white-gray hair and a bad limp. They differed on what exactly he represented.
B.J.’s opinion was strong.
“Hell, he ain’t nothing but an old man. This here’s a waste of time. That coot can’t get nothing done. Blow in his ear, he’ll fall down.”
But Carmody, by trade an armed robber and occasional assassin, had a different opinion.
“Don’t know, brother. He
“You are a fool, Carmody. I say we go on in there, brace him hard, tell him this ain’t his part of the country and he’d best return to the old folks home and watch him run. He will run scared like a rabbit, I guarantee.”
“He’s got some sly, I’m telling you. Some men have natural sly. They see into things, they git what they want, they ain’t got no need to show bull-strong like your lower-class white thug, them thick-necked fellas the eye-talians think are so tough. Man, wish I had a buck for each one of them I saw fall down and not get up-”
“You
“You know what, I do. Anyhow’s, I’m not at all convinced this fella ain’t your natural sly.”
They were parked in the parking lot of a Hardee’s across the street from the Mountain Empire Motel, where the old man had gone to ground. It was boring duty, in a one-horse hick town rimmed by mountains and fueled by fast food. No decent whores anywhere in sight, though maybe a fella could get his motor oils changed somewhere in the little burg’s Negro section. That may have had more to do with Grumley lore, out of Hot Springs’ colorful past, however, than anything real.
“Ho-hum,” said B.J. “Ho-fucking-hum.”
“Oh, wait. Lookie, brother, that’s him.”
It was. They saw the old guy hobble out of his room, lock it solid, and limp to his dumpy rental car. In a few seconds he had it fired up and headed back down the road, turned left onto the big, wide stretch that was 421. They followed. In just a bit, he pulled into the low, log-cabin structure that represented the Johnson County Welcome Center, just east of town.
B.J., driving, let him get into the building before pulling into the parking lot; it was Carmody who drew the duty of trying to get in close and get an overhear.
He entered the low old place, finding it a museum in one half and a travel office in the other, with racks of maps and tourist brochures for local attractions, such as they were, and an earnest crew behind desks servicing the visitors. Indeed, the girl’s dad was talking intently to an old lady, and Carmody boldly slipped near, reaching for a bed and breakfast brochure on the table, and listened.
“-so many Baptists around here, you wouldn’t notice if a new one came or an old one went, I swear.”
“Yes ma’am,” he heard the man say. “This one would be new, I’m guessing, not a church but some kind of prayer camp. Piney Ridge, I th-”
“Piney Ridge! Well, sir, why didn’t you say so! Piney Ridge is where Reverend Elmore Childress had his needy child’s camp in the ’70s, until the, er, unpleasantness. Since then that property has sat vacant. If this new fellow wanted a place for a prayer camp, that would be the place, and who’d notice, all the Baptists around. Now my people are Episcopalian and have been, and it’s nothing agin’ the Baptists, but there’s something a little Roman about their service if you get my drift and my sister Eula-”
And on and on the old blue-hair went, but Carmody was free of the politeness that required he listen. He snatched up the B &B brochure and, trying to keep the leap out of his steps, slid out the damned door.
“You see a ghost?”
“No sir. That bastard’s already onto Pap’s place.”
“What? How the hell.”
“Damn, I didn’t get a good look at him. Well, looks like Pap may be eyeballing him himself.”
He pulled out his cell, punched the Reverend’s number. Meanwhile B.J. set the car in motion, eased out of the space and lot, and buzzed a little down 321 toward 61, just to be less visible when he took up the tail on Old Man Swagger the next time he moved.
“Pap!”
“What is it, Carmody?”
“Pap, he knows!”
He explained what he had learned to hushed silence on the other end.
Finally his dad said, “Blasphemy! Blasphemy, damnation, and hellsmoke! That tricky bastard, what is he up to?”
“Pap, if he drops by-”
“He won’t see a damn thing, that I guarantee you. Now you boys, don’t you lose him. We will stay with this trickster hard and if we have to we will snuff him out. Do you hear me, boys?”
“I will tell B.J.”
“You boys load up and lock but keep your thumbs on them safeties. If it comes to it, you may have to shoot fast and put him down hard.”
THIRTEEN
Bob followed the old lady’s instructions, drove the rental up 421 another couple of miles and found 167, with signs pointing out an airport. He turned, headed through flat farmland, though ahead a ridge of mountains rose like some kind of black wave against the surface of the earth. He passed the airport-dinky toy planes, one-engine jobs- rose through foothills, and then was in the higher elevations. The road had been engineered to find its way between the ridges, and he slid through valleys and passes, seeing many private drives off either side of the road. Then he noted his fuel light blinking and not knowing how much farther the drive would be, pulled into a grocery store. LESTER’S GROCERY, the sign said. It was a solitary white structure lodged into the slope, with a set of gas pumps out front. He filled up, decided he needed a Coke or something, and went in.
The place was dark and grubby, staffed by a lounging boy with acne and too much belly and a surly attitude. Bob got a bottle from a cooler, went to the counter, and paid.
“Say, you familiar with a Piney Ridge Baptist Prayer Camp up this way? Lady at the tourist center told me it should be along this road.”
“No sir,” said the boy, making no eye contact.
“How about a sudden influx of new younger men, in clumps, keeping to themselves, looking prayerful and pious? Ring a bell?”
“No sir,” said the boy.
“Son, you said that so fast it seemed to me you’s most interested in ending the conversation, not thinking hard for an answer. Same as last time. Here, look at me. Look at my eyes, see that I’m a human being too, try and help me out. Be surprised what good things can follow from that.”
Sullenly, the boy looked over. Bob saw “boy” was the wrong word. Guy was maybe in his mid-to late twenties, though still riddled with the face blemishes of adolescence, while the features of his face had gone all lumpy with excess weight here as on his body. He made the briefest of connections, then bobbed away.
“Sometimes some fellas come in. New fellas,” he finally said. “Don’t seem no Baptists though. Seem more like hoodlums. Tough guys, don’t know where they’re from. Just show and buy up beer and Fritos and smokes and pork rinds, keeping to themselves, paying in cash, making comments about Lester’s store and how shitty it is. Don’t like ’em much.”
“Good,” said Bob. “Thanks a lot.”
“Yes sir,” said the boy.
Something reminded Bob of a certain kind of young marine, the loser kid who joins the Corps as a way to start over, to have a new life, to do something well and right. Some of ’em don’t make it, and it’s just more fuck-ups until they’re gone with a new set of grudges. But now and then you find one who gets to the top of the hill and goes on to become a real marine, and maybe has a life he couldn’t have imagined when he was fat, pimply, and sullen
