Saturday morning Bobby gets up with the sun and makes the long drive up to Bristol, looking for Earl Danville. It turns out that Danville is well-known in the city, with his thumb in any number of pies. Bobby finds him in a small music studio on Cumberland Street. It turns out that Earl Danville is a banjo player of some renown. He and two other men are recording a song when Bobby shows up. He doesn’t take a whole lot of their time.
It’s late afternoon when Bobby arrives back in Wilkesboro. Myrna Lee’s shift at the Rexall is nearly over so Bobby sits at the counter and waits while she finishes up. There are no other customers. Bobby drinks a soda and watches Myrna Lee wash dishes and clean the milkshake machine. The mouse beneath her eye is almost gone.
“Where’s old Boone these days?” Bobby asks.
“Who knows?” Myrna Lee replies. “He was out to the house when I left earlier, sleeping off a drunk on that ratty old couch on the porch. Val’s off in the Caddy somewheres. Up to no good, if I know Val.”
“I might have some information for Boone.”
“What kind of information?” Myrna Lee asks.
“You know,” Bobby says. “Business.”
Boone is still at the farm when Bobby drives Myrna Lee home, sitting on the creaky top step to the porch, with a sawed-off shotgun between his knees, cleaning the weapon. Boone’s eyes darken when he sees the coupe pull into the yard.
“If looks could kill,” Bobby says.
“You know he’s very protective of me,” Myrna Lee says.
“When he ain’t slapping you around,” Bobby reminds her.
She gives him a look. “You better let that go. You know Boone. You don’t want to mess with him.”
“I do not.”
“All right. I’m gonna go change out of this uniform.” She gets out of the car and goes into the house.
Bobby reaches into the glove box for a pint of liquor and then gets out to approach Boone. The old man eyes the bottle as he snaps the forestock on the twelve gauge back into place and then slides five shells into the gun. He chambers one round while eyeballing Bobby.
“Tell me if this tastes just a little bit familiar,” Bobby says, offering over the shine.
Boone hesitates a long moment before reaching for the pint. He removes the cork and has a short drink, then a longer one, all the while watching Bobby warily over the neck of the bottle.
“Where’d you get this?” he demands.
“At the getting place, Boone. Don’t you know nothing?”
“I know lots,” Boone says, lifting the barrel of the gun higher. “And what I don’t—you’re about to tell me, you fucking pipsqueak.”
“You got people in Wilkes County laughing at you, Boone,” Bobby says. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I come across these two mugs in town, been running shine right under your nose. They sold me that pint outside Yadkin’s Diner just last night.”
“What mugs?”
Bobby shrugs. “Couple of city boys in suits. Been hanging around a while now, buying busthead from them that’s selling. Shipping it back to the city, I suspect.”
“What city?”
“Knoxville, so I hear. Some character named Otto something-or-other been buying up busthead hither and yon. Or at least these boys have been buying it for him.”
Boone has another sip from the pint before tucking it in his overall pocket. He has no intention of giving it back to Bobby. “I suppose next you’re gonna tell me they’re driving that Ford sedan I been looking for.”
“I don’t know what they’re driving,” Bobby says. “I told you—I ran into them in town.”
A pair of pigeons fly out of the mow window of the barn. Boone raises the shotgun and follows them but doesn’t shoot. Shooting pigeons is a job for a twenty gauge or a .410. Lowering the barrel, he glances toward the house, where Myrna Lee has gone.
“For what reason you telling me this?” he asks. “Looking to get in my good books so you can keep sniffing around my Myrna?”
“Just passing on some information,” Bobby says. “You recall you asked me to keep a lookout for people running shine in your bailiwick. As for your good books, Boone—I never figured you to have any.”
Boone points the pump shotgun at Bobby’s coupe. “I got five loads of double-ought buck in this here gun, boy. Wouldn’t take me but thirty seconds to turn that precious Ford of yours into a pile of scrap metal if I take a mind to.”
“You don’t want to shoot my car, Boone.”
“I’ll shoot whatever I please,” Boone says. Now he swings the barrel toward Bobby. “You need to keep that in mind. And next time you run across those so-called bootleggers, you better let me know about it. Or you can stay the hell away from my Myrna.”
Bobby reaches over and calmly pushes the barrel aside. “You got it, Boone. Truth is, I don’t like these city mugs coming around anyway.” He smiles. “Making us country boys look bad.”
“You just point ’em out and we’ll see who looks bad,” Boone says.
“Tell Myrna Lee I’ll see her later,” Bobby tells him.
“I ain’t telling her nothing,” Boone snorts.
Bobby laughs as he walks off the porch and gets into the coupe and drives off.
On Sunday afternoon Bobby finds Edgar at home with his parents on Locust Street. The house is one of the oldest in town, a fieldstone two-story with a porch across the front and down one side. The place is surrounded by leafy burl oaks and the black locust trees that gave the street its name. Out back is an old carriage house, left over from the past century. With the horses long gone, Edgar’s father a few years ago turned the building into an artist’s studio for his wife. She spends most of her days there, working on oil paintings—landscapes and kittens and such—which she tries and fails to sell. Most end up on the walls of the funeral parlor downtown.
Edgar and his folks are in the backyard, playing a game of croquet, when Bobby comes around the side of the house. Edgar’s father is tall and taciturn, not a man given to frivolous behavior or pursuits. In temperament, Edgar favors his mother more.
“Good Sunday,” Bobby says. It seems to him that the family— even though Edgar and his father are in their shirtsleeves—are still dressed from church. Both men wear bow ties and Edgar’s mother is in a long brown dress with tortoise shell buttons down the front.
Edgar’s father says good Sunday back but it’s plain he’s not terribly happy to see Bobby there. He’s heard the stories—about stolen cars and gas station robberies and the rest. Not only that but it has been years since he’s seen Bobby in church on Sunday.
“What’s going on?” Edgar asks.
“I need a favor, pal,” Bobby says.
“It’s Sunday,” Edgar says.
“I know what day it is,” Bobby tells him. “I might need you to drive my car somewhere tonight.”
Edgar’s eyes pop. “Your coupe?”
“That’s right.”
Edgar can barely hide his excitement. “I just need to change my clothes.”
“Finish your game,” Bobby tells him. “I got some things to tend to and then I’ll be back.”
“Will you stay for lemonade?” Edgar’s mother asks.
“I can’t just now,” Bobby tells her. “Thank you just the same.”
It’s nearly dark when Bobby pulls up behind the Wilkesboro Hotel in the Ford sedan. He has managed to cram eighty gallons in the vehicle, packed in straw. Eighty gallons is all the car will hold and maybe all that the beefed suspension will handle. The cargo weighs roughly eight hundred pounds; the weight has the sedan squatting on the Model T springs Bobby had added to the rear end.
Across the street, Edgar is behind the wheel of Bobby’s coupe, parked in the alley beside Yadkin’s Diner. He’s been told to wait for Bobby’s signal. His right leg, foot on the gas pedal, bounces nervously in anticipation.
The yellow Packard is behind the hotel, where Bobby had seen it last. Slim and Elmer must have been keeping watch from their room upstairs because within two minutes of Bobby’s arrival, they come down, walking out the back door of the hotel, dressed in their wide-lapelled suits and raked fedoras.
“Well, well,” Elmer says. “And here we thought you was all talk.”
Slim says nothing but walks around the sedan, looking it over. He drops to the pavement for a glance at the rear suspension then straightens and opens the trunk. He pries a jug of moonshine out of the straw packing and uncorks it to have a taste. Putting it back, he lifts out another jug and tries it as well.
“That the stuff?” Elmer asks.
“Would appear so.”
Elmer turns to Bobby. “And you squeezed a hundred gallons in this heap?”
“Eighty,” Bobby says. “And this heap, as you call it, will outrun anything you’ve ever seen, city boy. Now what do you say we conclude our business? I make it eight hundred for the busthead and a thousand for the car. Half that is nine hundred American greenbacks. And that is cash on the barrelhead, gentlemen.”
Elmer smiles at Slim before turning on Bobby. “Yeah, there’s been a little hitch in things.”
“What kind of hitch?” Bobby asks.
Elmer produces the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson from his coat. The hitch is obvious and really of no surprise to Bobby. The two men have no intention of paying him anything. But before Elmer can explain that which Bobby already knows, a pair of headlights sweep across the alley as a black Model T truck comes bouncing off the street and into the lot. The men squint into the lights, trying to make out the driver. Slim produces the .45 and both men level their guns at the headlights until they shut down.
Ava Flagg gets out.
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” she shouts, charging across the lot at Bobby.
“Hold on—” he begins, his palms forward.
“You wait ’til my family is at church and then rob us?” Ava accuses. “We took you in, you thieving sonofabitch. We bailed you out of jail and took you in. We treated you like family.”
“Whoa now,” Slim says laughing. “Who’s the harpy?”
“You go to hell,” Ava fires back. She turns on Bobby again. “Your game is up, Barabbas. You’re going to drive this car back to the Hollow and I’m going to follow you every inch of the way. I was told not to trust you; I should have listened from the start.”
Bobby hesitates. “Well, we got us a bit of a situation here.”
“No, we don’t,” Slim says, carelessly pointing the .45 at the two of them. “Elmer, get behind the wheel of that Ford.”
“We had a deal, goddamnit,” Bobby says.
“We don’t got nothing of the kind,” Slim says. “According to Miss Firecracker here, you’re trying to sell us stolen moonshine. That ain’t going to fly. Why would we pay for stolen goods? We’ll just confiscate this shipment.”
“That liquor belongs to me,” Ava tells him.
Elmer turns to her. “Not anymore, it don’t. So shut up, lady, and take your medicine. I will kill the pair of you dead, right here.”
When Ava starts to protest, Elmer points the barrel of the revolver at her head. She holds her tongue. Elmer climbs into the Ford and hits the starter. The engine roars to life. Elmer looks at Slim and smiles.
“This here is gonna be fun,” he says. “Let’s get a move on.”
Slim wags the barrel of the semi-automatic at Bobby and Ava, like a schoolmarm warning her students to behave, then gets behind the wheel of the Packard. Elmer revs the Ford and pops the clutch, the rear wheels throwing gravel across the lot. The Packard follows as the two vehicles pull out onto Main Street and head north out of town.
The instant they’re gone, Bobby turns and runs to the street out front. He waves both arms to catch Edgar’s attention and points to the north.
“Go!” he shouts.
Edgar fires the coupe up, peels out of the alley and hits the pavement. Bobby sees the euphoric look on Edgar’s face as he puts the flathead through the gears. Bobby watches anxiously until he’s out of sight.
“Keep her between the ditches, Edgar,” he says aloud and then heads back to the alley behind the hotel, where Ava is waiting, her eyes dark.
“Mary Pickford has got nothing on you,” Bobby tells her.
Ava smiles. “Why, thank you, sir.”
Bobby walks past her to look in the back of the truck. There’s a tarp there; he pulls back a corner and sees the glass jugs packed tightly in the box.
“What do we have?”
“Fifty,” Ava says. “Like you said.”
“Then let’s go to Bristol.”