'I went his bond.'
'I ain't asked for that.'
'It's no big thing.'
His eyes looked out at the glare of sunlight on the walk, the traffic in the square, the old men who sat on benches by the Spanish-American War artillery piece. The olive skin of his narrow face twitched as though someone were touching it with the tip of a feather.
'Them that's got money use it to put their shame on others. That's the way it's always worked around here. I won't abide it, though,' he said.
'Vernon, don't hurt your boy again.'
'Seems like the calf's mine only when it's time for you to lecture, Billy Bob.'
I walked away from him, through the doors of the courthouse and down a hallway whose woodwork seemed infused with the dull amber glow of its own past. Marvin Pomroy came out of his office and almost collided into me. His face was bloodless, as though it had been slapped.
'What's wrong?' I said.
'We messed up. Moon and Jimmy Cole did time together at Sugarland,' he answered.
'You're not communicating, Marvin.'
'The witness… The customer who saw Moon go into the store where he killed the old woman… Somebody sliced her back screen and stabbed her to death with a screwdriver this morning… Harley's truck was found in a pond a half mile away.'
I saw Lucas Smothers walk down the circular stairs in the center of the courthouse, a possessions bag in his hand.
'We've got no physical evidence to put Moon in that store,' Marvin said.
I stared into his face and the knowledge there that I didn't want to accept.
'That crazy sonofabitch is going to get out, Billy Bob.'
'Lucas's deposition-' I began.
'It won't hold up by itself.'
'Does Moon know that Lucas…' I could feel the pinpoints of sweat breaking on my forehead.
'You already know the answer to that… I'm sorry. We thought we had this guy halfway to the boneyard,' Marvin said.
Lucas walked toward us, his face uncertain in front of Marvin.
'How y'all doin'? Is my dad outside?' he said.
I sat alone in my office with the blinds down and tried to think. I kept seeing the grin on the face of Garland T. Moon, the latex skin, the liquid blue eye; I could almost smell the breath that was like fermented prunes. I pulled open the blinds and let the sunlight flood into the room.
The secretary buzzed me on the intercom.
'Mr Vanzandt and his son are here to see you, Billy Bob,' she said.
Jack Vanzandt, the college baseball star who'd fought in Vietnam and had come home decorated and had made a fortune in the Mexican oil business, then had lost it and made another fortune in computers. He'd called yesterday, or was it the day before? Yes, about his son, the one who had been expelled from Texas A amp;M.
'Bad day for a talk?' Jack said.
'Sorry. It's been a peculiar morning,' I said.
Jack still lifted weights and worked out regularly on a speed bag and played polo at a club in Dallas. He was well mannered and intelligent and made little of his war record. Few found any reason not to like him.
His son was another matter. His blond, youthful face always seemed slightly flushed, overheated, his gaze turned inward on thoughts that swam like threadworms in his green eyes.
'Darl had a fistfight with a Mexican kid. We'd like to just shake hands and forget it. But it looks like the family found out we have a little money,' Jack said.
'What about it, Darl?' I asked.
'At the American Legion game. Kid scratched all over my hood with a nail. I asked him why he did it. He said because of the cheer we were yelling in the stands. So I told him it was a free country, people can say anything they want 'cause that's why we got a First Amendment. Wets don't like it, they can swim back home.'
'What cheer?' I asked.
''Two-bits, four-bits, six-bits a peso, all good pepper bellies stand up and say so.'' His eyes smiled at nothing. He rubbed the thick ball of muscle along his forearm.
I looked at his father.
'The Mexican boy had to have his jaws wired together,' Jack said.
I took a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen out of my drawer and pushed them across my desk toward Darl.
'I'd like you to write down what happened for me. Just like you're writing a school essay,' I said.
'I just told you what happened,' he said.
'Darl has dyslexia,' Jack said.
'I see,' I said. 'I tell you what, I'll get back with y'all this afternoon. I'm sorry I'm a little distant this morning.'
Darl Vanzandt played with the high school ring on his finger, his cheeks glowing with peach fuzz. His eyes seemed amused at a private thought. Then he looked me straight in the face and said, 'My father says Lucas Smothers is your woods colt.'
'Go to the car, son,' Jack said.
After Darl was gone, his father extended his hand.
'I apologize. Darl has serious emotional problems. His mother… It's called fetal alcohol syndrome. He's not always accountable for the things he says and does,' Jack said.
'Don't worry about it,' I said.
'I really appreciate your helping us, Billy Bob.'
He squeezed my hand a second time. His grip was encompassing, long lasting, the skin moist and warm. After he was gone and I was seated again behind my desk, I found myself unconsciously rubbing my hand on the knee of my trousers.
Why, I thought.
There was a cut, an indentation, newly scabbed, the size of a tooth, on the ring finger of Darl Vanzandt.
No, I told myself, you're letting it get away from you.
That night, as an electrical storm raged outside, L.Q. Navarro stood in the middle of my living room, his ash- colored Stetson tipped back on his head, and said, ' You were as good a lawman as me, bud. When they're poor and got no power, like Lucas and the dead girl, and other people get involved with what happens to them, you know it's a whole sight bigger than what they want you to think.'
' Why'd you go and die on me, L.Q.?'
He twirled his hat on his index finger, and an instant later, through the window, I saw his silhouette illuminated by a bolt of lightning on a distant hill.
chapter six
The next day, after work, I dug night crawlers and cane-fished with a little mixed-blood Mexican boy in the tank on the back of my property. His name was Pete, and he had blue eyes and pale streaks the color of weathered wood in his hair, which grew like a soft brush on his head. He grinned all the time and talked with an Anglo twang and was probably the smartest little boy I ever knew.
'That was the Chisholm Trail out yonder?' he asked.
'Part of it. There're wagon tracks still baked in the hardpan.'
He chewed his gum and studied on the implications.
'What's it good for?' he asked.
'Not much of anything, I guess.'
