Too Easy Mass market paperbound - 1998

Excerpt

1: Dinner and Drug Traffic

What do you say to your dinner date when there's a gunshot out the window on a hot summer night?

"'Scuse me, sugar.  How's your swordfish?"

You take a look out the window, down to the street.  There's a guy with his arm jammed inside somebody's open car door.  It's not the first time you've seen this ballet.  He's grabbing the steering wheel, shoving it hard toward the curb so the guy in the car can't drive away.  He's speaking very calmly for a man in his situation.

"You don't drive away without you give me my money, man--else I take my gun and shoot you and your little dog too."

The guy in the car sees the error of his ways.  The car sputters to a halt.  Money exchanges hands.  You go back to your dinner.  The world begins anew.

I don't have that many friends over--a lot of them don't like the neighborhood.  Dalliance is the exception--to almost anything.  Nobody in the world has a friend like she is to me.  We grew up together, starting out down in south Georgia.  On this particular evening, however, she found the disturbance in the street annoying.

"Why don't you move?"

"Where?"

"Some quieter place?"

I sat back down.  "I always liked the beach."

She took a bite of the swordfish.  I'd grilled it on the hibachi out the back window of the spare room.  My place is just off Ponce de León, a grand old Atlanta street that we've all agreed to mispronounce.  The building's only got four apartments in it.  From one end to the other I've got a glassed-in sunroom; a living room where most of the furniture is junk--kind of hobo hip.  I've got a fine stereo hidden away; a dining room with a fairly useless bay window--there's nothing to see but the drug traffic; a galley kitchen, although I don't think the apartment would float if it came to it; and two bedrooms.  I use one for sleeping, and sometimes the spare room is an office.  I have a profession: Flap Tucker, Lost and Found.  Plus, it's a great place to barbecue.

Dally took a sip of the wine.  It was the 1983 Château Simard--not as good as, say, an '86 Cantenac Brown, which is a wine I would personally pop my own mother for--but the Simard's a steal at twenty bucks a bottle.

She lifted her glass to me.  "Try Savannah."

I popped an asparagus in half.  "Hmm?"

"Savannah.  Tybee Island.  It's quiet."

"How am I going to afford a vacation?"

She polished off the wine and reared back in the chair.  "Well, what if it's more like a working vacation?"

I should have known.  "You got work for me."

She nodded.  "You got a dessert for me?"

"Raspberry Surprise."

"I'll bite.  What's the surprise?"

I stood up.  "I couldn't find any raspberries so we got no dessert.  Are you surprised?"

"You're not really much for the sweets, are you?"

I went for another bottle.  "I don't see the point."

She went into the living room.  "The point is, you get a little denouement.  A meal is like a story, pal."

I brought in the new bottle.  "I know your theories on the subject.  I'd rather talk about this job you think you have for me."

"Oh, I don't think I have it--and you're gonna really want to go when I tell you."

"You said that the last time ...  and I still haven't gotten paid, by the way."

She hoisted the bottle out of my hand and gave it a gander.  "You don't want for the finer things."  She didn't want me talking about the "last time."

I knew what she was doing.  She was just trying to get me up and out of the apartment.  I'd have to admit I'd been a little sluggish since our last business: a rude little whack name of Lenny--who got away.  I mean, we foiled his evil scheme to get rich selling off the sacred treasures of Tibet--but he got away.  I hate loose ends.  He killed people, I found him ...  and he still got away.  I guess I'd have to admit to feeling pretty bad on that particular score.

I settled in across from her.  I was in an overstuffed chair that used to belong to my grandmother, who helped to raise me--such as that raising was.  She was just about as odd as you'd want to be.  She used to get messages from the static between radio stations.  Sometimes the message was for her to buy six boxes of Bon Ami cleaner; sometimes the message was for her to take off her clothes and run down the center lane.  She also suffered from clinical depression.  The sad fact was she wasn't all that unusual in my family.  I had a cousin that they locked up and threw away the key, far as I knew.  What I'm saying is that I'm the sanest one in the bunch--which will give a person the idea of just how much trouble there is in that bunch.  My grandmother wasn't even the worst.  Still, it was a good chair, and I figured the nut juju was just about gone: she'd been passed away for fifteen years.

I zipped a glance at my dinner companion, then stared into my glass, beaded bubbles winking at the rim.  "What's the job?"

"The usual.  All you gotta do is find something nobody else can find."

I took a sip.  "'Oh, how feeble is man's power that, if good fortune fall, he cannot add another hour, nor a lost hour recall.'"

"Huh?"

"John Donne."

She blinked.  "Okay."

"When you're a layabout like me, you can invest a couple of hours now and again reading poetry ..."

"...  looking for lines the dollies'll go for."

"Dollies?"

"You heard me.  If you've got time for poetry, my guess is that it's makin' time for dollies."

I shook my head.  "You are one sad setback for the feminist movement."

"Bite me."

"Gladly, but first tell me about the job."

"First tell me about the poetry."

"Brother Donne is trying to tell you that people want the good times to stay--but they don't last.  And once they're gone, you can't bring 'em back.  I can't find a lost hour, and it's what most people want."

"Don't you get philosophical with me, mister.  And I thought Donne was a metaphysical poet, not a pessimist."

I had to smile.  She pretends not to know, but she knows.  "What's the job?"

"You're eager."

"I'm out of cash."

She set her glass down on the table between us.  "Two boys, twins, got in a little trouble in Tifton."

"You can't get into big trouble in Tifton."

"Be nice.  I think I like these boys.  Somebody else thinks they killed a banker down there, but they didn't.  It was his wife.  She's a siren."

I took a bigger sip.  "I thought they mostly operated on the rocks wrecking the big boats."

"The boys think she made a sound in his ear that cracked open his skull."

I nodded.  "Like a siren."

"Yeah."

"So who's nuttier, the boys or this ...  dolly?"

She smiled.  "Hard to say.  Do you want to hear more or not?  You want me to tell you the story?"

"Do I get to go to the beach?"

"The boys might be somewhere on Tybee Island."

"Then I want to hear more."  I leaned back in the chair.

Dalliance Oglethorpe--descendant of the founder of Georgia, and owner of Easy, my favorite nightclub in the city--is absolutely one for a story.  In fact, she will not give you two cents for a job unless a story goes with it.  She's incapable of saying, "Here's the job: Go find some twins."  She has to tell you a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  What am I going to do?  I love her, so I listen.


2: A Story

Dally's story went as follows:

There was once a banker who lived in Tifton.  He saw a spirit once out on the ocean, and he fell in love with her.  She was dressed in white, her hair was gold, and her face was pale and sad.  She sat in a golden boat.  Night after night he went down and paced the shores and begged her to come onto land and marry him, but she never answered.  Finally he called out to her with a promise that a lot of young men make:

"I'll never stop loving you and I'll always be kind."

At that the spirit vanished from the water.  There was a musical sound on the rocks, and the woman stepped ashore, followed by servants carrying bags of gold and jewels, her dowry--she was very rich.  They married, and were happy, until they went to the christening of a newborn, and the beautiful spirit began to cry.

Her husband was embarrassed.  "Stop.  Why are you crying? "

"The poor baby.  It's entering into a world of great sorrow and sadness.  When I think of all the suffering that lies ahead, I can't help but cry."

And in a fit of anger the man shoved her out the door.

She said, "That's once."

It was only six weeks later that the very same baby died, and the couple attended the funeral.  Once again the husband was angered by his wife's behavior.  She was laughing and singing.

"Hush.  Why are you doing that? It's a funeral."

She couldn't help it.  "The baby has left this world of sin and sorrow and escaped its misery, how can I be anything but happy?"

And again he reacted in anger, turning her arm.

She looked away.  "That's twice."

They lived happily for a time longer, when they were invited to a wedding.  Not just any wedding: The husband's boss was marrying a much younger woman.  It was widely known she was marrying him for his money.  And in the midst of the festivity the spirit burst into tears again.

Her husband was enraged.  "What's the matter with you? It's the boss's wedding day."

She wept harder.  "When I look at that couple, I know youth is wedded to age for a thing so paltry as gold.  They can never be happy."

This time the man exploded, slapping her.  "I can't believe you.  Let's get out of here before anyone hears you."

But she was as quiet as a wave.  "You've struck me for the third and final time."

And saying that, she whispered in his ear one magic word, and left the place so fast no one could follow.  Some ran after her, but all they saw was her golden boat, far out on the ocean.  All the banker's wealth--of money and of love--was gone forever.  And the banker lay dead on the ground.


3: Beautiful, Georgia

I leaned forward, reaching for the bottle.  More wine was absolutely required.  "That's your story?"

She let me pour for her too.  "That's the way Peachy and Maytag tell it."

"That's the twins?"

She nodded.

I sat back.  "How much of it is accurate?"

"All of it.  Some bank exec at Tifton Home Loan--one Lowe Acree by name--met a woman when he went deep-sea fishing in Savannah.  They got married, he beat her, she killed him, and took it on the lam back home.  That's what the boys said before they took off after her."

I nodded.  "So why didn't you just tell it to me that way?"

"Don't you go for the folktales? "

I shrugged.

She sipped.  "Well, you better get a hold of some, or you'll never understand those boys.  They're a little simple, see--and they love the fairy tales."

"Peachy and Maytag what?

"Last name of Turner.  And it's not actually in Tifton, it's on a farm outside the city limits of Beautiful."

"Say it again."

"Beautiful, Georgia."

"Am I going there or Savannah?"

"Better start around Tifton, that's where the murders took place."

"Murders? Plural? "

"Did I happen to mention some of the townsfolk thereabout think the boys killed the banker's wife too? "

"Nice.  You don't believe they did."

She shook her head.

"How did you find out about this? "

"Got a friend that teaches at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College .  .  ."

".  .  .  in Tifton, Georgia .  .  ."

She nodded.  ".  .  .  and she called."

"What's your friend teach?"

"Metaphysical poetry."

"Shut up."

Dalliance smiled.  Whenever she did that, I practically had to do what she wanted.  She leaned forward.  "So, are you going to help me or not? "



      

Media reviews

Phillip DePoy has published short fiction, poetry, and criticism in Story, Southern Poetry Review, Xanadu, Yankee, and other magazines.  He is the author of Messages from Beyond, an essay and photo collection, and Easy, the debut novel in the Flap Tucker mystery series.  He lives outside Atlanta, where he is the artistic director of the Townsend Center for the Performing Arts at the State University of West Georgia.