Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil Part 16

"Who is?" Williams was startled. "Not Dr. Buzzard!"

"No, no," Minerva said. "The boy. The dead boy."

"Danny? Well, it doesn't surprise me. He planned this whole thing. He knew I was getting tired of his d.a.m.n games. He knew I had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash at the house that night, because I was going to Europe on a buying trip. It was his big chance. He could kill me and take it."

Minerva shook her head. "That boy is workin' hard against you."

"Well, can you do something about it?"

"I can try," she said.

"Good. Because there's something else I want you to do too," said Williams.

"What's that, baby?"

"I want you to put a curse on the district attorney."

"Well, of course. Tell me his name again."

"Spencer Lawton. L-A-W-T-O-N."

"Yeah. I worked his name before. Tell me what's goin' on with him since we got you off."

"He's desperate. He's been district attorney now for two years, and he's never won a case himself in court. He's mortified. People are laughing at him."

"They gonna keep on laughin'. Did you bring them things like I told you to?" Minerva asked.

"Yes," said Williams. "I did."

"Water that ain't run through no pipe?"

"Uh-huh."

"And did you put it in a quart jar? With no label on it? And no metal cap?"

"Yes."

"And those nine shiny dimes?"

"They're in my pocket."

"Okay, baby. Now I want you to sit down and do somethin' for me." Minerva gave Williams a quill pen and a bottle of red ink labeled Dove's Blood. "Write Spencer Lawton's name on this piece of paper seven times. Connect the two names as one. Dot no i i's and cross no t t's. Now, you do that while I do some work over here."

Minerva began filling a plastic shopping bag with odd items-two trowels, pieces of cloth, some bottles. Somewhere on the table, under all the piles of stuff, a telephone rang. Minerva dug out the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo. Uh-hunh. Okay, now listen to me." She spoke in a half-whisper. "She want you back, but she want you runnin' behind her, beggin'. Remember what I told you. Before you sleep with her again, put a tablespoon of honey in the bath and take a honey bath. After you have s.e.x, dry yourself off with that piece of muslin cloth I gave you. Hang it up to dry. Do not wash it. Later on, wrap it around a purple onion and tie the corners with a square knot. Huh? I say, a square knot. That knot I showed you. Two knots makes one. Okay. Then all you got to do is bury the cloth where she will walk over it or pa.s.s by. Uh-huh. Now, darlin', don't you depend on her to give you too much money. 'Cause she won't give you none. That's why her and her husband don't git along. Uh-uh. She ain't gonna be issuin' out no money. And listen, be careful about your personal belongings-your dirty socks, your dirty undershorts, your hair, pictures of your head. She might try to take them to someone like me. Put a picture of her in your wallet in a secret place, between things, with her head upside down. Do that for me. Uh-hunh. That's right. And let me know. Bye-bye."

Minerva looked across the table at Williams. "You done, baby?"

"Yes," he said.

"Okay. Now, you know how dead time works. Dead time lasts for one hour-from half an hour before midnight to half an hour after midnight. The half hour before midnight is for doin' good. The half hour after midnight is for doin' evil."

"Right," said Williams.

"Seems like we need a little of both tonight," said Minerva, "so we best be on our way. Put the paper in your pocket where the dimes is, and take your bottle of water. We goin' to the flower garden."

Minerva picked up her shopping bag and headed out the back door. We followed close behind as she made her way down the lane with a slow and ponderous stride. As she approached the next house, an old man got up from a chair on the porch and went inside. A window in another house closed. A door shut somewhere. Two men standing beside an oleander bush parted when they caught sight of Minerva and withdrew into the darkness. In a few moments, we reached the end of the lane. The sliver of a new moon hung like a slender cradle over a grove of tall, dark trees. We were at the edge of a graveyard. On the far side, a hundred yards beyond the trees, a floodlit basketball court cast a pale gray light into the graveyard. A boy was bouncing a ball and taking shots at the basketball hoop. Thunk, thunk, thunk ... proinnng. Thunk, thunk, thunk ... proinnng. Otherwise, the graveyard was deserted. Otherwise, the graveyard was deserted.

"A lot a people does this kind of work," Minerva said. "But it look like we got the garden all to ourselves tonight."

We walked single file into the graveyard, taking a winding route and stopping finally at a grave under a large cedar tree. My first thought was that this was a new grave, because unlike the others the soil appeared to be freshly spread on top of it. Minerva knelt by the headstone. She reached into the shopping bag and gave Williams a trowel.

"Go to the other end and dig a hole four inches deep with this spade," she said. "Drop one of the dimes into it and cover it up." Williams did as she said. The earth came up with no effort at all. The grave had clearly been dug into and churned so often that the soil was as loose as sand in a sandbox.

I stood a few yards back and watched. Minerva and Williams were like two people kneeling at the opposite ends of a picnic blanket. They faced each other over the bones of Dr. Buzzard.

"Now's the time for doin' good," said Minerva. "First we gotta get that boy to ease off a little. Tell me somethin' about him."

"He tried to kill me," said Williams.

"I know that. Tell me something before that."

"Well." Williams cleared his throat. "Danny was always getting into fights. He got mad at his landlord once and threw a chair through the man's window. Then he went outside and tore up his car with a brick. Another time, he got angry at an exterminator who'd been hired to spray his apartment, so he punched him in the eye, banged his head on the pavement and then later, after the man had sworn out a police warrant against him, took a baseball bat and chased him around Madison Square, screaming that he was going to kill him. He bragged to me once that he'd fired five shots from a pistol at some guy on a motorcycle because the guy was trying to date the same barmaid Danny was seeing at the time. One bullet hit the guy in the foot. His mother had to get police protection from him. She took out a peace warrant against him, which meant if he came within fifty feet of her he'd be arrested."

Minerva wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "It ain't doin' no good," she said. "That boy is still workin' hard against you." She thought for a moment. "Tell me somethin' good he done."

"I can't think of anything," said Williams.

"All he ever done was bad things? What made him happy?"

"His Camaro," said Williams. "He loved that Camaro. He used to zoom around in it and see how many wheels he could get off the ground at once. If he turned a corner real fast, he could usually get two wheels in the air. When he drove out to Tybee, he liked to shoot up over that b.u.mp in the road leading onto the Lazaretto Creek Bridge, because if he hit it just right he could get all four wheels off the ground at the same time. He loved doing that. He wouldn't let anybody touch that car. It was his pride and joy. He painted it with a spray can, flat black, just the way he wanted it. He'd spend hours fixing it and cleaning it and painting those racing stripes on it. And he was very good at that, painting those stripes and the little curlicues. He was very creative. That's something most people didn't understand about Danny. He was an artist. He flunked every subject in school but art. He always got an A in art. Of course, his talent wasn't developed. He didn't have the patience. I have a couple of his paintings. They're full of fantasy and they're wild, but you can see he had talent. I used to tell him, 'Danny, do do something with this. You're something with this. You're good good at it.' But he could never apply himself to anything. He never got past the eighth grade, but he was quickwitted and bright. One time I paid him to dismantle two crystal chandeliers at Mercer House and clean them. When he was just about finished rea.s.sembling them, I noticed he'd attached all the little prisms backwards. There were hundreds of them. I explained that each of the prisms was like a diamond ring and that the flat surface had to face out and the pointed surface had to face inward, otherwise it wouldn't sparkle. I told him he'd have to take them all off and put them back on the right way. I said I'd pay him for the extra time it took. Well, he looked at that chandelier. He looked at it real long like it was a rattlesnake. Then he climbed down from the ladder and said, 'The h.e.l.l with it. I'm outta here. I ain't servin' no at it.' But he could never apply himself to anything. He never got past the eighth grade, but he was quickwitted and bright. One time I paid him to dismantle two crystal chandeliers at Mercer House and clean them. When he was just about finished rea.s.sembling them, I noticed he'd attached all the little prisms backwards. There were hundreds of them. I explained that each of the prisms was like a diamond ring and that the flat surface had to face out and the pointed surface had to face inward, otherwise it wouldn't sparkle. I told him he'd have to take them all off and put them back on the right way. I said I'd pay him for the extra time it took. Well, he looked at that chandelier. He looked at it real long like it was a rattlesnake. Then he climbed down from the ladder and said, 'The h.e.l.l with it. I'm outta here. I ain't servin' no prism sentence!' prism sentence!' I laughed at his pun. I thought it was delightful. He turned around and stormed out of the house, but I could see the corner of his mouth was turned up in a little grin. It pleased him that I'd laughed at his joke." I laughed at his pun. I thought it was delightful. He turned around and stormed out of the house, but I could see the corner of his mouth was turned up in a little grin. It pleased him that I'd laughed at his joke."

Minerva smiled. "I felt him backin' off a little," she said.

"What do you mean?" asked Williams.

"I felt it just as you was sayin' those things about him. I felt that boy ease up some."

"Why do you suppose that happened?" Williams asked.

"He heard you say you loved him," Minerva said.

"What?! But that's ... he tried to kill me!"

"I knew he was workin' against you, baby, and now I know what he was tryin' to do! He was tryin' to make you hate him. He wants you to show the world you hate him. That way, they'll think you hated him bad enough to kill him in cold blood. If you do that, you will surely go to jail, and he knows it."

"I have every right to hate him," said Williams. "He tried to kill me."

"And he paid a heavy price for it. Now he's tryin' to make you pay a heavy price too!"

Minerva turned her shopping bag upside down and hurriedly spread its contents in front of her. "We ain't got time to argue! That was the openin' I was lookin' for. Now I can get to work. Quick, we ain't got much time left. It must be nearin' midnight. Dig another hole and put another dime in it, and this time think about that boy's Camaro! think about that boy's Camaro! Come on! Do it! Think about them pretty stripes the boy painted on it and how good he done it." Come on! Do it! Think about them pretty stripes the boy painted on it and how good he done it."

Williams silently dug another hole and dropped another dime in. Minerva dug a hole at her end and slipped a root into it. Then she covered it up and sprinkled it with a white powder.

"Now dig another hole, and this time think about that boy's two paintings you got. Think how good they was. We tryin' to keep him off your case. He's backin' off. Oh, he's backin' off. I feel it."

Minerva took a twig and poked it into the ground several times, mumbling and chanting as she did. She sprinkled some more powder and then drew a circle in the dirt. "You through, baby? Now do it another time and think about that 'prism sentence.' Think how it made you laugh. And think how your laughin' made the boy smile. Do that for me."

Minerva continued her ministrations over the head of Dr. Buzzard, while down at the old man's feet Williams silently dug yet another hole.

"Now do it one more time," said Minerva, "and this time drop the rest of the dimes into the hole and think about all them things together. And think about anything else that was good about that boy that maybe you ain't told me yet." Minerva watched as Williams followed her instructions. "Now take that bottle and pour a little water on each of the covered-up holes, so your kindly thoughts about that boy will take root and flower and come back to bless you."

Minerva closed her eyes and sat in silence for several minutes. A church bell began to chime the hour of midnight. She opened her eyes again and quickly picked up a pink plastic purse. She scooped a trowel of dirt into it. "Graveyard dirt works best when it come from a grave right at midnight," she said. "This ain't for your job, though, baby. This is for my private use." She sighed. "Black magic never stops. What goes from you comes to you. Once you start this s.h.i.t, you gotta keep it up. Just like the utility bill. Just like the grocery store. Or they kill you. You got to keep it up. Two, five, ten, twenty years." The purse was now bulging with dirt. She put it back into her shopping bag.

"It's after midnight now," she said. "Time for doin' evil. I'm gonna work on the D.A. He's a man, so I will cross s.e.x with him and go to nine different dead women. Nine. I will call them three times. I can't guarantee they will all be in your favor. But somewhere down the line there will be an opening, and the dead will settle with him the way they did the last time. Take that piece of paper out of your pocket, the one with his name written on it, and lay it flat on the ground with the writing up." Williams did as he was told. "Now fold the paper over once, and then fold it again. Then put it back in your pocket. Okay. Now you just sit quiet while I call on the dead."

Minerva spoke unintelligible words in her dreamy, half-whispered voice. All I could make out were the names of the dead women: Viola, Ca.s.sandra, Serenity, Larcinia, Delia. Minerva used every prop she had brought with her-roots, charms, powders, squares of cloth. She put them on the ground in front of her and stirred them with two sticks as if mixing a voodoo salad. Then, one by one, she put all the items back into her shopping bag. When she was done, she looked at Williams.

"Walk to the edge of the graveyard and wait for me there," she said. "And don't look back. I got some more work to do here."

Williams and I walked away. After a few steps, I ducked behind an oak tree where I could still see Minerva. She began to mutter. Her muttering became moans, the moans turned into wailing, and the wailing grew louder and louder. Minerva's arms fluttered and wheeled like small propellers. When she was finally out of breath, her hands fell to her lap. She bowed her head in silence for a moment. The only sound in the graveyard was the thunk, thunk, thunk thunk, thunk, thunk of the basketball bouncing in the distance. At length, Minerva spoke in an urgent whisper. of the basketball bouncing in the distance. At length, Minerva spoke in an urgent whisper.

"Listen to me, old man! Why you doin' me this way? Tell me why! I give you dimes and ask for a number, but you won't give me one for s.h.i.t! You lay there night after night just laughin' at me. Didn't I do right by you? Didn't I wait for you in the bed when you was old and tired and your teeth was rotten? Dammit, listen listen to me!" Minerva poked the ground with her trowel. "Give me a d.a.m.n number! to me!" Minerva poked the ground with her trowel. "Give me a d.a.m.n number! Give it to me!" Give it to me!" She poked the ground again. "I ain't givin' you no peace, old man, till you give me a number. Look at me havin' to wear this nasty dress. I need to buy me a new one. The roof is leakin'. The boy's in trouble with the police. I gits graveyard dirt on my porch. I be blocked. Business gits po'." With each complaint, Minerva jabbed the ground in the vicinity of Dr. Buzzard's ribs. Finally, she dropped the trowel into her shopping bag and pulled herself to her feet with a sigh. She poked the ground again. "I ain't givin' you no peace, old man, till you give me a number. Look at me havin' to wear this nasty dress. I need to buy me a new one. The roof is leakin'. The boy's in trouble with the police. I gits graveyard dirt on my porch. I be blocked. Business gits po'." With each complaint, Minerva jabbed the ground in the vicinity of Dr. Buzzard's ribs. Finally, she dropped the trowel into her shopping bag and pulled herself to her feet with a sigh.

I slipped away and joined Williams at the edge of the grave yard. Moments later Minerva approached us, muttering. "Stubborn old man," she said. "I cuss he a.s.s, but he still won't give me a number."

"Haven't you won that d.a.m.n numbers game by now, Minerva?" Williams asked.

"Yes, I won it," she said. "One time I put thirty-six dollars on triple three. And that was the number."

"How much did you win?"

"I should have won ten thousand dollars, but I didn't git one dime."

"Why not?"

"The bookie changed the number!"

"How could you let him get away with that?"

"He didn't git away with nothin', baby. I fixed it so he don't work no more. I went to the garden and gave him back his kindness. Now he's sickly, and we got us a new bookie."

As we walked up the lane from the graveyard, Minerva gave Williams his parting instructions. He was to put the paper with Spencer Lawton's name on it into a jar filled with water that had not run through any pipe. He was to place the jar in the darkness of his closet, where it would not be touched by the light of the sun or the glow of the moon, until the trial was over. He was to cut a photograph of Lawton's face out of the newspaper, black out his eyes with a pen-first the right eye, then the left-draw nine lines across his lips as if sewing him up, put the photograph in his coat pocket, and make sure a preacher touched his coat. Afterward, he was to burn the photograph in the exact spot where Danny Hansford had died.

"Do that," said Minerva, "and Spencer Lawton will lose your case. But you must do one more thing too. Once a day, every day, you must close your eyes and tell that boy you forgive him for what he done to you. And deep in your heart you must truly forgive him. You hear?"

"I hear," said Williams.

Minerva stopped at a turnoff to another road. "Now, you go on back to Savannah and do like I say," she said.

"Aren't you going home?" Williams asked.

Minerva patted her shopping bag. "Baby, I never takes graveyard dirt into my own house. I will deliver it first, and I must do that alone."

Williams was silent as we began the drive back.

"Are you going to follow Minerva's instructions about Spencer Lawton's picture?" I asked.

"I might," said Williams. "It's a little corny, but it could end up being good therapy-sewing up his mouth, blacking out his eyes. Yes, that's something I might be able to get into."

"How about the daily message of forgiveness to Danny Hansford? Are you going to do that too?"

"Definitely not!" he said. "Danny was nothing but a would-be murderer." Williams picked up his gla.s.s and drank what was left of his vodka and tonic.

"My case has come down to one thing and one thing only," he said. "Money. Danny knew I had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in the house. When my lawyer, Bob Duffy, arrived at Mercer House that night, he walked around inspecting the merchandise, picking up little objects and turning them bottom side up. When I asked him what he was going to charge to represent me, he said, 'Fifty big ones.' Later, when I realized I needed a good criminal lawyer, I hired Bobby Lee Cook. Bobby Lee brought his wife to the house, and she picked out fifty thousand dollars' worth of antiques. That was his fee. His expenses were in addition to that. He was a.s.sisted by John Wright Jones, who got twenty thousand dollars. And now I will have to pay all over again for another trial.

"But Danny's mother takes the prize with her ten-million-dollar lawsuit against me. After all the anguish and grief Danny had caused her, after she'd thrown him out of the house and gotten police protection from him, Danny was suddenly her beloved dead son, miraculously transformed from a dangerous liability into an a.s.set worth ten million dollars. Lord knows what it will cost me to defend myself against her lawsuit.

"So, you see, it's all about money. And that's one of the reasons I love Minerva. You can laugh at that voodoo stuff if you want, but she only charged me twenty-five dollars tonight. I don't know whether or not you got her point, but no matter how you look at it, she's a bargain."

I did not answer, but it occurred to me that, yes, I did get Minerva's point. I got her point very clearly. What I wondered was, did Williams?

Chapter 19.

LAFAYETTE SQUARE, WE ARE HERE.

Gla.s.s in hand, Joe Odom stood on the roof of his new home and looked down at the floats and the marching bands pa.s.sing through Lafayette Square below. It was a perfect spot for watching the St. Patrick's Day parade. From the rooftop, Joe could see green-tinted water bubbling out of the fountain in the center of the square. He could see crowds lining the streets wearing green hats and carrying big paper cups full of green beer. St. Patrick's Day in Savannah was the equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It was an official holiday; the whole town turned out for it. There were to be more than two hundred marching units today, plus forty bands and thirty floats. A cheer rose up from the crowd as the Anheuser-Busch team of eight s.h.a.ggy-hoofed Clydesdale horses trotted around the square, past the front of the house.

Like most St. Patrick's Day parades, Savannah's was an ec.u.menical affair. Blacks, Scots, and Germans marched along with the Irish, but this parade had a distinctly southern flavor. At one point, that flavor took a bitter turn. A column of marchers dressed in gray Confederate uniforms came into the square, with a horse-drawn wagon bringing up the rear. The wagon had low wooden sides, and from the street it would have appeared empty. But from the roof we could see a blue-clad Union soldier sprawled motionless on the floor of the wagon. It was a chilling tableau, the more so because it was meant to be surrept.i.tious.

"Poor d.a.m.n Yankee," said Joe. "Look at him down there, all b.l.o.o.d.y and dead."

"The Civil War's been over quite a while," I said. "Isn't it time all that was forgotten?"

"Not if you're a southerner," said Joe. "But you know, that dead Yankee isn't just about the Civil War. He's sort of a symbol of what could happen to any Yankee, even a modern-day Yankee, who comes down here and gets folks all riled up." Joe looked at me and lifted his gla.s.s in tribute. "He could be some fella from New York who decided to write a book about us and started filling it with drag queens and murderers and corpses and bottles of poison and-what's that you were telling me about just a minute ago? Oh yeah, voodoo! Voodoo! Voodoo! Witchcraft in a graveyard! d.a.m.n!" Witchcraft in a graveyard! d.a.m.n!"

"I'm not making any of this up, Joe," I said.