Out in the parking lot, I said, “That went well, don’t you think? Seldom have I seen two people warm to each other so quickly.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Bet me and Fitzgerald ride together to the next Baptist convention.”
17.
East Texas weather, being the way it is, by the time we got back from the church to the house, ready for lunch, it changed. Before we could get mustard plastered on our ham sandwiches, the hot, blinding sunlight was sacked by hard-blowing clouds out of the west. They swept down black and vicious and brought with them Zorro slashes of lightning and lug bolts of rain.
The rain fell cool and solid for two days, hammered the house, churned pea gravel out of the driveway, broke loose the packed red clay beneath, and ran it in bloody swirls beneath the porch and on either side of the house to collect in the sun-burned grass like gore in a crew cut.
The rain was so constant the birds quit hiding. You could hear them singing and chirping between flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder. Not a good sign. It meant the rain would continue, and most likely for some time. Outside, except when lightning zippered open the sky, it was black as the high stroke of midnight on a moonless night.
On the second day of the rain, late afternoon, I glanced up from reading The Hereafter Gang by lamplight and looked at Leonard’s hard profile framed before the living-room window. He had pulled a hard-backed chair there and assumed the position of The Thinker, elbow on knee, fist under chin. He was observing the rain, and I watched as a snake tongue of blue-white lightning licked the outside air above and beyond the bars and strobed his skin momentarily blue. Inside the house, the air became laced with sulfurous-smelling ozone, and I could feel my hide and hair crackle like hot cellophane.
Leonard looked at me. “You told Florida to stay home?”
“Sure, but she listens way you listen. Not at all.”
“Then she ought to be here pretty soon?”
“If she didn’t run off in a ditch.”
Earlier, bored out of my mind and tired of working on the flooring with Leonard, I’d braved the storm with a flimsy umbrella and gone over to MeMaw’s and used her phone and called Florida at her office.
Turned out Florida was doing almost as much business as a nun in a whorehouse. She wanted to come by and eat supper with us. I tried to talk her out of it, the weather being like it was, but she told me she was coming anyway and she’d bring a big Pepsi. I wondered if that was some kind of bribe.
I left MeMaw’s after being happily force-fed a slice of fresh cornbread slathered in butter, and waded back to the house through ankle-deep water that flooded down the street and tried to trip me.
Back inside and dried off, I looked at my watch and calculated when I had talked to Florida and told her not to come and she’d told me she was coming. I computed the normal rate of travel from her office to Uncle Chester’s, doubled it because of the rain.
“She doesn’t show in a few minutes, I’m going to look for her,” I said.
“Then I’ll have to go look for you,” Leonard said. “You drive for shit in bad weather.”
“You’re brooding, Leonard, my friend. What’s the problem?”
“I blew it with Fitzgerald.”
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. It was more like a nuclear disaster.”
“Just can’t stand shits like that guy, hiding behind the Bible and a church, judging everyone’s got a view doesn’t fit tight with his.”
“All you had to do was hold your tongue for five minutes and we’d have known where Illium’s house is. I think he knew exactly where he lived, but he didn’t entirely trust us. After we got what we wanted, you didn’t like the Reverend, we could have soaped his windows or shit on the lawn. Actually, I thought the old boy was pretty polite. He’s at least trying to deal with his community’s problems, and I guess religion is a better way than nothing. Truth is, you were itching for a fight.”
“Have me shot, will you?”
“Not the first thing you’ve fucked up. I can think of all kinds of stuff.”
“Thanks, Hap.”
“Seriously, pal. Reverend’s not the only one knows where Illium lives. It’s not like he’s hiding. We’ll find him when the rain stops.”
About ten minutes later, I heard a car sluicing through the rain. I went to the front door and opened it. The rain was like a steel-beaded curtain hanging off and all around the porch. It slammed the ground with a sound like ball bearings. The wind was the coolest it had been since last fall.
I could see car lights in the drive, and they were all I could see. They went out, I heard a door slam, a black umbrella and a yellow, hooded rain slicker split the curtain of water, and Florida was on the porch, her beautiful face staring out of the slit in the slicker hood. She grinned and held the umbrella down and shook it and collapsed it and leaned it against the wall next to the door.
“Hi,” she said.
“You should have stayed home,” I said.
“Good to see you too.”
We went inside.
“Hello, Leonard,” Florida said.
“Florida,” Leonard said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t get out in this. We been worried.”
Florida slipped off her raincoat, and I hung it on a wood-frame chair by the door. She had on laced workboots, blue jeans, and a loose-fitting plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Under the coat she had been carrying a cloth bag. She sat it on the seat of the chair and spread the mouth of it and pulled out a three-liter Pepsi and a bag of those vanilla cookies Leonard likes.
“Hap told me you were nuts for these,” she said to Leonard.
Leonard got up and took a look. “He’s right. Thanks.” He hugged her.
“You know I’m sorry how things are,” she said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Thanks.”
“First time I haven’t seen you in a dress, Florida,” I said.
“I was doing office cleaning,” Florida said. “I felt like grubbies. Make us some cocoa or something, Hap. I don’t think I’m ready for Pepsi.”
“It’s coffee or tea or slightly curdled milk warmed on the stove,” I said. “Take your pick.”
“That curdled milk sounds good,” Florida said, “but guess I’ll go for the tea.”
I made us a pot of tea, and we were sitting at the kitchen table drinking and eating cookies instead of having supper, when I heard another car come up in the drive.
“Would you get it?” Leonard said. “I’m kind of comfortable next to the cookies.”
“Yassuh, Massuh Leonard, I’s on it.”
I went to the door and opened it and a big shape in a black slicker mounted the porch. He looked a little like the Spirit of Christmas Future. He pushed back the hood of the slicker and smiled at me. It was Lieutenant Hanson.
“Come in,” I said.
Hanson slipped off the slicker, and I took it and led him inside. I hung the slicker over a chair and let the water from it puddle on the floor. I said, “Hey, gang, look who’s here.”
“Damn,” Leonard said, looking through the dividing space between kitchen and living room, “if it ain’t Sherlock Holmes, and come all the way in the rain just to visit. Can I hold your gun, sir?”
“No,” Hanson said, “but you can wear my badge a little while, you promise not to lose it.”
Hanson and I went into the kitchen, and Hanson smiled broadly and said, “Hi, Florida.”
“Hi, Marvin.” Florida had a pretty big smile herself.
“You two know each other?” I said.
“We’ve met a time or two,” Hanson said. “I’ve arrested a couple of her clients.” Hanson nodded toward the
