Cold in July (11 page)

20

I called the Lazy Lodge. Russel sounded tired and old when
he answered.

“Use some of that money I gave you to call Jim Bob Luke,” I
said. “I’ll give you some more. Ann and I are coming there for lunch soon as we
get Jordan squared away.”

“Your wife?”

“I believe you know her name. You know all our names and a
lot about us. Remember, you researched us?”

There was a long silence. “All right, bring her.”

“I intended to. You call Jim Bob and see if it’s the man you
knew and if he’s still doing what he used to do and if he’ll work for us. We’ll
bring you a hamburger or something when we come. We can make plans from there.”

“What’s Jim Bob’s number?”

I gave it to him.

“How does your wife feel about this?” Russel asked.

“She hates your guts. I’m surprised she’ll even be in the
same room with you.”

“This is going to be cozy. Wish I could make it up to her.”

“Well, you can’t. Just sit tight and make the call. We’ll be
there before too long.”

          
· · ·

We went by Jordan’s day school and checked him in late. Then
we stopped off at Burger King and ate so we wouldn’t have to eat with Russel.
That was too damn friendly. When we finished I bought him a hamburger and
french fries and a soft drink and we drove to the Lazy Lodge.

Ann looked the place over. “Looks just right for him.”

We got out and walked to Russel’s room. The door was still
open and Russel was sitting on the bed looking at us. I went on in, but Ann
stood in the doorway looking at him. Russel couldn’t hold her gaze. He checked
out some tatters in the rug, which looked older than original sin.

“Come in, Ann,” I said.

I waved her to the chair I had sat in, and when she was
seated it groaned at her the way it had at me. I gave Russel the sack with the
food in it and he sat it on the bed beside him and didn’t open it. “Thanks,” he
said.

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms and felt the
heat of the room nestle about me like chain mail. The air conditioner still
wasn’t on.

“You talk to Jim Bob Luke?” I asked.

Russel stole a glance at Ann, still didn’t like what he saw,
so he looked at me. “Yeah.”

“Well?”

“It’s the same Jim Bob Luke, all right.”

“For Christ sake, Russel, tell me what he said.”

“He’s coming. He’ll be here in about three hours. I told him
everything. He sounds just the same. It was like it was yesterday I saw him
last.”

“I’m glad you talked about old times,” Ann said, “but is he
going to help us when he gets here?”

“He is.”

“Jesus,” Ann said, and she got up and walked out the door.

I walked out after her. She had gone about halfway down the
walk and was leaning against the wall, looking across the highway like it was a
raging river she had to swim.

“You okay?” I said.

“How did I let you talk me into this?”

“Ann, I’m worn down and I know you are. I’m going to do this
thing and I’d like for you to see it through with me. I’m not going to argue
anymore. I’m doing this because I’ve got to. I’d like for you to understand and
accept it. At least tolerate it. We’ve been together for a long time for you
not to trust me.”

I held out my hand.

She didn’t smile; but she took my hand and we walked back to
Russel’s room.

          
· · ·

About two-thirty an ancient blood-red Cadillac about the
size of a submarine pulled up directly in front of the door to Russel’s room.
There were baby shoes hanging off the mirror along with a big, yellow,
foam-rubber dice, and on the windshield was a homemade sticker that had six
stick-figure humans and three dogs drawn on it and there was an X through each
of them. The car had curb feelers and they were still wobbling violently when
the driver got out and slammed the door and stretched.

“Shit,” Russel said. “That’s Jim Bob’s Caddy. That sucker’s
twenty years old. It was new when I went in the joint.”

I could see the man stretching beside the door, and he
looked like a washed-up country and Western singer. He was tall and lean and
wore a worn straw hat with a couple of anemic feathers in it. He had on a white
cowboy shirt with thin green stripes in it and faded blue jeans and boots that
looked like they had often waded through water and shit.

Russel got off the bed and went out there and I heard the
cowboy yell, “Goddamn, ole horse, you look like smoking dog shit.”

“I been sick,” Russel said pleasantly.

“Sick! You look like you been dead and some ignorant fuck
dug you up. Good to see you again, you sorry asshole. How’s it hanging?”

“It’s hanging fine. Jim Bob, there’s a lady in the room
here.”

“One that costs money?”

“No, a real lady.”

“Shit, me and my goddamn mouth.”

And then Jim Bob came into the room behind Russel and I got
a real look at him. His age was hard to determine, but from what Russel had
said, I knew he was at least fifty. He had a pleasant, tanned (except where his
hat protected his forehead), thin face and a mouth that was full of nice, white
teeth made for smiling.

“You must be Mr. Dane?” he said.

I shook hands with him and introduced Ann.

“You didn’t mention a woman,” Jim Bob said to Russel.

“My surprise,” Russel said.

“Howdy, ma’am. I’m sorry for the way I was talking out there
in the parking lot, but I didn’t know a lady was in here.”

“Just treat me like one of the guys,” Ann said.

“No, ma’am, I couldn’t do that. Only a deaf, dumb and blind
fella could treat you like one of the guys. You darn sure don’t look like no
one of the guys.”

“Thank you,” Ann said after a pause.

“Man, Ben,” Jim Bob said, “this place looks like a Juarez
whorehouse, couldn’t you have done no better than this?”

“Well,” Russel said, “actually, Mr. Dane paid for these
accommodations.”

“That right?” Jim Bob said. “I don’t call this here
accommodations. I’ve seen nigger rent shacks better than this.”

“I wasn’t trying to find Russel a permanent place to live,”
I said, “just a place to nest for a time.”

“Nest?” Jim Bob said. “If you was a bird would you nest
here? Hell, a bird wouldn’t shit here, let alone nest… Pardon my French,
ma’am.”

I looked at Ann and she looked at me. The expression on her
face was noncommittal. Too noncommittal.

“Tell you what, lady and men, we’re gonna shag on out of
this place and get on out to the Holiday Inn. Get some good grub and maybe even
one of them magic fingers beds for ole Ben here, then we’ll get to shoveling
our piles, all right?”

“Jim Bob,” I said, “I don’t even know you. Did Russel
explain what’s going on here?”

“Yeah, he wants to find his son and you want to find out
whose brains you blew out and why the cops lied to you and what they’re up to.
But that don’t mean we got to stand around here in this sweatbox with this
good-looking lady perched on that rotten chair like a parrot. Let’s go on over
and get some air-conditioning. I do a lot better thinking when I have a big ole
steak under my belt and a couple of cold Lone Stars to ride on top of it. I
don’t do my best thinking when I’m hot as a Cuban whore and the place smells
like a pig’s favorite corner, and I ain’t knocking pigs cause I own a dozen of
them—Yorkshires. But folks, this ain’t headquarters.”

Ann and I followed Jim Bob and Russel over to the Holiday
Inn. The Cadillac was impossible to lose, even though the way Jim Bob drove you
would have thought he was doing his best to get rid of us. But that damn Caddy
stood out like a brushfire from six blocks ahead.

“That bozo’s the private detective?” Ann asked.

“You were expecting Mike Hammer or Jim Rockford?”

“I was expecting someone who could read and write. That
moron hasn’t got the sense to get out of the rain, let alone detect. He couldn’t
find his ass with both hands and an ass map.”

I laughed.

“It isn’t funny,” Ann said, but she laughed a little. “He’s
out to get our money and Russel is along for the ride. They’re both crazy, and
we’re crazy as they are.”

“Well, Jim Bob is peculiar.”

“Peculiar. He’s a cracker. A redneck. A loony tune. Did you
hear what he said, nigger shack. I hate that word, nigger. I despise it. This
is not only crazy, the man we’re in with is a bigot.”

“I didn’t choose their company because they’re such
liberated, socially conscious individuals. I didn’t choose Russel at all, and
Jim Bob sounded like a good idea at the time. If he’s a yo-yo, I won’t hire
him.”

“He considers himself hired, I think,” Ann said. “The
Holiday Inn for headquarters? He must think we’ll put him up there. We don’t
need a headquarters, and they can sleep in that red monstrosity he drives for a
car. Did you see those baby shoes and the dice? Those silly curb feelers?”

“You don’t criticize the blacks and the Mexicans for their
dice and baby shoes,” I said, and wished I hadn’t said it. She didn’t speak to
me all the rest of the way to the Holiday Inn.

21

We ate at the Holiday Inn restaurant, or rather Jim Bob did.
The rest of us had tea and coffee and Ann had a slice of apple pie. Jim Bob ordered
steak and baked potato and all the trimmings, and when he took his first bite
of steak he waved the waitress over and told her, “Honey, take this cow on back
and finish killing it. Set the little buddy on fire for about three more
minutes then bring it back to me.”

While Jim Bob waited on the steak, he and Russel talked
about old times, and laughed. Ann and I felt a little limp, as if we had gone
to the wrong party.

When Jim Bob’s steak came back he thanked the waitress and
ordered a Lone Star Light. “Got to watch my girlish figure,” and he went at his
food with gusto, saying, “Brain food.”

“Then you better eat plenty of it,” Ann said.

I looked at her. Russel looked at her. Jim Bob looked at
her, and laughed. “Ain’t that the damned truth,” he said.

“Pass that salad dressing. The one that looks like someone
threw up in the bottle.”

Ann looked at him blankly and passed the dressing. Well, Jim
Bob wasn’t easy to insult, and I had a feeling that was because he’d had plenty
of practice dodging catty remarks.

“Now, what we have here,” Jim Bob said, “is a real strange
situation. And whatever is going on, the cops are in on it. And I figure that
new tan Ford that followed us from across the highway after we left that sleaze
motel is a cop car, and the fella that parked it out in the lot and come in
here when we did and is sitting over there drinking his twelfth cup of coffee
and rereading the sports section for the third time is a cop. Cops and cop cars
go together, as the little ole man said. Whatever you people have put your feet
in, it’s deep stuff.”

“You don’t know that’s a cop,” Ann said.

“No, ma’am, I don’t. But I figure it is, and I figure pretty
good. Wouldn’t have been in this line of work long as I have if I didn’t. And
if you feel a little hostile to me, that’s all right, sister. I don’t blame
you. I know Ben here, and after what he’s done you’re connecting me with him.
We’re friends, but we’re separate, and what he did was a killing offense. I’d
have killed him myself. But we’re past that. Ben was a little crazy, but now
he’s right as rain, or as right as he gets. So we’re gonna work together, or
let’s just get this over so I can take ole Ben back to Houston for a three-day
drunk and see if I can get him a job somewhere. What say? We gonna work together
or not?”

“I didn’t say anything about any of that,” Ann said.

“Well, you did and you didn’t. What’s it gonna be, Mr. and
Mrs. Dane?”

I looked at Ann.

Ann said, “All right. The man over there is a policeman, and
we’ll work together.”

“Good,” Jim Bob said. “What we’re gonna have to do first is
go out there and dig up that fella you shot.”

“What?” I said.

“You heard me. I want to be sure that the dead fella isn’t
Freddy. I know what you’ve said, and I don’t think you’re a liar, but you could
be wrong. He could have changed a lot. The color of the eyes you could have
been wrong about. I’ve dealt with a lot of eyewitnesses, and what they remember
ain’t always how it was. In your case, you may not want that ole burglar to be
Freddy, but it could be.”

“No way,” I said.

“That’s the rules,” Jim Bob said. “We start there. If it is
Freddy, then we figure why they let Ben out so easy and take it from there. If
it ain’t Freddy, we play another angle. And let me add this.” He looked at
Russel. “If it is Freddy, and if you’re still thinking you got to hurt Mr. Dane
or his family here, well, Ben, ole hoss, I’ll just have to blow your brains out
and put you in the hole with him and cover you up. Got me?”

Russel grinned at him. “I may not let you.”

“We can always hope we don’t have to find that out, can’t
we?”

“Yeah,” Russel said. “I wouldn’t want to kill you, Jim Bob,
we been friends too long.”

“It would pain me too. Killing you or getting killed by you,
so let’s just hope that don’t come up.”

“It won’t. If it’s Freddy, then I’ll accept he was
burglarizing Dane’s house and Dane had to kill him.” Russel looked at me. “I
know now you didn’t just shoot him unarmed and plant a gun. You aren’t like
that.”

“My, haven’t we gotten to be chummy,” Ann said.

“And little lady,” Jim Bob said, “you keep that sarcastic
edge, cause we’re gonna need it to keep us sharp. Now, let me finish up this
feast, then I’d like to get Ben and me checked into a room. Mr. and Mrs. Dane,
y’all go on home and I’ll call you. And if you’re starting to sweat a little
bit in the pocketbook and wondering what I’m gonna cost you, it’s like this. Three
hundred dollars a day, no expenses. I cut that cause I know Ben. As for the
stay at the Holiday Inn for me and Ben, I got that covered. If that sounds
steep to you, don’t know what to tell you. That’s the price. I don’t just do
this for my health and I ain’t so friendly to Ben here I’ll do it for free.”