House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

Hackberry picked up the bucket and bricks and hatbox from the ground and threw them inside the barn, then went in the house and fell into a deep sleep on his couch while the rain danced on the roof.

WHEN HE WOKE, he felt so rested he thought he was still dreaming. The storm had passed, and the house was cool and dark and filled with kaleidoscopic fragments of light generated by the clouds in a blue-black sky, the dripping of the rain as musical as chimes outside a window he had failed to close. Had he slept through the day into the night or into the next morning? It didn’t seem possible.

He saw headlights on the road. The lights turned up his lane and shone directly into his living room and then went black, filling his eyes with rings of color. He opened his front door, unable to believe what he was seeing, the coolness of the late evening ballooning inside the doorway.

The car was big and heavy and bright blue, a REO with four doors and a collapsible top and whitewall wood-spoked tires; the hood ticked with heat. A uniformed chauffeur got out and opened the back door, and a woman stepped out on the gravel and opened a parasol over her head. Hackberry clicked on the porch light.

“Are you shocked?” the woman said.

“I thought you were dead,” he said.

“Why would you think that?”

“I heard the Communists had found their puritan selves and were shooting people right and left down there.”

“Do I look dead?”

“You look wonderful, Miss Beatrice. Would you come in?”

Her chauffeur stood behind her. His uniform was gray and stiff, as if it had just been ironed, his skin so black it had a purple sheen, his cobalt-blue eyes incongruous in their intensity and color.

“My driver hasn’t eaten. Would you mind?” she said.

“Whatever is in the icebox.”

The chauffeur followed her through the door, removing his cap and placing it under his arm.

“Sit down, Miss B.,” Hackberry said. He turned to the chauffeur. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Andre.”

“Andre, your supper ware is in the far left-hand cupboard. Reckon you can find it?”

The chauffeur blinked to show he understood and went into the kitchen. He had not bothered to say “yes” or “yes, sir” or “thank you.”

“Does he have a speech defect?” Hackberry said.

“He’s aware of what you just indicated to him.”

“Pardon?”

“You instructed him to use the tableware reserved for the servants. The tin plates and jelly glasses, the ceramics that are cracked or chipped. You reminded him he’s a man of color.”

“I’ll feel bad about that the rest of the night,” Hackberry said, then thought, Why did I just say that?

“I came here for two reasons. I won’t take up much of your time.”

“Take all you want. You didn’t come here to fight with me, did you?” He tried to smile.

She was sitting on the couch, her folded parasol propped against her thigh. She wore a dark dress and a short blue velvet coat and a brooch that resembled a white rose at the top of her blouse. Her face was unlined and seemed to have no makeup on it. The lamp was bright behind her hair, which she wore in a curl at the back of her neck. “I spoke to you harshly in Mexico.”

“I don’t remember it that way. It looks like you’re doing mighty well. You’re visiting here?”

“I bought a vaudeville and motion picture house and an apartment building in San Antonio. I’m also buying a restaurant and amusement pier in Galveston.”

He sat down in a deerskin chair by the fireplace. “You didn’t hit oil somewhere, did you?”

“On land I bought at Goose Creek.”