As she touches a button, I reach down to the portable cart by her bed and retrieve the mask, then carefully fit it around her head. It feeds oxygen to her nose but keeps her mouth free to talk.
“I met Edith Hamilton at Bryn Mawr,” she says wistfully. “Did I tell you? She gave the most wonderful lecture: The Greek Way.” Pithy shivers suddenly, then takes a sip of cold tea from her bedside table. “Ugh … this would give a billy goat indigestion. Don’t leave yet, Penn. Let me get settled. This talk about Tom has me frazzled.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She takes several deep breaths as though trying to quell panic. “You know, sometimes … when I get oxygen-deprived … I hook up the machine, and then the gas hits my lungs … and I see things.”
I suppress a smile. Pithy Nolan has always been conscious that she was named for the priestess of the cave at Delphi. She’s the third Pythia in her family, and it’s long been said that the women in the maternal line possessed “second sight,” a colloquial term for the gift of prophecy. A hundred years ago, women in New Orleans and Baltimore quietly sought out her grandmother in matters involving family decisions, believing that she had foreknowledge of the future. Pithy has told me of cases where she predicted the illnesses or deaths of certain people.
As Flora pads into the room, I reflect on the irony of a woman of rigorous intellect believing in the idea of precognition.
“Flo,” Pithy says. “Go down the hall to that cabinet where I keep my old jewelry and look in the bottom drawer. Bring me what’s folded up in tissue paper at the back. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes. I’ll get it.”
Flora gives me a curious look as she departs, but I can’t read her meaning.
“I knew Albert Norris,” Pithy says dreamily. “That man had a way with white people. In those days, colored men would stand off and let whites get comfortable before they approached. Albert didn’t do that. He didn’t have to. White people just naturally warmed to him. He was always in and out of white homes. Folks were mighty upset when he died. That went a long way toward turning people against the Klan across the river.”
“I’ve heard that. You just breathe, Pithy.”
“No … I want to talk. I’ve missed our little confabs.”
“Have you heard from your son lately?”
“Oh, Robby’s still up in Boston. He’ll never come back south again, except to bury me. He’ll sell Corinth off to some greedy carpetbagger.”
She chuckles to keep from crying, and then her eyes close. Time passes, marked by the soft rush of labored breathing, and then Flora silently appears beside me.
“I got it, Miss Pithy,” she whispers, as though hoping the old woman won’t hear her.
Pithy’s eyes blink, then open and focus on me. “Give it to Mayor Cage.”
Flora unfolds the tissue paper and hands me what appears to be a small straight razor with a sterling silver handle. I recognize the razor from seeing my father receive old-fashioned barbershop shaves as a boy, but also from more than one crime scene in Houston. Some older black and Mexican criminals tended to use them, and I knew cops who used straight razors as throw-down weapons, because they’re so easy to conceal.
“Brody Royal gave me that as a present when we were courting,” Pithy says, as though still shocked by the idea. “Can you imagine? He said it was for my protection. In case I ever got into a tight spot. Look at the engraving on the handle.”
Examining the silver handle, I make out the faint inscription, “A Lady’s Best Friend,” in fine script.
“Could anything say more about the man than that?” Pithy asks. “A straight razor is a pimp’s weapon. Or a prostitute’s. Maybe a professional gambler’s, if you want to be charitable. But Brody didn’t know any better, you see? That was the world he’d grown up in.”
Carefully opening the blade, I realize what a perfect weapon of last resort this razor would be. Far slimmer than a pocketknife, it could easily hide behind the seam of any garment.
“Take that with you,” Pithy says, lifting a hand to silence my protest. “To remind you who you’re up against. Don’t expect fair play. Don’t expect chivalry.”
“I won’t forget.”
She grimaces in pain. “I need a Valium, Flo. My heart is racing.”
Flora goes to the bedside table and takes a small white pill from its bottle, then holds it up to Pithy’s mouth with a cup of water. The old woman shakes her head, and the maid pulls back the mask and places the pill under her tongue.
“Your daddy taught me this,” Pithy whispers. “Hits the bloodstream faster.”
Flora and I stand silently beside the bed for a couple of minutes, and in that time Pithy’s eyelids slowly fall.
“Is she asleep?”
“I never know,” Flora whispers. “Sometimes I think she is, and then she’ll raise up when a car passes a mile out on the highway.” The maid steps closer to the bed and studies her employer’s face, then turns to me. “I think you can go now. I’m so glad you came. It did her a world of good.”
“I’m going to send Melba out to give her a shot.”
“Good. Her joints have given her the devil this week.”
“How are your joints doing?”
Flora’s smile broadens. “Did Doc tell you about me?”
“Tell me what?”
“Sometimes, when my ol’ Arthur gets bad, Doc gives me a little shot, too. On the way out to his car, usually.”
It suddenly strikes me that when my father dies, it’s people like this who will mourn him most deeply. In shotgun shacks and mansions alike, people like Flora and Pithy will sit and remember the doctor who came to their bedside, and listened, and did what he could to make their lives a little better.
“You be careful, Mayor,” Flora says.
My hand is on the doorknob when Pithy calls, “Wait!” in full voice. When I turn, the old woman is propped up on one elbow, her face tight with pain.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, hurrying to her side.