'Leonard,' I said, finding my Sharp's and my place on the couch. “You got to quit watching bears fuck. It gets you worked up.'
Hanson cranked back his easy chair, laid his catcher's mitt hands on his chest and looked at the ceiling light. We looked with him. Nothing really important seemed to be going on up there.
'Guess I need to figure what to do with you boys,' Hanson said.
'How about paper hats and whistles and we all go home?” I said.
'I don't think so,” Hanson said.
'Well, how bad could it be?” Charlie said. “You got them over at your house drinking beer and watching TV.'
'What I'm gonna do,' Hanson said, 'is make you boys a little deal. You two go over to Grovetown and do me a little favor, and I'll find a way not to press charges. You don't, I'll find special way to press charges.”
'Hey,' Leonard said, 'that's blackmail. And what the hell would you want us to do in Grovetown anyway? Look for antiques?'
'No,' Hanson said, 'I want you to check on Florida.'
'I was wondering about her,' I said.
'Figured you were,' Hanson said. “Deal is, she went over there to do a little lawyering, kind of. You fellas hear about that Bobby Joe Soothe problem?'
'Nope,' Leonard said. “I have enough problems of my own. Me and Raul, we've had hell trying to get a lubricant we like. K-Y is highly overrated. I bet we been through twenty-five tubes of this and that.”
'I don't want to hear about it,' Charlie said. “But you might check Kmart. They got all kinds of lubricant stuff there, at reasonable prices. From Vaseline to forty-weight lube oil.'
'I don't think I'll be needing it now,' Leonard said. “Unless I'm just gonna use a little bit of it in the palm of my hand.'
'Bobby Joe Soothe,' Hanson said, 'was a black man had him a little accident.'
'I did hear about that,' I said. “On the news. Hung himself in Grovetown jail with his shoelaces. Something like that.'
'Something like that,' Hanson said. “There's a back story though. You see, this Bobby Joe Soothe, he was the grandson of L.C. Soothe. Heard of L.C.?'
'Hell yeah,' Leonard said. “Country blues guitar. I got some of his stuff. One of those boxed set things. One of the greats. East Texas legend of the late twenties, early thirties. Kind of like Robert Johnson. Had the same story about him. That he sold his soul to the devil to play way he did. Some kind of deal where he took a piss in a fruit jar and took it to the crossroads and the devil came and drank it, then the devil peed in a jar, and L.C. drank it, then L.C. had the devil in him and the devil had his soul. After that, L.C. could play that old standard guitar like a sonofabitch. Used a pocketknife or a bottle neck for a slide.'
'I can't think of nothing I'd want so bad I'd drink wee-wee out of a fruit jar,' Charlie said.
'L.C. only made a few records,' Leonard said, 'but he was a big influence on East Texas blues men. The records are rare. I think he made some recordings on 78s, whatever the method was then, and they were never released, or lost. I don't remember the details. It's just the general stuff I know about, and I got that out of the booklet in the collection box.'
'All I know,' Hanson said, 'is a fella from up North read an article in some music magazine about this Bobby Joe Soothe who was tryin' to build a name on his grandfather's name, and Bobby Joe said he had in his possession this recorded, but unreleased record L.C. had made. Said too he was singing some songs L.C. had left written down, but never recorded. This Bobby Joe had a bit of reputation for good blues himself, see. So this Northern fella made contact with him, made some promises of money for the record, came down here to check it out, and supposedly, Bobby Joe cut that white boy's throat, took his money, then got hauled into jail where he decided he couldn't go on and hung himself with his shoe strings.'
'I thought they didn't let prisoners keep stuff like shoe strings and belts,' I said.
'Not supposed to,' Hanson said. “Interesting thing is, there's been more hangings and accidents and suicides of this kind in that jail in the past forty-five years than there's been accidental prisoner deaths in all the state of Texas since nineteen sixty-five. And that includes goddamn Huntsville Prison. Guess I ought to give the cracker runs the place now some credit, though. Only one hanging, the Soothe hanging, has happened in the twelve years he's been Chief in Grovetown.'
'What happened to the recordings?” Leonard asked.
'No one knows,' Hanson said.
'How does Florida come into this?” I asked.
'I'm gettin' to that,' Hanson said. “Florida, as you know, is an ambitious gal. She decided lawyering wasn't enough. She wanted to go out and do some investigative work. Go to Grovetown, ask some questions, use her law credentials, maybe get some kind of article out of this, move herself into investigative journalism. I think she wants to be on television. She's got the looks, the voice, the brains, and the personality, so it's not a far-fetched kind of idea. She's been sort of looking around for something to tie her to a bigger gig. A journalism career. Thought if she cow-girl'd this one, she could write her own ticket.'
'In other words,' I said. “Florida was looking for a rat to ride, and smelled one in Grovetown?'
'Yep,' Hanson said. “She went down there couple weeks ago. I told her not to, that it was dangerous. She didn't listen, and that didn't surprise me. We hadn't been doing that good anyway. We were supposed to get married, but didn't.'
'Kind of thought the date for that had come and passed,' I said.
'Figured you were marking your calendar,' Hanson said. “Thing is though, me and her had a fight. She thought I was being a male chauvinist jerk. If being worried about someone you care about, being realistic about what can
