'You certainly sound close, you and your nigger friends. Chief, anyone ever tell you guys you might be a little out of step? Behind the times?'
'Yeah, and we don't give a flying shit.'
'You've heard of civil rights, of course?'
'Yeah, and I uphold them, they got to be upheld. That's what that gal was here about, some nigger's civil rights. Ain't my fault the stupid fuck hung himself.'
'I don't care about any of that. I just want to know about Florida.'
Cantuck paused, gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher. He said, 'Comely nigger. I've always said I'd fuck a nigger, but wouldn't tell anybody, but that one I'd fuck and maybe brag on it a time or two. She had an ass on her.'
Deep breath, Hap. He's just a stereotypical ignorant redneck. You've known them before. Nothing you say will alter their thinking. Nothing short of death will change them.
'You see,' I said, 'they work for me. Leonard and Florida. They're good workers, and now and then, well, me and her. Shit, Chief, after what you just said, you know what I mean.'
I grinned in what I hoped was a lecherous manner.
Cantuck smiled. 'My daddy used to tell me a nigger gal wasn't good for but one thing, and they were damn good at that. He was Chief here way back, and he dealt with a lot of niggers. Niger gals paid him a lot of fines in a special manner. If you know what I mean. I take after my old man in that department. I'll fuck anything that ain't nailed down and has a hole. In fact, when I was a boy, I tore the ass out of a few chickens putting the dick to 'em. Got so every time my mama found a dead chicken she'd take the belt to me, whether I did it or not. Pigs squealed at night, Mom came in my room and beat me.'
'No wonder you got a strained nut.'
'Yeah. Well, maybe that's what happened. I do dearly love to fuck . . . My nut really look bad?'
'Well, I was you, I'd get a truss or something. Shit, man, don't that hurt?'
'Not if I turn kinda casual like.'
'Not to dismiss a man's nuts too lightly, Chief, but where is Florida?'
'Hell, boy, it's gettin' cold out here. Let's you and me go sit in the car and talk.'
I got in on the passenger side. There was a shotgun on a rack between myself and Cantuck. He cranked the car and turned on the heater. On the dash, and stuck all about the car, there was
every kind of charity sticker you could imagine. Muscular dystrophy. Diabetes. Cancer.
'You give to all those charities?' I asked. 'Or do you just collect stickers?'
'I give,' he said. 'A dollar or two here and there. It ain't like I'm raking in the big bucks here, so I don't give much, but I give. I think it's something you ought to do. Christian charity. I had a son had MD. He died of it just last year. Since then, and even before, I can't stand to see nobody crippled, not even a nagger.'
He sat quietly for a moment, staring at the MD sticker. 'That boy of mine,' he said. 'Jimmy. He got so bad, only way he could get around was me totin' him. He was eleven. My youngest. Damn good age for a boy, but for him it was hell. Spittin' image of me. Good boy. Never did nothing but try and be good. Made good grades until he got so bad he just couldn't study. His body turned to jelly. Just goddamn jelly.'
'I'm sorry.'
'He was a good boy. He was a good boy right to the end, trying to cheer me up. Trying to smile. He died with me holding his hand. It was so little, I closed mine, you couldn't even see his. He hadn't had that shit, hell, he'd gone to college and made something of himself. God bless him.'
'I truly am sorry, Chief.'
'Well, don't whine about it. You didn't know him. Wasn't nothing to you. I shouldn't even have said anything to you about it ... now, this nigger gal.'
'Florida.'
'Yeah, Florida. She came to the jail, asked a few questions, left, and I didn't see her again, 'cept around town. Over at the filling station getting some gas in that little car of hers.'
'A gray Toyota.'
'That's the one. Real sporty.'
'That's all you know about her?'
'That's it. I heard a few of the boys mention they'd seen her and that she dressed a little too rich, if you know what I mean, but had she been a couple shades paler, they might have taken her to church, and to a little social after.'
I thought of Florida and her dresses. Mostly short. Mostly tight. I thought of the story Charlie told me. I had a sudden red-hot and angry vision of the Chief with an upholstery needle threaded with wire.
'Let me ask a couple of questions that don't have to do with Florida,' I said. 'This guy that hung himself in jail. Why?'
'Who's to know a nigger's mind? I wasn't even around. I was out of town.'
'Lot of hangings in your little jail?'
Chief Cantuck studied me a moment. 'You a reporter? The colored gal said she was doing some kind of article. Said she was a lawyer too, though I ain't sure about that.'
'She was.'
