All your systems breaking down, you old fool, he told himself.
He had a sudden urge to just bolt. Just get the hell out of there. To hell with Holly and this nonsense about the house.
Nothing would make him feel sweeter than to put some distance between himself and Holly and the damned old biddy and run on back to Jen. If he confessed, got it off his chest, maybe he could get his marriage and his family back.
Do it. Do it now But he didn't do that either. He sat there for a time, looking up and down the quiet street: trees, small homes, a few kids out and about.
“Bud? Bud, honey? Could you come up here?”
Bud turned and went upstairs, where three small bedrooms and a John lay off the short hall.
“Bud, Mrs. Ryan says we could knock down one of these walls and make the two littler bedrooms into one big one.”
Now why would they want to do that? If his boys came, he'd want them to have a place to stay and some room, even if it was small.
“You could turn it into your office, honey,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“My fiance is a highway patrol officer,” Holly explained to the woman.
“I'm glad you're a law officer. I seen that gun on your backside. I thought maybe you were that awful Lamar Pye.”
“I'm no Lamar Pye,” he said, 'though I've spent considerable time looking for him.”
“He's a terrible man,” said the woman.
“My daughter lives in Wichita Falls and I've eaten many Sunday breakfasts in that restaurant. I think it's terrible what he did. I hope you-all catch up to him and kill him dead. I'd hate to see him go to court and some fool decide he was the true victim in all this.”
“We'll get him,” Bud said.
“Bud, honey, Mrs. Ryan says she'd let us have the house for only three-fifty a month. We could move in right away.
It would be so wonderful. It's a nice quiet neighborhood.”
Bud smiled, and said, 'Holly, we've only begun looking.
Don't you think you ought to see some other places?”
“Yes, honey,” said Mrs. Ryan.
“Your fiance is right.
You should see a lot of places, so you don't feel you've rented in a panic. I've seen too much of that.”
“You don't have any other prospects?”
“No, I don't, honey. You take your time.”
“Don't we have other houses to see today, honey?”
“Yes. Okay, I'll call you later in the week, Mrs. Ryan.
Thank you so very much.”
They walked to the truck and got in.
“Now, let's see,” Holly said.
“I think this next one—”
“Holly, can we just hold off on this? We saw a house today, it was fine, don't we want to think this thing through a bit?”
“Bud!”
“I just—I don't know. Holly, it just suddenly didn't feel right to me. You could move into that house by Friday. And what then? I might not be ready for—well, I don't know.”
“Bud!”
“And Holly—my God, that woman was talking about Lamar Pye, who shot and killed your husband. Blew his brains out. And you didn't even blink an eye. You just went ahead with your question about if the house was available.
This boy killed your husband, damned near killed me, and killed a mess of poor folks. You got to have some response.
You can't be human and not.”
“Well, aren't you Mr, High and Mighty? I didn't notice you getting solemn about Mr. Lamar Pye the last time you had me every which way from Sunday. You didn't give a damn about Lamar Pye then, or about Ted Pepper either.”
“Holly, I'm only saying—”
“Bud, I have to get out of that trailer.”
“I'm sorry. Holly.”
Her face knit up in a small flinch of pain.
“Oh, Bud, I just want a house of my own. Please. You don't have to move in. Just help me move. Please.”
“Holly.”
“Please. I ain't saying you have to move in. But—you'll have a place.”
“Holly.”
“Just say yes. Bud. Just on this one thing. Think of the fun we'd have up there.” Fun was her word for sex.
“Oh, Holly—if it makes you happy.”
She squealed in delight and gave him a big kiss. Then she ran off to tell Mrs. Ryan.
After a lunch, he dropped Holly off and drove quickly to the Annex so that he could see it and feel it and know what was going on and in that way his lies to Jen about having spent the day there would be that much more authentic. He entered to find it all but empty. Dispatch manned the radio unit, but there was no traffic. A few clerks sat at their computer terminals listlessly, but none of the Ranger types were around.
“Any news?” Bud asked Dispatch.
“Not a thing. Bud. We going to have to wait for old Lamar to strike again, that's all, and hope we get luckier.”
“I wonder how many he'll kill this time,” Bud said.
“Bud, Bud, get your goddamn ass in here,” came a scream from the inner office.
“What the hell is going on?” said Bud.
“You don't have to go in there, Bud. In fact, probably best not to. I ain't seen him so bad.”
“Then I'm—”
“Bud, come in! Get in here, damn you!”
The words were slurred and desperate.
“Shit,” said Bud, and headed in to discover the office a disaster, with paper, computer printouts, books everywhere.
A paper cup sat before Lt. Henderson on the desk, and Bud could see that it was half full of amber fluid.
The old cop stared at him. He had one of those wrinkled prune faces under a thatch of hair, but now it was rosy with the power of bourbon.
He reeked. His chin seemed to want to pitch forward as Re fought for a bitter consciousness and blinked back the darkness.
“Bud, have a drink with me. Just one. Do both of us a world of good,” he said, adding a sloppy and uncharacteristic smile.
“Can't say no to that,” said Bud, and watched as the older man poured a couple of fingers' worth into another paper cup he pulled from his desk.
Bud tasted the whiskey. Fire and memory and buzz, all at once.
“That's a good drinking whiskey. Lieutenant.”
“Bud, I think they're going to let me go.”
“Lieutenant, I am sorry.”
“Goddamn their black fucking hides. I give ’em close on forty years.
