The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [50]
But it’d been a hub, which accounted for the big pillared homes on the main street through town, all of them perfect and manicured, like sooner or later Scarlett was going to ride up in her buggy.
And the land, too, was strange, suddenly these small hills beside 64, a small twist to the blacktop, geography out of nowhere here in the middle of the Lowcountry.
Now, as we pulled into town, the blacktop twisting, those weeny hills picking up around us, these pillared homes reminded me of the waste of time a thirteen-mile drive into swampland was. The day was quick on its way to dying, my mom somewhere and scared to death while we took a drive in the country.
“Past the stores and whatnot after the light. First house on the right past the light,” Unc said. “White pillars. May be a sign hanging out front.”
We pulled up to the light at the main intersection, all yellow brick storefronts: a tailor, an ABC store, an Ace Hardware. The light changed, and I pulled through.
There it was, just past Jax Lawn Mower Repair and Snapper Store: YANDLE REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT in red and blue letters on a white background, hanging from a white signpost.
A pillared house, perfect lawn, rocking chairs on the porch. Live oaks.
“Don’t look two-bit to me,” I said, and turned into the circular drive.
“Two-bit,” Unc said, his hand to the dash, “is a matter of the heart.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “We went to school together. Might have been a friend of Delbert’s, if the Lord hadn’t been so kind to me as He has.” I stopped the car, square in front of the brick steps up to the porch.
He turned to me. “I don’t know what we’ll turn up in here. But you don’t say word one. Don’t.” He put his hand on my arm. “It don’t matter if he knows something about your momma or not. It don’t matter. What matters is what we can get this man to volunteer without thinking he’s volunteered a whit. So you just keep quiet.”
I said, “Yessir,” and turned off the engine. I turned to him. “Should I bring in the gun?”
He looked out the windshield. “Today, you’re carrying,” he said. “If it was any other day, I wouldn’t let you do this. But today.” He stopped, slowly turned to me. “Today.” He popped open his door, climbed out.
I led him up the steps and to the door, a big oak thing with an oval pane of glass set into the middle, etched in it a huge medieval R. I let go Unc’s arm, made to reach for the doorknob, but Unc pushed it open before I could even touch it.
He walked right in, me behind him, the stick never touching ground.
“Oh,” a woman said, her voice a little chirp of sound. “Oh. Oh.”
She had on a low-cut blouse and sat at a huge desk, eyes open wide. She had orangish blond hair, boofed out frizzy and long, the bangs sticking straight up in a kind of spray across her forehead. A big-hair gal. Then she stood, and I could see the low-cut blouse was also one of those white see-through-but-not-really-see-through kinds. She had on a flowered bra, pink leather miniskirt.
“Leland Dillard to see Delbert Yandle,” Unc said, and walked forward until he touched the desk.
“Oh.” I could tell she knew who he was, her mouth all pursed up, eyebrows together: she’d been warned about him.
The desk sat in the middle of what’d once been the foyer, the wood floor shining. Behind the desk was a staircase that led to a window, turned, disappeared on up. The desktop was nearly empty, on it only a lamp, a phone, a tablet of paper on a green blotter. Next to the tablet sat an open bottle of nail-polish remover, three or four cotton balls.
“Ma’am?” Unc said. “Will you tell him I’m here, or will I simply have to intrude upon his highness?”
“Um,” she said, and picked up the phone, pushed a button. Three nails on the hand with the receiver were still red.
She listened, her eyes going from Unc to me for a second, then back to Unc. “Uh-huh,” she said, then hung up. “He’s in there.” She nodded to our left.
Unc nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”
I led him to a door to our left, black oak, crystal doorknob. Beside it stood one of those rotating real estate signs, the kind with