Cypress Grove Part 18

She had gla.s.ses shaped like teardrops, permed hair that put me in mind of those flat plastic french curves we used in high-school geometry cla.s.s.

"Matties part of the family," the mayor said. That peculiar, Faulknerian thing so many southerners espouse. It's always a.s.sumed you know what they mean. If you ask questions, they swallow their ears.

Mattie brought in platters of fried chicken and sweet corn dripping with b.u.t.ter, bowls of mashed potatoes, collard greens and sawmill gravy, a plate of fresh biscuits and cornbread. Two pitchers of sweet iced tea.

"You-all need anything else right now, Mister Henry?"

"How could we? Looks wonderful."

"Reckon I'll start in on the kitchen, then."

The mayor set his unfinished bourbon alongside his tea gla.s.s. We'd been having drinks on the patio when Mattie called us in to dinner. Mine was a sweet white wine from one of those boxes that fits in the refrigerator and has a nozzle. You milk it like a cow.

Out on the patio the mayor had given me a thick manila envelope.

"Here's everything I could find. Won't claim it's complete."

"Okay if I give you a call once I've had a chance to look through it?"

"Don't know as I'd be able to add much, but sure."

Dinner-table conversation took in the high-school football team, how the mayor's wife was doing, a bevy of local issues ranging from vandalism at the city park and cemetery to the chance of a Wal-Mart, the latest scandal surrounding a longtime state congressman, the status of our investigation.

"Do the initials BR mean anything to you?" I asked.

The mayor, who a moment ago had been arguing pa.s.sionately that the town had to bring in new blood, leaned back in his chair. He'd been to the well for more bourbon and now sat sipping it. Dinner was a ruin, a shambles, on the table before us.

"Should they?"

"I don't know. . . . Maybe I'll take some of that bourbon after all, if you don't mind."

The mayor stood. "Lonnie?"

"Why not?"

He came back with two crystalline gla.s.ses maybe a quarter full. He'd replenished his own as well. We strayed back out onto the patio.

"Thing is," I said, "Carl Hazelwood's murder has . . . what university types would call resonance. The circ.u.mstances of his death match those of a movie called The Giving." I held my arms above my head, wrists turned out. "Man dies like that. Like Carl Hazelwood. Don't suppose you've seen it."

"Haven't even heard of it."

"Yeah, it's obscure, all right. What they call a cult movie these days. Actor playing the man who dies, his name was Sammy Cash. No one knows who the director was. Went just by his initials: BR."

I dropped it then. We cruised through another half-hour or so of pleasantries before the sheriff and I took our leave. Mattie waved from the front window.

"So?" Bates said.

"So, what?"

He glanced sideways, grinning.

"Okay, okay I saw something, picked up on something, when I was talking about the film. I'm just not sure what."

"Mayor's gone out of his way to be of help on this. Not like Henry Lee to be so accommodating."

"What does that mean?"

"Jesus, man, is this what happens when you go to college-just like my parents said? You have to always be asking what everything means? I said what I meant."

Bouncing on ruts, we made our way towards the main road ahead. We'd reach it someday. Smooth sailing from there on out.

In the distance four loud cracks sounded.

"G.o.d, I hope that's someone setting off fireworks for a holiday I forgot."

His beeper sounded.

"There goes hope."

Chapter Twenty-eight.

BIG DOG AND B-SIDE turned up again a couple of days later, just after eight in the morning.

"Sure hope we didn't wake you."

"Nope. First thing I do every morning, get the day started right, is sit around without clothes on watching the news. Like to keep up."

"We brought some news about your friend Roy Branning."

"Hardly my friend."

"Hardly anybody's," B-side said.

"Seems he may have been put down by one of his . . . a.s.sociates. Nothing to do with you. What do you think?"

"I don't, before noon."

"We got on to this the way we get on to most things. Guy we see regularly, what we call a CI, heard some loose talk in a bar, pa.s.sed it on. But then, you know about CIs."

We were still standing in the doorway, where my clothes weren't. When a young couple pa.s.sed on the balcony, the girl did a double take. I felt my p.e.n.i.s stiffen.

"Don't draw your weapon unless you're prepared to use it," B-side said.

Funny stuff.

Big Dog glared at him.

"We know about you, Turner. Word's come down to leave you alone, though. We don't much like that."

"Who would?"

"Right." He stepped back, forcing B-side to scramble out of his way. "Who would like that? Or for that matter, who'd give enough of a s.h.i.t to pay attention to what some desk jockey wants, you know? Anyone wants this job can have it. h.e.l.l, I'll gift-wrap it for them, got a nice pink ribbon I've saved." He half-lifted one hand in mock benediction. "Be seeing you, Turner."

I went back to bed and was enjoying a luscious meal at a sw.a.n.k restaurant, accompanied by a woman every bit as luscious and sw.a.n.k, when a knock reached in and hauled me out of the dream.

"You Turner?" the small man asked. Something wrong with his spine, as though at some formative point he'd been gripped at head and hips and twisted. Dark hair grew low on his forehead, only a narrow verge of scaly skin separating it from the hedge of eyebrow. Cotton sweater with sleeves and waist rolled, cheap jeans with huge wide legs. "Something for you."

He handed me an envelope.

"Just out?" I said.

"Three days."

"Want to come in, have a drink?"

"Wouldn't say no." He pulled the door closed behind him. "Name's Hogg."

He kept watching me. After a moment I said, "What?"

"I was waiting for the jokes."

"Fresh out of them. Bottle's by the sink in the bathroom. Help yourself. Ice from the machine out by the landing if you want it."

"Ice. Know I'm back in the real world now."

He came out with two plastic gla.s.ses of brandy as I was reading the note.

d.a.m.n, man, you say you'll take a message out, you mean it! Guess Roy won't have to be worrying about my getting out no longer. RIP and all that c.r.a.p. Now I'll have to come out and get right on finding that money. Thanks again for carrying for me. Good man. Good luck.

Billy D "Not that I mind drinking alone," Hogg said, putting a cup down by me. "Alone. In a crowd. With camels.'' His eyes looked as though they'd been separated at birth and spent their independent lives searching for one another. I lifted the cup in salute or in thanks and drank.

"Got anything lined up?"

"Sure I do. Ninety percent of it'll fall apart before I even get there, way it usually does."

"How many years you pull?"

"Ten to fifteen on my head, little over four underfoot-this time. Met some punk in a bar, both of us half drunk, heard all about his easy score, next thing I know I'm back on the boards. d.a.m.ned embarra.s.sing. Here I am, supposed to be a pro."

"How'd you find me?"

"I was told where to come."

"Billy D?"

He nodded and, downing what was left of the brandy stood.

"You're welcome to stay."

"Thanks. But that'll do me." At the door he paused. "You're the cop, right?"

"I was."

"Couldn't have been easy for you inside."

"It's tough for everyone."

Hogg nodded. "I heard about you. You did okay. You helped a lot of people."

My hubris.

Though never in all the years before or since have I needed the excuse of it to make an absolute mess of things.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n IT, Sue, just put the gun down."

She sat on the porch swing, shotgun cradled like a newborn in her arm.

"Where'd you get that thing anyway?"

"It's mine fair and square, Lonnie, don't you worry. I traded for it."

"Alban's hurt. Sue."

"Well I sure as h.e.l.l do hope so."

"We need to get him help."

"Maybe his girlfriend could help. Why don't you go find her? She'll be hanging around the church somewhere."

The porch was bare boards, couple of feet off the ground, and ran across the whole front of the cabin. The steps were poured cement. They didn't quite match up with anything-ground or porch. Alban lay slumped against them.