"I'm Judy Smallwood," she said. "I'm Edith's sister"-as if Jeff couldn't figure that out for himself-"and I'll be riding herd on these two terrors tonight." The terrors kept on trying to assassinate each other.
Edith brought the flowers out in a green pressed-glass vase not quite big enough for the job. She started to put the vase on the coffee table in front of the sofa, then thought better of it. The top of the wireless cabinet made a safer choice. Once she'd set the vase there, she nodded to Jeff. "Well, I'm ready," she said, and she might have been challenging the world or herself to tell her she wasn't.
"Let's go, then," he said.
"Have a good time," Edith's sister called after them. Jeff held the door open for Edith and closed it again after she went through. He opened the Birmingham's passenger-side door, too, then went around and got in behind the wheel himself.
As he started the auto, Edith said, "I want to thank you again for everything you did about Chick's pension. That was kinder'n anybody had any need of bein'."
"Least I could do." He put the motorcar in gear and pulled away from the curb. "He gave his life for his country, just like he got shot at the front." That was more true than the prison guard's widow knew.
Edith Blades looked down at her hands. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring any more, but Jeff could still see the mark on her finger. "Thank you," she repeated, not much above a whisper.
He parked right across the street from the Bijou. The theater wasn't going to be crowded tonight. People came up by ones and twos. No line stretched along the sidewalk out from the ticket counter, the way it did when a hit came to town. If a hit had been in town, he would have taken her to it. As things were, he had to make do. He set two quarters on the counter, got two poorly printed tickets, and gave them to the attendant at the door, who tore them in half.
At the refreshment counter, he bought popcorn and candy and waxed cardboard cups of fizzy Dr. Hopper. Edith called up a faint smile. "Been a while since I went to a picture show," she said. "Even before Chick… died… It's been a while."
"Well, we're here," Jeff said. "Let's have the best time we can." She nodded.
The plush seats creaked when they sat down in them. The seats needed reupholstering; too many backs and bottoms had rubbed against them since they were new. Everything about the Bijou was overdue for a fix-up. The carpet had seen better years. The gold paint on the lamps was dusty and peeling. The curtain in front of the screen had frayed, threadbare spots.
And all of that stopped mattering the minute the lights went down and the threadbare curtain pulled back. All that mattered were the pictures on the screen. The newsreel came first, of course. There was President Featherston, firing a cannon at the Yankees. There were General Patton's barrels rumbling forward. There were burnt-out Yankee barrels and throngs of dirty, disheveled U.S. prisoners trudging into captivity with their hands above their heads. There were Confederate bombers blasting U.S. cities. Patriotic music blared. The announcer gabbled. By what he said, the war was as good as won. Jeff hoped he was right.
The serial was installment number nine-or was it number ten?-about a blond heroine kidnapped by Red Negro guerrillas and constantly threatened with a fate worse than death, a fate she somehow kept evading episode after episode. The Negroes mugged and rolled their eyes and showed their teeth. They seemed to know they'd get what was coming to them in the last reel. Jeff knew they'd get worse than that if they didn't shut up and do as they were told. They might end up in Camp Dependable, for instance.
In the feature, a loose-living woman from New York City (was there any other kind?-in the CSA, the place was a synonym for depravity) tried to seduce military secrets from a Confederate aeronautical engineer. His love for the girl he'd left behind him kept him from yielding to temptation, and everything turned out for the best. In films, it always did.
When the lights came up again, Jeff sighed. He didn't want to face the real world. But here it was, whether he wanted it or not. "I'll take you home," he told Edith Blades.
"All right," she answered. "Thank you again for asking me out."
"You're welcome. I'd like to do it again, if you care to," he said. She nodded. He smiled. He felt like a kid having a pretty good time on a first date. If that wasn't silly at his age, he didn't know what would be. Silly or not, it was real.
He walked her up to her front door when they got back to her house. "Good night," she said, and squeezed his hand. He wondered if he ought to try to kiss her. Something told him it wouldn't be a good idea, so he held off. She opened the door, went inside, and softly closed it behind her.
Even without a kiss, a broad grin stretched over Jeff's face as he drove back to Camp Dependable. In the morning, Mercer Scott would grill him about what he'd done. He was as sure of that as he was of the coming sunrise. He didn't know if the guard chief would care for the story he spun. He didn't much care, either. If Mercer Scott wanted to play Peeping Tom, he could watch prisoners, not his boss.
Sure as hell, the first thing Scott said the next morning was, "How'd it go?"
"Fine," Jeff answered. "She's a nice gal." After that, he went back to his ham and eggs and grits and toast and coffee.
"Well?" Scott went on. "Where'd you go? What did you do?"
"Went to the Bijou. Spy picture there's not bad." Jeff pointed. "Pass me that strawberry jam, would you?" Fuming, Scott did. He asked a few more questions. Pinkard sidestepped most of them, which only annoyed the guard chief more. The harder the time Scott had hiding it, the more Jeff wanted to laugh out loud.
Instead of laughing, he prowled through the camp after breakfast, the way he did almost every morning. Things felt quieter than they had when bands of Negroes were led out into the swamps every so often and didn't come back. Some of the desperation, the certainty they had nothing left to lose, was gone from the prisoners. That eased Jeff's mind. A man with nothing left to lose would lash out against the people holding him. Why not? If he figured he'd last a while, though, he'd think twice.
Nobody made a fuss when a fleet of trucks pulled up in front of the camp. "Come on!" the guards shouted. "Get your raggedy asses lined up, niggers. Some of y'all are goin'to Texas! Be good to see the last of you, you miserable bastards. Free up space in the camp, and about time, too."
The black men who boarded the trucks didn't fuss at talk like that. White men had talked to them like that since they were babies. Had the guards spoken softly and politely, it would have made them suspicious. Ordinary, bantering abuse they were used to.
They didn't give anyone any trouble as they filled one truck after another. Why should they? Texas was a big place. Camps there were bound to be big, too, with more room than this one had. Guards slammed the rear doors of the trucks. None of the Negroes flabbled at those metallic clangs, or at the thud of the bar coming down across the doors. Naturally, the white men wouldn't want them getting away. At least they weren't shackled into place in the cargo box. It might get a little crowded in there, but it wouldn't be too bad… would it?
One after another, the loaded trucks rolled away. A couple of the guards waved good-bye. Jefferson Pinkard saw that. As soon as the trucks were gone, he summoned those guards to his office. "You ever do that again, I will fire your sorry asses so fast, it'll make your heads swim," he snarled. "Ever! You don't like those niggers well enough to wave if they're going to Texas. Only thing that'd make you wave is if something else is goin'on."
"But, sir, somethin' else is-" one of the guards began.
"Shut up," Jeff told him. "Every time you open your mouth, your brains try and fall out. You may know somethin'. I doubt it, but you may. I may know somethin'. Matter of fact, I damn well do. But do we want the niggers here gettin' a whiff of it? Do we, you stupid son of a bitch?"