'There you go. You got any cigarettes? Cigars? Pipe? I might even chew, you got some Beech-Nut or somethin'.'
'Nope. I gave my pipe up. Now I do a cigar couple times a year. This isn't one of those times, so I don't have any. Besides, you don't need it. You're doing good. You smoke, you won't get any from the wife.'
'Yeah, okay.'
'Do a few shadow figures, keep your mind occupied.'
'I do shadows pretty good now, but I've had to quit for a while. I got strained fingers.'
'Get out of here.'
'No, really. Kind of a carpal tunnel thing from twistin' my hands and fingers around.'
I finished off my coffee, asked what I had to ask. 'Since we were speaking of Florida in the past tense ...'
'I guess I shouldn't talk that way about her. About looking up her dress and all, not getting along with her. I know how you feel about her, Hap. And she was Hanson's lady and all. I shouldn't talk like that.'
'She was here right now, I'd try to look up her dress too. She wore dresses designed for that, and I think she knew it. She'd never admit it, but she knew it.'
Charlie nodded. 'We don't know anything we didn't know before. Ranger went in there, checked around some, and knows what we know. She was there, then wasn't. Evidence is thin.'
'What about the juke joints? No one had anything to say there?'
'Sure, they did. We think of some things, Hap. You see, we do this for a living.'
'I didn't mean to offend you.'
'I've kept up with this case, even though it isn't mine. Know what I'm sayin'?'
'Sure.'
'Florida went in there, tried to see this Soothe as some kind of martyr, and what he was was an asshole. No one disagrees on that. His own folks didn't have nothing to do with him. Everybody was glad he got dead and wasn't nothing more to worry about. Those recordings, the songs written down. That was just his line of shit. No one believes there were any recordings, written songs. None of that stuff. So no one much cared what happened to the guy. Except Florida. And I figure her trying to find out about what happened to Soothe, she maybe put her nose where it didn't belong, and got it pinched. But good. Same stuff you and Leonard think. Nothing new.'
'Well, someone cared about Soothe. Or was worried about him. His body was stolen.'
'Ranger, Highway boys, think it was voodoo shit.'
'Voodoo is primarily charm stuff, mixed with a little Christianity. East Texas cops love to think devil worshippers or movie-style voodoo business is going on in the backwoods. It makes them feel their job is a little more important, less boring if they're dealing with El Diablo.'
'Yeah, I see that. I could use a little voodoo now and then. This old-fashioned crime, drugs, spouse abuse, good ole boy murders are wearing me out. As for Soothe, all I know is the body's gone and there's no evidence where it might be. Florida, she was sure this Cantuck had Soothe murdered. A racist thing. I don't think that stands up so good. I think Cantuck done that, he wouldn't have been trying to keep you from getting killed. This Officer Reynolds, I don't know nothin' about him.'
'He's some piece of work is what he is, but I can't prove he did anything. He might not be any worse than Cantuck, who seems to be all right on some days. I sort of like it better like the old movies, where you could tell who the villain was because they wore black and twirled their mustache. What's never been explained to me, Charlie, is how Cantuck knew me and Leonard were in trouble.'
'Instinct.'
'Saying he had a hot flash sheet-heads were trying to kill us, so he saddled up Trigger and came after us?'
'Way he tells it, he packed you up, sent you on your way, got to feeling guilty 'cause the two of you weren't in that good a shape, decided he ought to make you park Leonard's junker and take you into LaBorde. So, he went to catch up with you. I believe him. I think he's a fart on the surface, but underneath he smells a little better, just sometimes he's got to settle down long enough for the sweetness to surface.'
'So right in the middle of a rerun of The Beverly Hillbillies he decided he was an asshole and ought to come out and check on us?'
'He never got home. Drove to the office, got to thinking about it from there, came after you.'
'And in the meantime, Big Butt Draighten and his buddies just happened to spot us and come after us?'
'Yeah.'
'Kind of coincidental, isn't it?'
'Life's full of 'em, but I don't see this as coincidence. Those shitters saw you, followed you out, and Cantuck, not being a bad guy, got to feeling like a turd, came to check on you. Everything comes together. It's not that wild.'
'What about Bacon?'
'Like I said, I don't know. But them finding out Bacon helped you might not be that hard. People see things, people talk.'
Charlie went into the kitchen to fill his coffee cup. He stood at the counter and drank it. I went in there and sat at the kitchen table with my empty cup. He got the coffee pot and poured me what was left.
'Going with me to Leonard's?' he asked.
'Not this time,' I said. 'I'll call him later. Maybe I'll drive over there.'
