Deacon King Kong(74)

Elefante relaxed a little, frowning. “Did you find it?”

“Do a buzzard fly? Your ma can find any plant around here, mister.”

Elefante chuckled softly and relaxed. He stared at Sportcoat. “Don’t I know you?”

“I reckon . . .” Sportcoat stared back, and then he realized it. “Lord . . . are you the fella there when my Hettie died?”

Elefante held out his hand. “Tom Elefante,” he said.

“Yes, sir, I . . .” Sportcoat found himself sweating. He felt a thank-you coming, but for what? For pulling Hettie out of the bay? It was too much to think about. This was the Elephant. The real thing. A real gangster. “Well . . . I got to be going, mister.”

“Wait a minute.”

Elefante reached in his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, counted off one hundred dollars, and held it out to Sportcoat. “For my mother.”

Sportcoat looked down at the bills. “You ain’t got to do that,” he said. “Your momma paid me already.”

“It’s all right.”

“I been paid, mister. Your ma treats me right,” Sportcoat said. “I reckon she could run a learning school on plants, she knows so much about ’em. More’n me, that’s for sure. And I knows quite a bit from my young days. She had her mind on that pokeweed and we walked quite a bit seeking it out. She was a little shaky walking toward the end, but she done all right. We found it and she says it’s gonna make her feel better. I do hope it works.”

“Take a little extra, mister.” Elefante held out the money.

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, you already done me a world of good when your fellers pulled my Hettie out the water.”

Elefante stared a moment. He wanted to say, “I don’t know how she got there,” but the truth was, to admit that was to confess knowledge of something in which he had no part, which made it sound like a denial. One denial led to another and to another, and no gangster worth his salt went down that road. Better to say nothing.

The old man seemed to understand. “Oh, my Hettie was tired, is all. She was following God’s light. Looking for a moonflower, is what it was. It was a beautiful day when she died. Best funeral the church ever had.”

Elefante shrugged, pocketed his money, and leaned against the wall of his house. “I used to see her come and go from church,” he said. “She’d say good morning. People don’t do that no more.”

“No they don’t.”

“She seemed like a nice lady. She always minded her business. Did she work?”

“Oh, she did day’s work and this and that. Mostly she just lived a life like most of us. She lived for going to heaven, mister.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Are you a religious man?” Sportcoat asked.

“Not really. Maybe a little.”

Sportcoat nodded. He couldn’t wait to tell Sausage. He’d actually had a conversation with the Elephant. An honest-to-goodness gangster! And he wasn’t so bad! He was religious! A little, maybe?

“Well, I got to mosey on,” Sportcoat said. “I’ll see your momma next Wednesday.”

“All right, old-timer. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Folks call me Deacon Cuffy. Some calls me Sportcoat, but mostly in these parts they calls me Deacon.”

Elefante smiled. The old dud had a style about him. “Okay, Deacon. By the way, what does a deacon do?”

Sportcoat grinned. “Well now, that’s a good question. We do all sorts of things. We helps the church. We throws out the garbage. We buys the furniture sometimes. We shop for the food for the deaconesses to make for the repast and such. We even preaches from time to time if we is called upon. We does whatever needs to be done. We’re your holy handyman.”

“I see.”

“But mostly, truth be told, it’s women that runs most of your colored churches out here. Like my late wife, and Sister Gee and Bum-Bum.”

“Are they nuns?”

“No, I reckon not. They’re just sisters.”

“Real sisters?”

“No.”

Elefante’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why call them sisters?”

“’Cause we all brothers and sisters in Christ, mister. Come visit our church sometime. Bring your momma. You’ll see. We likes visitors at Five Ends.”

“I might.”

“Well, I’ll leave you,” Sportcoat said. “And until we meet again, I hope God holds you in the palm of His hand.”

Elefante, who was about to head into the house, froze.

“Say that again,” he said.

“Oh, that’s a blessing my Hettie used to say to everybody she met. We say that in our church all the time to visitors. In fact, if you come visit us, you’ll hear it yourself. It’s our church motto, since before I come, and that’s been twenty years. In fact, there’s a picture of Jesus with that motto right over the top of his head outside on the back wall of the church. They got them words painted over his head in fancy gold letters. You can’t miss it.”

Elefante stared at him oddly, with a surprised expression that Sportcoat read as innocence, and it made Sportcoat feel right proud. He’d given the white man something to think about. And a gangster too! Maybe he was converting this feller to the word. Wouldn’t that be something! Your first convert! An honest-to-goodness gangster! Feeling the moment, he said it again: “May God hold you in the palm of His hand. It’s a pretty picture in your mind.”