"Just a rat, Mr Gradie."
"Well, I"m sure glad to hear that."
"Right you are, Mr Gradie." He started to hang up.
"Jon, what else I was wanting to talk to you about though, was to ask you if you really wanted that mantel we was talking about today."
"Well, Mr Gradie, I"d sure as h.e.l.l like to buy it, but it"s a little too rich for my pocketbook."
"Jon, you"re a good old boy. I"ll sell it to you for a hundred even."
"Well now, sir-that"s a fair enough price, but a hundred dollars is just too much money for a fellow who has maybe ten bucks a week left to buy groceries."
"If you really want that mantel-and I"d sure like for you to have it-I"d take seventy-five for it right now tonight."
"Seventy-five?"
"I got to have it right now tonight. Cash."
Mercer tried to think. He hadn"t paid rent this month. "Mr Gradie, it"s one in the morning. I don"t have seventy-five bucks in my pocket."
"How much can you raise, then?"
"I don"t know. Maybe fifty."
"You bring me fifty dollars cash tonight, and take that mantel home."
"Tonight?"
"You bring it tonight. I got to have it right now."
"All right, Mr Gradie. See you in an hour."
"You hurry now," Gradie advised him. There was a clattering fumble, and on the third try he managed to hang up.
"Who was that?"
Mercer was going through his billfold. "Gradie. Drunk as a skunk. He needs liquor money, I guess. Says he"ll sell me the mantel for fifty bucks."
"Is that a bargain?" She towelled her hair petulantly.
"He"s been asking one-fifty. I got to give him the money tonight. How much money do you have on you?"
"Jesus, you"re not going down to that place tonight?"
"By morning he may have sobered up, forgotten the whole deal."
"Oh Jesus. You"re not going to go down there."
Mercer was digging through the litter of his dresser for loose change. "Thirty-eight is all I"ve got on me. Can you loan me twelve?"
"All I"ve got is a ten and some change."
"How much change? There"s a bunch of bottles in the kitchen-I can return them for the deposit. Who"s still open?"
"Hugh"s is until two Jon, we"ll be broke for the weekend. How will we get to the mountains?"
" Ron owes us twenty for his half of the ounce. I"ll get it from him when I borrow his truck to haul the mantel. Monday I"ll dip into the rent money-we can stall."
"You can"t get his truck until morning. Ron"s working graveyard tonight."
"He"s off in six hours. I"ll pay Gradie now and get a receipt. I"ll pick up the mantel first thing."
Linda rummaged through her shoulder bag. "Just don"t forget."
"It"s probably going to rain anyway."
*V*
The storm was holding off as Mercer loped toward Gradie"s house, but heat lightning fretted behind reefs of cloud. It was a dark night between the filtered flares of lightning, and he was very conscious that this was a bad neighborhood to be out walking in with fifty dollars in your pocket. He kept one hand shoved into his jeans pocket, closed over the double-barrelled derringer, and walked on the edge of the street, well away from the concealing mounds of kudzu. Once something scrambled noisily through the vines; startled, Mercer almost shot his foot off.
"Who"s there!" The voice was cracked with drunken fear.
"Jon Mercer, Mr Gradie! Jon Mercer!"
"Come on into the light. You bring the money?"
"Right here ." Mercer dug a crumpled wad of bills and coins from his pocket. The derringer flashed in his fist.
"Two shots, huh?" Gradie observed. "Not enough to do you much good. There"s too many of them."
"Just having it to show has pulled me out of a couple bad moments," Mercer explained. He dumped the money onto Gradie"s shaky palm. "That"s fifty. Better count it, and give me a receipt. I"ll be back in the morning for the mantel."
"Take it now. I"ll be gone in the morning."
Mercer glanced sharply at the other man. Gradie had never been known to leave his yard unattended for longer than a quick trip to the store. "I"ll need a truck. I can"t borrow the truck until in the morning."
Gradie carelessly shoved the money into a pocket, bent over a lamplit end table to scribble out a receipt. In the dusty glare, his face was haggard with shadowy lines. DT"s, Mercer guessed: he needs money bad to buy more booze.
"This is travelling money-I"m leaving tonight." Gradie insisted. His breath was stale with wine. "Talked to an old boy who says he"ll give me a good price for my stock. He"s coming by in the morning. You"re a good old boy, Jon-and I wanted you to have the mantel if you wanted it."
"It"s two a.m.," Mercer suggested carefully. "I can be here just after seven."
"I"m leaving tonight."
Mercer swore under his breath. There was no arguing with Gradie in his present state, and by morning the old man might have forgotten the entire transaction. Selling out and leaving? Impossible. This yard was Gradie"s world, his life. Once he crawled up out of this binge, he"d get over the w.i.l.l.i.e.s and not remember a thing from the past week.
"How about if I borrow your truck?"
"I"m taking it."
"I won"t be ten minutes with it." Mercer cringed to think of Gradie behind the wheel just now.
Eventually, he secured Gradie"s key to the aged Studebaker pickup in return for his promise to return immediately upon unloading the mantel. Together they worked the heavy mahogany piece onto the truck bed-Mercer fretting at each threatened sc.r.a.pe against the rusted metal.
"Care to come along to help unload?" Mercer invited. "I got a bottle at the house."
Gradie refused the bait. "I got things to do before I go. You just get back here soon as you"re finished."
Grinding dry gears, Mercer edged the pickup out of the kudzu-walled yard, and clattered away into the night.
The mantel was really too heavy for the two of them to move-Mercer could handle the weight easily enough, but the bulky piece needed two people. Linda struggled gamely with her end, but the mantel sc.r.a.ped and scuffed as they lowered it from the truck bed and hauled it into the house. By the time they had finished, they both were sticky and exhausted from the effort.
Mercer remembered his watch. "Christ, it"s two-thirty. I"ve got to get this heap back to Gradie."
"Why don"t you wait till morning? He"s probably pa.s.sed out cold by now."
"I promised to get right back to him."
Linda hesitated at the doorway "Wait a second. I"m coming."
"Thought you"d had enough of Gradie"s place."
"I don"t like waiting here alone this late."
"Since when?" Mercer laughed, climbing into the pickup.
"I don"t like the way the kudzu crawls all up the back of the house. Something might be hiding..."
Gradie didn"t pop out of his burrow when they rattled into his yard. Linda had been right, Mercer reflected- the old man was sleeping it off. With a pang of guilt, he hoped his fifty bucks wouldn"t go toward extending this binge; Gradie had really looked bad tonight. Maybe he should look in on him tomorrow afternoon, get him to eat something.
"I"ll just lookin to see if he"s okay," Mercer told her. "If he"s asleep, I"ll just leave the keys beside him."
"Leave them in the ignition," Linda argued. "Let"s just go."
"Won"t take a minute."
Linda swung down from the cab and scrambled after him. Fitful gushes of heat lightning spilled across the crowded yard-picking out the junk-laden stacks and shelves, crouched in fantastic distortions like a Dantesque vision of h.e.l.l. The darkness in between bursts was hot and oily, heavy with moisture, and the subdued rumble of thunder seemed like gargantuan breathing.
"Be lucky to make it back before this. .h.i.ts," Mercer grumbled. The screen door was unlatched. Mercer pushed it open.
"Mr Gradie?" he called softly-not wishing to wake the old man, but remembering the shotgun. "Mr Gradie? It"s Jon."
Within, the table lamps shed a dusty glow across the cluttered room. Without, the sporadic glare of heat lightning popped on and off like a defective neon sign. Mercer squinted into the pools of shadow between cabinets and shelves. Bellies of curved gla.s.s, shoulders of polished mahogany smouldered in the flickering light. From the walls, gla.s.s eyes glinted watchfully from the mounted deer"s heads and stuffed birds. "Mr Gradie?"
"Jon. Leave the keys and let"s go."
"I"d better see if he"s all right."
Mercer started toward the rear of the house, then paused a moment. One of the gla.s.s-fronted cabinets stood open; it had been closed when he was here before. Its door snagged out into the cramped aisle-s.p.a.ce; Mercer made to close it as he edged past. It was the walnut cabinet that housed Gradie"s wartime memorabilia, and Mercer paused as he closed it because one exhibit was noticeably missing: that of the monkeylike skull that was whimsically labeled "j.a.p General"s Skull."
"Mr Gradie?"
"Phew!" Linda crinkled her nose. "He"s got something scorching on the stove!"
Mercer turned into the kitchen. An overhead bulb glared down upon a squalid confusion of mismatched kitchen furnishings, stacks of chipped, unwashed dishes, empty cans and bottles, scattered remnants of desiccated meals. Mercer winced at the thought of having drunk from these same grimy gla.s.ses. The kitchen was deserted. On the stove an overheated saucepan boiled gouts of sour steam, but for the moment Mercer"s attention was on the kitchen table.
A s.p.a.ce had been cleared by pushing away the debris of dirty dishes and stale food. In that s.p.a.ce reposed a possum-jawed monkey"s skull, with the yellowed label: "j.a.p General"s Skull."
There was a second skull beside it on the table. Except for a few clinging tatters of dried flesh and greenish fur-the other was bleached white by the sun-this skull was identical to Gradie"s j.a.panese souvenir: a high-domed skull the size of a large, clenched fist, with a jutting, sharp-toothed muzzle. A baboon of some sort, Mercer judged, picking it up.
A neatly typed label was affixed to the occiput: "Unknown Animal Skull. Found by Fred Morny on Grand Ave. Knoxville, Tenn. 1976."
"Someone lost a pet," Mercer mused, replacing the skull and reaching for the loose paper label that lay beside the two relics.
Linda had gone to the stove to turn off its burner. "Oh, G.o.d!" she gagged, recoiling from the steaming saucepan.
Mercer stepped across to the stove, followed her sickened gaze. The water had boiled low in the large saucepan, scorching the repellent broth in which the skull simmered. It was a third skull, baboonlike, identical to the others.
"He"s eating rats!" Linda retched.
"No," Mercer said dully, glancing at the freshly typed label he had scooped from the table. "He"s boiling off the flesh so he can exhibit the skull." For the carefully prepared label in his hand read: "Kudzu Devil Skull. Shot by Red Gradie in Yard, Knoxville, Tenn. June 1977"
"Jon, I"m going. This man"s stark crazy!"
"Just let me see if he"s all right," Mercer insisted. "Or go back by yourself."
"G.o.d, no!"
"He"s probably in his bedroom then. Fell asleep while he was working on this... this..." Mercer wasn"t sure what to call it. The old man had seemed a bit unhinged these last few days.
The bedroom was in the other rear corner of the house, leading off from the small dining room in between. Leaving the glare of the kitchen light, the dining room was lost in shadow. No one had dined here in years, obviously, for the area was another of Gradie"s storerooms-stacked and double-stacked with tables, chairs and bulky items of furniture. Threading his way between the half-seen obstructions, Mercer gingerly approached the bedroom door-a darker blotch against the opposite wall.
"Mr Gradie? It"s Jon Mercer."
He thought he heard a weak groan from the darkness within.
"It"s Jon Mercer, Mr Gradie," he called more loudly. "I"ve brought your keys back. Are you all right?"
"Jon, let"s go!"
"Shut up, d.a.m.n it! I thought I heard him try to answer."
He stepped toward the doorway. An object rolled and crumpled under his foot. It was an empty shotgun sh.e.l.l. There was a strange sweet-sour stench that tugged at Mercer"s belly, and he thought he could make out the shape of a body sprawled half out of the bed.
"Mr Gradie?"
This time a soughing gasp, too liquid for a snore.