Terrell was a little surprised. ?You haven?t begun??
?I?ve done a few little things. Horn is a difficult target given your requirements. I?m ready to begin.?
?Money then.? The fat man patted his suitjacket. ?Right here. Right over the ole ticker. Thomas Berryman,? he kept repeating the name. ?I think I expected much more of a lightweight. A lightweight personality, that is. I believe I oversimplified.?
Berryman replied in a soft, southern gentleman?s voice that he borrowed from his father.
?I am a lightweight,? he leveled Johnboy. ?I have bad emotional reflexes. I?m basically very lazy. Very materialistic. I want to get away from it all. Fast. Live the good life, you know.?
Johnboy?s head bobbed and his chest heaved a little. He was slightly amused. ?Sounds familiar enough.? He reached inside his suitjacket.
He took out a brown packet bound in ordinary elastic bands. The package was about three inches thick. ?All in all, one hundred thousand to the good life,? he said rather solemnly.
He sat and studied Berryman as he opened the money and flipped through the crisp bills. He appreciated Berryman?s attention to detail. Berryman looked the part of a southern businessman. Right down to the matching tie clasp, cufflinks, belt buckle; to the gray rayon socks with red clocks on the sides.
?I do admire your inventiveness, Berryman. You are no hunter. If you live long enough, I?m sure you?ll get everything that you want.?
Berryman finished his counting, then tucked the money in his suitjacket. He stood up over the davenport, moved in front of a confused oil painting of the Scopes trial, and Terrell got up with him.
?I may be using a gun this time,? Berryman said. ?I want lots of confusion. Confusion is the key. It will look very good for the papers. It will probably happen on the Fourth of July. Probably.?
Berryman was wearing light yellow driving gloves and he extended one hand to Terrell. ?I don?t mean to be rude,? he continued to speak softly, ?but I really shouldn?t spend any more time here. It?s stupid of me to be here at all.?
Johnboy touched the glove lightly, more exploring than shaking hands. He stared into the mask?s eyeholes for a full ten seconds. ?So damn smart,? he said once again.
Berryman nodded and smiled slightly. ?If I?m followed out of here,? he said, ?the deal is off. You mustn?t interfere.?
Around that same time in the early evening, Jimmie Horn?s hazel-brown eyes drifted down from melodramatic paintings of Jesus posed in front of various wooden doors and gates ? to autographed photographs of Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Langston Hughes ? to a collection of every black person Norman Rockwell had ever drawn.
Then the one person he was consistently unable to fool or inveigle, a large-breasted seventy-one-year-old schoolteacher, walked into the parlor where he was sitting. She carried bubbling tonic water with lime, and warm sugar and lemon cakes. She was Etta Raide Horn, his mother.
?Should of taught summer school again.? She sat in a creaky rocker currently painted green. ?Already missin those little stinkers, Jiminy.?
Horn shook his head. ?You should get out of that school altogether is what you
He should get out of the grocery, too.?
?And you should go back into law practice,? Mrs. Horn said.
Her son laughed. ?So there.?
?So there to yourself.? She maintained a straight face that only hinted at laughter. ?By way, Mr. Mayor, how?s your campaign going??
?It?s going very well, I think.? Horn took a sugar cake, closed his eyes, slowly let his teeth cut through it.
?I see,? Etta Horn nodded. ?I see.?
She sipped her cool drink, watching her son over the rim.
?I?ve been talking to a few people about it. Politics,? she clarified. ?I?ve been sitting down at the store musing about it. Listening to quite a few people talk too.?
Jimmie Horn looked over her head at Julian Bond?s photo. He wondered what Bond?s folks were like. ?So what?s on your mind?? he asked his mother.
?Oh, nothing. Nothing.? The old woman revealed where her son might have picked up his great innocent postures. ?We did visit your Aunt Fay down at Clarksville last week though.?
?Uh-huh,? Horn shook his head.
?Farming niggers down there don?t know Jimmie Horn from Harry the Hootowl,? she grinned. ?White folks down there know you, but they don?t approve of you.?
?You?re beating around the bush, darlin?. You?ve got me flushed out. Talk straight.?
?Well? Etta Horn sighed, ?it just seems to me ? you?ve got to meet with these people. You?ve got to reach out, and shake their hands, and tell?m who you are. Got to have people saying??Hey now, guess who I saw down the feed store today. That young Jimmie Horn runnin? for United States Senator. He looked me right in my eye, said he?d be the finest, hardest-working senator Tennessee has ever had.?
?Why I heard of a man somewhere,? Etta Horn went on, ?Michigan, Ohio? ? he won senator just by walking across the state meetin? people face to face.?
?Black fella?? Jimmie Horn smiled.
?Don?t get smart. Don?t get wise ? People like a hard-worker, black, white, or otherwise. Especially these days. All these bums around.?
