(43)

Buck made the call while I went out and pulled my car into the garage and into a walled stall with a sliding door, which I pulled down. Unless Jefferson Davis had X-ray vision, he wouldn’t know it was there.

I went inside the office for some more of that fan.

Buck had his legs stretched out, his feet on his desk, the fan blowing air on the back of his neck. “Son of a bitch is coming around in a few minutes. Said he’s getting dropped off. If he’s with someone that stays with him, we’ll play it as it lays. I’d like you to stay back here in the office out of sight at first.”

“I don’t want you taking this on alone.”

“You have a blue-black knot on your head, and you’re moving like a spider missing four legs. I’ll leave the door cracked. You can listen. There’ll be a time for you to come out.”

“All right,” I said.

“I might say some things that sound like some bad things, but don’t panic. Some of the bad things may in fact turn out to be as bad as I say, but most of them won’t. I don’t think.”

“Is that some kind of pep talk?”

“Could be.”

“It’s not working,” I said.

*  *  *

I had a curtain in the office split a little, and I was standing there looking out the window at the front lot. The fan wasn’t doing me any good over there.

Next to the window was a row of framed photos. They were all of Buck in army duds, and other soldiers were with him, along with a German shepherd about the size of a moose.

A blue Chevy Impala with a scrape on the door showed up and let Jeff out. Jeff came across the lot with his shirttail out and flapping, walking like one leg was a pogo stick. Good. Either me or the car wreck had given him that limp.

I dropped the curtain and eased over to the door. It was open but slanted, and I could hide behind it and see into the garage through the crack near the hinges.

Jeff came in and Buck smiled and spoke pleasantly. I was waiting for Buck to say those bad things.

Buck said, “He’s in the office.”

I had been set up. I went for the ax handle on the floor, but they were already through the door by then, Jeff holding a little revolver on me that had to have been hidden under his shirt, probably stuck into his pants at the base of his spine.

“Put the ax handle down,” Buck said. “Better yet, hand it to me.”

I hesitated, then gave it to him. Ax handle versus revolver had an obvious outcome.

“Why don’t you sit your ass?” Jeff said.

“Don’t shoot him in my office if you can help it,” Buck said.

“We’ll take him back out to the lake on account of he likes it out there so much. No more fucking around then. I’m just going to shoot you full of holes, nosy. Where’d you and that retard go last night, to butt-fuck in a ditch?”

“Didn’t need a ditch,” I said. “I dropped my pants and leaned on the ax handle. I would have called your name while he did it, but I didn’t know it then.”

He cocked the hammer on the pistol.

“The lake is less messy,” Buck said.

“You rotten bastard,” I said to Buck. “All that bullshit you fed me.”

“Told you how I might learn to eat shit. It’s on my breath right now. Damn, for a reporter, you talk way too much.”

“Can’t argue that,” I said.

“You call anyone else, tell anyone you were coming here, Jeff?” Buck said.

“Called my sister to give me a ride, drop me off. She don’t know nothing.”

“Car’s not really ready to pick up,” Buck said.

Jeff’s face puckered. “On the phone you said it was.”

“I lied,” Buck said, and swung the ax handle against the top of Jeff’s arm so hard, I thought it might have broken bones. Jeff yelped and dropped the gun. Another swing of the ax handle, and Jeff was on his knees with blood coming out of his mouth.

“What the fuck?” Jeff said, and a tooth tumbled out between his lips, bounced once, and lay on the floor like a Chiclet.

“I wanted to be sure Danny was telling me true about how you tried to kill him.”

“I won’t forget this,” Jeff said.

“Might ought to, you want to keep the rest of those teeth.” Buck looked at me, smiled a little, said, “Think about it. Me in my office and some honky I met once comes in and tells me that shit. I had to be sure before I put my neck on the chopping block.”

“Are you sure now?”

“Absolutely.”

*  *  *

At Buck’s direction, I went out in the garage and pulled down the sliding doors to all the stalls and locked the back entrance.

When I came back into the office, I drew down all the blinds as he instructed, and Buck had me hold the gun on Jeff while he used some rope and tied him to the chair where I had sat. When he was finished, I gave the gun back to Buck and he pushed it into his waistband and then together we lifted Jeff and the chair and carried him out of the office and into one of the empty stalls.

“What you doing?” Jeff said.

“Going to see you get washed down, Jeff,” Buck said.

I had no idea what Buck was talking about. I was just following his lead.

Buck got a bucket at the far end of the stall and filled it with water from a sink there, then he found a large, ragged-looking towel that was stained with grease, threw it over his shoulder, and carried the bucket over.

He sat the bucket down at the side of the chair. He took the towel off his shoulder and dunked it, kept hold of it with one hand, dipped it in and out of the pail a few times. Some of the water dripped on the floor. Buck took the towel and wrung it out between his big hands over the bucket.

Without so much as a “Shit, look out,” he swung the wet towel and cracked Jeff with it on the side of the head over the ear. The wet towel sprayed water over all of us, made a sound like a beaver tail slapping water, and turned the chair over with Jeff in it. Jeff let out a noise that made me sick to my stomach.

“Damn, Buck,” I said.

“You keep cool and quiet,” he said to me. He looked down at Jeff in the overturned chair, said, “Listen here, Jeffy. Done that to get you set for a question or two I got. Better answer right. I got a built-in bullshit detector, and I got this towel. Set him up, Danny.”

I took hold of the chair and rocked it upright. There was a little trail of blood coming out of Jeff’s ear.

“Going to go around on the other side now, so I can talk in your good ear,” Buck said.

“Jesus, Buck,” Jeff said. “Ain’t never done nothing to you.”

“You hurt my feelings, sucking up to the man like you do. The Parkers. City council.”

“Just getting by, Buck. You know that. You know how we all got to do?”

“You like doing it more than the rest of us.”

“It’s how things is, man.”

“Here’s how things is, Jeff. I’m going to ask you questions, and every time you don’t answer me or throw out some honey, I’m going to whack you with this fucking towel. You’d think water on a towel wouldn’t do much, but it’s quite the load. I learned this bit from some cops in Tyler. Before that, I was a tunnel rat in Vietnam, you know that, Jeff? I had some bad events happen there. Joined the rats to keep them from sending the dogs down, which is how they first did it. Dogs didn’t deserve that, considering what happened to them down there. Made me sort of mean, doing that work. And I can be damn mean when I need to be, Jeff.”

“Done seen that mean side,” Jeff said.

“Have indeed. I thought what I did in Nam was worth noting, but where I learned this little trick with the wet towel, well, that was those Tyler cops I was saying about. They picked me up and cross-examined me in a jail cell with a weak overhead light for a couple days before they figured out I was the wrong man.”

“That’s some shit there, Buck,” Jeff said, trying to get on Buck’s team. “Way they treated you.”

“They got the man they wanted because he came in and confessed. Heavy conscience, some shit, felt he had to get it off his chest. Didn’t even look like me. Shorter, slope-shouldered, had an ass like a cheap bleacher cushion. You know what was really special after I’d had me a wet hard time for two days? He was white. They picked me up, brought me in, put me in a jail cell tied to a chair, same as you, with a bucket of water and a towel and a big ol’ cracker that could have thrown a shotput from first base over the home-run fence. He did some work on me. First fifteen minutes I’m there, I shit myself, confessed to two robberies, animal fornication, and car theft, and I hadn’t done any of them. I mean, shit, I told them a story about fucking a chicken or a duck or some such. I think I threw a sheep in there. I thought about adding in a whole herd of cows. You see, it hurt when they whacked me with that goddamn wet towel, so I fibbed. But Jeff, I know you. Know how you are. You lie to me, I’ll know it. You feeling me here, Jefferson Davis?”

“Don’t do me like this, brother.”

The towel whirled up and came down on the top of Jeff’s head, hard. Beads of water flew, made glowing blobs in the light. The blow caused Jeff’s chin to drop to his chest, and then it sprung back up like an accordion.

When Jeff had gathered himself, he said, “Fuck, man. Jesus, Buck. Jesus.”

“You’re going to see him soon,” Buck said.

“You ain’t even asked me a question.”

“You know, you’re right. Thought I had.”

“I don’t know about this, Buck,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it bothers you so much, go in the office, stand in front of the fan, and wait until I get tired or finished. Get the calendar off the wall there, take it with you. Got some tissues on the desk.”

“This isn’t even your problem,” I said.

“You made it my problem. Hearing what you told me, I’m full up with it. Realized I’m eating a lot more shit than I thought I was.”

Jeff hadn’t been hit but twice, but he looked within two more blows of a cheap funeral.

Buck said, “Before I go farther, Jeff, before I ask that first question, something goes wrong here, that sister that brought you, is she your best pick for next of kin? I’m already coming up with some kind of accident you might have had, like getting caught in a fucking car wash.”

“What you want to know?” Jeff said. “Come on, man. Ask me.”

Buck had gone back to the bucket and was soaking the towel again. He carefully twisted it out between his fists and kept the roll in it. He widened his stance and stood in front of Jeff and let the towel swing back behind him.

“Ask me, man. Ask any goddamn thing.”

“All right,” Buck said. “And think your answer over carefully. I want to see a fucking light bulb above your head glowing with thought. Danny, he had a talk with the city council today. They had some plans for him last night, didn’t they? Don’t even think about pulling my wing-wang on this. Talk to me.”

“Me and Coolie was supposed to break him up a little, maybe just wipe him off the map. Then that big son of a bitch showed up and juked on us. Put the towel down, Buck. I’m talking.”

Buck looked at me. “Got another question for him?”

“You know what’s going on out there, don’t you?” I said to Jeff.

“Naw, I don’t know all that close-up shit.”

Buck swirled the towel in the air and cracked it like a whip and it hit Jeff under the jaw and knocked the chair over.

“Fuck,” Jeff said.

“Would you mind setting that up again,” Buck said. “Next one. Going to see I can flip him over twice.”

I set the chair up. Jeff coughed, and when he did a fine mist of blood flashed from his mouth and colored the air. A moment later the mist was on the floor in tiny drops.

“That last part, that was some bullshit pulled fresh from the bull’s ass,” Buck said, leaning over and placing his face close to Jeff’s. “I know you.”

“Man, we done been fishing together,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t enjoy it. I’ve known you all my life, Jeff, and I got to tell you, I’ve never liked you.”

Jeff leaned over and spat blood on the floor. “That hurts my feelings, Buck. You used to fuck my cousin. You remember her—Jill…Jenny.”

“Jessica,” Buck said.

“I ain’t got no more to say,” Jeff said. “Go on and finish me off, but don’t use that fucking towel no more.”

“I like the towel. Do I like the towel, Danny?”

“Seem to.”

Buck leaned back and flung the towel out behind him, gritted his teeth.

Jeff said, “All right, now, white man. Ask me that question again. One I answered wrong.”

“He’s talking to you,” Buck said.

“White man part clued me in,” I said. “Insurance policies, Jeff. Tell me about it.”

“I don’t get up in their business. I just do what they need when they need it. Pay me good to do that.”

“I didn’t hear you mention insurance,” Buck said. “He asked about insurance.”

Jeff’s face was popped with streams of sweat and beads of water from the towel, droplets of blood. “I’m down on the edge already. I tip off it, I got a long way to fall.”

Buck moved and the towel whirled out and popped the air and a rain of water sprayed on all of us. The sudden pop of that towel almost made me scream.

“You aren’t as close to the edge as you’re about to be,” Buck said.

“All right, all right…shit, tell you this stuff, I got to leave town and keep going.”

“I’m okay with that,” Buck said.

“They got them this ceremony. Bring out this fucking creosote log got a face whittled on it. Set that up, that means its insurance-money time. Got this chair with holes in the back of it, and they bring out a doped-up guest to sit in it. They slip a rope through them holes in the chair and around the guest’s neck, and then this stick gets twisted, slow-like, while them farts sit at a table and watch it done. Take photographs, film the whole thing with a home-movie camera. Them old dead eyes start to glow then. One time, they didn’t have nobody in mind, so they insured a stray dog, strangled it, and you can bet that policy paid off. Ain’t nobody can get to them. They got a wall of protection, they want it. They say a stick is a pickle, then you might as well put it on a sandwich. Not like the law is looking to know anything. They are the law.”

“Your buddy Coolie being some of that law,” I said.

“We work together, but we don’t hang together. Comes down to a get-together at the club, I just serve drinks and try to act like what they’re doing isn’t all that nuts. All in a day’s or night’s work. I got bills, and the council’s got steady dough. Beats digging potatoes or wiping asses at the old folks’ home or mowing lawns. You get used to that money, and you can get used to money right easy. It’s a happy habit. I might as well stay as happy and helpful as I can, ’cause I figure somewhere they got a policy on me. I’m just not wanting them to collect it just yet.”

“Between the three of them they couldn’t turn a doorknob,” I said. “Who does the strangling?”

“Mr. Jack Jr. these days. He’d beat a baby to death with a baby rattle for the fun of it. They’re all that way, every one of them, but Jack Jr., he’s only one young enough to turn that stick and tighten the rope these days. He’s like a big ol’ bear. Only time I ever seen him smile is when he’s turning that stick. Let me tell you something, white boy, they got them a policy with your name on it, and you done signed it and don’t even know it.”

“I’m finished with the questions,” I said.

Buck dropped the towel in the bucket, splashing water.

“What about me?” Jeff said. “Gonna leave me tied to this chair?”

“Could be your new home,” Buck said.