“Nice tattoo,” Gwinn said. “You get that around here?”
“No. Someplace else.”
“Mind if I ask where you’re headin’ from and where you’re goin’?”
“From Shreveport,” Dan said. “I’m goin’ to —” He paused. “I’m just goin’.”
“Your home in Shreveport, is it?”
“Used to be.” Dan took his hands away from his eyes. “I’m not real sure where I belong right now.” A thought struck him. “I didn’t see your car outside.”
“Oh, I walked from my house. I just live ’bout a half-mile up the road. You hungry, Mr. Farrow?”
“I could do with somethin’, yeah.” Hearing that name was strange, after all this time. He didn’t know why he’d chosen it; probably it was from seeing the young man who was begging work at Death Valley.
“You like crullers? I got some in my office; my wife baked ’em just this mornin’.”
Dan told him that sounded fine, and Gwinn went to his office and returned with three sugar-frosted crullers in a brown paper bag. It took about four seconds for Dan to consume one of them. “Have another,” Gwinn offered as he sat on the pew in front of Dan. “I believe you ain’t et in a while.”
A second pastry went down the hatch. Gwinn scratched his long jaw and said, “Take the other one, too. My wife sure would be tickled to see a fella enjoyin’ her bakin’ so much.” When the third one was history, Dan licked the sugar from his fingers. Gwinn laughed, the sound like the rasp of a rusty saw blade. “Part camel, part goat,” he said. “Don’t you go chewin’ on that bag, now.”
“You can tell your wife she makes good crullers.”
Gwinn reached into a trouser pocket, pulled out a silver watch, and checked the time. “ ’Bout quarter to five. You can tell Lavinia yourself if you want to.”
“Pardon?”
“Supper’s at six. You want to eat with Lavinia and me, you’re welcome.” He returned the watch to his pocket. “Won’t be no fancy feast, but it’ll warm your belly up. I can go call her, tell her to put another plate on the table.”
“Thanks, but I’ve gotta get back on the road after I rest some.”
“Oh.” Gwinn lifted his shaggy white brows. “Decide where you’re goin’, have you?”
Dan was silent, his hands clasped together.
“The road’ll still be there, Mr. Farrow,” Gwinn said quietly. “Don’t you think?”
Dan looked into the preacher’s eyes. “You don’t know me. I could be … somebody you wouldn’t want in your house.”
“True enough. But my Lord Jesus Christ says we should feed the wayfarin’ stranger.” Gwinn’s voice had taken on some of the singsong inflections of his calling. “ ’Pears to me that’s what you are. So if you want a taste of fried chicken that’ll make you hear the heavenly choir, you just say the word and you got it.”
Dan didn’t have to think very long to make a decision. “All right. I’d be grateful.”
“Just be hungry! Lavinia always makes a whoppin’ supper on Thursday nights anyhow.” Gwinn stood up. “Lemme go on back and call her. Why don’t you rest some and I’ll fetch you when I’m ready to go.”
“Thank you,” Dan said. “I really do appreciate this.” He lay down on the pew as Gwinn walked back to his office. The pew was no mattress, but just being able to relax for a little while was glorious. He closed his eyes, the sweat cooling on his body, and he searched for a few minutes of sleep that might shield him from the image of Emory Blanchard bleeding to death.
In his office, Reverend Gwinn was on the telephone to his wife. She stoically took the news that a white stranger named Dan Farrow was joining them for supper, even though Thursday was always the night their son and daughter-in-law came to visit from Mansfield. But everything would work out fine, Lavinia told her husband, because Terrence had called a few minutes before to let her know he and Amelia wouldn’t be there until after seven. There’d been a raid on a house where drugs were being sold, she told Nathan, and Terrence had some paperwork to do at the jail.
“That’s our boy,” Gwinn said. “Gonna get elected sheriff yet.”
When he hung up, the reverend turned his attention again to the unwritten sermon. A light came on in his brain. Kindness for the wayfarin’ stranger. Yessir, that would do quite nicely!
They always amazed him, the mysterious workings of God did. You never knew when an answer to a problem would come right out of the blue; or, in this case, out of a gray Chevy pickup truck.
He picked up a pen, opened a Bible for reference, and began to write an outline of his message for Sunday morning.
4
The Hand of Clint
“TWO CARDS.”
“I’ll take three.”
“Two for me.”
“One card.”
“Oh, oh! I don’t like the sound of that, gents. Well, dealer’s gonna take three and see what we got.”
The poker game in the back room of Leopold’s Pool Hall, on the rough west end of Caddo Street in Shreveport, had started around two o’clock. It was now five forty-nine, according to the Regulator clock hanging on the cracked sea-green wall. Beneath a gray haze of cigarette and stogie smoke, a quintet of men regarded their cards in silence around the felt-topped table. Out where the pool tables were, balls struck together like a pistol shot, and from the aged Wurlitzer jukebox Cleveland Crochet hollered about Sugar Bee to the wail of a Cajun accordion.
The room was a hotbox. Three of the men were in shirtsleeves, the fourth in a damp T-shirt. The fifth man, however, had never removed the rather bulky jacket of his iridescent, violet-blue sharkskin suit. In respect of the heat, though, he’d loosened the knot of his necktie and unbuttoned the starched collar of his white shirt. A glass of melting ice and pale, cloudy liquid was placed near his right hand. Also within reach was a stack of chips worth three hundred and nineteen dollars. His fortunes had risen and fallen and risen again during the progress of the game, and right now he was on a definite winning jag. He was the man who’d requested one card, so sure was he that he owned a hand no one else could touch.
The dealer, a bald-headed black man named Ambrose, finally cleared his throat. “It’s up to you, Royce.”
“I’m in for five.” Royce, a big-bellied man with a flame-colored beard and a voice like a rodent’s squeak, tossed a red chip on top of the ante.
“I fold.” The next man, whose name was Vincent, laid his cards facedown with an emphatic thump of disgust.
There was a pause. “Come on, Junior,” Ambrose prodded.
“I’m thinkin’.” At age twenty-eight, Junior was the youngest of the players. He had a sallow, heavy-jawed face and unruly reddish-brown hair, sweat gleaming on his cheeks and blotching his T-shirt. He stared’ at his cards, a cigarette clenched between his teeth. His lightless eyes ticked to the player next to him. “I believe I got you this time, Mr. Lucky.”
The man in the sharkskin suit was engrossed in his own cards. His eyes were pallid blue, his face so pale the purple-tinged veins were visible at his temples. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, his body as lean as a drawn blade. His black hair was perfectly combed, the part straight to the point of obsessiveness. At the center of his hairline a streak of white showed like a touch of lightning.
“Put up or fold ’em,” Ambrose said.
“See the five and raise you ten.” The chips clattered down.
“Fifteen dollars,” the man in the sharkskin suit said, his voice so soft it neared a whisper, “and fifteen more.” He tossed the chips in with a flick of his right wrist.
“Oh, lawwwwdy!” Ambrose studied his cards with heightened interest. “Talk to me, chillen, talk to me!” He picked up his cigar stub from an ashtray and puffed on it as if trying to divine the future in smoke signals.
Nick, the pool hall’s bartender, came in while Ambrose was deliberating and asked if anybody needed their drinks freshened. Junior said he wanted another Budweiser, and Vincent said he’d have a refill of iced t
ea. The man in the sharkskin suit downed his cloudy drink in two long swallows and said, “I’ll have another of the same.”
“Uh … you sure you don’t want some sugar in that?” Nick asked.
“No sugar. Just straight lemon juice.”
Nick returned to the front room. Ambrose puffed out a last question mark and put his cards facedown. “Nope. My wife’s gone have my ass as it is.”
Royce stayed in and raised another five spot. Junior chewed his lower lip. “Damn it, I’ve gotta stay in!” he decided. “Hell, I’ll raise five to you!”
“And fifteen more,” came the reply.
“Sheeeeyit!” Ambrose grinned. “We gots us a showdown here!”
“I’m out.” Royce’s cards went on the table.
Junior leaned back in his chair, his cards close to his chest and fresh sweat sparkling on his face. He glowered long and hard at the man beside him, whom he’d come to detest in the last two hours. “You’re fuckin’ bluffin’,” he said. “I caught you last time you tried to bluff me, didn’t I?”
“Fifteen dollars to you, Junior,” Ambrose said. “What’cha gone do?”
“Don’t rush, me, man!” Junior had two red chips in front of him. He’d come into the game with over a hundred dollars. “You’re tryin’ to fox me, ain’t you, Mr. Lucky?”
The man’s head turned. The pale blue eyes fixed upon Junior, and the whispery voice said, “The name is Flint.”
“I don’t give a shit! You’re tryin’ to rob me, I figure I can call you whatever I please!”
“Hey, Junior!” Royce cautioned. “Watch that tongue, now!”
“Well, who the hell knows this guy, anyhow? He comes in here, gets in our game, and takes us all for a ride! How do we know he ain’t a pro?”
“I paid for my seat,” Flint said. “You didn’t holler when you took my money.”
“Maybe I’m hollerin’ now!” Junior sneered. “Does anybody know him?” he asked the others. Nick came in with the drinks on a tray. “Hey, Nick! You ever see this here dude before?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“So how come he just wandered in off the street lookin’ to play poker? How come he’s sittin’ there with all our damn money?”
Flint snapped the cards shut in his left hand, drank some of the fresh lemon juice, and rubbed the cold glass across his forehead. “Meet the raise,” he said, “or go home and cry to your mommy.”
Junior exhaled sworls of smoke. Crimson had risen in his cheeks. “Maybe you and me oughta go dance in the alley, what do you think about that?”
“Come on, Junior!” Ambrose said. “Play or fold!”
“Nick, loan me five dollars.”
“No way!” Nick retreated toward the door. “This ain’t no bank in here, man!”
“Somebody loan me five dollars,” Junior said to the others. This demand was met with a silence that might have made stones weep. “Five dollars! What’s wrong with you guys?”
“We don’t loan money in this room,” Ambrose reminded him. “Never have and never will. You know the house rules.”
“I’d loan it to you if you were in a tight!”
“No you wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t ask. The rule is: you play with your own money.”
“Well, it’s sure nice to know who your friends are!” Junior wrenched the cheap wristwatch off his arm and slid it in front of Flint. “Here, damn it! That’s gotta be worth fifteen or twenty bucks!”
Flint picked up the watch and examined it. Then he returned it to the table and leaned back, his cards fanned out again and resting against his chest. “Merchandise isn’t money, but since you’re so eager to walk out of here a loser I’ll grant you the favor.”
“Favor.” Junior almost spat the word. “Yeah, right! Come on, let’s see what you’ve got!”
“Lay yours down first,” Flint said.
“Glad to!” Slap went the cards on the table. “Three queens! I always was lucky with the women!” Junior grinned, one hand already reaching out to rake in the chips and his watch.
But before his hand got there, it was blocked by three aces.
“I was always smart at poker,” Flint said. “And smart beats lucky any day.”
Junior’s grin evaporated. He stared at the trio of aces, his mouth crimping around the cigarette.
Flint scooped up the chips and put the wristwatch into his inside coat pocket. While Nick didn’t loan money, he did sell poker chips. It was time, Flint knew, to cash in and be on his way. “That does it for me.” He pocketed the rest of his winnings and stood up. “Thank you for the game, gentlemen.”
“Cheater.”
“Junior!” Ambrose snapped. “Hush up!”
“Cheater!” Junior scraped his chair back and rose to his feet. His sweating face was gorged with blood. “You cheated me, by God!”
“Did I?” Flint’s eyes were heavy-lidded. “How?”
“I don’t know how! I just know you won a few too many hands today! Oh, yeah, maybe you lost some, but you never lost enough to put you too far behind, did you? Nosir! You lost just to keep us playin’, so you could set me up for this shit!”
“Sit down, Junior,” Vincent told him. “Some people gotta win, some gotta lose. That’s why they call it gamblin’.”
“Hell, can’t you see it? He’s a pro is what he is! He came in here off the street, got in our game, and made fools outta every damn one of us!”
“I see,” Ambrose said wearily, “that it’s almost six o’clock. Honey’ll skin my butt if I don’t get home.”
“Gone skin your butt anyhow for losin’ that paycheck,” Royce said with a high giggle.
“Humility keeps me an honest man, my friends.” Ambrose stood up and stretched. “Junior, that look on your face could scare eight lives out of a cat. Forget it now, hear? You can’t win every day, or it wouldn’t be no fun when you did.”
Junior watched Flint, who was buttoning his jacket. Beneath Flint’s arms were dark half-moons of sweat. “I say that bastard cheated! There’s somethin’ not right about him!”
Flint suddenly turned, took two strides forward, and his face and Junior’s were only inches apart. “I’ll ask you once more. Tell me how I cheated, sonny boy.”
“You know you did! Maybe you’re just slicker’n owl shit, but I know you cheated somehow!”
“Prove it,” Flint said, and only Junior saw the faint smile that rippled across his thin-lipped mouth.
“You dirty sonofa—” Junior hauled back his arm to deliver a punch, but Ambrose and Royce both grabbed him and pulled him away. “Lemme go!” Junior hollered as he thrashed with impotent rage. “I’ll tear him apart, I swear to God!”
“Mister,” Ambrose said, “it might be best if you don’t come ’round here again.”
“I wasn’t plannin’ on it.” Flint finished off his lemon juice, his face impassive. Then he turned his back on the other men and walked out to the bar to cash in his chips. His stride was as slow and deliberate as smoke drifting. While Nick was counting the money, Junior was escorted to the street by Ambrose, Vincent, and Royce. “You’ll get yours, Mr. Lucky!” was Junior’s parting shot before the door closed.
“He flies off the handle sometimes, but he’s okay.” Nick laid the crisp green winnings in Flint’s pale palm. “Better not walk around with that kinda cash in this neighborhood.”
“Thank you.” He gave Nick a twenty. “For the advice.” He started walking toward the door, his hand finding the car keys in his pocket, and over the zydeco music on the jukebox he heard the telephone ring.
“Okay, hold on a minute. Hey, your name Murtaugh?” Nick called.
Flint stopped at the door, dying sunlight flaring through the fly-specked windows. “Yes.”
“It’s for you.”
“Murtaugh,” Flint said into the phone.
“You seen the TV in the last half hour?” It was a husky, ear-hurting voice: Smoates, calling from the shop.
“No. I’ve been busy.”
“Well, wrap up your bidness and get on over here. Ten minutes.” Click, and Smoates was gone.
Even as six o’clock moved past and the blue shadows lengthened, the heat was suffocating. Flint could smell the lemon juice in his perspiration as he strode along the sidewalk. When Smoates said ten minutes, he meant eight. It had to be another job, of course. Flint had just brought a skin back for Smoates this morning and collected his commission — forty percent — on four thousand dollars. Smoates, who was the kind of man who had an ear on every corner and in every back room, had told him about the Thursday afternoon poker game at Leopold’s, and with some time to kill before going back to his motel Flint had eased himself into what had turned out to be child’s play. If he had any passion, it was for the snap of cards being shuffled, the clack of spinning roulette wheels, the soft thump of dice tumbling across sweet green felt; it was for the smells of smoky rooms where stacks of chips rose and fell, where cold sweat collected under the collar and an ace made the heartbeat quicken. Today’s winnings had been small change, but a game was a game and Flint’s thirst for risk had been temporarily quenched.
He reached his ride: a black 1978 Cadillac Eldorado that had seen three or four used car lots. The car had a broken right front headlight, the rear bumper was secured with burlap twine, the passenger door was crumpled in, and the southern sun had cracked and jigsawed the old black paint. The interior smelled of mildew and the chassis moaned over potholes like a funeral bell. Flint’s appetite for gambling didn’t always leave him a winner; the horses, greyhounds, and the casinos of Vegas took his money with a frequency that would have terrified an ordinary man. Flint Murtaugh, however, could by no stretch of the imagination be called ordinary.