“He don’t look barely even alive,” Leland said. “Ought to put him out his misery.”
“Dear boy, he’s in acceptable physical condition. Mr. West is a remarkable example of youth and virility,” Doc said, his words spilling out like cigarette smoke, all silky and smooth. “He’s been cleaned up since I last laid eyes on him. Florence Leland Nightingale now, is it?”
“What?”
“She was a nurse. She bathed the faces of the ill and those put under the weather thanks to the ravages of lead balls and saber slashes.”
“She cleaned that old blood off his face.”
“She who?”
Doc’s face twisted itself up and Leland knew he’d have to tell him about it, even though it was none of his business. Leland didn’t like nosy people. But he didn’t see that telling would hurt anything.
“Game warden and lady warden came to my camp this morning. They had this camera stuck up on a tree to spy on me. He was going to get his radio to get help, but I caught him, and she was cleaning the blood off this guy’s face when I came in.”
“Holy shit! Game wardens? And you did what?”
Leland shrugged, taken aback by the dumbness of the question. “They was trespassers. I killed ’em.”
“And then?”
“I got shed of them and I sunk their boat where nobody won’t never find it. A deep hole I know of.”
After thinking for a few seconds, Doc smiled. “Not a problem. Good thinking, Leland. You did the right thing.”
“You mean on killing those wardens?”
“You, a specimen endowed with such suspect genetics, take instruction amazingly well for an overly muscular individual blessed with the intelligence usually associated with invertebrates and the inanimate. You actually showed initiative and took what might have been a disastrous situation, and-I have little doubt-handled it with the thoughtful planning of an enraged primate encountering a potential Armageddon. You never fail to astound me with your Kong-like aplomb, your measured directness in solving complex problems with straightforward acts. Leland Ticholet, I am more certain than ever that for you the world holds no mysteries whatsoever.”
Leland felt his face flushing. He couldn’t help but smile when Doc laid on fancy compliments. “I just do what needs to get did, I reckon. Nothing nobody else like me wouldn’t a’ did in my place.”
“If you could accomplish another complex assignment, get that stepladder out of your old truck for me? We have a lot of work to do in preparation for this evening’s festivities. Perhaps you can observe what I do and give me unsolicited, and undoubtedly moronic, advice while I connect up my little devise du demise.”
Leland went out and brought back the ladder, which was in his father’s old truck. Doc had gotten a mechanic to fix the truck up so it worked pretty good and he’d told Leland he would be able to use it after things were settled, and the wheels would come in handy for getting up groceries and like that. All Leland wanted to do now was get back to the swamp, but since Doc had asked so nicely, he’d stay and watch him put his little contraption together. Doc was a very smart man, and Leland listened to what Doc was saying without being interested in any of it, or caring how rich the man was going to get from this.
Doc didn’t talk much about things that Leland cared anything about. He told Leland he knew more about most anything than any man alive, teachers even, and Leland believed him. Doc was the best electrical man, the best plumbing man, the best car driver, the best food cooker, the best wine drinker, the best lover of beautiful women. Hellfire, Doc was about the best there was at whatever the hell it was he decided to tell about.
An hour later, Leland had to admit the deal Doc had built in the little house was something to look at. All those wires that went all over the place through the pulleys and the way it was all hooked up to that bowl. Doc explained it, but it seemed like a bunch of showing off to Leland. Why go to so much work for something so simple to do and be done with?
Why would anybody waste all this time and effort when all he needed was a piece of pipe? Maybe the smarter you were, the more you figured you had to show off. Leland couldn’t figure out why Doc was always telling him what he was going to do and exactly how he was going to do it. Leland didn’t care if the little man could light a match to his fart and fly up to the moon from the flames shooting out from his ass.
Leland was, as usual, bored enough to bash Doc’s head in and go back out to the cabin where he had traps that wouldn’t set their own selves.
Thinking about the cabin reminded him that he had done everything he had said he would do on the boat deal. He was tired of thinking about it. If Doc added one more thing Leland had to do to get the owning papers on the boat, Leland was going to kill him. And it wouldn’t be nobody’s fault but Doc’s.
“You want some gum?” Doc asked him.
“You got some?”
The package of Juicy Fruit chased all other thoughts from his mind, and as he opened it, Leland was thinking that Doc was the best guy he’d ever known and that was a fact.
54
At ten minutes past five o’clock, Kenneth Decell arrived at LePointe’s, parked beside the Bentley in the courtyard, lifted the valise containing the two and a half million dollars, and strode to the front door, noting a slight breeze. He knew it was at least twenty-four hours before the feeder bands from the hurricane arrived and stirred things up. By then he would be a well-heeled man. He would take a few weeks off and go to Paris for some R amp;R. After Decell had stood at the front door for thirty seconds, Dr. LePointe opened it, and he shook Decell’s hand vigorously. He led Decell back to the office, never once so much as glancing at the valise, which held one man’s fortune and another’s walking-around money.
“So did Roger give you any trouble?” he asked Decell.
“He expressed mild concern when I refused to sign a release,” Decell answered.
“It is a substantial amount,” LePointe said.
“I told him he should call you if he needed clarification as to your wishes, or have you come and sign his receipt. He declined to pursue the matter, and here it is.”
LePointe nodded. “He’s a professional worrier, and has my best interests at heart.”
“More likely his own.”
“I’m sure he’s covered, since he has a video recording device in his office, which I’m sure captured the transaction. One can’t blame him for being cautious.”
Decell said, “Bastards won’t get to cash the bonds. They’ll be back in the bank’s vault Monday morning.”
LePointe shrugged. “Ransoms are just forced business transactions, Kenneth. Business arrangements. Someone has something that they want something else in exchange for. In this case, two and a half million dollars. The thing that bothers me is that whoever is behind this has to know the item in question is worth a larger percentage of my holdings than this. If I could pay it and be done with this forever, I’d just pay it and write it off to lessons learned. Just lessons learned. In this case, the extortionists may see this as a down payment. Human nature being what it is ensures that the extortionists see me as a golden goose. Giving me what I’m paying for would be killing the goose. There are people who understand economics, who are comfortable with wealth, and there’s everybody else. It’s a remarkably small club, Kenneth. So the question is, how do you get the object and keep from rewarding such greed?”
“It’s under control,” Decell said.
“I suppose you understand the criminal psychology as well as I do, based on your experience with such people. So, fill me in on your day. What did you find at Dorothy’s house?”