Tchevy Chronicles II
Published by Stephen Wishnevsky at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 St. Wishnevsky
Book IV
Ol' Hanner
Go down, Ol' Hanner, honey don't you rise no more,
And if you do rise in the morning, bring down that judgment day, for sure.
Chapter One
There are good and bad ways to wake. A predawn phone call announcing the death of a friend is not one of the best. No fool like an old fool, but getting set on fire for being in the wrong woman’s bed, a few days before your fifty-ninth birthday, seems a bit harsh.
I hung up the bedside phone, and L. Cohen on the shuffle player told me “I ain’t never giving in, I ain’t never giving up.”
Fuck you, Lenny. Rise and shine, asshole.
The first thing I did was to put the player on “continue" and turn on “Goat’s Head Soup."Loud.
It was about a hundred miles to Greensboro, where the Memorial Service Pub Crawl was going to be, and I had chores. Down south here they still use the term “rascal." Billy had been one, but I still was tooling up for a monumental mourning session. Good thing I was sober; if I was still living the life, this might get ugly. I had been known for demonstrative excess under emotional stress.
Chores done, a banjo in the mail, checks signed, garbage taken out, I threw my social banjo in the Toyota, turned off the switches, locked up and hit the road by four, enough daylight to get down to the highway. Mountain roads are not to be fooled with, even if you have been driving them as long as I have. The trees here were bare, winter almost here, but there were a few yellow hangers-on down the mountain. It began to rain, a cold dispirited drizzle that matched my mood, made the leaf-coated roads that much more dangerous.
But soon, I was on the super-slab, lights on, cruising into the Gateway City, Greensboro.
I tried to think of everything possible, why did they call it the Gateway City? What happened to the ugh? “Put the ugh back in Greensborough?" All to avoid thinking about how much I was going to miss this drunken idiot I only saw about three times a year anyway.
On New Year’s Eve, more than twenty years ago, when the world was merely middle aged, we played one night, all night at a house party. He on piano, me on doghouse bass. We played from midnight to dawn, never played a song anybody knew, played around the edges of every known blues, folk, ragtime and gutter jazz song in the repertoire, without ever actually, you know, actually playing an actual song.
We were rockin’. People were dancing. People say what they say, but when they dance, you are doing your job. We done it. Finished, went to the bar table, had a drink, never said a word. That was Billy. A rascal. All one piece, no seams.
I got there. The memorial service was in a banquet room in a convention center, office building, the most un-Billy-like venue imaginable. I got there late, saw only a few people I knew, even fewer I liked. There was some sincere music, no blues.
A bass player was crying. Yeah. Emotion. Hate that shit.
They announced a requiem jam at a bar across town, so we all trooped over there. I got lost. G-bro has never been my town. It’s built on a radial plan, or lack of plan, just like my old hometown of Hardwick Connecticut, but if you don’t have the radial avenues firmly in your head, you can easy go wrong.
Found the bar, milled around looking for somebody that gave a shit. Not really. Any excuse for a party is a good excuse for a party. Dopers aren’t real good at expressing emotions, you know. That’s why they take dope. I got a better take on the story from Angie, an ex-young blonde hippy. She sort of plays guitar, and a few years ago, her and I and Billy had been in an Airstream playing guitar. She was half drunk and all on the prowl, in a ladylike new agey way, and we were getting along, ok, but I was into sobriety at that point, it had got precious to me. Easy women have always mildly repelled me. So I stood back and watched ol’ Billy put the shark on her. She vaguely reminded me of somebody I try not to think about too often. So I let nature take its course.
It was not a painful process. She and Bill established some sort of relationship, and I saw them more or less together, at least at the same functions for a while.
She looked like hell. Dressed nice in layers of silk and that netting crochet stuff, lots of strands of beads, hair combed, nice and pretty as could be, looking like hell. I nodded hello and she started to cry. Shit. I led her around the side of the bar, it was not too cold, found a table, sat her down, watched her cry and apologize for crying.
“I’m sorry Tchev, it’s just that you…”
“I know. I know."I patted her hand, said “I know" a lot more, watched her pull a tiny enameled pipe out her reticule, or whatever those pouch things are called, scrape in a crumb of hashish and toke up some serenity. She said, “I’m sorry," a few more times, between coughs, I patted her hand and wished I had never come down the mountain.
I got the story between coughs and sobs. Billy had been at this very bar, the Blind Pig, three days ago, Thursday, MC’ing an Open Mike or blues jam. He had been taken drunk, too drunk to drive, and some kind lady, Kassie, had taken him home. She lived in this sub-divided folly of an old mansion, “The Towers," a few blocks away.
“And then, nobody knows for sure, this guy, Jason, he smelled smoke, he looked out, seen the flames, started banging on doors, waking people up. The Police came and the Fire, they broke down all the doors, and found them. I know Jason, he’s a friend of my son…" I didn’t know she had a child, but I didn’t interrupt. “Alan. They’re in Special Placement together." She sniffled, toked again, went on. Pot s a great decongestant. “He , Jason, said that Billy looked like a piece of burnt wood on the stretcher. They don’t think Kassie is going to make it." That really set her off, I had to go from hand patting to shoulder hugging. I felt like an ass.
I had not in fact been holding too many women recently, and Angie was an armful of warm, slightly salty womanhood . She needed a good man, before she wound up with a bad one. I could smell it on her, the need. She might be young enough to be my daughter, the mother of a grown son, but she was no more than mature, if you know what I mean, Vern. Shit. I needed to get out of here.
Inside they were firing up to play bad blues. I had met Billy’s son, who I had used to swing around my head. He was in his twenties, had a blue Mohawk, a hoodoo cane with a skull on top and some facial tattoos that would keep him out of honest employment until the Revolution, if then. I really did not want to be near this place when he and his flat-black buddies got on stage to remember his dad. Really.
Nobody had asked me to play. I might have brought them down. She might have felt the stiffness in my arm or deduced a lack of passion, but she shrugged away, said, ‘I’ll be fine, really," and dug a CD out of her pouch thing.
“I want you to have this. I dubbed a bunch of them last night. I couldn’t sleep." A Walmart disc with a scribbled “Wildmon" in black. I thanked her, walked back into the bar, hoping to see somebody I liked well enough to say goodbye to.
Chapter Two
Never you mind who I was. I'll tell you who I am now, and you all just go on that way. I'm a little old lady. Very little, tiny, not as old as people think. I might have a little juice left, even if I don't sling it around the way I used to do. Never mind. Don't you worry yourself about none of that. I got a little tale to tell you all.
It all started in Wilmington, that's in the Old North State. I should have moved farther away, but I just couldn't feel right doing like that. I'm a Carolina girl born and bred, it's in my bones. I always thought I was wild and careless as anybody could be, but when it came to nut-cutting time, I found I couldn't just leave my home so easy. I moved as far away as I could, right to the other corner of the state, and tried to make myself a quiet new life. Folks say Murphy to Manteo, but I went the other way. I always was made cross-grained. Me and my grand-daughter, Alice, the one they used to call Toughie, but don't no more. Any more. I'm trying to talk right, but it's hard. And I'm trying to write down all this, that's hard too. I reckoned I wanted to learn to paint pictures, you know, but it came out to be hard work, and boring, so I give it up. I hate giving up.
I buy pictures, now and again, if they aren't too dear. It's the least I can do for the artist that might have been inside of me once.
Anyway, I said I was trying to talk better and this book I read said to talk into a tape recorder, then play it back to see how you do..are doing. And I was doing that, but I didn't have nothing to talk about. So I started to tell my story, to myself, you know, when all this happened. About the only thing I ever learned in school, I dropped out when I was fourteen, was to type and to sew a little bit. I never had no momma, I didn't have a mother, to raise me up proper, so I never did get my proper raising. But I started on writing down what I said on the tapes, on this old computer Alice left behind. Sure is easier than one of those old Royals. But I miss the bell. I liked the bell.
Excuse me. Somebody's at the door.
"Can I help you Officer?"
"Are you the guardian of Alice Goodman, Alice Crouse Goodman?"
"What's the problem?"
Chapter Three
Of all people, that turned out to be Rabbit Dog. He was another pale blues guy, an odd one that beat on the five string, a dedication that earned him nothing but scorn, denigration, and accusations of racism. No wonder I like him.
“Ardee. They ain’t hung you yet?”
“Got to catch me first."He lit another Pall Mall, “Sucks about Billy, don’t it?”
“And nobody gives a shit, as long as the dope holds out.”
“You can tell the ones that do give a shit, they ain’t here.”
“So why are you here?”
“I got a gig, and I was looking for you. You ever going to join the human race and get a cell phone?”
“I can’t keep up. I have a phone. I left it home. Why are you looking for me?”
“Mancy.”
“Billy’s Mancy?”
“Right. She is what they say, not amused.”
“Her son is here, I’ve seen him.”
“He’s a waste of time, that boy. He’s into drugs that don’t even got names yet.”
My cue. “Been there, done that. It sucked.”
“You got no idea, Tchevy, you got no idea." He took my arm with his bony fingers; Hippies rarely touch each other, and he was only a few years younger than me. He drew me closer, we stepped back into the doorway of a health-food store. “Look, she’s been straight for years, organic gardening all that, up in the mountains. Dig?”
“I know. She lives a few ridgelines over. I see her every once in a while.”
“Billy was an asshole, when it came to her…”
“To women in general." The truth will set you free.
“No lie. But.”
“She still loves him.”
“Assholes rampant." Truth told, I had been sweet on her when their marriage had been breaking, up, but I never said anything, being a devout coward.
“Whatever. She heard about you and some woman, Cade?”
“And?" I wondered if he knew anything about that nasty little mess. Only three or four dead. I escaped with my ass intact, utilizing pure dumb-ass luck. A dope manufacturing ring had fallen out. People had died. A particularly evil porn studio had been involved; that I had something to do with destroying, but I’m no damn detective. I’m a banjo player. Just like Rabbit Dog. He's better than me.
“And she said that you solved the mystery, figured out who killed this Cade woman, brought them to justice.”
“People these days think justice and punishment are the same thing.”
He just looked at me, as if… “She thought you might be able to help find out what happened. She left a message on your machine. I got her number if you want to call now.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“You can use my cell.”
“Maybe later. I want to think about this for a while.”
“She got money. Leastways, her partner got money.”
“Male or female?”
“Bethany. She’s my second cousin. She's a nice lady.”
“Oh. That…”
“Explains why I’m on this cold ass street talking to the stubbornest old fart in the Carolinas.”
“Give me the number. Yours too. You still live here?”
“Outside of town. A place called Liberty.”
“Good name.”
“It used to mean something.”
“I know. OK, I’ll call her. I need a good meal and a place to fall out. I was going to drive home, but I will stay overnight, call you in the morning.”
“At noon, you mean.”
“Right. See ya, Mr. Dog.”
“See ya, ya old fart.”
Chapter Four
As St. Pooh of Bear used to say, “Oh fuck and bother."So what was I supposed to do with all this mess? I hate mysteries. It’s almost always some desperate person who has fucked up bad, trying to hide his tracks. But I needed money, or soon would. I had almost been rich, or thought I was going to be, but that all fell through. Then it fell out, leaving me broke and unloved as usual. As usual. So having no ideas, and no place to stay, I went to see Dave Getdown.
This is not Dave’s-not-here, he’s still up in Archer County, as useless and amiable as ever. This Dave is as amiable, nearly as useless, but holds down a job as sound man at a rock bar, and is gossip central for that whole area. Just the man I needed to see.
The club “Nowheres Else" is near a Liberal Arts College, walking distance in fact. Walking distance getting there, staggering distance going back to the dorm. Damn, those college kids are growing younger every year. The little turds. It was Saturday, the joint was jumping and the crowd was hopped up. I tapped Dave on the shoulder, he was in his little sound booth in the back of the big room. He mimed surprise, it was far too loud to talk, so we walked out back, across the parking lot where we could hear ourselves. A few clots of dopers scowled at us, but we ignored them with the gravity due our years.
“Ya’ old fart. They ain’t hung you yet?”
“You’re the second felon tonight to ask me that. I guess not.”
“You down about Billy?”
“I’m not too fuckin’ happy." That made him smile. He loved a bad joke. “You hear anything about who killed him?”
“Nothing. Some asshole nobody knows, I guess."
“You got somebody else to run your board? I might need to take some time with you.”
“Fuck that. No one will ever notice. They call it Alternative Music, I call it an alternative to music. The next band won’t be on for a hour, anyway.”
“I don’t want to sound old, but that shit is painful to listen to."
He pulled a professional ear plug out, showed it to me, stuck it back in. “Tell me about it.”
“Are these kids thinking they’re having fun?”
“Shit if I know. You notice there are no women in there?”
“One or two. What’s up with that?”
“Fucked if I know. These are not bad kids, and they don’t do half as much dope as we used to, but…”
“Right. Whine, whine, whine."I smelled the night. No snow for a day or two. “What was this woman like?”
“Kassie? Everybody’s momma. Nice woman, used to be a real honey a few years ago. I wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eating crackers, unless she wanted the crackers to sleep with us.”
“Asshole."
"You say that like that’s a bad thing." He smiled winsomely. “I don’t know. It’s really fucked. I liked Billy, and I liked Kassie. Nobody hated them, they never caused much trouble, got drunk and fell down sometimes, no biggie." I knew Dave had been sober for years; he had spent time in Club Fed, said he didn’t have enough money to get all his bad habits out of hock when they let him go. I also knew he would get to the point eventually.
Chapter Five
For some reason, once the pig left, I got to my turning Ol' Dave Getdown in my mind. They called him that, because he's a get down drummer. He used to play in a biker bar I used to dance in. Dance and deal. You know. I found a cassette tape in a black leather box, Dave Getdown backing this rascal, Wildmon. I clicked it into a box, it played; "What's the matter with having fun, what's wrong with going out to play?"
It shoulda, should have made me happier. It didn't. I should have wanted to cry. What I wanted to do was to kill somebody. What had they done with my granddaughter? Who on God's green Earth could there be to help me find her? How many people did you have to kill to bring somebody that's dead back to life?
My daughter had been killed, and I had got my revenge. That had all turned to ashes in my mouth as I was drawing that needle out of that bitch's arm. I hadn't done no good, just more bad. There is a sight too much bad in the world. I added my share, and more. Now my dead daughter's daughter, my only close blood kin was lost, and I didn't have the tools to get her back. Once I said that to myself, I knew right what to do. One step at a time, the right tool for the job and all like that. I could have called, I had the number, but I didn't know what could be listening in on my line. I was just the grieving granny, for all the laws knew, and I wanted them to keep thinking thataway. That way. So I brushed my hair, put on a nice pink sweater, got in my Lincoln, headed for the mountains. It turned cold and rainy soon as I got into the sand hills, but I didn't feel a chill. I got my hate to keep me warm.
It took five hours to get there, it's a big state. And when I got there, there was nobody home. I looked in the old tower first, it was mostly empty, no heat, just stuff and junk stored in there. The other place looked new, I knew it was new, no more'n a year old. I had left in August, high summer, and here it was near to October a year later. A good sized brown wood-framed house, plain and sturdy. I know it was his, it looked like him, and when I went in, it weren't locked either. Damn hippie hillbilly. Nobody there, but the heat was on.
I used the bathroom, set on his couch and thought a spell. I looked in the Frigidaire, there was meat and some of that yogurt stuff. So I knowed he would be back soon. So then. That made me nosy, not that it takes a lot to do that. I poked around, there was three rooms and a bath, nice bath, big old tub. There was the kitchen living room, a little bedroom full of books with a computer and a music room. The other whole half of the house was a shop, full of more instruments. There was not smell of woman, not a trace, no pictures of girls. Last time I seen him, he was ass deep in pussy.
I didn’t want nobody to know I was here, did I? People knew me up here, but they might not recognize me, if they didn't actually look me in the eye and all. I moved my Lincoln behind the big peach colored school bus he camps in, went back in and nosily punched the button on his answering machine. What I heard there turned my hot rage-blood cold in my veins.
I went and looked, that old son of a bitch didn't have a drop of booze in the house. I knew it wouldn't have done me no good if I had found any, but I surely did crave a drop of likker right then. I cussed a while, for all the good it done, then found my cell phone, and started calling people who thought I was long dead.
Chapter Six
Dave eventually got near the point, if not actually to it. "You know, it's odd, but Kassie's daughter, down in Florida, she got burned up in a fire a month, maybe more, ago. Dead. Her and her baby both."
"That sucks. You hear if Kassie's going to live?"
"The police aren't talking…" Something played a guitar riff in his pocket. He reached for his cell phone, said, "Dave…"Then his face got studiously blank. "Right. Sure. You got it. Who? You won't believe this, but I'm talking to him. Yeah. Right now. Sure." He handed me the phone. "It's for you."
I thought it was going to be Mancy Wildmon, got the shock of my old life when the little plastic clam shell thing said "Tchevy? Don't say my name out loud. This here's Hanner."
"Yes, mam." I was shocked. Of all the people that might have called me, Hanner was the lest expected, and the scariest.
"Tchevy, we got trouble. We need to talk."
"Sure. Where are you?"
"Well, that's a little embarrassing to say. I'm setting on your couch, talking on your phone, wondering if I'm hungry enough to eat one of your yogurt things."
"No problem on that front. What's up?"
"I come to see you about my granddaughter Alice."
"Toughie."
"Right. The police think that she might have set her girlfriend on fire. Killed her."
"Fuck."
"So I come here, on the Q T, you know, and I seen you weren't here, and being a nosy old biddy, I listened to your messages on your machine, you know."
"Right. You heard about Billy Wildmon."
"And how he got burned up."
"My dad was in the Army. He said that once is an accident, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action."
"I ain't that forgiving."
"Me neither. Dave just told me that this Kassie, she was with Billy, her daughter, she got burned up too."
"That 'bout settles it, don't it?"
"I'm on my way. Need anything?"
"I want to say a likker drink, but I think I best not."
"A couple of hours. Make yourself at home. Steaks and some chili frozen in the freezer."
"Thank you."
"On the way."
I didn't leave without a word, but I left. The hiss of the tires on the wet blacktop lulled me into retrospective, I thought back to a year ago, little less, when I had a woman and the world by the tail. We were supposed to have a handle on a treasure, life looked like it could settle down, I could lose all this hard scrabble struggle stuff I had been not working very hard at all my life. But it all fell through. There was this treasure, at least a good stash of money in this old Army tank, and all we had to do was to get possession of the tank and loot it. Come to find out, you can't buy a tank. They always remain the property of the US Government.
The three of us, the principles had opposing views on the right course of action. Lucy, my lover at the time, loved the challenge, wanted to attack by any means necessary. Lee, who I have been entangled with for twenty years, had had one of her patented personal redefinitions, decided to accept her age, settle down and live the life of a published poet and writer. Come to find out she had a trunk load of novels she had written in addition to all her poetry. The fame she got from a false arrest and a dramatic rescue sold a lot of poetry books for her. Any is a lot. She was able to place a novel, it did well enough to be reviewed in the Times and the New Yorker. She was able to become an official personality, even got a toe into the talk show circuit. Bully for her. I was convulsed with jealousy, to tell the hard truth.
Lucy and I had managed to pick up a bit of change on a salvage operation, more money than I had ever had in my life. I gave one third to my grandson, Ennice, one third to my son, Danny, and one third I kept to build a house with. Danny's mom got a job in an orchestra in Amsterdam, so I didn't see her much, to the relief of everybody involved. A long story. Supposedly Danny would live with me part time once he got old enough, but that would not be for a few years yet.
I told Lucy I had no intention of messing with the Feds for any amount of gold, and we parted company, more or less amicably. If you consider not actually throwing things at each other amicably. And there we all were, just like grown up adults, lying the beds we had made.
All well and good. Then there was Hannah Arenson. She had been a neighbor of mine, a legendary speed dealer, motorcycle momma, god knows what all. An outlaw. About a year ago, just before the salvage job up in Connecticut, we had crossed paths again. I had helped rescue her granddaughter from a bunch of dopers, Hanna had sworn sobriety and vanished to find a new life. It looked like the old life had reached out and dragged her back. Knowing Hannah as well as I did, the old life would be sorry.
All this had something to do with the murder of a musician I really admired? Shit. And fuck that. I could accept that Billy had fucked up and got killed by some yahoo asshole, but I could not accept that he was killed on purpose. I had to know why. And I had to know who.
Hannah was in my house, on the couch, no music going, wrapped in a blanket, staring at a single candle flame. She looked up, the light struck feral glints in her eyes. "Hannah. You hungry?"
She stood, dropped the blanket, I clicked on the light. If I had not known who she was, I would never have recognized her. She was small and trim, petite, in soft wool slacks, a white collared top and a pink sweater that looked to be from one of the better shops. She had a modest diamond on her left hand, a nice watch, more gems in her ears, short tinted hair. "I could eat. Got a can of soup?"
She didn't offer to embrace me. She had even, white teeth, an attempt at a smile, manicured nails. I knew the teeth were dentures; speed freaks lose their teeth fast. The last time I saw her, she just had gums. "Sure. They call you Hannah?"
"Yeah, I was dumb. I kept my first name. I'm Hannah Adams now. Nobody cares, they don't ask little old ladies for no identification."
"Funny how that works."
"I'm not laughing."
I looked in the cabinets, found some potato soup, some bacon in the refrigerator, some rye bread that would make toast. "I usually drink tea, but if you want coffee…"
"Don't much care none. Tea's fine, or water." I rattled pots, fried the bacon, slathered the bread with butter, threw it in another fry pan, put two cups of water in the microwave. Hannah sat back down, waited patiently. "I 'pologize, Tchevy, for moving in on your house and all. I'll make it up to you."
"No need, Hannah. I don't know if we're actually friends or what, but we do go way back."
"I could give you money, I got money, or if you want a blow job or something…" I must have done a double take at the casual offer, and she took it wrong. "You could fuck me, if you want, but my pussy's so scarred up from shooting dope in there, all those years, it might not work like it's supposed to. I don't know. I ain't tried for quite a while."
"Hannah." I wanted to cry hearing that. The microwave beeped, right on cue. I ignored that noise, went over, bent down, kissed her on the top of her head, like you do a little child. "Hannah, you don't owe me anything." She smelled old and tired, a little bit acrid under the remnants of her fine perfume. She didn't raise a hand to fend me off, or to caress me, either one. I turned back, brought the tea, the jar of honey, a spoon. I use liquid sweetener, myself. I sat down beside her, not too close. The bacon sizzled in the pan.
We sat and sipped in silence for a long time. I got up turned off the stove, dished out the food. The bacon was a little underdone, the toast a bit burned. She ate, picked at her food, I wolfed mine down, I was starved.
"She was all I had left. She's gone. I would have thought she would have called, if she had gone off on her own. She was a little bit simple, after all that dope she done, you know. But she was a good girl."
"This woman that got burned up. They lived together?"
"Amy? Yes, they was lovers. I didn't care none. Not after the life I have lived. Good for them both. Amy was a dancer, not a stripper, a real ballet dancer. She danced some down in Myrtle Beach at them clubs, but she kept her clothes on. Least she said she did. I didn't doubt her word. She was aging out of it, you know, they both worked as waitresses, this and that. They were good girls, didn't do no real dope."
"This Amy got killed last night? Was that in Greensboro?"
"No, they lived near me, down in Wilmington. That was four nights ago, Wednesday, the police said. It took them a while to find me."
"You didn't know this Kassie, or her daughter?"
"I think I heard tell of Kassie, years ago, she was a wild one, but not a biker. I don't know nothing about her daughter."
"Dave said she got burned up down in Florida, her and her baby both."
"Body would kill a baby would do anything." She set her soup aside, half finished, nibbled on a piece of toast.
"So what's the point? If we knew that, then we would know who did this."
"I don't reckon I know if none of it makes no sense at all. I don't even know if I got enough sense left in my head to figure it out no how. That's why I come to you. I know you took care of that Chris feller a few years back. I know he was the one that hurt your friend Betsy Blevins. Had to be him. You must have vanished him pretty good. That no-count Bucket said that Chris guy was looking for you."
"He killed Flippo Garrett too."
"I never did know nothing about that. I thought that boy, he run away or something."
"No. Chris Foster, he was a cop, he killed that poor boy. I won't tell you any more than that."
"Just as well. I got enough evil in my head already." She reached over and grabbed my wrist. Her hand felt as thin and frail as a bird's foot. "Tchevy, I swear to God, I wisht I was somebody else. You got no idea how much it hurts to be me. I usually can't sleep for nothing, things whisper at me all night long. I would kill myself, but I don't."
I put my hand over hers, even though I knew it would lead to more complications. And trouble. "Why don't you then?"
"I don't deserve peace. I done evil. Bad evil and I won't never rest. I'm like an old haunt, some evil spirit that has to make amends, Tchevy. That’s what I feel. I feel I need to see that Alice has some hope of a good life. Or just a life. Anyways a chance at a life."
"You believe in God, Hannah?"
"I don't know how there could be a God, Tchev, to let such evil go on in the world, but I reckon I do. I do believe in some kinda mean motherfucking God. The bastard."
"All kinds of gods, Hannah. You want to choose the right one."
"Can you tell me how to do that?"
"No. I can't. Everybody has to do that themselves."
"Or die trying."
I could see she was "white-knuckling "it, in the AA term. She was not recovered, she was just not doing dope, with pure will power. She hadn't reached any stage of joy, hadn't figured out that it was more fun and more interesting to be sober, hadn't found anything she liked better than getting high. There may not be anything that strong. Coke and stimulant addicts have crappy recovery anyway. Those drugs burn out the very part of the brain that lets you feel joy. There was the problem. A big problem. Even bigger was that the dope didn't make you feel good either. "You may feel better, but you never feel well."
That was the real problem, long term. The medium term problem was trying to figure out who the hell was setting people on fire without getting my personal ass incinerated. Third and near term was what to do with this crazed female on my couch. I looked at the clock over the sink. One thirty. I took inventory. I felt like shit.
"You want to sleep on the couch?"
"No matter. Don't want to be a burden." Mountain politeness. Her people had as much pride as my home folks and they were Cossacks. A poll would probably reveal that hillbillies and Ukrainians were rated pretty low in the world ethnic standings, right down there with gypsies, used car dealers and pederasts. But we do have our pride. Stubborn damn ridge-runner.
"You can sleep with me. Bed's big enough."
"I can sleep in the Lincoln. I'm so puny I don’t even have to curl up. If you could loan me a quilt?"
"Or you could sleep with me. Bed's big enough. "I'm half Polack and half redneck flatlander. I got my pride too. I just lifted my hand off of her arm, stood. Walked away to the bath, pissed, went to the bed room, shucked off my clothes, fell into bed. There was a thick quilt and a couple of pillows on the couch. She could figure it out. She did. I heard the bathroom door close, water run, the shower, the toilet flush. The door opened again, the light went off. Hannah came in, there was enough light from the digital display to see she was wrapped in a towel. She unwound the towel, hung it on the bedpost, slipped into bed.
"You want me to do you?"
"You do what you really need to do, Hannah."
"You're damn near as stubborn as me, ain't you?"
"Good night, Hannah."
She didn't reply, just turned her back to me, pretended to fall asleep. I pretended to not hear her weep.
I hadn't seen that Tchevy for a long time, but I thought on him time to time. He was the one man that didn't treat me like a slut, even though he knew well enough that was what I was. He hadn't changed, got a little fatter, a lot older. I had hoped that that cop woman was there, the one that had his daughter. I had heard tell of her. I knowed old Luna, knowed her all my life, and she was one powerful woman, she was. I heard that she had picked that Steph girl to be her heir, and then laid down to die. That's what I heard. Don't ask me if I believe all that or not, but that's the story. She's a good'n, no matter.
But her momma? That Lee? Her I could do with. She had sand. She stood up to one of those Joe boys with a hand gun and he had a deer rifle. She would have got her killing too, but that old Bill Quigley, he saved her. Tchevy, he still missed her, you could tell just by looking at him, the way he stood. I'm enough of a woman to wish I could change all that, and enough of a man to know I never could. People are assholes, you know what? And the better people are, the bigger assholes they are. You need to be a bastard in this world, you don't want to get hurt. They would bury Tchevy before he figured that out.
But he was the best I had, so we would go with that. All those old biker boys I used to run with? They weren't worth a shit. Most of them were dead by then, anyway.
Chapter Seven
The next day we spent on the phone and the computer. Hannah rattled the keyboard for a long while, saved what she wrote to disc, wouldn't show it to me and deleted the file. I knew it was in the recycle bin, but I didn't look at it.
I called Mancy Wildmon. After a few lame attempts at polite conversation, she got to the point. "Tchevy, I wouldn't have thought I would care, he got what he's been begging for all these years, but…I do care. I care a lot. And that poor Kassie…"
"Was she his lover?"
"Oh, god…Who wasn't?"
"Well… Me."
"Bless you for that."She almost laughed.
"Did Billy swing that way too?"
"I wouldn't have put it past him, but the guy would have had to have real good dope."
I did laugh. I liked Mancy a lot. A veggie with a sense of humor. Tall, slender, female, and very tolerant of male pattern stupidity. We made a date to come over and visit later that day, which was Sunday. Bethany was off at some New Age church deal, when she got back she would cut me a check. I called Dave and Ardee, Lightnin' Mike, a few more of Billy's running buds, nobody knew anything.
The Sunday papers online didn't know anything either, I read the same fact free paragraph four or five times before I gave up on the Winston Urinal and the Greensboro Wretched. It was well after noon and we were still lounging around in my first and second best bathrobes. "So what do we need to do now?"
"I need some jeans. But I don't need nobody knowing I'm back in the county."
"Are you hot? Does somebody want you for something?"
"No so I know, but…"
Right. There were all sorts of people who could take an interest in Hannah, cops and bikers, dopers and Feds, none of them needed to know any of our business. I had seen before what tangles can snarl up when you try to pull a single thread. "Let's go to Wilkes, go to the Walmart, get a good meal, lay in supplies, figure out where we need to be, and go there. Wilmington or Greensboro, you think?"
The phone rang.
"Dad." It was my daughter, Steph.
"Is your mother in some shit, again?" Steph does not call to waste time. She always was a serious person, since having her son and inheriting the house and gardens of an old time mountain "yarb" woman, she has become an elemental force. All five foot zero of her.
"Are you?"
"Well…" No sense lying to even an apprentice yarb woman. Witches are one thing, yarb women quite another. "Not yet. Not really."
"We need to confer."
"Do you know something?"
"I just have a feeling."
My heart sank and rose at the same time. Now the Cosmic Forces of Mu were involved. Or whatever mad mountain voodoo hoodoo yarb women ran on. It's not magic, they just know things. Call it meditation, if you need a word for it. Any word you put on it will make it too mystical. Yarb women are earthy. "We were going to Wilkes to the Wally Lose. Want to hit Sin City with us?"
"Define us."
"An old friend. Hannah."
"Oh. Her." There had been no interaction between the two before, but they were in the same country, so tales had been told, obviously enough. "That will work. I'll bring Geng. We can feed him crap, and watch him get carsick on the way home."
"Bring your own towel."
"Always, Pater."
"Meet you at Bud's in half an hour." We took the Toyota, the Turd Odor, as less liable to cause comment. Geng, Ennice Taras Blevins is fourteen months, or nearby, a hell of a kid. He is omnivorous, vocal, and mobile. I expected Hannah to succumb to his charms and break out in goo-face, but not. She, I was learning, never speaks unless she has something to say, has no small talk, no conversation. You could think her a dope-raddled dullard until she has something to say, and then you had best pay close attention. Steph is serious, Hannah is implacable. That means unable to be placated. However, that didn’t stop Steph from getting the story. She had known Alice casually, so they had a starting place. They talked over the seat back, terse, direct and unemotional. Steph gave me a dope slap on the back of the head at one point, which I took as an affirmation. Wally World was the same as always, but I don't think I have ever been in and out so fast, not with two women, anyway. Hannah changed in the rest room of a gas station, came out as a nondescript casual woman of no particular age. She had combed something into her hair, was brown turning gray, had a pair of boring glasses on, a green down jacket. You could look right through her a hundred times, never see her. A professional.
"You do that well."
"I've had practice. We want to eat in town?"
"Hungry?"
"Reckon."
"Steph?"
"Will Mancy want to feed us? I know her from Bud's Follyball parties, she is a great cook."
"I'll call." I did, she said to come on, so we grabbed some candy bars and drinks, milk for the kid, granola bars to gnaw on. Hannah only had a milkshake, I deduced her new teeth were not fitting as well as they might. It was more than a half hour back, so it was getting dark when we pulled into the long drive up to the old farmhouse. It was a white elephant of a place, but showed obvious reconstruction, solar panels, even a windmill, new white paint, a few cast bronzes in the door yard. My estimate of the size of the check went up. It better. I need the money.
Mancy met us at the door. She has not flashed to gray yet, still partially brunette. There was a certain amount of girl talk between Steph and Mancy. Mancy is southern, but a flatlander, so she didn't bat an eye at Hannah, hopefully assuming she was my companion. The interior was an odd combination of New Age funky and Uptown Modern Art from fifty years ago.
"This way, please, the solarium is down here." Shame it was still so gloomy and wet, the solarium would have been a glorious place to be when the sun was shining, all droopy plants, crystals and stained glass sculptures. Bethany stood to welcome us, I suppressed my shock. No one had mentioned that she was black. Taller than Mancy, even more willowy, close cropped hair, quite young, with the soft handshake of a musician.
"You play?"
'I'm a harpist. Julliard."
"You know Melanie Sinclair? A…um…friend of mine."
That earned me a double take. She must have known the story. "Well. Small world. She's good."
"Ain't it." I introduced the other two. "This is my daughter Steph, and my friend, Hannah Adams. She has a stake in this…inquiry."
Mancy bustled us into chairs, offered herbal teas or carrot juice. "The quiche is not quite ready yet. Business?"
"This is looking ugly. Hannah's daughter, and let me request that you not mention Hannah's name to anyone, her granddaughter Alice has vanished, and Alice's…roommate…was burned to death."
"Three, no, four days ago. Wednesday night. They lived in one of those little cheap apartments, that are all in a line, you know. They done the same as with Billy. Beat her, her name was Amy Hopkins, beat her unconscious and then they set the bed on fire. They think it was a lover's fight. Set the whole line of apartments alight. Put another man and his wife in the hospital with that smoke inhalation." Hannah looked like she might have said too much, but added, "Mexicans, they were."
I carried the tail. "Dave Getdown, the drummer? He said that somebody killed Kassie's daughter and her baby too. In Florida. He didn’t know when, but it was a while ago."
Mancy wasn't listening. "Hoskins? Amy Hoskins? Dark hair? A dancer?"
Hannah was on that instantly. "How could you know that?"
"Because there was an Amy Hoskins that was…Well, she was Billy's daughter. About twenty four?"
"About that. I don't rightly know for sure."Hannah thought out loud. "Her momma was Darlene Hoskins? She used to run with some dopers down in Greenville?"
"I think so. That's where Billy met her. At the college. One of those crazy Halloween Block Parties they used to have."
"Shit." I said that. I had been to one of those parties. Anybody could wind up in bed with anybody as drunk out as it used to get. There had been a black-owned egg sandwich place that everybody used to go and stuff face after the booze ran out. Great sandwiches, with a cast of characters that would make Fellini jealous. Never mind. "You think Kassie's daughter was Billy's kid too?"
"I don't see why not. I mean…" Mancy blushed. "She certainly could be, we used to be tight with Kassie when we lived in Greensboro. Billy was working at that music store, you remember."
"Yeah. Shep's place. He hired Billy to renovate the upstairs apartment. It took about five years."
Bethany was looking at us like we were space aliens. Ah, the good old days.
"I got tired of all that dope and craziness. That was when I left Billy and took Zach back up here."
"I saw him at the Memorial. He looked fine."
"He looked awful. All those tattoos. He worries me, but I can't do anything. He just says, 'You did dope too'."
"Right. I didn't want to say. He didn't speak to me."
"You know, Tchevy, we thought we were big bad outlaws, but we could always get a haircut and get a job, if we had too."
Hannah snorted up her nose, a most unladylike, but expressive noise.
"Don't look at me. Rock and rollers are not the only musicians with bad habits. "Bethany smiled ruefully, caressed Mancy's shoulder.
"Blues players actually. But Steph here, is trained too. Violin."
"I heard Mel say that the Institute had taught her everything about music except how to have fun playing it." Steph chimed in.
Bethany looked wistful. "We could get together perhaps, and try a few pieces. I miss the music. Do you live near here?"
"Not too far. I'm in Sugar Hill, near Topia, where Dad lives." I realized right then, that having this woman call me "Dad" was worth a lot to me. Somebody was killing off people's daughters? What the fuck?
"Mancy. Any more kids running around?"
She was looking a little dazed. "There may well be, but nobody knew but Billy."
"The dog."
"Zach? You think somebody will try to kill him too?"
"Call him."
"I…Don't have his number."
"You didn't go to the memorial."
"I didn't. Then I felt bad. That's why I called you. Zach has been…difficult."
"How?"
"Well, he hasn't called me in three years or more. I said something about his tattoos, and he got real mad. He's changed."
"Dope?"
"I don't... He used to steal Billy's stash when he was a just a little kid. He wanted to be just like his dad. We used to fight about it."
"There are all sorts of dope now days that we never heard of."
Bethany just winced. I didn't ask. The higher up the economic ladder you go, the more options for excess there are. We old timers were all poor kids, hillbillies, white trash and Yankee factory kids. Bethany was obviously very upper class, even if her skin was dark. All sorts of people in this world. Deal with it.
The conversation veered off from reality, we ate quiche and three or four other things I can't spell. They were all great, warming and rich. Steph, being the civilized one of the family carried on most of the interaction. They all gooed at Ennice, made plots and plans to get together, talked about harvesting herbs a lot. Hannah and I sat side by side, not speaking, but we could feel each other's anger. This sucked. Innocents were being hurt and killed. Our people were in danger.
Them people get on my nerves sometime. They act so high and mighty, put these big names on things what they were going to do anyway. That colored girl could buy and sell this whole county, much less me and my family, but here she was down here, feeling put upon cause she was black and living with a woman, like that was something special. I done that. Not because I wanted to, after a while I didn't care about fucking people, I just needed the money for dope. I been in movies, fucked on stage, one time went down on this old gal on the roof of a Winnebago while a couple hundred bikers cheered and threw money and dope up to us. I did that dancing stuff too, wet tee shirt contests, all that. I used to have a shape when I was young, before the dope made me all scrawny.
But then after a while, I got ashamed of myself for being so hateful. I knowed was jealous. At least they had each other, and I didn't have nobody. I was with Tchevy, but I didn't have him, not for long, and I wasn't going to get him neither. Makes a body spiteful to get old and all, and not have nobody. Nothing to look back on neither. Not with pride. I wished I hadn't give up on painting so easy. That colored girl, she knew all about that painting, all them artists and all. I was even more jealous. I could have been somebody. I know it. I could have.
You know what's a funny thing? That colored girl had my name. My middle name is Bethany. Didn't make me love her no more, though.
After dinner, Bethany led me to her office, not a small room, with multiple computer screens, enough gadgets to open a store. All Apple. All expensive. She obsessively checked her email, rattled off a few replies. Then she opened a drawer, pulled out a business size check book, wrote me a check that was even larger than I had hoped. "My daddy is a judge. In Chicago. I handle his investments, but I can't handle his cheating on my mom."
"I didn't ask."
"I told you anyway. Just so you know. I love Mancy. She is the best."
"I agree."
"If she hurts, I hurt. She won't even let me buy her a car. She has her own house, a shack down the road. She works there every day almost, then comes home and works our gardens. I love her."
"I heard you. I like her a lot. She has had a hard life, mostly caused by her own loyalty. I hope you make her as happy as she deserves."
"That's all you have to say?"
"You want me to jump up and down and call you names? This is not the first lesbian relationship I have ever seen, you know. Ask Steph about her mother once you get to know her a little better. Thank you. I'll do what I can."
"Thank you."
"A word of advice, Bethany?"
"I'm listening."
"This might be a real good time to visit Paris. Or Shanghai."
"I hear you talking."
"If somebody is killing off Billy's lovers and their children, then…"
"Paris is not at its best in the winter, but it's amusing enough."
"And a long damn way from here."
She walked me to the door. I hugged her and Mancy, Mancy a little harder. We do go way back. When we got to the car, Hannah said, "Steph, child, would you mind driving? Me and your dad need to talk."
We strapped Geng up front, he was out cold, and we squeezed into the back. It was near dark. Hannah leaned over and whispered, "It's that boy that done it. Zach. I know it. I told that Mancy to get the fuck out of Dodge right quick. She figured out who I was. Am."
"I agree. I'm not as sure as you are, but I told Bethany to take Mancy to Paris as soon as possible."
"Good for you. Look here."Her hand touched mine, almost shyly. "We got to come to some conclusions. We need to be close."
"Allies?"
"Closer. This here is fucked up. Can I trust you?"
"Yes."
"Yes? That's all?"
"I mean what I say. Yes. Want me to say it again?"
"No. I mean, thank you. Tchevy, I always did trust you, even when I couldn't trust myself. You know that?"
"Sort of. I mean…"
"It wasn't at the top of our minds, or nothing. But you know what I mean?"
"I do."
"That's what folks say when they get married. I do."
"I realize that. Look, Hannah. You scare the shit out of me. Always have. Not that first time when I was tripping, when we met, but once I found out who you were…You know?"
"You should have been scairt. I was a monster. "
"What are you now, Miss Arenson?"
"Now I'm the one that's scairt." She was. I could feel her thigh trembling against mine. "There's more than one monster loose in this world."
"Let's let Steph drop us off at my place. We can get the car later. We have a lot to discuss."
She snorted something like laughter out her nose again. "If that's what you want to call it. Lots of things to work out, for true, Mr. Man."
"I'm sure there will be some work involved." And I took her thin little bird hand there in the falling dark. It was a cold and lonely word out there with the bare trees reaching for the last shreds of light. Her fingers were as cold as the tree branches looked. Cold.
I took that man. They always come easy, they get a whiff of that thing, and their brains just gush out their ears. Tchevy was alright, not as stupid as most. He talked too much, but that was fine. His chatter didn't interfere with my thinking. Or his fucking either. He was a nice man, tried to make me enjoy myself, but it was tears and tears too late for that. Look what I just wrote. That's one of them typos. I meant years and years. I never have done much crying. My momma died birthing me, and daddy, he took till I was fifteen to drink himself to death. He used to try and make me enjoy what he done to me too. I run off to Baltimore, started popping pills and working the streets. Then I had a baby when I was eighteen, I never did have a good idea who her daddy was. No matter. He would have molested her too, if I had known. I had them cut me, ol' Doc Boggs, so I wouldn't bring no more misery into this world. My daughter, she's dead too. Boggs, he's still alive. Just goes to show you.
Chapter Eight
We should have felt better in the morning, but we didn't. Our tentative couplings just emphasized the void outside waiting to snuff us out. If somebody had killed four people, vanished Alice and left Kassie for dead, they sure would not take kindly to us messing with their business. Vendettas are serious. And we too were serious. As for our…relations… Let's just say our relationship was better than our relations. Hannah was a deeply wounded person, who had used sex and her sexuality as a survival tool, not as a means of producing joy for herself, much less her partners. She had no inhibitions, no restraints, she had done it all before. But I got the feeling she had never enjoyed any one minute of it.