By the third day and another dang round of “Oh Sylv is so…” I cooked up a plan to break away from my annoying shadow and get on with heading back to my mama’s shop, worry and danger be damned.
I just couldn’t take the questions, the worry, and yet another interrogation about my stupid brother. Who, it seemed, had disappeared right from the face of the earth. He, at least, hadn’t been hidden in Tremé. Sylv, I bet, had gone on back to Mama’s shop, running orders and cash with Uncle Aron like the world was not rattling and spinning to an end around him.
I could stand a little rattling myself, but it seemed the only dang thing in my future was yet another round of dominoes with Bobby and more readings from the Psalms to ease Mrs. Matthew’s worry over her own end coming. And the storm, that had blown in with a vengeance.
Bobby’s voice was monotone and thin as she read the Scriptures, like a bristle of dandelions in the storm, but I did my best to keep from judging her. She was, after all, reading to her dying grandmother.
“For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”
Even in that low, even tone, the verse was a nice thought. The wicked would be punished, so the Lord promised. Men who lied and hurt, like Ripper. Men and women, like Dempsey’s parents, who struck out in hatred to reign in their child with violence. People like Joe Andres who thought the world and those in it were here for their own sick needs. All, according to Scripture, would be handed a dose of justice. They and their destruction would not be looked over. They would not be protected in the end.
Would we?
My mama was making hooch and selling it to drunks and whores. She did make some to heal and help, but was that enough? Sylv snuck into Lily’s room when her house was settled and dark so he could kiss her and touch her like it was just something to do, because he’d got the notion to do it. Did that make my mother and brother wicked? Did the bad they did get canceled for the times they were good?
It was a thought that came heavy on my mind as I listened from the front porch of the Matthews' small house as Bobby kept on with the Psalms, reading louder now to be heard over the storm. I wasn’t thinking of much but how we’d all be dealt with when our time came. I wasn’t even worrying over the wind and rain that fell onto the street around that small cottage in buckets and sheets.
Then, out of nowhere, there came a chill with that wind and something dark and listless fell over me. A feeling took root inside my belly and stayed there as Bobby’s voice went on with no movement in the sound at all. That feeling kept my eyes unfocused and the chill on my skin, the lower Bobby’s voice sounded and the heavier the whip of wind and rain came down around me. The feeling that something was going to happen. Something bad.
I blinked, trying to bring myself from the sadness that took over. That’s why I didn't notice the hunched form darting toward the house, rail-thin but tall. His slacks were slicked snuggly around his thighs and the umbrella he held was broken on one side.
“Sookie!” my brother shouted, giving up on the umbrella and throwing it to the ground when he reached the Matthews’ porch. He waved quickly, his long, slim fingers like the flaps of a flag. “Come on here, come now!”
Sylv tore off his wet jacket, holding over both our heads when I met him in the street, huddled close and already dripping as he led me away from the Matthews' cottage, down toward the front side of Tremé.
“Uncle Aron got one of those fast and loose ladies from the brothel to give us a ride out of the city.” He pulled me closer toward him when a thick band of rain and wind sloshed against us. “Mama wants to head on to Atlanta. The storm is getting too bad, folks say the levies won't hold and it's gonna drown us all.”
“She’s a little late,” I said nodding toward the line of cars and trucks already backed up, horns blaring with stragglers hanging off the back cabs and bumpers like rats on a sinking ship. “The traffic will be stupid.”
“Well, at least we’ll be headed in the right direction.”
We passed another line of cars, these with damn fools not giving a single care to the corners of the streets where the police huddled together watching the crowd weaving out of the city.
I didn’t like the look of one of them policemen especially. He had pockmarks all over his face and a mean little frown bunched under the sparse mustache he wore. I’d seen him sniffing around more than once when Uncle Aron and Sylv walked ahead of me, to clear the path from busybodies that might be curious about what I carried in my basket.
“What about Bastie?”
“She caught a ride from cousin Ethel. They’re head out toward their kin in Virginia.” When I didn’t say anything, Sylv glanced down at me, putting his arm around my shoulder. “She’s snug as a bug.” I snorted out a laugh and my brother stopped walking, moving his chin down. “What is it? You look vexed.”
We started walking again after Sylv caught my head shake but he pulled me closer, weaving us through the crowd with glancing this way and that to keep a lookout for anything worrisome that might head toward us.
“I don’t like it. Leaving,” I said, waving a wet hand at the crowd and weather. “Something’s percolating. More’n just the storm.” A heavy shudder took over my body then and I fought to push it down. “I feel deep inside.”
For a second Sylv watched me, pulling me from the street and the screeching tires of a rusted Chevy when it came too close to the sidewalk. “Aw, hell, girl, you just mooning over Dempsey Simoneaux.”
Until he mentioned Dempsey I hadn’t exactly put my thoughts on him. He’d slipped in and out of my concentration while I stayed with Mrs. Matthews. It was his smile mostly and the memory of his sweet, full mouth that kept me wondering how he’d fared since Mama sent me to Tremé. I’d spent most of my nights worrying that his daddy had decided Dempsey was a liar and went at him with a belt for talking against Joe Andres.
“You hear anything of him?” I asked Sylv, not caring when he rolled his eyes like I was stupid for keeping my thoughts on Dempsey. When my brother ignored me, I pulled him off the sidewalk to huddle next to me under a broken awning, sheets of water spilling from an opening between two thick boards. Not like it made much of a difference. We both were soaked. “Tell me what you’ve heard.”
“I ain’t seen him.” Sylv tried ringing out his jacket, cursing to himself when a big splatter of water fell onto his head.
“You lying to me.”
“Damn, Sookie, so what if I am?” He threw down the jacket, giving it a kick for good measure before he jerked me back onto the sidewalk. “The both of you are itching for trouble, courting it like it won’t be ruin of both of you.”
“Sylv…” I waited, ignoring his stupid try at changing the subject.
“I ain’t seen him at all since Mama told him to get…”
“But?”
Two fat hustlers, I suspected some of Ripper’s old henchmen, walked in front of Sylv, eyes narrow, gaze heavy on the pair of us as we headed into the thick of the Quarter where everyone seemed to be leaving. But we waved them off, more worried about the weather and getting to Mama and Aron in time than over two fat bullies who I bet couldn’t keep up with us if we were to take off running.