The first thing Ben did, dripping on the kitchen floor, was call Preston. Ophelia said, 'Hey, Ben, love your movies,'' and they talked a while. Preston wasn't home but she'd have him phone.
Denise helped him take his clothes off and put them in the dryer - shirt, jacket, socks, everything but his boots - poured a couple of vodkas, and they stood in the kitchen, Ben in a terry-cloth robe stretched tight on him, while he told Denise about Brother.
She said, 'You sure you're not making it up? It sounds like a movie. I can hear the score, 'You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma.' '
Standing there in the kitchen looking at each other, Ben said, half singing it, ' 'I work ten hours on a John Deere tractor just thinking of you all day.' '
Denise did the same with ' 'I've got a calico cat and a two-room flat on a street in West L.A .' 'and stopped there. She said, 'But the song has it turned around. I'm here and you're the one in L.A.' She said, 'You're going back, aren't you? Once you get Preston or someone to work your place?'
Ben hesitated. That was the idea and he could say yeah. He could say yeah, why don't you come with me? It was in his mind.
The phone rang before he could say anything.
Preston telling how Avery Grooms had been picked up on the detainer and what he found in the barns. 'Ben, was a big Peterbilt tractor in one and all kind of truck parts in there. Big Cummins diesel engine, crankshafts, axles. What they do, Ben, hijack a truck, bring it there and go over it like ants taking apart a magnolia leaf. See, then they sell to wholesalers in that criminal enterprise. The diesel engine they can get six, eight thousand for.'
'A lot of work,' Ben the eight-second man said, 'for what they make off it.'
'Yeah, well, these are working-type people, they don't know no better.'
Ben told about Brother and Preston said, 'I gave you my Smith, whyn't you shoot him?'
'It was in my bag, I didn't have time to get it out.'
'If you had, would you've shot him?'
'If I couldn't club him with it. I've done it.'
'You mean in a movie.' Preston said he'd find out about Brother and call back.
Once Ben's clothes were dry he peeled off the robe and got dressed, Denise watching, looking right at him as he stepped into his shorts and jeans and pulled them up - the way he remembered when they were little kids and she always wanted to see his thing and he'd tell her to close her eyes or turn around. Not now. He felt natural, the way he liked to think of himself with Denise. More natural than with any woman he could think of. Even Kim.
And there she was, bringing along the other women.
He wasn't going to tell Denise about them, but now he wanted to - even knowing pretty much what she'd say.
Preston phoned.
'City police and the sheriff both got the call, shots fired at the Shawnee Inn. They got over there to find Jarrett Lloyd Grooms, laying by the swimming pool unconscious, and took him to Memorial. Brother's busted up cheekbones to toes, messed up his mouth, has knees that bend the wrong way. They wrote him for having the gun and attempting to break and enter.''
'They think he's a burglar? What about the shots fired?'
'Gun went off when he fell. They want to close it.'
'They have Hazen?'
'No sign of him. He must've took off.'
Ben hung up, gave Denise the report, and she said, 'You're staying tonight, aren't you?'
'Yeah, but I want to tell you something.'
They were in the kitchen now, Denise pouring vodka.
'You know my mother left right after I was born.'
'Your dad was dead and that part of her life, along with you, was over.'
'She died of drugs and alcohol.'
'Yeah...?'
'You remember Carl?'
'Honey, Carl leaves his imprint on you.'
'His wife, my grandmother Kitty, walked out on him after a year.'
'Girls named Kitty don't think much of becoming grandmothers.'
'Virgil's wife, my great-grandmother, died having Carl.'
'I won't comment on that.'
'And the girl I was living with, Kim, a stuntwoman, fell off a ladder at home and fractured her skull.'
Denise said, 'You're kidding.'
'No, she did.'
'I mean about what you're thinking, that I could be next in line. Tell me you're kidding.'
'Carl's the one pointed it out. He said we don't seem to have any luck with women.'
Denise said, 'Carl?' She said, 'Carl told you that? Carl told stories, things he did as a marshal? My dad said most of it wasn't true.''
'Your dad represented guys Carl arrested.''
'He predicted things, crops, the weather - where to find game - my dad told me about that, too. He said Carl was always wrong. You lived half your life with him and you didn't know that?''
'His stories were great,'' Ben said. 'His predictions, I never paid any attention to them. It's just, every once in a while I think about what he said.'
Denise shook her head. 'Ben, your granddad didn't know shit. Remember that and you'll quit thinking of yourself as a lady killer.'
'I thought you might fall on the floor laughing.'
'That's too obvious.' She finished her drink and looked at Ben in fluorescent kitchen light and said, 'You're perfect for me and I've known it since I was a little girl. But you're too glum.' She took the drink from his hand and placed it on the counter.
'Let's go to bed so I can wake you up.'
Brother never showed. By the time Hazen realized it and quit talking to the waitress he'd had five Margaritas following a few beers earlier. He called the farm and let it ring. What was he supposed to do now, call the police? Y'all holding my little brother? Call the hospital, see if he got hurt fucking up somehow? He probably sassed the troopers and they put him in detention. Next they'd be out to the farm with warrants. Shit, it was time to move on. Tomorrow, after he'd settled accounts.
Hazen went out to the desk and took a room for the night. Tomorrow he'd go to Denise's house first thing, before she left for the real estate office, and have her call the famous movie star nobody ever heard of and tell him to get his ass over there.
They were still in Denise's double bed under the covers, putting off getting up. She said, 'I imagined you'd snore, but you don't.'
'You do, a little.'
'Really? No one's ever told me.'
'I gave you a kick and you stopped.'
'I suppose you want breakfast - eggs, the whole thing?'
'I like just a sandwich, if you have any leftovers.'
'Leftover what, you think I cook dinner for myself?'
'You know how?'
'Is it important to you?'
He said, 'I haven't thought of Hazen once.'
She said, 'Then why bring him up.'
'Later on I have to see a lawyer.'
