Sailor & Lula (34 page)

“What the fuck you lookin' at, buster?” she said.

Sailor lowered his leg and looked behind him. He was the only spectator. He turned back to the woman.

“Thanks for the wake-up,” he said, and went back inside his room.

The screaming ceased and Sailor limped over to the washbasin, where he rinsed his face, brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He pulled on his clothes and went out. There was no sign of the battling women, only a neck-high smear of blood on the wall.

The morning air was warm and foggy. Sailor headed for Rod's, a 24-hour cafe on Ursulines Street just off Decatur in the Quarter. He bought an early edition of the
Times-Picayune
from a machine, thinking he'd check out the job opportunities. Sitting at the counter in Rod's, Sailor ordered chicory coffee and a Spanish omelette. He lit up his first Camel of the day and opened the paper. There on the lower right of the front
page was the heading, BOY VISITING CITY IS KIDNAPPED. Sailor read the article that followed.

“You got a directory here?” Sailor asked the fry cook.

“On the floor behind you,” he said, without turning around. “Under the phone.”

Sailor flipped to the section listing residents of Metairie, and found BOYLE BOB LEE AND BEANY . . . 833 CHARITY . . . 555-4956. He put in a coin and dialed.

“Hello?” said Bob Lee.

“This is Sailor Ripley, Pace's daddy. Is Lula there?”

“Hold the phone.”

Sailor dropped his cigarette and stepped on it.

“Sailor?! Is it really you?”

“Oh, peanut, yes! It's me! I'm in N.O. I just read about Pace in the paper.”

“Please come here now, Sail. I don't know what to do.”

“Don't do nothin', honey. I'm comin', your Sailor's comin'!”

Sailor hung up and ran out of the cafe. The fry cook heard the screen door slam, scooped up the half-done omelette from the grill and tossed it in the trash.

“Mrs. Fortune?”

“Speakin'.”

“This is Beany Boyle, in New Orleans? Lula's friend. Used to be I was Beany Thorn?”

“I remember you. Why are you callin' me? Has somethin' happened to Lula?”

“No, ma'am, not to Lula, but I got some terrible news.”

“Go on.”

“Pace been kidnapped, Mrs. Fortune. We was all takin' a walk in the park and the boys, Pace and my son, Lance, took off outta Lula's and my sight—I was carryin' my baby, Madonna Kim?—and someone snatched Pace.”

“I knew somethin' awful'd happen if Lula left home! Put her on the line!”

“She's kinda out of it right now, Mrs. Fortune. She asked me to call you.”

“You put Lula on the line right now, dammit!”

“I really can't, she's too broke up to talk to you. The police are handlin' it and Sailor's here.”

“
He
's there?! Satan takes a holiday!”

Marietta hung up.

“Mrs. Fortune? Mrs. Fortune, are you there?”

Beany hung up.

As soon as she'd cut Beany off, Marietta dialed Santos's private number. A man answered on the third ring.

“Bayou Enterprises.”

“This is Marietta Pace Fortune, Clyde Fortune's widow. I got to speak to Marcello Santos right away! It's urgent!”

“Wait,” the man said.

Two minutes later, Santos came on the line.

“Yes, Marietta. How pleasant to hear from you.”

“Marcello, somethin' real
un
pleasant's happened. My grandboy,
Pace—you met him at my birthday party. Remember, he asked you about your thumb?”

“I do.”

“He's been kidnapped, in New Orleans!”

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday, I believe. I just got the call. You gotta help find him! Lula's there and that horrible Sailor Ripley's with her. I'm gonna be about flat outta my mind in a New York minute!”

“Calm yourself, Marietta. I will do everything I can, of course. As it happens, I am about to leave very shortly for New Orleans. Before I go, I will contact people there who may be able to help. I will call you from Louisiana as soon as I have any information.”

“He's my only grandchild, Marcello! Lula knew how to raise him, this wouldn'ta happened.”

“Do you know how the kidnap occurred?”

“Someone stole Pace out of a park is all I know.”

“The police have been notified?”

“I suppose, yes. But you gotta get him back for me, Marcello, please!”

“I will make a call right away. Do you want me to send someone to stay with you?”

“No, no, I'll get Dal. You need the number where Lula's at?”

“It won't be necessary. Goodbye, Marietta. We will talk again very soon.”

“I appreciate this, Marcello. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't so important.”

“I know, Marietta, I understand. Goodbye.”

Marietta called Dal next.

“Dal? Pace been kidnapped in New Orleans by God knows who and Sailor's there reattachin' himself to Lula! Can you believe my life?! Who'd I kill, Dal? I ask you! What'd I do to deserve this?”

“Slow down a sec, peach. You're sayin' Pace been kidnapped and Sailor'n Lula're back together in N.O.?”

“That's it! That's the package.”

“What's bein' done?”

“I just now got off the phone with Santos. He's goin' there himself today. That slut friend of Lula's, Tap Thorn's daughter, called me, said they got the police workin' on it.”

“What'd Lula say?”

“She didn't. The Thorn girl wouldn't let her come to the phone. Said Lula was in a faint, or somethin'.”

“Wouldn't doubt it. I'll be over in a minute, Marietta. Is the back door unlocked?”

“Good, Dal, yes. Bye!”

Marietta dialed the number of Johnnie Farragut's office in Charlotte.

“JF Investigations. Farragut talkin'.”

“Crazed animal stole Pace in N.O. and Lula's back with Sailor!”

“Marietta? What?”

“Pace been kidnapped! Lula and him went to N.O. to visit Tap Thorn's most irresponsible child, the one married a alligator wrestler, and now Sailor's there, too!”

“Have they called the police?”

“ ‘Course they have. I called Santos soon as I heard, and he's sendin' in the troops. Johnnie, I tell you, it's another trial! Clyde burned to death, Lula run off with a robber and killer, now my precious grandbaby been taken!”

“I'm comin', Marietta. Take me two and a half hours. You call Dal yet?”

“She's on her way.”

“Good. I'm leavin' now.”

Marietta hung up, staggered into the front room, where only a few days before Pace had unwrapped her birthday presents, and collapsed into Clyde's worn old leather armchair. She heard the back door open and close.

“Marietta? Where are you?”

“In here, Dal.”

Dalceda Delahoussaye came in, dropped to the floor, and hugged Marietta's knees.

“Oh, Marietta, I'm so sorry. This is a nightmare.”

“I ain't certain there's a God, Dal, I never been convinced. But one thing I do know, there's a Devil, and he don't never quit.”

Elmer's room was ten feet by ten feet. There were two windows, both of which were half-boarded over and nailed shut; a sink; a single bed; one cane armchair; a small dresser with a mirror attached; and a writing table with a green-shaded eagle-shaped lamp on it. The one closet was empty because Elmer had no clothes other than the ones he wore. He had been meaning to buy some new pants and shirts, but he kept forgetting. Elmer foreswore shoes; they interfered with the electrical power he absorbed from the earth through his feet. In one corner was a pile about two feet high of canned food, mostly Campbell's Pork and Beans and Denison's Chili. On the dresser were two half-gallon plastic containers of spring water and a Swiss Army knife that contained all of the necessary eating untensils plus a can opener. There was no garbage in the room, no empty cans or bottles. Elmer disliked refuse; as soon as he had finished with something, he got rid of it, depositing it in a container on the street.

Pace slept on the bed. Elmer sat in the cane armchair, twirling his hat on the toes of his left foot and looking at the illustrations in his favorite book,
The Five Chinese Brothers
. His mother, Alma Ann, had read this story to him countless times and Elmer knew every word of it by heart. This was fortunate, because Elmer could not read. He'd tried, both in the two years he'd attended school and with Alma Ann, but for some reason he found it impossible to recognize the letters of the alphabet in combination with each other. Elmer had no difficulty identifying them individually, but set up together the way they were in books and newspapers and on signs and other things confused him. He had taken
The Five Chinese Brothers
with him from the farm and he looked at the pictures in it while reciting the story to himself several times a day. Elmer was anxious to show the book to his friend, but he would wait until he was certain Pace was really his friend. Alma Ann had told Elmer that sharing something, even a book, was the greatest gift one human being could bestow upon another. It was very important, she said, to have complete and utter faith in the sharer, to know that he or she would share in return. Elmer was not yet sure of this friend, since he had never had one
other than Alma Ann, though he hoped that he and Pace would become perfect companions.

The five Chinese brothers were identical to one another, and they lived with their mother. They had no father. One brother could swallow the sea; another had an iron neck; another could stretch his legs an unlimited distance; another could not be burned; and another could hold his breath forever. Elmer recited the story softly to himself as he looked at the pictures, twirling his engineer's cap for a few minutes on one foot, then switching it to the other. The Chinese brother who could swallow the sea went fishing one morning with a little boy who had begged to accompany him. The Chinese brother allowed the boy to come along on the condition that he obey the brother's orders promptly. The boy promised to do so. At the shore, the Chinese brother swallowed the sea and gathered some fish while holding the water in his mouth. The boy ran out and picked up as many interesting objects that had been buried under the sea as he could. The Chinese brother signaled for his companion to return but the boy did not pay attention to him, continuing to hunt for treasures. The Chinese brother motioned frantically for him to come back, but his little friend did not respond. Finally the Chinese brother knew he would burst unless he released the sea, so he let it go and the boy disappeared. At this point in the story, Alma Ann had always stopped to tell Elmer that this boy had proven not to be the Chinese brother's perfect friend.

The Chinese brother was arrested and condemned to have his head severed. On the day of the execution he asked the judge if he could be allowed to go home briefly and say goodbye to his mother. The judge said, “It is only fair,” and the Chinese brother who could swallow the sea went home. The brother who returned was the brother with an iron neck. All of the people in the town gathered in the square to see the sentence carried out, but when the executioner brought down his sword, it bent, and the Chinese brother's head remained on his shoulders. The crowd became angry and decided that he should be drowned. On the day of his execution the Chinese brother asked the judge if he could go home and bid his mother farewell, which the judge allowed. The brother who returned was the one who was capable of stretching his legs. When he was thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean, he rested his feet on
the bottom and kept his head above water. The people again became angry and decided that he should be burned.

On the day of the execution, the Chinese brother asked the judge for permission to go home to say goodbye to his mother. The judge said, “It is only fair.” The brother who returned was the one who could not catch on fire. He was tied to a stake and surrounded by stacks of wood that caught fire when lit, but the Chinese brother remained unscathed. The people became so infuriated that they decided he should be smothered to death. On the day of his execution, the Chinese brother requested that he be allowed to go home to see his mother. The judge said, “It is only fair,” and of course the brother who returned was the one who could hold his breath indefinitely. He was shoveled into a brick oven filled with whipped cream and the door was locked tight until the next morning. When the door was opened and the Chinese brother emerged unharmed, the judge declared that since they had attempted to execute him four different ways, all to no avail, then he must be innocent, and ordered the Chinese brother released, a decision supported by the people. He then went home to his mother with whom he and his brothers lived happily ever after.