The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [52]
Unc froze, eased off the stick.
I said, “Disowned him?”
Unc’d given up most all pressure on the man’s throat, lost on the news, and slowly Yandle reached up, took hold of the tip, pushed it away. He looked at me, then Unc. “Like I said, he’s a dipshit. Haven’t talked to him in five years. Still owes me over twenty-two thousand dollars, spent on what I have no clue.” He swallowed. “Look at his career decision. You yourself can testify what a losing proposition law enforcement is. And of the dozen or so Thigpens I know, not a one of them will speak to me or to my son. But if the one you’re after is any acquaintance of Doug’s, he’s got to be a dickhead too.”
He sat all the way up now, hands in his lap, his chest still going. “This is going to be the hardest six percent I ever come by,” he said, his eyes right on Unc. “But it’s coming, Leland Dillard. And when it comes, I’m going to be the signing agent, whether you give a damn or not.”
Unc turned to him, broken out of whatever thought it was going on in him with the news Yandle junior’d been disowned.
Unc whispered, “Over my dead body.”
Yandle chuckled, touched at his throat. The pink button-down collar’d lost a button, the tie all twisted and pulled. A suspender’d popped off his pants, too, for Unc on top of him.
He chuckled again, said, “You just never know, now, do you?”
The door burst open then, and in came the woman. “Oh,” she chirped again, and “Oh, oh, oh.” She knelt to Yandle, touched at his collar, his shoulder, his tie, then looked up at Unc, said, “Sue the bastard, Del. Just sue this cracker white-trash cripple. Assault and battery, Del. Sue him.”
Unc nodded at her. “Ma’am,” he said, and headed for the door.
But there was something about the two of them, there on the floor, and in the way she’d talked to Unc that made me want to finish this. It was a temptation, I knew, but I gave in to it.
I looked at them, shook my head. “Won’t look good in the papers,” I said. “You having Unc arrested. TRAILER SALESMAN WITH HELMET HAIR BEAT UP BY BLIND MAN.” I shrugged. “It just won’t look good.”
Yandle chuckled again. “You ain’t as stupid as everybody says you are,” he said, and rubbed at his throat again.
Then Unc had hold of my sleeve, pulled me through the doorway, and we were gone.
“Disowned the boy,” Unc said. He took a sip off his drink, set it between his feet on the floorboard, then found the burger where he’d set it on the dash, took a bite. “I wonder if he even has anything to do with this.”
We were on 64 headed out of town, had stopped at a Hardee’s, where a black girl took our order: a Frisco Burger, a small fries, and two Mr. Pibbs.
I wasn’t eating, though Unc’d told me I needed to. My stomach was gone, Mom somewhere. Somewhere. And I wondered what that Hardee’s girl would think of the story I could tell her: murder, kidnapping, suicide.
And now Unc was thinking maybe Yandle wasn’t a part of the story we couldn’t tell anybody.
I said, “But Unc, he was there at the hospital.” I took a sip of my Mr. Pibb, set it in the cup holder hanging from the window well. “Pointed at me like he was shooting me.”
“So he’s an idiot. So what? Thinks he’s Chuck Connors as the Rifleman.” He took a few fries from the box wedged between his legs. “Likes to hang out with the big dogs, hoping someday they’ll throw him a bone. Maybe let him wear one of their windbreakers.”
He chewed, said, “These need salt,” and slapped open the glove box. He reached in, moved around napkins, a map, an old history paper I’d gotten an F on and didn’t want to show to Mom.
Mom.
I looked at my watch: three-thirty.
“Gotcha,” Unc said, and pulled out one of those salt packets they give you when you ask for them. He held it between his thumb and second finger, carefully broke it open by bending the top down with his first finger, then tipped it over, shook it out.
But he missed the fries, instead salted the seat above the box.
The packet empty, he dropped it in the empty Hardee’s bag on the floorboard, then took up another couple of fries.
“Much better,” he said. “On to Beverly