I said, “Thing is, it’s what we got, and the way I figure it, Hirem knows his son, or at least thinks he does. Most sons in one way or another want to please their fathers, or at least capture some good moment in time they had with them.”
“Speaking from experience?” Jim Bob said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
“I don’t have those feelings,” Tonto said. “If I went somewhere and was waiting on my father to find me, waiting on him to care or even miss me, I’d have been waiting one long goddamn time.”
“You’re the one said that might be what he’s doing,” Jim Bob said. “So maybe you know more about this kind of thing than you think.”
“Maybe,” Tonto said. “Guess I’m not all that big on parents of any stripe.”
“It’s not always that way,” Jim Bob said. “There are even parents who like their kids. Mine liked me, in spite of myself.”
“Way I look at it, between the pussy and the asshole is no-man’ s-land,” Tonto said. “You either come out a baby or a turd, and I think I came out of the wrong hole. Nobody much cared I was around.”
“Who lives in No Man’s Land?” Leonard said.
“I’m uncertain,” Tonto said. “It wasn’t a very good example.”
“All right,” I said, “all turds aside, here it is again. It’s what we got, and that’s why we check it out. They’re there, we bring them home if we have to tie them up and toss them in the back of the van. Or at least the boy, and more importantly, the money. I think they get the money back, lots of feelings are gonna be less hurt.”
“I been thinking about that,” Tonto said, sipping a soft drink through a straw, then pausing as if he were seeing something far away. “What say we find the money and split it and go home?”
“That wouldn’t help mine and Leonard’s situation any.”
“No,” Tonto said, “it wouldn’t. But it would help our billfolds big-time. Split four ways, that’s not so bad. And there’s also this: the boy and the girl, they could end up dead. They end up that way and no one knows me and Jim Bob was in with you, we can just say, hey, the bad guys, they got there first and all the money was gone. They must have got it back.”
“That still wouldn’t help us,” I said, “and I wouldn’t do that. You don’t know me, Tonto, but I wouldn’t do that. Neither would Leonard.”
“Absolutely not,” Leonard said.
“I know that,” Tonto said. “Hell, I know that, but it’s something I could do, and I had to try it out, see how it fit.”
“It doesn’t fit,” I said.
“I wouldn’t do that either,” Jim Bob said. “Maybe we aren’t exactly on the same team after all, and we are not self-righteous cocksuckers together.”
“That was changed to sonsabitches,” Leonard said. “Remember, we established that.”
“In fact we did,” Jim Bob said.
“I’m not as pure as you guys,” Tonto said. “I’m here because I owe Marvin Hanson a favor.”
“Doing it that way wouldn’t be much of a favor,” I said.
“No,” Tonto said, “it wouldn’t. Forget I brought it up.”
32
Doing something like we were doing can make a man paranoid. I thought I saw the same car two or three times that day, and wondered if it had followed us out of LaBorde, wondered if it had followed us to the McDonald’s, and then followed Leonard and me on out to the cabin in the woods and back again. I thought about that a lot, then decided I was starting to see things. The car was an old brown Ford, and I had seen a lot of them that day, and when I finally started noticing the drivers, I realized they were all different, and the Fords were all over the place, and that was a popular color that year for that make and model.
When I told the boys about it, Tonto said, “I been followed by the best, and I always knew they were there. I been watchin’ too, and I’ve seen some brown Fords. I’ve also seen some green Chevys and all manner of cars, but I haven’t seen anyone I thought was following us.”
“You ever been wrong about being followed?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Tonto said.
“Could there be a first time?”
“Unlikely,” he said.
“I ain’t someone easily followed either,” Jim Bob said, “but then again, I haven’t been paying any attention.”
“Then you can be easily followed,” I said.
“Not when I don’t want to be. Being followed wasn’t something I expected or was looking out for. I was too busy daydreaming about what I’m gonna be when I grow up, and I was countin’ on your guys. If we’re being followed, then you sonofabitches have let me down.”
“Whatever it is you’re gonna be when you grow up,” Leonard said, “I hope it pays better than this.”
“Me too,” Jim Bob said.
When we neared Lake O’ the Pines, I convinced the others we ought to pull in somewhere for the night and get some rest and make sure we weren’t being followed, make sure it was just my paranoia, and that tomorrow we could check out the cabins by the lake.
