Wolf Whistle (11 page)

Well, so that was a load off his mind. Everybody was cold, stone dead. In the dream Solon was dead, too, of course, but he could still see the whole scene and know that he had done the right thing.

So it surprised him that when he woke up, found out he was not only not dead but that he seemed to have been having a completely different dream from the one he thought he was having, and this one, the one in his waking
head, was not even about himself and his family. He seemed to be having a dream about the Montberclairs.

They were in the Mexican house. Solon saw the great trees, the birdbaths and fountains and pools, the sun porches and Mexican furniture and framed pictures of horses, the pure white rooms and glass tables.

Sally Anne Montberclair seemed to have fixed up a little room of her own, a former utility room, off the main carport. Had it been only this morning that Solon visited in this home? It seemed so long ago.

Sally Anne's narrow little bed was arranged neatly along one wall of the room, and the bed was made up with an Indian blanket of some kind, with geometric designs woven in, in bright colors. The blanket was turned back in a casual way to reveal a triangle of the taut, white sheet. At the head of the bed lay two fat, clean pillows with white pillowcases.

A portable typewriter with a clean page of typing paper sat on a low table. A small, simple, red-painted ladder-back chair that Sally Anne had bought for herself in Mexico was pulled up to the typewriter table, and that was where Sally Anne was now sitting. There were a few other things that you could tell belonged only to her as well, including a handmade basket with a book in it that Solon somehow knew to be her diary.

Poindexter Montberclair had read the diary. That's what
this scene was all about. He picked up the diary and accused her with it, a book bound in red leather, and then he flung it back into the basket.

She said, “I should have told you. I was going to tell you.”

Sally Anne Montberclair looked really scared.

He said, “You were going to tell me. Oh, well, that's fine, that's just fine, that makes it all right, then, doesn't it? When were you going to tell me?”

She said, “I don't know. I've been praying about it. I was trying to choose a good time to tell you.”

He said, “You've been praying about it. That's rich, Sally Anne, that's really rich.”

What the diary told Poindexter was that Sally Anne had slept with another man. It just came right out and said it, described it, in fact, you didn't have to read between the lines.

A younger man at that, ten years younger than Sally Anne, a kid. He played the organ on Sundays in the Episcopal church, St. George by the Lake. In her diary, Sally Anne compared the two of them, this kid and her husband, and said that sex with this other man was like a whole different experience, that nothing could ever be so good. She went on and on about fucking this boy. She said she had never felt so filled up with goodness, it was an aesthetic experience, time stood still, it was spiritual, goddamn.

Poindexter carried the Luger in the front of his pants, as usual.

She said, “Poindexter, I do want to talk about this, if you want to. You deserve that much, and more. But please, you'll have to put the gun away, won't you? Please put the gun in your drawer until we finish talking. You're scaring me.”

Poindexter said, “How many times, bitch?”

She said, “That's not fair. It just isn't. You can't expect me to answer questions like that.”

What really galled the living shit out of Poindexter Montberclair was that the boy who was fucking his wife was a known homosexual. Biggest goddamn queer Arrow Catcher, Mississippi, ever produced, and it had produced a few. In a town the size of Arrow Catcher, not much escaped the notice of its citizens.

The boy's name was Hoyty-Toyty McCarty, that's what they called him, Poindexter didn't know his real name, puny little cocksucker with pale skin and pale hair and known to have a dick like a goddamn Mexican donkey. Just nobody knew he was using it on married women. Or maybe everybody did. Maybe everybody in Arrow Catcher knew except Poindexter.

He said, “How many times?”

She said, “A few. I don't know. Not many.”

He said, “How many?”

Sally Anne was trembling, she was scared not to answer.

She said, “Do you mean, how many different
occasions,
or how many times on each occasion?”

Poindexter said, “Jesus Christ!”

She said, “Really, Dexter, that gun makes me nervous.”

He said,
“Occasions!
Oh, Jesus, Sally Anne, how could you do this to me!”

He took the gun out of his pants and pointed it at her. One time in Korea when he was a cavalry scout, second lieutenant, he sprayed automatic-rifle fire into some dense brush around a stand of baobab trees outside of a jungle village called Sing Tu and killed eight people before he even saw anything move. That was the drill, that was the way it was done, preventative action, shoot first, ask questions later.

After he stopped shooting, he heard some groaning, so he opened up again until the groaning stopped. He told a sergeant and a couple of younger boys to drag them out by their feet. Now, right now!

Half of the dead were men in uniforms, half of them, he didn't know, kids, old folks. Any one of them could have killed him. He remembered that his rifle barrel was hot as a firecracker, you could light a cigarette on it.

The other soldiers looked at Lieutenant Montberclair with something like awe.

The sergeant said, “Jesus, Lieutenant, I didn't see a thing.”

They thought he had known what he was doing.

Lieutenant Montberclair held the rifle barrel up to his lips and blew the smoke away, or pretended to, and when he did, his breath across the barrel made a little whistling sound, wheeee. He flashed them his big, bright southern smile.

He said, “Sharp eye, sergeant, sharp eye,” and winked. He said this in his southern way, “Shop eye, sah-junt, shop eye,” for increased effect.

In Sally Anne's little room, he held the pistol against Sally Anne's forehead until it made a little red ring on the skin between her eyes. He said, “How many more were there? I don't mind killing you, I don't mind killing you in the least, so let's just have a few answers, all right, Sally Anne? How many more did you fuck?”

She said, “Dexter, honey, please, don't do this.”

He said, “Open your mouth, Sally Anne, like you opened it for all those men's cocks.”

He slipped the pistol barrel between her teeth.

Solon Gregg didn't know how Lord Montberclair had found him here in the Arrow Hotel. Maybe he went by Solon's house and found out from his wife. Maybe the Arrow Hotel was only the obvious place for a person at the end of the line, like Solon, to wind up.

Anyway, when he finally started to come to a little bit, out of this heavy sleep, he realized that Lord Montberclair must have been standing in the room talking to him for some time. The story Lord Montberclair was telling him, about Sally Anne's adulteries, had gotten mixed up into Solon's dreams. He wondered what he had missed, which parts he had added. He wondered if it was true that the Episcopal organist was really a queer, Hoyty-Toyty McCarty. He heard it often enough, but you never can tell, you don't want to jump to conclusions about people and their preferences. People are all time claiming somebody's queer and they ain't. Still, Solon had always admired the way that young man looked, and talented, too.

At first Solon thought Lord Montberclair was asking him to murder Hoyty-Toyty McCarty for him, the organist. That was the distinct impression Solon was receiving about the gist of this whole conversation, though he was willing to admit he might have missed a few of the subtler points.

But no, he wont, that wont it at all. Lord Montberclair was asking Solon to murder the little nigger, the sassy-mouth boy in Red's Goodlookin Bar and Gro. this morning, Bobo. Now wasn't that something? Make a mistake like that. Solon figured he better listen up a little bit, try to get caught up on this here conversation before he commenced to offering any strong opinions of his own.

Lord Montberclair was drunk. Even Solon could smell
him, halfway across the room. Brandy, and a lot of it. He must have been drunk, too, when he was pointing that Luger at his wife.

Solon himself had started to sober up a little bit, and his stomach was feeling a little queasy. And a familiar feeling was coming back to him.

He was feeling like if he didn't do something soon, kill somebody, something, almost anything, to make meaning out of all this pain of his, and his baby boy laying up in a bed looking like an Egyptian mummy, well, he just didn't know what would happen to him, he didn't know how he was going to endure one more minute on this awful planet Earth.

Poindexter said, “You said he bragged about fucking a white woman, didn't you, isn't that what you said.”

Solon said, “That's right.”

Poindexter said, “You said he had a white woman's picture in his wallet, didn't you, isn't that right?”

Solon said, “That's right.”

Poindexter said, “He made lewd remarks to Sally Anne, and they drove off together in my car.”

Solon said, “That's right.”

Poindexter said, “Wolf-whistled at her.”

Solon said, “That's right.”

Poindexter said, “I need a man like you, Solon.”

Solon said, “You do?”

Poindexter said, “Decent whitefolks have always needed the likes of you.”

Solon said, “They have?”

Poindexter said, “We need people like you to help keep our niggers in line.”

Solon said, “Well—”

Poindexter said, “That's how I see it, Solon, don't you agree? Isn't that how you see it?”

Solon said, “Well—”

Poindexter said, “It gives you lower classes, you white-trash boys, some
raison d'être,
wouldn't you say so?”

Solon said, “Pretty much, yeah, I guess so.”

Poindexter said, “You know what pisses me off the most, though? You know what makes me want that little son-of-a-bitch hurt, really bad hurt?”

Solon said, “What's that?”

Poindexter said, “It's him carrying that white girl's picture around in his pocket. I got to thinking about that.”

Solon said, “Uh-huh.”

Poindexter said, “I got to thinking about that picture in his wallet. What's a nigger doing with a wallet anyway, you know?”

Solon said, “Well—”

Poindexter said, “You don't have a wallet do you, Solon? You yourself probably don't have a wallet, am I right?”

Solon said, “I been meaning to get one.”
Poindexter said, “So you see? Do you see the arrogance involved here? He's got a wallet, in the first place, and now we find out about the picture?”

Solon said, “Uh-huh.”

Poindexter said, “The point is, though, the picture, see? That's worse than fucking her, carrying her picture around in his pocket—wouldn't you agree?”

Solon said, “I guess it is, yeah.”

Poindexter said, “I wouldn't want Hoyty-Toyty McCarty carrying a picture of Sally Anne around in his pocket.”

Solon said, “Well—”

Poindexter said, “I'm getting off the point, though, Solon. I'm rambling a little. I had a cocktail before I came over here, to calm my nerves, do you understand that?”

Solon said, “A cocktail, you bet.”

Poindexter said, “Carrying that picture around with him was as much as saying he owned that girl. Not just fucked her, Solon, owned her, like a wife.”

Solon said, “Uh-huh.”

Poindexter said, “That's what irks me so bad. That's what lets me know that this can't be allowed to stand unpunished.”

Solon said, “And you're saying you think I'm the man for the job.”

Poindexter said, “Well, yes, of course. It's the order of things, more or less.”

Solon said, “It's my role in life to keep the niggers in line for you rich people.”

Poindexter said, “It's not money, Solon. It's
quality.”

Solon said, “I see.”

Poindexter said, “You'll do it then? Wonderful! That's fine. I knew you wouldn't let me down.”

Solon said, “Okay, I'll do it. I'll take care of him for you. Pistol-whip his ass in an inch of his life.”

Lord Montberclair said, “Splendid!”

Solon was making plans of his own. First thing was, he planned to ask Lord Montberclair for five hundred dollars, not a cent less.

Solon said, “You ain't heard whose pitcher that boy was carrying around in his pocket, have you?”

Poindexter said, “What do you mean?”

Solon said, “I just wondered did you know whose pitcher the nigger was toting in his wallet, is all, just a matter of curiosity, didn't mean nothing.”

Poindexter said, “It was his white girlfriend, wasn't it? Isn't that what you told me? I just assumed it was his girlfriend from Chicago.”

Solon said, “Well, could be, could be, I didn't get a good look at the pitcher my ownself.”

Poindexter said, “Well, but who else could it be? What are you saying here, Solon?”

Solon said, “Ain't none of me saying something. Me, I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering if that pitcher in the nigger's wallet wont some local girl. Some white lady from right around town, here.”

Lord Montberclair said, “I want him dead. I want to see that nigger dead.”

Solon said, “Uh-huh.”

Lord Montberclair said, “I'll pay you a thousand dollars.”

Solon fingered the pistol beneath the sheet.

He said, “I don't know about that.”

Lord Montberclair said, “What else do you want? It's all the money I can offer.”

Solon said, “I ain't got no car. Cain't make no successful getaway without a getaway car.”