Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [169]
“I never thought of it like that. I think you got your hand on it.”
“Hope we get some rain. This is about the hottest place I’ve ever been,” the man said.
“You know what General Sherman said when he was stationed here? He said if he owned both Texas and hell, he’d rent out Texas and live in hell,” R.C. said.
The man tilted up his orange juice and drank it empty, swallowing smoothly, never letting a drop run off the side of his mouth. R.C. went back to eating, his long legs barely fitting under the table, his jaw filled with food, one eye on his clipboard. “This stuff is a royal pain in the ass,” he said. “I’m going back on patrol. If they want my time logs filled out, they can fill them out their own self.”
“If I were you, I’d put the times in there somebody wants and not worry about it. That’s how organizations are run. You just got to make things look right. Why beat yourself up over it?”
“You sound like a guy who’s been around.”
“Not really.”
“Where you staying at, exactly?”
“A little vacation spot a buddy of mine has got rented. It’s just a place to go hunting for rocks and arrowheads and such.”
“Look, is somebody coming to pick you up? You looked like you were limping.”
“I’ll hitch a ride. People here’bouts are pretty nice.”
“I don’t mind driving you home. That’s part of the job sometimes.”
“No, I was in an accident a while back. I don’t like to start depending on other people. It gets to be a habit too easy.”
R.C. picked up the remnants of his nachos and chili dog and threw them in the trash, then sat down at the table with the man, who was now feeding a Ding Dong into his mouth. “You seem like a right good fellow,” he said. “The kind of guy who don’t want to hurt nobody but who might get into something that’s way to shit and gone over his head.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I always figured if a guy makes a mistake, he ought to get shut of it as quick as he can and keep on being the fellow he always was.”
“That could be true, but I think you’ve got somebody else in mind.”
“You’re not from Texas, but you’re from down South somewhere, right?”
“Me and a few million others.”
“But you weren’t raised up to keep company with criminals. It’s got to grate on you. I reckon that’s why you hitched a ride here today.”
“You want a Ding Dong?”
“Not right now,” R.C. said, and fitted one end of his handcuffs onto the man’s left wrist and snicked the ratchet into the locking mechanism. “Mind if I call you Noie?”
“I’ve answered to worse.”
“You have a friend who drives a Trans Am that has Michelin tires on it?”
“Can’t say as I do.”
“Where’s Preacher Collins at, Noie?”
The man squinted thoughtfully and scratched at an insect bite on the back of his neck with his free hand. “Who?” he said.
“YOU’RE NOT GOING to believe this,” Maydeen said, standing in Hackberry’s doorway.
He looked up from his desk and waited.
“R.C. says he’s got Noie Barnum hooked up in the back of his cruiser,” she said.
Hackberry stared at her blankly.
“He says Barnum walked into a convenience store down by the four-lane,” she said. “He’d hitched a ride to have lunch there.”
“How does R.C. know it’s Barnum?”
“He says the guy looks just like his photo, except he’s a little leaner. He’s got a limp and maybe has some broken ribs.”
“The guy admits he’s Noie Barnum?”
“R.C. didn’t say. He just says it’s him.”
“What about Jack Collins?”
“R.C. said there were Michelin tire tracks where Collins’s car was parked yesterday. I didn’t get it all, Hack. Want me to notify the FBI?”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I did. How about losing the tone?”
He stood up from his desk, staring out the window into the brilliance of the day, at the wind whipping the flag on the pole, at the hard blueness of the sky above the hills. His right hand opened and closed at his side. “Tell R.C. to bring him through the back.”
“Hack?”
“What is it?”
“You always say we do it by the numbers.”
“What about it?”
“Pam told me about you almost shoving a broken pool