Well. He aint dead yet.
I hope that's more comfort to you than it is to me.
He sipped the coffee and set the mug down on the table. He watched her. He needs to turn the money in, he said. They'd put it in the papers. Then maybe these people would leave him alone. I cant guarantee that they will. But they might. It's the only chance he's got.
You could put it in the papers anyway.
Bell studied her. No, he said. I couldnt.
Or wouldnt.
Wouldnt then. How much money is it?
I dont know what you're talkin about.
All right.
You care if I smoke? she said.
I think we're still in America.
She got her cigarettes out and lit one and turned her face and blew the smoke out into the room. Bell watched her. How do you think this is goin to end? he said.
I dont know. I dont know how nothin is goin to end. Do you?
I know how it aint.
Like livin happily ever after?
Somethin like that.
Llewelyn's awful smart.
Bell nodded. You ought to be more worried about him I guess is what I'm sayin.
She took a long pull on the cigarette. She studied Bell. Sheriff, she said, I think I'm probably just about as worried as I need to be.
He's goin to wind up killin somebody. Have you thought about that?
He never has.
He was in Vietnam.
I mean as a civilian.
He will.
She didnt answer.
You want some more coffee?
I'm coffeed out. I didnt want none to start with.
She looked off across the cafe. The empty tables. The night cashier was a boy about eighteen and he was bent over the glass counter reading a magazine. My mama's got cancer, she said. She aint got all that long to live.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I call her mama. She's really my grandmother. She raised me and I was lucky to have her. Well. Lucky dont even say it.
Yes mam.
She never did much like Llewelyn. I dont know why. No reason in particular. He was always good to her. I thought after she got diagnosed she'd be easier to live with but she aint. She's got worse.
How come you live with her?
I dont live with her. I aint that ignorant. This is just temporary.
Bell nodded.
I need to get back, she said.
All right. Have you got a gun?
Yeah. I got a gun. I guess you think I'm just bait settin up here.
I dont know.
But that's what you think.
I cant believe it's all that good a situation.
Yeah.
I just hope you'll talk to him.
I need to think about it.
All right.
I'd die and live in hell forever fore I'd turn snitch on Llewelyn. I hope you understand that.
I do understand that.
I never did learn no shortcuts about things such as that. I hope I never do.
Yes mam.
I'll tell you somethin if you want to hear it.
I want to hear it.
You might think I'm peculiar.
I might.
Or you might think it anyway.
No I dont.
When I got out of high school I was still sixteen and I got a job at Wal-Mart. I didnt know what else to do. We needed the money. What little it was. Anyway, the night before I went down there I had this dream. Or it was like a dream. I think I was still about half awake. But it come to me in this dream or whatever it was that if I went down there that he would find me. At the Wal-Mart. I didnt know who he was or what his name was or what he looked like. I just knew that I'd know him when I seen him. I kept a calendar and marked the days. Like when you're in jail. I mean I aint never been in jail, but like you would probably. And on the ninety-ninth day he walked in and he asked me where sportin goods was at and it was him. And I told him where it was at and he looked at me and went on. And directly he come back and he read my nametag and he said my name and he looked at me and he said: What time do you get off? And that was all she wrote. There was not no question in my mind. Not then, not now, not ever.
That's a nice story, Bell said. I hope it has a nice endin.
It happened just like that.
I know it did. I appreciate you talkin to me. I guess I'd better cut you loose, late as it is.
She stubbed out her cigarette. Well, she said. I'm sorry you come all this way not to do no better than what you done.
Bell picked up his hat and put it on and squared it. Well, he said. You do the best you can. Sometimes things turns out all right.
Do you really care?
About your husband?
About my husband. Yes.
Yes mam. I do. The people of Terrell County hired me to look after em. That's my job. I get paid to be the first one hurt. Killed, for that matter. I'd better care.
You're askin me to believe what you say. But you're the one sayin it.
Bell smiled. Yes mam, he said. I'm the one sayin it. I just hope you'll think about what I did say. I aint makin up a word about the kind of trouble he's in. If he gets killed then I got to live with that. But I can do it. I just want you to think about if you can.
All right.
Can I ask you somethin?
You can ask.
I know you aint supposed to ask a woman her age but I couldnt help but be a bit curious.
That's all right. I'm nineteen. I look younger.
How long have you all been married?
Three years. Almost three years.
Bell nodded. My wife was eighteen when we married. Just had turned. Marryin her makes up for ever dumb thing I ever done. I even think I still got a few left in the account. I think I'm way in the black on that. Are you ready?
She got her purse and rose. Bell picked up the check and squared his hat again and eased up from the booth. She put her cigarettes in her purse and looked at him. I'll tell you somethin, Sheriff. Nineteen is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you it's all that more likely it'll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that.
Bell nodded. I aint a stranger to them thoughts, Carla Jean. Them thoughts is very familiar to me.
He was asleep in his bed and it still mostly dark out when the phone rang. He looked at the old radium dial clock on the night table and reached and picked up the phone. Sheriff Bell, he said.
He listened for about two minutes. Then he said: I appreciate you callin me. Yep. It's just out and out war is what it is. I dont know no other name for it.
He pulled up in front of the sheriff's office in Eagle Pass at nine-fifteen in the morning and he and the sheriff sat in the office and drank coffee and looked at the photos taken in the street two blocks away three hours earlier.
There's days I'm in favor of givin the whole damn place back to em, the sheriff said.
I hear you, said Bell.
Dead bodies in the street. Citizens' businesses all shot up. People's cars. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Can we go over and take a look?
Yeah. We can go over.
The street was still roped off but there wasnt much to see. The front of the Eagle Hotel was all shot up and there was broken glass in the sidewalk down both sides of the street. Tires and glass shot out of the cars and holes in the sheet-metal with the little rings of bare steel around them. The Cadillac had been towed off and the glass in the street swept up and the blood hosed away.
Who was it in the hotel do you reckon?
Some Mexican dopedealer.
The sheriff stood smoking. Bell walked off a ways down the street. He stood. He came back up the sidewalk, his boots grinding in the glass. The sheriff flipped his cigarette into the street. You go up Adams there about a half a block you'll see a blood trail.
Goin yon way, I reckon.
If he had any sense. I think them boys in the car got caught in a crossfire. It looks to me like they was shootin towards the hotel and up the street yonder both.
What do you reckon their car was doin in the middle of the intersection thataway?
I got no idea, Ed Tom.
They walked up to the hotel.
What kind of shellcasins did you all pick up?
Mostly nine millimeter with some shotgun hulls and a few.380's. We got a shotgun and two machineguns.