Pale Horse Coming Read Online Free Page B

first at least, a pleasant drive, with a driver named Eddie, who knew how to keep his mouth shut, and his big, comfortable LaSalle.
    “It’s a 1940,” Eddie said, “the last and the best.” And that was the only thing Eddie said.
    Sam had removed and folded his coat, rolled up his sleeves, put his straw Panama on the seat next to him, and let the cooling air stream in through the open windows of the big black car. Of course he did not loosen his tie; after all, one did not do such things. There were limits. But he got out his pipe and lit up a bowlful, and simply watched the sights. On his right, the gulf’s blue tide lapped against the white sands, and small towns fled by, each quaint and cute enough for a tourist trade that was beginning to catch hold. The small cities along the way were white, sunny places, Gulfport and Biloxi, further given over to tourists. He could see young couples on the beach, some of them beautiful, some not so beautiful. Beach umbrellas furled against the gulf breezes and homes had rooms to let, many of them with free television as the signs proudly proclaimed.
    But beyond Biloxi, it changed. No one came here for the sun or the sand, and no beaches had been cleared. It was just mangoes and ferns and scrub pine and vegetation whose only distinguishing feature was its generic green viney quality, down to a strip of soil before the water which, Sam fancied (maybe it was his imagination), had changed in tone from carefree blue to a dirty brown. The sediment this far down floated unsettled in the water, giving it the look of an immense sewer. It smelled, also, some pungent chemical odor.
    Pascagoula, it turned out, was a city of industry. Paper plants dominated, and shipbuilding came second, and it was a city that had once strained mightily to produce. Now, hard times had hit it. The paper industry was down, and shipbuilding had stopped with the end of the war. It was a sad place; the boom of the war years had dried to bust, but everyone had a taste for the big, easy money of before.
    Again, maybe he was imagining too much, but he thought he saw despair and lassitude everywhere. The streets felt empty; signs were not freshly painted, and commerce was not active. It all baked under a hot sun, the stench from the paper mills enough to give a man a crushing headache.
    “Sir, do you have a particular destination? Do you want to go to a hotel?”
    Sam looked at his watch. It was only 11:00 A.M. , and, yes, he did want to go to a hotel, have a nice lunch, lie down in a room with a strong fan or maybe some air-conditioning, take a nap. But it was not in him to do so. He was rigid about everything, but most of all about duty and obligation.
    “No, Eddie, I’ve got to push on. Uh, do you know the town?”
    “Not hardly, sir. I’m a N’Awleens boy. Don’t like to come out to these here hot little no’count places.”
    “Well, then, I suppose we’d best start at the town hall or the police station. I’d like to confer with officials before I venture further.”
    “Yes, sir. B’lieve I c’n hep you there.”
    Eddie located the single municipal building quickly enough, a town hall on one street, a police station, complete to fleets of motorcycles and squad cars parked outside, on the other.
    Sam chose the administrative before the enforcement. He suited up again, tightening all that could be tightened, straightening all that could be straightened, and implanting the Panama squarely up top as befit his position and dignity. Eddie left him in front of grand stairs that led to not much of a door; he climbed them and ducked between statues of Confederate heroes facing the gulf.
    He entered to a foyer, consulted with a clerk at a desk, got directions, entered a set of hallways to look for the city prosecutor’s office. It was not at all hard to find, and he went through the opaque-glassed doors to find a waiting room with leather chairs and magazines under the rubric WHITE ONLY . Through a doorway