'Comes to your ex-wife, I get paranoid.'
'She's a pain in the ass, overly idealistic, but she isn't going to ambush us.'
'I don't know what she might get us into. I think she leaps before she looks, and I don't know this Howard guy from nothing. He got pals, or are we the only fools in on this?'
'She said there were two others—idealists all. They're going to take their shares of the capitalistic banker's money and give it to a good cause.'
'No shit? What cause?'
'Save the seals, I guess. Maybe the whales. Hell, I don't know. She didn't say.'
'I get any money out of this, I'm gonna put it to a good cause too. Me. The seals got to fend for themselves. They don't have bills to pay.'
'I hear that.'
Leonard went over to the scarred fireplace mantle, got his pipe and tobacco down, and sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace. He pulled a long fireplace match out of a metal cuspidor by the hearth and put it in his lap. He packed his pipe quickly and expertly, pulled the match over the fireplace brick and lit it. He puffed and considered me.
'How did I let you talk me into this?'
'My perky ass had something to do with it. Christ, Leonard, perky ass?'
'I came up with that because I thought it would annoy Trudy.'
'You being alive annoys her.'
'Old Man Lacy is gonna be needing field hands in a few days, and he'll call, and I won't be here. I'll be wasting my savings trying to find a pipe dream in the Sabine River. Get back from this with no money and my tail between my legs, I might be out of a job permanently.'
'There's always room for field hands. Look, we're out of that crap. I think we should go out and do something, even if it's wrong.'
'And it is. That's stolen money.'
'All this time has gone by, the insurance company is bound to have paid off, and if it's laundered, no sweat.'
'How are we to know one way or another? It might all be marked stuff, or whatever it is they do to trace money.'
'We'll take our share to Mexico. We can make some deals down there. We might have to lose a few thousand to get it changed to pesos, no questions asked, but we can do it. We can stay there awhile. The money will be worth ten times what it is here. We can buy senors for you and senoritas for me. We can get drunk on Mexican beer.'
'I can't go off and leave my dogs.'
'Fuck it, I'll go down there, get the money changed and mail you your half in pesos and you can get it changed to dollars.... Bring you and your goddamn dogs down there for a vacation. I'll get them some of those little Mexican dogs to date. There's some way to do business. Bank robbers do it all the time.'
'You been giving this some thought. Usually Trudy comes around and you're ready to join the Peace Corps, tie yourself to a pine and save it from a chainsaw.'
'Bottom's fallen out of my convictions. Trudy's got me thinking again, all right, and maybe last night she had me thinking the way she wanted, but not today.'
'Like I said, Hap, it's your glands. You got more control over them in the daylight. But come sundown and you're home in bed between her legs, you might sing some different notes.'
'No, she's got Howard on a string too. I can stand her coming back to me if I can fool myself for a while, but I won't sit around and let her swing from one end of the string to the other.'
'I didn't think it was a string she was swinging on.'
'I'm going to make some jack out of this, then slide on out.'
'Won't be easy. You been a bleeding heart a long time.'
'This heart's bled out. Gone dry as toast. You don't think so, hide in the bushes and watch me head for Mexico.'
Leonard grinned at me. 'After all I've said about you being such a sap, don't know if you suit me much this way. You make me a little nervous. You being Trudy's patsy is what makes you adorable. There's a kind of ignorant charm about it. Like having a big dumb pup around that hasn't quite learned to quit shitting off its papers.'
'That's sweet, Leonard. I'll try to remember that.'
We decided to take Leonard's old blue Buick instead of my pickup. Trudy could go with us if she wanted, or go ahead in her Volkswagen. Whatever suited her. We loaded Leonard's suitcase, rifle, ammo, and bedding into the Buick's trunk, then tossed in some rope and camping supplies, just in case.
'We'll need some diving equipment,' Leonard said. 'Dry suits, I figure. Wet suits are probably too cold in this weather, not that a dry suit is much better. They hold pockets of air and pinch you.'
'You know more about this stuff than I thought.'
'Just enough to get us drowned. But I do know this: cold as the water is right now, it'll deaden your brain. Though in your case, that may not be a new experience. I know this too: it's my goddamn savings we're using to rent this stuff.'
