"You're cracking up."
"Yes, l am."
He finally lowered the newspaper and stabbed an egg that appeared to be covered with hot sauce. "You drove all night from Charlottesville?"
"It's only fifteen hours."
A waitress brought him coffee. "How long are those roofers planning on working?"
"They're there?"
"Oh yes. At least a dozen of them. I wanted to sleep for the next two days."
"It's those Atkins boys. They're fast unless they start drinking and fighting. Had one fall off a ladder last year, broke his neck. Got him thirty thousand in workers' comp."
"Anyway, why, then, did you hire them?"
"They're cheap, same as you, Mr. Executor. Go sleep in my office. I got a hideaway on the third floor."
"With a bed?"
Harry Rex glanced around as if the gossipmongers of Clanton were closing in. "Remember Rosetta Rhines?"
"No."
"She was my fifth secretary and third wife. That was where it all started."
"Are the sheets clean?"
"What sheets? Take it or leave it. It's very quiet, but the floor shakes. That's how we got caught."
"Sorry I asked." Ray took a long swig of coffee. He was hungry, but not ready for a feast. He wanted a bowl of flakes with skim milk and fruit, something sensible, but he'd be ridiculed for ordering such light fare in the Coffee Shop.
"You gonna eat?" Harry Rex growled at him.
"No. We need to store some stuff. All those boxes and furniture. You know a place?"
"Okay, I need a place."
"It's nothing but crap." A bite of a biscuit, one loaded with sausage, Cheddar, and what appeared to be mustard. "Burn it."
"I can't burn it, at least not now."
"Then do what all good executors do. Store for two years, then give it to the Salvation Army and burn what they don't want."
"Yes or no. Is there a storage place in town?"
"Didn't you go to school with that crazy Cantrell boy?"
"There were two of them."
"No, there were three of them. One got hit by that Greyhound out near Tobytown." A long pull of coffee, then more eggs.
"A storage place, Harry Rex."
"Testy, aren't we?"
"No, sleep-deprived."
"I've offered my love nest."
"No thanks. I'll try my luck with the roofers."
"Their uncle is Virgil Cantrell, I handled his first wife's second divorce, and he's converted the old depot into a storage warehouse."
"Is that the only place in town?"
"No, Lundy Staggs put in some of those mini-storage units west of town, but they got flooded. I wouldn't go there."
"What's the name of this depot?" Ray asked, tired of the Coffee Shop.
"The Depot." Another bite of biscuit.
"By the railroad tracks?"
"That's it." He began shaking a bottle of Tabasco sauce over the remaining pile of eggs. "He's usually got some space, even put in a block room for fire protection. Don't go in the basement, though."
Ray hesitated, knowing he should ignore the bait. He glanced at his car parked in front of the courthouse and finally said, "Why not?"
"He keeps his boy down there."
"His boy?"
"Yeah, he's crazy too. Virgil couldn't get him in Whitfield and couldn't afford a private joint, so he figured he'd just lock him up in the basement."
"You're serious?" - .
"Hell yes, I'm serious. I told him it wasn't against the law. Boy's got everythang - bedroom, bathroom, television. Helluva lot cheaper than paying rent in a nuthouse."
"What's his name?" Ray asked, digging the hole deeper.
"Little Virgil."
"Little Virgil?"
"Little Virgil." ; ,
"How old is Little Virgil?"
"I don't know, forty-five, fifty."
To Ray's great relief, no Virgil was present when he walked into the Depot. A stocky woman in overalls said Mr. Cantrell was out running errands and wouldn't be back for two hours. Ray inquired about storage space, and she offered to show him around.
Years before, a remote uncle from Texas had come to visit. Ray's mother scrubbed and polished him to the point of misery. With great anticipation they drove to the depot to fetch the uncle. Forrest was an infant and they left him at home with the nanny. Ray clearly remembered waiting on the platform, hearing the train's whistle, seeing it approach, feeling the excitement as the crowd waited. The depot back then was a busy place. When he was in high school they boarded it up, and the hoodlums used it as a hangout. It was almost razed before the town stepped in with an ill-advised renovation.
Now it was a collection of chopped-up rooms flung over two floors, with worthless junk piled to the ceiling. Lumber and wall-board were stacked throughout, evidence of endless repairs. Sawdust covered the floors. A quick walk-through convinced Ray that the place was more flammable than Maple Run.
"We got more space in the basement," the woman said.
"No thanks."
He stepped outside to leave, and flying by on Taylor Street was a brand-new black Cadillac, glistening in the early sun, not a speck of dirt anywhere, Claudia behind the wheel with Jackie O sunglasses.
Standing there in the early morning heat, watching the car race down the street, Ray felt the town of Clanton collapse on top of him. Claudia, the Virgils, Harry Rex and his wives and secretaries, the Atkins boys roofing and drinking and fighting.
Is everybody crazy, or is it just me?
He got in his car and left the Depot, slinging gravel behind. At the edge of town the road stopped. To the north was Forrest, to the south was the coast. Life would get no simpler by visiting his brother, but he had promised.
Chapter 28
Two days later, Ray arrived on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There were friends from his law school days at Tulane he wanted to see, and he gave serious thought to spending time in his old haunts. He craved an oyster po'boy from Franky & Johnny's by the levee, a muffaletta from Maspero's on Decatur in the Quarter, a Dixie Beer at the Chart Room on Bourbon Street, and chicory coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde, all of his old haunts from twenty years ago.
But crime was rampant in New Orleans, and his handsome little sports car could be a target. Lucky the thief who stole it and yanked open the trunk. Thieves would not catch him, nor would state troopers because he kept precisely at the posted limits. He was a perfect driver - obeying all the laws, closely eyeing every other car.
The traffic slowed him on Highway 90, and for an hour he crept eastward through Long Beach, Gulfport, and Biloxi, hugging the beach, past the shiny new casinos sitting at the water, past new hotels and restaurants. Gambling had hit the coast as fast as it had arrived in the farmlands around Tunica.
He crossed the Bay of Biloxi and entered Jackson County. Near Pascagoula, he saw a flashing rented sign beckoning travelers to stop in for All-You-Can-Eat-Cajun, just $13.99. It was a dive but the parking lot was well lit. He cased it first and realized he could sit at a table in the window and keep an eye on his car. This had become his habit.
There were three counties along the Gulf. Jackson on the east and bordering Alabama, Harrison in the middle, and Hancock on the west next to Louisiana. A local politician had succeeded nicely in Washington and kept the pork flowing back to the shipyards in Jackson County. Gambling was paying the bills and building the schools in Harrison County. And it was Hancock, the least developed and populated, that Judge Atlee had visited in January 1999 for a case that no one back home knew about.