Brian looked at them. “They should pass.” He handed the sheets to Wing. “Where are you putting it?”
“Boxed on the right side of page one.”
“If it gets by Harmon and Tillerman and Crawder.”
“It will, with a nice two-column head: ‘Reporter Accuses Bliss.’ And the subhead: ‘Bay-Fill Conspiracy Charged.’ ”
“But what kind of an angle have you got, Jimmy? Where’s your protection? How much cover have you got?”
“None. Nothing. The sword of truth.”
“A sword against heavy artillery, boy. But did you have to put an assault rap on top of everything else?”
“Name another way to handle it?”
“Hell, I could have decoyed him away long enough.”
“Name another way to handle it where there’s nobody in it but me.”
Haas said slowly, “I see what you mean. But I know about it and I’m not doing anything about it, so that makes me part of it too.”
“Go home.”
“They’ll believe two of us quicker than one. Let’s go in there and spread some snow around, Mr. Wing. J.J. went home with a headache and a sore throat. We’ll snow them all, cut out some of the laudatory crud about Palmland and insert this little morsel.”
“You’ll get fired, Bri.”
“I don’t think so. They’ll have to fire you. That’ll make me more valuable. I’ll be terrible shocked when I find out you actually struck poor Mr. Borklund, and then lied to me, your good friend. Okay?”
“So let’s go.”
After it was done, they waited around and picked a couple of the first copies off the press run. Brian had phoned Nan so she wouldn’t worry. There was no one to worry about when Borklund came home.
“You better keep him,” Haas said. “Like a rare butterfly.”
Jimmy went to the car and checked and came back. “His eyes are open. He did a little thumping and grunting. I think he’s annoyed.”
“How’s your hand?”
“I have pretty dimpled knuckles. I better not turn him loose until circulation is too far along to be stopped.”
“Want to park him in front of my house for a little while?”
“I better not. I want to keep you clean.”
They stood under the streetlight on Bayou, smiling at each other. Haas said, “You were a sneaky bastard, working for Elmo, you know.”
“The job had small compensations. I got to take Buck’s girl to Tampa and put her on a plane.”
“I wondered what happened to her.”
“She made Martin Cable nervous.”
“When Eloise reads the morning paper, she’s going to be the nervous one.”
“Almost as nervous as Leroy.”
“Mr. Wing, it has been a pleasure being associated with you. In a day when the newspaper business has become about as glamorous as chicken-plucking, you have created a new legend with a nice old-timey ring to it. May I suggest that you seek your next employment in Portland, Anchorage or Honolulu, and as quickly as possible?”
“After I stay and watch what happens.”
“Don’t stay too long. I’ll say goodbye to Nan for you.”
After Haas drove off, Jimmy walked slowly to his car. He had had little sleep, but he did not feel tired. He felt stimulated and mildly reckless, a three-drink condition achieved without drinking. But at unexpected intervals a little streak of fright would flash across the back of his mind, like a penny rocket. He kept thinking of a bloody old joke about a man reputed to be very quick with a razor. Ho, ho, ho, you missed me, boy. Did I, now? Just you try turning your head. Beyond old jokes, and the little gleams of fright, and the problem of what to do with Borklund, and the ache of his bruised hand, were the tangled sensory memories of Katherine, untouched, unsorted — all the jumbled, silky tumbling of her, white long clean lines and the gasping, all untouched, unsorted, and too soon over. For a time there had been one incredible answer to everything, a solution of such curious simplicity it had been overlooked. But, almost within moments, it had become a false answer to all the wrong questions, and she came tapping back in on her tall heels, her face cool, her mouth sucked to an unforgiving tightness, to tell him that little boys who write nasty words on the blackboard lose their chance to attend the school picnic.
He turned to look toward the rear of the station wagon and said, “Borklund, old buddy, what would you like to do? We’re too late for the bars. They closed at two. We lost our chance to pick up a couple of girls. About the only thing to do is ride around. Okay with you? Fine. We’ll just ride around.” Borklund made a muffled growling sound and thumped with his heels on the tin deck of the wagon.
He drove aimlessly for nearly an hour, and finally parked at the small public beach at the north end of Cable Key. Two other cars were parked there, in search of love. There were hungry mosquitoes ranging the beach. He left the windows open a few inches, locked the doors on the inside, sprayed the interior of the car with the bug bomb he carried in the glove compartment, stretched out on the front seat and went to sleep. It was early daylight when he awakened. The other cars were gone.
He dropped the tail gate, hauled Borklund into a handy position and stripped the tape off. Borklund looked older and smaller, gray in the mild morning light. He sat on the tail gate, his legs dangling. His jaw was lumpy and discolored.
“Glasses,” he said in a dusty voice.
Wing got them from the glove compartment. One lens was almost opaque with a network of fine cracks. Borklund put them on. He fingered his jaw tenderly. He spat onto the compacted shell of the parking area. He stepped down and walked in a small circle, slowly, lifting his knees high, flexing his arms. He stopped in front of Jimmy and said, “I don’t want you sent to Raiford. I want you serving county time, so on the hot afternoons I can drive out and park and watch you swinging a brush hook on a county road gang.”
“You’re a hard man to put down.”
“What the hell is it all about, Wing?”
Jimmy handed him the paper. Borklund leaned against the tail gate and read it. Then he slowly rolled the paper into a small hard cylinder. He stared out at the Gulf and whapped the paper against his thigh and said, “You poor damn fool. You poor sorry ignorant damn fool.”
“Could I have gotten it in any other way?”
“No. That isn’t what I mean. You going to leave me here, or do you plan to drive me back to my car?”
“I’ll drive you in.”
Borklund got into the car. As Jimmy backed out, he said, “Who was in this with you? Haas?”
“He was there, but he didn’t know anything about you.”
“I got to get my other glasses and change my clothes and go see Mr. Killian and then go sign a complaint.”
At noon on Wednesday Jimmy parked on Center Street and walked a block and a half to the Bay Restaurant. He walked slowly in the hot sun. He had the feeling that if he looked down at the front of his clean shirt, he would be able to see his heart beating. There was a ludicrous flavor to the situation. It seemed that it had happened to him before, and then he remembered it was just a stock situation in ten thousand westerns. Ol’ Jimmy Wing, the tumbleweed kid, has come into town a-knowing the Bliss gang has swore to shoot him on sight. Play a little High Noon music while the townspeople gasp and bug their eyes and scuttle out of the line of fire.
He gave a hitch at his gun belt, narrowed his eyes, and listened to the slow jingle of his spurs. But there were tourists who didn’t scuttle, and glanced at him blankly, if at all. He went into the coolness of the lounge and stood at the bar where many members of the business community could be found at lunchtime, and had the small satisfaction of noting that he had put an abrupt end to about fifteen simultaneous conversations. When the conversations began again, they had a different character, a hushed sibilance. He ordered a drink and nodded and spoke to the ones within range.