That Old Ace in the Hole (37 page)

“But Mr. Ragsdale from the Tokyo office was there and he’s going to present the idea to the company president, Mr. Goliath, and get back to me. And the minute I hear from him—” But Waldo Beautyrooms had hung up.

Next, because it was on the way, he pulled into Tater Crouch’s driveway, climbed up the porch steps and knocked. The housekeeper did not answer and finally he turned the knob and sidled in, calling, “Mr. Crouch? You home?” knowing he was, for the truck stood in the yard. Still, he was startled when the old man appeared in a nightgown, his hair scattered thinly about his pallid dome.

“Well,” he said. “She’s gone into town for groceries. Come in.”

“Just stopped for a minute, Mr. Crouch, to let you know that they are sending someone down to make you an offer. Later this week. You know, I’m not at LaVon’s now. I’m over here, staying at the Shattles’ place. It’s right next to the hog farm. LaVon’s son, Coolbroth, moved into the Busted Star bunkhouse while I was gone.”

“That hog farm stink will make you sick. Jerky Shattle’s got terrible lung problems from it. I expect it’ll kill him. Their little grandson can’t even visit. He gets to havin convulsions when he smells that smell. They are suin the hog farm, you know. I don’t guess you’ll last there long.”

“They’ve got all these air conditioners and air filters and such. Inside it’s not bad. Course I only spent one night there.”

“Last night was nothin. You wait, you’ll smell it.
That’s
the place you ought a buy. It’s ruined.”

“Anyway, I’ll be back with the Money Offer Person. It’s a lady, Mrs. Doak.”

“What happened to that other one, the liar? I heard Tazzy Keister shot her up.”

“I’m going over to Amarillo right now to visit her. They’ve got her at the medical center there.”

Tater Crouch made a face and told Bob he’d be waiting for him.

Bob stopped at the Old Dog for an early lunch.

“Well, well, look who’s here,” said Cy. “Didn’t think you was comin back. I got beef ragout today, sides a baked beans, tossed salad, pickled walnuts, rolls and apple pan dowdy for dessert. Help yourself.”

Bob heaped his plate, sat in the booth where he had last seen Evelyn Chine and Francis Scott Keister.

“Suppose you heard about the goins-on—Freda Beautyrooms, and Francis Scott Keister and that girl that was here last week, and the sheriff’s little problem.”

“I didn’t hear about the sheriff.”

“Tazzy Keister busted both his arms resistin arrest. He was pushin her towards his car, didn’t have cuffs on her, her bein a woman and all, and she gets his left arm and cranks it up behind his back. They said you could hear the bone snap across the street. Then she lets go a high kick—wearin her work shoes with the steel toe caps—and gets the other one. She started a run for it but one a the deputies, Haish Smith, tackled her and he sure enough put on some cuffs, but not before she give him a taste a her knee where it hurts the most. Can’t really blame Francis Scott Keister for wantin more gentle female companionship. Sheriff, with them broke arms, he’s had a get somebody drive him around, one a the dispatchers, and for all I know, help him with more personal affairs like passin water. Quite the time Tazzy give him. She’s strong, you know, workin on the ranch all her life. A lot a panhandle women is as strong as the men.”

“Maybe that’s the third bad thing. LaVon says bad stuff comes in threes.”

“She’s right,” said Cy. “But I don’t think busted arms can stand up to death and killin. There’ll be another passin.”

The restaurant was still empty.

“Everybody gone to Brown Paper Pete’s hanging?” said Bob. “It’s kind of quiet here today.”

Cy grimaced sourly. “It’s that ladies’ place with all them damn desserts. Their regular menu is just sandwiches and soup, but they make a hell of a lot of fancy desserts and it looks like that’s what cowboys and rig workers want. I had a drop pineapple I got so many complaints except from Jim Skin. Told him he could go to the supermarket and buy hisself a case a canned pineapple but that don’t appeal to him. Them Christian ladies, the old whores, they got pies, they got cream puffs, they put out chocolate eclairs and coffee cake. I wouldn’t a thought ranch hands would have such a grasp on confectionery items but Ernie Chambers come in and told me if I didn’t start makin crème brûlée he was takin his business over there. ‘What about pork roast?’ I says. ‘I seen you eat six big slices roast pork and gravy. You won’t get that over there. You on a diet for canned tomata soup and egg salad sandwich?’ Course he couldn’t answer me, all shamefaced and full a Peach Surprise. Jesus Christ, I just as soon put a funnel in my mouth and run against the wind.”

“Don’t you think the novelty will wear off?”

“Maybe. No pineapple today!” he bellowed at the front door and Bob turned to see Jim Skin.

“That’s O.K.,” Jim Skin said. “I kind a had enough pineapple. I kind a got a cravin for meat. What a you got?” He noticed Bob Dollar too late to retreat.

“Like a beef stew. It’s pretty good.” Cy turned to Bob again. “Anyway, I’m thinkin about stayin open at supper time, catch the supper crowd. If there is one. Won’t know until I try. There’s not a place open for supper for fifty miles. Course maybe there’s not no one wants supper away from home for fifty miles.”

Jim Skin got a plate and filled it, stacked four rolls atop the food, looked around the empty room and finally came over to Bob’s table. Unease exuded from him like the odor of some bitter aftershave lotion.

“How are you, Bob?” he said cautiously. “I heard you left this country.”

“Not yet. Had to go up to Denver and report to the head office. You given any more thought to talking with Ace Crouch about selling your place?”

“Hell, Bob, I been meanin a get in touch with you on that. And like I said, I thought you’d left the country. Ace don’t want a sell just now.”

“I see,” said Bob, mopping up his gravy with a roll, swallowing the last of his coffee and rising. “Got to go. See you, Cy,” he called and left Jim Skin abruptly, intending his rude departure to sting, to give the message that he knew Jim Skin was a conniving liar flirting with a gas outfit.

The medical center parking lot at Amarillo was nearly full and Bob had to settle for a space in the most remote corner where the wind had swept in an assortment of candy wrappers and leaves. An empty oil can rolled restlessly.

At the receptionist’s desk a glass vase of dusty silk flowers with frayed edges obscured a full view of a woman with breasts the size of deflated basketballs.

“Evelyn Chine? Up in ICU. Only family members permitted. Are you a relative?”

“Yes,” Bob lied. “I’m her brother.” And then, of course, he began to believe it.

“Uh-huh. Your mother and father are up there now with her.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Chine?”

“Who else?”

“Well, I’m her
step
brother. From Mrs. Chine’s first marriage. I’ll wait until they come down. I don’t want to interrupt.”

The woman looked at him, curiosity and suspicion mingled in her face.

“Are you a newspaper reporter?” she asked suddenly.

“No! Good Lord, no. Have they been here?”

“You bet!” said the woman. “Don’t look now but those people over by the window are
all
reporters. You’d think nobody in Texas ever got shot before, the way they are carryin on. The Chines should be down pretty soon. There’s a ten-minute limit on visits to ICU patients.”

Bob walked over to the tiny florist’s shop and bought a single yellow rose and a Mylar balloon stamped with the face of a cartoon cat. As he came out of the shop he glanced toward the reporters—half a dozen middle-aged people slouched in chairs, paring their nails or talking on cell phones. He recognized Babe Vanderslice, the Woolybucket
Banner
’s crack newswoman, and hoped she didn’t recognize him. But then, what if she did? He could be there for any reason, though the rose and balloon marked him as a visitor to a patient.

The elevator doors opened and a short couple came out, the man with a cliff of hair like Conway Twitty’s, their expressions stolid and glum. The big-breasted receptionist caught Bob’s eye and nodded.

He told his lie again at the nurses’ station and was told that his “parents” had just left.

“You can stay only a few minutes, now,” said a handsome, black-haired young nurse who looked like a flapper from the twenties. She had dimples, which pleased Bob.

Evelyn Chine, crowned with a bandage turban, lay unconscious in the hospital bed, her face horribly swollen, both eyes black, crusted blood in one ear. A huge battery of machines and devices counted her heartbeats, her respirations, measured her blood gases, charted her brain waves. For the first time he realized she had been shot in the head. A terrific feeling rolled over him. He had only seen Evelyn Chine as a competitor, but now, as she lay helpless and wounded, he imagined himself saving her from her own reckless nature that had got her onto this thin ledge of life. No longer did he think of himself as Evelyn Chine’s half brother. Now he was her lover, her fiancé and, his imagination tumbling like the colored balls in a bingo cage, her honeymoon husband. He saw himself bound to Evelyn Chine, saw himself swearing an oath never to leave her, pushing her wheelchair, draping a cashmere shawl over her tiny shoulders. But then these images shifted and he saw himself trying to mount her flaccid body, moving the helpless arms and legs into exotic and shameful positions. He put the rose on the table beside her bed and wrote on the white card that dangled from the neck of the vase “All my love, Bob,” kissed her swollen, fevered cheek and went out to the nurses’ station.

“What are her chances?” he asked the flapper-nurse.

“That’s her doctor—Dr. Brun,” the nurse said, nodding at a tough-looking woman with a squashed nose, the white coat identifying her as a repairer of broken bodies. “You’ll have to talk to her. Oh, Dr. Brun—here’s Evelyn’s brother wants a talk with you.”

The doctor advanced on Bob, seized his hand and palped it sympathetically. Her breath puffed out in a miasmic stench and she looked at Bob with hard greenish eyes like unripe berries.

“I’m Evelyn’s husband,” he said, imagining Evelyn’s father pushing her wheelchair down the aisle, the bride’s head lolling. “How is she doing?”

“I just explained everthang to her parents. They didn’t say she was merried.”

“They don’t know,” said Bob simply. “It was a secret marriage.”

“Ah—you know the circumstances a her anjuries?”

“Yes. Evelyn often goes to motels with married men. It’s a problem we’re working on. She’s in a twelve-step program for it. She’s been shot before by jealous wives, but never in the head. Usually they miss. We have a lot of hope she will get over this with love and attention.”

The doctor took a deep breath as if to freshen her lungs with an infusion of oxygen.

“Are y’all a reporter?” she said.

“No,” said Bob. “I’m in real estate.”

“Oh yeah? Well, she sustained a very serious anjury. The bullet disintegrated and scattered fragments in part a her brain? It is safer leave them fragments in situ than try and remove em. What we are concerned with now is swellin a the brain. The hard bony skull got no room for expansion, and, if the swellin is profound, we may have to tike out a section a her skull.”

“Oh yuck,” said Bob, earning a freezing glance.

“It is a
temporary
removal. When the swellin subsides we replace the bone.”

“Is she going to be all right?” asked Bob, playing the fool.

“Only tom will tell, Mr. Chan,” said the doctor, rolling her eyes and pressing the retractable button of her click pen. “But as she’s got this serious anjury you’d do well a prepare yourself for the worse, though we always hope for the best. It’s in God’s hand and all we can do is say our priors.”

J
aelene Shattle twisted her hands and creased her forehead.

“Oh, Mr. Dollar, some women have been calling you all afternoon. A Mrs. Betty Doak phoned twice and said to tell you she would meet you tomorrow noon at the Old Dog for lunch. You know, it’s funny but I think I know her. I think she was Betty Cream. I think she went to the Wink school same as I did. My dad was in the oil boom down in Wink years ago. We just kept a-movin around. A year in Wink, a year in Midland, a year in Amarilla. And the other woman said she would call back this evening. She didn’t leave her name. Did you notice how bad the smell is today?”

“Yes,” said Bob. In truth the hog farm effluvia was ferocious, a palpable, heavy ammoniac stink that burned the eyes and throat. “Have you ever thought of selling?”

“Who on earth would buy this place situated where it is? Mercy!”

“Ah—I suppose a hog farm would buy it. You know Tater Crouch is thinking of selling.”

“Oh no! Then we’d be sandwiched in between two hog farms? My husband couldn’t stand it. He’s in the hospital right this minute in respiratory distress.”

“If you sold you could move somewhere else, somewhere there aren’t any hog farms.”

“Where might that be? In a city, I suppose. We’re country people and we’ve been on this land for four generations. The city is not for us. We’ve been happy here and my husband has worked his heart out to keep this ranch in order. We can’t even run cows on it anymore. The cows can’t even stand it. Do you think it’s right that some main-hearted corporation can buy up panhandle land and force out the local people? I don’t know what we are goin a do. My husband says if he were a young man he’d set grass fires and burn them out. I do not know what we are goin a do. That state senator in Amarilla is no help at all. He’s on the side a corporate hog outfits. The corporations got the politicians sewed up in Texas, top to bottom. And down in Austin the panhandle is far away and folks think it is a worthless place anyhow—they think it is perfect for hogs. Tonight we will suffer with that stench.”

“You might talk to your husband and see how he feels about selling the place and moving to a different region. Maybe down around Austin? There’s enough rich folks down there that they won’t let the hog farms in. If you think you want to sell, let me know. I can put you in touch with a buyer.”

“I’ll mention it to him when I go see him tonight. In fact I’d better get goin now.” And she gathered up the hot casserole, murmuring “chicken pot pie, one a his favorites,” and went out the door.

In his room Bob pulled off his dank clothes and took a cool shower. It would be a fine evening on LaVon’s bunkhouse porch—which he missed—watching the sunset sky burn up. He turned on the television set but every station was showing something stupid and he turned it off again, looked for Lieutenant Abert’s account of his travels. He could not find it and wondered if it was in the car or if he had brought it to Denver and left it in his old room. He went outside and checked the car. The book was lying on the back floor with a lollipop stick stuck to it at a jaunty angle. The new book,
Broken Hand,
was still on the front seat. He brought them both inside. He could hear the telephone ringing inside and made a dash for it.

“Hello?” he said, panting.

“What ya doin?”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t you reckanize my voice? It’s Marisa. Your girlfriend? From Front Range High School?”

“Marisa. Where are you?” he asked with a depressed little laugh.

“In Denver. Visitin my folks. I got your number from your uncle. What are you doin in the Texas panhandle? Isn’t it awful down there?”

“No, it’s got its own style. There are a lot of nice things about it. And I’m in the hog business. What about you, Marisa? I thought you went off to college.”

“I did. But I graduated. Now I’m in graduate school. My boyfriend is working for his law degree and I figured I might as well go ahead with what I was into.”

“What is that?”

“Entity configuration.”

“What is ‘entity configuration’?”

“Oh, just about anything. A person’s business profile or a website or a business plan or even financial investment chart. It’s like taking something that is like ectoplasm and shaping it up into something tangible. You know, making something that’s mixed up seem clear and understandable. So have you got a girlfriend now?”

“Yes. In fact, I’m married. My wife’s name is Evelyn. She has curly black hair and dimples. She’s a professional dancer. Right now she’s in Kansas City, dancing.”

“Married! You married? Oh my God! Your uncle didn’t say a thing. I called you up because I thought we could get together again sometime and see how we like each other now. Of course I couldn’t come down to the panhandle. But if you came up here we could get together. My parents still go to church on Sunday.”

“So do I,” said Bob, “with my wife,” and gently replaced the receiver.

He read Lieutenant Abert’s account until the letters on the page began to swim. It came to him that the black Colorado squirrels with tasseled ears were called Abert squirrels and wondered if there was a connection. So far he had noticed nothing about squirrels. Perhaps he would re-read with squirrels in mind.

The next morning the stench was worse than ever. He woke with a headache, his ears ringing, his red eyes itching. He felt dizzy and disoriented as though he were coming down with the flu. Only in the shower under the stream of shampoo-scented water could he get away from the smell. It permeated everything. His clothes reeked, his mouth seemed filled with manure and mud. He raced for the door, nearly colliding with Mrs. Shattle.

“Bob, I talked to my husband and he says sell! We want a sell out too if Tater is goin to. That was the only thing keepin us here. We didn’t want a make things worse for Tater. But if he’s goin a make things worse for us, why then, we’ll sell. We’ll move to Canada or Greenland, somewhere they never heard a hogs.”

“O.K., good. I’ll talk to you about this when I get back—sometime this afternoon. Can I pick up anything in town for you?”

“No, Bob. I’m goin a town myself, get away from the stench.”

He drove to the Old Dog with the windows down, the hot air rushing in and flinging his hair around. Two miles from the hog farm he could breathe again. Never was air so sweet. He put up the windows and combed at his hair with his fingers, damning himself for never carrying a comb, until he remembered the snow brush in the trunk, pulled over to the side of the road and used the awkward object to smooth his hair.

“Hey, Bubba,” said Cy when he came in. “We got fried catfish and corn bread today, steaks if you don’t like fish, and turkey hash for them don’t like steak neither.”

“I’m waiting for somebody,” said Bob.

“Not Jim Skin?”

“No.”

“Brother Mesquite?”

“No. A lady I’ve never met. Mrs. Betty Doak.”

“Betty Doak? I think I know her. Wasn’t she Betty Cream? Had a daddy worked the oil rigs?”

“I’m not sure,” said Bob. “She might be. Mrs. Shattle thought so. Maybe you’ll recognize her when she comes in.”

And half an hour later, when Bob was beginning to think Mrs. Betty Doak had stood him up, a two-tone Grand Cherokee parked out front and a rangy woman with a pompadour of curls, her lank frame a thinly padded skeleton inside the blue rayon pantsuit, took the steps to the Old Dog two at a time and came in.

She looked at Cy, she looked at Bob. She put her head back and laughed. “Cy Frease, so this is where you ended up. I thought it would be Huntsville.”

“It almost was, Betty. But I dodged in time. You are lookin good. I thought it might be you. Livin up in Okie land these days?”

“Yes, I got a little house north a Beaver, part a my mother’s family’s old ranch. Just a few acres. She left it to me. My daddy never had a ranch or a house or nothin he could call his own. Had a good time, though. Made good money and spent it all.”

“I heard that. I heard you was somewhere up there over the line.”

“Well, when me and Richard Doak got a divorce we was livin in Wichita Falls and I figured I ought a get back to the panhandle, even if it was the Oklahoma handle. There’s no place like home, you know.”

“I know. That’s right. It’s been a long time since we was kids in Wink. That was a rough town.”

“Yes, but didn’t we have some good times? A hard life but a happy childhood.”

“Maybe we can get you down here a little more often. By the way, this is your lunch date, Bob Dollar. We got fried catfish, steaks, turkey hash. Choose your poison.”

“Hello, Bob. Good a meet you. Let’s get some of Cy’s grub. Sure smells good. I get tired a cookin for myself so it’s a treat for me to eat out.” She took the catfish and salad.

Bob helped himself to the same and they sat at the table near the window.

“I know of Tater Crouch, a course, but I never met him and I never seen his place. I know his brother, Ace, pretty well. I guess I’m surprised they want to sell. The Crouches been here a long time.”

“The smell. He can’t take it anymore. There’s a hog farm to the west and it gets pretty gamey. Tater’s getting old enough now so he likes the idea of living in town. And there’s a couple even closer to the hog farm over there than Tater is, the Shattle place. Mr. Shattle is pretty sick from the smell and apparently he wants to sell out too. So we might go there and see what kind of offer you can make for that place too.”

“I think I know her. Wasn’t she Jaelene Defoos?”

“I don’t know. But she thinks she knows you. Said you were in school together in Wink years ago.”

“Then it’s her. How about that. Two old schoolmates in one day. Wink to Woolybucket. I ought a come down here more often.”

“Amen,” said Cy, who was listening.

“Cy, you must a learned a cook from your mother. Didn’t she cook at the Star Diner in Wink?”

“Yes, she did. She made more in tips than my daddy made drillin. What used a bother her was the sand and the wind. She said the wind would just blast that sand and wear her nylon stockins full a holes.”

Buckskin Bill and Sorrel Bill came in, looked at Bob and Betty Doak, helped themselves to the fish, asked what was for dessert.

“I don’t want any dessert,” whispered Mrs. Betty Doak to Bob, scratching the fish bones to the rim of her plate. “Let’s just get down the road and see if we can clinch the Bar Owl
and
Coppedge Road.”

They split the bill and Bob held the door open for her.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said.

“You come on back soon, Betty, y’hear?” Cy fixed her with a look. “Or I’ll have to come up to Beaver and look for you. You in the phone book?”

“Yes I am. You do that—come visit. See you later.”

After a polite wrangle over which car to use, Bob agreed to the Grand Cherokee, got in, and Betty Doak drove them toward Coppedge Road.

In the Old Dog the phone rang and Cy answered it, his laconic “Yeah?” giving way to exclamations. “No! That right? All right, all right. Just left. No, I don’t know. Thanks.”

He came over to Buckskin and Sorrel, put his hands on the table and leaned in. “Dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. Tazzy Keister escaped from the jail, got her gun back out a the sheriff’s desk drawer and said she was goin a shoot ever hog farm person she could find. Bob is on her list. Near the top. Tazzy got one a them old dispatchers to the cell and choked her half to death, made her unlock the door. The damn sheriff stayed home today. Not feelin good with them arm casts. They say his sister come down a take care a him for a while.”

“Where was Bob and Betty goin? We could call up and warn them.”

“I don’t know for sure. I don’t eavesdrop.”

“Hell you don’t. Well, I guess we’ll hear about it if they get shot.”

Tater Crouch’s driveway sported a big mud hole abreast of the old bunkhouse. Rain had hammered the panhandle on Saturday. Betty Doak looked at the building and said, “I bet those walls could tell some stories.”

That reminded Bob that LaVon, in hundreds of hours of talking, had never told him what caused the heavy scars on her grandfather’s back.

Betty Doak drew the Grand Cherokee up in front of the house and they got out. The hog farm stink was strong and she wrinkled her nose. The housekeeper, who must have been standing near the door, whisked it open. She smiled at Mrs. Doak, ignored Bob, pointed to the crowded living room where Tater Crouch sat in his wheelchair.

“Tater! Tater, they’re here!”

“I know it. Didn’t I see them drive up? Go cut that damn pie and bring us some.”

“Mr. Crouch,” said Bob. “This is Mrs. Betty Doak. She’s the Money Offer Person.”

Mrs. Doak extended her hand but the old man waved it away.

“It won’t do me no good now. Ace, he don’t want a sell.”

“Oh no,” said Bob. “Oh no. What is wrong with him?”

“There is nothin wrong with him. He is just tryin a save a piece a the panhandle. He don’t think hogs belong here.”

“But they are here already. Does he have some way to get rid of the ones already here?”

“You better ask him that.” Tater’s hands shook and his eyes slid around. He glanced at Bob, looked away. “He’s the oldest. He’s got the say-so.”