peckerwoods. They expect it.”
“I suppose,” Florida Grange said. “Anyway, that’s something I can tell you about him, but that’s about all.”
I could tell Leonard was secretly pleased. It fit his memory of his Uncle Chester. Strong and upright, didn’t take shit from anyone.
Grange had him fill out some papers and gave him some to take with him. By the time they were finished, the dentist drill had begun to whine.
“I’m sorry,” Florida Grange said. “Let’s go out in the hall.”
We went. Leonard said, “I guess I don’t really have anything else to ask, Miss Grange. Sorry I pulled you out here.”
“I’m tired of the drill anyway,” she said. “And if you’re going by Leonard, call me Florida.”
“OK, Florida. Thanks.”
“You have any other questions, give me a call,” she said.
“Is it OK I ask a question?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Anyone significant in your life right now?”
“Not really.”
“Any possibility of me taking you to dinner?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Collins.”
“I clean up pretty good.”
“I’m sure you do, but I think not. Thanks for asking.”
On the way down in the elevator, Leonard said, “Hap Collins, Lady Killer.”
6.
In the car, while Leonard drove, I looked through the contents of the envelope.
“Anything there mean anything?” Leonard asked.
“Got a bunch of pizza coupons. Some for Burger King. And you get real hungry, we can buy one dinner, get one free at Lupe’s Mexican Restaurant.”
“That’s it? Coupons?”
“Yep.”
“Christ, he must have been losing it.”
“I don’t know. Coupons save lots of money. I use them. I figured up once I’d saved enough on what I’d normally have spent on stuff to buy a used television set.”
“Color?”
“Black and white. But I bought some Diet Pepsi and pork skins instead.”
“Coupons seem a strange thing for Uncle Chester to give to a lawyer to hold for me. He could have left that stuff on the kitchen table.”
“Maybe he wasn’t thinking correctly. Coupons could have taken on valuable import. And the key was with them.”
“Goes to a bank safety-deposit box, I figure.”
“You said that, Sherlock.”
“We’ll check it out right now.”
“Leonard?”
“Yeah.”
“These coupons, I just noticed, they’re a couple years expired.”
Inside the LaBorde Main-and-North First National Bank, I took a chair and Leonard spoke to a clerk. The clerk sent him to a gray-haired lady at a desk. Leonard leaned on his cane and showed her the key and some of the papers Florida Grange had given him. The lady nodded, gave him back the key, got up, and walked him to a barred doorway. A guard inside the bars was signaled. He opened the door and Leonard went inside and the guard locked it behind him. A few moments later, Leonard was let out carrying a large manila envelope and a larger parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine.
“You’ll love this,” he said, and held up the envelope. “Inside’s a paperback copy of Dracula and a fistful of newspaper clippings, and guess what? Another key. There’s not a clue what it goes to. Uncle Chester’s brain must have got so he didn’t know his nuts from a couple acorns.”
“What about that?” I said, indicating the larger parcel.
“I opened it already.”
“I can tell that by the way the twine is rewrapped. What is it?”
Leonard was hesitant. “Well…” He took it over to one of the tables and untied the twine and unwrapped the package. It was a painting. A good painting. It was shadowy and showed a weathered two-story gothic-style house surrounded by trees; fact was, the trees grew so thick they seemed to imprison the house.
“Your uncle do this?”
“I did. When I was sixteen.”
“No joke?”
“No joke. I used to want to paint. I did this for Uncle Chester’s birthday. Maybe he’s giving it back to me now, letting me know things aren’t really forgiven.”
“He’s certainly giving you other things. Money. The house.”
“Coupons and a copy of Dracula.”
“That’s right. Is that all there was? Nothing else?”
“Nothing, besides the fact you’re right. There’s the house and I’m gonna get one hundred thousand dollars and you aren’t.”
So, I thought Leonard was gonna be richer, and that would be all right, and we’d go back to normal, except for him not working in the rose fields, and me, I’d be heading on back to the house and back to the fields, provided I could get my old job again, or another just like it, and Leonard, he’d be putting his uncle’s place up for sale and living off that and his inheritance, maybe put the dough into some kind of business.
I was sad for Leonard in one way, losing a loved one, but in another, that Uncle Chester was a sonofabitch far as I was concerned, way he treated Leonard, and I was glad Leonard had gotten some money and a house to sell, and a secret part of me was glad the old sonofabitch was dead and buried and out of sight.
So, that afternoon after seeing the pretty lawyer who wouldn’t go out with me, Leonard drove me home and dropped me off and went away. I figured he was at his place, his feet propped up, listening to Dwight Yoakam or Hank Williams or Patsy Cline, smoking his pipe full of cherrytinted tobacco, perhaps reading his uncle’s copy of Dracula or contemplating his loss and gain, wondering what he’d end up doing with his money.
In the long run, except for the fact he was gonna wither and die like everybody else ever born, I figured things for him were going to be fine as things can get fine.
But I hadn’t counted on the black cloud of fate.
7.
The black cloud of fate came with rain, of course.
Two days later, early afternoon, I was sitting on my front porch taking in the cool wind and the view. One moment there was just the same red, empty road that runs by Leonard’s place, and beyond it, great pines and oaks and twists of vines, and above it all, clouds as white and smooth as God’s own whiskers, and the next moment, the wind abruptly changed direction, blew harder from the north, turned damp and sticky, and the clouds began to roll
