Greg Iles 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, The Devil’s Punchbowl. Greg Iles
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she made. She had a generous heart. She bought flour and sugar and butter, and she baked cakes deep into the night to sell to raise money for the poor.” Nightingale raises his right hand, forefinger extended toward Heaven. “During the Depression? Sister Flowers visited white families, collecting old coats and sweaters, hats, shoes, and mittens for the wintertime, bringing them out here to kids who didn’t have nothing between them and the cold.” The finger descends, admonitory now. “You children today smirk and turn up your nose when I say old coats and old shoes. But what you don’t know—and you better thank God you don’t know—is that when you’re cold, you’ll take whatever coat you can get, and praise Jesus for it.”
Lord, yes! Praise Jesus!
Reverend Nightingale turns to the Deacons’ Bench and remarks on what fine children Ruby raised. My parents always felt Ruby’s children didn’t do enough for her after they were grown, considering the sacrifices she’d made for them. But they did what Ruby most desired that they do, went North and found good jobs, raised families. Part of the price of their success may have been embarrassment at their mother’s humble position, or confusion at her unwillingness to leave Mississippi, a place they regarded as backward and evil.
“Sister Flowers was not seriously ill or afflicted,” Reverend Nightingale says soberly. “She was taken before her time, by the hand of a stranger. The police don’t know who set that terrible fire. But I know who it was.”
A gasp of shock from the pews.
“It was a man cut off from the Lord. That man is suffering right now. Today. And I hope he’ll soon see the only way to wash his soul is to come forward, confess his sins, and pay the price of justice.”
Reverend Nightingale grips the forward edge of the podium with both hands. “And I know why this man killed Sister Flowers. Because he wanted to stop Mr. Penn Cage from finding out who killed Brother Delano Payton.”
Silence blankets the room. Every eye focuses on me.
“Now, some of you may feel anger toward Mr. Cage because of what happened to Sister Flowers. But not one soul in this room should blame him. Because Penn Cage is doing what no man—white or black—has done in the last thirty years. He is putting himself and his family on the line to find out who murdered Brother Del.
“And why was Del killed?” Reverend Nightingale slams a hand against the podium with a report like a pistol shot. “To keep the black man in this community down! To keep honest black men from getting a leg up. To keep us from making a working wage at a good job. A job with some dignity.”
He removes a white cotton handkerchief from his coat pocket and wipes his forehead. The mass of bodies is turning the little building into a convection oven.
“You may wonder why Mr. Cage, a white man, is doing what he’s doing. He must be gonna make some money some way, right? He must want to get on Oprah with a book or something. But that’s not it. No, sir. I’ll tell you why Mr. Cage is doing what he’s doing. He’s doing it because he was raised by Sister Flowers.”
My mother’s hand closes around mine.
“And he wasn’t raised by Sister Flowers alone. He was raised by Dr. Tom Cage. And Dr. Cage been takin’ care of black people in this town for nigh on forty years. If you couldn’t pay, did Dr. Cage turn you away from the door?”
A great tide of No, sir! Lord, no! issues forth from the congregation and rolls through the church, accompanied by shaking heads and murmurs of gratitude. When I turn to my left, I see a sight I have never seen in my life: my father sitting with his head bowed, staring resolutely at the floor, his jaw muscles clenched as tears run down his face.
“And Mrs. Cage,” says Reverend Nightingale. “Mrs. Cage was one of the ladies who helped Sister Flowers gather up them old coats in the wintertime, and made sure they got where they needed to get.” He smiles at my mother and goes on. “Thursday last, after that newspaper story ran about Del, I asked Sister Flowers about Penn Cage. You know what she said? She said, ‘Pastor, that boy was raised right, and he’ll do whatever he’s got to do to make things right about Del.’”
Ruby and I never discussed the Payton case. But the realization that she knew I was working on it, and approved, eases my conscience in a way nothing else could.
“Some of you older members may remember,” says Nightingale, “that Del Payton visited this church several times when he was a boy. Del was a member of Beulah Baptist, out to Pine Ridge. But that boy had too fine a voice to confine it to one house of worship. Several Sundays we were blessed to have Del solo here at Mandamus. And many a family”—Reverend Nightingale says fambly—“requested Del for solos at funerals. I know right now Del is beatifying Heaven with that sweet voice, preparing the host of angels to receive Sister Flowers.”
“Praise Jesus,” answers the chorus.
“Right now we’re going to have a solo by Sister Lillian Lilly. Sister Lilly is a gospel recording artist from Jackson, and she’s come down to bless us with her talents. Afterwards, Brother Shadrach Johnson wants to speak to you for a few minutes. You all know Brother Johnson is running for mayor, and the election’s getting close. He believes what’s happened in the past few days is important to us all, and he’s gonna talk to you about that. Sister Lilly?”
From the midst of the choir a woman in a flowing blue gown rises, folds her hands before her, and begins singing “Precious Lord” with such raw power and authentic faith that the initial cries of Sing it! Sing it! fade to awed silence, and many of the elderly members of the congregation weep openly. When she takes her seat again, the air is brittle with expectation, and it is then that Shad Johnson stands and walks up to the podium. How must he look to this audience, in his two-thousand-dollar suit that shines like a deuce-and-a-quarter on Saturday night? He must look, I believe, like a savior.
“Brothers and sisters,” he begins in a gentle voice. “When I came into this church, I thought I was a stranger to Sister Ruby Flowers. But when I heard Reverend Nightingale’s impassioned eulogy, I knew that I was wrong. I knew a hundred women like Sister Flowers when I was growing up here in Natchez. Five hundred, probably. Strong black women who sacrificed everything so that their children could climb one step higher up the ladder to a better life.”
Yes, Lord.
Shad nods to his left, and the assistant I saw at his headquarters hurries toward the back of the church, stops beside the WLBT cameraman and says a few words. The cameraman looks confused, but a moment later he shrugs and touches the controls on the tripod mounted camera.
“Brothers and sisters,” Shad resumes, “I’ve asked that the camera be turned off, so that I can speak frankly to you. We all know what’s happening in this town. Why there’s so much agony in our hearts today. Sister Flowers died hard. She died scarred and in terrible pain. She died at the hands of a murderer. Undoubtedly at the hands of a white murderer. And the consequences of that act are tearing this community apart. At this moment two of our children are sitting in jail for taking the life of a man who once ordered the beatings and murders of African Americans. You feel anger over this. You feel rage. And that’s only natural.”
Shad holds up his hands and brings them softly together. “But I’ve come here today to ask you to set aside that rage. Because we are poised on the brink of a great victory. The plantation mentality that has paralyzed this town for so long is finally eroding from the inside out. Significant numbers of white people have grown tired of the self-aggrandizement and profiteering of men like Riley Warren. And those are the people who can put me into the mayor’s office in two weeks. Not you, my good friends. Lord knows, I need every one of you. But without those good white people, all our work will have been for naught. The sacrifices of Ruby Flowers and Del Payton? All for nothing. Think about that. Del Payton died thirty years ago. He died for civil rights. But how much better off are you, really, than you were in 1968? You can drink from the public water fountain. You can go into a restaurant and eat next to white people. But can you afford to pay the check?