“Smart,” Walt said. “That’s probably the only way he could have got out alive.”
“I’m sure of it. Ray said Viola was shrieking like a madwoman when he dragged her out of there, begging him to go back and get her brother.”
“I imagine she was.”
“Ray called me from a pay phone. Twenty minutes later, we met down an oil field road and he put her in the backseat of my car. I had my black bag, and I sedated the hell out of her. Didn’t have any choice.”
Walt opened a tin of Skoal and tucked a pinch under his bottom lip. “Don’t tell me you took her home to Peggy.”
Tom snorted. “I wasn’t that desperate. Not then, anyway. I couldn’t make up my mind where to hide her, though. I knew the Klan would be combing the city for her, not just the Double Eagles. That meant cops and deputies in those days. I needed somewhere they’d never think of looking. And this was the middle of the night, for Christ’s sake. Then it hit me.”
“Where?”
“Nellie Jackson’s place.”
Walt’s eyes narrowed. “The whorehouse?”
Tom nodded.
Amazement and admiration showed on Walt’s face. Nellie’s was a Natchez institution that lasted from the late 1920s until 1990. The internationally known brothel operated in the downtown area without interference from police for its entire history. Among those in city politics, it was generally believed that Nellie had maintained an extensive photo collection of her clients—many of whom were politicians—and this made her remarkable business run possible. But in fact, what had allowed Nellie Jackson to flourish was the fact that Nellie was based in Natchez, a city with a long history of libertinism, more spiritually akin to New Orleans than to the corrupt but conservative parish across the river.
“I figured the last place in the world they’d go looking for a churchgoing girl like Viola would be Nellie’s,” Tom said. “And I didn’t even tell Ray where I’d taken her.”
Walt grinned. “I knew I taught you something in Korea.”
“I’d been treating Nellie for five years when this happened,” Tom continued. “She brought her girls in regularly for VD checks. New girls every few weeks, most times. Anyway, I went back to the pay phone and called Nellie about Viola. Nellie told me she’d be happy to help. The first night Viola stayed in a back room at the whorehouse, but the next day Nellie moved her to a rent house she owned on the north side of town. She stayed there six days.”
“And they never found her?”
“Nope. I found out years later that Nellie had worked as an informant for the FBI. She kept girls of every race, but they entertained white clients only. Nellie took the rednecks’ money, listened to their conversations, filmed them in bed, and reported everything of interest back to the Bureau. She did more for the civil rights movement than most fine, upstanding church people ever did.”
“Whatever happened to Nellie?”
Tom closed his eyes and tried to vanquish the horror that always followed that question. “In the late eighties, some drunk college kid she wouldn’t let in the door got angry. He went across the street, filled up an ice chest with gasoline, and rang the doorbell. When Nellie answered, he dumped the gas all over her and threw a match. She was eighty-seven years old then, and she died in agony.”
“That’s always the way with whores,” Walt said with fondness and regret. “Never ends well. Some no-’count customer always does something stupid, or the whore does something stupid to save some no-’count. Same difference.”
Walt reached into a drawer and brought out a flat bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon. “How ’bout we take a snort of this, buddy?”
“You go ahead. I’ve got to watch my sugar.”
Walt did, closing his eyes as the fine whiskey slid down his gullet.
“At least that punk spilled gas on himself, too,” Tom said. “He had enough third-degree burns to see his life pass before his eyes before he went to prison.”
“So how did you get Viola out of town?”
“I didn’t. After Ray saved her, it was all I could do to keep her from going to the police. I knew those boys were dead. Viola was so upset, she didn’t care if she went to jail for murdering Frank Knox. She just wanted her brother found. The Eagles were still looking high and low for her, but she didn’t care. I’d give her elephant doses of Valium, and they’d hardly put a dent in her. Just as she was about to snap, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The whole town went crazy then. The FBI turned all its attention to that case, and the Double Eagles went to ground. I got Reverend Walter Nightingale, a black patient of mine, to go by and talk to Viola. Somehow, he got her to see reason. The next day, she left Natchez and went to Chicago, just like thousands of Mississippi blacks before her.” Nearly overcome with guilt, Tom reached out for the whiskey bottle and took a slug that burned all the way down. “And until the other night, I didn’t even know whether she rode the bus or the train.”
Walt shook his head with empathy. “Which was it?”
“Bus.” Tom took another slug of bourbon. “You know why so many blacks from Mississippi ended up in Chicago?”
“Why?”
“It was the cheapest bus or rail ticket they could get to a major northern city.”
“I’ll be dogged. It’s simple, when you think about it.”
“Most things are, once you understand them.”
Walt took back the bottle and let it hang from his weathered hand. “When did you next talk to her after she left?”
“Six weeks ago.” Tom lowered his head and wiped tears from his eyes. “I loved that woman, Walt. And I didn’t see or talk to her for thirty-seven years.”
“Goddamn, son. That’s rough.”
“I know you know it.”