Paper son, p.4
Paper Son, page 4
“You don’t say.” Lucknell’s smile widened into a grin, and I was reminded of the alligators. “You the boss, little lady?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “So, by anything you can do, Pete wouldn’t mean you folks came down to grab the boy up and take him on out of here, would he?”
“You mean, did we break him out of jail?” I asked in disbelief. “Are you serious? We don’t even know where your jail is. We just got to Clarksdale an hour ago. Check the car rental papers.”
“Oh, now, don’t go on. No one’s accusing y’all of anything. But if you’re looking for things to investigate, it’d be my duty to say that’s a waste of time. We investigated that murder six ways from Sunday.” He laid an emphasis on investigated as though it were a foreign word it tickled him to use. “Jefferson killed his daddy. We found Jefferson in the store, Leland’s body not cold yet, Jefferson’s prints on the knife, and him without a tale to tell.”
“Now why on earth would he do that?” Pete demanded. “You got a motive, Bert?”
“Well, luckily I ain’t the prosecutor, so I don’t need one. But everybody knows they didn’t get on. Got so bad to where Jefferson left town.”
“Jefferson went to Oxford, where computer geeks like him can find gainful employment. Not a family around here doesn’t have kids who left the Delta to look for work.”
“That’s as may be, Pete. Seems every time he came home, though, they had a dustup. You ask me, it’s most probably drugs, like all them young kids. Or maybe Jefferson’s got a gambling problem and Leland cut him off, said he wasn’t gonna keep giving him money like he gave his daddy.”
“I thought Leland was Jefferson’s daddy,” I said.
“Leland’s own daddy, I mean by that. Jonas Tam, Pete here’s brother. Everyone knows Leland spent the best years of his life saving his daddy’s ass. Maybe he didn’t want to be stuck saving his son’s ass, too. Begging your pardon, little lady.”
Lucknell trained his toxic smile on me. I gazed back steadily—I’m a New Yorker, I have a lifetime’s worth of experience on the subway—and eventually he broke off and slugged back the rest of his tea.
Putting down the glass, Lucknell slapped his hands on his knees. “Thanks for the refreshment, Pete. Come on, Tom. We got to find Jefferson, and I guess these fine folks don’t know where he is.” He stood. “Of course, if he does happen to pop into your sights, I’ll hear about it right quick, I know I will. Be a big mistake if I don’t, that’s for sure. Oh, and there’s even a reward, so y’all could make yourselves a chunk of change.
“Nice meeting you folks. Have a good trip back to New York City.”
Captain Pete jumped up. “Bert, you sit yourself back down! You can’t just walk outta here like this. Tell me what happened.”
Lucknell smiled benignly down at Captain Pete. “What happened? Well, it’s a funny thing. Seems Jefferson got himself carried off by two uniformed fellas in a County Prisoner Transport van. They said he had a court date. Waved around the paperwork and everything. They headed up First Street, made the left onto Yazoo like they was going behind the court building where they take the prisoners in. Now, they got those vans coming and going from the courthouse all the time; no one on Yazoo specially remembers that one. But it must’ve been that it never did stop. Couple hours later, Sheriff Bradley had someone call over there, ask when he was getting his prisoner back. They had no notion what he was talking about.” Lucknell’s smile swept around like a searchlight. “Pretty slick, huh? You can think whatever you want, Pete. He’s your flesh and blood and you can’t be faulted for trying to hold a high opinion of him. But this sure don’t sound like something you’d anyhow expect from an innocent man.”
7
Pete shut the door behind the cops. “Well,” he said. “Bert Lucknell’s never gonna strain himself carrying his brains around. Nor his portion of the milk of human kindness, neither. But still, this is a worrisome thing.”
“It sure is,” I said. “Captain Pete, is there—”
“No, no, no.” Pete shook his head. “A chance Jefferson’s guilty? Of killing his own daddy? No way.”
“How are you so sure?”
He patted his belly. “My gut’s looked out for me my whole life. Right now, it’s shouting loud and clear that this here, you bet on Jefferson and it’s a lock.”
“Then why escape? And with such a well-organized plan? Sounds like what he did took a lot of thought. And a little money.”
“I have no idea.”
“Well,” Bill said levelly, eyes on Pete, “his not being guilty of this homicide doesn’t mean he’s not guilty of something else.”
Pete seemed to deflate. He walked to his plaid chair and sank into it. “What’s the ‘else’ you got in mind?”
Bill looked to me. I said, “Pete, we don’t know Jefferson, or much about him, so we can’t say. But someone went to a lot of trouble for him. Who would do that?”
“No one I know. The kid’s my flesh and blood, like Bert said, but like I said, I missed a lot of his growing up. I didn’t even know Leland was dead and Jefferson was grabbed for it until his lawyer called me yesterday.”
“You didn’t? How could it not have been all over Clarksdale?”
“No doubt it was. I was up in Tunica. Poker tournament at the Golden Spike.”
“Who’s Jefferson’s lawyer, that called you?” Bill asked.
“Callie Leblanc. From the Coahoma County Public Defender’s Office. Real nice lady, and a good lawyer, or so I’ve been told, but mighty busy. What the public defenders do here, they call it ‘meet ’em and plead ’em.’ Works out good if they actually did it, which most of them probably did. But for Jefferson, I was thinking to hire a lawyer out of Oxford, or maybe Jackson.” Pete turned to me. “But I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Me?” I was taken aback. “I don’t know anyone—” I stopped. Bouncy Pete Tam was sagging in the chair, a look in his eyes I’d seen before, though not from him: a mixture of worry and guilt. The Chinese I-failed-my-family look.
“Pete,” I asked gently, “are there things you know that you haven’t told us?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know a blessed thing. It’s just Bert’s onto something when he says Jefferson and Leland didn’t get on. And I’m feeling bad about that, because I’m maybe more a part of it than I got any business to be.”
“All right,” I said. “We’re listening.”
He sighed. “Thing is, me and Leland didn’t get on all that good ourselves. Leland has—had a stick up his nether parts about gambling.”
“Unusual, in a Chinese person,” I said.
“Well, there’s your mama.”
“Point taken.”
“And like in her case, where it’s about her daddy, in Leland’s case, it’s about Leland’s daddy, my brother Jonas. The store did fine when we were kids, but once Pop—Harry Tam—was gone and Jonas took over, fast as his missus saved their money, Jonas found it and gamed it away.”
“Jonas wasn’t the oldest, was he? Why didn’t your other brother take over? Paul, right?”
“Paul was five years older than Jonas, twelve older than me. Never had an interest in the store. Took himself to law school, married a white lady, had a practice up and running in Jackson by the time Daddy passed. Paul’s Reynold Tam’s daddy.” I must have looked blank, because he added, “The congressman running for governor.”
“Oh!” I said. “We saw signs on the way down. He really is a relative?”
“My nephew, same as Leland.”
“Why didn’t my mother tell me I had a cousin running for governor? Does she know?”
“I told her when he first announced, but that was a while back. Most probably she forgot.”
This told me two things. One, because my mother never forgets anything, I didn’t have a scoop to drop. Two, my mother kept in touch with the Mississippi-gambler cousins, though she’d never mentioned them to her children.
Neither of those things, nor the politician cousin himself, was the issue of the moment, though. A troubled look in Pete’s eyes made me say, “I want to hear all about this congressman. But not right now, I think. Let’s go back—you were talking about Jonas taking over the store.”
Pete nodded. “Jonas didn’t mind that it was him, not Paul. He never had ambitions to leave Clarksdale, and he liked his customers and all. But he never could shake that gambling monkey. Leland started running that store when he was seventeen. He hadn’t’ve done that, Jonas would’ve lost it, sure as shooting. Put his two sisters through college, Leland did, and barely finished high school himself, though, ask me, he was the smartest of the bunch. By the time your daddy came down, Leland was a full-time shopkeeper, going on twenty years. But your daddy could see what was happening. Jonas would swear up and down he was through, Leland would pay off his debts. Next thing you know, Jonas is back up in Tunica, or over to Hot Springs. Leopard can’t change his spots. Your daddy didn’t want your mama to have to live with that.”
I pictured my father considering the idea of moving here, the soft summer nights, the trees and grasses, a family business . . . and then thinking of my mother’s father. And so I grew up in New York.
“And that’s what was between Leland and you? That you’re a gambler, too?”
“Not exactly. I don’t have that fever Jonas had. That’s the difference between a professional gambler and a problem one. I win, I say thank you, walk away. Like this place—bought it years ago after a good weekend in Atlantic City. Jonas, when he’d win, he’d buy theater tickets for everyone at the table, then stake himself to the high rollers’ room. Now, I’m not denying I get a rush when Lady Luck smiles and the cards fall my way, but I’d bet”—he grinned—“you get the same rush, when a case comes together.”
I couldn’t help but return his smile.
“What I thought,” he said. “Anybody’s business, they get a charge when it goes well. Now, I did start at the tables because I wanted to do like my big brother. Jonas was the sort of fellow could charm the stripes off a skunk. Pop was like that, too, but between you, me, and the fence post, Leland must’ve been standing behind the door when they handed out personality.”
I realized I had no picture of Leland Tam at all. “What was he like, Pete?”
“Plain stodgy. Well, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, so maybe I should just say dependable.” Pete tilted his head. “He’s—he was a shopkeeper, after all.”
“Any enemies? Did he have trouble with anyone?”
“Not that I knew. Him and Lucie pretty much kept to themselves, Leland even more since Lucie passed. Ran the store, went to church.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Bill asked.
“Thanksgiving. Store was open in the morning, in case anyone needed anything last minute. That was his way. Then he and Jefferson came here for dinner.”
“How did they seem? Leland and Jefferson?”
“Like they had a truce. It was nice. We had turkey and watched the game. Games, really. Three NFL plus the Egg Bowl—Ole Miss versus Mississippi State. Jefferson does that online gambling. He had a few dollars on each game, so we kept going back and forth.”
I said, “I thought online gambling was illegal.”
“It is if it’s games of chance. Craps, roulette, and them. Poker and sports, those right there are games of skill. You got to put thought into them. So they’re legal.”
I wasn’t sure how much sense that made, but I let it go. “Did you have money on the games, too?”
“Not me. I play poker, against fellas I can see. I’m feeling crazy, I’ll throw some dice, spin the wheel for the thrill. Long as the house and the other fellas aren’t crooked, I know my odds and I’m good. I’m at a tavern, maybe I’ll put a few bucks on a game just to keep things interesting. But these online sports books—DraftKings, FanDuel—that’s a whole other thing. They put you up against folks you don’t know, can’t see, got no idea what they’re up to. What I hear, some of those whales got computer programs to pick their lineups, field hundreds of ’em a day.”
“Whales?”
“Big fish. Besides, where’s the fun in being home, hunched over a computer? Where’s the lights, the drinks, the girls? At the casino, you win big, you find some female companionship, go see a show. Lose”—he winked—“you find some female companionship, go see a show. Online gambling, where you’re all alone and your odds are bad? No sir, not for me.”
“But Jefferson does it?”
“Well, being a geek and all, I expect it comes naturally to him.”
“Did Leland object?”
“To Jefferson’s gaming? No. Whatever Bert Lucknell says, that wasn’t the problem between them.”
“What was?”
Pete sighed. “Well, see, home and family, that’s what it was all about for Leland. He sacrificed every day for that. His sisters, his mama and daddy, Lucie, Jefferson.”
“Jefferson’s an only child?”
“Turned out Lucie couldn’t have but the one. Leland and her, they pinned a lot of hopes on Jefferson. Cancer carried Lucie off a few years back. Jefferson went a year to Delta State, dropped out when Lucie died. Moved himself to Oxford, got work. Leland grumbled about him going up there. Why live an hour away when you could stay right here at home?”
“My mother said the same thing about each of my brothers when they moved out of the apartment. So Thanksgiving was the last time you saw Leland?”
Pete nodded. “Went up to Tunica right after. Didn’t . . .” His voice caught. “But I talked to him last week.”
“About what?”
“He called me. Said something strange happened, wanted to talk about it. Wanted to know could I come over. But I was up in Tunica, and I was kinda busy at the table right then. I asked could it keep for a few days and he said he thought it could. So that was that. I expected I’d see him when the tournament was over.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“No. He might’ve sounded more worried than usual, but the next pot was coming up and I wanted to be dealt in, so I just told him I’d call him when I got back.”
“‘More worried than usual’? Leland doesn’t sound like a happy man.”
“Well, his point of view, everybody skedaddled and left him holding the bag. I’d help out in the store time to time, send him money, too, but still, I’m in Macao, Niagara Falls, he’s in his apron in a sorry-ass neighborhood in sorry-ass Clarksdale.” Pete stopped himself. “Apologies, Cousin Lydia.”
“I’m a New Yorker, Pete,” I said, ignoring Bill’s smile.
Captain Pete grinned. “Apologies for the apologies, then. Anyways, you see what Leland saw: everyone someplace else but him. His sisters in California, his daddy at the gambling tables, me pretty much the same, and Paul married to a rich white woman in Jackson, never came around.”
“Will the sisters come for the funeral? And Paul, and Reynold? They’re my relatives; I’d like to meet them.”
“Sorry, Cousin Lydia. Paul and his missus, plus both Leland’s sisters, they all passed some years back. Reynold, I doubt he’ll come.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But why won’t Reynold come? Did he not get along with Leland?”
“Hardly knew him. Reynold takes after his daddy. Doesn’t come down here much. And just now, he’s mighty busy. Primary’s in early March. He wins that, he’s in.”
“But surely he could take the time for a family funeral?”
“Nothing to do with time. This is Mississippi.”
I must have looked blank, because he went on.
“Liberal wing of the party’s taking a chance nominating a half-Chinese fellow for governor. In fact, some people say they did it because the thought was, no one could beat the other guy anyway. That’s Stirling Mallory, from an old plantation family. That boy wants to club the whole state over the head and drag it back to the Stone Age. Reynold, he wants to push us the other direction, into the twentieth century, seeing as the rest of the country’s well into the twenty-first. Funny thing is, he seems to have a chance. Once his people caught on to that, they didn’t want to jeopardize it.”
Now I got it. “By emphasizing his Chinese family, you mean?”
“His people probably think it’s better not to get the voters skittish.”
“But it can’t be that he hides. If he’s half-Chinese.”
“His mama was a white lady, and he mostly takes after her. It’s okay with me. If he can shine a little light on this state, I’ll do without family togetherness.”
I didn’t know how to react, or how I wanted to. Bill stepped in. With a glance at me, he said, “Captain Pete, tell us what the problem was between you and Leland, if it wasn’t gambling.”
Pete grinned. “Sorry. You have to pardon us Southerners. We start telling tales, we can go far afield. So: there’s everyone else everywhere else, like I said, and here’s Leland, spent his life looking after family, and what does he have? Old photos, scrapbooks, and the store. He wanted me to help bring Jefferson around to taking the store over so it wouldn’t have to close when Leland passed, because of all the history there, but all I ever told the kid was, follow your gut. That’s what made Leland mad. That’s what was between Jefferson and Leland, and between me and Leland, too. I kept thinking, sooner or later, Leland would back off, quit blaming me for something that wasn’t even really wrong. Now . . .”
The “now” was obvious, and as sad as could be. I left it alone, and Bill also sat silent. Captain Pete sighed. “See, Cousin Lydia, I always did what my gut told me and I’m nohow sorry about that. But what I am sorry about, I’ve been a disappointment to my family. Don’t expect you know much about that, but it’s not a good feeling, I’m here to tell you.”
I looked at Bill, then back to Pete. “I’m not as much of a stranger to that feeling as you might think, Pete. All right, let’s get to work. We don’t want to disappoint Jefferson.”
8
When I said “get to work,” Pete perked up. It occurred to him that if the sheriff’s men had come looking for Jefferson, the Clarksdale PD might also.
