Thrown-away Child

like to me he was minding his own business.”
    “Devil business!”
    “Yes... Well, I see how it must have been most troubling for you.”
    “What’d you think if you was to see a convict in your own neighbor backyard?”
    “More importantly, what did Newcombe think?“
    “Oh, that old cripple, he a fool. Three-quarters of the time, he just about half-delirious. I got to run over there look after him, take him to church on Sunday and all.” Hassie shifted in the chair opposite Tilton’s desk. She uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them. She cast a disgusted look at Sister Constance. Sister returned a look in kind, then went blank again. Hassie said to Tilton, “Mr. Newcombe be delirious on account of all the painkillers he always swallowing.”
    “For his leg.”
    “Use to be a leg anyways.”
    “Regardless, I don’t recall receiving a complaint from Newcombe himself. As a matter of fact, it’s my impression that Mr. Newcombe depended on Perry Duclat—for all the work needed doing around his place.”
    “See, you been tricked! I just knew it!”
    “Who do you think’s able to trick me?”
    “Satan! Ain’t no shame to confessing that.”
    “Miss Hassie, you’re beginning to irritate me.“
    “Fm only trying to make you do the right thing-“
    “Which would be?”
    “You got to deal with Miss Violet now. She kno"
    where that nephew of hers be hiding. You got to make her give up Perry Duclat to the po-lice. He the one kil’t that Cletus Tyler, that other Angola no-account.“
    “Cletus Tyler,” said Tilton, repeating the name. He wrote it down on a desk pad.
    “It’s what the man say.”
    “How are you so sure Perry’s the killer?”
    “Just am, that’s all. And we got to do what we can toward catching him.”
    “Miss Hassie, now you know if a squad of white men with guns and badges are looking for a black man... Well, they’re going to find them a black man.” Tilton removed a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and daubed his forehead with it. “I don’t see where I can—”
    “You can call up the fear of the mysteries, that’s what you can do. Mysteries been keeping things the way they ought to be for a right long time now.” Tilton turned to the girl. He clunked his empty liquor glass on the desktop and said, “Sister, I believe I’ll have another round.” Constance Ritchie rose from her chair. Wordlessly, she stepped around to the credenza behind Tilton and picked up a crystal decanter. She poured him a drink and sat down again.
    When he put away half the Scotch, Tilton said to Hassie, “Tell me, how’s this police manhunt for Perry Duclat any of your concern?”
    “I don’t got to tell you nothing, Zeb. You just go have a talk with Violet Flagg.” Hassie stood up and Walked to the door. She turned and said, “ ’Less you I be telling everybody about you and Miss Thing- Hear?”
    Tilton laughed. The girl was expressionless.
    “Maybe the mortal truth of girl flesh ain’t enough to bring you down,” Hassie said. “But you best know I know the Lord’s truth about you…”
    Tilton laughed straight through her threats.
    “Anything happen to me, it ain’t going to prevent the Lord’s truth from being told. I got to remind y 0i how I got a certain tape recording of a conversation you and me had? Tape I got locked up somewheres for posterity?”
    Tilton stopped laughing.
    He clunked his glass on the desk again.
    Miss Thing’s eyes went wide.
    Tilton asked, “What are you saying I’m supposed to do, Hassie?”
    “Call out the spirits, I’m saying. Call out Willis Flagg, and he put everybody straight on that murdering, trouble-making Perry Duclat.”
    “What kind of trouble is Perry Duclat capable of causing anybody?”
    “Maybe he got ideas he fixing to spread around. Elsewise how come he spy on me—writing things down and all?”
    “We surely don’t want folks getting wrong ideas.“
    “That’s what I’m telling you!”
    “Wrong ideas can upset everything.”
     

TEN
     

     
    The first spooky thing a Yankee such as myself learns about the city of New Orleans is that a November afternoon can be a steamer. Not always, Ruby claimed, but sometimes.
    November, and hot? I mean sidewalks hot enough to light you up like a Lucky Strike. I mean air so thick and tight it seems as if it is drawing in on itself in preparation for a siege. This was how ungodly hot it was as we came to the final destination of Amtrak’s Crescent route.
    Ruby was a little