skull—obviously some species of monkey—bore the label: “Jap General’s Skull.”
“That general would have had a muzzle like a possum,” Mercer laughed. “Did you find it in Japan?”
“Bought it during the Occupation,” Gradie muttered. “From one little Nip, said it come from a mountain-devil.”
Despite the heroic-sounding labels throughout the display—“Flag Taken from Captured Jap Officer”—Mercer guessed that most of the mementos had indeed been purchased while Gradie was stationed in Japan during the Occupation.
Mercer sipped his wine and let his eyes drift about the room. Against one wall leaned the mahogany mantel, and he must have let his interest flicker in his eyes.
“I see you’re still interested in the mantel,” Gradie slurred, mercantile instincts rising through his alcoholic lethargy.
“Well, I see you haven’t sold it yet.”
Gradie wiped a trickle of wine from his stubbled chin. “I’ll get me a hundred-fifty for that, or I’ll keep it until I can get me more. Seen one like it, not half as nice, going for two hundred, place off Chapman Pike.”
“They catch the tourists from Gatlinburg,” Mercer sneered.
The mantel was of African mahogany, Mercer judged—darker than the reddish Philippine variety. For a miracle only a film of age-blackened lacquer obscured the natural grain—Mercer had spent untold hours stripping layers of cheap paint from the mahogany panel doors of his house.
It was solid mahogany, not a veneer. The broad panels that framed the fireplace were matched from the same log so that their grains formed a mirror image. The mantelpiece itself was wide and sturdy, bordered by a tiny balustrade. Above that stretched a fine bevelled mirror, still perfectly silvered, flanked by lozenge-shaped mirrors on either side. Ornately carved mahogany candlesticks jutted from either side of the mantelpiece, so that a candle flame would reflect against the bevelled lozenges. More matched-grain panels continued ceilingward above the mirrors, framed by a second balustraded mantelshelf across the top. Mercer could just about touch it at fullest stretch.
Exquisite, and easily worth Gradie’s price. Mercer might raise a hundred of it—if he gave up eating and quit paying rent for a month or three.
“Well, I won’t argue it’s a beauty,” he said. “But a mantel isn’t just something you can buy and take home under your arm, brush it off and stick it in your china closet—that’s furniture. Thing like this mantel is only useful if you got a fireplace to match it with.”
“You think so,” Gradie scoffed. “Had a lady in here last spring, fine big house out in west Knoxville. Said she’d like to antique it with one on those paint kits, fasten it against a wall for a stand to display her plants. Wanted to talk me down to one-twenty-five, though, and I said ‘no ma’am.’”
Linda’s scream ripped like tearing glass.
Mercer spun, was out the door and off the porch before he quite knew he was moving. “Linda!”
She was scrambling backward from the shed, silent now, but her face ugly with panic. Stumbling, she tore a wrinkled flannel jacket from her shoulders, with revulsion threw it back into the shed.
“Rats! ” she shuddered, wiping her hands on her shorts. “In there under the clothes! A great big one! Oh, Jesus!”
But Gradie had already burst out of his house, shoved past Mercer—who had pulled short to laugh. The shotgun was a rust-and-blue blur as he lunged past Linda. The shed door slammed to behind him.
“Oh, Jesus!”
The boom of each barrel, megaphoned by the confines of the shed, and, in the finger-twitch between each blast, the shrill chitter of pain.
“Jon!”
Then the hysterical cursing from within, and a muffled stomping.
Linda, who had never gotten used to Mercer’s guns, was clawing free of his reassuring arm. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” She was kicking at the gate, as Gradie slid back out of the shed, closing the door on his heel.
“Goddamn big rat, miss,” he grinned crookedly “But I sure done for him.”
“Jon, I’m going!”
“Catch you later, Mr Gradie,” Mercer yelled, grimacing in embarrassment. “Linda’s just a bit freaked.”
If Gradie called after him, Mercer didn’t hear. Linda was walking as fast as anyone could without breaking into a run, as close to panic as need be. He loped after her.
“Hey, Linda! Everything’s cool! Wait up!”
She didn’t seem to hear. Mercer cut across the corner of a weedlot to intercept her. “Hey! Wait!”
A vine tangled his feet. With a curse, he sprawled headlong. Flinching at the fear of broken glass, he dropped to his hands and knees in the tangle of kudzu. His flailing hands slid on something bulky and foul, and