Sunset and Sawdust (25 page)

29

Marilyn hadn’t offered her house for the meeting this time, so it was held at the church. Marilyn said she’d go with Sunset, thought she could wield some power, but Sunset asked her not to. She wanted to go alone, had some things to say.

Sunset got out of the car, shifted her holster until it was comfortable, stood in the shadow of the leaning church cross for a time, watched a crow on one end of it drop its load onto the church roof. She took a deep breath of sawmill stench, went inside the church.

It was stuffy in there, and Henry Shelby and the town elders were sitting in a pew at the front. A stout man wearing a bowler hat and a nice gray suit was up front leaning on the preacher’s podium, looking bored. She had never seen him before. He was maybe sixty, almost good-looking. Still solid, had a thick mustache and was red-skinned and robust. His hands were draped over the top of the podium and they looked like two huge white spiders resting. When he lifted his head and looked at her, she felt as if she had been dual stabbed all the way through to the back of her head. And when his eyes moved, she felt those stabs in the groin.

As she came in, the men in the pews turned their heads and looked at her, watched her carefully as she walked down the aisle.

“We didn’t think you’d come,” Henry said. “We thought you’d send your mother-in-law to talk for you.”

When she was standing at the pew, Sunset said, “Henry. You and me, we need to talk. Alone.”

“There’s nothing to be said, Sunset,” Henry said. “This is a formality. We’re removing you.”

“We need to talk alone.”

“You said that.”

“I want to talk to you about some land with oil on it. A big pool of oil.”

Henry just looked at her.

“This land has a house on it, and the oil on the land is the same that was on Jimmie Jo.”

The big man behind the podium laughed.

The elders looked at Henry. Henry’s face had lost its color.

“All right,” Henry said. “Maybe me and her should talk alone. It’s important, I’ll let you know.”

The elders looked at one another. One said, “Henry, this isn’t the way we do things—”

“It is today. Y’all wait outside for a while. Go over to the store, get something to drink.” He dug in his wallet, gave one of the men a few bills. “It’s on me.”

“What about him?” Sunset said, nodding toward the man leaning on the podium.

“He don’t want a Coke. He doesn’t go.”

“Henry,” said one of the elders, “are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

They were slow about it, but the elders got up and went out. McBride came out from behind the podium, sat in the same pew with Henry, crossed his legs, leaned back as if waiting for someone to serve lunch.

Henry studied Sunset, said, “This had better be good.”

“I think you already know it’s good. But not for you.”

“This sounds like some kind of blackmail.”

“Maybe.”

“It didn’t work for Pete and Jimmie Jo, it ain’t gonna work for you.”

She tried to figure what Henry was talking about, sort of got it. Pete and Jimmie Jo had tried to outflank Henry and this guy, but it hadn’t worked.

Another thing hit her. If they were stealing Zendo’s land, there were probably others. Plenty of blacks who couldn’t read, or could and wouldn’t say anything for fear of sticking to tar and feathers, dangling at the end of a rope, becoming a gasoline-soaked torch for white sheets to dance by.

“Me and Pete are different,” Sunset said.

“I can tell that,” Henry said. “Any man can tell that.”

“Hear, hear,” McBride said.

“You’re different, all right,” Henry said. “You’re different from other women. You’re a looker, Sunset. And you’re a tramp. Pete married you because you’re a tramp. Then he found himself a bigger and a better tramp.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Sunset said.

“I know a tramp when I see one.”

“And I know a thief when I see one.”

“You’re a tramp pretending to be a man, going around with a gun on your hip. Does that gun make you feel like you got something you don’t got? You know, a Johnson?”

“Henry, my guess is, even with me not having a Johnson, mine’s bigger than yours.”

McBride laughed again. Henry looked at him, then back at Sunset. “Get on with it.”

“Sure you want this fella to know what I’m going to say? Not that I care. It’ll all come out soon enough.”

“He knows lots of things already. You say what you got to say, little lady. And I use the term lady loosely.”

“Most of it don’t need to be said. You’re cheating Zendo out of his land, you and the mayor were, before he went off—he didn’t go off, did he?”

“He’s not here,” Henry said.

Sunset looked at McBride. “That’s why you brought this guy in, isn’t it? To get rid of the mayor? Strong-arm people. Keep you out of it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Mayor’s probably in some hole somewhere, like Jimmie Jo and her baby.” Sunset studied McBride. “But you know about that, don’t you?”

“I don’t put people in holes,” McBride said. “I don’t like digging. And I don’t like babies hurt.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” Sunset asked Henry.

“McBride,” McBride said.

“He’s an associate,” Henry said. “From Chicago. I knew him through a fella.”

“Weren’t there enough thugs around here?”

“Listen here, Sunset,” Henry said. “I don’t like you. But I tell you what, I’ll cut you in for what Pete was gonna get, you hadn’t shot him.”

“What was Jimmie Jo’s share? A dose of oil and a thirty-eight slug in the back of the head?”

“A thirty-eight slug?” McBride said.

Sunset worked up a fierce gaze. “The baby was cut out. That’s as low as it gets. That your work, McBride?”

“I didn’t know she had one in the oven,” McBride said. “That’s a bad break for the kid, that being done. I didn’t know about the kid.”

Sunset thought McBride looked surprisingly sincere.

“Don’t say so much,” Henry said to McBride.

“Nothing’s been said that matters,” McBride said.

Henry looked at Sunset, said, “No one really cares about a nigger’s land, Sunset. Not really. We could cut you in for a share of it. Hell, you’re such a nigger lover, you can give Zendo part of your share, all of it. The truth is, a nigger ain’t got the sense to run a piece of oil land, and don’t deserve the money.”

“But you do?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“How much does he get?”

“I’m a full partner,” McBride said.

“Did you start that way?” Sunset said. “You a full partner from the start? Bet not. Bet you got the mayor’s share. Where is the mayor, McBride?”

McBride grinned at her. “All I know, he gave up his job when he disappeared. I think Henry here is going to be running for that position.”

“That’s right,” Henry said. “They got the town council filling in until the emergency election, next month. Then I’ll run. I think I’ve got a good chance.”

“Not if the council knows about this.”

“Frankly, you’re just a fly on the end of my dick, Sunset. A third of the council is Klan, and I don’t know any of the others got much love for niggers.”

“Thing is,” Sunset said, “bet they’ll all want their little share, though, won’t they? That’ll split up your prize considerable, won’t it?”

Sunset was fishing, but she could tell from the look on Henry’s face he had thought about that, and didn’t like the idea. McBride looked like he had before. A happy green-eyed guy. A guy used to things turning out his way.

“Rooster in on this?” Sunset asked.

“He was,” McBride said. “But he left town today.”

“Way the mayor did?”

“Rooster seems to have caught a train,” McBride said. “Sheriff’s car was found out by the tracks just before we come here.”

“Listen here, girlie,” Henry said. “Let me lay it out even clearer. I won’t remove you from office. You play constable, run around with your gun and badge until the term runs out, then you give it up. Do that, I’ll give you a cut of the oil money. A good cut. There’s a little house on that land Pete built for his whore. Think about that. He built her a house and was going to make her rich on that oil money, and you, you weren’t going to get a thing out of the deal. That was part of his little blackmail scheme. A house, a piece of land, a slice of the oil money. He was gonna shake you loose, honey, and keep the whore. I’ll give you the deal he wanted, one I wasn’t going to give him or Jimmie Jo. How’s that? Better than living in that tent, ain’t it?”

“I wouldn’t trust you as far as two grown men could throw you,” Sunset said. “And by the way, did it occur to you, I tell Marilyn what you’ve done, you’ll be out at the sawmill?”

Henry pursed his lips, shook his head and grinned.

“Well, Marilyn is looking for an excuse, now that she drove her old man to suicide and she’s got the purse strings. I’ve known her a long time. I think Jones kept her in line. I think she’s got a conniving streak herself. Tell that old sow to let ’er rip. I’ve put back money, and I’m going to make new money, and I got a little inheritance from the wife, her having a piece of the sawmill and all. Thing for you to worry about is not how to get me but how to not get got yourself.”

“Gonna send your white-sheeted monkeys? I ain’t scared of them. One of them puts a foot on my property, comes near me or mine, I’ll arrest him. And if I can’t arrest him, I’ll bloody up his sheet.”

McBride made with his chuckle, the one that made Sunset’s ass clench and her skin crawl.

“Something needs to be taken care of, I like to have people knows how,” McBride said. “Or do it myself, I got to. Not a bunch of crackers playing dress up, passing signs and symbols between themselves.

“Now, sweetie, you don’t know me. But I’ll tell you this. I think the Bible will back me up. A woman, she’s got a function. And it’s important. That’s how a man stays satisfied, how babies come into the world and pickles get canned. But a slut wearing a badge, talking to men like she’s a man, that ain’t one of her functions. Me, I’m a business partner with Mr. Shelby here. And I’ll get my share. I don’t give a hot turd in a hog’s ass about councils and mayors and maps and who knows what. You hear? You don’t want to rile me. You don’t want to even make me a little irritated. You might want to stroke my weary brow, you know what’s good for you, lay back, let me take some tension out of you, cause I can do that. Thing that’s getting you by now, this minute, is you’re cute. That’s gonna get you through this meeting today. It ain’t good for another day. Hear me?”

“Think you’re scaring me?” Sunset said, feeling very scared, letting her hand rest on the butt of her gun, because McBride, he’d shifted in the pew and his coat had fallen back and she could see there was one big pistol hanging from a holster under his arm. She knew he knew she could see it, meant for her to. He shifted again, let the coat close. She kept her hand on her gun, casual, but ready, determined not to show how scared she was, keeping a calm smile on her face, holding her legs stiff so her knees wouldn’t knock.

Then she saw something behind the closed curtain at the back, where the choir gathered and the curtain was pulled open when they sang. Feet sticking out from under the curtain. She said, “Who’s back there?”

“Believe me,” McBride said, “you don’t want to know.”

“Tell him to step out.”

McBride grinned. “All right. Two.”

Two stepped out. He was partially hidden in shadow, but there was light from the door, and it gave enough she could see him. At first he looked short, but Sunset realized he was over six feet and thick and built like an oak. He was black as wet licorice and the whites of his eyes were very white. He smiled. His gums were dark. Blue gums, they called colored people like that. He wore a bowler hat like McBride, but it fit lower. He had on regular clothes but his jacket was black and silky and had long tails. There was something about him that made her skin try and turn itself inside out.

“What’s he supposed to be?” Sunset said.

“He’s a big nigger,” McBride said.

“Why’s he here?”

“I told you,” McBride said. “You don’t want to know.”

Sunset studied McBride, said, “You got your ugly little hat screwed on too tight. Don’t you know it ought to come off in church? Or will your head come off with it?”

McBride’s face collapsed like a sail without wind, and Sunset realized she had hit home. The hat? No. His head? That was it—sonofabitch was bald. And vain about it. She gave him a slow smile. McBride’s features remained the same; the sail had not regained the wind.

“You’re in my jurisdiction now, Henry,” Sunset said. “You and your thug and your thug’s thug, or whatever he is. All of you.”

“But you’re not the law in Holiday,” Henry said. “The map’s not your concern, and as the law is sort of under my jurisdiction over there, well, I suppose I’m the law.”

“Zendo’s land is under my jurisdiction,” Sunset said. “You boys say your prayers and leave. I don’t want to find you here within the hour. I do, I’ll arrest you.”

“For what?” Henry said.

“For being ugly in church.”

Now was the time for an exit, Sunset thought, while she was one up. Sunset started down the aisle, for the open door.

Henry called out to her. “Have we got a deal, you and me?”

She kept walking.

Outside she held out her hands and looked at them. They were shaking.

Henry said, “Think she’ll go with us? Take the deal?”

“Not that one. I hope she doesn’t. Me and her, we need to get close, and I like a reason to be mad.”

“I think she’ll take the deal. She’s tough now, but she’ll think about it. She’ll take it.”

“She’ll pass.”

Henry looked up, studied Two.

“Did you have to bring the shine with you? Bring him here?”

“He does what he wants.”

“I don’t get it. I hired you, but you brought this guy down.”

“It cost you a train ticket. Get over it. He had to ride back with the niggers. It wasn’t no easy thing for him.”

“He is a nigger.”

“Two ain’t got the same way of thinking niggers got around here.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he ain’t no shine boy.”

“Why’s he stand around like that? In the shadows. He gives me the willies.”