“Why didn’t they just go ahead and kill me at the house, Uncle Hank?”
“I’ve thought about that too. It’s a nice frame they’ve got you in, all right, but you could tell your story, and fantastic as it is, seems to me it might worry the killers a bit.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I been sitting here thinking about that, and I been thinking something else that ought to worry Fat Boy and Cobra Man. How could I handle that whole bunch by myself? Kill Dave in the kitchen, get the other three in the bedroom, tie them up and do what I’m supposed to have done? I guess it’s possible, but it seems unlikely. Strikes me as there’s enough there for the cops to suspicion a frame.”
“Let’s add something else to all this,” I said. “Cops have got a fugitive on the run—meaning you—wouldn’t they post someone at your house for a time, waiting for you to come back?”
“I guess they would.”
“That didn’t occur to me when I went over there. I thought of it driving over here. Had I thought of it before, I wouldn’t have gone in, especially carrying a gun, which I was. I put it in my pocket in case Fat Boy or Cobra Man were there, not that I really expected them to be, but I’m getting scared enough with all this to consider the possibility. But if there had been cops, and they’d caught me with a gun, I’d be in on this frame tight as you.”
Bill dropped his towel and began putting on the clothes I had brought. He slipped into the Santa Claus boxer shorts, pulled on the pants and zipped them up. “I don’t know. More I think about all this, more off center everything is. Could it be the Imperial City police are just stupid?”
“It’s a consideration entertained by many,” I said, “but in this case, I don’t think they’re that stupid. And they’ve got a new Chief. Guy’s supposed to be a real go getter, had plenty of experience. He’s solved all kinds of old cases here in the short time he’s been Chief. But a deal like that, taking the cars over after the fact, letting a fugitive know someone has been there, not posting a guard, it doesn’t show much judgment… You sure you’ve told me everything?”
“Swear to God, Uncle Hank, I’m telling this straight as an arrow.”
“All right. I’ll get the number here, call you tomorrow night. Just to check on you. Let’s see, it’s Jack Frame you’re listed under. Right?”
“Yeah. Jack Frame.”
“Monday morning, I’ll call the lawyer, set things up, then I’ll come get you. I think doing it through the lawyer is the safest way.”
Bill buttoned up the shirt and sat down on the bed and looked thoughtful. “Uncle Hank, am I getting this right? Are you saying you don’t trust the police?”
“I’m not sure what I’m saying,” I said.
Time I started home, I felt even more confused than before. I didn’t trust anybody. I began to get the feeling the entire dirty little universe was unraveling; that I’d open the door and step outside just in time to see the gnomes packing away the last of the props: the city, the highway, the motel, and then they’d come for me. Fold me up neatly and press me flat and put me away in a tiny plastic container marked Hank Small, Asshole.
· · ·
When I got home the house was dark and a little cool, Bev having turned the thermostat down before going off to bed. I thought about that itch she’d had, and that she had been the one initiating the scratching. Not something she was loathe to do, but something she didn’t do enough to suit me, and now I was home with my itch still working and it was past midnight. Pumpkin time. I had pissed my loving out the window.
To worsen the situation, I now had a different kind of itch, one that was bone deep and impossible to scratch. An itch so bad it had turned my stomach sour and given me a headache.
I got out of my clothes and laid them on the chair in the dressing room, opened one of the dresser drawers silently, got a couple of antacids and some aspirin and took them. I drank some water from the bathroom tap, went back through the dressing room and to bed, lifting the covers gently and sliding as softly as possible onto the sheet.
“It’s after midnight,” Bev said, surprising me.
“I thought you were asleep,” I said.
“No,” she said, and rolled over and ran her hand over the front of my briefs. My soldier immediately sprang to attention. Bev made with a kind of purring sound, said, “I’ve got an itch, remember?”
“I thought after midnight the itch went away and you turned into a pumpkin?”
“No, I just turn into a pumpkin. I still itch. Ever fuck a vegetable, big boy?”
“You mean a pumpkin-type vegetable?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Let me see. I’m trying to remember. Watermelons. Tomatoes. Stuff like that. I don’t remember any pumpkins.”
“It’s quite an experience.”
Her hand went away from my briefs and she moved in the bed, and then her hand laid her panties over my face. I could smell the sweetness of her. I took them off my face and tossed them on the floor and rolled over and took her in my arms. She wasn’t wearing her nightgown. She slid tight against me and let her hand drift down again.
I moved my hand to her breasts, roamed {easft over them and gently squeezed her nipples with my thumb and finger. I kissed the top of her head and her curly hair foamed around my face. I moved my lips to the side of her face and along her neck where the softness of her skin mixed with the slight bite of her perfume. Finally I kissed her lips.
She took my hand and put it between her legs. She was warm and moist. I probed her with my finger, looking for the man in the boat. She kissed me harder and ran her tongue against mine. Sparks leaped through me; the ole battery nearly overcharged.
“Why don’t you taste the vegetable before you poke it,” she said. “I’ve got it all baked into a juicy pie.”
I was all out of snappy comebacks. It’s hard to talk with your heart in your throat. She rolled onto her back and lifted the covers. I slid under and let my tongue slide wetly between her breasts, on down, and over the slight mound of her belly, into her navel, where I did an artful swirl, then on down to a little trail of soft pubic hair.
Not long after she made a happy noise and made some talk about zucchini and I got a special thrill, then we both got scratched in the way we wanted to be scratched and we both got happy and the rain slammed down and the wind blew hard, and for a little while, I felt safe and happy and warm inside my woman. God bless the Great Pumpkin.
10
Next morning, while Bev slept, I got up quietly and dressed and discovered the gun was still in my coat pocket. I hadn’t dreamed it all last night. I really had gone over to Bill’s house and found a murder scene, and I really had been scared enough to carry a gun, and stupid enough to forget to put it back in its place.
I went downstairs and started the coffee and went outside into a cold morning and walked down to the end of our drive and got the local paper.
Imperial City has grown a lot in the last ten years, but it still has a small town mentality, and it still threw its Sunday paper late Saturday night, figuring it would contain news enough for both days.
I walked back to the house and went through the garage and put my revolver back in the pickup under my Dad’s coat, went inside the house and took the paper out of the clear plastic bag, and opened it up, looked to see if there was anything about the Doc’s wife or the bodies over on Red Vine Street or about Bill being a suspect.
If there was, I intended to misplace the newspaper until I could talk to Beverly. That’s when I planned to lay it all out for her. I felt like a swine for holding it back this long, but I just didn’t know how to tell her the nephew she thought was a horse’s ass, was, in fact, a bigger horse’s ass than she thought.
I examined the front page. If it wasn’t there, it most likely wasn’t anywhere else. Something like the murder of the doctor’s wife, the torture and murder over on Red Vine Street, would be big news for Imperial City.
Nothing.
I carefully scanned the rest of the
paper, just in case.
Nothing.
I left the paper on the couch and checked the coffee. The glass ~eight="0 pot was starting to fill up. I went upstairs and leaned over the bed and kissed Beverly on the neck. She rolled over and the bed clothes came off and her bare breasts poked at me. I was happy to see them. I gave them a smile.
“Uh-uh,” Beverly said. “You had your ration last night. Right now I want breakfast.”
“No more itch?” I asked.
“No more itch.” She smiled. “Unless being hungry is an itch. I don’t eat, I get mean.”
This was true.
We went down and ate breakfast and I got a few dollars for gas and emergencies and made ready to drive over to Tyler to see my mother.
“Give her my best,” Beverly said. “We’d go, but I’d rather the kids slept late today. They’re driving me crazy, and the idea of being trapped in the van with them all the way over there isn’t all that appealing. We’ll go over with you next weekend. Tell Carolyn that, and give her our love.”
“I will,” I said. “Call the main stores, would you? Check and see if there are any problems. If there are, I’ll see if I can fix them when I get back. I’ll check on the out of town stores tomorrow.”
We kissed and I poured a large cup of coffee and started for Tyler.
When I got to my mother’s place a couple hours later, my mind wandered enough that she thought I was sick, the way mothers will do. I assured her I was not, took her out to lunch, had a pleasant visit, drove her home, gave her a little money, and started back.
This time, I didn’t try to fool myself into thinking I was going anywhere but Arnold’s, and I knew too, this time, I was going for the gold.
· · ·
As is common for East Texas, the day had gone through numerous weather changes. From a cold, somewhat misty morning, to a warmish midday, and now to a cool, but not uncomfortable afternoon.
The sky was clear and white clouds churned across it. There was a lazy wind and it moved the leaves and made the branches of the trees along the blacktop that led out to Arnold’s quiver.
I passed where I had parked last time, went on around the curve a bit, turned down the somewhat muddy drive, and on up into Arnold’s yard.
I parked near the flagstone walk, got out, and listened to the gentle whistle of the wind in the bottle tree, as I had come to think of it. While I was getting up my nerve to go to the door, the big, yellow dog came out from under the steps and leaped through the lawn mower handle and barked at me.
I’d forgotten about him.
I got in the truck and closed the door. The dog ran up and jumped against it and barked at me through the window. I honked the horn a few times and the dog barked more fiercely.
After a moment, the double-wide’s door opened and Arnold came out. He stood in the doorway staring at me. He was wearing a grey, long-john shirt with an open red and black plaid shirt pulled over i pu cht. He had on long-john bottoms and thick grey socks with faded red toe tips. His formerly red hair was shot with grey and so was his thick beard. He had grown even heavier than I remembered, but his gut looked hard as an iron wash pot and his love handles seemed solid as a truck tire. His chest was like a barrel, and his legs were thick and slightly bowed. He towered well over six feet. He looked like a Viking elder ought to look. He turned his head and spat a stream of dark tobacco on the ground.
I rolled down my window a couple inches, and the dog jumped up and barked and slung slobber through the crack above the glass and onto my shoulder.
I leaned close to the crack and yelled, “Arnold, it’s me, Hank.”
A dog snout full of teeth flashed by and made me jerk back. I watched through the windshield as Arnold stepped onto the steps and called back to me. “I know who the hell you are. I know that truck better’n you. You selling something?”
“No… Course not. Could you call the dog off?”
“You gonna want to come in?”
“If I could.”
He thought about that a moment, fingered his chew out of his cheek and flicked it onto the ground and yelled at his dog. “Butch! Git under the goddamn house!”
Butch didn’t get under the goddamn house. He proved to be no better behaved than my children. He kept barking and jumping and flicking slobber on my window.
“Goddamnit,” Arnold said, coming down to the bottom step. “Git on back here. Butch! Git on back!”
Butch quit rearing up on the truck and throwing saliva. He growled and barked a time or two, and finally got under the house. He didn’t do it happily. He stuck his head out of the opening and barked some more dog words at me and Arnold slammed the palm of his hand against the double-wide and yelled, “Git on!”
Butch went silent.
Arnold lifted a hand and waved me toward him. “Well, come on.”
I got out of the truck carefully and walked toward the house. Arnold said, “You look older.”
“You look older too.”
The wind picked up and the bottle trees hooted. I turned and looked at the tree, then back to Arnold.
“Don’t pay that no mind,” he said. “Come on in.”
Inside the trailer was a mixture of what I expected, and a lot of what I didn’t expect. It was fairly neat, with old furniture that hadn’t come with the joint, and there was a new TV on the far side of the living room wall. Against another section of wall hung a huge black velvet cloth painting of Elvis holding a microphone to his mouth. There was a tacky silver tear dripping out of one of his eyes. Next to Elvis was a cheap particleboard bookcase. It was full of paperback books. I could see a few of the titles, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen to Go, Zen and the Art of Archery, a fistful of Western and detective novels, most of which looked pretty old.
“I got some photographs of the place, you want ’em,” Arnold said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Just haven’t been here in a while.”
“Let’s see,” Arnold said. “You were here once before. About ten years ago, give or take a month or six. As I remember, last time you stopped by was a few days after Billy’s mother died. What the hell was her name, anyway?”
“Fran.”
“That sounds right. I had quite a bit of hooch that day, puked on one of our cousins. Let’s see. After the funeral I came back here and was moving a new chair inside when you came up. That right?”
“I don’t recall exactly.”
And I didn’t. I thought the funeral had been the last time I had seen him, but now it came back to me. I had totally blotted that event out, probably due to its awkwardness.
“Well,” Arnold said, “as I recall, you were here maybe thirty seconds. Told me you were sorry about Billy’s mom, and I said I was sorry about her too, though I didn’t know her from dick and you said, I got to go, and I believe that was about it.”
“You were pretty drunk, Arnold.”
“You did help me get the chair inside. Right inside the door, anyway. I pushed it from there. I don’t have that chair anymore. Some mice took up inside it and I had to burn it. I let the mice loose first. I’ll poison the little bastards, but I won’t burn them.”
“Arnold, I don’t know what to say.”
“What’s to say about mice?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Arnold went over and got behind the counter and sat on a bar stool. He put his big hands flat on the bar in front of him, and after a moment they crawled together. “Now you’re here, maybe it doesn’t mean a thing you’ve finally come around. I get this urge like I want to beat your ass, or hug you. I don’t know. I figure you’re here ’cause of something doesn’t have anything to do with me. I figure it has to do with you. You were always good for you.”
“That’s not true, Arnold.”
“In my case it’s true.”
“All right,” I said, “in your case it’s true. At least one time it was true.”
“That was
one big time, little brother. Listen here. I’m going to do a little fishing. I was putting on some warm stuff when you came up. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m still gonna do a little fishing. I’ve planned it all week. Just an hour or two, but I’m gonna do it. I go back to work tomorrow wrecking out a car for parts a fella needs, and I want to feel like I did what I told myself I’d do. I’m trying to do more for myself these days. I read about that in some books.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
“You want to talk about something, you can go wityoun="h me to the pond, go out in the boat, and we can sit and fish and talk. That’s unless you just come over for another thirty seconds, thinking I might need to move another chair.”
“I came to talk.”
“I warn you, you’re gonna talk to me about something, I got something I’m gonna talk to you about, and you know what, so get yourself ready, or go on out of here and come back in another ten years. I’m not trying to be a bad ass here, I’m just saying how it is. If I’m gonna open this can of worms for us to chew on, I want to be sure you’re ready to digest them.”
His voice was very calm, thoughtful, not the way I remembered him at all, when everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be announced with a trumpet.
“All right,” I said. “I owe you that, and maybe I’ve got some things to say about that, too.”
He got his coffee pot and the fixings and put coffee on. He got a couple bottles of nonalcoholic beer out of the fridge and gave one to me and twisted the cap off the other for himself.
“I don’t drink the real stuff much anymore,” he said, swigging. “I get fat enough, way I eat. I switched over to this, I started losing a few pounds. I quit getting in fights too.”
“I prefer this,” I said. “I never drink to get drunk, even when I do drink a beer. Fact is, since that night, I’ve never been drunk again.”
He didn’t say anything. I thought it was an opening he’d take. I lifted the bottle and drank so I could hide some of my face from him.
“Coffee’ll be finished time I get dressed,” he said. He set his bottle on the counter and went into the bedroom, and after a few minutes came back. He was wearing jeans over his love handles, and had on high rubber boots and a thick coat, like the one I had in my truck.