'But you have my goodwill, Leonard.'
'I been wanting that something furious.'
'You rent this stuff, won't it blow our cover?'
'Hap, my good but dumb man. We aren't going to tell what we want it for. Just say we want the experience of a cold-water dive. They don't give a damn if we drown or turn to ice cubes, long as we pay down good, give them enough to buy new equipment if we lose it.'
'Leonard, you are my hero. When I grow up I want to be just like you. Can I, huh, can I?'
'Need some black paint first, but that isn't gonna make you as pretty. And it would be nice if you were a lot less stupid. Come on. I need to call Calvin and see if he'll feed my dogs while I'm gone. Then I've got to cry over using all my money to finance this dumb idea. Stick close, now. Never know when I might say something wise.'
Chapter 6
When I awoke the next morning, I could hear the wind wolf-howling through the eaves of the house and the pines out beyond the field. At night I seldom kept the heat going, due to the price of butane, and the room was cold enough to make an Eskimo shiver.
I got up and put on my robe and padded through the morning air, blowing out puffs of whiteness as I went.
I looked out the window. The trees and the ground were iced over and there were flakes of snow mixed with sleet. Quite a rarity for East Texas. Most of the time you didn't even know it was winter; generally the winters were exaggerated falls. But this year was different. The cold had blown in hard and vicious on the very day I was supposed to start toward making some money. A wiser man would have considered it an omen.
I wanted to go back to bed, but instead I struggled to the kitchen, got matches and lit all the heaters, the one in the bedroom last. Even then, with my butt backed up to the heat, I was tempted to climb under the blankets again and snuggle close to Trudy. But it might not have been any warmer under there. She certainly hadn't been warm last night. She made love like I was paying for it and she had more customers in line, some of them important. I attempted to bring her to orgasm, but it was like trying to conquer Everest in Bermuda shorts. She wasn't having any. She wanted me to rut and feel cheap and miserable, and I did. But I have no pride and came anyway. When I finished, she rolled from beneath and turned with her back to me. I put my hand on her hip, but she didn't move or say anything. I might as well have been stroking a marble tombstone.
Suddenly I felt sorry for Howard. Like me, he didn't have a chance with a gal like Trudy. Not really. She ruled us with brains and passion and her downy triangle. It was damn demeaning is what it was.
I dressed and put on my coat and went outside and looked to see if the water in my truck's radiator was frozen. It wasn't. There had been enough antifreeze in there, and I had parked it on the south side with the bumper pressed against the house and had put an old horse blanket over the hood.
I got pliers out from behind the truck seat, put the blanket under the truck from the side, crawled on top of it and worked the radiator screw loose so it would drain. This way, if I was gone for some time, I wouldn't have to worry about the cold defeating the antifreeze and blowing my ancient radiator to pieces.
I returned the blanket to the hood and found a couple rocks to put on top of it in case of high winds, then went out to the edge of my property and pried up the water cover and turned off the water valve with the pliers. I put the pliers back, went in the house and locked the windows and back door, drained the water out of the faucets, cut down the water heater, and when I heard Leonard coming, cut off the butane heaters. The air chilled immediately.
I got my gear I had packed last night and brought it into the living room and placed it by the door.
Trudy had got up and dressed during the time I was outside, and all the while I made my inside preparations, she sat on my ratty couch and looked at the wall. Didn't say a word. Didn't look to be breathing.
Leonard stepped inside, looked at Trudy, then me. 'I can tell now this is gonna to be fun.'
'Trudy, you taking your car?' I asked.
'I'll come for it later. I'm no good driving on ice.'
'Your VW hasn't got a radiator to bust,' Leonard said, 'but you might want to put it in my barn just the same. There's some folks in these parts might not mind stealing a car they don't know.'
'What about the diving equipment?' I asked.
'In the trunk. Went in and got it yesterday, and they weren't even open. Had to talk a blue streak and wave some extra money around to get the owner out of his house and down to the shop. You owe me a hundred bucks, Hap.'
'Put it on my bill.'
'Man, your credit level is way topped out.... Look, we wait a few days on this, things will be better. Ice will have blown out.'
'Howard is expecting me,' Trudy said. 'And I have to work tomorrow.'
'Work?' I said.
'You know. You go to a job you hate, and they pay you money for it. You think I'm kept, Hap? Contrary to what Leonard here wants you to think, I'm not a concubine.'
Over at Leonard's place, Trudy parked the Volkswagen in the barn and Leonard made up his special dog food from three different brands, poured the contents of the feed sacks into a plastic garbage can, a little bit of each, a smidgen at a time, mixing it evenly.
While he did that, Trudy walked out to the dog pens and I followed. I felt like I ought to say something, but didn't know what. She had a way of making me feel like a jerk when I hadn't done anything. We both stood by the dog pens and waited on Leonard. We were at the end opposite Switch's run, and Trudy had her fingers poked through the wire and was scratching the nose of a dog named Cal, cooing sweet things to him. The dog was eating
