The Hundredth Man by Jack Kerley Read Free Book Online

Square. My treat.”
    I smiled brightly and jiggered my eyebrows.
    She walked away as if I were a coat of paint on the wall. The door of the utility office slammed behind her. I called Harry to see what was up. He said interviewing white trash. When he asked what I was doing, I said not selling a lot of po’boys, be there in a few.
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    The most distracting aspect of speaking to Jerrold Nelson’s aunt, Billie Messer, was her constant brushing of insects from her face when none were there. I first suspected a neurosis, but realized it was her conditioned response to living in a house trailer with rusted-out screens and a busted AC. The fortyish Messer was Nelson’s only surviving relative, and Harry’d spent the morning tracking her to a trailer court overrun by weeds and feral cats.
    Billie Messer had been an exotic dancer in her younger days, but exotic drooped into pendulous and she now mixed the drinks she’d once hustled. Dressed for work, Ms. Messer wore scuffed black spike heels, a miniskirt noire, and a frilly black bra straining with effort. Frizzed red hair framed outsized features I suspected looked either equine or enticing, depending upon time of night and substances abused. Harry and I leaned against a sun-hot rust-bucket car in her front yard while Billie Messer sucked cigarettes, waved off invisible bugs, and Cliff’s-noted her nephew’s life in a strangely seductive voice, like a hillbilly Tina Turner.
    â€œPoor ol’ Jerry weren’t good for but one thing, and that happens in bed. He was damn good looking. Smart, too, more in the clever way than book kind. Always made out like he was smack on the edgeof being some famous model. Might a happened ’cept he was so lazy. He made his way on his looks, though, shacking up with men or women. Didn’t matter which, long’s they gave him money. I asked once, said, ‘Jerrold, how’s come you do it with boys and girls both?’ Know what he said? Said it all felt the same, so what did it matter? I said what you mean, all feels the same? He said, like nothing, that’s how it feels, Aunt Billie—don’t feel up, don’t feel down, just feels like nothing. You know what else he said?”
    â€œWhat, Miss Messer?” Harry asked, truly curious.
    â€œHe thought it was funny folks thought he was so good at doing it, you know, ’cause he could go on at it for so long. He said when you don’t feel nothing, there’s nothing to make you stop. I asked wasn’t there anything made him, you know, jump over the hill? He said he had to bear down hard on thinking about flying. Then he’d do it, he’d have his—you know.” Bessie Messer frowned, shook her shock of frizzed hair sadly, and swatted an unseen insect. “Ain’t that the damndest thing?”
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    We headed across town to interview Terri Losidor, the woman who’d filed charges against Nelson. Harry drove, I reclined in the rear talking to the back of his head. Some people claim their best thoughts arrive in the shower or astride the can; for me it was the backseat of a car. When I was a child and the bad things started at my house, I’d tiptoe into the night and hide in the rear of our sedan, spending the night in wispy sleep before returning to bed at dawn. To this day I took comfort lying in the backseat, hands behind my head, watching the buildings and treetops flash by. My backseat meditations didn’t bother Harry, he enjoyed driving, though he was a terrifying practitioner of it.
    â€œYou’ve seen maybe twenty times more jealousy-slash-revenge killings than me, Harry. How many have been as neat?”
    â€œDoesn’t mean anything. They’re all different.”
    â€œCome on, Harry. How many have been so damned immaculate?”
    Harry grunted; he liked to drive in silence, I liked to think aloud. He grudgingly elevated his right hand, thumb and index finger forming a