MELBA PRICE IS LEANING against the wall by the back door, her big purse slung over the shoulder of her white uniform, her dark eyes watching me for clues. She looks like a middle-aged version of Esther Ford, and again I wish the old nurse were alive for me to question about Viola.

“Is the word out yet?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Melba is playing dumb, which she most assuredly is not.

“About what Dad might have done. Is it spreading in the black community?”

“There’s a little talk. Nothing bad yet.”

“What do they think about Shad Johnson these days?”

“My people?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Old Shadrach might not have a lot of black friends, but I will say this. He’s stuck around town enough years now that he’s earned some respect. He’s done a lot for black boys busted on drug charges, and that buys some gratitude.”

“How do they feel about Dad?”

“Lord, you know that. Dr. Cage is a saint on the north side of town.”

“Do you think anything could change that?”

Melba looks thoughtful. “They say that in Natchez people will forgive you for everything except going bankrupt. But that’s on the white side of town. On the black side, it’s something else people don’t forgive.”

“What’s that?”

“Breaking faith.”

“That sounds like a long conversation.”

Melba taps me in the middle of the chest. “You just do whatever you got to do to keep Doc out of jail. That man don’t deserve jail, no matter what he’s done. Not one day.”

“Were you listening at the door?”

The middle-aged nurse’s perfectly plucked eyebrows pantomime childlike innocence. “Wouldn’t dream of it, baby.”

“The only person who can keep Dad out of jail is Dad himself. Why don’t you convince him to talk to me?”

She gives me a mocking laugh. “I don’t control that man! He’s my boss, not the other way around.”

“I’ll bet forty years ago, Viola Turner would have told me the same thing.”

Melba’s face instantly turns sober. “You hush, boy. Get out of here, so he’ll finish those records and I can get home.”

“Do what you can, Melba.”

She watches me forlornly as I back down the hallway.

“I’ll try.”

CHAPTER 16