said he did. What'd I tell you to do? I said run him off. You do it, not some deputy'll fuck with the nigger's civil rights.'
'Another way I was thinking,' Arlen said, 'shoot him accidentally during the Brice's reenactment.'
'Except he's on our side,' Walter said. 'Guns are inspected anyway, make sure they're not loaded.'
'But it happens,' Arlen said. 'Wasn't there one at Gettysburg a few years ago?'
'During the one-thirty-fifth,' Walter said, 'you're right. A fella with the Seventh Virginia was shot in the neck. Doctor removed a ball from a forty-four-caliber pistol. It was ruled accidental. The ball must've been stuck in the barrel, since the pistol had been inspected, the chambers clear.'
'How about that diver,' Eugene said. 'Is he reenacting?'
'There'd be an investigation,' Walter said, 'anybody gets killed.' But now he was thinking about it.
Arlen was too. Arlen saying, 'Do 'em both at the reenactment, the diver and the nigger. Draw 'em off into the woods there and shoot 'em. Dump the bodies in an irrigation ditch. Come back after dark and bury 'em in the levee. Who'd miss 'em? Nobody'd know where they went or care.'
'That's how to do it,' Newton said, leaning forward to look past his brother at Arlen and give him a nod. 'You want, I'll do the nigger.'
Walter said to Arlen, 'You're full of ideas, aren't you? What'd you say to John Rau when he asked aboutJunebug?'
'I said he disappeared on me, didn't know where he was at.'
'He come to the house,' Eugene said, 'looks around and wants to know where was the sofa. I guess on account of the coffee table was sitting there with nothing behind it. I said, `What sofa? I only board here.' '
Bob Hoon said, 'He asked us where we was. Newton told him, `Out in the country making speed, where you think I was?' Kidding with him. This John Rau 's a serious person. He says, `I'm gonna send the North Mississippi Narcotics Task Force after you.' I said, `What's that? I never heard of it.' Lot of those law enforcement people you can kid with, but not John Rau, he takes it serious.'
They were winding down.
Arlen asked Walter how come he hadn't dyed his beard. Walter said you look at photos of Old Bedford in uniform, taken during the war, his beard was black as coal. But in photos less than ten years later his beard was pure white. Walter said it led him to believe the wartime photos had been retouched to make the general look fierce, 'and the beard actually wasn't any darker than mine.'
Arlen said, 'Wasn't 'cause your wife'd get after you if you dyed it?'
There was a time a remark like that would disturb Walter. Not anymore. Walter could say to Arlen, yes, his wife was recognized as a selfrighteous pain in the ass, set in her ways, two married daughters in Corinth still under her foot. If she were ever to see that photo of him tooting in the buff with Kikky, would she howl for his blood and leave him? He could say to Arlen, yes, of course she would. But so what? He could say to Arlen, show her the photo if you want. Walter had drug profits put away, scattered from Jackson to the Caymans, that Arlen and his morons would never find in a million years. Walter believed that at a moment's notice he could walk away and become someone else.
What he did say to Arlen was, 'Leave my wife out of this. Please.' Keeping it light, a gesture to Henny Youngman, saying it as Jim Rein walked in. Walter said, 'Fish, grab yourself a chair.'
And Eugene was on him. 'Jesus Christ, don't tell me you left Rose alone.'
Jim Rein held up his hand wrapped in a dishtowel. 'She bit me.'
'Fish, I told you you can't leave her. She'll tear up the curtains, the chairs, eat the carpet-' 'The house is okay,' Tim Rein said. 'I shot her.'
Carla came out to watch him dive and they sat for a while in lawn chairs, in the shade back of the tank, talking, beginning to get to know each other.
In the days that followed his meeting the Mularonies, Dennis was diving again in the afternoon: climbing to the perch and looking for a cowboy hat among the scattered crowd watching, doing his flying reverse pike, then wearing his shades, a towel around his neck, as he stood among girls from Tunica and told them what it was like to risk death or serious injury every day of his life. He could turn it on and the words would come out in a quiet tone of voice. But in the past week he had seen a man shot to death and had met Robert Taylor and watched him perform and the daredevil act from eighty feet had gotten old. When he was with Robert he felt like a stooge-as Robert even said, his straightman. Dennis no longer the star. But now the past couple of days he hadn't seen Robert at all, Robert out doing his act with his Indian buddy Tonto Rey, and that was fine, Jesus, why would he want to get close to a con artist? Even one who said he could take him higher than eighty feet, show him an edge-risk, excitement, thrills?-he wouldn't believe. And that business about selling his soulcome on. Ask him what all that meant and Robert said wait and see.
Carla came along and the Tunica girls, no match, took off.
She said, 'You know you don't have to do a matinee.' Dennis said yeah, but it was what he did, and Carla said, 'We haven't talked much, have we? Hardly at all.'
Sounding as though she wanted to tell him something, confide. They moved lawn chairs into the shade of the tank, the private area where Floyd was shot, Carla wearing shorts and a loose tank top, dark blue against her slim arms and shoulders. She said, 'I don't have anyone to talk to.'
Dennis offered Billy Darwin. 'I thought you two were close.'
'Why?'
'You came with him from Atlantic City.'
Carla said, 'You don't talk to your boss. You know what I mean, goof around, say anything you want, unless you have something going. And we don't.'
Dennis took another step closer saying, 'I thought you two might be hot for each other.'
'It's there, but we both know it wouldn't work. Billy's into casinos and I'm not. I may go back to school and get my MBA. Billy's happy, he has a girlfriend who comes down from New York to see him. She was a showgirl in Las Vegas when they met.'
'I see him going for a different type.' 'Guys are guys, Dennis.'
'Does he fool around locally?'
'Why do you want to know?'
'You said you need someone to talk to, that's what we're doing, talking. I'm in the same boat. Where I'm staying we talk about baseball or losing weight.'
'You've been talking to the police lately.' Dennis felt they were getting to it now.
She said, 'And you talk to Robert Taylor.'
'How do you know?'
'He told me. He was in to see Billy with his jam box and played a record for him. Marvin Pontiac. Have you ever heard of him?'
“`I'm a Doggy'? `I stink when I'm wet'? Yeah, I like Marvin. He's different.'
'Robert said the rights to the songs are available and Billy could get in on it if he wanted.'
'What'd he say?'
'What do you think? He said no.'
'Doesn't like the music?'
'It's Robert. Billy says Robert has a criminal mind. He isn't even sure Marvin Pontiac exists.'
'He's dead. Run over by a bus in Detroit.'
'You know what I mean. You can never be sure where Robert's coming from.' Carla showed her smile. 'But you can't help liking him.'
'You talk to him much?'
'He stops by the office to chat. He thinks you were up on the ladder when the guy was shot'
holding Dennis with her dark brown eyes-'and saw the whole thing.'
'I came down, that's when I first met Robert.'
'Were you?'
'What?'
'On the ladder when the guy was shot?'
Dennis hesitated.
She said, 'You were, weren't you?'
