Thrown-away Child

know?”
    “It’s an old story I’ve seen play out a few times.”
    “I give Perry money for the train to go see his mama up in New York. I say give, since loan is a word Perry never heard about.”
    “He found her?”
    “In a Harlem whorehouse. The boy come back here hurt as bad as I ever seen anybody hurt. Perry he didn’t talk to nobody for months. Then we got this letter. The New York City health department writes me as next of kin, saying Rose Duclat’s about to be buried someplace called Hart Island unless I claim the body.”
    “What was the cause of death?”
    “Overdose of heroin.” A tear rolled down Mama’s eye. She wiped it away. “With my husband sick like he was, we didn’t have a spare dollar in the house. No way I could fetch home a body from a thousand miles up in New York, not even for my onliest sister. Poor Rose. Well, that’s a old story, too, I suppose.“
    “I suppose.”
    “What’s that Hart Island place?” Mama asked.
    “Potter’s field, New York style.”
    We looked up from our crab shucking to the window. The sky rumbled from somewhere far off. “Rain’s going to be coming faster than you imagine now,” Mama said. “That’s Louisiana style. Be a little gray and windy for a spell, but that don’t last long. Things grow still as a dead dog, then the sky go fiercely black. Then the rain come down hard as a Bible story.”
     

TWENTY
     

    Perry looked up at the darkening sky through an open flap bullets had made in the shed roof. He laughed, and sighed, “Every coffin has a silver lining.” Rain came, as fast as the thought of rain.
    Perry scooted across the ground on his haunches, out of the way of a cold stream that shot through the roof like tap water pouring out from a broken spigot. The dirt floor quickly soaked up the rain, until it grew overly saturated. Perry watched silted water rise slowly, spreading higher and higher through the shed.
    He could not sleep here. Worms would be drawling up from the damp earth below to get air from the surface of the soil, and this would attract rats. Perry would sooner face gunfire again than rats.
    But where to sleep? No point in crossing over to Algiers. If Toby had heard the news of Clete’s murder, he would call up the police and turn in his own son. Aunt Vi’s house? The police would be watching the place close.
    …Wait! Why not the least likely place?
    Perry waited until the last light of day gave over to the purple shadows of a New Orleans night, and until the rain eased into a fine drizzle. He then pushed open the shed door and crawled outside.
    One good thing about the rain. Most people would be settled into their homes and unlikely to venture out for the rest of the evening. This made walking the streets as a wanted man ever so much easier.
    He started walking west along Chartres Street toward the Quarter. Perry figured the police had posted everything from Tchoupitoulas Street north along the levee. He was shaking from the need of a Pall Mall and a pull of whiskey, but he kept moving along, shaking off cravings. He crossed through the French Market and up along Esplanade to St. Bernard Avenue.
    Nearly an hour later, Perry had reached another shed. This one was in the back parking lot of the Land of Dreams Tabernacle. He knelt to the pavement, lit a match, and peeked under the shed door. Sure enough, Reverend Tilton’s car was still there—his prized Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.
    Perry waited, hidden behind the shed. Fifteen minutes passed and then Tilton appeared in the back door of the church, his heavy shoulders cloaked in one of those high-priced raincoats with brass rings on the belt. Next to him was that skinny acolyte girl, Sister Constance.
    Tilton stood at the top of a small porch leading to the parking lot. Perry could clearly see the minister and the girl, standing for a moment under a yellow light hanging over the door in the shape of a half-moon. Sister Constance looked up at the light, not at Tilton. Perry saw how pretty she was, especially now, standing in the artificial moonlight. He thought of her m a protective and fatherly way, something new to him. And thinking this way caused him a rush of regret for the wasted years of his life.
    “Give us a kiss, then,” Tilton said to the girl.
    Sister turned her cheek. The fat preacher man planted his mouth on her neck, like he was a vampire Perry heard smacking against girl flesh. His fists clenched.
    Tilton stepped back. The girl relaxed, free of