'Blacks and whites.'
'Well, you can be too strict, I reckon. Take care, Hap.'
'One thing. Anyone ever find any music, recordings, stuff like that Soothe could have had?'
'Nothing. 'Course, if a fella found something valuable like that hidden in Florida's car. Say she got her hands on them somehow and didn't tell no one, and this stuff was still in good enough shape, a fella could hang on to it, and in time, he could come up with it like it was found another way, couldn't he?'
I let a few seconds pass. I thought about asking how Florida might have finally come by those recordings. I thought about lots of other questions no one could answer. When I finally spoke, what I said was, 'But would a man that found something like that—knowing he ought to turn it over to the authorities— do something like that?'
'I think he might. And what would those recordings have to do with the authorities? Think about it.'
'Even so, would it be wise for a fella to tell other people?'
'No. But he might do it anyway. If who he told was someone he thought wouldn't mind if they popped up later and the money from them went to a pet charity.'
'Like muscular dystrophy.'
'Yep.'
'I'll be damned,' I said.
We were quiet again. Maybe for a full half minute. Then Can-tuck said, 'Oh, we found your pickup. You don't want it back.'
'Cantuck?'
'Yeah?'
'Thanks.'
'You take care, boy.'
I went to bed then, without my gun. I thought I was doing better. But for the first time in months, it began to rain. It was a gentle spring rain, and I didn't like it. It woke me up. It used to help me sleep, now it makes me nervous. Twice as nervous if I should hear thunder or see lightning.
It's a week later and it's still raining. Nothing serious. Just a steady, easy spring rain, but I still can't sleep. I wake up every night and pad to the kitchen window for a look out back. There's only the woods out there, but I can't sleep. I sit up and drink coffee till morning, watch the late movies. Sometimes I play the L.C. Soothe boxed set I borrowed from Leonard. I play it and think about how this man, long dead, got this whole thing started.
Might as well. I go back to bed, I lay there and wait for the floodwaters to come hurtling down with Florida at the crest, pinned to the top of a wave like a Christmas tree ornament for the devil.
Just lay there and listen to the beating of my heart, counting the seconds gone from my life, anticipating less of the same.
