He came back with his blankets and we shared the mattress. Just before he closed his eyes, he said, “Wake me when Santa comes.”
It was warmer that way, Leonard and I sharing. I slept better, deeper. But near morning I awoke from yet another dream.
This time Florida and I had been naked, sitting in lawn chairs, and we were on a little raft made of crude-cut logs, sailing down a dark river on a moonlit night. The moon was high in the sky and bright. When Florida turned to look at me her eyes were full of the moon. Two white orbs slick as wet bone inside dark tunnels. She said, “Come on and love me, Huck, honey.”
Then we were beneath the water, cold and wet and alone. She had her arms around my neck, and she was heavy, and she was dragging me down, down, down to the bottom of the great black river, and no matter how hard I fought, she wouldn’t let go.
I got up, dressed, had a soda pop and a couple slices of lunch meat, and waited for daybreak.
13
By morning the rain had slowed, and when Leonard woke we drove into town for coffee and a real breakfast. We had plans to call Hanson.
Grovetown was starting to stir. Christmas holidays were gone, and stores were open. The cafe was hopping. Tim’s filling station had two cars in the drive. One driver, a fat lady wearing a bright field of flowers on a dress constructed of enough material to parachute a Land Rover from a speeding jet, was putting gas in her car, the rain beating down on her blue-haired head with a vengeance.
At the full-service pump, behind the wheel of a gray pickup, an elderly man with a face tight as a sphincter muscle rolled his window down and coughed blue-gray cigar smoke into the rain.
Tim was filling the pickup’s tank, had his head bent so that water was running off his cap. Both the fat woman and the elderly man took note of us, just in case we were planning on hijacking their vehicles. Tim looked up, saw us, gave us a wink.
We went inside the store, hung around until Tim was finished. He came in and grinned at us. “Y’all decide you want some of them pickled pig’s feet after all?”
“No,” I said, “but we’d like to make a call to LaBorde, if you’ll let us. I can give you enough money to cover it.”
“Long as you pay, you can call goddamn Australia.”
Tim showed me the phone behind the counter, and allowed me some privacy. I called Hanson at home first, didn’t get him. Tried the cop shop, still didn’t find him. I asked for Charlie, and they put him on the line.
“It’s me,” I said. “Checkin’ in. Seein’ if Florida showed up.”
“Nope,” Charlie said, “and that means you haven’t found her either.”
“It don’t look good. She’s been here, but she isn’t here now. We’re gonna look around today, but I don’t get the idea the Chief here is much worried what happened to Florida. I think you need to get some real law down here. The Rangers maybe.”
“Her not being there doesn’t mean anything’s happened to her.”
“So I keep hearing, but I got some bad vibes.”
“Thing occurred to me, was what if she used this trip to go on and leave Hanson for good? You know, an easy way to keep on going. It’s possible.”
“Yeah. But not likely.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Little something I found out was she took a lot of money with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am a paid sleuth for the public, Hap. I called a friend of mine over where Florida banks. She withdrew her savings. Thirty thousand dollars. What you think about that?”
“I don’t know. I guess she could have plans to leave, but that’s not like Florida. She gets tired of a situation, she just hangs it up. She doesn’t sneak. Besides, she has a law practice.”
“She let her apartment go too.”
“That could mean she got over her rift with Hanson, was planning on moving in with him full-time. As in marriage. But something, whatever happened to her, got in the way.”
“I suppose. But I still hold for her just hauling ass on out of Dodge, and right on across the Badlands.”
“I hope you’re right, Charlie. Anything else shaking?”
“Hanson’s gone off. On a drunk, I think. I can’t get him at home, hasn’t been in the office this morning. It’s early, but I don’t think he’s coming in. Was supposed to. Me and him had some stuff to do.”
“What makes you think he’s on a drunk?”
“’Cause up until he asked you and Leonard for help, he was on a pretty constant drunk. I don’t think he’ll clean up his act just ’cause y’all are looking around.”
“Not exactly a big vote of confidence from the Lieutenant. But I’ll tell you something, Charlie. I don’t blame him. Not about the drinking. About the lack of confidence. We’re about as useful here as a spare pecker on a dead hog. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of her, and investigators we are not.”
“I’m covering for Hanson long as I can. But I don’t know. You’re around him enough these days, you kind of get the feeling his brain is coming apart.”
“Alcohol is not noted for making someone smarter.”
“True. I’m gonna give it up myself, soon as it kills me. Thing is, Chief gets wind Hanson’s out, or on a drunk, that’s another load of ammunition he’s got against him. He’ll be lucky to get a night job shaking doors at the Kroger.”
“All this drinking has to do with Florida? Or is the drinking part of the problem with them? That shit he told us the other night sounded a little pat.”
“I think he told you the truth. Stuff he said is how it is. He just left out that the drinking wasn’t making matters better. He drinks ’cause he has problems, and the drink makes him have more problems. He’s got a grown daughter he feels he’s lost too much contact with. An ex-wife he still loves. Kind of an odd relationship with Florida. Bad work conditions. Hemorrhoids and the sauce. Tight as he is these days, you say something don’t quite set with him, he’ll burp a turd and fart his teeth.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was remembering the lamp he threw at Leonard.”
“I tell him what you’ve told me, I figure he’ll show up down there where you are, ready to throw the town in the street, and to hell with all this checking around shit. Hell, he may not need to be told anything. He sucked enough Rebel Yell this morning, minus the Co-Cola, he could be on his way now.”
“I don’t think Chief Cantuck would take kindly to a black law enforcement officer with an attitude and whiskey on his breath. ’Course, could be interesting. Anything else?”
“Got a minute so I can whine and feel sorry for myself?”
“You bet.”
“I’m not doing all that good either. Wife fussin’ at me all the time. Can’t do nothing right. She’s pissed I can’t fix the garage opener. She’s got girlfriends whose husbands can fix anything. Hear her tell it, all them sonofabitches do is go around with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, turning lawn mowers and garage doors into nuclear weapons. Let’s see … I’ve quit smoking again, so I’m irritable. Wife said no more poontang if I don’t quit, and I got to be quit a month before I get a taste.”
“That’s a goddamn death sentence.”
“Yeah, well you haven’t been gettin’ any for a serious stretch, and you’re still kicking, so I reckon I’ll survive.”
“You through whining?”
“Not yet. Guess what? I lost my shadow picture book. I think my wife hid it. I was just getting a whooping crane down. And you know what else?”
“Hit me.”
“They’re closing down the goddamn Kmart.”
“Naw.”
“Yeah, it’ll be gone in less than three weeks. Can you figure that?”
I told him I couldn’t, we talked a few more seconds, and rang off. Leonard took his turn at the phone, called home, hoping Raul had shown up.
I paid Tim some money for the calls, and Leonard bought a straw cowboy hat to protect his head from the rain.
Out in the car, Leonard said, “Charlie have any news?”
“They haven’t heard from Florida. Hanson is a nervous wreck, possibly gone off somewhere on a drunk. Charlie’s wife won’t give him any and she may have stolen his shadow book, and he’s got his panties in a major twist ’cause they’re closing down the Kmart. And I told him he ought to get some real law down here.”
“They’re closing up the Kmart?”
“Tighter than a Republican’s wallet.”
“You white Democrats, you get on my nerves.”
“Yeah, well what I can’t stand is a black man doesn’t have enough sense to know not to vote Republican. Shit, man. You look like a fuckin’ fool in that hat.”
“Let’s not talk politics, Hap. It upsets your tummy. And I look fine in hats … Did Charlie ask about me?”
“Nope.”
“Well, shit.”
“Raul back?”
“No. But Leon said the Gilligan videos are a scream.”
14
We drove across the street to the Chiefs office and went inside. The lady with the wasp nest hairdo was behind her desk. The little Christmas tree was still in place, surrounded by its city of cards. She eyed Leonard as carefully and frightfully as the day before. He smiled at her, slow and suggestful, like he might be thinking about how nice it would be to fondle her hair.
There was a thirtyish officer in a straw cowboy hat and a tan uniform looking in a file cabinet drawer nearby. He pretended not to notice our coming in. Leonard asked the secretary if the Chief was in, and the officer pulled a file from the drawer, slowly turned, pretended he had just noticed us, and smiled.
“Something I can do for you fellas?” he said. “I’m Officer Reynolds.”
He was a big man with a big belly and little pocks on his face. He’d pinched too much acne as a youth. His straw hat was expensive, with a rattlesnake band and a little red feather stuck in it. He had a Western-style revolver almost big as a howitzer in his holster. Three Tootsie Roll Pops stuck out of his shirt pocket next to a pen that, from the stain at the bottom of his pocket, appeared to have exploded. Belly or no belly, he looked like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with, especially if he didn’t like you. He had a face said he didn’t like much of anything, except maybe a Tootsie Roll Pop.
Leonard took off his straw hat, said, “There. I feel smarter already.”
Reynolds grinned. “Hell, I heard about you fellas.”
“Yeah?” Leonard said. “I hope it was good.”
“Oh no,” said Reynolds. “I heard y’all was meddlers.”
“Meddlers?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I heard you two limp dicks—sorry, ma’am.”
The lady at the desk turned bright red and began to shuffle papers. Reynolds smiled at her, said, “Why don’t you get some coffee, Charlene?”
Charlene opened her desk drawer, took out a cup that had some kind of cartoon on it, scuttled in one place for a moment, her shoes making a lot of noise, like a poodle with overlong toenails turning in a circle. Finally, she disappeared without a word from the room.
Reynolds turned back to us. He still had that nice smile. “She goes to a lot of church. Words like dick cause her consternation.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Consternation,” Leonard said. “That’s a big word for a police officer, ain’t it?”
“Maybe,” said Officer Reynolds, placing the file on top of the cabinet. “I also have a few nice phrases. Like ‘The nigra died slowly and painfully after a methodical beating.’ ”
“Nigra is one of those words that always bothers me,” Leonard said. “It’s not quite respectful. Like ‘Negro,’ but the talker can’t seem to go all the way and say what he or she really wants to say, which is ‘nigger.’ ”
“I work for law enforcement,” said Reynolds. “I am one third of the Grovetown Police Force. Me, the Chief, and Charlene, we’re not allowed to call you a goddamn shit-eating nigger. That wouldn’t be right. Sir.”
“It’s certainly nice to talk to a public servant,” Leonard said, “but your boss, he does say nigger. We’ve heard him.”
Reynolds didn’t respond. He spent some time checking Leonard out, and Leonard checked him in return.
Reynolds was larger by a head than Leonard with wider shoulders. Big in the belly but hard-looking, with massive arms and tree trunk legs. Leonard isn’t all that big, but he’s got the look. One that tells anyone with half a brain that he can be dangerous. But there was a part of me that knew this Reynolds character was no lightweight either. He had the look too, like a man who had seen the elephant and seen it well, and maybe even put his arm up its ass and pulled its intestines out.
He and Leonard went toe-to-toe, I’d put my money on Leonard. But maybe because he was a sentimental favorite and I knew I’d help him.
Reynolds put his thick fingers together and pressed and popped them. He leaned against the file cabinet, still smiling, one hand resting on the butt of his revolver. His fingers looked like thick roots, his knuckles like lug bolts. He said: “I hear you two gentlemen are acting like you’re some kind of law or something.”
“We heard the same thing about y’all,” Leonard said.
Reynolds’s smile changed just enough to allow his top lip to snarl. “You think I can’t arrest you for messing with a sworn-in law officer? You think I won’t get tired of this and chunk your ass behind bars?”
“What’s the crime?” Leonard said. “Greater wit than your own?”
Reynolds’s face showed he had lost his sense of humor, but he never got to let us know how much. A door at the back of the office opened and Chief Cantuck came out. He was hatless and sweaty-looking. His nose was red and highly porous today, like maybe he’d had a little too much Christmas cheer the night before. Way he was sweating, you’d have thought it was a hundred degrees. His belly hadn’t gotten any smaller, and neither had his ruptured testicle. He looked as if he might blow a major hose at any moment.
“Chief,” Leonard said. “My man. How’s it hanging? … Oh, I see.”
“They think they’re funny,” Reynolds said.
“Hey, I’ve been real quiet,” I said. “Leonard’s the one talking.”
“I’ve already caught their act,” Cantuck said. “It wasn’t any better the last time.”
“You want me to lock ’em up for a while?” Reynolds said. “Just so they can hone their material?”
“No crime in being an ass,” Cantuck said. “Reckon you two are here for some reason other than trying to outwit my officer or make fun of my balls?”
“Both are easy,” Leonard said, “but we’re here on official business.”
“All right,” Cantuck said. “I’ll play. Come in the office.”
As we followed Cantuck, Reynolds said, “By the way, nigger. I’ll remember you.”
Leonard paused, said without the slightest hint of anger, “In case you might forget, I’ll leave my business card with the secretary.”
Cantuck’s office was relatively neat. His wall was covered in photographs of a boy, who from his wasted appearance and resemblance to Cantuck, without a swollen nut, had to be the son he’d told me about.
There was a middle-aged woman in some of the photos with the boy, and she looked plain and worn-out, like her daily job was the Augean Stables.
On Cantuck’s desk were pictures of himself, the boy, and the wife, as well as a plastic container backed by a cardboard frame for donations to MS. It had some change in it, and a couple of bills had been rolled and stuffed inside. On the left-hand side of his desk was a can with a label that suggested you should “Give to the Handicapped,” and on the other side of the desk was a can that pleaded for money for cancer research.
It was very odd, the cans and the cardboard donation container being there. I wondered who had put the money in the cardboard container. The Chief? Reynolds? Charlene? Assorted prisoners? Had Florida dropped in some coins?
Cantuck sat down behind his desk. We took chairs on the other side. Leonard placed his hat on the edge of the
desk and used a finger to turn it from time to time.
Cantuck picked a picture of the boy off his desk and held it in his lap and looked at it. He put it back. From the way he moved, I could tell it was an unconscious ritual.
“Your son?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “What do y’all want?”
“We want to make an official report,” I said. “Concerning Florida Grange. We fear foul play.”
“And, of course, we here in Grovetown are the culprits, just because a lot of us are segregationist?”
“She was here,” I said. “She’s not here now.”
“So, she’s shacked up with some buck somewhere. Check out the Southside of town. Ten miles out. That’s the colored section.”
“We were sort of hoping you’d do that,” I said. “It is your job.”
Cantuck studied us. He unsnapped his shirt pocket and took out a tightly rolled package of chewing tobacco. He unrolled it, opened it, pinched out a wad, put it in his mouth, started chewing. He chewed slowly, as if activating brain cells.
“You gonna fill out the papers for a missing person?” he said around the tobacco.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I doubt you need to,” he said.
“You saying we fill it out you won’t look?” Leonard asked.
“No. I’m saying I doubt you need to. She’ll turn up. My guess is she’s oiling some coon’s pole out niggertown.”
“Careful now,” Leonard said. “Words like that, you might hurt my feelings.”
“Shit,” Cantuck said. “I wouldn’t want that. Let me put it to you straight, numb nuts. You fill out a report, that gives me work to do. Well, I don’t want work to do. Not when I think it’s bullshit work. But no matter what you may think, you fill out that report, I’ll look for her. I’ll find her if she needs finding. I’m just a small-town cop, and as you both know, not very smart and I got a ruptured turnip. But I got a job here. The law says it includes whites and colored. I don’t have nothing against colored. You being an exception, Smartest Nigger in the World … that is how you introduced yourself, isn’t it?”