The Hollow Ones(41)

“The owner of this botanica may be able to answer some of those questions. Now she is on notice that there is someone looking for her.”

Odessa took a breath. It had been an alarming day, and she regretted ever dropping that envelope in the mail slot. “So it seems you are some kind of confidence man or hypnotist. You somehow got inside the head of an elderly FBI agent, and that’s okay. But I am not going to let you inside mine.”

Odessa turned and walked off toward Market Street, which would take her back to her home. She expected Hugo Blackwood to call after her or try to catch up, and she was all fired up to rebuff him. But she turned the corner without a word from him, and when she finally looked back two blocks farther on, he was not following her.

The only pang she felt was for all the unanswered questions about him…but she could live with that. For the moment, she believed that she was free of Hugo Blackwood.





1962. The Mississippi Delta.



Agent Earl Solomon sat alone at the serving counter of a black-owned roadhouse named Pigmeat’s. His hat sat on the counter to his left, next to the first-draft report he was writing longhand, in pencil, on a pad of yellow legal paper with only a few sheets left. He set down his short pencil and broke off another hunk of bread, swiping it through thick, hot soup, softening the crust, tasting of salted pork and carrots.

It was midafternoon, between lunch and dinner. Solomon had the kitchen’s full attention. There was no server working at that hour, just the paper-hatted cook and the newspaper-reading owner. The counter was metal, cool to the touch. The stools didn’t swivel. A jukebox and a cigarette machine sat near the door.

“Klansmen arrived,” said the owner, scanning his newspaper through thick eyeglasses at the booth nearest the door.

Solomon turned toward him. “It says that in the paper?”

“White people’s paper.” The owner folded it up. “Them voting drive whites need protection now from they own kind.”

The cook shook his head at the end of the counter. “Bunch of damn fools.”

Solomon looked at him. “Who, the voting rights people?”

“They’s just kids. Heads full of ideas. They don’t know or care what it’s doing to people ’round here. Coming down in here, stirring things up.”

Solomon picked up his spoon. “You stir this soup, don’t you?”

The cook let out a laugh like a single bark. “Can’t tell you city boys nothing. You don’t have to live here.”

Solomon said, “Can a city boy get a slice of that fried pie?”

“If the city boy got city money, he can.”

Solomon smiled and returned to his writing. Then he remembered that the Ku Klux Klan was in town and his smile went away.

The roadhouse door opened. Solomon didn’t think anything of it until many seconds passed and no words were spoken. Solomon turned to look at the door, expecting to see a white-sheet-wearing Grand Wizard. It was a white man, trim and very pale, wearing a dark suit like an undertaker. European, maybe. Silk. The roadhouse wasn’t strictly segregated, but Solomon could feel the owner’s and the chef’s distrust of the man standing inside the door. For his part, however, the man himself seemed unaware.

Solomon returned to his writing. He sensed movement, hearing a whisper of silk, but there were many empty stools at the counter and open booths along the wall. So when the man sat on the stool to Solomon’s immediate right, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, Solomon turned again, setting down his pencil, steeling for a fight.

“Can I help you with something, friend?” Solomon said.

“Perhaps,” he said in a cultured British accent, so out of place anywhere in America but especially deep in the Delta. Penetrating eyes. “You are Agent Earl Solomon?”

Solomon nodded, surprised to hear his name come out of this man’s mouth. “I am. And you are?”

“Very pleased to meet you. I have never been to this region of the continent before. Rather humid. But not entirely unpleasant.”

“Rather,” said Solomon. “You a journalist?”

“No, certainly not. I am a barrister by trade, though I haven’t practiced law in quite some time. No, I am here in no particular professional capacity. I heard that you are in charge of the murder investigation here.”

“Not in charge. Just here to help.”

“You misunderstand me. I mean that you are the highest-ranking law enforcement representative here. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Caused quite a stir among local enforcement authorities, judging by what I’ve heard. An interesting situation, you investigating the lynching murder of a white man.”

“Interesting is one word for it,” said Solomon.

Before Solomon could ask his name again, the cook slid a plate of fried pie in front of him. It was a fruit-filled turnover, fried and sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. The cook side-eyed the white man and asked Solomon, “This guy okay?”

Solomon shrugged and turned to his European seatmate. “Interested in some pie?”

“What is it?” asked the British man.

The cook said, “Crab Lantern. Ain’t crab apples, though. Macintosh.”

The Brit said, “Can you prepare it with meat inside?”

“Pigmeat?” said the cook.