When Nighttime Shadows Fall, page 11
“Sure am sorry to hear that, boys. I was just tellin’ Link here, you boys looked like you’d take me up on my offer. But I guess my eyes are just foolin’ me these days.”
“Maybe some other time, mister.” Davis spoke as if they’d turned down a game of pool. “But thanks anyway.”
“You say your wife worries ’bout bein’ alone?” The man turned to Barfield as if Davis hadn’t even addressed him. “Don’t blame her one bit with all the trash runnin’ around at night. And her with a baby on the way.
“Yes sir, even Link here gets kind of anxious. Ever since he come home from Nam he’s been restless. Sometimes he prowls around all hours of the night. Guess he misses the action. Ain’t that right, boy?”
The huge man looked up with his watery blue eyes. At the mention of his name, he grinned wide, revealing snaggled yellow teeth.
“You’re wise to be concerned, son,” the man went on. “You can’t be too careful with her in the family way. You sure wouldn’t want nothin’ to frighten her.”
Barfield didn’t respond. He could tell a threat when he heard one, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want trouble.
“I hope you boys’ll change your minds. They say it’s only women who do that, but plenty of men do as well. But I’d ’preciate you boys not mentionin’ my proposition to anyone else. Man don’t like folks to know he’s been turned down.” He started to turn away, but then, as an afterthought, he said, “Case you do change your mind, just leave a message here for Mr. Jones. Or Link.” He smiled at the big man the way you look at a favorite dog. “I’ll be watchin’ out for you. I always keep a lookout for fellas I take an interest in.”
All night Barfield couldn’t sleep. Every time the wind stirred, he jerked awake, afraid Link might be hiding in the bushes.
“What is it, Jimmy?” Mandy touched his cheek in the dark.
He felt bad disturbing her rest, but when he spoke, his voice was belligerent. “Stop worryin’. I told you, nothin’s wrong,” he said dismissively. He tried hard not to show how concerned he was since that would make her worry, which was just what Mr. Jones and Link were counting on.
“I wish you’d tell me, Jimmy.” She sat up and turned on the light. She wore a long white nightgown, and her blonde hair fell loose and soft around her face. In the soft light she looked so young to him, so delicate, even with her pregnant belly. He wanted to protect her from Link and Mr. Jones and everyone in the world.
She broke into his thoughts again. Her tone was pleading. “Jimmy, talk to me. At least if you’d tell me what it is, I wouldn’t have to worry about what it idn’t.”
“Honey, it’s nothin’.” His voice was kinder and he placed his hand gently in the small of her back and pulled her to him. “I’m just restless. Workin’ like I do—sometimes it gets to you. It’s hard having to stand all day in the sun with those foremen yelling at you, telling you how to do things when they don’t even know—”
“Jimmy, you’re not in trouble at work, are you?” She stared deeply into his eyes. “Promise me you didn’t cuss the foreman ou—”
“Mandy, would you quit worryin’! D’you think you married a fool? I don’t want trouble at work.” He plumped up the pillows around her and turned off the light. “It’s nothin’ but the weather. Lord, I wish it would rain.”
“Not before this weekend, they say.” She turned her back and nestled against him so he could tuck her head beneath his chin. “Feel him move, honey,” she whispered, placing his hand on her stomach. “I feel him more and more all the time.”
“He’s gonna be a real football player, that boy.” He smiled at the back of her head and kissed her neck. “Now get some rest,” he said. Then he leaned down to press his lips against her stomach and whispered gently, “And you go to sleep, too. Let your mama get some rest.” They both laughed when the baby moved. “Hey, this is your daddy talkin’.”
The baby stopped moving immediately. They laughed again, and even though he knew it was probably a coincidence, Barfield said proudly, “See, he already listens to his daddy. And he ain’t even born yet.”
A week later Barfield thought he spied Link at the superette half a mile from their trailer. He had stopped for a few things Mandy needed on his way home from work. While he was standing at the register, he was positive he saw Link in a red pickup in the parking lot. He didn’t wait for his change. He raced home, hardly able to breathe until he saw Mandy at the kitchen counter fixing biscuits.
“Jimmy, you’re gettin’ to be an old worrywart,” Mandy said the next morning after she’d heard him on the phone asking her sister to stay with her during the daytime. “I’m fine here by myself. It’s a long time before this baby comes, and you’re going to make me a wreck if you have people hovering over me for three months. What’s got into you?”
He tried to think of an excuse to explain his concern. “I heard on the radio,” he told her, “that a woman gets real lonesome and depressed towards the end of—”
“That’s afterwards, Jimmy.” She laughed, touched by his concern and kissed his cheek, not minding the roughness of his beard and the sour smell of a long, hard day. She felt tender toward this big man who was so worried about her, but she couldn’t resist teasing him. “I’ve a good mind to stay pregnant all the time,” she said. “’Cause you never carried on like this before if I felt a little blue.”
James had always kept a pistol in the nightstand by their bed, but he never took it out to even look at it. But suddenly, Mandy noticed he was checking it all the time. When he thought she was asleep, she’d see him reach for it as if he expected trouble. She worried, despite his assurances that he’d not had any trouble at work. Even when she tried not to touch him, she could feel his tense body beneath the sheets. One night she got up to go to the bathroom. As her pregnancy advanced, she’d found it harder and harder to make it through the night. Sometimes she had to get up two times. This particular night, when she noticed how deeply James was breathing, she tried to be extra careful not to wake him. She was almost to the bathroom when the floor creaked. James jumped up like an alarm had sounded. He grabbed the gun from the drawer and yelled, “Who is it? Tell me who you are right now or I’ll blow you to king—”
“Jimmy,” she screamed in terror. “It’s me. Don’t shoot!” She ran to the bed crying, gasping for breath. “I cain’t live scared you’re gonna shoot me if I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. What’s going on?”
He knew she had a right to know, only he couldn’t figure how to start. He hated to tell her about the topless bar and Mr. Jones and Link, realizing how terrible it would sound to her. She was so young and didn’t have any idea of the things that happened to a man out in the world.
“James Barfield,” she said, taking his head in her hands, “you tell me the truth.”
“One night a few weeks ago, me and Eddie stopped to get a beer and we met some guys who tried to get us to—” He was interrupted by the telephone. He felt relieved to have an excuse to stop explaining his nightmare, until he remembered it was 3:30 in the morning. The phone ringing had to mean somebody had died or was taken sick. Or Link was calling to shake him up.
He bit his lip as he answered the phone. He waited for whoever was on the other end to say something.
“Hey, Jimmy, is that you?”
“Are you crazy callin’ in the middle of the night, Eddie? Or did something happen?” He was scared waiting for his friend’s answer.
“I’m in bad trouble, man. So listen good ’cause this is the only call they’ll let me make.”
“You’re in jail, Eddie?” It was worse than he’d imagined.
“Yeah. They picked me up about an hour ago near the Tennessee line.”
“What in God’s name were you doin’?” He stopped short, not wanting to believe Eddie had gotten mixed up with Mr. Jones and Link. “You didn’t start drivin’ for that man?” He heard the panic in his own voice. “Eddie? Answer me.”
“I know it was a fool thing to do. But it didn’t seem like it when I done it. See I ran into that Mr. Jones again. I started thinkin’ ’bout what I could do with that extra money. For Helen, you know. Hell, three bucks an hour don’t even leave you somethin’ to eat on after you make your car payment and your trailer payment. So I went and did it. First two times it worked like clockwork. I made my deliv’ries on time. Nothin’ to it. Both times I went to Atlan’a. Somebody paid me off like they was supposed to. I never knew what I was haulin’—just like he said. He always sent another fella with me before. But this time, I had to go by myself.
“I was on 75 North right before the turnoff for Rome when I seen this blue light flashin’. I wasn’t speedin’ or nothin’ but of course I pulled over. These two state troopers got out and one of them said, ‘Buddy, you step out of there real easy with your hands up. Don’t try nothin’ smart or you won’t try nothin’ ever again.’ I still couldn’t figure out what they was stopping me for, but I did everything real easy just like they said.
“Then one of them said, ‘You can look at this if you want to.’ And he stuck a paper in my face. It was a search warrant. And he says, ‘So just hand over the keys to the back of the truck and we’ll get this over with.’ But the funny thing was I didn’t have the keys. Mr. Jones said there wadn’t no need for me to have ’em. Said his customers felt safer knowing the driver couldn’t mess with their cargo.”
“Just tell me what happened, Eddie,” Barfield said impatiently. “They ain’t gonna let you talk all night.”
“Well, they searched me and of course they saw I was tellin’ the truth ’cause there wadn’t no key. They laughed like it was some big joke, and then one of them jimmied the lock. They pulled out some of the cartons and tore off the tops. They was full of pillows. Regular ole feather pillows. I was getting nervous thinkin’ about what Mr. Jones would say when he saw what they done to the cargo. Until all a sudden they pulled out all these little bags full of white powder.
“‘Look here, Harry,’ the fella who found the bags called out to the other one. ‘There must be a quarter of a million dollars worth in here at the very least!”
“‘Of what?’ I asked them. I figured at that point I had a right t’know.
“‘You really don’t know?’ He shined his flashlight in my face, studyin’ me hard, waiting for me to give something away. But of course I didn’t know nothin’. Then he said, ‘You know, Harry, I think he don’t know what this is.’ He held the bag up in front of my face.
“‘No sir, I never seen that before.’
“‘Boy,’ the other one said, pointing his rifle at me. ‘You got enough heroin in here to shoot up a whole herd of elephants!’
“You believe that? So they brought me down to the station, and I didn’t even know that man’s real name.” He sounded sheepish. “He said it was Jones and remember he called the other fella Link, but I don’t reckon that was the truth. Guess I’ll never see ’em again.” His voice quickly grew frightened as he hurried to explain, “They said I could make only one call, Jimmy. So I called you. I didn’t know what else to do. You said we shouldn’t work for that man. But I did it. And now I don’t know what to do. I figured Helen’d be so upset she’d just break down. Would you talk to her? And you gotta help me get a lawyer. I never had one before.”
“There ain’t no point in waking her and the kids,” Barfield said. “There’s nothin’ she can do in the middle of the night. Or anybody else either.” Barfield couldn’t help feeling sorry for his friend even though he’d warned him not to do it. “You listen to me. You sit tight and don’t answer none of their questions until you talk to a lawyer. I’ll see you get one tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to put you out. I may as well just tell ’em what I know, Jimmy. I had to answer some of their questions. I figured they alrea—”
“Don’t say another word. Tell ’em you’re waitin’ on your lawyer. ’Cause anything you say, they can throw back at you in court.”
“But I didn’t know what I was haulin’, Jimmy. I swear I didn’t. If I’d known what was in that truck, you couldn’t a-caught me within a mile of it.”
“I believe you, Eddie, but you’re in big trouble.”
“I gotta hang up now. But you’ll talk to Helen for me?” His voice was plaintive and urgent.
“First thing in the morning. Try to sleep now, OK? You’ll need to be on your toes in the mornin’. And remember what I said. Not another word to anybody.”
“OK, I’ll sit tight.” He sighed audibly. “Jimmy, you figure you can talk to somebody over t’Legal Aid? ’Cause you know I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow soon as they open up. They ain’t hurtin’ you or nothin’, Eddie?”
“No, they’re all right. One of the deputies dated my sister in high school.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too friendly.”
“You can count on me, ole buddy. I won’t say another word. And thanks, man. Sorry I had to bother you and Mandy.”
“What’s happened, James?” Mandy asked as he hung up the phone. “What’s Eddie done?”
“Something real dumb, Mandy.” He led her back to bed, sighing as he lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes. “Let’s not talk about it now. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“But why’s he in jail? You’re not in trouble, too, are you?” She grabbed his arm.
“Of course not. Stop worrying. I didn’t do nothin’.” He made her lie down beside him. “Eddie fell for a stupid line even a kid could see through. But I’m gonna get him a lawyer in the mornin’.” He kissed her and held her tightly in his arms. “Now, you try and rest, baby. Ain’t nothin’ we can do for Eddie right this minute.”
“I’m so scared, Jimmy,” she said. “Please don’t let go of me.”
He kissed her on the nose and tucked her head beneath his chin the way he knew she liked.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he said. “Just close your eyes. I’ll be watching over you.”
When she drifted off to sleep, he listened to the peaceful rise and fall of her breathing until he fell asleep himself. In the early morning, he slipped out of bed to call Helen. He was careful not to wake Mandy and tenderly covered her.
For just a moment longer, he stood by their bed watching her sleep, listening to her calm breathing and imagining their baby growing inside her. Thinking of Eddie lying there in jail, Barfield figured how lucky he was. Even if he did have to shovel dirt for three lousy bucks an hour, he wasn’t in jail. And no man could tell him what to do when he came home at the end of the day. When he came home to her.
CHAPTER 13
Just an Accident
There was no way to ignore an office fire, particularly one started by a non-smoker. I had to find out what Vernon had been doing in his office. As soon as I arrived, he opened his office door barely wide enough to admit me. We sat down on opposite sides of the ruined desktop, next to the trashcan where the burned blotter had been stuffed. Even with a fan running, the smoky smell hung heavily in the windowless room.
“It was just an accident,” he said defensively. “Could have happened to anyone. I don’t know why Nadine made such a big deal out of it. There was no need to involve you.” He sounded like a child who feels someone has tattled unfairly to the teacher.
I knew Vernon’s assessment was incorrect. Nadine was unflappable and had resolved completely by herself nuisances like an aggressive sow and her piglets that had made their home under our front porch and the drunken young men she’d caught painting graffiti across our parking lot on a Saturday night. So when she called to tell me Vernon had started a fire in his office, and I’d better come quick and talk to him since she could tell there was more going on than he wanted to admit, I jumped in my car.
“So what happened, Vernon?” I asked as matter-of-factly as I could, though the problem lay menacingly between us.
He wiped his forehead and paced the small room. “It was dumb,” he acknowledged sheepishly. “See, the air smelled so stale in here I lit this bayberry candle I’d picked up at a crafts fair.”
“And you’re telling me the fire went through the blotter and burned the desktop while you were sitting here?” The damage we were looking at was too extensive to have occurred in the seconds it would have taken to extinguish it if Vernon had been present when it started.
“Of course not!” he said, recovering quickly. “I guess I’m kind of absent-minded so I didn’t notice I’d left papers so close to the candle. And then I went up to the front to make copies. I took longer getting back to my office than I’d intended.” He sounded like he’d been practicing his story. “Because a family came to the door to find out about enrolling. You know how long that can take. So I was away from my office maybe ten minutes.”
I couldn’t accept his explanation. Nobody else’s office smelled bad. I had a very bad suspicion about the odor he had been attempting to cover up. “That’s really all you want to say?” I asked critically, any pity I had for him destroyed by the insult of his imagining I could believe this story.
He scowled, speaking mechanically, avoiding my eyes. “You don’t have to worry, Laura. No matter how bad the smell gets, I’ll never light a candle in the office again.” He was focusing on the odor rather than the severity of his own actions. “It might be mold or varnish from the new paneling. Or some cleaning product they used when they shampooed the carpet. I’m sorry it got to me and this happened.”
“I wish we could chalk it up as an accident,” I said regretfully, watching him squirm. “But I’ve had concerns ever since you left Trina Kitchens locked in the bathroom.”
“I admit that was poor judgment, but it has nothing to do with this situation,” he answered defensively, his remorseful stance vanishing quickly, unlike the smoky odor around us.
“But I should be able to rely on the judgment of the social services director of this project, right?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my judgment,” he protested. “I was working with families years before you ever thought about it.” His voice turned self-pitying and resigned. “But if you want me out of here, go ahead and say so. Just stop lecturing me.”
