Cutter and Bone (32 page)

Bone had been surprised to learn this, that Valerie too apparently had inferred a connection between the deaths and the blackmail attempt on Wolfe. But he was just as surprised at how Cutter told him about it—about all of it—with a kind of irony and obliqueness that seemed to dare Bone not to believe it. And Bone did dare. He still considered the whole story nothing but a theoretical possibility at best. But then of course he had the advantage of having been with Mo that last afternoon and evening. Only he knew exactly how far down she had been, and how much further down he had kicked her. So he did not need some bizarre scenario. The simple reality was more than enough.

Nevertheless he could not control his feeling of dread as they drove on into the night and the road began to wind through the Ozark hills. The one thing he feared most was in himself, in his own mind—the belief that J. J. Wolfe might actually have been the man he had seen in the alley that night. Yet here he was, driving toward the man’s home, heading for a confrontation which might corroborate that belief, make it a fact. He wondered what would he do then.

The Longview Motel, Restaurant & Bar was situated, logically, on the crest of a high hill, and except for the two-lane highway running past it and a few scattered farmyard lights burning on the surrounding hills and in the valleys, it offered the only visible trace of civilization in the rain-swept Ozark night. Even then, it was a faint trace. The neon had been left burning only in the M
OTEL
part of the sign, and the management similarly was not wasting wattage on parking lot lights or
VACANCY
signs. Nevertheless Bone, Cutter, and Monk did manage to get a pair of adjoining rooms, and by eleven-thirty the girl was sound asleep in hers while the men abandoned theirs for a short visit to the bar to have a few drinks before turning in.

Bone did not like the idea. Somehow the motel and bar only added to his feeling of unease. Though the building itself was not new—its cement-block construction and interior fake wood paneling showed clear signs of age—the motel still managed to seem oddly unused, as though the people who had been running it and working there and the guests who had been tracking through it all these years had left no mark at all, no real sign of their passing. For one thing, the place was almost totally undecorated. There was not a photo or a painting or a gewgaw on its virginal walls, no fishnets or mounted mooseheads or sports trophies or even an out-of-date calendar, nothing other than the elements of construction themselves: the brick, the pressed wood, the plastic and aluminum. And the staff somehow only added to this aura of sterility. In the dining room a younger model of Billy Graham sat at a Wurlitzer organ spinning out a funereal version of “Tea for Two” for three tables of late diners, all of whom had a look of bovine contentment as they sat watching him, apparently grateful that his leaden hand spared them the chore of talking with each other. The women were heavy and overdressed, with elaborate Sun King coiffeurs strikingly at odds with the short-cropped hair of their men, who were leaner and sun-darkened and gaudily resplendent in discount-store sportcoat-and-slacks coordinates. The woman who was waiting on them also served as the barmaid, and the bartender turned out to be the man who had checked Bone and Cutter into the motel a half hour before.

Seeing them together, Cutter said to Bone, “American Gothic sans pitchfork.” And Bone could only agree. They were middle-aged and bored, and equally gave off the same air of dour and aggrieved authority. Bone assumed that they were the owners, husband and wife, dead souls responsible for the soulless character of their establishment.

At the bar Bone followed Cutter’s lead and ordered scotch, a double, because he did not intend to drink very long. Even though it was Saturday night, the place was almost empty, with just two old men at the bar and three young cowboys sitting around a table drinking beer straight from the bottle. Two of them could have been movie extras, burlesque bad-guy types with booted feet propped up on chairs and their heads thrown back so they could see out from under low-slung cowboy hats with eyes properly squinted against the smoke rising from nonfilter cigarettes raffishly dangled at their lips. But it was the other one, the third cowboy, who prompted Bone to forgo the stool between Cutter and one of the old men and instead take the stool at the corner of the bar, on the other side of Cutter. That way, as Alex did his usual barroom number, Bone would not have to sit with his back to the cowboys and wonder how they were taking it, and especially this third one, who for some reason struck Bone as a man who bore watching, possibly because he was not hoking it up like the others but just sat there hatless, cool, almost mannerly—except for his gaze, which was that of a bull rider assessing his next mount.

When the bartender served their drinks, Cutter gave him a big hick grin. “Uptown Saturday night, uh?” he said.

The man nodded primly. “Yep, it’s Saturday, all right.”

“Yep, so it is.” Cutter turned to Bone. “You hear that? I was right—it’s Saturday here.”

The bartender was looking wary now, his eyes skittering between Cutter’s eyepatch and the empty sleeve, the knot.

“What’s your name, Pal?” Cutter asked him.

“Mister Morgan.”

Cutter smiled as if he had just received some very good news. “Well, I’ll be damned—
Mister
Morgan, uh? You probably remember us from the front desk. I’m
Mister
Cutter and my friend here is
Mister
Bone. We’re here to do bidness.”

Morgan’s response to this was to turn away and busy himself washing beer glasses. But Cutter sailed on, undaunted.

“What county is this, Mister Morgan?”

“Rock.”

“County seat is Rockhill?”

“Yep. A mile back, half mile off the highway.”

“Ah, that’s why we missed it, then.”

Actually they had driven through it in the rain, around the small square with its old brick stores and covered sidewalks facing a modest, rundown courthouse. Everything had been festooned with bunting and signs welcoming visitors to Bank Day. On a street leading from the square a traveling carnival had sat shuttered in the rain.

“We didn’t see any other bars driving through.” Cutter said to Morgan. “You got a monopoly?”

“Nope. There’s two beer taverns and another motel this side the state line. They got a bar too.”

“Not a very wet county, then.”

“It ain’t dry.”

“But the people do most of their lushing at home, uh?”

Morgan muttered that he wouldn’t know what that was, so Cutter showed him, tipping up his hand as though he were taking a drink. But the bartender had had enough. He turned away, still holding his rag, and began to polish the cash register. At the same time the old man nearest Cutter leaned toward him.

“Folks around here mostly goes to church,” he said. “Wednesday nighters, we call ’em.”

“I take it you’re not one of them,” Cutter said.

“
Me?
Oh, hell no. And not old Charley here neither,” the old man said, indicating Morgan behind the bar. “Not anymore. Not since he added on this here ginmill of his.”

“They cast him out of their midst, did they?”

“Yep, they told old Satan here to get his ass behind ’em!” The old man whooped with laughter, and Morgan strode out of the barroom, probably heading for the front desk to restore his sense of dignity.

While he was gone, Bone told Cutter that it would be a good idea if he shut his mouth and drank up. Instead Alex patted him on the hand.

“Now, don’t you fret, moms,” he said. “One more belt and we’ll turn in. We’ll flip a coin to see who gets to rape little Monk tonight.”

Looking past him, Bone saw that all three of the cowboys were watching them, but with a difference. While the movie extras were busy giving each other elbow digs and looks of droll stupefaction, the third one sat as before, his expression unchanged. And Bone took another drink, lit a cigarette, wished he believed in prayer.

A few minutes later Morgan made a dignified reentry and resumed his post behind the bar. Cutter promptly shoved his empty glass at him.

“One more, my good man,” he said.

As Morgan took his glass, Cutter asked him if he knew a J. J. Wolfe, and the bartender nodded grudgingly.

“Big man, huh?” Cutter pressed.

“You could say that.”

“He spend much time around here? Or does he just fly in and out.”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I would,” the old man at the bar put in. “What’d you want to see him for, young fella?”

“Oh, we just want to buy some cattle,” Cutter said. “Thought maybe we’d drop by his place tomorrow and look over some of them fancy critters of his.”

The old man laughed. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, boy! And Bank Day on top of that.”

“Bit time, huh?”

“Our annual wingding, that’s what. A parade, picnics, and a carnival the next two nights. Should’ve been last night and tonight, but we got rained out. Churches don’t like it, I hear—carnival on the sabbath—but I guess they holdin’ still for it. Probably gettin’ a piece of the action, if the truth was knowed.”

Cutter asked him what a bank day was, and the old man laughed again. He was obviously feeling good. “Well, ourn was a robbery,” he said. “Back in ninety-seven, it was, even before my time. These three gunslingers got caught inside the bank, with the townsfolk surroundin’ ’em on all sides. And everybody armed and ornery. Well, sir, by the time it was over, they was five dead—two of us, three of them. Almost as bad as up in Coffeyville with the Daltons. Yessir, biggest thing ever happen in Rockhill.”

“Hell, I thought. J. J. Wolfe was,” Cutter observed.

“Naw, he’s only second. No parades in his honor, far as I know. Though he does lead ’em, come to think of it.”

Cutter asked if Wolfe would be leading the parade tomorrow.

“Like as not, if he’s home.”

“Well, we’d better try to see him early then. Before the parade.”

Bone had noticed that every time Cutter mentioned Wolfe, Morgan’s eyes had swiveled uneasily to the cowboy table, to the third man, the bull rider.

“Shit, you don’t have to see Wolfe hisself just to buy some of his cattle,” the old man was saying. “Why, he’s got so many hands workin’ that spread of his, they steppin’ on each other half the time. Fack, we got three of ’em here right now, includin’ his foreman. Jist ast him.”

But Cutter apparently was not listening to the old man, and instead asked now how to get to the ranch from the motel. At that point the bull rider finally moved, uncrossing his legs and edging a cigarette into his mouth.

“Jist who is it wants to know?” he drawled, lighting the cigarette.

Cutter scanned the ceiling, as if he had heard a celestial voice. “Hark,” he said to Bone. “Did you hear something?”

The cowboy patiently repeated his question. “Jist who is it wants to know?”

And Cutter, grinning, found him now. “Jist who is it,” he said, “wants to know jist who is it wants to know?”

One of the other cowboys was already on his feet, pushing back his chair, getting ready for combat. But the third one called him off with a look. “Cool it, Sam,” he said. “Man’s jist trying to be funny, that’s all. His way of being friendly, I guess. So maybe we ought to be friendly back.” He smiled at Cutter and Bone. “My name’s Billy,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Humperdinck,” Cutter told him. “Engelbert Humperdinck.”

The one named Sam faked a laugh. “Why, he’s a card, Billy.”

“He shore is,” Billy concurred. “A cattle-buying card is what he is. Tell me, Humperdinck—which of Mister Wolfe’s exotics you interested in?”

“Exotic what?” Cutter asked.

“Exotic what!” Grinning now, Billy turned to his friends. “By gawd, fellas, that do sound like Mister Humperdinck don’t know cattle from Shinola.”

Cutter looked at Bone and shrugged. “I think I have erred.”

“Big surprise,” Bone said.

Billy was explaining: “What I mean is, do you want to buy Limousin or Simmental or Charolais, or jist one of the traditional English beef breeds?”

To counter all the high-toned words, Billy had hoked up their pronunciation, playing the rube. But Bone was not taken in, could see simply in the man’s clear intelligent gaze that he was not a rube and never had been, that Cutter did not bewilder him or scare him or fill him with rage.

“I was thinking more along the lines of weimaraner,” Cutter said. “Wolfe got any of those?”

“Nope. Too small a breed. Their weaning ratio is poor, real poor.”

“What about auto-da-fés?” Cutter asked. “Your boss in that line at all?”

“Nope. Though we do have barbecues. Afraid you came to the wrong place, friend.”

Cutter turned to Bone. “Folks around here shore is friendly, ain’t they?”

Bone told him to shut up, and Cutter pretended to pout.

“Never trust a friend,” he said.

Billy was on his feet now, getting his cowboy hat off a rack near the door. Morgan asked him if he didn’t want another round and Billy shook his head.

“No, reckon we’ve had enough, Charley,” he said.

And Cutter jumped on that. “Reckon it’s about time to mosey on back to the spread, uh, Billy Boy?”

The one named Sam told Cutter not to push his luck. But Billy, paying at the bar, gestured for Sam to let it go.

Cutter would not let them, however. “Yep, time to get back to the old corral and bed down with old Bessie. Each cowboy gets a hole. Billy gets the biggest.”

Billy shook his head sadly. Picking up his change, he came down the bar. He stopped at the vacant stool next to Cutter and stood there for a few moments, giving the stool a spin.

“Humperdinck,” he said finally, “could I give you a few words of advice?”

“Why shore, Billy Boy.”

And Billy went on, unexcited. “Well, the main thing is you look like you’ve caught enough shit in your time—I wouldn’t go around looking for more. Especially I wouldn’t go into bars around here and make fun of the locals.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

“Good. ’Cause, let me tell you—most of the guys around here are good old boys, which means they feel kinda naked without a bunch of guns in their pickups. And most of ’em don’t drink any better’n you do. So you could get in trouble, Humperdinck. Real trouble.”