By the time he'd turned out of the barn lot and was heading west on the county road, he saw in his mirror John Rau's maroon Buick Regal swing out of the lot behind him. Charlie was coming onto 61 when he saw a car approaching, a black one as it whipped past him and then past John Rau in the mirror, a black Jaguar-Robert Taylor heading toward the site.
Robert saw one car in the lot, some kind of big SUV, and Kirkbride shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, watching him drive in. Robert got out and walked toward him noticing the man hadn't dyed his beard.
" Mr. Kirkbride, how you doing? I called your office, the young lady said you were out here."
The man stood there squinting in the sun.
"Hot enough for you?" Robert giving him white talk. "I sure hope it lets up some by the weekend. I was wondering, it rains, we postpone the battle or what?"
"It rained the entire week leading up to Brice's," Kirkbride said. "You don't mind getting wet, do you?"
Giving him some hardcore reenactor shit without answering the question. Robert said, "No, I like to get wet," and heard the rest of it, you dumb tuck, in his head. "I been out driving around the area, see what's over the other side of the woods. Not much, a farm road… "
"The levee road," Kirkbride said. "There's canebrakes back there, cottonwood and willow oak. It's too bad we have to keep the battle out in the open. I think it would be interesting, at least for the reenactors, to put on a fight in the woods."
Robert said, "They any snakes back there?"
"Cottonmouth's the poisonous one to look out for, the one you see the most of. The worst things are the ticks and the red bugs."
Robert said, "Ticks and red bugs."
"And mosquitoes," Kirkbride said. "Did you know Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, came here and studied this battle? Impressed by the way Old Bedford put it to the Yankees?"
"Yeah, I read that. But I wondered did either of 'em know Hannibal pulled the same kind of shit on the Romans back in the B.C.S. Jammed 'em in a pincer move till they were stumbling all over each other. With their spears and shit."
It didn't look as if Kirkbride knew it either, standing there squinting at him. He said, "I've got a crew coming."
Making it sound like reinforcements.
Robert wasn't sure what he meant and said, "I got one coming, too. Or I should say my buddy General Grant has, since we gonna be fighting against each other."
"I mean this afternoon," Kirkbride said, and looked toward the road. "They'll stake out the Union and Confederate camps and what'll be in other areas."
" Arlen coming?"
Kirkbride said, "I understand you two have met," still not answering questions. "He tell you?"
"I believe was Charlie Hoke mentioned it."
"Yeah, I met Arlen the first time with Charlie and the diver, where they're staying. Then I brought General Grant out to Junebug's to meet him. He didn't tell you about it?"
"Why would he?"
"You know the man's a criminal to look at him, huh?"
Kirkbride only stared, not biting on that one, or interested in who General Grant was.
So Robert said, "I know it's hard to tell, gangstas down here not looking much like gangstas in the movies. You know what I'm saying? Your gangstas all have that Jimmy Dean country way about them." Robert zinged one in now saying, "I asked Arlen were you in business with him. He tried not to say but told me yeah, you were, whether he knows it or not." Robert paused to see what that would get him. Nothing. He said, "Mr. Kirkbride, am I going too fast for you?"
The man said, "Maybe if you told me what the hell you're talking about-"
"The drug business. All that shit you move through Junebug's into the countryside. You the drug czar of Tunica County, man. What surprises me is nobody seems to know it."
Now the man took his time, not saying shit as he walked toward him, Robert believing the man was thinking if he should explode with some Southron indignation. Like, did he know who he was speaking to? No, the man walked up till they were looking each other in the eye, the man doing all right so far, the way he was handling it.
Robert said, "You haven't dyed your beard."
And that threw him off some.
He regrouped and said, "No, I haven't, and I don't intend to."
"You playing Forrest, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am. But I don't want to dye my beard, so I'm not gonna dye it." Going with a tone of voice that was straight on, like he was his own man and had nothing to hide. He said, "You talked to Arlen about me, and you think you found out something?"
Like what would Arlen know.
"Ain't he head of your security?"
"That's all he is."
"I asked him did he want to sell any your materials, supplies, out the back door."
"My security man."
"That's the one you see. 'Specially one that makes a living as a criminal. Yeah, I believe he was ready to do business," Robert said, "but I was jes' messing with his head. See, I already knew he had Junebug do Floyd and then did Junebug himself or had somebody else do him, the consensus leaning toward the one you all call the Fish. See, Arlen knows I'm not gonna say nothing about it or use it on him, hold him up with it. I don't do that."
Kirkbride, eye to eye, said, "What makes you think he's involved?"
"Come on, man, everybody knows it. The CIB man knows it. He'd be deep into the case, hounding Arlen, it wasn't for the reenactment. Listen, by now he'd have talked to the hotel help and all the guests still around, check on anybody might've been looking out the window besides me. You realize I jes' missed seeing it by a minute or two? But we talking about John Rau now, the man so deep into this Civil War gig coming up he's already living it, can't wait. I bet you anything you want he wears his longjohns. He won't even cut the legs off. I'm told you can do that in the summer, it's okay. But to John Rau, man, that would be edging toward farbness. After, though, I expect he'll be back on the job. That is, if Arlen's still around."
Kirkbride jumped on it. "Still around-where else would he be?"
"I mean if he's still alive," Robert said. "Arlen has the kind of personality, there must be people would like to shoot him. You know what I'm saying?"
It wasn't a question the man was likely to answer, but Robert saw him looking at it.
"The point I'm making, Mr. Kirkbride, everybody knows he did Floyd and everybody knows he deals drugs. You go out to his store, that honkytonk, and buy all you want."
"You been there, huh?"
Why did that stop him?
"Haven't you?"
"Not in a while."
"What I'm thinking," Robert said, "it must be easy to deal here. Pay off whoever you have to and go about your business. But it can't be easy for Arlen Novis 'cause Arlen's a nitwit, and that makes him dangerous. Somebody's directing him, else he'd be living high, driving around the country in a Rolls-Royce, have all kinds of federal people checking him out. He'd hide the money someplace, like under his bed."
He had Kirkbride listening, paying close attention, the man appearing almost to nod his head in agreement.
"See, first I ask myself, why would you hire a man everybody knows is a criminal to run your security? It must be you don't have nothing to say about it. Like Arlen 's got some kind of hold on you. Stays close by so he can keep an eye on you. You're the front, you're-" Robert stopped, a lyric coming into his head, and he said it again, "You're the front… you're the Colosseum. You're the front, you're the Louvre Museum."
Robert kept his expression deadpan.
Now he had the man staring at him, mouth not quite open but almost. Robert believed he could fuck him up some more, tell Mr. Kirkbride he was the Nile, the Tower of Pisa. He was the smile, on the Mona Lisa.