'Been going well?' I said.
'Now I know why you hang around with a black guy. So in case you have a flat, you got someone can change the tire.'
'It's your car.'
'Your fault I'm down here.'
'All right, you found me out. I like me a black fella to change tires.'
'And chauffeur.'
'That's right, and chauffeur. I think the ethnics should know their place.'
'You so right, boss, and I is proud to serve you.'
'Actually, I don't know how to break this to you, Leonard, but I only hang out with black guys when I can't find a Filipino.'
'You tighten the bolts. You're not getting out of this scot-free.'
He put the jack in the trunk and gave me the tire iron. While I was tightening the bolts, he said, 'We could go home. Not even pick up our gear. Just drive out of here and forget all this business.'
'We could,' I said. I didn't want to admit it, since I was the one who got us into this, but I had been thinking pretty much the same.
'We could go to jail that money doesn't turn out to be the kind of money Howard says it is.'
'If there is any money.'
'Yeah, if there is any money.'
'But there isn't a thing happening at the rose fields now, and I can't think of another line of work we could go into.'
'There's always shit work,' Leonard said. 'It isn't like we're some kind of professionals.'
I finished the bolts and put the tool in the trunk, positioned the ruined tire between the oxygen tanks and the diving suits, and closed up. 'I leave it to you, Leonard. Whatever you want, that's fine by me.'
He thought that over. 'Really, any of this familiar to you?'
'I remember part of the road we came in on,' I said. 'Outside of that, I could be on Venus.'
'That's not encouraging.'
'No, it isn't.'
He thought some more, said, 'Tell you what. We'll give it, say, three days for you to start seeing if something's familiar. You see something you recognize, we'll go longer. We find the bridge, maybe we'll look a few days, we still feel like it. Don't come across the boat or signs of it pretty quick, we'll go home.'
'Deal,' I said.
Chapter 13
Just before dark we drove back to Marvel Creek, stopped at Bill's Kettle, had a hamburger, bought a six-pack of Lone Star at a cut-rate store, and started back to the Sixties Nest, as Leonard called it.
We found ourselves following the jaundice-yellow Volvo that lived in the yard of the Sixties Nest, and we pursued it to the house and parked behind it.
Howard got out of the car. We kept our seats and drank our beer, observed him like aliens examining an inferior species through the portal of a flying saucer.
He was wearing slightly greasy blue work clothes with a patch over the left shirt pocket. I couldn't tell from where I sat, but my bet was his name was stitched into the patch.
He looked at us a moment and went into the house.
'Looks to have been a tough day at the old job site,' I said.
'I know it's got to be the same with you,' Leonard said. 'I can't make up my mind. Is it him or Chub I like best?'
'They both have a lot of charisma,' I said.
We went inside. Paco was sitting on one of the fold-out chairs grinning his false teeth. Trudy was sitting on the couch. She had her legs and arms crossed. She looked as if she could crack walnuts with her asshole.
An unjustified strain of guilt went through me. I felt like a husband whose wife had just found rubbers in his wallet.
The guilt went away when Howard and Chub came into the room. Chub didn't bother me, really. He couldn't help being a jerk. But Howard was a self-made man in that department.
Chub went over to the couch and sat down. Howard crossed his arms and held his ground in the middle of the room and glared at us. His eyes roved a little to his right to check out his audience; the teacher was about to make an example of us.
I wanted desperately to knee him in the nuts.
'I thought there was an understanding that you were working with us,' Howard said.
'We forget to punch the clock or something?' Leonard said.
