you out, since I done been through all this some time ago. King Arthur, he don’t leave the place till after noon. Fact is, about one-fifteen every day, Monday through Friday. He drives over to the plant, goes in through a special back entrance. By five o’clock, he’s back out at the car, and he goes home. ’Course, I ought to mention that when he goes and comes from work, he goes with some guys look like they’d twist the heads off parakeets and suck the neck stumps for entertainment.”
“You know everything, don’t you?”
“Damn near it,” Jim Bob said. “What’s your plan?”
“Actually,” I said, “we have a simple plan. Two plans. I want to talk to King Arthur, but what I figure is, we’ll follow Leonard’s plan.”
“Which is?” Jim Bob asked.
“We’re going to beat the old fart up till he comes through with a confession.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “And we’re gonna beat up his companions too.”
“King Arthur ain’t that old,” Jim Bob said. “About my age. And he looks to me like he can handle himself. As for you beatin’ the companions up, Leonard, I hope you’ve had your Malto-Meal.”
“Well, what would you do?” I asked.
“I’d beat the fuckers up,” Jim Bob said.
We left the dozer to its work, followed Jim Bob back to the Holiday Inn. We had coffee in the cafeteria and Jim Bob told us some things about King Arthur.
“You know that King Arthur used to be a chili cook-off king, and that’s what catapulted his recipe to stardom, so to speak? Only thing is, they found ole King was payin’ judges off to vote for him. Didn’t matter it was some little local thing, or a big tadoo. He took winnin’ serious-like, right down to money and young pussy for the judges. Took to callin’ himself King Arthur. Started the chili business, and it skyrocketed. Didn’t hurt he was also into every goddamn dirty deal in East Texas, from runnin’ whores to makin’ sure black folks who owned stores paid a little kickback. They didn’t, their businesses had a way of attractin’ fires.”
Jim Bob talked about King Arthur for a while, depressing me. Then somehow he and Leonard veered off into politics.
While they generally agreed on issues, I went into the lobby, used the pay phone to call Brett’s house.
She and Clinton had just watched a late-morning talk show.
“This was a rerun about people who stole stuff out of stores to give as wedding gifts,” Brett said. “Whole family. Had ’em on television talkin’ about it, like they’re some kind of celebrities.”
“These days they are.”
“Bunch of white-trash thieves gettin’ their fifteen minutes. And funnier yet, or sadder yet, while they’re on the show, host gets a call from the hotel where these skunks are stayin’, and they’ve taken the towels and sheets and ripped the hair dryer off the wall. They found all the stuff in their luggage backstage, and now they’re in trouble again. I got access to all these channels, and this is the shit on them. It’s scary.”
“You watched it,” I said.
“Clinton made me.”
“Hell, Clinton likes game shows,” I said.
“All right,” she said, “you caught me… How’s things?”
“Right now they aren’t happening. But they will. We have a plan.”
“What?”
“We’re gonna beat up King Arthur and his goons.”
“That’s well thought out.”
“We might even steal his chili recipe.”
“Make him eat it,” she said.
“Say what?”
“You had any of that stuff? I don’t know it could be a whole lot worse to put shit in your mouth.”
“Trust me,” I said. “It would.”
“All right, you win,” she said. “But not by much. You’re kidding about beating King up, aren’t you? Not that I mind, I just don’t know that’ll be such a good idea.”
“I reckon we’ll do what we do when we come to it,” I said.
“It’s good to know I got you fellas setting up a complicated sting,” Brett said.
“Yeah. Must be comforting. Take it easy, baby.”
“You too, hon.”
I rang off, joined Jim Bob and Leonard. They were talking about muzzle velocity in rifles.
I had another cup of coffee, listened till they wore down and we went to Jim Bob’s room.
We watched television and jawed until noon, then headed for King Arthur’s.
24
Jim Bob drove my truck with the three of us crowded in it. We had Jim Bob’s shiny black twelve-gauge pump on the floorboard. I could smell the gun oil as we drove. I kept pushing my hand against my shirt, so I could feel the. 38 beneath it in my waistband. Leonard was fumbling with the radio, trying to pick up a country station.
I had been in a lot of encounters, more than anyone had a right to believe. I had grown up in a rough town and fought dozens of fights until I graduated high school. Most of them were simple, not life-or-death battles, but a couple or three had been heavy-duty. During the sixties I had grown my hair long, and there was plenty of redneck opposition to that, so I was on the line daily, arguing or fighting with someone.
I had worked a number of blue-collar jobs, and the length of my hair had been an issue. More fights. I didn’t pick fights, and tried diplomacy first, but I was still too quick to use my fists, and though I don’t like to admit it, there was a time when I had enjoyed it. I didn’t lose my temper easy, but once I did, it was savage, and afterwards I felt a strange hollowness that made me feel dirty and inferior to people around me.
Once, late at night, Leonard and I discussed our physical encounters. Not only those that had happened to us together, but individual events. It was a strange moment, a mix of brag and fact, shame and pride, remorse mixed with euphoria.
And here I was again, on my way to what would most likely turn into a confrontation, and perhaps more than a couple of punches. We weren’t carrying our guns to plunk at cans. My stomach boiled. My head throbbed. Yet, at the same time, I felt disconnected from my body; seized by a combination of fear and anticipation.
We parked behind a closed-up fireworks shack down the road from King Arthur’s red clay nightmare, got out of the car and sat on the hood so we could watch when he drove by.
Jim Bob said he knew the car, so his eyes were the ones on the highway. While we waited, he told us some funny stories and some bad jokes, then said, “All right, get in the truck.”
We looked and saw a big silver Lincoln with dark windows cruising down the highway. A moment later we were behind it, hauling as fast as my little pickup would go.
“Driver usually turns here,” Jim Bob said.
Jim Bob was right. The car veered to the right, headed down a blacktop road that I knew would meet Old Pine Road, and finally onto the highway that would lead to King Arthur’s chili works.
Jim Bob gunned the truck and started around. The Lincoln tried to be helpful, pulled hard right, but Jim Bob pulled hard right too. Next thing I knew, he was nosing my truck into the side of the Lincoln. Sparks flew up. Paint flecks flicked by the window.
“Hey,” I said.
Jim Bob paid no attention. He rammed hard with the pickup and the Lincoln began to veer. I realized it was starting to veer near the great oak where Horse Dick and Raul’s bodies had been found.
Irony or accident? I had to remember to ask Jim Bob, provided I didn’t end up with the dashboard in my teeth, the motor sticking out of my chest.
The Lincoln sailed onto the grass beside the road. The driver fought the wheel, missed the tree, but went over the edge of the incline, down the hill, clattered and bumped and slid into the weeds and slid again, this time sideways into the trees at the bottom. The Lincoln hit the trees with a solid whack and a crunch, and the sunlight
