‘So,’ Brazil said, ‘either one of you got any idea who painted this statue to look like Weed’s brother?’
Weed tensed.
Pigeon waited.
‘Well,’ Weed said in a tight voice, ‘they was both eighteen. Maybe that’s why somebody did it.’
Pigeon squinted at the inscription on the statue’s base.
‘What?’ Brazil frowned.
‘It says right there.’ Weed pointed. ‘The man in the statue was eighteen just like Twister was.’
‘You need to recheck your math,’ Pigeon said to Weed. ‘Jeff Davis was eighty-one when he died.’
‘What’d he do anyway?’ Weed asked.
‘Went to jail for a while,’ Pigeon said. ‘About two years, leg irons and the whole bit, as I recollect.’
Weed stared at the statue and got a frightened expression on his face. He wondered if leg irons were like big handcuffs and if he’d have to wear them, too. He didn’t want to go to jail for two years. He tried to console himself by hoping Mr. Davis had done something worse than paint a statue.
‘What you do to him if you catch him?’ Weed said.
‘Catch who?’ Brazil asked.
‘The one who did the paint job.’
‘Can’t say for sure. I’d have to talk to him first and find out why he did it,’ Brazil replied thoughtfully. ‘Whoever it is, your brother must be very special to him.’
‘Lock him up right this minute,’ Pigeon was quick to volunteer. ‘That’s what I’d do with him.’
‘Naw,’ Brazil replied. ‘If all he did was paint this statue, what good would it do to lock him up? Better to get him to do something helpful to the community.’
‘Like what?’ Weed asked.
‘Like cleaning up what he’s done.’
‘You mean getting rid of it? Even if it’s good?’ Weed said.
It didn’t matter that his artwork wouldn’t survive the first rain or spray of a hose. Weed couldn’t stand the thought of cleaning it up himself. It would just kill him to wash Twister away.
‘Doesn’t matter if it’s good,’ Brazil was saying.
But it did to Weed, and he couldn’t resist asking, ‘You think it is?’
‘I sure as hell think so,’ Pigeon said. ‘I think the artist ought to open a gallery in goddamn New York.’
‘That’s not the issue,’ Brazil said to Pigeon. ‘There’s someone running around out there who’s unusually gifted, I’ll admit that. But this isn’t the way to show it.’
‘What does gifted mean?’ Weed said.
‘Special. Really good at something. You sure you don’t know who might be doing this?’ Brazil asked.
Brazil knew. Weed could tell.
‘Come on, Weed, fess up,’ Pigeon ratted on him. ‘Remember what we talked about, huh? Remember the devil out there?’
Weed ran like hell, his knapsack flapping on his back. Two paintbrushes flew out and landed on Varina Davis’s grave.
CHAPTER twenty-seven
At the Commonwealth Club, Hammer was losing her polish and becoming argumentative. She had not eaten breakfast and unwisely had washed down a Multi-Max 1 sustained release multivitamin, two Advils, two BuSpars and three tropical-fruit-flavored Turns calcium supplements with black coffee. Her stomach burned.
‘I think we need to put things in perspective,’ Hammer announced.
‘I think there’s exactly why we’re doing it,’ Ehrhart answered her.
‘The point is not our reverence of monuments and a historic cemetery,’ Hammer said, knowing she was venturing into an Indian burial ground.
‘It’s not a matter of reverence but of a far-stretching perception,’ Ehrhart butted in. ‘Hollywood Cemetery is a symbolism of the prospering advancement of culture that midway in the middle of the nineteenth century catapulted our marveling city into the twenty-fifth bigger of the others in America.’
‘Anybody know how many big cities there were back then?’ challenged Reverend Jackson.
‘Anybody know what she just said?’ Mayor Lamb whispered in Hammer’s ear.
‘At least thirty-five,’ offered publisher Eaton.
‘Closer to forty. South Dakota entered the union in 1859,’ Lieutenant Governor Miller quietly corrected the mayor.
‘I’d like to finish what I was saying,’ Hammer pushed forward. ‘The important point is that a painted statue is not the worst crime that’s ever happened here.’ She looked pointedly at Ehrhart. ‘It might be a better idea to focus on gangs and escalating juvenile crime, and on the community’s refusal to participate in protecting and taking care of itself. Which is what brought me here to begin with.”