Poison Ivory Read online

  2

  There are times when life seems to unfold in slow motion. I believe that this is a trick our brains play on us so we have time to think in crisis situations. I remember every second of what transpired next, as if my mind was a film and each frame was duly recorded in celluloid.

  Mr. Curly, wielding a badge, began reciting the Miranda clause. Despite the fact that he was speaking, the corners of his mouth were turning up in a smug little smile and his beady eyes shone with pleasure. I thought of interrupting but was too shocked to respond right away, and to be honest, I was quite captivated by the fact that the late winter sunlight backlit a row of hair that marched down the length of his nose. Were those the only hairs on his head?

  “Did you hear a word I said, Mrs. Washburn?” he asked when he was through.

  “I’m sure I did. Although I’m still waiting to hear what I’ve been arrested for.”

  “For the illegal importation of contraband goods—as I said a moment ago.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “That’s right,” Cheng said, “you didn’t. Abby, what illegal goods did you import?”

  “Now who’s being silly?” I hissed.

  The big gal hung her head.

  “Sorry, Cheng.” I refocused my energy on Mr. Curly. “You didn’t originally state the reason for my arrest, and you darn well know it.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Gentlemen,” I called over my shoulders to my captors, “did y’all hear him?”

  The men made no response. I hollered even louder, but they remained as quite as clams. Now I don’t mind stating, for the record, that this sort of rude behavior sets my teeth on edge. A gentleman should always answer when spoken to by a lady—especially if she is his elder. Their failure to answer was extremely unnerving, and on many levels.

  Panic set in, and I may have temporarily lost my head. At any rate, the upshot is that I whipped my hands up over my head and whirled around to give those louts a brief lecture on manners. I was able to do to this because I have what I call double-jointed shoulders, and I can rotate my arms 360 degrees with my hands clasped. I have performed this feat many times at parties to amaze and freak out friends and guests. But how was I to know that my diminutive but well-proportioned hands would slip right through those one-size-fits-all cuffs? Bondage has never been my shtick.

  Arms the size of pier pilings tried to circled me from behind, but not wanting to be crushed to death, I instinctively ducked.

  “She’s getting away!” Mr. Curly yelled. “Taser the witch!” Of course, not being a lady, he said it with a B.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Cheng bellowed. Without a second’s hesitation she threw herself at us, arms and legs outspread. She’s five feet ten and weighs at least 180 pounds. In one fell swoop my loyal friend and faithful employee managed to take down all three men—and, unfortunately, yours truly along with them.

  It was a brave but futile move. One of the aforementioned louts did have a Taser and poor Cheng became its target. I refuse to even let my mind get near a visual memory of the incident, and I’m pretty sure that Cheng, who can be stoic beyond belief, didn’t utter a sound. What I do remember is that eventually Mr. Curly ordered whoever was torturing my friend to stop, since she was no longer resisting, and the cuffs went on her instead.

  From then on I was too focused on Cheng to pay attention to where we were being taken, or to the length of the trip. Meanwhile Cheng lay facedown in the back of what looked like an army truck. Foam oozed from her mouth. Her eyes were half open.

  “She needs to go to hospital,” I said for the millionth time.

  “Shut up,” Lout Number One said.

  “If she dies, I’ll testify against you; I’ll see that you’re convicted of murder.”

  “If you don’t shut up,” Lout Number Two said, “I’ll use the Taser on you after all.”

  “My husband’s a detective,” I snapped. “I have connections.” That was only sort of true. Greg used to be a detective, and that was up in Charlotte. Here he was a shrimper over in Mount Pleasant, where he co-owned a boat with his cousin Booger.

  “We answer to a higher power,” Lout Number One said, and they both laughed uproariously.

  “At least let me feel for a pulse.”

  “You lift your butt one inch off that bench and you’re toast.”

  “He means it,” the other one said. “He hates small people.”

  “Can’t you at least tell me what I did?”

  “I said ‘shut up.’”

  I may have complied with my mouth, but my mind kept going a million miles a minutes. With my eyes only partly open, I read the security guards’ name tags; I memorized every detail of their hard, unsympathetic faces; and I studied their hands to the point where I could have picked their owners out in a lineup by those alone.

  “Whatcha looking at?” Lout Number One growled, when he finally realized what I was doing.

  My heart pounded and my throat felt as if it had been sucked of all its moisture.

  “I asked you a question, witch.”

  I tried to swallow. “I—um—I’m trying to decide which one of you is better looking—you or your friend.”

  “The hell you are.”

  Lout Number Two leaned closer. “So who is it? Taylor, or me?”

  “Definitely you,” I whispered.

  Lout Number One grabbed the collar of my jacket and lifted me off the bench with one hand. “What did you say?”

  “I told him that you’re better looking.”

  “You got that right.” He let me drop and turned his attention to Lout Number Two, whose given name was Hurley. “We gotta get our stories straight, or that witch on the floor could be trouble.”

  “She’s got a name,” I yelled. “And you better be taking us to a hospital.”

  Taylor nudged Cheng with his foot, but Hurley pantomimed kicking her. “She’s faking it,” he said. “She’ll come around just as soon as we get to the station and Big Doris takes over.”

  I hate to say it, but that was all it took. Sure enough, Cheng sat up and began to groan.

  “Where am I? What happened?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Hurley said to me, and gave her a real kick—albeit a fairly light one.

  My buddy snarled like a wounded tiger.

  “Cheng!” I cried. “It’s only going to make matters worse if you don’t cooperate with these thugs. They’ve got the power—for now.”

  “Sure talks big for such a little thing,” Taylor said. “I like that in a woman; it kind of turns me on.”

  “Oh yeah?” Hurley said. “If she was my wife I’d—”

  “Put a lid on it right now,” I snapped, “that’s what you’d do, because I already have way more than enough to get you both fired. Now it’s just a matter of how long do y’all want to stay in prison?”

  “Maybe she ain’t kidding,” Taylor said.

  “Your grammar is atrocious,” Cheng said. “I’m astounded that either of you got hired in the first place.”

  I cringed. “Cheng!”

  “Well, it is. Cousin Johnny Cash back in Shelby talked just like that, but when he took a DNA test it showed that there was more goat in his goatee than he let on—if you get my drift.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, Cheng, but this time you’ve drifted right into the ocean; this is one Shelby tale I’m not buying. You may have goat blood coursing through your veins, but Johnny Cash was not your cousin!”

  Cheng bleated in agreement. “Don’t be silly, Abby, of course I’m not related to the Johnny Cash, of country/western fame. My cousin’s family name was Cashmere when they immigrated to the United States from New Zealand. They dropped the ‘mere’ because they thought just plain ‘Cash’ sounded more American.

  “That was back in the early 1900s. Later on, when cashmere wool became so popular, you can bet that we were glad that Great-granddaddy Uriah Cash had had the foresight to change his name. As i
t was, the women on that side of my family had to shave their mustaches before going into town, or risk having them pulled off by greedy fortune-hunters. Auntie Mirabelle even had her sideburns attacked with a straight razor while shopping for fabric at Murphy’s Five and Ten.”

  “This woman is nuts,” Hurley said, and both men sat on the other side of the van, facing us.

  “Thanks, Cheng,” I said under my breath. “That was just over the top enough to put the scare of God in them.”

  “But Abby, I meant every word.”

  “You big lug,” I said affectionately as I scooted over a few inches.

  It seemed to me that we drove at least as far as Columbia, the state capital, which is an hour and a half away, so that when we finally stopped at the City of Charleston Police Headquarters on Lockwood Boulevard, I was plum amazed. When the van doors were opened, at first I couldn’t believe my eyes. But sure enough, there, across the street, was the Joe Riley Baseball Stadium and Brittlebank Park, and beyond them, glinting through the trees, the broad expanse of the Ashley River.

  For some incomprehensible reason, most first-time visitors to Charleston are surprised to learn that the Atlantic Ocean begins at the confluence of the mighty Ashley and Cooper Rivers (just off Charleston’s famed Battery). Just why it is that geographers have failed to address this important fact in our schools’ textbooks is beyond me. Unlike some of my co-Southerners, I don’t subscribe to the “Yankee plot” theory, but I must say, it is mighty suspicious when the facts stare you right in the face on a daily basis.

  Now where was I?

  Oh yes, I would have dropped my hank of alfalfa if I’d been Cheng’s relatives. Not only were we in front of the police headquarters, but my husband, Greg, was standing there, dressed to the nines in his Sunday suit. He stepped forward.

  “Mrs. Washburn is my client,” he said, clenching my arm.

  “Greg!”

  “Are you an attorney?” Mr. Curly seemed to have popped out of nowhere.

  “Her attorney is on her way. I’m acting in parentis horriblis.”

  “You better be on the up and up is all I can say.”

  “To the top,” Greg said.

  Mr. Curly grabbed my right arm and began pulling me to the main entrance. It felt like his fingers were going to separate the flesh of my triceps from the bone, and I cried out in pain. One cannot, therefore, blame my dear husband for objecting.

  “Get your filthy hands off her, you dirt bag, or I’ll take you for every penny you have. And when I’m done bleeding you dry, and the papers have had their fill of police brutality, then I’ll come after you for incontrovertible conflagration. You won’t be seeing sunshine this bright until you’re so old they have to wheel you outside with a flannel blanket in your lap.”

  Stunned, Mr. Curly fell back. Greg didn’t hesitate a second. With the confidence of a former law enforcement officer, he marched me into the police headquarters, all the while whispering into my ear.

  “Booger’s brother-in-law, Slate, works at the docks. You remember Slate, don’t you? Drinks too much, bad teeth, but is twice as nice as a church bus full of nuns. Anyway, he recognized you and called Booger. Lucky for you, we’d decided to take the day off and go clamming up the Wando. We were just minutes away. Don’t look around, but Booger is sitting over there in the parking lot, keeping tabs on us, just in case our little ruse went sour. Meanwhile I have a call in to the very best attorney in all of the Southeast, and that includes the border states and D.C. Again you lucked out, because he just happened to be vacationing down at Kiawah Island Resorts, and is on his way as I speak. He should be here any minute.”

  “Greg, I wasn’t even trying to get the cuffs off. You know how my shoulders rotate, and how small my hands are.”

  “Didn’t I suggest that you join the circus?”

  I struggled to keep a straight face. I felt safe now that I was with my cunning, and apparently well-connected, husband. At the same time, however, it felt like the eye of a hurricane. So far, I’d only seen the weak side of the storm; the worst was yet to come.

  3

  Perhaps it was thanks to Greg, but Cheng and I were processed quickly, and then thrown into a cell packed with prostitutes. Although there seemed to be a million of them, there were at least so many that there wasn’t enough room for them to all sit on the four bunks, so they leaned against the walls and sink, and one very large one sat on the toilet (I never did learn if the seat was up or down). It seemed like they were all waiting for their lawyers as well, and some were being disturbingly vocal. When they saw us, they pounced like the wild dogs I’d seen on the Discovery Channel, their teeth bared, saliva dripping in anticipation of fresh meat.

  “Well, well, what have we here?”

  We said nothing. We made no eye contact.

  A woman with particularly large feet planted herself right in front of me. “Does yo mama know yo’re a streetwalker, lil’ girl?”

  It seemed like everyone—except for Cheng—roared with laughter. Of course I was infuriated, but I realized the futility of trying to win every battle that came my way. So what if they mocked me? I would save my energy for bigger things.

  “She’s not a little girl,” another woman said. “She’s a doll. That’s why she don’t answer.”

  “I don’t care what she is,” Miss Big Feet said, “but if she don’ want her ass whupped, she best be answering me.”

  “Abby,” Cheng whispered frantically, “please cooperate.”

  “You hear that little girl? Doll? Whatever you is? You listen to yo friend, girl, unless you want me to rearrange yo face foh you. We don’ like no Barbie dolls in here.”

  When I was a little girl, Mama said I was stubborn. When I got to be a teenager I graduated to willful, tinged by mild rebellion (I wasn’t always where I said I’d be, and I did try smoking cigarettes—briefly). As an adult I’ve eased into being comfortably contrary when I feel that I’m being pushed around. But other than that, I’ve always been the epitome of the Southern lady: gracious and calm. If I identify with any character in Gone With the Wind, it would have to be Melanie.

  Miss Big Feet extended an index finger as fat as a Cuban cigar and mashed it into my forehead so hard I nearly lost my balance. “Answer me, girl!”

  That’s when Mama’s karate lessons came in handy. Not that I’d taken them along with her, mind you, but she’d made me sit through enough of them to learn how to throw a stomach punch. My fists might be tiny, and my arms short, but I caught my tormentor totally unawares.

  Miss Big Feet emitted a very satisfying gasp, swayed like a radio tower in a Category Five storm, and fell over backward. Her enormous stilettos, when suspended in the air, appeared totally surreal. She might just as well have been waving a pair of high-heeled canoes around. The other prostitutes convulsed with laughter.

  “Ladies!” The single word was bellowed like a command, and it was followed by the clanging of a nightstick across the bars of our cell.

  Cheng and I froze in position, like in the childhood game of Statues, but most, if not all, of the other women hooted and jeered at the prison guard. Even Miss Big Feet—once she was helped upright—got into the action.

  The guard’s face turned the color of pomegranate pulp. “You,” she screamed, pointing at me, “you come with me!”

  The women—and I refuse to call them “ladies”—convulsed with laughter. They slapped their thighs, stomped their feet, and whooped with delight. When one of them leaned against a wall to catch her breath and then slipped to the floor, they screamed their approval. At least as entertainment, I was a resounding success.

  Another guard appeared to assist with my removal, although my actual removal was non-eventful—well, except for the rude catcalls that followed me down the hall.

  “Hope to see you soon, little girl, but not on my street!”

  “Hey you! That’s right, you! You like yo sugar brown, or white?”

  “Don’t pay no attention to her. I’m gonna take
you home so my daughter can play with you, on account of I can’t afford no Barbie dolls.”

  But it was the last thing I heard we before we turned the corner that really got to me.

  “Abby, please don’t abandon me!”

  I was ushered brusquely into a windowless room and told to wait. The center of the room was occupied by a long, institutional-style table, around which six functional chairs had been placed. I chose a chair facing the door, and frankly, at that moment, I was glad just to be sitting. How quickly one’s priorities can change, I thought.

  After exactly twenty-two minutes (by my watch) the door opened, and a split second later so did my mouth. I stared, but for who knows how long. I was utterly shocked by who I saw standing there.

  “You know, Abby,” he said, “I always thought you were ravishingly beautiful, but to be brutally honest, you would be a mite more attractive if you closed your gaping maw.”

  I brought my petite lips together for a second. “My mouth’s too small to be a maw—but never mind that. What are you doing here?”

  “Abby, is that any way to greet your ex?”

  “But Greg said he was getting me an attorney!”

  “And so he did; you’re looking at him.”

  “I’m looking at a man in a two thousand dollar suit, who practices law up in Charlotte. I repeat my question, Buford: what are you doing here?”

  “Abby, Abby, Abby, I see you haven’t changed one iota. You’re still the little spitfire I married…what was it? Twenty years ago?”

  “Twenty-six. Our daughter, Susan, is twenty-five. You do remember her, don’t you?”

  “Vaguely. Don’t we have a son as well?”

  I tried mightily not to smile. As husbands go, Buford might have been the slime on the ooze on the muck at the bottom of the pond, but at least he’d always been a decent father—given the circumstances.

  “Seriously, Buford, are you licensed to practice law in South Carolina?”

  Buford pulled out a chair and eased his ever growing bulk onto it. He’d been buff when we met at the water park, back in the days when we were both college students. Since then success had gone to his head, and biscuits and chicken fried steak had gone to his stomach, and one had to squint to get a glimpse of the same Buford Timberlake I’d said “I do” to at the Episcopal Church of Our Savior up in Rock Hill just over a quarter of a century ago.