hands.

They shook, and Phelps motioned him in.

“Bull? Goddammit, son, Corso wasn’t lying when he said you was a big one. You think that chair will hold you?”

Ingram sat down in answer.

“All right, Bull. Man of few words. I can appreciate that.”

Phelps patted his chest pocket searching for his cigarettes. He flipped a Pall Mall up to his mouth and lit it, watching Ingram.

“Tell me about yourself, Bull. I like to get to know a man before I start giving him orders.”

“Not much to tell. Born in Mississippi, joined the Marines in ’43 when I was seventeen. After the war, came back to the States and knocked around for a little bit, saw some of the country. Bought a car and drove out to California. Didn’t like it there so I came back here. Been here ever since.”

“In the war, huh? That’s good. You see much action over there?”

“No more than anybody else. Wouldn’t want to do it again.”

Phelps laughed a little too hard. “I’ll bet… I’ll bet. So what’ve you been doing since you got back? You stay employed?”