“Now, don’t scratch that. Jesus Christ, boys. Have some fucking respect,” he said, shaking his head, and turned back to his boy. “You know what a dog and pony show is?”
Billy nodded.
“Good, ’cause you’re seein’ one right now. It’s all for the papers.”
One of the troops heard him and yanked him up to his feet, and Reuben looked bored with it all as the man turned him against the brick wall and searched him, removing a little.22 from his boot.
“What’s that?” the boy soldier said. Hell, he wasn’t even twenty.
“I’m gonna guess it’s a gun of some sort.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.”
Reuben sat back down and drank down some more of his Budweiser and lit another cigarette and handed his boy the pack of Luckies. Billy looked dirty, grit up under his fingernails and his face shiny from oil and heat. He smoked and looked down at the table.
“Love is funny,” he said.
Billy looked up from his hands.
“You ain’t got a fucking thing to do with it.”
Billy wouldn’t look his father in the eye.
“Just like that whore. I know you say you didn’t know she was a whore, and I don’t mean any disrespect by calling her a whore. That’s just the situation that little girl found herself in. Hell, we all got to eat.”
The bar was empty of booze now, and the troops had even removed the kegs and taps. The walls were cleared of the old-time photos of the naked women, and soldiers walked back and forth from his storage room with boxes and boxes of stuff. Reuben didn’t know what, probably just junk. Old guns and some 45s and all the slots.
They heard a diesel engine sound outside, and a large truck backed up to the door and the soldiers lifted up the boxes and some tables and chairs and even the neon beer signs that had hung in the window. Then the boys set to work on the old bar with crowbars and sledgehammers. And Reuben sat there and talked about love and women with his boy, smoking cigarettes and even sharing a beer, until they unplugged the jukebox and rolled it into the truck.
After the truck lumbered away, Hoyt Shepherd and Jimmie Matthews wandered into the old building and inspected the damage. Hoyt tipped his hat to the boy and Jimmie gave him a wink.
Hoyt wore a pair of overalls and an old straw hat, and Reuben figured that he didn’t want any of the news boys recognizing him. Of course, Jimmie couldn’t have cared less, dressed in gray pants, a dress shirt, and a thin knit tie.
“Took the jukebox, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the booze?”
“I hid a bottle under the table.”
“You got some glasses?”
“I do.”
Hoyt sat down at the table, and Reuben sent Billy to fetch what he could for cups. The bottle was black label Jack Daniel’s, and when Billy returned he laid down four cups. Reuben looked up at him, and as the boy sat back down he just shrugged.
He poured out a double in every glass.
Hoyt took a sip and made a face. “What do you cut this with?”
“Grain alcohol.”
“Good God Almighty.”
“How long is this mess gonna last, Mr. Shepherd?” Reuben asked.
Billy took a big sip and tried not to react, but Reuben saw that it had burned his throat something fierce.
“We’re out,” Hoyt said. “How ’bout you and your boy joining us down at Panama City Beach? I have a piece of a little putt-putt golf place that could use some new management.”
Reuben took a sip. The whiskey tasted like gasoline.
“They’re gonna put together a new jury pool. Get together something called a blue-ribbon grand jury, with some old-fart Bible-thumper to run it. You ever hear of Judge Jones? I heard last year he personally handed out five thousand Bibles. Now, I’m just guessing me and that man ain’t gonna have a lot in common.”
Reuben watched Jimmie look around at the brick walls and the destroyed bar, the empty place next to the stage where he’d painted up and around the heavy jukebox last year.
“Thank, you, Mr. Hoyt. But I’m gonna play things out here. I don’t ever figure on leaving Phenix. They can arrest me if they want. Billy can run things till I’m out. Right, Billy?”
The boy nodded.
“Can we speak in private?”
“Whatever needs to be said can be said in front of my boy.”
“I don’t think so.”
Reuben nodded to Billy and Billy walked toward the front door and hung out by Fourteenth Street, watching the raining gray dawn from underneath a tin canopy.
“Reuben, you stay away from Fannie Belle and Johnnie Benefield. You hear me? They will lead you down a path of blood and you’re too smart for that. Only reason Johnnie hasn’t wised up is because his mind is run by pussy, and that redheaded demon has the best pussy in the South.”
Reuben nodded and shifted in his chair.
“They’ve been reckless,” Hoyt said, smiling. “I don’t know what they got to do with killin’ Pat. But they sure as shit know who robbed me. There’s some money in it if you can find out about Benefield. That old safe I had was solid. A sweet Wells Fargo number that cost me nearly a thousand dollars. Let’s just say it took some real talent to bust her open.”
Reuben nodded.
“I’m not asking for much. I just want to know if Benefield was in on the job. I can take it from there.”
Reuben nodded again.
Hoyt watched him, studying his face, and then looked over at Jimmie.
Jimmie shrugged and finally tasted the whiskey, downing it without a wince. Hoyt slipped the beaten straw hat on his head and over his eyes and walked to the open glass doors. His voice sounded gruff and booming in the empty bar.
The rain had slowed to a patter, and Reuben could see the shape of his boy against the growing morning light.
“One more thing,” Hoyt said, turning. “The Guard put up your old buddy, Lamar Murphy, for sheriff.”
“He take it?”
“Don’t know. If he did, I’d watch my step.”
Reuben shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve known Lamar since we were ’bout Billy’s age.”
Hoyt looked up and then around the empty room. “You ever seen that cartoon with the sheepdog and wolf where both of them are friends until they punch the morning clock?”
Reuben shook his head.
“See, when that clock is punched and they are at work, they try like hell to kill each other. But then when the sun goes down and they punch out, they are as gooda friends as you ever saw.”
“Which one am I?”
“If you don’t know, then you got more troubles than I thought,” he said. “You let me know what you know about Benefield, you hear?”
Hoyt left with a tip of his hat. Reuben and his boy sat there in silence until dawn cleared and a soft, gray summer morning arrived at the last two chairs in Club Lasso. They could hear nothing but the soft patter of rain against Fourteenth Street and the running of rainwater down the gutters and along the soft slope of the street to the Chattahoochee.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GO?” JOHNNIE BENEFIELD asked, tucking in his cowboy shirt and slipping into his boots.
“Does it matter?” she said.
Fannie Belle sat in the salon of her empty whorehouse, chain-smoking cigarettes, a pearl-handled.32 on the plush velvet seat next to her. The furniture and lamps in the other room reminded Johnnie of something from the last century.
“They just better not lay a finger on my Hudson.”
“You better worry about more than your car.”
“Once I get Bert, we’re blowin’ this town.”
“Cuba?”
“Does it matter?”
Fannie blew out some smoke and crossed her legs. Johnnie watched her, and walked back upstairs for his clothes and a suitcase he’d packed. She was at the landing when he returned, and she watched him as he slowed his walk and hit the first floor with his boots.
She kissed him hard on the mouth. And he pulled away.