Trapper Nelson let himself into room 206 at the Mutiny Motel in downtown West Palm Beach. He put the two brown bags on the Formica table by the window, where Lucky Holzapfel was waiting, eyes fixed on the bags.
“George Dickel,” he said, pulling out one of the bottles. “Good man!”
“Where’d Bobby go?” said Trapper.
“He got one of his cabbies to come pick him up. I don’t know if you noticed, but he ain’t that sociable. They don’t allow colored in this place anyway,” said Lucky, cracking the seal and sniffing the top of the bottle.
He half filled one of the cloudy-looking glasses from the bathroom and immediately started drinking from it even as he filled Trapper’s glass.
“You mind if I turn this noisy thing off?” said Trapper, motioning at the air conditioner in the wall beside them. He shivered. “I’m not used to it. Probably get pneumonia.” Lucky shook his head, still drinking.
“I don’t give a shit,” he said, breathless and grimacing from the bite of the bourbon. “I’d sleep in a ditch in a rainstorm tonight. Anyplace but that goddamn jail. I hate that fugging place.” He kept the bottle within easy reach.
“I guess you’ve been in a few times?” said Trapper.
Lucky grinned at him. “You could say that. You?”
“Oh yeah, some.” Trapper threw back the contents of the glass and made a grimace like Lucky had. He coughed, looked into the glass like he expected to find something interesting in the bottom.
“I never knew you to be a brown liquor man,” said Lucky, pouring Trapper’s glass half full again. Lucky was almost finished with his second glass, so in the interest of efficiency he topped it off again.
“Oh, I love it,” Trapper said, holding the glass admiringly up to the light. “There’s lots of stuff about me that people don’t know, and that suits me just fine.” He took a big slug of the bourbon without much reaction this time.
Lucky laughed and slapped his knee.
“I knew it! I knew you was up to somethin’ out there on the river. Had to be up to somethin’ to put away the kind of money you do.”
Trapper looked surprised.
“It’s mostly in land,” he said quietly. “I don’t live big.”
Lucky laughed again. He was starting to perspire, dampening the dirty shorts and T-shirt he’d been wearing when they’d arrested him at the bar of the Crab Pot three days earlier. He glanced at the silent air conditioner a moment, then poured another glass. They drank in silence for a while, then Lucky sat up straight and looked at Trapper Nelson with a big grin.
“How about that moonshiner they say you killed?” he said. “Did you do him?”
Trapper finished his glass and slid it across the table to Lucky.
“Nope, but I can understand how they mighta thought I did. I had some . . . shall we say unpleasant dealings with the man.”
“I already knew you didn’t do it,” said Lucky, pouring another half glass for Trapper, who took it and drank half of it off, wiping his lips with the back of his forearm.
“How’d you know that, Lucky?”
Lucky laughed, swaying in his seat.
“ ’Cause I know who did!”
Lucky slammed the table with his hand, bent over in laughter, which Trapper joined in. Lucky liked this guy. Much better company than that sourpuss Bobby.
“So there’s stuff about you that people don’t know, either,” said Trapper. “Here, let me help you with that. You’re spilling.”
Trapper took the bottle and filled Lucky’s glass all the way to the top. Lucky sat, swaying back and forth in his seat, looking at the glass of bourbon like he was doing algebra in his head.
“Oh, if you knew the half of it, my friend,” said Lucky, suddenly looking morose.
Trapper still had two fingers of bourbon in his glass, but he poured another splash in and took a tiny sip.
“What about that judge?” said Trapper. “What was it you were saying about taking care of that judge?”
* * *
“People think I got no feelings,” Lucky said. He was all but lying on the table, his arm stretched across it, hand on Trapper’s elbow. With a major effort of willpower, Trapper left his arm where it was.
“I got feelings, just like other people.” Lucky’s eyes, bloodshot and yellow, were moistening again. He patted Trapper’s elbow. “Where was I?”
“Goddamn engine kept conking out,” said Trapper.
“Yeah. Somethin’ in the impeller, I guess. Kept overheating. Sumbitch sold it to me musta known about it. We had to stop about a dozen times to let it cool off. And the whole time they’re laying there trussed up, staring all wide-eyed at us, knowing what’s going to happen.”
“That’s pretty rough,” said Trapper. One of the bottles was sitting empty on top of the air conditioner, the other was between them, one quarter left.
“But I never ever ever woulda made any jokes at a time like that the way Bobby did. Never.”
“What’d he say?”
“Mrs. Chillingworth had these weight belts wrapped around her—you know, the cartridge belts we use for diving, lead weights in the pouches—so she’s got about forty pounds on her, and Bobby picks her up and says, ‘Ladies first,’ and throws her overboard.” Lucky rubbed his eyes, then giggled. “I guess it mighta been amusin’ in other circumstances, but it seemed like it shoulda been a more solemn occasion, if you know what I mean.”
He was holding his face in his hands now, half blubbering, half giggling, his tears and saliva puddling on the table. Trapper was relieved Lucky had let go of his arm.
“But before, the judge, he says to her, ‘Don’t forget, I love you, Margie.’ And she says she loved him, too. That got to me a little, I guess. See? I got feelings.”
“You saw her go down?”
“Oh, yeah, straight down in the Gulf Stream.”
“What about the judge?”
“Oh, we didn’t have to do nothin’ with him. He sees her going over and he up and jumps in after her. At first it’s like he’s trying to swim down to her, then he’s just treading water beside the boat. God, I don’t know how many pounds of lead weights he’s got on and there he is, treading water. Tough old bird, I’ll say that for him.”
“What’d you do?”
“Bobby was gonna shoot him but I said, ‘No, Bobby, the sound of the shot could be heard.’ By now he’s starting to swim away, so I started the boat and chased after him. Bobby grabbed the shotgun and reached out over the side of the boat and hit him over the head with it. I think he broke the stock, but still the old goat didn’t go down.”
“Tough old guy.”
“You can’t imagine.”
“Yes I can.”
“So, finally Bobby grabs him and pulls him next to the boat and I get some rope and tie the anchor around his neck. Bobby lets a go of him, and he went down down down.”
Lucky started blubbering again.
“Whatcha cryin’ about? Tough man like you,” said Trapper.
“It was his eyes. I was shinin’ the flashlight down into the water and watching him sinking in those pink pajamas. His eyes just stared up at me the whole way down.”
Lucky looked around the room like he couldn’t remember where he was. He slumped back in the cheap motel chair, exhausted.
“How’d you let Joe Peel know it was done?” said Trapper.
“Called him when we got back to the dock. Goddamn engine kept overheating all the way back, so we kept having to stop. It wasn’t till about dawn we finally made it back through the Palm Beach inlet and over to the dock. Joe wanted us to throw away our clothes, so I had him to bring us something to wear.”
“So then you told him all about it.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d he say?”
“He didn’t know Mrs. Chillingworth was going to be there, or so he said. He thought the judge would be alone. But he told us in the beginning that if we found anybody else there, they had to go too, or we’d all get the chair. So that’s what we did. So be it.”
Lucky got up from the table, swaying, and staggered to the bed.
“Man, I hardly slept a wink in the slammer. I’m going to sleep forever tonight,” he said.
“I doubt that,” said Trapper Nelson.
Then the door exploded off its hinges, and before it hit the ground seven armed men were in the room.