'No shit?'
'No shit,' Leonard said. Outside the lightning gave the sky a workout and the flashes went all through the store. The lights faded, and the pickled pig's feet, for a fleeting instant, looked like strange body parts floating in jars in Dr. Frankenstein's lab.
'Goddamn,' Tim said when the lights came back. 'That was rich ... let me see. She was here a few days, but she was having trouble finding a place to stay . . . you hang out here long enough, you're gonna discover this ain't a real opened-minded place.'
'Naw,' I said. 'Say it ain't true. A homey burg like this.'
Tim smiled at me. 'Yeah, well, I guess you been talkin' to the Chief, so you know he's a bastard.'
'How do you know that?' Leonard asked.
'That he's a bastard, or you been talkin' to him?' Tim said.
'Either,' Leonard said.
'I come into town lookin' for someone, first place I'd go is the law. Am I right?'
Leonard nodded.
'And I'll bet old Cantuck sure was glad to see you two running around together. What he thinks, he sees a black and white guy together, is one of them ought to be riding in the back of a pickup with a rake.'
'You're right,' I said. 'He wasn't glad to see us. I got the feeling just us being alive made him nervous. We met the fire department too. Now there's a bunch of regular guys. If you're white, potbellied, and stupid. Seems like they'd bore each other to death. What in the hell can guys like that talk about when they get together?'
'Pussy,' Tim said.
'Well, all right,' I said. 'I can see that.'
Tim took hold of the hatchet, lifted the log, and with a flick of his wrist, popped it loose of the hatchet and through the open stove door.
I was going to protest, since the lizard didn't have time to bail out, but Tim's move was so unexpected and so swift there wasn't a chance. The lizard gave a little pop when it went into the blaze, went black and turned to ash on his log; the last animated bit of him was his tail, which curled up and fell off. I decided not to mention it. No use putting an accidental lizard death on someone's head.
'Cantuck's a funny guy,' Tim said. 'Don't underestimate him. He ain't as stupid as he looks. And for a man with a left nut that looks like a softball in his pocket, he can move pretty fast too. No. He ain't stupid. And he ain't incompetent. Not really. He kinda uses that hick image to get his edge.'
'I found that out,' I said, watching the last of the lizard dissolve in the stove. The critter looked like a melted chunk of gummy bears.
'He's ignorant, but he's actually fair, and pretty law-abiding,' Tim said. 'In an Old Testament sort of way.'
'Wonder how much he abided the law when that black guy hung himself in jail?' I asked.
'That weird sonofabitch had it comin',' Tim said. 'He was a murdering bastard. I prefer he hung himself to the Chief doing it—and I don't think Cantuck would do it. Couldn't have. He wasn't even in town. That Soothe sumbitch was choked and stretched and put in the hole before Cantuck got back.'
'Chief wasn't here,' Leonard said, 'but he could have made arrangements. Being out of town would be a good cover.'
'I reckon,' said Tim, 'but I got to tell you true, if that sorry Bobby Joe fuck got a little help from the Chief, anybody, doesn't bother me a bit. That ole boy was into all kinds of shit. And I mean all kinds. Pretty smooth talker. Could stick his dick up your ass and tell you it was a turd, and you'd believe him.
'He's lucky he lived long as he did, considering how black folks are thought of here in Grovetown. I suppose he lasted 'cause he was a scary, dangerous bastard. And he could sing a pretty good tune. And there was some legacy to him, being kin to L.C. and all.
'Not that that's worth a big goddamn around here, but I reckon there's more than a few whites would hate to admit they enjoyed it when Bobby Joe come to town Saturdays, played over there in front of the courthouse with that ole slide guitar. Fact is, Saturday is normally the day all the blacks come in. Do their shopping, what they got to do. Hang out a little. Very little. Then go home. They got their own ways on the other side of town, and Bobby Joe was smart enough to keep most of his badness over there. Lot of folks here figured if it was just—and you'll pardon the expression—nigger business, then it wasn't no business of theirs. Figured too, niggers killing each other, giving each other a hard time, that wasn't nothing to be concerned with. One less nigger was like one less cockroach.'
' 'Course,' Leonard said, 'cockroaches can't play basketball.'
'Yeah, the jump shots throw 'em. I'll tell you about Bobby I Joe, kinda guy he was. He raped his own nephew's wife, then when she told on him and the nephew tried to do something about it, he cut the nephew up to where he near died, went after j the woman. Rumor is he made her fuck his German shepherd.'
'Oh, get out of here,' I said.
'I'm tellin' you the story,' Tim said. 'I can't prove it. Haven't got photos or nothing, but I believe it. There wasn't nothing Bobby Joe wouldn't do short of a law degree.'
'Man has to have some ethics,' Leonard said.
'Our concern here is Florida,' I said. 'Only reason we're interested in Bobby Joe Soothe at all is Florida came down here to investigate things for some kind of article she wants to write about I his death.'
'I know about that,' said Tim. 'I got that much out of her. | We talked a little when we saw each other. She was convinced Bobby Joe was innocent just because he was black and in a white jail.'
'Innocent really hasn't got anything to do with it,' I said. 'Guilty or innocent, you're supposed to let the State of Texas do j the killing, and with a needleful of poison.'
