“No, sir. What we want to know is, would you know anybody around this area name of Guffey? A farmer, rancher, whatever.”
He kneaded his pink chin. “Guffey? Guffey. Guffey. Last name?”
“Last name.”
“Know anything else about him that could give me a hint?”
“A long time ago, more than fifteen years ago, he had a young fellow working for him who covered the whole area in a pickup truck, selling those stone Japanese garden lanterns that stand about so high.”
“Well, hell yes! That was closer to twenty years ago. Two sizes. My Mabel bought two of the little ones for two corners of her rose garden, and I wired them for her and put the switch on the side porch. Pink bulbs she put in there. Turns them on these days only when company is coming after dark. Nice fellow sold them to us. Obliging as could be. Toted them to right where she said to put them, and she changed her mind three times. Now who in the world was he working for? Let me think.”
“I was told he lived right around here.”
“Right around. here can cover a lot of land, friend. It’s starting to come back. He run off with the daughter. Crazy old coot bought tons of those lanterns. They came into Galveston by ship, and he freighted them on up here. What the hell was his name? Hold on. I know somebody that would know. I’ll give them a ring.”
He went back into the office, and I could see him in there through the glass, talking and laughing. He came out, shaking his head, after a very long conversation.
“There was a lot to that story that I’d forgot. I called a woman that remembers everything forever. Seems that over near Encinal, few miles east of the town on State Forty-four, there was a couple named Larker. She was close to thirty and he was closer to fifty. No kids. Mr. Larker, he worked in Encinal at the automobile agency there. His wife bought one of those lanterns when he wasn’t home. And about two months later, he started coming down with the flu at work, and he headed on home, about a fifteen-minute drive, and when he put his car away, he saw that pickup with the stone lanterns in it parked behind a shed. There was a good enough wind blowing so nobody heard him drive in. He tippytoed to one window after another until he looked in the parlor and there they were on the carpet having at it, with her big long legs hooked over his shoulders, and her butt propped up on a pillow her mother had needlepointed for them for their fifth anniversary. Their two pair of pants had been flung aside, and he could hear Betsy Ann crying out over the sound of the wind. Hume Larker, he said afterward he just felt so terrible, what with having a chill from the wind blowing, teeth chattering, he just turned and sat down and leaned his back against the house and cried like a baby, sitting there hugging his knees. Then he got back into his car and drove out, and apparently they never noticed. He drove around for about an hour, and when he came back the truck was gone. Betsy Ann was in the kitchen, and she asked him why he was home so early and he said he was sick. He said he was going to go to bed, but before he went to bed he had one thing he wanted to do and he wanted her to watch him. She tagged along, looking puzzled, and he got a sledge out of the barn and went out to the kitchen garden and, with her watching, he sledged that stone lantern down into gravel. She didn’t say a word and she didn’t look at him. The next day and the next, he was too sick to go looking for the salesman. He had a high fever and he was out of his head part of the time. Nearly died, his sister told me. He sort of remembered hearing Betsy Ann yelling at somebody to go away. By the time he could rise up out of his bed and load the Remington and go looking for the salesman, the salesman had gone for good. And he had taken Walker Garvey’s youngest daughter with him.”
“Garvey?” I asked. I felt a presence behind my left shoulder and glanced back and saw Meyer there, listening with a rapt expression. I was glad to see him, because it was beginning to be too much to remember and repeat. But Meyer would remember it, word for word. He has the knack.
“Garvey, not Guffey.” Bunky said. “Walker Garvey. Crazy stubborn old coot. Seven kids, all girls. They married and moved out soon as they could, until just Izzy was left. Isobelle. Jumpy little thing about sixteen when she left. Scrawny. Hardly even any boobs yet. Little old lively girl with buck teeth and hair so blond it looked white. Joe the salesman had a way with the ladies of all ages.”
“Joe?”
“Wait a minute. It was Larry Joe. That’s right. Larry Joe Harris.”
“Is Mrs. Larker still in the area?”
“Last I heard. Hume had a stroke about three years ago and it was a bad one. Sixty-eight, I think he was. He lasted about three months. She sold the place to a family named Echeverria. She moved into Encinal, and I think she stays with her mother and takes care of her. The old lady is about eighty and got bad arthritis. You ask around Encinal for Betsy Ann Larker, somebody is bound to know her. Big tall pale woman.”
“Is Walker Garvey still living?”
“He’s been dead years. I can’t even remember what he died of. He wasn’t much loss to anybody.”
“Where was his place?”
“Up near Cotulla. I think it’s still in the family, one or the other of those daughters of his living there, but I don’t know the name. I can tell you how to find it. The quickest way is take State Forty-four west to Encinal, get onto I Thirty-five, and it’s nearly thirty miles up to Cotulla. Get off the interstate there and take County Road Four Sixty-eight back southeast. It runs along parallel to the Nueces River. Four or five miles down that road you’ll see a couple of houses and some sheds and so on set well back, on your right-hand side. They still call it the Garvey place, I think. Pretty good land there, a couple miles from the river.
“Gentlemen, a pleasure talking to you. Hope I’ve been of some help. It’s coming upon closing time, and I don’t stay around here one minute more than I need to.”
We walked to the van. It was no longer in the shade, and hot enough inside to melt belt buckles. We talked it over and decided that the motel at Robstown had been comfortable enough and only about sixty miles away, so we decided to call it a day, but halfway there we came upon a motel in Alice that looked just about as good, and they had plenty of room, so we took a pair of singles out in the back wing of the place. The shower was a rusty trickle. The window air conditioners made a thumping roaring rattling sound, and the meat across the street was fried, but otherwise it was adequate. Good beds. Fresh clean linen.
Over a big country breakfast, Meyer said, “Larry Joe Harris. Same man?”
“Unless there’s been a lot of people crisscrossing this part of Texas eighteen years ago, selling Japanese stone lanterns.”