Reynolds finally decided to notice me. "What about you, shit-head? You want me after I finish him?"
"Naw," I said. "Actually, just seeing how tough you are is making my bowels loose. Besides, Leonard gets through with you, what's left for me?"
"That's enough," Cantuck said.
"Chief," Leonard said. "All I ask is you give us fifteen minutes. Anywhere you say. Me and him, assholes and elbows."
"You heard me," Cantuck said, "put the brakes on." He stood up from his desk and leaned his hands on it. "Reynolds. You still work for me, and you knock on my fuckin' door, you want to come in. And, I'll tell you another little thing . . . close the door."
Reynolds, who was still holding the knob in his hand, gently closed it. Cantuck said, "Quit fuckin' my secretary. She has a family."
Reynolds turned beet red. "Chief, I—"
"Just shut up," Cantuck said. "Now what the fuck did you want anyway?"
"Charlene told me they was in here," Reynolds said. "I wanted to know why."
"They come to donate a dollar to one of my charity cans," Cantuck said. "Now pack your ass on out of here. I thought it was your business, I'd leave you a note or somethin'. Go on."
Reynolds went out and started to close the door. Cantuck said, "Tell Charlene to go on home. And you go on too—but not with her. And just in case you might feel you want to talk to someone about these boys being here. Someone like Brown. Don't do it. Something happens to these pieces of shit, it might make me feel bad on account of they put money in my charity cans. Are you readin' me here, son?"
"Chief—"
"The answer's 'yes sir,' " Cantuck said.
"Yes sir," Reynolds said.
"Now go on," Cantuck said. "Day's too bad to hang out here. Word is the dam's leakin' like a goddamn sieve. Next thing you know, we'll be digging bass out of our asses. Now get."
Reynolds went out and closed the door.
"You really don't like him, do you, Chief," Leonard said.
"Nope, I don't."
I said, "Thanks, Chief."
"Don't thank me," he said. "I don't want you here neither."
"You say that," Leonard said, "but you don't mean it."
"Oh yes I do," Cantuck said.
"This sort of rejection from authority figures," Leonard said, "it's exactly what makes a fellow go bad. I read that in a book somewheres."
Chapter 28
Cantuck told us to go home, but he didn't make it an official order, so we waded over to Tim's station and went inside. He was sitting behind the counter with his feet up. When he saw us come in, his eyebrows went up.
"Sort of thought I'd seen the last of you two," he said.
"You almost did," I said. I looked at the pig's feet in the jar on the counter. It looked like the same pig's feet as before. I said, "Thought you sold lots of those?"
"I lied," Tim said. "I try to sell them to the out-of-towners. What do you boys want? I mean, is this safe for you?"
"Can we sit?" Leonard asked.
"Sure," Tim said. "Go ahead. I'll get us a little coffee."
He went and got the coffee. Leonard and I sat in the same chairs we had sat in before and Tim's long coat hung on the same chair where it had hung before. I put my hand in my pocket and fondled my .38, lovingly. We listened to the rain on the roof.
When I felt sure no one was about to charge through the door in a white sheet, I looked around the store, at the new pile of wood beside the stove—without a lizard this time—the crap under the barrel stove, the shiny blue something there, the dust bunnies, and the tobacco wrapper.
Everything seemed just the way it had that Christmas we had come into Grovetown, except the aluminum Christmas tree was gone. It was hard to believe it had been nearly a month. A bit of wind rustled through the place as Tim came in with coffee. It blew dust bunnies across the floor and into the corners.
When we had our coffee and Tim was seated, Leonard said, "You think your dad was behind what was done to us?"
Tim thought a moment. "Maybe he didn't have it done, but the ones done it done it 'cause he wanted it done I bet on that. But why are you guys back?"
"We're stupid," I said.
"I believe that," Tim said.
"What about Reynolds?" Leonard said. "He behind any of this?"
"Christ, boys, I don't know. Why the third degree?"
"Sorry," Leonard said. "We're just a little down on our social skills today."
"And nervous," I said.
"I bet," Tim said. "Hell, boys, I'm glad enough to see you, but I think you ought to leave this to out-of-town law if you're thinking of doing something yourself."
"We don't know what we're thinking," I said. "We still haven't found Florida."
"She could still be okay," Tim said. "Run off somewhere for some reason we haven't got a clue. And I tell you. I'm thinking of leaving out of here myself, for a while. That old Grovetown dam, they say it's pretty creaky, all this rain. It's got more water in it now than last time, and when it broke that time it was bad news. I want Mama out of where she is, but I haven't been able to budge her. That dam breaks, her trailer park'll be the first place to get it. There's already places out there under four or five feet of water just from the seepage. Half the town has left already. Won't come back until the rain stops or the water goes down."
"That's to our advantage," I said.
"You two are fools," Tim said. "This time, someone might succeed at what they tried last time."
"And you don't want to be in the middle of it?" Leonard said.
"Damn right," Tim said. "You heard what they did to Bacon."
"Yeah," I said. "But if it's your father behind all this, you said yourself you've got immunity."
"And what if it isn't my father?" Tim said. "Guys, I'm sorry you got beat up. I'm sorry you got run off the road and nearly killed, but you came out all right. The guys involved confessed. Maybe they'll get scared and pin my father to it in time. But why do you want to meddle anymore?"
"You're about the only one here who has really befriended us," I said. "Maude and her boys a little. Cantuck in his own fashion. But you know these people. You might can tell us something can help. I feel there's an equation we haven't added up. I think we look at the factors just right, we ought to be able to get a total. Know what I'm saying?"
"No," Tim said.
"Florida comes here because she thinks Soothe was murdered," I said. "She wants to prove the Chief and the town are a bunch of bigots. She wants to buy this stuff the Yankee wanted to buy from Soothe and got killed over. Stuff that might or might not exist. She asks around. Talks to you. Gets a place to stay out at your mother's, then disappears. Her car disappears. Her belongings disappear."
"That's what makes me think she may have just driven off," Tim said.
"I don't think so," I said. "Doesn't fit who she was. People can sometimes do crazy things, but by now we'd have heard from her. Something's happened to her."
"You can't be certain," Tim said.
"I've thought every angle. It looked to me at first that Can-tuck might have something to do with her missing, but in light of the way things have gone, that doesn't fit as well as it first did. Reynolds is possible. He and your father could have been in cahoots. They could have hung Soothe. Perhaps Florida somehow found out, so they got rid of her. That sound far-fetched?"
"I guess not," Tim said. "I wouldn't put anything past my old man. Not after the way he's treated my mother and me. I tell you, him with all that money, and me with nothing. And owing him to boot. It gets my goat. And I hate to mention it, boys, but you owe me for some tires."
"Oh, yeah," Leonard said. "You take a check?"
"I don't like to."
"Can you wait then?"
"I'll take the check."
Leonard wrote it out. Tim took it and put it in his wallet. "There now," he said. "That's all taken care of. You were saying . . . what was it?"
"He was about to say, then we show up," Leonard said, "not only are we a nigger and a nigger lover, but we're treading on dangerous ground. Same ground Florida was on."