In the lawyer’s office on Main Street, the two settled into chairs before the dusty, cluttered desk. Brad leaned back with a sigh and lit a cigar. He was feeling older than his thirty-six years today, probably because they were burying Lil. He had really cared about her, although she’d probably been almost old enough to be his mother. Before she’d taken him in and given him a fresh start three years ago, he’d been just another drifting gambler like his younger brother, Blackie.
Dewey cleared his throat and shuffled papers as he settled behind his desk. “Lil McGinty was one woman in a thousand. Too bad we know so little about her or where she came from.” He looked at Delilah. “I hear tell you’ve been with her at least twenty-five years.”
“She rescued me from a slave auction in Atlanta,” the old woman wiped her eyes. “Wasn’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do for Miss Lil.”
Brad looked at her. “So you probably know more about her than anyone.”
She gave him a steely look. “Not much. Some things maybe she didn’t want nobody to know.”
Brad shrugged. What did the past matter? He wondered if Delilah had taken the diamond pin he’d given Lil for her birthday only the day before her death. Or maybe it had been pinned to Lil’s dress when they buried her and he hadn’t noticed. Well, it made no difference now.
The old man shuffled his papers. “Here’s the will—you two are mentioned.”
“Us?” Both said in surprise.
Dewey ran his hand through his straggly gray hair, nodded, and began to read: “I, Lil McGinty, being of sound mind, do make this my last will and testament. I bequeath the employees of the Texas Lily one hundred dollars each so they can party instead of work the night of my funeral.”
Brad laughed. “That sounds like Lil, all right.”
The lawyer said, “She left the church five hundred and a little to other charities. Here’s for you, Delilah: “…For my good and faithful cook and friend, I leave five thousand dollars—”
“Five thousand dollars!” Delilah’s mouth fell open.
“Yep,” Dewey nodded. “You’re a rich woman, Delilah. The money’s in my safe. You can retire and not work another day in your life.”
“Humph!” the old woman said, wrinkling her nose, “and just what would I do with my time then? If Mr. Brad don’t mind, I’d just like to save that money and keep workin’ at the Lily.”
“Sure.” Brad grinned and puffed his cigar. “I don’t know how I could run the place without you.”
The old woman stood up and brushed her rumpled black dress. “Then if’fen you’re through with me, I wants to inspect Miss Lil’s grave and make sure the flowers are just right, then I got to get a roast in the oven. Folks got to eat, funeral or no.”
Brad stood up and opened the door for the old woman. “You take my buggy, Delilah. I’ll walk back after I’m finished here.”
She nodded and left, then Brad took his chair again.
Dewey Cheatum reached into his desk for a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. “We lost a great woman with Lil McGinty. Let’s drink to her.” He poured the drinks.
“She was the savin’ of me all right,” Brad agreed and took his glass, clinked it with Dewey’s. “I’m gonna miss her. She built the Texas Lily into the best gamblin’ hall and bordello in all east Texas.”
“You had something to do with its success,” Dewey reminded him, “as good as you play poker. Anyway she left you something as well.” He looked at Brad over his own glass of bourbon.
“I expected that someday but not yet. After all, I don’t reckon she’s got a relative in this world. At least, she never mentioned it. I don’t even know if she was ever married or where she was from. She never talked about her past, but then, I didn’t know her as well as Delilah did.”
“Let her past die with her.” Dewey frowned and lit his pipe. “Uh, Brad, she left you two things.”
Her half of the Texas Lily, Brad thought. Hell, he’d rather have Lil back. He’d never thought she’d die in such an unexpected accident.
“No, actually she left you three things.” Dewey studied the papers before him, fragrant smoke swirling about his gray head. “One is the goat. You’re to look after her beloved pet, Herman.”
Brad grinned. “That smelly old billy goat will probably outlive me. All he’s good for is to chew up all the day-lilies growin’ out front of the house.”
“And she left you one thousand dollars in gold. It’s in my safe; you know she didn’t have much faith in banks.”
“I know. There was always a rumor around town that she hid her profits in the walls of that big house.”
Dewey shrugged and smoked his pipe. “I reckon that’s just a local tale. Or maybe she did; but she didn’t tell me. Also, she left you that big fancy iron birdbath out in front of the Lily, you know the one in the center flowerbed.”
Brad nodded. He didn’t care about the birdbath, although he knew Lil had set a great deal of store by it. She’d bought it in one of her rare trips to Beaumont and put it out among the orange daylilies in the middle of the front lawn. Even now, he could close his eyes and see her in that big hat she wore to protect her freckled skin against the Texas sun. She liked to be out at dawn or sometimes dusk, gardening and planting flowers out front while the goat munched grass peacefully beside her. His mind went over what Dewey had just said. “Uh, Dewey, you said three things.”
Dewey fiddled with his pipe. “That’s three, ain’t it?”
Brad began to get a sinking feeling in his gut. “What about the Texas Lily?”
Lawyer Cheatum took a deep gulp of his drink. “That’s the hardest to explain.”
“Try.”
Dewey shrugged and read aloud from the papers in front of him. “I leave my half of the Texas Lily to my niece, Lillian Primm, a teacher at Miss Pickett’s Female Academy in Boston, along with five thousand dollars.”
“What?” Brad half rose from his chair and tossed his cigar into the spittoon. “What?”
“Now, take it easy, Brad, there’s more. “…since I’m certain Lillian will not be interested in this property, indeed, I’d just as soon she never knew more than she already does about me, I suggest Brad O’Neal, my partner, offer my niece ten thousand dollars for her half out of what I’ve left him, thus making him sole owner.”
Brad felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach. “Well, I’ll be damned. A niece, and a respectable schoolteacher at that. Hell, I didn’t know she had any family at all.”
Dewey shrugged and wiped his mouth. “I reckon there’s a lot we didn’t know about Lil, even though she lived here for more than ten years.”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or not that she didn’t leave the Lily to me. If she left me one thousand dollars, how am I supposed to come up with ten thousand for the niece? The goat and the bird bath ain’t worth ten bucks.”
Dewey shrugged. “Reckon she thought you’d have the difference in the bank.”
Brad frowned. “It’ll be tough, but I can do it by borrowin’ against my land. Why do you reckon Lil didn’t just deed me the Lily and tell me to send the niece the ten thousand?”
“Maybe she knew you too well, Brad,” the old man grinned, “and wanted to make sure the gal really got the money.”
“I ain’t that slick, even though maybe I used to be,” Brad admitted, “but I been