Page 85 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

As far as funeral speeches went, the words were shit. But the emotion in the man’s voice was real, as was the sheen in his eyes. He said, “We want you to know, Felix, that so long as you’re flying the colors, you have a family here with us – all of us, every chapter, in this country and across the pond. We love you, and we’ve got your back, brother.

“Now, gents. I want you all to raise a glass for a man we already know and love, but who’s proved himself to be twice the man he already looks. Tonight” – he lifted his bottle high – “we lay to rest Felix Lécuyer, and we welcome our brother Mercy.”

A deafening cheer went up from every corner of the room.

Felix – Mercy – sipped his beer, and stared stone-faced at the table.

Twenty-Two

“He said his name was Hank.” Mercy didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice, and wouldn’t have known he was the one speaking if not for the effort of moving his lips, his tongue, his jaw, and the way the memories were being pulled out of him, suddenly, like a caught rope whose knot had suddenly popped around the corner and now the whole length of it was being reeled in, hand over hand. “If he ever gave anyone a last name, that was probably fake, too.Fuck me.”

“What happened?” Ava asked. She didn’t sayhow the hell could you have forgotten he prospected your club?but he was asking it of himself. He’d looked so different as a kid, lanky, and big-eared, and awkward as all hell. He’d looked like theMadmagazine kid, and now he looked like G.I. Joe. Pair that with the fake name, and anyone could have been forgiven having bumped into him a time or two more then twenty years ago.

But Mercy should have known. How could someone loathe him strongly enough to terrorize his family, and his club, and steal his son, and he couldn’t recall his face?

His own face was buried in his hands, and he lifted it to peer at the worried ones around him.

“I never spent much time with him.” Except for that time he helped him pick up a load of unassembled guns from home, and Remy had insisted he stay for lunch. That fucker had been in his house. Had sat at his table. And now Remy’s namesake was…

He swallowed thickly, and continued. “Frenchie was his sponsor, and he said he didn’t think the kid could cut it, that he’d never last the year. He was too nervy, and he wanted it too badly to play it cool. He was the sort who was never going to fit in. Frenchie said…” He swallowed again, recalling the comment,a throwaway line over beer and darts, bursting fresh and pulpy in his mind now. “That he thought he had a screw loose. He said, ‘That one’s gonna cook somebody’s rabbit.’ I thought maybe he was just weird, but…”

But he wasn’t. He was unhinged. Dangerous.

“Where’s Frenchie now?” Ava asked.

“Cali. He transferred years ago.”

“What the hell did you do to him?” Colin asked, “Why the hell does he hate you so bad?”

Other pieces were tumbling into place, clicking together like Legos. “Nothing. Nothing big,” he amended, because ithadn’tbeen big, and wouldn’t have mattered that much to most people. “But I said…”

He remembered it, then, the exact words he’d used.

He turned his head and caught Ava’s gaze. “The PI, the one who got hired over the phone? Who was tailing the old ladies?”

She nodded, eyes big and dark in the porch shadow, face rigid with tension.

“The company that hired them, what was it called again?”

She frowned, thought for a moment. “Wantabi.”

“What is that, Japanese?” Colin asked.

“No.”

~*~

It was Bob himself who ventured out into the swamp and finally approached Mercy – when he was still Felix by name, because his brothers hadn’t heard the full story yet, but was no longer Felix on the inside – the only one brave enough to run his boat up onto the gently-sloping grass bank and walk up to join him in the cool shade of the cypresses.

Felix hadn’t known how many days had passed. He’d slept, at some point, because he’d awakened on his side in the dew-damp grass, soft as cushions beneath his aching joints. He knewthat the sun had cycled through all its stations in the sky: the bright yellow haze of morning, the crushing weight of noon, pinning sheet after sheet of humid air to the ground, wringing every drop of sweat from his body. And then the candy pinks and oranges of sunset through the swanky black silhouettes of the moss-draped swamp trees. When he heard Bob’s approach, he wiped a hand down his face to ensure it was still there, and felt the rasp of several days’ worth of beard growth along his jaw.

He knew it was Bob by the particular way he breathed as he dragged the boat farther up onto dry ground. And by the way he walked up slowly, swishing his feet intentionally through the grass so he didn’t startle him, and the way he stopped a few paces back. It was a quiet spot, way out here, and that was one of the reasons Felix had chosen it. No cicadas, no frogs. Only the high twitter of birds, musical and respectful overhead.

“It’s pretty, here,” Bob said, when he could have said so many other things. Things likethis isn’t sanctioned; you could get arrested if anyone knew you’d done this; have you cracked up, boy? No one could blame you. But he said, “You did good.”

The soil had dried out on top, baked smooth and cracked by the sun, two perfect ovals, seven by two, and six feet deep. He’d fashioned crosses, and driven them in with a sledgehammer, one that rested faithfully in the grass beside him.

In a low, soothing voice, Bob said, “I had some of the boys take care of the mess in the house. You don’t have to go back there unless you want to.”

---