The older one was the kind of fella that makes you look twice. He didn’t need no wig ’cause he had a bushel of white hair of his own. He had a white mustache that curled up at both ends. Daddy would call his face ruddy. But it was them eyes that grabbed hold of you and wouldn’t let go. They was real blue, like Grandma’s sapphire pin Momma wore sometimes. His wearing clothes was different too, the kind of long black coat that none of the city fellas wore anymore and a silver fob hanging from a watch chain on his vest. Lawyers in Texas looked more like preachers than that Buzfuz lawyer in the book.
The other lawyer, Mr. Harley Calloway, wasn’t exactly no yearling. He was a younger version of Mr. Catfish Calloway, with the same face but without the wrinkles. His eyes wasn’t blue, and he didn’t have no mustache. His suit of clothes was more like other city fellas wore these days.
“Tell us what happened to Cicero,” the older one said, leaning forward across the big table.
“Well, he didn’t come back last night.”
“Where’d he go?”
Jasper crossed his fingers under the table just in case. “He went out.”
“Out where?”
“Don’t know exactly.” He tightened down on his fingers.
The older lawyer glanced at the younger one and got real quiet. Seemed like he was just thinking. At that moment, he was the scariest old coot Jasper’d ever eyeballed. Then he asked some more questions, dead serious like a preacher, but Jasper still didn’t give him much information. Every now and then the lawyer’d pick up some spectacles, pinch ’em onto the tip of his nose, and write something down. When he looked up over the top of them specs, it was like his questions might punch right through a brick wall. Them blue eyes just wouldn’t let loose. But he didn’t get nothing out of Jasper. It wasn’t this fella’s business if Cicero was still getting acquainted with that lady at the whorehouse, and Jasper wasn’t about to tattle.
Finally, the man stopped firing off questions like a six-gun, leaned back in his chair, and looked over at Professor Charlton. “Professor, I know you have other responsibilities. If you want to head on back, we can take it from here.”
“I do need to get back to campus,” Professor Charlton said. “Jasper, Mr. Calloway and his son are here to find Cicero. Please do what you can to help them, and they’ll bring you back to the dormitory later.”
“Yes, sir.”
What was this lawyer fixing to do?
After Professor Charlton left, the younger lawyer got up and went over to his desk, where he sat and read a book. The older lawyer took off his coat. He was packing some kind of artillery under his shoulder. He took that rig off and hung it up on a hook by the door with his coat. For some reason, he turned the flame down on the table lamp. Then he settled back into a chair on Jasper’s side of the table, propping his feet up on the table like he was fixing to take a nap.
I’ll be. He was wearing boots.
The lawyer ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it flopping down like a horse’s forelock. Made him look younger somehow. Then dang if he didn’t grin like Daddy, and everything just got different.
“Colonel!”
Jasper hadn’t even noticed the dog, who must’ve been sleeping by the front door. He padded over and stood by Mr. Calloway, who reached down and rubbed the two big ol’ floppy ears.
“Got a dog?” Mr. Calloway asked him.
“Yes, sir,” Jasper said. “His name’s Lightning.”
“How’d he get that name?”
“He’s afraid of it and hides under the front porch.”
“The colonel doesn’t cotton to it, either,” he said, leaning way over and letting the hound dog lick his face. “Where’s home?”
“Fayette County. Near Flatonia.”
“I know it, sure. Been there. Good farm country. Your daddy a cotton farmer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mine too,” he said with a big smile. It was like he was remembering some good days back home. “How about a soda water?”
“Sure.”
“Miss Peach,” he said to the lady in the front room, “would you be so kind as to go next door and fetch some Dr. Pepper’s soda for my friend?”
She appeared in the doorway between the two rooms. “I’d be happy to.”
“And get that bowl of Circle-A for the colonel.”
One furry eyebrow arched up at the sound of his name.
“I don’t think he finished the one I got him earlier.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a wink at Jasper.
Miss Peach was young and she was a looker, but she was real different from them girls in the whorehouse. She had red hair all bundled up on top of her head and the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. Of course, she was a full-growed woman, but she couldn’t be all that much older than him. He was eighteen, so she was maybe twenty-one. He watched her walk out the door and head for the drugstore. She had a real skinny waist and wore a pretty blue dress that dragged the floor except when she lifted it up a little, and the sleeves of her white blouse was all puffed out. But she was real businesslike too. She had a stiff stand-up collar with a black bow tie just showing at the front.
“Miss Peach is my stenographer.”
“Yes, sir. She’s nice.”
Mr. Calloway dropped his feet back to the floor and scooted his chair a little closer. He bent over, rested his forearms on his knees, and gave him the blue eyes. “Son, Baylor doesn’t really have to know every doggone thing about last night. I don’t see any reason it’s a bit of their business. But I gotta know it all if I’m gonna help Cicero. His daddy’s an old friend of mine. He wired me today
