McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (26 page)

 
          
 
I looked at Boss, hoping she'd stop him, but
Boss was making no effort to stop him. She was surveying the acreage. Cyrus had
a staff of some kind, leaning against the fence. It was as tall as he was, and
made from some kind of gnarled wood. I had never seen one like it and I looked
at it admiringly. Cyrus immediately picked it up.

 
          
 
"Can't have this," he said.
"Yugoslavian shepherd's staff, in case you're wondering. Tito gave it to
me. Yugoslavians whack their sheep when they want them to do something.
Far simpler.
Admirable thing, isn't it?"

 
          
 
"I say it was cheap," Bessie said.
"He should have given you an estate."

 
          
 
Cyrus looked startled. Then he whirled on
Bessie.

 
          
 
"Absolute nonsense," he said.
"Why would I want an estate in
Yugoslavia
? Can't speak the language, don't like the
food. The people are damned bores.
Stolid peasants, worse
than Virginians.
I'd rather have this staff. I can whack those damn
black cattle with it, when I feel like it.
Much satisfaction
to be had from whacking a black cow.
They don't move, you know."

 
          
 
Bessie was not convinced.

 
          
 
"I still say it was cheap," she
said.

 
          
 
"Sorry, forgot to introduce you,"
Cyrus said. "Actually, I can't introduce you because I don't know your
name."

 
          
 
"Jack McGriff," I said.
"Actually I met Mrs. Lump yesterday."

 
          
 
"How astonishing," Cyrus said,
looking hard at Bessie. "I heard nothing about that. What's going on here?
More plots, eh Bessie?"

 
          
 
Bessie stared at me with her dead-fish eyes.

 
          
 
"We don't know him," she said.

 
          
 
I was about to remind her that Boog had
introduced us, when Boss gave me a hard pinch. I interpreted it to mean I had
better keep quiet.

 
          
 
"You deny it, do you?" Cyrus said
heatedly, looking at Bessie.

 
          
 
"Stay out of it but
buy
the horse farm," Boss whispered, while Cyrus was glaring at Bessie.

 
          
 
"Did you meet this man or didn't
you?" Cyrus asked loudly, thumping the ground a time or two with his
Yugoslavian staff.

 
          
 
I was supposed to buy the horse farm? I looked
at Boss and she smiled and nodded.

 
          
 
"I want to know what's going on,"
Cyrus yelled. "You know better than to keep things from me!"

 
          
 
Though Cyrus looked ready to whack her with
the shepherd's staff, Bessie didn't change expression. None of us seemed to
interest her in the least. She was carrying the same little-old-lady handbag
she had had at the auction. She just stood there, gazing at Cyrus idly, as if
he were of no more interest than a boxwood bush.

 
          
 
Cyrus' face was getting redder. His skinny
hands gripped the stick tightly. He was clearly not a man who liked to have his
stick-thumping ignored, but that is precisely what occurred. Bessie just walked
off from us and ambled slowly up the hill, without saying another word. There
was something about her silence that was very unsettling.

 
          
 
"Absolute nonsense," Cyrus said.
"Utter and complete bosh.
That woman's a liar and
always has been!"

 
          
 
He shouted the last sentence, evidently hoping
Bessie would hear it and turn around. She didn't turn around. She just
continued her slow, inexorable progress up the long green lawn.

 
          
 
"She likes to get my goat," Cyrus
said, more quietly. "Always has.
Worse than my wife.
Much worse, in fact.
My wife only likes to
drink."

 
          
 
"I hear you've been traveling," Boss
said. A couple of ferrets stood up on their hind legs and sniffed at us
curiously.

 
          
 
"Oh well, it's Peck and his
museums," Cyrus said. "He builds them in the most inconvenient
countries.
Was building one in
Uganda
but of course that's gone
a bit haywire.
Fm
generally required
to consult
, you know. After all,
blood is thicker than water."

 
          
 
For a moment we stood and watched the ferrets.

 
          
 
"Bessie's a damned snob, that's what she
is," Cyrus said. "Denies knowing half the people we know, including
people we've known for forty years. Bessie doesn't know them. Not good enough
for her. That's because she's a Shipton.
Absolute snobs, all
of them."

 
          
 
"Boog gets along with her, though,"
Boss said.

 
          
 
"He flatters her," Cyrus said.
"Anyhow she makes exceptions for certain males, if they're rich enough.
Or if they flatter her.
I'm the opposite. Can't stand
flattery, don't have to be a snob."

 
          
 
"Why not?"
Boss asked, with a smile.

 
          
 
"Perfect bosh, snobbery," Cyrus
said. "Of course, I'm lucky. Nobody's as good as me, so I escaped it. I
might as well know everybody.
Saves energy.
Are we set
then, young man?"

 
          
 
I glanced at Boss, who was inscrutable.

 
          
 
"I guess we're set," I said.

 
          
 
"Bully," Cyrus said.
"Couldn't be more delighted.
Never
liked this place.
The lake is the wrong shape: L-shaped, you know.
Perfect bosh.
Lakes should be round, not bent in the middle.
Incidentally, you don't get the sailboat. I've plenty of round lakes, you know.
Got one not ten miles from here.
Keeping
that one.
It's got a helicopter dock, too, though I don't keep a
helicopter anymore. The Agency's been very good about lending them to me, when
I need one."

 
          
 
During this whole speech he was squeezing my
hand in his skinny fingers. Then he turned, bent in a courtly fashion, and gave
Boss a kiss before seizing his Yugoslavian staff and starting for the house.

 
          
 
"I'm glad you're not one of those types
that have to be driven around and shown things before settling a deal," he
said.
"Decisive people, Texans.
I've always said
it. Buy what you like and live with it, that's been my motto. Middle class, I
say, all this peeking and inspecting. Bessie's the same.
Detests
the middle class as only a Shipton can."

 
          
 
"You might ask Boog what she's up
to," he said to Boss, after a pause. "He'll know. I’ve great respect
for Boog. You ask him, will you? I hate it when Bessie goes about plotting. I
think she's hired her own Koreans, which is a damned impertinent thing to do,
if you ask me. I introduced her to Koreans—taught her all she knows about them.
Cheeky of her to hire some for herself.
I'll tell you
one
thing,
they can cause no end of trouble if they
aren't managed right. Not for amateurs, I can tell you that."

 
          
 
By the time he had told us that we were
rounding the comer of the big red brick house. Bessie was shuffling around the
hunting brake, still holding her handbag. Herbert was standing more or less at
attention, and looking extremely nervous.

 
          
 
"Look at that woman!" Cyrus said.
"What do you suppose she's up to now?"

 
          
 
"I don't know, but Herbert looks
worried," Boss said. "I love that Herbert. If you ever fire him I'm
gonna snap him up, Cyrus. I just thought I'd warn you."

 
          
 
Cyrus looked puzzled. "Sporting of you,
of course," he said, looking at Herbert as if he were noticing him for the
first time.

 
          
 
"I hardly suppose I'll fire him," he
said, as if the very notion were surprising and droll. "Herbert has always
worked for me. I'm surprised anyone's noticed him. I haven't in years, now that
I think about it. But you're right, there he is. Bessie will have him in a
state, I suppose.
Keeps all the servants in a state,
actually.
Knows what to expect of servants and won't settle for
less."

 
          
 
We all stood and watched as she shuffled
around the beautiful car. When she finished she shuffled into the house, not
saying a word to anyone. Herbert remained at attention.

 
          
 
He looked as if he were waiting for a firing
squad to march out of the house and dispatch him.

 
          
 
"All right," Cyrus said, slapping
his thigh briskly.
"Very good morning's work indeed.
Never liked that L-shaped lake.
You'll attend to the
details, won't
you.
Boss?
Draw up the papers and send them along to my people. Then this lucky young man
can write his check and that will be that."

 
          
 
"Fine," Boss said. "I'll be in
touch with your people. See you later."

 
          
 
"Months later, unless we're very lucky
indeed," Cyrus said. "It's Peck, you know. No head for trade, though
I suppose his museums are nice enough. Could have stayed home and been a
gentleman, but nothing could persuade him."

 
          
 
Then he turned and strode into the house I had
just bought.

 
          
 
As they strolled past the
hunting brake.
Boss winked at Herbert.

 
          
 
"I wish I could give him a kiss, but of
course Bessie is watching," she said.

 
          
 
"I don't have four million dollars,"
I pointed out.

 
          
 
"I do," Boss said. "I had no
idea Cyrus was thinking so cheap. Bessie must have him going around in
circles."

 
          
 
"Are you planning to loan me the
money?" I asked.

 
          
 
"Yep," she said. "You're my
decoy. We'll paint the fences and sell the place for six million.
Maybe six and a half."

 
          
 
That put matters in a different light.
"How much do I get?" I asked.

 
          
 
Boss laughed. "You'll get
something," she said. "I haven't decided how much, or even
what."

 
          
 
Boss was a very fast driver. A big sale had a
good effect on her, just as it did on Kate. The little
Virginia
roads that border 4-million-dollar horse
farms are narrow and windy, but Boss roared over them at a high speed, the
windows down and the cool fall air rushing through the car.

 
          
 
Boss had a wonderful complexion. She could
look tanned and rosy at the same time. That was how she looked with the cool
air rushing through the car.

 
          
 
"Did you really want to kiss
Herbert?" I asked, jealously.

 
          
 
"
Boy,
did
I!" she said. "You know why?
Innocence.
I
just can't keep away from innocent men."

 
          
 
"That explains Micah," I said. I had
long wondered what explained him.

 
          
 
“Yeah," she said, giving me a look.
"Only Micah never wears striped pants and a little black apron. Neat
little innocent men in striped pants are the cat's meow, so far as I'm
concerned."

 
          
 
"I guess that lets me out," I said,
hoping she would contradict me.

 
          
 
She shot over a little hump in the road and
swerved around a man on a tractor as if she'd known he'd be just over that
hump. Then she grinned at me.

 
          
 
"Don't worry about it," she said.
"I might like you better once you've been despoiled. Despoiled innocence
is kind of cute, too."

 
          
 
"I don't understand your criteria very
well," I said.

 
          
 
Boss just shrugged. "I'd like a
hamburger," she said.

 
          
 
She got it in
Chantilly
,
Virginia
—basically just a wide space on Route 50, not far from the flea market
where I had met Beth Gibbon, the flea marketer's daughter.

 
          
 
Beth had been sitting on the tailgate of her
father's old pickup when I spotted her, her five young children piled around
her like little possums. Beth's father was a quilt man, although he also sold
pocket knives, old bottles, and a smattering of knickknacks, when he could find
them. Beth was only twenty-four when I met her and had a wildness in her eyes
that was the result of feeling frightened and out of place in what she called
"big ol' towns." She had a husband somewhere, the one who had given
her five kids in five years, but he hung out in
Cincinnati
when he wasn't giving her a kid.

 
          
 
The thought of Beth mingled with the smell of
cooking hamburgers in the little place Boss had chosen. The hamburgers were
excellent, but I was distracted by my memories. I hadn't seen Beth in almost a
year, which probably meant that she had another child.

 
          
 
On the jukebox Tanya Tucker was insisting
that, if it came to it, she would prefer
Texas
to heaven. The song prompted a moment of
nostalgia for Coffee, which mingled with the hamburger and mustard in my mouth
and my nostalgia for Beth.

 
          
 
Boss was cheerfully munching her hamburger and
making eyes at a booth full of truckers, who on the whole were greasier than
the hamburgers. The truckers were mildly abashed at being the object of her
attention.

 
          
 
"Penny for your thoughts," she said.

 
          
 
"I have about a million," I said.
"I can't sort them out."

 
          
 
Boss swallowed too big a bite and hit herself
in the breastbone a time or two, to help it go down.

 
          
 
"I'll tell you what's wrong with
you," she said. "You're too romantic on the one hand. On the other
hand, you don't know the first thing about romance."

 
          
 
It seemed to me an arguable point. After all I
had two exwives and several girl friends and/or potential wives. I must know
something about romance.

 
          
 
Boss was wobbling a French fry in some
ketchup. For a moment she reminded me of Belinda Arber. She gave me a cool
look. Belinda was much like Boss, only forty-nine years younger.

 
          
 
In fact, the women I sometimes inaccurately
think of as my women were always reminding me of one another. There were plenty
of differences between them, but somehow the correspondences outnumbered the
differences.

 
          
 
Boss didn't say anything for a while. She ate
her hamburger and French fries and occasionally let her gaze drift over to the
truckers, who continued to be mildly abashed. They were evidently not used to
even such light attentions as Boss was paying them.

 
          
 
The waitress kept refilling Boss's coffee cup,
with coffee so hot that a wreath of smoke rose from it. When Boss lifted it to
drink
she
gently blew aside the smoke.

 
          
 
"I don't think you really know how to get
girls," Boss said, breaking her silence. "It doesn't matter, though,
because any girl would know how to get you."

 
          
 
She looked hard at the truckers suddenly,
causing them to shift nervously in their booth.

 
          
 
"What's cute about you is that you're
kind of chaste," she said.

 
          
 
"I'm not chaste," I said,
automatically. She knew enough about me to know that I didn't exactly avoid
carnal relations.

 
          
 
"
There's
just
two romantic relationships," Boss said, fingering a strand of her black
hair. "All the rest are what my granny used to call common doings."

 
          
 
"Which are?"

 
          
 
"Sexy friendships and adultery,"
Boss said, opening her purse and scattering change on the table. "I got
the tip, you can get the ticket."

 
          
 
Then she got up and headed for the door,
walking right past the truckers all of whom fell instantly silent. They almost
cringed, in fact, though Boss didn't give them another look. She got a
toothpick and went outside. I paid the ticket. As the door closed behind me the
truckers, grown suddenly confident, began to laugh uproariously.