Mystery

“And then you see she’d be happy to slit a child’s throat for the sake of the pennies out of its pockets.”

Nancy stretched her arms sideways and yawned with her whole face, somehow managing not to look ugly as she did so. Then she put her hands at the base of her spine, and arched her back. She looked like a cat, with her small supple body and short shaggy hair. Tom realized that he had been looking at her face nearly the whole time they had been in her room—he had not even noticed what she was wearing. Now he noticed: a lightweight white turtleneck and tight wheat-colored jeans and white tennis shoes like Sarah’s, but scuffed and dirty.

“We should let Bill back into his room,” she said. “It’s been so good to see you again, Tom. And you too, Sarah. I shouldn’t have let you get me talking, though.”

She stood up and ruffled her hands through her hair.

“You’ll be back at work soon?” Tom asked.

She glanced at Hattie. “Oh, I reckon Boney’ll get word to me in a couple of days. Damn him anyhow.”

“You got that right,” Hattie said.

They began to move toward the door. Nancy suddenly hugged Tom again, so hard that he couldn’t breathe. “I hope—oh, I don’t know what I hope. But be careful, Tom.”

They were out on the ramshackle wooden walkway in the dismal air before he was entirely aware of having let go of her. Bill straightened up from the railing and drew on his pipe.

“She look okay to you, Hat?” he said in a low growl that cut through the hum of noise from all about them.

“That girl’s strong,” Hattie said.

“Always was,” Bill said. “Folks.”

Tom put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the first note he found. In the gloom, it took a moment to see that it was a ten dollar bill. He put it in Bill’s hand and whispered, “For whatever she needs.”

The bill disappeared into the shabby clothes. Nancy’s brother winked at Tom, and began to make his way toward the door at the end of the walkway. “Oh,” he said, and turned around. The three of them stopped at the top of the stairs. “You got by.” He must have seen that Tom did not understand. “Didn’t spot you.”

Sarah clamped herself on Tom’s arm, and together they followed Hattie beneath the overhanging passages, through the narrow streets with mocking names, along the tilting walls. The air stank of sewage. Children jeered at them, and hard-faced men moved toward Sarah until they noticed Hattie, and then backed away. Finally they hurried across the crazed concrete of the First Court, through the darkness of the arch, and back out into the shadowy street, which seemed impossibly sweet and bright.

Even Percy’s dusty emporium, with its dim parlors and endless stairs, seemed sweet and light after Maxwell’s Heaven. Down in the small cobbled court, Percy and Bingo sat companionably on a bus seat from which horsehair foamed through slashes and split seams. Bingo’s nose was deep in the folds of Percy’s leather apron, and his tail moved frantically from side to side. “The girl okay?” Percy asked.

“Nothin’ can get that girl down,” Hattie said.

“That’s what I said.” Percy handed the whining, wriggling Bingo back over to Sarah, and Bingo continued to give longing, ardent glances to the leather apron until they had turned into the narrow uphill drive, and even then whined and looked back at it. “Fickle animal,” Sarah said, sounding genuinely grumpy.

When they came to the top of the drive and out on the street, a police car sped past them and squealed around the corner down the south end of Elysian Courts, its siren screaming. Another screaming police car followed it.

Sarah drove, more slowly than before, downhill toward the sea, the dump, and the old slave quarter.

“I have a high opinion of you, young lady,” Hattie said from her perch on Tom’s lap. “And so did Nancy Vetiver.”

“You do?” Sarah seemed startled. “She did?”

“Otherwise, why did she say so much? Ask yourself that. Nancy Vetiver’s not a loquacious fool, you know.”

“Not any kind of fool,” Sarah said.

At her shack, Hattie took the cape and kissed them both before saying good-bye.

Sarah leaned over and rested her head on the steering wheel. After a moment, she sighed and started the car.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said.

She gave him a smoky look. “Are you? For what?”

“For dragging you into that place. For mixing you up in everything.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s what you’re sorry about.” She rocketed away from the curb, and Bingo flattened out in his well behind the seats.

She did not speak until they were past Goethe Park and maneuvering through the eastbound traffic on Calle Burleigh. Finally she asked him what time it was.

“Ten past six.”

“Is that all? I thought it was a lot later.” Another lengthy silence. Then: “I guess because it seemed like night inside there.”

“If I’d known how bad it was going to be, I would have gone alone.”

“I’m not sorry I went there, Tom. I’m happy I saw the inside of that place. I’m happy I met Hattie. I’m happy about everything.”

“Okay,” he said. She passed three cars in a row, causing temporary pandemonium in the westbound lanes.