Deacon King Kong(32)

“Fucking old man,” he muttered.





9





DIRT



The two uniformed cops walked into the Five Ends Baptist Church choir rehearsal five minutes after the fight between the Cousins broke out. The fight had actually started twenty-three years before. That’s how long Nanette and her cousin Sweet Corn had been arguing.

Sister Gee, a tall, handsome woman of forty-eight, sat in the choir pew fiddling with her house keys and staring down in her lap as the Cousins railed. “Lord,” she murmured as the Cousins hissed at each other, “please rein in them mules.”

As if in answer, the back door of the church opened and two white cops stepped through the tiny vestibule and into the sanctuary, the light of the bare bulb glinting off their shiny badges and brass buttons. The tinkling of their keys clanking against each other sounded like tiny bells as they made their way up the sawdust-covered aisle to the front, their leather gun holsters slapping against their hips. They stopped when they reached the pulpit, facing the choir of five women and two men, who stared back at them, with the exception of Pudgy Fingers, Sportcoat’s son, who sat at the end of the choir pew, his sightless eyes covered by shades.

“Who’s in charge here?” one of the cops asked.

Sister Gee, sitting in the first row, took him in. He was young, nervous, and thin. Behind him stood an older cop, a thick man with wide shoulders and crow’s-feet around blue eyes. She watched the older cop’s eyes quickly scan the room. She had the impression she had seen him before. He removed his cap and spoke softly to the younger cop in a voice with a slight Irish lilt. “Mitch, take your cap off.”

The younger cop obliged, then asked again, “Who’s in charge?”

Sister Gee felt every eyeball in the choir swing toward her.

“In this church,” she said, “we says hello to a person before we states our business.”

The cop held up a blue folded sheet of paper in his hand. “I’m Officer Dunne. We got a warrant here for Thelonius Ellis.”

“Who?”

“Thelonius Ellis.”

“Ain’t nobody here by that name,” Sister Gee said.

The young cop looked at the choir behind Sister Gee and asked, “Anybody know him? We got a warrant here.”

“They don’t know nothing about no warrant,” Sister Gee said.

“I’m not talking to you, miss. I’m talking to them.”

“Seems to me you ain’t made up your mind about who you come to talk to, Officer. First you come in and ask who’s in charge, so I told it. Then instead of talking to me, you turns around and talks to them. Who you come to talk to? Me or them? Or is you just come by to make a bunch of announcements?”

Behind him, the older cop spoke. “Mitch, check the outside, would ya?”

“We already did that, Potts.”

“Check it again.”

The young cop turned, smartly snapped the blue warrant into Potts’s waiting hand, and vanished out the vestibule door.

Potts waited until the church door closed, then turned to Sister Gee apologetically. “Young people,” he said.

“I know it.”

“I’m Sergeant Mullen from the Seven-Six. They call me Sergeant Potts.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of name is Potts, Officer?”

“It’s better than pans.”

Sister Gee chuckled. There was something about him that glistened, something warm that churned and billowed about, like a smoke cloud filled with sparklers. “I’m Sister Gee. You got a real first name, sir?”

“Not worth using. Potts is it.”

“Was somebody bald-headed, or looking on the bright side, or wanting to steal or tell the world something when you was born, on account of your people giving you that kind of name?”

“I made a complete haymes of some potatoes once, back when I was a wee lad, so my grammy gave me that nickname.”

“What’s haymes?”

“A mess.”

“Well, that’s a mess of a name.”

“That’d make your name fair play, wouldn’t it? Gee, you said? I’ll leg it out the door if you say your first name’s Golly.”

Sister Gee heard one of the choir chuckle behind her, and felt herself stifling a smile. She couldn’t help it. Something about this man made her insides lift. “I seen you someplace before, Officer Potts,” she said.

“Just Potts. You mighta seen me around. I grew up four blocks from here. A long time ago. I was a detective in the Cause.”

“Well now . . . maybe that’s where I seen you.”

“But that was twenty years ago.”

“I was here twenty years ago,” she said thoughtfully. She rubbed her cheek, staring at Potts for what seemed a long time, then her eyes sparkled as her face unfolded into a sly smile. Her smile displayed a raw, natural beauty that caught Potts off guard. The woman, he thought, was all good handwriting.

“I know,” she said. “On Ninth Street near the park. At that old bar there. The Irish place. Rattigan’s. That’s where I seen you.”

Potts reddened. Several choir members smiled. Even the Cousins grinned.

“I’ve been known to have a business meeting there from time to time,” he said wryly, recovering. “If you don’t mind my asking, were you having one there too? At the same time? When you saw me?”