“I sparred with that man for nearly five years. That man’s got the hardest head ever put on this God’s earth.”
“You know I had to get rid of the Hudson? Them boys had seen it over at Fannie’s and they know I was there over at Britton’s house. I sold it off to some niggerman over in Loachapoka. He was gonna paint it and cut it down a bit. Said he was gonna sell the engine and paint it gold. Ain’t that just like a nigger? Makes me sad to think about that engine in another body. Rips the heart out of her. But I’ll get another. But, man, oh man, I sure loved my little Hornet.”
“Where’d you get this ’shine?” Reuben asked.
“Moon,” he said. “They still ain’t found his still.”
“They ain’t found a lot of stuff. They rootin’ around all around the county. I heard yesterday they busted in at Papa Clark’s farm and found all those brand-new horse-racing games. I also heard when they come for him, he nearly had a heart attack.”
Johnnie nodded and stood, combing the five long black hairs over his head. He cupped his hand and lit another cigarette. He wore a crisp pink cowboy shirt with a bolo tie.
“When did men start wearing pink shirts?” Reuben asked.
“I seen a magazine where Tony Curtis wears pink.”
“You ain’t exactly Tony Curtis, Johnnie.”
He shrugged and picked his nose, snorting a bit as he did. “You want some more ’shine?”
“No.”
“Listen, don’t get all pissy on me. I told you I’d come through for you and I did. Didn’t I tell you that ole Hoyt and Jimmie didn’t trust banks? Hell, Hoyt made his first dollar in the damn Depression. And I was the one who knowed people who used to work for Mr. Hoyt. That’s how I knew about the kind of safe he’d got and just how to blow that baby open.”
Reuben smoked down the cigarette and lit another Chesterfield, liking the design on the pack because he’d seen a picture of Gregory Peck smoking them while filming
“What’s the split?” Reuben asked. He poured out the last of the ’shine, only a mushy peach left at the bottom, just as ripe as the day it was picked and soaked in corn liquor. “Figured that’s what we’re beatin’ around the bush about. Let’s figure it out.”
“Three ways.”
“Three ways?”
“Cut between some inside folks.”
“I think that’s horseshit.”
“I told you I got an inside man.”
“Who?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Why don’t you try.”
Johnnie shrugged and snuffed some smoke out of his nose. “All right, hell. Clyde Yarborough.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit back on you.”
“Clyde trained Hoyt and Jimmie. He’s the one who taught them the whole game.”
“Let’s just say, Hoyt ain’t rememberin’ that in his Christmas list.”
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Reuben said. “I still say we need to keep that money hidden for a while. Wait till the time is right.”
“The time is now. You got other options of feeding that moody-ass boy of yours?”
“Say, why doesn’t he like you?” Reuben asked. “He hasn’t said one word since you showed up. I ain’t seen him all day.”
“You think I give a shit,” Johnnie said, unzipping his fly and urinating right off the porch into what used to be his wife’s flower bed. He grinned, a cigarette clamped in those tombstone choppers of his. “I just got that effect on some people.”
Reuben waited, finished the cigarette, and stood. “You know Hoyt wouldn’t think nothin’ ’bout killin’ both of us.”
“Life ain’t nothin’ but a spin of the wheel.”
THAT SATURDAY, I SPENT THE MORNING ON MY LAND UP ON Sandfort Road. I brought Anne with me, and together we fed and watered the horses, cleaned out their stalls, and went for a short ride through some cleared trails in and around the pines and oaks, the kudzu beaten to the trail’s edge around our small pond. By the time we returned to the little barn, the horses were calm and gentle, the restlessness and nervousness gone, and Anne brushed them while I hung up their saddles and tack. I nailed up some shoes that the blacksmith had left by the gate and I tightened a loose nut on the water pump. I checked the mineral levels in their tank. I checked the fencing up by the front gate.
I was hammering up some barbed wire that hung loose when I heard the unmistakable high-pitched gears on an Army jeep and saw Jack Black behind the wheel, with his buzz cut and gold aviator shades, stop short of my gate.
“We got him,” he said.
I leaned into the fence and looked back at Anne, who fed Joe Louis an apple. Joe shook his head back and showed her his teeth when he was done.
“The FBI matched the prints taken off Mr. Patterson’s car with the prints we took off Fuller.”
“They sure?”
“They said it looked as if someone had tried to smudge the prints on the door frame, but they got part of a finger and his thumb.”
“That was Ferrell. I have two people who saw him rubbing his arm over the roof of that car. Guess he missed a spot.”
“Guess so.”
“So we can charge him?”
Black shook his head. “Sykes wants to wait. He doesn’t want this getting out too soon.”
“What else does he need?”
“He’s trying to be careful. He says he wants more and doesn’t want to spook Fuller.”
“What about the guns?”
“Nothing yet,” Black said, squinting into the sun behind my back. “They’re testing the bullets they took at the autopsy with those.38s we got at Fuller’s place. There’s also talk about exhuming a couple bodies from men Fuller killed a few years back to compare bullets.”
“You don’t look optimistic.”
“Fuller is stupid.”
“But not that stupid,” I said.
“You never know.”
“I’m ’bout finished up around here.”
“That’s a nice-looking horse.”
“His name is Joe Louis.”
“And the other?”
“Rocky.”
Black smiled. “Of course he is.”
Anne walked up to us, skinny and lean in a pair of crisp blue overalls and little cowboy boots. She climbed up on the swinging gate and said hello to Black.
“You gonna make him work?” Anne asked.
“Just a little,” Black said.
“I liked him better when he pumped gas,” she said.
