“No,” Fletch answered. “In fact, Emory, I want you to do this for me. Go get the truck and put the cattle grills on it.” The grills were steel bars that would make a pen, nine feet high, all three sides, on the back of the pickup truck. “Throw a couple of small bales of hay on it. Then put that calf bull aboard, that little bastard who’s discovered he can walk through barbed wire fences. Then put the truck up near the house, in the shade.”
Jack muttered, “Wish you wouldn’t be so free with the word
“Sorry, Coitus Interruptus.”
Emory started to move toward the house to get the truck. “You heard the news yet this mornin’?” He appeared to be asking his boots.
“No,” Fletch answered. “Anything interesting?”
Emory turned around and walked backward. “Something about escaped convicts. Nine or ten of them. From Missouri, or some such place. They say they’re here somewhere in the county.”
“Oh, sure,” Fletch said. “They always have to make a story, don’t they? Just to frighten the horses. By the way, Emory, Carrie will be deliverin’ the bull for me, and I’ll be takin’ Jack here down to the University of North Alabama. If anyone’s lookin’ for us.”
“Not to worry.” Emory turned around to walk frontward over the bridge. “I brought my gun.”
Driving the truck, Emory passed Fletch and Jack herding Leary toward the back of the house.
In the kitchen, Fletch said to Carrie, “The third one is outside. His name is Leary. I told Jack to get him stript and hose him down.”
Carrie looked through the kitchen window. “Big. Ugly.”
“Stupid.”
In low voices, while cooking together, Fletch outlined his thoughts regarding the truck, the bull calf, Leary, Carrie; the station wagon, Jack, Kriegel, himself. Carrie not only agreed, she relished the plan. She refined a few of its elements.
They focused on what they did not yet know.
Outside the back door, Fletch waited for Jack to turn off the hose before handing him a plate of ham and eggs. Standing in the morning sunlight, Jack proceeded to eat his breakfast.
When Fletch handed Leary his breakfast, Leary sat cross-legged on the grassy slope, naked and wet, to eat. Obviously he had lifted weights at one time. Most of his bulk had slipped into his gut, ass, thighs. His skin was pure white. He seemed to wrap his whole body around his plate of food.
He looked like a huge, hairless, white baby.
Fletch dropped a big garbage bag on the ground. He said to Jack. “Put everyone’s clothes and boots in this.”
“Then what do I do with it?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. The cops will be here later. To collect Moreno.”
Jack looked up at him. “Just Moreno?”
“The rest of you will be gone by then. By the way, where are we really going?”
“Uh? South.”
Fletch repeated, “Where are we really going?”
“Tolliver, Alabama. There’s a camp there. In the woods. You know where Tolliver is?”
“Yes. Are you expected there?”
“Kriegel is.”
“What kind of a camp? Boy Scout?”
“The Tribe.” Jack watched Fletch’s face.
“The Tribe? What’s that when it’s at home?”
“If you don’t know,” Jack said, “you’ll find out. I want you to find out.”
“A grand bunch of sterling chaps, I’m sure.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Like a hunting camp, you know?”
“Paramilitary? Do they have a good marching band?”
“By the way, may I bring the guitar?”
“That will be nice. You can lead the singing around the campfire. I’ll bring the marshmallows.”
In the morning light, Jack was squinting at Fletch’s face.
Fletch asked, “If you’re Kriegel’s lieutenant, what’s Leary’s function?”
“Bodyguard.”
“Kriegel’s bodyguard?”
“Yeah.”
Fletch nodded at the big baby sitting naked on the grass. He had dropped scrambled egg onto his stomach. With his hand he had slathered it up onto his chest. “I can see he would be good at that. Who wouldn’t want to stay away from him? Did he kidnap someone because he was lonely?”
“I think you’re about right,” Jack said.
“Whom did he kidnap?”
“A teenaged girl. I think he thought they were eloping.”
“She didn’t think so?”
“No. And he carried her across a state line.”
“The Mann Act. Did he rape her?”
“I think he thought he was making love. He kept her three weeks in a school bus. When he finally understood she didn’t like him, he went to a pool hall and tried to sell her.”
“His feelings were hurt.”
“Again I think you’re right.”
Leary must have been hearing them talking about him. He never even looked up. He kept scoffing his food with his fingers.
Jack said, “You might say he just didn’t know how to do things right.”
Watching Leary eat, hearing about him, Fletch’s stomach churned. “Not properly brought up, you might say.”
Jack said, “You might say that.”
“And Moreno?” Fletch asked. “What was his role in this scheme?”
“Money. He had a stash of it. In Florida.”
“Drug money?”
“Yeah.”
“You all were going to rob him?”
“Rob him? He owed us.” Jack grinned. “Then we were going to rob him. Once we knew how to get to his money.”
“For a guitar picker, you sure know some different scales.” Avoiding the puddles, Fletch walked toward the smokehouse.
“Hey,” Jack said. “Don’t I get any coffee?”
“You drink coffee?”
“Sure.”
“You can go in the house. Ask Carrie to help you find some clothes for your traveling companions. White shirt, decent slacks for Kriegel, maybe a necktie. Overalls for Leary. I don’t want Leary wearing a shirt.”
Glancing at Leary’s blubber, Jack muttered, “I do.”
“WE ARE SORRY, but due to seismic disturbances, your telephone call to this exchange in California cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call at a later time.”
“Wow.” Fletch was in the smokehouse, with the door closed, using his cellular phone. “‘Seismic disturbances’! They’re so used to California rockin’ and rollin’ they’re ready with a recorded message! A recorded message about seismic disturbances! So cool!
