Tishomingo Blues (2002)

  It looked easy.

  The first time Dennis left his work and wandered over there to see what was going on, Charlie said to him, "Watch 'em. These young hotshots and farm boys come here thinking they have an arm. Watch this kid with the shoulders." Wearing his JohnDeere cap backwards. "He throws harder'n sixty mile an hour I'll kiss him on the mouth." The kid went into his stretch, brought the ball up to his chest with both hands and threw it, Dennis believed, as hard as he could. The radar screen flashed 54. Charlie said, "See?" and to the kid, "Boy, my older sister can throw harder'n that. You ever see a knuckleball? I'm gonna show you a knuckler. Look here, how you hold it with the tips of your fingers." Charlie stepped on the rubber, went into his stretch and threw a ball that seemed to float toward the tarp before it dipped into the dirt and the radar screen registered 66. Charlie said to Dennis, "They throw with their arm, you notice? 'Stead of using their whole body. You play any ball?"

  "Not once I climbed up on a diving board. I follow the American League," Dennis said. "Now and then I'll bet the Yankees, except if they're playing Detroit."

  "You're smart, you know it? How 'bout the '84 Series?"

  "Who was in it?"

  "De-troit won it off the Padres. You remember it?" No, but it didn't matter, Charlie kept talking. "I was up with the Tigers and pitched in what became the final game. Went in in the fifth and struck out the side. I got Brown and Salazar on called third strikes. I hit Wiggins by mistake, put him on, and got the mighty TonyGwynn to go down swinging at sixty-mile-an-hour knucklers. I went two and a third innings, threw twenty-six pitches and only five of 'em were balls. I hit Wiggins on a nothingand-two count, so you know I wasn't throwing at him. I come inside on him a speck too close. See, I was never afraid to come inside. I've struck out AlOliver, GormanThomas and JimRice. DarrellEvans, MikeSchmidt, BillMadlock, WillieMcGee, Don Mattingly, and I fanned WadeBoggs twice in the same game-if those names mean anything to you."

  Later on that day Billy Darwin had come out to see how Dennis was doing. By then he and Floyd Showers had put up four sections of ladder and the metal scaffolding that supported a diving board three meters above the rear side of the tank. Dennis told the boss they'd finish tomorrow and then started talking about Charlie Hoke, amazed that a man his age was still able to throw as hard as he did.

  Darwin said, "He tell you about all the big hitters he's struck out, and what he threw them?"

  "I can't believe I've never heard of him," Dennis said, and saw that hint of a superior grin Darwin used.

  "He tell you where he struck them out?"

  "Where? I don't know what you mean."

  Ask him, Darwin said.

  Dennis thought of it now looking down from his perch. Have a beer with Charlie and listen to baseball stories. He believed Charlie was still over at his pitching cage across the lawn. He hadn't seen him leave, though it was hard to tell, the wire fence dark green against a stand of trees over there. He could yell for Charlie to come out and when he appeared show him a flying reverse somersault.

  Dennis' gaze lifted from the pitching cage and the trees to a view of empty farmland reaching to hotels that seemed to have no business being there. The hotel next door invited its patrons to enjoy "Caribbean Splendor" but was called Isle of Capri. Like the Tishomingo's patio bar looked more South Seas than Indian.

  Two guys in shirtsleeves, one wearing a hat, were by the bar. Dennis hadn't noticed them before. It looked like a cowboy hat.

  When the hotel did try for Indian atmosphere-like the mural in the office reception area: Plains Indians in war bonnets hunting buffalo-they got it wrong. Charlie said Chief Tishomingo and his Chickasaws might've seen buffalo in Oklahoma, after they got shipped there, but they sure never saw any in Mississippi. Tishomingo himself never even got to Oklahoma. Charlie said he was a direct descendant of the old chief, born in Corinth over east of here, fifteen miles from the TishomingoCounty line.

  The two guys were out at the edge of the patio now, this side of the swimming pool. Yeah, it was a cowboy hat, light-colored.

  Dennis was wearing sneakers, no shirt or socks with his red trunks. He looked down to see Floyd Showers hunched over lighting one of his cigarette butts. A couple of times Dennis had found him under the scaffolding behind the tank smoking a joint. Dennis didn't say anything and neither did Floyd, didn't even offer a hit. Which didn't bother Dennis, not sure he'd toke after it'd touched Floyd's mouth.

  Floyd hardly ever spoke unless asked a question; he'd answer and that would be it. Dennis looked down at his sneakers, stepped to the edge of the perch and was looking at the lower perch halfway down, the diving board below that and the tank you aimed for, the tiny circle of water so still the tank could be empty. For the night dive he'd light the water. He'd need a dive caller, a cute girl in a bathing suit, one with the nerve to stand on the narrow walk that rested on the rim of the tank. Announce the dives and splash the water if he had trouble telling the surface from the bottom. He was thinking it would be good if you could dive wearing sneakers, and raised his eyes.

  The two guys were out on the lawn now, coming by the tank.

  The cowboy hat was that shade between white and tan, the brim rolled where he'd take hold of it. This one walked tall in what looked like cowboy boots, long legs in slim-cut black jeans, his starched-looking white shirt buttoned up and tucked in tight. His bearing, along with the sunglasses under the hat brim, gave him a straight-up military look. Or a state trooper on his day off. The other one had a smaller frame, wore his clothes loose, his shirt hanging out and what hair he had slicked back hard.

  Dennis kept waiting for them to look up; he'd give them a wave. They didn't though, they walked past the tank toward Floyd Showers, Floyd pinching his cigarette butt, looking up as the one with his hair slicked back called to him, "Floyd ... ?" and Dennis heard it the way he might hear a voice, a word, when he was at the top of his dive, bringing his legs up to go into a reverse pike ...

  "Floyd ...?

  And Floyd had that look as if caught in headlights and turned to stone, the poor guy hunched inside that suitcoat too big for him, now reaching up to hang on to a guy wire.

  It was never in Dennis' mind these guys were friends. If anything he thought the straight-shooter in the cowboy hat might produce a pair of handcuffs. It was the other one doing the talking, words Dennis couldn't make out. He watched Floyd seem to stand taller as he shook his head back and forth in denial. Now the slick-haired one drew a pistol from under his sportshirt hanging out. A long thin barrel-it looked to Dennis like a .22 target pistol called the Sportsman, or something like that. The one in the cowboy hat and trooper shades stood looking out at the grounds like this was none of his business. But then he followed once the slickhaired one took Floyd by the coat collar and brought him around back of the tank, out of view from the hotel.

  Now they were under the scaffolding, eighty feet directly below Dennis.

  He turned on the perch to face the ladder and was looking at the Mississippi River and Arkansas and a wash of color way off at the bottom of the sky losing its light. He wanted to look down but didn't want to stick his head over the top rung of the ladder and see them looking up at him. He wanted to believe they'd come all the way across the lawn from the hotel without noticing him. He wanted to dive, enter the water ten feet from them in a rip so perfect it wouldn't make a sound and then slip out of the tank and run, run like hell. He heard Floyd's voice. He heard the words "Swear to God," and heard a sound like pop from down there, a gunshot or somebody driving a nail with one blow of the hammer, a hard sound that reached him and was gone. Dennis waited, looking at Arkansas. He heard three more pops then, one after another in quick succession. There was a silence, Dennis thinking it was done, and the sound reached him again, that hard pop. A minute or so passed. He saw them come around to the side of the tank, moving away from it.

  Now they were looking up at him.

  Dennis turned enough to watch them, the two talking to each other, having a conver
sation Dennis couldn't make out until their words began to reach him, talking as they held their gaze on him.

  "You think I cain't hit him?"

  "You fire enough rounds maybe."

  This coming from the hat and sunglasses looking up at him in the gloom.

  "Shit, I bet I can hit him on the fly."

  "How much?"

  "Ten dollars. Hey, boy"-the one with his hair slicked back raising his voice-"let's see you dive."

  "Would you dive offa there?"

  Talking to each other again.

  "I'd jump."

  "Like hell."

  "I was a kid we'd jump off a bridge on the CoosaRiver."

  "How high was it, twenty feet?"

  "It wasn't high as this'n, but we'd jump off'er." He called out again, "Hey, boy, come on, dive."

  "Tell him do a somersault."

  The same thing Dennis was telling himself, a triple in a tuck, as small a target as he could make himself, hit the water and stay there. It was his only move and he had to go right now, before the one started shooting. Dennis turned to face the tank, raised his arms ... and the lights came on in the pitching cage across the way.

  First the lights and now he saw Charlie Hoke coming out on the lawn, Charlie in his white T-shirt that said LET'S SEE YOUR ARM across the front, Charlie yelling at the two guys, "The hell you bums doing here?"

  Sounding like he was calling to a couple of friends.

  They saw him. They'd turned and were walking toward him, Charlie saying, "Goddamn it-you trying to mess up my deal?"

  That was all Dennis heard.

  The three were walking toward the pitching cage now, Charlie paying attention to the one in the cowboy hat who seemed to be doing the talking. While Dennis, watching-wound tight and rooted to the perch-tried to make sense of two guys Charlie knew shooting the guy Charlie had brought to work here. They stood talking by the cage a couple more minutes. Now the two walked off toward the hotel and Charlie was coming out on the lawn again.

  About halfway to the tank he called out to Dennis, "You gonna dive or what?"

  Chapter 3

  HE DOVE, DYING TO GET OFF that perch, showed Charlie a flying reverse pike and ripped his entry without seeing the water, came up with his face raised to smooth his hair back and could hear Charlie out there clapping his hands. Dennis pulled himself up to the walk that circled the rim of the tank, rolled his body over it, hung and dropped to the ground.

  Charlie stood waiting for him in the early dark.

  "That was pretty, what I could see of it. We got to get you a spotlight."

  "Charlie, they shot Floyd." Dennis saying it and wiping his hands over his face. "They took him back there and shot him five times. The little guy. He had what looked like a twenty-two, like a target pistol." All Charlie did was nod his head and Dennis said, "Maybe he's still alive."

  That got him shaking his head. "They want him dead, that's what he is."

  "Charlie, you know those guys? Who are they?"

  Now he looked busy thinking and didn't answer.

  "The one in the cowboy hat," Dennis said, "I thought at first he was a sheriff's deputy or a state trooper."

  Charlie said, "You ought to see him with his sword. When they dress up as Confederates and refight the Civil War. But listen to me. You don't know nothing about this."

  "I don't even know what you're talking about." "Floyd. What you saw. You weren't here, so you didn't see nothing. I'm the one found the body." "You want to protect those guys?"

  "I'm keeping it simple, so neither one of us sticks our neck out."

  "What if somebody was looking out the window? They see me up on the ladder, and the two guys?" Dennis glanced toward the hotel saying it.

  "People come here to gamble," Charlie said, "not look out the window. Anybody happened to, what would they see? Nothing. It was dark."

  "It wasn't that dark."

  Charlie put his hand on Dennis' shoulder. "Come on, let's move away from here." They walked toward the hotel, Charlie saying, "You ever see anybody in the swimming pool? Hell no, they're inside there trying to get rich. I mean it, you got nothing to worry about."

  Not sounding worried himself, talking Southern in his way. It didn't help Dennis. "But you know those guys. They kill Floyd and you say to them, `You trying to mess up my deal?' "

  "I meant their hanging around here. I know 'em as the kind you don't want to be associated with. Understand, I did not know they shot Floyd till they told me. I come out, I thought they mighta stopped by to scare him, remind Floyd to keep his mouth shut is all."

  "About what?"

  "Anything. Hell, I don't know." Charlie let his breath out sounding tired of this.

  Dennis kept after him. "You said Floyd had been to prison but don't worry about it."

  They stopped at the edge of the patio.

  "I was talking about the kind of person Floyd is, or was. I told you he went to Parchman on a burglary charge. Floyd sucked up to some cons there, but they had no use for him, beat him up when they felt like it. I thought, well, since you didn't know anything about that, the kind of people he tried to associate with, there's nothing to worry about."

  "Charlie, the police, the sheriff, they're gonna ask me questions, you know that. The man worked for me."

  "He ever talk about his life? Tell you the kind of snake he was, ready to give up people to get his sentence reduced?"

  "Why would you get me a guy like that?"

  "You wanted a rigger-you think you find riggers walking down the goddamn street? Did he talk about himself or not?"

  "He hardly opened his mouth."

  "So you won't have nothing to tell, will you?"

  "Except what I saw. They start asking questions-what if I slip up, say the wrong thing?" He could tell Charlie wanted this over with and was losing his patience.

  Charlie saying, "Listen to me. I'm gonna go inside and call nine-eleven. They'll send out sheriff's people and I'll show 'em Floyd. I say I was out there looking for you and tripped over him. A homicide, the sheriff himself's likely to come, get his picture in the Tunica Times making a statement. Floyd won't be worth too much press. Before you know it it's blown over."

  "They would've shot me, too," Dennis said, not letting Charlie off the hook, "and you know it. But I'm suppose to act dumb."

  "What I heard, it sounded like they were playing with you, having some fun."

  "You weren't up there, no place to hide. Charlie, I saw 'em kill a man. I can pick 'em both out of a crowd and they know it."

  Charlie was shaking his head, the best he could do.

  "Look, I told 'em you're okay, you work for me. I told 'em you and I'll have a talk and there won't be nothing to worry about. Listen," Charlie said, "you go on home. I'll give you my keys and get a ride from somebody after."

  "What'd they say?"

  "They know I'm good for my word."

  "But what'd they say?"

  "That you better keep your mouth shut."

  "Or what?"

  "You want their exact words?" Charlie showing his irritation now. "Or they'd shoot you in the goddamn head. You know that. What're you asking me for?"

  "But I'm not suppose to worry about it. Jesus Christ, Charlie."

  Now Dennis was looking at the T-shirt in front of him, LET'S SEE YOUR ARM, and got a whiff of cigarette breath as Charlie turned to him, saying in a calmer tone of voice, "I told 'em take it easy, I'd handle it. See, I go way back with the sheriff's people." Charlie glanced toward the hotel and went on in a quieter tone. "There was a time after I lost my ninety-nine-mile-an-hour zinger and left organized ball-this was a while ago-I ran liquor down from Tennessee to dry counties around here. Some moonshine too. There's people can get all the bonded whiskey they want legally still prefer shine. Some take the jars and put peaches in 'em to set. This stuff I ran was top of the line, hardly any burn, 'cept you better drink it holding on to something or you're liable to fall and hit your head. I was pulled over now and then but never brou
ght up, as I got to know the deputies on my routes. See, these boys aren't paid much to fight crime and have to look for ways to supplement their income. There's only so much house-painting they can do. All right, they get here they're gonna recognize Floyd right away. They got sheets on him that tell of way more funny business'n I was ever in. What I'm saying is, they'll have a good idea who did it. If they want to pursue it, that'll be up to them."

  Dennis said, "This is all about running whiskey?"

  "I won't say all, no."

  "Who are those guys?"

  "I'll tell you in two words," Charlie said, "why ['m not gonna tell you any more about it." "Two words-"

  "Yeah. Dixie Mafia."

  Charlie said come on, he was going to tell Billy Darwin and then make the call. Dennis said he had to get his clothes. Charlie didn't like the idea of his going back out there. Dennis didn't either, but said he wouldn't have finished work and left his clothes there, would he? Charlie said okay, he'd give him time to get away from here before he told Billy Darwin and made the call. He said go on home, but don't tell Vernice. Get her to make you one of her toddies.

  Dennis walked out across the lawn, his wet sneakers no longer squishing, to the tank with wavy lines and the ladder standing against the night sky.

  His clothes, his jeans, T-shirt and undershorts, hung from a bar of the scaffolding head high, but not in the way of seeing Floyd Showers lying face up in his suitcoat, a dirty brown wool herringbone, Jesus, the poor guy. Dennis took time to look at him, the third dead man he'd seen up close. No, the fourth. The one in Acapulco who hit the rocks, the two amusement park workers cut down by broken cables ... He saw a lame horse shot in the head, brains draining like red Cream of Wheat. Floyd was the first one he'd seen killed by gunshot and even the ones who did it. He had spent the weekend in a holding cell with a guy who'd shot and killed a man in a bar fight, but that didn't count. It was the time in Panama City, Florida, they went through his setup truck looking for weed or whatever, and the guy in the holding cell who'd killed somebody still wanted to fight. That mean ugly kind of drunk. Dennis had to punch him out-no help from the deputies-and bang the guy's head against the cinder-block wall to settle him down. It wasn't bad enough getting hit a few times, the guy a wildman, the guy threw up on him and Dennis had to washoff his shirt and pants in the toilet bowl. He remembered being a sight Monday morning, but nothing the court hadn't seen before. When they let him go he said to a deputy, "I have to put up with all this shit and I didn't even do anything." The deputy said he'd put him back in the cell he didn't shut his mouth.