last cigarette and put it in his mouth. He didn’t light it, just let it dangle there. “You really going to help me find my son?”
“Yeah.”
“You trust me after what I did?”
“I don’t know. I must. Either that or I’m crazy.”
“It was a kind of calculated madness, Dane. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do it. It seemed sane to me when I first thought it. A son for a son, but I knew inside me I couldn’t do it. But I could have killed you… I’ve thought about it all morning. I told you in the car I didn’t know if I could have. That was a lie. I could have. I thought you killed my son and it wouldn’t have been anything for me to do you in.”
“You’d have gone back to prison.”
“Big shit. I’d have been just as happy if they’d killed me.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. If my son’s alive I want to find him. It makes all the difference in the world.”
I had been standing. I found the only chair in the room and sat down on it. It groaned as if in pain.
“They don’t hold back on expense here, do they?” Russel said.
“Was your cell any better?” I was feeling mean. I still didn’t like the sonofabitch and he had just admitted that he could have killed me and slept.
But my question didn’t bother him. He actually considered it.
“The only thing that made the cell bad was that the door was closed and I couldn’t open it anytime I wanted. But out here, I’m like a duck out of water. I’ve been away from civilian life too long. I don’t know how to act. Don’t even know how to talk to a woman anymore. I’m not sure which is worse. Here or Huntsville.”
“Sad how they make you serve your time, isn’t it?”
He smiled at me. “I deserved my time, Dane. I’m not complaining.” He found a match then and lit his cigarette. “Last smoke and last match.”
“I gave you enough money for cigarettes and food. I’ll get back in touch with you.”
“You’re going to contact Jim Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“It may not be the same one, you know?”
“I know, but with a name like Jim Bob Luke, I figure it is. I’d more likely think he might not be in the same business.”
“Maybe you could let me talk to him. We used to be friends.”
“So you’ve said. Maybe that’s enough reason for me to leave that sucker alone.”
“He’s wiser than me,” Russel said. “He believes in justice and truth and liberty and all that shit.”
“All right, you talk to him. They’ve got a pay phone here. When you’ve gotten some rest and you think he might be up, call him.”
Daybreak was edging in the open doorway and that made me think of Ann and Jordan. “I have to go home,” I said.
“When will I hear from you?”
'I don’t know. I’ve got some thinking to do. You get something from Jim Bob Luke, you call me. My number’s in the book.”
I stood up.
“Dane, an apology isn’t much after what I did-”
“No, it isn’t.”
“But I’m offering it.”
“Wouldn’t have done me much good if you’d have killed me and my family.”
“I wouldn’t have killed your family. Just you.”
“That makes me feel a sight better, Russel.”
“Put yourself in my situation and think about what you’d have done.”
“I wouldn’t have done what you did.”
“That wasn’t much thought on the matter.”
“I know I wouldn’t have done what you did.”
“No, I don’t think you would have either. I’m not offering an excuse, just an apology.”
“Your apology is shit, Russel.”
“We’re going to have to work together on this. Me finding my son and you finding out who you killed, what this is all about. We might as well get along and learn to trust one another.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you completely, Russel. I’m already having my doubts and thinking I should have left you where you were. Maybe you don’t deserve a son.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
I didn’t like the way this was going. “Just lay low. You get in trouble and you’re on your own. I can’t help you anymore, and I wouldn’t if I could.”
“We’re going to be helping each other plenty if we get into this. If the cops are in on it like you say, they aren’t going to hand us the answers on a platter.”
“Rest. I’ll see you later.”
I stopped off at the phone booth between the Fina and the doughnut shop and called home and didn’t explain much, just said I’d be there shortly and I wasn’t going to work today. After that I called Valerie and told her I wouldn’t be in and to take her key.
When I finished talking and started driving home, I thought about what I had done and I wondered how I was going to explain it to Ann. I wasn’t sure I could explain it to myself. Russel was an ex-con and he wasn’t any saint and he didn’t need a son. He needed a nice warm cell and someone to feed him and tell him when to bathe and when to shit and when to breathe. Why did I want to bother with him anyway? What could possibly come of this? Even if I found out who I killed, how would that change things? A dead Wilbur Smith is no better than a dead John Doe. The earth would not shift on its axis either way.
So how did I explain? What could I tell Ann that would make her understand? Should I say that Russel had hands like my father?
19
When I came in Ann was fixing toast.
“You want some?”
“No. I had a doughnut in town. I’ll have some coffee with you, though.”
“What was with the note? Where have you been?”
“Where’s Jordan?” I asked.
“Asleep still. I thought I’d let him skip day school today. I called in at work. I’m not going either. What about my question?”
“I went to the police station.”
She considered that a moment. “About getting the door fixed?”
“No. I went to talk to them about Russel.”
“Yeah?”
“I asked them to let him go.”
She was busy putting her toast on the plate and now she turned to look at me. “Letting him go?”
“I found a wallet in Jordan’s bedroom. Russel’s. It had a picture of his son in it. It wasn’t the man I shot.”
“You asked the police to let that bastard go after what he did?”
“There wasn’t any way it was Freddy Russel. This guy didn’t look anything like him. The man I shot wasn’t Freddy Russel. I went and asked them to let him go and they did.”
Her knees went weak and she dropped the plate and the toast. The plate broke and the toast went sliding under the table. She leaned her back against the counter and I went over there to help her.
