'What's the crime?' Leonard said. 'Greater wit than your own?'
Reynolds's face showed he had lost his sense of humor, but he never got to let us know how much. A door at the back of the office opened and Chief Cantuck came out. He was hatless and sweaty-looking. His nose was red and highly porous today, like maybe he'd had a little too much Christmas cheer the night before. Way he was sweating, you'd have thought it was a hundred degrees. His belly hadn't gotten any smaller, and neither had his ruptured testicle. He looked as if he might blow a major hose at any moment.
'Chief,' Leonard said. 'My man. How's it hanging? . . . Oh, I see.'
'They think they're funny,' Reynolds said.
'Hey, I've been real quiet,' I said. 'Leonard's the one talking.'
'I've already caught their act,' Cantuck said. 'It wasn't any better the last time.'
'You want me to lock 'em up for a while?' Reynolds said. 'Just so they can hone their material?'
'No crime in being an ass,' Cantuck said. 'Reckon you two are here for some reason other than trying to outwit my officer or make fun of my balls?'
'Both are easy,' Leonard said, 'but we're here on official business.'
'All right,' Cantuck said. 'I'll play. Come in the office.'
As we followed Cantuck, Reynolds said, 'By the way, nigger. I'll remember you.'
Leonard paused, said without the slightest hint of anger, 'In case you might forget, I'll leave my business card with the secretary.'
Cantuck's office was relatively neat. His wall was covered in photographs of a boy, who from his wasted appearance and resemblance to Cantuck, without a swollen nut, had to be the son he'd told me about.
There was a middle-aged woman in some of the photos with the boy, and she looked plain and worn-out, like her daily job was the Augean Stables.
On Cantuck's desk were pictures of himself, the boy, and the wife, as well as a plastic container backed by a cardboard frame for donations to MS. It had some change in it, and a couple of bills had been rolled and stuffed inside. On the left-hand side of his desk was a can with a label that suggested you should 'Give to the Handicapped,' and on the other side of the desk was a can that pleaded for money for cancer research.
It was very odd, the cans and the cardboard donation container being there. I wondered who had put the money in the cardboard container. The Chief? Reynolds? Charlene? Assorted prisoners? Had Florida dropped in some coins?
Cantuck sat down behind his desk. We took chairs on the other side. Leonard placed his hat on the edge of the desk and used a finger to turn it from time to time.
Cantuck picked a picture of the boy off his desk and held it in his lap and looked at it. He put it back. From the way he moved, I could tell it was an unconscious ritual.
'Your son?' I said.
'Yeah,' he said. 'What do y'all want?'
'We want to make an official report,' I said. 'Concerning Florida Grange. We fear foul play.'
'And, of course, we here in Grovetown are the culprits, just because a lot of us are segregationist?'
'She was here,' I said. 'She's not here now.'
'So, she's shacked up with some buck somewhere. Check out the Southside of town. Ten miles out. That's the colored section.'
'We were sort of hoping you'd do that,' I said. 'It is your job.'
Cantuck studied us. He unsnapped his shirt pocket and took out a tightly rolled package of chewing tobacco. He unrolled it, opened it, pinched out a wad, put it in his mouth, started chewing. He chewed slowly, as if activating brain cells.
'You gonna fill out the papers for a missing person?' he said around the tobacco.
'Yeah,' I said.
'I doubt you need to,' he said.
'You saying we fill it out you won't look?' Leonard asked.
'No. I'm saying I doubt you need to. She'll turn up. My guess is she's oiling some coon's pole out niggertown.'
'Careful now,' Leonard said. 'Words like that, you might hurt my feelings.'
'Shit,' Cantuck said. 'I wouldn't want that. Let me put it to you straight, numb nuts. You fill out a report, that gives me work to do. Well, I don't want work to do. Not when I think it's bullshit work. But no matter what you may think, you fill out that report, I'll look for her. I'll find her if she needs finding. I'm just a small-town cop, and as you both know, not very smart and I got a ruptured turnip. But I got a job here. The law says it includes whites and colored. I don't have nothing against colored. You being an exception, Smartest Nigger in the World . . . that is how you introduced yourself, isn't it?'
'That's right,' Leonard said. 'But when it comes out of your mouth, it stinks. My name's Leonard. Leonard Pine.'
'What you want . . . Leonard ... is me to respect you because you're black,' Cantuck said. 'Not because you're worth a shit. You want me to be polite and sweet when all you've done, the both of you, from the first moment I've seen you, is come on with an attitude. An attitude that says: We're better than you. We're smarter than you. We're a couple of hip-hop guys ... I believe that's a term they use, isn't it?'
'Close enough,' Leonard said. 'But not around my house.'
