Delusion Page 8

  “No thanks.”

  “How about some breakfast?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m not talkative at the moment.”

  That wasn’t good enough. Nell pulled up a chair, sat beside her, but before she could begin, she noticed that Norah had the paper—the Guardian—open to a story with the headline DUPREE HEARING SCHEDULED. Nell leaned forward.

  BY LEE ANN BONNER, GUARDIAN REPORTER

  Despite the death of key witness Napoleon Ferris, the Alvin DuPree hearing is still scheduled to take place, according to the court clerk for presiding judge Earl Roman. To be sure, the absence of Ferris, shot in what Sheriff Solomon Lanier of Stonewall County has labeled “most likely a gang conflict,” is seen as considerably reducing DuPree’s chances. According to a veteran court observer who asked to remain anonymous, those chances are now “slim to none.” Nevertheless, Susannah Upton, associate counsel to the Justice Project, said in response to a reporter’s question that “we are going forward with every expectation that this innocent man who has suffered so unjustly will be freed at last.” The hearing is scheduled for Monday at—

  Norah’s shadow fell across the page. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s all so sudden,” Nell said. She began the story, leading with Little Parrot Cay, scrapping that and starting all over with the hurricane.

  Norah covered her mouth. “Are you saying he didn’t do it after all?”

  “I’m saying the opposite. He did it. This tape is some kind of mistake.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You know all this.” Nell had told Norah everything over the years, but in pieces, adding the last one—how Johnny died—when Norah was nine or ten. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “But what if you were wrong?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Everybody makes mistakes,” Norah said. “Because you wouldn’t do something like that on purpose, would you, Mom?”

  “Norah? What are you saying?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Norah’s eyes were unreadable behind the sunglasses.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Nell said. “Explain yourself.”

  “I’m a bastard child,” said Norah. “That’s the only explanation for such as I.”

  Nell felt strange—faint, angry, scared, all at once. “What is that supposed to mean? Are you saying I’ve done you harm?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Norah said. Was that a tear leaking down from under her sunglasses?

  “What’s bothering you, Norah?” Nell said. “Did something happen at school? You weren’t…” She took a wild guess. “…taken advantage of, or anything like that, were you?”

  “Like raped, you mean?”

  Nell felt sick. She nodded.

  “Then say raped, instead of taken advantage of. That sounds so lame.”

  “Raped,” Nell said. The word came out much too loud. She saw her own face reflected in the sunglasses, fear undisguised.

  “No,” Norah said. “I wasn’t raped. Or date-raped or anything at all. Nothing bad happened—guys are pretty careful when they find out your stepfather’s a cop.”

  “Why do you call him that—stepfather?”

  “It’s accurate.”

  “But you never used to—you’ve always called him Dad.”

  Norah shrugged.

  “And you’ve always been such a good student,” Nell said. “You love history.”

  Norah did not explain.

  Some kids just need a little more time to find themselves; making them lost until they did. Nell had never thought of Norah that way, but she said, “I’m here to help.”

  “Great,” said Norah.

  Saturday night, Duke Bastien threw a party on the Bastiens’ compound on Lake Versailles, a few miles northwest of town.

  “Ooo,” said Duke’s latest girlfriend, Vicki something-or-other. “Don’t you love pig roasts?”

  A waiter appeared with champagne before Nell had to answer.

  “And champagne!” said Vicki, sweeping two glasses off the tray. “You people sure know how to have fun.”

  “Us people?” Nell said.

  “Southerners,” said Vicki. “I’m from New Jersey, but you know something?”

  “What?”

  Vicki downed one of the glasses. “I feel so at home here. Like totally.” She looked around, taking in the huge main houses—Kirk’s the one with the observation tower—the guesthouses, the sloping lawns, tennis court, speedboats at the dock, and Duke coming toward them, a big smile on his face.

  “Hi, darlin’,” he said.

  “Hi,” said Vicki.

  But he was talking to Nell. “Hear you ran into my brother, Kirk, the other day. He’s embarrassed, big-time.”

  “Why?” Nell said.

  Duke spotted Kirk not far away, talking to a fat man with white hair in a George Jones–style cut. He waved Kirk over. The fat man followed, drink in one hand, cigar in the other.

  Duke grabbed his brother’s shoulder, pulled him close. They looked a lot alike, big, blond, blue-eyed; Duke the original, Kirk an imperfect copy, features a little bloated, hair and eyes lighter, almost unpigmented.

  “Bro,” said Duke. “Let’s hear a nice apology to Nellie, here.”

  Kirk blinked. “Apology to Nellie?”

  “For the Parish Street mess.”

  Kirk gazed at his brother, mouth open, even paling a little.

  “Come on, bro,” Duke said. “You’re the mayor.”

  “Oh, right,” said Kirk. He turned to Nell. “It’s all cleaned up now. I feel just…mortified you had to see something like that.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

  “Very nice of you to say that, but the buck stops here,” Kirk said. “I reamed out the DPW guys pretty good, I can tell you. The good news is I had the health inspector down there and the bayou water tested fine—actually better’n before the hurricane. Flushed out all the toxins, he said.”

  Then what about the dead fish? Nell left that thought unspoken. This was a party, after all, and she had been raised a certain way.

  The fat man stepped forward. He wore a red blazer and a yellow tie with a scales-of-justice motif in green. “Aren’t you boys going to introduce me to these lovely young ladies?”

  “Only if you promise to behave,” Duke said.

  The fat man laughed; rather uproariously considering the slightness of the joke, unless Nell was missing something. His drink sloshed over the rim of his glass, golden-brown whiskey. He licked it off his hand.

  “This is Vicki,” Duke said.

  “Duke’s girlfriend,” said Kirk, “so don’t you be getting any ideas.”

  “Fiancée,” said Vicki.

  “And this is Nell Jarreau.”

  “Chief’s wife?” said the fat man.

  Duke nodded.

  “Damn,” the fat man said. “Both taken.”

  “Not your lucky day,” Duke said. “Ladies, meet Judge Earl Roman.”

  Nell got a little dizzy, although she’d had no more than two or three sips of champagne. Was there something wrong with this, meeting the man who was going to handle the DuPree hearing? If so, she couldn’t identify it logically, and so was left with just the untethered feeling of something wrong.

  The judge stuck his cigar in his mouth, offered his free hand for shaking; the unlicked hand, so it could have been worse.

  “A real live judge?” said Vicki. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Liveliest judge in the state,” said the judge, shaking Nell’s hand, and holding on much too long. His skin was hot, almost feverish. “May I say, ma’am, what a fine fine job your husband is doing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not to mention his good fortune in matrimony.” The cigar bobbed up and down between his lips, smoke drifting onto Nell’s face.

  She pulled her hand free. “He’s tied up at the offi
ce,” she said. “Should be along any minute.”

  “One hardworking SOB,” said the judge. “Need more like him around these parts, am I right, Duke?”

  “Always,” said Duke. “That’s why you’re a judge.”

  Everybody laughed, the judge most of all. His round face went bright red; for a moment, as he gasped for air, Nell thought he might have a heart attack.

  “But that’s not why I’m a judge,” he said, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his red blazer. “Y’all want to know the real reason I’m a judge?”

  “More than anything, your honor,” said Kirk.

  Nell heard sarcasm in Kirk’s tone; so did his brother, who shot him a quick look. But the judge showed no sign of having caught it.

  “Goes way back to my early days in the practice of law,” he said, “during the time I spent as a PD.”

  “You?” said Kirk. “A public defender?”

  The judge’s eyes, narrow to begin with, narrowed more. “Do I detect a little surprise there, Mr. Mayor?”

  “Forgive the gaps in my brother’s knowledge of local history, judge,” Duke said. “A lot of people in town, myself included, remember your work back then.”

  “Why, thank you, Duke,” said the judge. He drained the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, licked his lips. “Had me a client—now don’t forget I’m fresh out of law school, still a baby—client name of Tatiana LaRue.” His eyes, very watery all of a sudden, shifted to Vicki, settled on Nell. “Lady of the night, was Miss LaRue, of the higher type. Normally the soul of discretion, but on this particular occasion, she’d approached a judge—whose name won’t pass my lips although he’s acceded to the great bench in the sky.” The judge chuckled. “Great bench in the sky,” he repeated.

  “A good one, judge,” said Duke.

  “Now, this judge was only human, like the rest of us, and he fell for temptation. Fell twice on the evening in question, if I can put it that way, but insisted on paying only for the once. In short, a contractual dispute. A contractual dispute that spilled out onto the street in front of Miss LaRue’s abode, Miss LaRue buck naked at the time. At that very moment, wouldn’t you know, of all people on God’s green earth, along comes Reverend—”

  A waiter went by carrying a tray of drinks. The judge twisted around to grab one, but missed, his momentum spinning him in a half circle. He reached for the back of a chair to steady himself, missed that, too, lost his balance and fell headfirst against the edge of a glass tabletop, his cigar pinwheeling into the night. There was a horrible cracking sound and then the judge lay still, blood spreading on the flagstones overlooking Duke’s barbecue pit.

  Vicki covered her mouth.

  Nell knelt beside the judge, heard him breathing.

  Kirk said, “What a useless fuck.”

  Duke’s voice rose. “Kirk. Dr. Hirsch is here somewhere.”

  “Want me to find him?”

  Nell looked up in time to catch Duke glaring at his brother.

  Later that night, Nell felt Clay’s hand on her back. She rolled over, said, “Mmm.”

  His voice was quiet. “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Always.”

  He kissed her mouth, her neck, moved down. Then came a few timeless minutes she spent in a place without thought, rationality, cognition or anything else but pleasure, growing more focused and expanding simultaneously.

  After, he said, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Norah?”

  “We’ll have a nice long talk. She’ll come around.”

  They lay like spoons, intimate in every way. Nell heard water running in the pipes, thought: she’s up. She checked the time on the bedside clock. The eyes of Caravaggio’s Fortune Teller came to her mind, unbidden and unreadable.

  CHAPTER 10

  Pirate dreamed about God. God thundereth marvellously with his voice. Pirate heard God’s thundering in his dreams and was not afraid. Why? Because great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength. The great rain of his strength: Pirate slept to the sound of the great rain, God driving the deluge on and on. Picturing God was easy—a whirlwind with an unseen face inside. It poured and poured but Pirate was warm and dry on his bunk.

  “Hey, you alive in there? Wake fuckin’ up.”

  Pirate rolled over, sat up, saw the big guard with the modified dreads, whose normal voice was soft, but not today.

  “And put that goddamn patch on. No one wants to look at you like that.”

  Pirate felt around on the bunk, found the patch. Sometimes it slipped off in the night; that had never been a problem with anyone before.

  “Come on, shake a leg,” said the guard, still sounding angry, maybe even angrier.

  Pirate got his patch in place. “I didn’t put in for it,” he said.

  “What you talkin’ about?”

  “Protective custody. I don’t want it.”

  “Protective custody? Shit. Get a move on.”

  “Where?” said Pirate. “Where am I going?”

  “Court. Forgot your own hearing?”

  “I didn’t, uh—”

  “Move, for Christ’s sake. It’s a long drive.”

  “Where, um—”

  “Belle Ville—where d’you think?”

  “Leaving the…the building?”

  “Goin’ senile or something?”

  Leaving the building: this was bad. Pirate didn’t even like leaving his cell without the tiny weapon. “Need a minute,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Just to, uh, clean up a little.”

  “Clean up? Ain’t no job interview.”

  Pirate’s hands got unsteady. This was bad. All he wanted was to be at peace. Then he had a thought. “Respect for the court,” he said.

  The guard gazed at him. This wasn’t one of the hard-ass guards, but his gaze today was hard-ass as the most hard-ass. “One minute,” he said, and moved down the block.

  Pirate took less than half of that to get the tiny weapon from the secret hideout and stick it in place; cutting himself just the littlest bit on account of that unsteadiness in his hands. He was at the soup-bowl-size sink, splashing cold water on his face—there was no hot—when the guard returned. The door slid open.

  “Raise ’em up,” said the guard.

  Pirate raised his arms, spread his legs, exposed his anus, went through the whole routine.

  “Move.”

  Pirate picked up his Bible.

  “Who said anything about that?”

  “Just my Bible.”

  The guard made a move to grab it, a move that slowed down, became a more respectful taking. He held Pirate’s Bible by the spine, gave a shake. Nothing fell out; the gold tassel looped free, that was all. The guard handed back the Bible.

  They walked down the block, past the rat cages.

  “Adios,” said one of the rats.

  Adiós meant good-bye; also had God in it. Pirate was still thinking about that—the guard on his blind side, but there was nothing Pirate could do—when they left the block, crossed a patch of dirt near the kitchens and entered a room Pirate had never seen.

  More guards. Some Pirate knew and some he didn’t, but all were at their meanest. Why?

  “What’s he’s got there?”

  “Bible.”

  “Who said he gets to take that?”

  The guards looked at one another. A phone call went out somewhere; Pirate thought he heard the words “warden’s office.” His Bible must have been important if the warden was getting involved. Word came back.

  “Bible okay, but it can’t be in his possession until transfer to court custody.”

  A guard took the Bible. Then they handcuffed him, hooked the cuffs to a waist chain, shackled his ankles.

  “See you soon, Pirate,” a guard said.

  Pirate shuffled out a door,
across another dirt patch, into the back of a white van with DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS on the side. The double doors closed. Bolts clicked into place. The van started rolling, the driver and two guards, one with the Bible, in front, Pirate alone in back. There were two small windows and soon Pirate caught a glimpse of countryside going by, his first glimpse of countryside since…since the only other time he’d been outside the walls, the brief hospital visit after Esteban Malvi scooped out his eye. Pirate watched the countryside through the small windows. Once he spotted a woman in shorts and a T-shirt, walking by the side of the road. He kept a lookout for more to appear, but none did. After a while, he fell asleep. The sound of great rain rose up all around.

  “Hey. Wake up.”

  Pirate opened his eye. The van wasn’t moving. One of the guards stood before him.

  “On your feet.”

  Pirate rose, checking that his patch was in place. He shuffled to the open doors, sat on the edge of the steel floor, bumping down awkwardly—he felt a tiny stab in his non-eye—swung his feet outside and slid down, stumbling, but not falling, as he landed on the pavement of a parking lot.

  “Move.”

  Pirate walked across the parking lot, a guard on either side. They went down some steps, through a basement doorway, into a room with two cells at the back, both empty.

  “Inside.”

  Pirate went into one of the cells. The door closed. Keys jingled, locking him in. The guards left the room. Pirate sat on a bunk, much like his own. He smelled coffee, real brewed coffee, not far away. Pirate hadn’t drunk real brewed coffee in twenty years. He took a deep deep breath.

  A door opened. People came in: his two guards in their tan uniforms, some others in blue; and behind them someone he knew—the woman with the amazing skin. Susannah, her last name almost coming to him. She walked right over to his cell.

  “Hello Mr. DuPree. Everything all right?”

  “Hi, Miss, uh, Susannah.”

  All at once her eyes narrowed. She whirled around, faced those guards and cops. “Why is he shackled?” she said.

  A man in blue, three yellow stripes on his sleeve, said, “Standard procedure.”

  “It may be standard procedure here, Sergeant, but it’s also entirely discretionary, according to state code. I want them off—cuffs, shackles, chain.”