"No."
"Come on, Bacon," Leonard said.
"No! I said NO! Are you deaf?"
"Just tell me if this is right," Leonard said. "You left here ahead of us, went into town, came home, and next night they came out and got you."
Bacon didn't say anything, but he didn't argue either.
"They came out and got you 'cause someone let on we were here, that you helped us," Leonard said. "Who?"
"I don't know," Bacon said. "Cantuck, maybe. It could have been him. I don't think so, but it could have been. Maybe Mrs. Rainforth, she could have said something wrong. Mr. Tim might have. It ain't no tellin'. Please go. Please. They see you here . . ."
"They're not gonna see us," Leonard said.
"They gonna find out," Bacon said. "Somehow, they'll find 3ut. They found out last time, didn't they?"
"Sorry, Bacon," I said. "Really."
"Yeah," he said. "Okay. You're sorry. Just go on, now."
It was strange and painful driving into Grovetown. It's impossible to describe the feelings that went through me as we came co the city-limits sign, and soon to the square. The square was fairly deep in water. You could pass through it, but the water was swift and it made me nervous. Once, when I was younger, I was following a pickup truck out of a hayfield where I had been working, and we'd had to stop working because a tremendous and unbelievable rain had fallen out of the sky. It was like someone had dumped an ocean on East Texas. But I was with my boss, who had given me a ride to the field, and he was taking me home, and we got behind this pickup, and we came to a bridge and the water was just too much for the hard dry ground. It had been too hot for too long, and when it finally did rain, it wasn't absorbed. It was swelling, and water was already over the bridge, though it wasn't deep. I think had we come to the bridge first, we would have tried to drive over it too, but the pickup in front of us tried it. The water hit the pickup like a battering ram, carried it into the bridge railing and the railing broke and the truck went over. There was nothing we could do. One instant man and truck were there, the next they were gone. The water carried the truck away and under, and it was three days later when the water went down that they found him. He was still in the truck, what was left of a cigar clamped between his teeth. That's how fast he'd gone over and drowned.
It had taught me a lesson about the power of water, and I had respected it ever since. I knew what it could do, and I was haunted by it. By the deeps. By the shallows. By water.
Across the way I could see the Grovetown Cafe. Water was lapping over the curbing, threatening to enter the place. In my head I could see inside it and I could visualize all those angry people, falling down on us like cut timbers.
We decided to start at Cantuck's office, but we couldn't get to it. The water was too high over there to park. We parked at Tim's filling station, and walked over. I tell you, outside of the truck I was a nervous wreck. I knew it wasn't wise, especially going into Cantuck's office, but I wouldn't go without the snub-nose and Leonard wouldn't go without his pistol. We hid them in our coats.
Water was seeping under the door and into the lobby when we arrived. The carpet smelled like a damp sheepdog. We were both breathing harder than either of us really should have been. Perspiration was boiling out from under my arms almost as fast as the rain was coming down. Leonard's limp was more pronounced. He had gotten the original injury saving my life, and he'd healed up good, having only occasional trouble with it, but the beating we had taken had done his leg some bad business again, reactivated the old pain.
"You all right?" I asked.
"Unless you want to have a sack race, I'm all right."
The secretary had taken down her Christmas cards and tree. She wasn't glad to see us. Reynolds was out, which was, of course, a major disappointment.
Cantuck must have heard us come in, because he came to the door of his office with a jaw full of chewing tobacco. He looked a lot less friendly than when I used to see him leaving the police station in LaBorde.
"All right," he said. "Come in."
We went into his office. Cantuck sat down, picked his spit can off the desk and pushed his chew into it with his tongue.
"We just thought we'd drop in and say hi," Leonard said, taking a chair. When he sat, water pooled beneath him. '
Cantuck sighed. He rolled his one good eye to the left, then the right, perhaps looking for sanctuary. I got a dollar out of my wallet and forced it into one of the cans on his desk. He eyed that, said, "You're not thinking you're softening me up with that, are you?"
I sat down. Cantuck said, "If ever there were a couple of idiots, it's you two."
"But we're your idiots," I said.
Cantuck rubbed the back of his neck and ran a hand through his hair. "You know, you could cause some problems showin' up here. I could have you run out of town. I could lock you up."
"But you wouldn't do that," I said. "Because we're your idiots."
"Don't think 'cause you got me to a hospital I owe you some favors," Cantuck said.
"We'd never capitalize on a thing like that," Leonard said. "But we did save your life."
"I'd have been all right," Cantuck said.
"You'd have bled to death," Leonard said.
"You didn't do shit," Cantuck said. "You were in the back seat, passed out."
"Hap saved us both," Leonard said. "So you owe him."
Cantuck clasped his hands together, leaned his elbows on his desk, pushed his face against his hands. He said, "What is it you want? You want to know Brown is guilty? I can't tell you. Being how he's the Exalted Cyclops of the Klan here—or whatever they're calling themselves these days—I figure he had to have known something. No one's pinning him to it because he wasn't there, and the boys are keeping the Klan pledge of silence. Now you know what I know, unless you don't know we're having some serious bad weather here and I think I'm going to send everyone home, along with myself, before we drown."
"What about Reynolds?" I said. "He involved?"
"He's a worthless piece of shit," Cantuck said, "and I figure he'll get my job. Brown starts enough grassroots unrest, makes people feel their jobs at the lumber mill, the Christmas tree farm are in jeopardy, the Mayor might see his way to appoint Reynolds. I don't know. Maybe I want that. I'm tired of all this shit. I got one eye, a swollen nut, and more grief than I need. I been thinking about opening an antique store."
"Lots of guys with one eye and a swollen nut do that," Leonard said.
Cantuck actually grinned at him.
"We don't want any trouble," I said. "We just think we might find a lead somewhere. Something to help us figure what happened to Florida."
"Oh yeah?" Cantuck said. "Couple of detectives, just like on the TV, huh? Seen some Matlock, have you? A few Perry Mason reruns. That's good, and it's good of you two to offer your vast experience in our hour of need. Way I've seen you guys operate, I don't think you could find your dick with both hands, let alone figure out who did what to who and why."
"I just want who," I said. "I don't give a damn about why."
"And that's why you'll never figure the who," Cantuck said. "It's the why that counts."
"The why in this case is damn easy," I said. "A black man killed a white man and a black woman started messing with it."
The Chief's door opened then. I turned in my chair. It was Reynolds. He had a plastic hat cover over his hat and the water beaded on it like balls of Vaseline. From his feet to his knees was soaked. "Well," he said. "My little buddies."
Leonard stood up as if to confront Reynolds.
"Man, you look rough," Reynolds said. "What happened? Get beat up in a cafe?"
"Don't think because a roomful of people whipped my ass, you can," Leonard said.
"I don't have to think nothing," Reynolds said. "
"Get started on me," Leonard said, "hope you brought yourself a sack lunch, 'cause you gonna be here all night."