get the thing published…don’t kid yourself, Nicky boy; Armiger will never let it happen. Nick struggled to banish those thoughts.
Twice stared straight ahead at the television. His face twitched with the effort of recollection. “Chocolate! Vanilla! Fresh, fresh berries! Half-price! Hurry, hurry!” he screamed, startling them all. Here was a man who had heard too many commercials.
“He likes his ice cream, he sure do,” Dora said, smiling patiently at her antediluvian in-law. “Let me just go get him some. Maybe that’ll calm him down.”
“Twice, Twice. Think, now,” Nick began again, feeling like a hypnotist. “I’m trying to learn all I can about your grandfather. He might have been a hero, and we want to tell his story to the world.” Nick was convinced about the hero part, though not sure that he was exactly sincere about telling the world.
“The Good Book,” Twice said solemnly, holding up an index finger, in a credible impersonation of the Grim Reaper. “First shall be last, and last shall be first. Time to reap and sow. Rejoice, leap for joy, for your reward. Happy are the mild-tempered; lo, they inherit the earth. Make your peace with your brother and offer up your gift. Yes mean yes, no mean no. Store up treasures, where moth and rust do not consume, thieves break not in and steal. There your heart will be also. Keep on asking, and it shall be given; seeking, you shall find. No rotten tree brings forth fine fruit. Fresh, fresh! Hurry while they last! In the Good Book, look to the Good Book!”
Dora brought his ice cream, and he was pacified.
More than eighty years of Ecclesiastes and the Sermon on the Mount had left plenty of echoes in old Twice’s eroded brain. Nick didn’t detect anything useful in the old man’s muddled oration. Too bad. Family secrets often were hidden away in the memories of old ones like Twice.
“We always been a family that keeps our important dates and such in the Bible,” Erasmus said. “That’s probably what he jabbering on about. It’s right over here. But there ain’t nothing older than Twice written down. Guess the one before this got lost somewhere.”
Erasmus showed Nick the family Bible, which was nothing special–the branching out of the family from Twice’s generation. He jotted down the information recorded between the testaments, out of habit. At least now he could attach names to the faces in the photos hanging in the Balzar living room: Shelvin, Ronald, and Winfred…for all the good it would do him.
After promising to send a copy of the book on buffalo soldiers to the Balzars, Nick preceded Dora to the door, eager to move on to his next stop. He had only about two hours left; and even leaving at four, he’d have to burn rubber and any remaining oil getting back to New Orleans by eight.
He walked out to his car in the searing heat. The trunk and passenger door were open. His bag, in the trunk, had been ransacked. Fortunately, he had hidden the diary and other documents in the spare-tire well, and that seemed undisturbed.
He looked around, but saw no one. Puzzled and pissed-off, he started stuffing his things back into the bag.
A pair of strong hands grabbed his shoulders and spun him around, slamming him against the side of the car.
“What the fuck you doing out here, whitey?” said the big guy who was using a forearm to do a professional job of stopping the flow of air through Nick’s windpipe. “I been hearing about you in town. Asking questions about my family. Friend of mine works over at that hotel you stayed at. So, who are you and what you want?”
“Shelvin! Leave him alone, you hear me! Shelvin! Let the man go. Now!” Dora shouted from the porch. “You all right, Mr. Spenser? My Shelvin, he don’t mean nothing. That Army training and the Gulf War plum ruined my boy’s manners. Shelvin, tell Mr. Spenser you sorry.”
“That’s not his real name, Mama. He’s up to something no good, like all the white devils. Ain’t that right, Mr. Nick Herald from New Orleans?”
When a guy introduces himself with the etiquette of a commando and the ecumenism of a religious zealot, small talk is moot. Nick merely coughed in reply, feeling lucky to be alive.
Shelvin was six-six of lean muscle topped by a shaved head that looked like the old football helmets from Knute Rockne’s day. He wore knee-length black biking shorts, a black muscle shirt with a gold