Burn What Will Burn (11 page)

I shook my head.

“Well, he's gone over there to Doker all the time,” my neighbor said thoughtfully, like that could explain it, the whole mess he was in.

“I think he gets his over there too. What I hear from Jucinda Lucille, T. Bo he doesn't get it at home from her.”

I nodded, kneaded my eyeballs with my knuckles, inhaled, exhaled.

“So Jucinda Lucille she knows me and my old lady, her own sister, hadn't been doing it of late 'cause of Hannah Lee's got a yeast infection. So she's working up to me all night long. You know how it is. I got a fearsome big dick. Her husband's gone off. Finally I had enough of that shit, so I told her if she wanted it so bad I'd surely give it to her. What else could a man do?”

He stared at me like I might not understand his reasoning, though I could, totally.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Shit's truth, Pard,” he claimed, sneezed. “Of course just looking at you I might think women were not your thing, no offense, so I couldn't say for you. But for me, Pard, it's the sporting life morning, noon and night, whenever, wherever. So I poked ol' Jucinda right up her ass in the bathroom of her double-wide.”

“Where was your wife at this time?”

He thought about this.

“My wife was just passed out in the living room.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“It's Gospel, Pard.”

He raised the Boy Scout fingers, sneezed and wiped his nose on his pledging hand.

“Jucinda Lucille asked for it outright, as you heard me tell for yourself. What's did me in though, was coming in her porthole. Jucinda Lucille hates that and I knew she hated it and I went on and did it just the same.”

He nodded at me like I'd understand that.

“And, Pard, that's why she called the Law on my dumb-ass self.”

He acted like Life was a very simple proposition but for the details and his forgetfulness of them.

“I see,” I said.

He sighed sincerely.

“I hope Sammy the Man don't let you out, Pard,” he told me. “No offense, but I'm in here awhile and I hate to lose a winner like you. Good listener hard to find in this shithole. Mostly just niggers. Not that I got anything against niggers themselves, but they just not like us, Pard. And like to like, I say.”

I wasn't sure I appreciated the comparison.

I wasn't entirely sure that I could disagree with it though.

My jail cell neighbor looked me up and then down.

“You live out at Rushing, don't you, Pard?”

He said that like he knew it for a fact.

It did not seem wise to confirm to the man where I lived.

“I think you do,” my jail mate said. “I think you that rich fella my pardner Jake Wells told me about. The one that bought the Old Duncan spread a little while back. That you, Pard? You that crazy Texas fella Jake tells me about that throws rocks at his cows and his kids? Likes to go down to Hot Springs?”

I shrugged like I didn't know who I was.

“Well, them kids a' Jake's—Isaac and Neutron, if you can believe those dumb-ass names—are little green shits that need to get stomped on, Pard, if I do say so.”

I didn't say anything, because this too was inarguable.

My jail neighbor coughed and spit on the floor on his side of the bars.

“You know your buddy Sammy Baxter's got a place out yonder too.”

“The sheriff does?” I asked.

“Yup. That place the other side of The Little Piney, the spread that's got the badass fence 'roundabout it.”

“Really?” I said.

“Sworn truth, Pard. Why would I lie 'bout a thing like that of all things?”

I didn't know the answer to that question and I must have looked a wee bit surprised since my new jailhouse buddy continued with his data dump.

“Sammy was born and raised out over there, lived there every day until he run off to join the Marines Corp. His own momma was a schoolteach over at Doker High. Very sweet woman. Loved cats. And his daddy used to raise up apples. Me and Jake just about lived off them apples when we was kids.”

“What happened to Baxter's folks?”

“His momma died a cancer while back. His daddy went crazed as a coot short while after that fact. Old man still stays out over in there what I hear. Not in the house, but outside. Won't sleep inside. What that fence is all about—to keep the old loon penned up.”

“You're serious?”

“As a heart attack. Tried to put old man Baxter in a crazy house over in Fort Smith, but he hurt some people and broke out. I guess Sam figures his daddy, he's 'bout's well off out there in the woods as in town.”

I wondered about that.

The locks on the door to our cell block clicked. It wasn't a loud sound, but I was keen to hear it. I stood up as a fat deputy walked our way.

“Mr. Reynolds,” he called out. “Pack your bags, Sir. Freedom train's acoming your way.”

*   *   *

The deputy opened my cell, stepped aside to let me pass by into the aisle, locked the gate shut again, looked at my ex-neighbor.

“You been yapping all this time, Ricky Dale?”

“Just being neighborly, Deputy Lloyd,” said Ricky Dale to the jailer. To me he said, “I'll come visit you at Rushing when I get out, Pard.”

“Long's you're going to be in the can this time, Ricky Dale, he probably won't even be living out there after all that time. Will you, Mr. Reynolds?”

I shrugged.

“Or might be too old by then to remember you, Ricky Dale,” the deputy added.

“See you,” Ricky Dale said to me anyway. “Pard.”

“Stay out of trouble,” I said.

*   *   *

I sort of expected somebody to be there, one of my lawyers, a judge, the sheriff, somebody, anybody with an explanation.

But there was nobody except Deputy Lloyd beside me. He locked the block down, stepped behind the booking desk and started searching under the counter.

“You got some valuables here, Sir?” he asked me.

I pressed a hand against my chest. The wedding band, the gold ring on the chain around my neck, the property of the dead man, was gone. My own wedding ring was still on my finger. My wallet and car keys, I thought, were in the pickup.

“I don't know,” I said.

The deputy looked under the counter again.

“I don't see a thing, Sir.”

He pushed a form at me, held out a pen, jerked his head at the hallway that led to the sidewalk.

“Sign this release form then, Sir, and you can go on.”

“What if I don't sign?”

“Everybody always signs, Sir. You'll surely want to sign too.”

I signed.

“That's it?” I asked.

“Far's I'm concerned,” the deputy said. “Sheriff called in and said to drop the trespass charge against Randall Reynolds and let him out. Sheriff Baxter had you criminal trespassing dead to rights as I heard it. He let you loose on that. You got some complaint, Sir?”

I guessed I didn't. My head was sore and I was hungry, filthy and tired, but free and really none the worse for wear after a few hours in jail.

At my age I never felt too good anyway.

“You want me to call you a taxicab, Sir?”

“I guess I'll just walk up to the Holiday Inn and get some dinner.”

I had a running tab at the Inn, so didn't need my wallet for that.

“Sorry about you missing lunch, Sir, but you was sleeping so sound I couldn't see waking you up for jailhouse grub. Downtime pass quicker when you're out of it.”

I nodded.

“So, I'm to understand I got arrested and jailed for trespassing on Sheriff Baxter's property?”

“Criminal trespass, yes Sir. And if that doesn't suit you, Sheriff said he could press charges for breaking and entering besides and that might suit you.”

I rubbed the bump on the back of my head.

“I guess I'll pass on that,” I said and moved toward the door. “Good-bye, Officer. I hope I won't be seeing you again under these same circumstances.”

“It'd be in your best interests, Sir,” the sheriff's deputy replied. “We'll wait and see.”

I stopped at the door.

“You know anything about a man found dead in The Little Piney this afternoon?”

Deputy Lloyd wrinkled his forehead, frowned for a while and finally nodded, as if he had just made a judgment call.

I wondered if he was supposed to be telling or not telling.

“Sorry business, Sir. Drug-related, Sheriff speculates.”

“Who was it?”

“Used to be a local fellow.”

“You know his name?”

“Waiting for Dr. Williams to do the autopsy and next-of-kin notifying, so I couldn't say, Sir,” he told me. “You know something about it?”

I shook my head.

The deputy nodded, advised.

“That's good, Sir. And if I was you, I wouldn't say nothing to nobody about nothing for a while. A good little while. Maybe you could even take a trip, Sir. I understand you are partial to Hot Springs.”

“Does that come from Sheriff Baxter?”

“You said that, Sir, not me.”

He settled into a chair, closed his eyes.

“Let a word to the wise be sufficient, Sir.”

I figured that as sound advice.

But it didn't exactly sit well all the same.

 

CHAPTER 7

The walk to the Holiday Inn was through downtown Bertrandville where most of the storefronts were boarded up, telling the regular story of small-town America, of family-owned and -operated establishments forced out of business by Wholesale Clubs and Supercenters ensconced on low-rent property in the suburbs, or into relocation at the Valley Mall where the sidewalks were inside and air-conditioned and the parking free and plentiful.

I couldn't care less.

The downtown desolation didn't bother me in general and neither did the B'ville Mall specifically as I didn't shop much and when I did I bought sensible shoes through the mail, shoes that never seemed to fit but lasted a long time. So nobody was making much money off me anyhow.

It was about a mile and a half to the Holiday Inn.

My heel blister flared up again along the way. My sensible mail-order shoes had failed me yet again.

*   *   *

It was midafternoon so the Crow's Nest was mostly empty, but for Professor Ford at the bar and a couple of regular businessmen still lingering over a very late liquid lunch or an early liquid supper. One of them bumped into me as I made my way toward the bar.

*   *   *

“Hello there, Fella, my name's Hunter B. Briggs and I been with Tidy Chicken Industries for over three years and increased sales over four percent in my region in those three plus years I been with them which is over one percent per year and I don't even have a business degree from college, Fella.”

“That's nice for you, Mr. Briggs.”

I had heard this exact same spiel from Hunter B. Briggs a dozen times.

“Fella, because it's you, I will tell you my secret,” Hunter B. Briggs offered.

I didn't encourage him. Because I knew enough secrets.

“Employ your predatory instincts, Fella. That's the real secret to business life,” he confided. “Take advantage when advantage is there. Kick 'em when they're down and then eat 'em right up. It pure piddly works, Fella. Believe me on this one.”

“That's good news to me, Mr. Briggs.”

“I don't tell everybody, Fella.”

“I guess I'll just mosey over to the bar now and jot that down, Mr. Briggs,” I said.

“Pred-a-tory,” he whispered. “Hunter B. Briggs told you first, Fella.”

“I appreciate you, Mr. Briggs.”

*   *   *

Having been reared in a peculiar, financially conservative environment, by a mother whose greatest fiscal indulgences were ankle-length denim housedresses and Bibles and a father who considered alcohol the only worthwhile expenditure to make on recreation, there were not a lot of luxuries I could allow myself without a mean guilt nagging me.

Being rich, in other words, is not the pleasure to someone like me that it is to a regular hedonist.

I bought sensible but pricey mail-order shoes (which nonetheless consistently failed to meet my expectations for comfort). I ate my breakfast at a café almost every day (even though Miss Ollie's cooking at EAT left much to be desired on the cuisine level, on the calorie level it was very cost effective). I could afford to pay Tammy Fay's exorbitant rates for automobile repairs (even though these were ridiculously inexpert automotive repairs).

I also had a running tab at the Holiday Inn and Convention Center in Bertrandville, prepaid enough every month to cover my bar and restaurant bills and room rent for when I was too drunk to drive home or came to town to use the swimming pool or watch TV with the Crow's Nest contingent.

As a Privileged Regular I also got to receive telephone messages at the bar. There were standard rates for this service—so much to say you were there at the bar, so much more to say you weren't there at the bar, so much more even than that to pass on a fabrication about where you were.

I had never had to avail myself of any of these telephone services.

But, like the spider in my mailbox, I had hopes.

*   *   *

“Hey you, Mr. Jailbird.”

“Hey you, Ladoris,” I replied to the day-shift bartender, a coal-black woman with shoulder-length hair plaited and segmented by colored wooden beads.

“You don't look so good.”

When she shook her head at me her hair rattled.

“Thanks for noticing, Ladoris.”

None of the regulars but Professor Ford, three sheets to the wind already, were at the bar.

I leaned over my fellow poet's tweedy shoulder and read what he had written on a cocktail napkin.

What I know of bears and their habits

Informs my morning stroll.

In the evening there are snakes on the road.