The afternoon was hot and sodden. The sun made the air above the pavement scintillant with heat and the thick odor of tar. In the vacant lots, the kudzu leaves drooped like half-furled umbrellas. The vines stirred somnolently in the musky haze, although the air was stagnant.
Linda had changed into a halter top and a pair of patched cutoffs. "Bet I"ll get some tan today."
"And maybe get soaked," Mercer remarked. "Air"s got the feel of a thunderstorm."
"Where"s the clouds?"
"Just feels heavy."
"That"s just the G.o.dd.a.m.n pollution."
The kudzu vines had overrun the sidewalk, forcing them into the street. Tattered strands of vine crept across the gutter into the street, their tips crushed by the infrequent traffic. Vines along Gradie"s fence completely obscured the yard beyond, waved curling tendrils aimlessly upward. In weather like this, Mercer reflected, you could just about see the stuff grow.
The gate hung again at first push. Mercer shoved harder, tore through the coils of vine that clung there.
"Who"s that?" The tone was harsh as a saw blade hitting a nail. "Jon Mercer, Mr Gradie. I"ve brought a friend along."
He led the way into the yard. Linda, who had heard him talk about the place, followed with eyes bright for adventure. "This is Linda Wentworth, Mr Gradie."
Mercer"s voice trailed off as Gradie stumbled out onto the porch. He had the rolling slouch of a man who could carry a lot of liquor and was carrying more liquor than he could. His khakis were the same he"d had on when Mercer last saw him, and had the stains and wrinkles that clothes get when they"re slept in by someone who hasn"t slept well.
Red-rimmed eyes focused on the half-gallon of burgundy Mercer carried. "Guess I was taking a little nap." Gradie"s tongue was muddy. "Come on up."
"Where"s Sheriff?" Mercer asked. The dog usually warned his master of trespa.s.sers.
"Run off," Gradie told him gruffly. "Let me get you a gla.s.s." He lurched back into the darkness.
"Owow!" breathed Linda in one syllable. "He looked like something you see sitting hunched over on a bench talking to a bottle in a bag."
"Old Gradie has been hitting the sauce pretty hard last few times I"ve been by," Mercer allowed.
"I don"t think I care for any wine just now," Linda decided, as Gradie reappeared, fingers speared into three damp gla.s.ses like a bunch of mismatched bananas. "Too hot."
"Had some beer in the Frigidaire, but it"s all gone."
"That"s all right." She was still fascinated with the enclosed yard. "What a lovely garden!" Linda was into organic foods.
Gradie frowned at the patch of anemic vegetables, beleaguered by encroaching walls of kudzu. "It"s not much, but I get a little from it. d.a.m.n kudzu is just about to take it all. It"s took the whole d.a.m.n neighborhood-everything but me. Guess they figure to starve me out once the vines crawl over my little garden patch."
"Can"t you keep it hoed?"
"Hoe kudzu, miss? No d.a.m.n way. The vines grow a foot between breakfast and dinner. Can"t get to the roots, and it just keeps spreading till the frost; then come spring it starts all over again where the frost left it. I used to keep it back by spraying it regular with 2.4-D. But then the government took 2.4-D off the market, and I can"t find nothing else to touch it."
"Herbicides kill other things than weeds," Linda told him righteously.
Gradies"s laugh was bitter. "Well, you folks just look all around as you like."
"Do you have any old clothes?" Linda was fond of creating costumes.
"Got some inside there with the books." Gradie indicated a shed that shouldered against his house. "I"ll unlock it."
Mercer raised a mental eyebrow as Gradie dragged open the door of the shed, then shuffled back onto the porch. The old man was more interested in punishing the half-gallon than in watching his customers. He left Linda to poke through the dusty jumble of warped books and faded clothes, stacked and shelved and hung and heaped within the tin-roofed musty darkness.
Instead, he made a desultory tour about the yard-pausing now and again to examine a heap of old hubcaps, a stack of salvaged window frames or a clutter of plumbing and porcelain fixtures. His deviousness seemed wasted on Gradie today. The old man remained slumped in a broken-down rocker on his porch, staring at nothing. It occurred to Mercer that the loss of Sheriff was bothering Gradie. The old yellow watchdog was about his only companion after Morny"s death. Mercer reminded himself to look for the dog around campus.
He ambled back to the porch. A glance into the shed caught Linda trying on an oversized slouch hat. Mercer refilled his gla.s.s, noted that Gradie had gone through half the jug in his absence. "All right if I look at some of the stuff inside?"
Gradie nodded, rocked carefully to his feet, followed him in. The doorway opened into the living room of the small frame house. The living room had long since become a warehouse and museum for all of Gradie"s choice items. There were a few chairs left to sit on, but the rest of the room had been totally taken over by the treasures of a lifetime of scavenging. Gradie himself had long ago been reduced to the kitchen and back bedroom for his own living quarters.
China closets crouched on lion paws against the wall, showing their treasures behind curved gla.s.s bellies. Paintings and prints in ornate frames crowded the spider webs for s.p.a.ce along the walls. Mounted deer"s heads and stuffed owls gazed fixedly from their moth-eaten poses. Threadbare oriental carpets lay in a great mound of bright-colored sausages. Mahogany dinner chairs were stacked atop oak and walnut tables. An extravagant bra.s.s bed reared from behind a gigantic Victorian buffet. A walnut bookcase displayed choice volumes and bric-a-brac beneath a signed Tiffany lamp. Another bedroom and the dining room were virtually impenetrable with similar storage.
Not everything was for sale. Mercer studied the magnificent walnut china cabinet that Gradie reserved as a showcase for his personal museum. Surrounded by the curving gla.s.s sides, the mementos of the junk dealer"s lost years of glory reposed in dustless grandeur. Faded photographs of men in uniforms, inscribed snapshots of girls with pompadours and padded-shoulder dresses. Odd items of military uniform, medals and insignia, a brittle silk square emblazoned with the Rising Sun. Gradie was proud of his wartime service in the Pacific.
There were several hara-kiri knives-so Gradie said they were-a Nambu automatic and holster, and a Samurai sword that Gradie swore was five hundred years old. Clippings and souvenirs and odd bits of memorabilia of the Pacific theatre, most bearing yellowed labels with painstakingly typed legends. A fist-sized skull-obviously some species of monkey-bore the label: "j.a.p General"s Skull."
"That general would have had a muzzle like a possum," Mercer laughed. "Did you find it in j.a.pan?"
"Bought it during the Occupation," Gradie muttered. "From one little Nip, said it come from a mountain-devil."
Despite the heroic-sounding labels throughout the display-"Flag Taken from Captured j.a.p Officer"-Mercer guessed that most of the mementos had indeed been purchased while Gradie was stationed in j.a.pan during the Occupation.
Mercer sipped his wine and let his eyes drift about the room. Against one wall leaned the mahogany mantel, and he must have let his interest flicker in his eyes.
"I see you"re still interested in the mantel," Gradie slurred, mercantile instincts rising through his alcoholic lethargy.
"Well, I see you haven"t sold it yet."
Gradie wiped a trickle of wine from his stubbled chin. "I"ll get me a hundred-fifty for that, or I"ll keep it until I can get me more. Seen one like it, not half as nice, going for two hundred, place off Chapman Pike."
"They catch the tourists from Gatlinburg," Mercer sneered.
The mantel was of African mahogany, Mercer judged-darker than the reddish Philippine variety. For a miracle only a film of age-blackened lacquer obscured the natural grain-Mercer had spent untold hours stripping layers of cheap paint from the mahogany panel doors of his house.
It was solid mahogany, not a veneer. The broad panels that framed the fireplace were matched from the same log so that their grains formed a mirror image. The mantelpiece itself was wide and st.u.r.dy, bordered by a tiny bal.u.s.trade. Above that stretched a fine bevelled mirror, still perfectly silvered, flanked by lozenge-shaped mirrors on either side. Ornately carved mahogany candlesticks jutted from either side of the mantelpiece, so that a candle flame would reflect against the bevelled lozenges. More matched-grain panels continued ceilingward above the mirrors, framed by a second bal.u.s.traded mantelshelf across the top. Mercer could just about touch it at fullest stretch.
Exquisite, and easily worth Gradie"s price. Mercer might raise a hundred of it-if he gave up eating and quit paying rent for a month or three.
"Well, I won"t argue it"s a beauty," he said. "But a mantel isn"t just something you can buy and take home under your arm, brush it off and stick it in your china closet-that"s furniture. Thing like this mantel is only useful if you got a fireplace to match it with."
"You think so," Gradie scoffed. "Had a lady in here last spring, fine big house out in west Knoxville. Said she"d like to antique it with one on those paint kits, fasten it against a wall for a stand to display her plants. Wanted to talk me down to one-twenty-five, though, and I said "no ma"am.""
Linda"s scream ripped like tearing gla.s.s.
Mercer spun, was out the door and off the porch before he quite knew he was moving. "Linda!"
She was scrambling backward from the shed, silent now, but her face ugly with panic. Stumbling, she tore a wrinkled flannel jacket from her shoulders, with revulsion threw it back into the shed.
"Rats! " she shuddered, wiping her hands on her shorts. "In there under the clothes! A great big one! Oh, Jesus!"
But Gradie had already burst out of his house, shoved past Mercer-who had pulled short to laugh. The shotgun was a rust-and-blue blur as he lunged past Linda. The shed door slammed to behind him.
"Oh, Jesus!"
The boom of each barrel, megaphoned by the confines of the shed, and, in the finger-twitch between each blast, the shrill chitter of pain.
"Jon!"
Then the hysterical cursing from within, and a m.u.f.fled stomping.
Linda, who had never gotten used to Mercer"s guns, was clawing free of his rea.s.suring arm. "Let"s go! Let"s go!" She was kicking at the gate, as Gradie slid back out of the shed, closing the door on his heel.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n big rat, miss," he grinned crookedly "But I sure done for him."
"Jon, I"m going!"
"Catch you later, Mr Gradie," Mercer yelled, grimacing in embarra.s.sment. "Linda"s just a bit freaked."
If Gradie called after him, Mercer didn"t hear. Linda was walking as fast as anyone could without breaking into a run, as close to panic as need be. He loped after her.
"Hey, Linda! Everything"s cool! Wait up!"
She didn"t seem to hear. Mercer cut across the corner of a weedlot to intercept her. "Hey! Wait!"
A vine tangled his feet. With a curse, he sprawled headlong. Flinching at the fear of broken gla.s.s, he dropped to his hands and knees in the tangle of kudzu. His flailing hands slid on something bulky and foul, and a great swarm of flies choked him.
"Jon!" At his yell, Linda turned about. As he dove into the knee-deep kudzu, she forgot her own near-panic and started toward him. "I"m okay! " he shouted. "Just stay there. Wait for me."
Wiping his hands on the leaves, he heaved himself to his feet, hid the revulsion from his face. He swallowed the rush of bile and grinned.
Let her see Sheriff"s flayed carca.s.s just now, and she would flip out.
*IV*
Mercer had drawn the curtains across the cas.e.m.e.nt windows, but Linda was still reluctant to pose for him. Mercer decided she had not quite recovered from her trip to Gradie"s.
She sneered at the unshaded floor lamp. "You and your morning sunlight."
Mercer batted at a moth. "In the morning we"ll be off for the mountains." This, the bribe for her posing. "I want to finish these d.a.m.n figure studies while I"m in the mood."
She shivered, listened to the nocturnal insects beat against the curtained panes. Mercer thought it was stuffy, but enough of the evening breeze penetrated the cracked cas.e.m.e.nts to draw her nipples taut. From the stairwell arose the scratchy echoes of the Fleetwood Mac alb.u.m-Mercer wished Linda wouldn"t play an alb.u.m to death when she bought it.
"Why don"t we move into the mountains?"
"Be nice." This sketch was worse than the one this morning "No," Her tone was sharp. "I"m serious."
The idea was too fanciful, and he was in no mood to argue over another of her whims tonight. "The bears would get us."
"We could fix up an old place, maybe. Or put up a log cabin."
"You"ve been reading Foxfire Book too much."
"No, I mean it! Let"s get out of here!"
Mercer looked up. Yes, she did seem to mean it. "I"m up for it. But it would be a bit rough for getting to cla.s.s. And I don"t think they just let you homestead anymore."
"Screw cla.s.ses!" she groaned. "Screw this grungy old dump! Screw this dirty G.o.dd.a.m.n city!"
"I"ve got plans to fix this place up into a d.a.m.n nice townhouse," Mercer reminded her patiently. "Thought this summer I"d open up the side windows in here-tear out this lousy sheet-rock they nailed over the openings. Gradie"s got his eye out for some cas.e.m.e.nt windows to match the ones we"ve got left."
"Oh Jesus! Why don"t you just stay the h.e.l.l away from Gradie"s!"
"Oh, for Christ"s sake!" Mercer groaned. "You freak out over a rat, and Gradie blows it away."
"It wasn"t just a rat."
"It was the Easter bunny in drag."
"It had paws like a monkey."
Mercer laughed. "I told you this gra.s.s was well worth the forty bucks an ounce."
"It wasn"t the gra.s.s we smoked before going over."
"Wish we didn"t have to split the bag with Ron," he mused, wondering if there was any way they might raise the other twenty.
"Oh, screw you!"
Mercer adjusted a fresh sheet onto his easel, started again. This one would be Pouting Model, or maybe Uneasy Girl. He sketched in silence for a while. Silence, except for the patter of insects on the windows, and the tireless repet.i.tions of the record downstairs.
"I just want to get away from here," Linda said at last.
In the darkness downstairs, the needle caught on the scratched grooves, and the stereo mindlessly repeated: "So afraid... So afraid... So afraid... So afraid..."
By one a.m., the heat lightning was close enough to suggest a ghost of thunder, and the night breeze was gusting enough to billow the curtains. His sketches finished-at least, as far as he cared-Mercer rubbed his eyes and debated closing the windows before going to bed. If a storm came up, he"d have to get out of bed in a hurry. If he closed them and it didn"t rain, it would be too muggy to sleep. Mechanically he reached for his coffee cup, frowned glumly at the drowned moth that floated there.
The phone was ringing.
Linda was in the shower. Mercer trudged downstairs and scooped up the receiver.
It was Gradie, and from his tone he hadn"t been drinking milk. "Jon, I"m sure as h.e.l.l sorry about giving your little lady a fright this afternoon."
"No problem, Mr Gradie. Linda was laughing about it by the time we got home."
"Well, that"s good to hear, Jon. I"m sure glad to hear she wasn"t scared bad."
"That"s quite all right, Mr Gradie."
"Just a G.o.dd.a.m.n old rat, wasn"t it?"