Lou said, “Ace.”
“Damn,” Leonard said. “He speaks.”
Lou smiled like a baby that had just passed gas.
“Professor kind of liked her, I think,” Jimmy said. “Thought she was hot enough to burn down a barn. Said as much. But thing is, I don’t care if Professor is fucking a duck on Wednesdays and a pig on Thursdays. I don’t want to do something bad to you two, and that’s why I seek a compromise. Just leave town.”
“I was thinking,” Leonard said, “we might do something bad to you two.”
“Leave, don’t come back,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want to get rough. I hate that kind of business, but it’s the business we got. We’re willing to give you until tomorrow morning. And that’s stretching it. But we see you in town again after that, we got to, you know, make plans for you to leave. I should also ask, do you remember my brother Delf?”
“He was in my grade,” I said.
“He’s police chief here,” Jimmy said. “Just so you know. Have I made my position clear?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Next time, we’ll be a little more vigorous.”
“Don’t think we haven’t got some vigor ourselves,” Leonard said.
“Oh, I know you do. This is merely a polite warning and a desire for it not to go any farther. It was the twins, and I understand you met them, because if you met Professor, you met them, they aren’t as affable as we are, and I’ll tell you, frankly, they scare me a little.”
“It’s us you ought to be afraid of,” Leonard said.
“I admit a bit of nervousness about tangling with you two, and that’s another reason I’d rather avoid it. But I’m nervous, not afraid. Lou here, I don’t think he’s given it much thought.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “He don’t look like he’s thinking about much.”
Lou smiled.
“But Professor calls out the twins, all discussion is off. I’m giving you a chance here to go your way. I mean, really, does finding a woman you don’t even know mean that much to you?”
“We got honor too,” I said. “We gave our word.”
Jimmy nodded. I thought he sincerely looked a little sad.
“Think we’ll head out now. Remember that time line.”
“Remember I already whipped you once,” Leonard said. “Meant so little to me, I’d forgotten it until you mentioned it, and frankly, I still don’t remember you but I’m glad I did it.”
Jimmy smiled a smile that made him look a lot more like Lou.
They got up from the table.
“Jimmy,” I said. “One thing I have to ask, man: What the fuck happened to your neck?”
It was a mean thing to ask, but I was feeling mean right then.
“Car accident,” Jimmy said. “Some kind of misalignment when it healed. But don’t think that has any effect on how I get things done. Been nice seeing you boys. Just don’t let me see you after tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah, well, keep your head up,” Leonard said.
Jimmy snorted, then he and Lou walked back to the pickup, got in it, and drove off.
16
I cruised us slowly back into town, and rolling back in, the bad things that had happened here when I was younger came down on me fat and heavy. Memory has weight.
To lift the weight, I thought about a time here when it had not been all bad, back when I practically lived in the woods, along the creeks and along the river, back when I would fish and the world seemed all right, and I believed in the code of the Lone Ranger, about how good always won over bad, and that things were constantly set straight by honor and daylight.
I remembered the fishing hole that was just off the Sabine River, where the water ran in and filled it, and willows grew thick all around it. It was deep there, though the hole was not wide. You could easily throw a rock across it. You could drop a line in the water and always catch a fish, always have your dinner. The sky was wonderful to see through the limbs and leaves of the trees that shaded the hole, especially as the day died and the night rose up, and the sky turned a strange purple because of the way the sunlight bled through the trees. Then there was the night, and the night wasn’t bad either, because it seemed soft, and there were the stars to be seen between the limbs and leaves, and the crickets would make their sounds, and the bullfrogs theirs. If it was a moonlit night, it was like traveling by spaceship, lying there on the banks of the blue hole on a blanket, heading into the moonlight, hating to walk back to the car carrying my gear, hating to go away from there, trying to hold on to that moment forever.
I was musing on that when Leonard said, “That beer was like horse piss. Got to think Lou picked it out at the store, must have been some kind of bargain shit. Oh, hell, think he poisoned me?”
“It was sealed,” I said. “No. He didn’t poison you. Stuff Jimmy said about his older brother, Delf, being police chief, that was a way of telling us they could kill us and no one would look for us even if we were lying on the steps of the Marvel Creek Police Department wearing tutus. Only thing is, I remember Delf as an all-right guy. Kind of a blowhard, but all right.”
“Maybe he’s had a hangnail or two since then and it’s turned him bitter.”
“That’s possible. And Jimmy, what I remember of him, he seemed all right too.”
“He’s not all right, Hap. Neither is his goofy brother. One thing for sure, we’ve somehow stirred the soup.”
“Always do,” I said.
“Question is, what have we stirred up? Came here asking about Jackrabbit, and we meet a preacher who liked her, find out her father was a weird masochist, next you get hit by a chair and have to be rescued by me.”
“That’s how you saw it?”
“Yep. Then George threatens us, and we meet a very nice man called the Professor who thought Jackie was pretty hot, but he doesn’t like birds trying to mix. He introduces us to the twins, who also seemed very nice, and then he threatens us in a quiet way, and then he sends two goons to warn us to be out of town by tomorrow morning. It’s been a big day.”
“It has.”
“And for the record, I don’t cotton to threats from anyone,” Leonard said.
“I, on the other hand, might be a little more prone to cotton a little, at least until I figure out why we’re being threatened. Is this about Jackie or is it about black and white relations, and exactly why have we become the target for an ass whipping when we’re merely asking about a missing lady who turns out to be good at math and is a little kooky?”
“Always the questions, never the answers,” Leonard said.
“Know what, I say we visit Delf and say howdy.”
“What else we got to do?”
17
The police station was a large stone building that looked more suitable for a library.
Leonard pulled the automatic pistol out from under his shirt, returned it to the glove box, and we went into the station like we owned it.
There was a pretty-faced plump lady at the desk. It was the kind of plumpness you wanted to roll in. Her cheeks were apple red and it didn’t appear to be makeup. Her desk was behind a long glass wall with a little mouse-hole slot at the center bottom of it, and a metal fixture for speaking was positioned in the glass at mouth height.
She smiled at me, nodded at Leonard.
I stepped closer to the glass and put the smile on my face I used for seduction. It had worked at least twice in my lifetime.
“Can I help you, honey?” she said.
I missed really small towns right then, the casual sweetness they could have. “Honey” and “baby” and “child” and “sweetie” and so on. The sign on her desk said her name was Eula Jean Craig.
“You can,” I said. “I’m wondering if the chief, Delf, is in. I’m an old classmate and wanted to say howdy, speak to him a minute.”
“May I ask who’s asking, sugar?” she said.
She was so unprofessional and sweet and sexy, I think I loved her a little. “Well, dear
,” I said, “tell him that an old classmate, Hap Collins, is here to see him, and I have a friend with me, Leonard Pine.”
Eula Jean touched a button somewhere and there was a buzzing sound, and then “Yes, Eula,” came a voice.
“Chief, there’s a very nice-looking couple of gentlemen here would like to see you. One says his name is Hap Collins, and his friend is…” She leaned toward the metal fixture in the glass. “Sorry. What was it again?”
Leonard bent forward, said, “Leonard Pine.”
She told the speaker that, and then we heard a voice say, “Well, send them back.”
“That door is right there, gentlemen. And Hap, didn’t you used to date my sister, Paulette?”
The last name clicked then. Paulette Craig.
“I did indeed.”
“She’s married now and has four kids, but I’m available.”
“It’s a lovely thought,” I said, “but I’m with someone, and frankly, I’m too old for you.”
“Oh, honey, don’t let that scare you. If you die, you die.” She grinned and pointed at the door, said, “I’ll buzz you in.”
We went through the door, and it led into a tiled hallway that looked as if it had just been polished by the heavenly angels.
Delf stepped out of a door and into the hallway. He had gained weight and his belly strained his shirt and made it gap in a spot, and that made his white T-shirt visible underneath his uniform. He had lost all his hair except for a graying ring around his head, but he had all his teeth and was smiling them at us.
“Damn, boy, I darn near forgot about you.”
It was the kind of friendliness that comes with a certain amount of common history more than with true friendship.
“And Leonard, you might not know it,” he said, “but I know you too.”
“Say you do?” Leonard said.
We had walked up to him by then. He shook our hands and waved us into his office, which was as clean as the hallway.
He collapsed in a rolling chair behind his desk as if he were falling off the edge of a pier into deep water. He gestured at a couple of chairs arranged in front of the desk, and we sat down in those.
“You look just the same,” he said, “except older, grayer, and heavier.”
“Let me return that compliment,” I said.
“And you, Leonard. I’ve heard of you. Word gets around, you know. I think you knocked my brother out once. You boys, you’re kind of known as troubleshooters. Or is it troublemakers?”
“We’re actually private detectives,” I said.
“Whatever you are, word sure has got here, and some of it comes from my brother Jimmy.”
“Ah,” I said. “Native drums.”
“Yeah, well, not drums. He called me a few minutes ago.”
“Did he tell you he told us to get out of town by morning light?”
“No. Just said you had become a troublemaker, and he knew Leonard here, and he thought he was the same. Let me tell you something, Hap. Jimmy, he likes to think he has clout through me, and he’s my brother, and I love him, Lou too, bless his dull little head, but the only clout I sling around is the law. Him telling me you’re troublemakers, well, that remains to be seen, don’t it? And if you’re here to complain about him, you’ll be getting in a long fucking line. But I promise you this. I’m going to uphold the law.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said.
“How you like my receptionist?” he said. “You remember her sister? Dated her awhile, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“She was a pretty one, and Eula out there, she is too. She might be packing more meat than she needs during a hot summer, but she’s got it going on, don’t she?”
“I agree.”
“I’m fucking her, you know that?”
“It wasn’t something she mentioned,” I said. “She did kind of ask me out, though.”
“I’m going to get her some sort of sign to wear that reads I’M FUCKING THE CHIEF, AND JUST THE CHIEF.”
“It would clear matters up right away,” I said.
He laughed at his own humor. I had a feeling if anything was going on between them, it wasn’t true love, and maybe nothing was going on other than Delf trying to be his old blowhard, macho self.
“Did you agree to see us,” Leonard said, “so you could tell us you’re laying the pork to Chubby out there?”
I saw Delf’s eyes darken a little, but then they cheered up equally fast.
“No. I agreed to see you because Hap and I went to school together.”
“I’m not trying to fuck up y’alls reunion,” Leonard said, “but Hap actually came to see you for a purpose other than reminiscing.”
“That right, Hap?”
“Complaining about your brothers was part of it,” I said.
“Jimmy was trying to blow hot smoke up your ass, and then he tried to blow some up mine.”
“A little of it might have got in the hole,” I said. “Why I’m here, I took them seriously, and I’d rather not have to defend myself, because I might hurt someone.”
“And I might kill someone,” Leonard said.
“Are those threats?” Delf said.
“They’re cautions,” Leonard said.
“Break the law, either of you, and I’m coming after you. Same for my brothers. After Mama died, I didn’t have much to do with them. You might remember my old man died back when I was in high school. Got cancer of the dick or some such, maybe it was the stomach or the liver. I don’t know. But he got it, and it killed him.”
I didn’t remember, but I didn’t say anything.
“Being the older brother, I raised them two best I could, played the father to them, tried to bring them up right, but it didn’t stick. I became a cop, they became assholes. Jimmy, he’s always blaming this or that for his station in life. He wouldn’t have his neck leaning out to the side if he hadn’t been drinking. Hit a deer one night, car went flying through the air. He didn’t have his seat belt on, so he took a trip through the windshield. Surprisingly, it didn’t cut him up as bad as you’d think, but it gave him that permanent nod after they got through fixing him up. Thought that might sober him, put him on another path, but nope. Kept walking between the briars, tangling up in them now and again. Hate to say it, but for Jimmy, and probably Lou, it’s a matter of time.”
“For the record,” I said, “he was drinking and driving today.”
“Noted. Not surprised.”
“Got a question for you,” Leonard said. “We’re hired to find Jackie Mulhaney, called Jackrabbit. You got any way to help us on that?”
Delf put his feet on his desk, looked at the ceiling. “That crazy bitch. She had a dad crazier than her.”
“You say that because of the way he died?” I said.
He removed his feet from the desk and let the chair settle.
“You know about that?”
“Heard from the preacher at the old theater,” Leonard said.
“Damn good waste of a theater. And let me tell you something. I think that nice-talking preacher over there killed Sebastian to take over his church. Made up this fucked-up story about Sebastian wanting his guts put on his chest and some such. And by the way, that is how we found him. How would Jamesway know about that if he didn’t do it?”
“He claims Sebastian tried to hire him to do it,” I said. “But he turned him down.”
“Didn’t say shit about it until the body was found, then he tried to work his way out of being a suspect.”
“Wouldn’t have been a suspect had he not told that story,” I said. “He could have just been quiet.”
“I thought about that, but really. The guy wanted to suffer? Be cut open? Swallowed a key so it had to be cut out of him? Come on. And this ten-thousand-dollar shit. Where would he get that kind of money? Motherfucker probably had to wipe his ass on his shirttail because he couldn’t afford toilet paper.”
“I presume you looked in the bank vault?” I said.
“You know about that too? Well, isn’t Jamesway the little chatterbox? I went to the bank and had them open Sebastian’s box. Empty. Either there was never anything there, and Jamesway is lying through his sanctimonious teeth, or whoever killed Sebastian Mulhaney got the key and got the money. Then there’s this whole thing with Jackrabbit. I think she and Jamesway worked this out together, did the deed, then she took half, he took half, and she took a hike. Or maybe even more likely, she’s somewhere out in the woods, and she ain’t there enjoying nature. She’s part of it, courtesy of Church Boy.”
“Yet you haven’t arrested him,” Leonard said.
Delf nodded. “Thinking something is true and proving it’s true are two different things.”
“You obviously knew Jackie,” I said.
“Everyone in town did. She was a good-looking woman, in an odd kind of way. But there was something about her. My cop instincts tingled. I wouldn’t have trusted that gal as far as I could throw her.”
“Appreciate the information,” I said.
“I didn’t tell you a damn thing you didn’t already know,” Delf said. “You boys leaving town like my brother suggested? Not forcing you to, but I’d go if I was you. Jimmy and Lou aren’t the only ones working for this fellow called Professor. My brothers don’t give you trouble, others might.”
“Like the twins,” Leonard said.
“Like them. I tell you, those fuckers make my skin crawl. See them in the café, they just drink coffee. Never seen them eat, never heard them say a word. I think they live off coffee in the day, suck blood at night. I think they’re Yankees.”
“Got to be,” Leonard said.
“Who are they?” I said.
“Professor calls them the Fairview twins.”
“What he told us,” Leonard said.
“But thing is, I haven’t found any records on any twins named Fairview, so I doubt that’s their name. I got nothing on them.”
“What’s Professor’s story?” I said.
“I’ve pulled him in before for this and that. But nothing sticks. He’s a pig farmer. Between here and Longview he’s got a lot of land and a lot of pigs on it, raises them on concrete. Who the hell raises pigs on concrete?”