Graves' Retreat (17 page)

    Graves’ brother and obviously this note had not come from Les Graves? And how had somebody gotten into his room? By picking the lock?

    He lit the stogie and then went and lit the table lamp. Then he went to the door and started looking closely at the lock mechanism. He looked for the type of scratches you invariably get when you jimmy a lock with any instrument other than a key.

    He found nothing.

    They had come into his room with a key. That was for sure.

    He carried the lamp back to the table and turned it off and then he went downstairs to the desk.

    “Somebody was in my room,” he said to the clerk.

    The frightened look in the clerk’s eyes told Black Jake Early all he needed to know.

    “I wonder if you would step with me into the manager’s office, sir?” Black Jake Early said.

    “The manager,” the clerk, a terrible edge in his voice, asserted, “he’s gone home.”

    “I realize that. But we need to talk in private.”

    “I-I just couldn’t do that.”

    “Very well,” Black Jake Early said.

    He pretended to leave, but then he turned abruptly and went around the desk.

    He grabbed the clerk and threw him to the floor. Black Jake Early knew many tricks. He relied now on a primitive one that was generally effective. While his body weight kept the clerk pinned to the floor, he took his thumb and hooked it up into one of the clerk’s eyes.

    “Have you ever seen somebody take out an eyeball?” Black Jake Early said. He was sweating more than ever and he was red-faced from the exertion, but he sounded calm.

    “Please, please don’t.”

    “It’s a frail orb,” Early said. “Now if I were to dig in just a bit deeper-” Which is exactly what he did, of course. He was not bluffing. He had dug out many eyeballs. The people always got hysterical on you and you couldn’t get anything out of them for a time-they were literally berserk-but when you finally got them quieted down again, they invariably told you what you wanted.

    Early gave his thumb a little twist. He could feel the eyeball begin to detach from the retina.

    The clerk screamed.

    "Now,” Black Jake Early said, “I want you to tell me who was in my room and why you gave him my key. Do you understand?”

    The clerk understood.

    Only too, too well.

    

    

    George Buss said, “You going over to the depot to see them?” Les, who had been distracted all morning, scarcely heard his friend. “Uh-what, George?”

    “I asked, were you going on your dinner hour to see the Sterling team come in.”

    “Oh. Yes. Well.”

    George scrutinized Les carefully. “You didn't get much sleep again last night, did you?”

    “Not a lot.” There was a peevishness in his voice. Les always got that way after a few days of not sleeping well.

    “You going to be all right to pitch tomorrow?”

    “I’m going to be just fine!” Les snapped.

    Several of the customers in the bank lobby looked up at the harshness of his tone.

    Les, blushing, put his head down.

    For his part, George just kind of frowned and continued to stare at Les with paternal concern.

    

    

    Mrs. Fuller stood in the doorway of Byron’s bedroom and said, “Do you know what time it is?”

    Byron nodded at the big clock on his nightstand. “I know exactly what time it is, Mother. It is 10:37 a.m. on Wednesday, July 3, 1884.” His mother did not smile at his humor. “You’re still in bed.” Tousled of hair, wrinkled of pajamas, Byron sat up and said, “Yes, Mother, that does seem to be the case.”

    “You should have been at the bank at eight o’clock.”

    “Well, obviously, I’d say I’m going to be all right.”

    She started into the room, her hand out, palm flat.

    Byron put up a halting hand of his own. “Don’t feel my forehead for a fever, Mother. I feel fine. Perfectly fine.”

    She stopped a few feet from his bed. The room was splashed with golden sunlight that made the mahogany furnishings look even darker and richer. His red-and-white flowered bedclothes shone brilliant in the light. The room smelled pleasantly of furniture oil. The maid had been in yesterday.

    “It will not look good on your record.”

    “What won’t look good on my record, Mother?” Byron said patiently.

    “Why, being late, of course.”

    “Have you forgotten what I told you last night?”

    “You were upset.”

    “I’m still upset.”

    “I would hope that you’ve changed your mind. You could be president of the bank when Clinton retires. And that won’t be many years from now.”

    “As I told you last night, Mother, I’m going to resign.”

    She stared at him and made her familiar clucking sound. “So that’s what this is about?”

    “That’s exactly what this is about. Why should I worry about getting there on time when all I’m going to do is go in and resign?” Pity and then anger filled her gaze. “She’s made you half insane, hasn’t she?”

    “If you mean Susan, no. Actually, she’s helped me come to my senses. I hate the bank and I hate Clinton Edmonds. I’m wasting my life.”

    She came over and sat her formidable body on the edge of the bed. “As I said last night, there are other women. Many other women. Even if Susan moves to Omaha-”

    He threw back the sheet that was covering him and said, “I really should be getting along, Mother.”

    “You’re not listening to me.”

    “No, Mother,” he said with barely concealed relish. “No, I am not. Now, please, let me get ready for the day, all right? It’s a very important day. I’m going to apply for a position at the electrical company, then I’m going to go look for new quarters, Mother.”

    Twice within the past twelve hours, he had seen his mother, a woman not given to the shilly-shally of tears, begin to cry.

    It was not a sight he relished.

    He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek and said, “You’ll get used to it and so will I. It’s time I grow up, Mother. It really is.”

    She gazed at him with something like panic now. “I need to ask you a question,” she said soberly.

    “What question?” he said, a playful affection having returned to his voice.

    “You hear so much about-well, opium. You’re not taking-”

    He took her in his arms and bussed her on the forehead and said, “Really, Mother, can you imagine an upstanding Republican Presbyterian like myself taking opium? Can you really?”

    And then she was crying and laughing at the same time and falling into his arms for support.

    

    

    Neely had served ninety days in jail once for smashing the windows of a bank that was foreclosing on a sawmill that employed more than sixty people. He had learned, during that three-month stay, to sleep sitting straight up on the floor. This way the slightest movement, whether from somebody who wanted your body to carve up or to use as a woman substitute, either way you were ready for him, especially if your back was flat to the wall. You could spring up and disarm him with not much problem at all.

    Neely, who had to grant Black Jake Early his prowess, had slept this way in the cabin during the night, flush against the wall just inside the door, his Navy Colt at his left side, his hunting knife at his right. T.Z. had slept on the couch. He’d had nightmares again-“Don’t close your eyes!”-and Neely hadn’t been able to take it this time, couldn’t abide much of T.Z. at all anymore, so he’d gotten up and kicked him hard right in the ribs.

    Now T.Z. stood over him, holding his side where Neely’s shoe had collided with his bones.

    T.Z. said, “You didn’t mind killing that baggageman, did you?”

    Neely had been thinking about his plan to bring Black Jake Early and T.Z. together tonight. His body was sore from the floor. He wanted to get up and smash T.Z.’s face. But then he didn’t want to alarm T.Z. unduly, either. He wanted the Early-T.Z. meeting to come off tonight.

    “What’re you talking about, T.Z.?”

    “I saw your face when you were hitting him. You were enjoying it.”

    “Hell."

    T.Z. grimaced from the pain in his ribs. “You’re supposed to be the great socialist, fighting for the common man. But you killed that baggageman and he wasn’t anything more than just another workingman. And you enjoyed it.”

    Neely smiled. “You forget, T.Z.”

    “What?”

    “My principles. I lost them a few years back. I’m not a socialist anymore. I’m just one more animal trying to keep his belly fed and his head free of all the lies the capitalists want to fill it with.”

    “You’re a capitalist.”

    Neely was genuinely curious. “What the hell’re you talking about?”

    “You’re a capitalist and so am I. We rob people, just the way the capitalists do, and we keep it all to ourselves.”

    Neely had to laugh. Occasionally T.Z. came up with a good one and this sure was a good one. “I shouldn’t have kicked you so hard.”

    “You sonofabitch.” T.Z. sounded as if he was going to cry.

    So they stood a moment as dust motes tumbled in the sunlight coming gold and jagged down through the rough holes in the roof. Stood and stared at each other, two men who’d known each other since they’d been young boys playing guns with sticks and praying at the same communion rail. The air smelled of pine and heat, hard July heat.

    “When we get to Mexico,” T.Z. said, “I’m gonna go my way and you’re gonna go your way.”

    “You sure you can handle it yourself?”

    “You don’t think I’m much better than a girl, do you, Neely?” Neely laughed. “Truth to tell, T.Z., no, I don’t.” He looked at the man standing across from him. “One thing I’ve never been able to figure out is why women are so attracted to the men who are most like them.”

    “Just ’cause I don’t like to fight doesn’t mean I’m not a man, Neely.”

    “Who saved you in Canada?”

    “I could’ve whipped him if he hadn’t had a knife.”

    “And who saved you in Texas?”

    “He got the drop on me is all. Blind luck.”

    “And who saved you in Illinois?”

    T.Z. said, “I’m gonna do fine, Neely. I’m gonna do just fine.” Then he made a face again from the pain.

    Neely got up from the floor, brushed off the back of his clothes. “I’m going into town. See Les. We need that combination.”

    Anxiously, T.Z. said, “What if he can’t get it?”

    Neely smirked. “Then his brother just may hang.”

    “I’ll go with you.”

    “Oh yeah, T.Z., you’re gonna be fine when you go off on your own.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    “Black Jake Early’s walking around Cedar Rapids with a poster of you in his pocket and so what do you want to do? Walk around Cedar Rapids, too.”

    “Cedar Rapids is a big place.”

    “Not that big.”

    “So you’re just gonna leave me here?”

    Neely looked at him a long time and then he said, “T.Z., when you’re down in Juarez or wherever you settle, you going to telegraph me every time you need to make a decision?”

    “You just get the hell out of here, Neely. I’m goddamn sick and tired of you.”

    “You clean your gun lately?”

    “Huh?”

    “Your gun. You clean it lately?”

    T.Z. flushed, a guilty little kid. "None of your damn business.” Which meant, of course, he hadn’t.

    “Well, I’d clean it and I’d keep it ready because that bastard Early is around and who knows that he didn’t track you out here?”

    Neely had to suppress a smile. T.Z. reacted instantly just the way Neely knew he would.

    T.Z. got scared.

    “You really think he’d come out here?”

    “I wouldn’t keep any more than a fingerful of air between me and the handle of your Colt,” Neely said.

    He went over to the door. He stood in the tumbling gold molecules streaming through the roof. “You’ll be all right?”

    “Why the hell you have to go into town, anyway?” T.Z. said.

    Oh yeah, he was scared and wasn’t Neely having a good time watching him.

    “I’ll be back in a few hours,” Neely said. “Then I’ll tell how we’re going to kill Black Jake Early.”

    Then he opened the creaking door and went out into the piney woods and followed the fragile gait of a doe all the way to the sandy road leading east to Cedar Rapids.

    

    

    Les was waiting on Mrs. Pike, a somewhat forgetful widow who liked to take her time with her banking, when May Tolan came in.

    “Now, Les, let me see,” Mrs. Pike said from the other side of the teller cage. “Did you give me my deposit ticket?”

    “Yes, I did,” Les said, indicating the yellow stub that she held in her right hand.

    He nodded to the stub.

    "Well, now isn’t that funny,” Mrs. Pike said. “It’s right there in my hand.”

    Les smiled.

    Mrs. Pike, satisfied, nodded and said, “I’m praying for you and the whole baseball team.”

    Les heard what she was saying but his eyes were on May, who still stood over by the front door, her purse clutched tightly in her small hands, her trim body arched anxiously inside its white summer dress. She wore, as if advertising for the store where she worked, an angled straw hat with a wide brim and a spray of blue artificial flowers.

    Les was surprised at how happy he was to see her-and how nervous. He was afraid that she’d bolt like some skittish animal right out the door before he got a chance to talk to her.