Authors: Castle Freeman
Lester left the office to go after the young woman and Nate. Whizzer and the others heard their footfalls on the mill floor, then they didn’t. Coop got up and went to the window.
“They’re taking Nate the Great’s truck,” he said.
“Girl’s a piece of work, ain’t she?” said D.B.
“Who is she?” Conrad asked.
“Hair down to her ass,” said Coop. “See her hair?”
“Thinks she’s a cut above, too, don’t she?” said D.B. “
What’s the matter with you people?
”
“Whiz liked her all right,” said Coop.
“Did you?” Conrad asked Whizzer.
“Sure,” said Whizzer.
“Whiz likes hair,” said Coop.
“Wishes he had more of his own,” said D.B.
“What’s the matter with her hair?” Whizzer asked.
“
You people?
” said D.B. “Cat named Annabelle? Thinks she’s something. Thinks she’s — what do you call that?”
“You call that attitude,” said Conrad.
“Attitude on her,” said D.B. “Who’s she think she is, anyway?”
“Who is she, really?” asked Conrad. “Is she local?”
“No,” said Coop. “She’s not from here. From the city, it looks like.”
“The city?” said Whizzer. “No, she ain’t. Not a chance. She’s no city girl. She ain’t from right here, maybe, but she didn’t come far to get here.”
“How do you know that?” Conrad asked him.
“Whiz can spot a woodchuck a mile off,” said D.B.
“Takes one to know one,” said Whizzer.
“Wherever she’s from, she’s some little pistol, there, ain’t she?” said D.B. “
She
won’t run from Blackway. Hell, no.”
“She’s right,” said Whizzer. “She ain’t done nothing. No reason she should run. Would you?”
“Run from Blackway?” D.B. answered. “Hell, yes.”
Coop went to the coffeepot. “Mouth on her, too,” he said. “Did you hear her? Fuck this, fuck that. I thought I was back in the navy.”
“I know it,” said D.B. “One thing, though: Girls that talk like that? They put out.”
“How would you know?” Coop asked him. “You never knew a girl that talked like that before.”
“He never knew a girl that put out before, either,” said Whizzer.
“Don’t you mind about what girls I knew,” said D.B.
“Same ones I did, it looks like,” said Coop.
“She’s right about Les and Nate the Great, though,” said D.B. “They can’t go up against Blackway.”
“Can’t they?’ asked Whizzer.
“Who’s Blackway?” asked Conrad.
“Who’s Blackway?” Coop said. “Who’s Blackway, Whiz?”
“I don’t quite know what to tell you,” said Whizzer. “Blackway’s a local fellow.”
“Blackway’s a fellow you don’t want to fool with,” said D.B.
“Blackway’s bad news,” said Coop.
“What do you mean?” asked Conrad. “What does he do?”
“Do?” asked Whizzer. “Well, how would you put it? Blackway’s kind of an entrepreneur.”
“An entrepreneur?” Coop said.
“Whatever he is,” said D.B., “I wouldn’t want Blackway following me around. I know that.”
“You’re in no danger,” said Coop. “What Blackway wants, you ain’t got.”
“What does he want?” Conrad asked them.
“What does he want?” said D.B. “You mean from her? Come on. You’re a married man. Do we have to draw you a picture, here? You know what he wants. So does What’s-her-name.”
“What is her name?” Conrad asked.
“I knew,” said Coop. “Can’t recall. Susie?”
“Sally?” said D.B.
“Lillian,” said Whizzer. “Her name is Lillian. And that ain’t either what Blackway wants with her.”
“What, then?” Conrad asked.
“To teach her a lesson,” said Whizzer.
“What lesson?” Conrad asked him. “Why?”
“Because she got him fired,” said Whizzer.
“Fouled up his game,” said Coop.
“What game?” Conrad asked.
Conrad was married to Whizzer’s younger sister. He was a smart man, but he was a man who didn’t know the ground. He didn’t know the ground, and he thought you could learn the ground by asking questions. A man of questions, a man from away. “What game?” Conrad asked.
“That thing with the dope,” Coop said.
“What dope?” Conrad asked.
“That thing with Russell’s kid,” said Whizzer.
“What kid?” Conrad asked.
4
BLACKWAY’S VISIT
“What a bunch of clowns,” said Lillian.
“Can’t hear you,” said Lester.
They were bouncing around in Nate’s truck on their way to Fitzgerald’s. The motor roared, and the gears screamed, and the tailgate, which was wired shut, rattled and banged.
“I said, what a bunch of clowns.”
“Who?”
Nate drove, with Lester on the outside and Lillian in the middle, between them.
“Back there,” said Lillian.
“You mean Whizzer and them?”
“Idiots.”
“They ain’t idiots,” said Lester.
“What would you call them?” asked Lillian.
“I wouldn’t call them idiots,” said Lester. “Not exactly.”
“No?” said Lillian. “What are they, then? What do they do in there?”
“They get the news. Keep track of things.”
“No, they don’t. Look, I know all about them. Guys like that. You think I don’t? I do. I know them too well. I know everything about them. They do nothing. They sit there. All day, every day, they sit in there. That’s what they do: nothing.”
“They talk things over,” said Lester.
“They talk, all right,” said Lillian. “You’re right about that. They talk. They talk to themselves. If you knew how sick I am of talk.”
“Everybody talks,” said Lester.
“Not like them. Clowns. Nine o’clock in the morning? I bet they were half in the bag — all of them.”
“You mean drunk?”
“Something,” said Lillian. “They weren’t stoned. They’re too old. But they were doing something. They had to be. Listen to them. They sound like a flock of chickens, the way they talk. Nobody who isn’t doing something talks like that.”
“Like what?” asked Lester.
Fitzgerald lived a few miles out of town in a big house that had a view of the mountains to the west, which, as the fog broke up, showed themselves in the morning sunlight, far off, a pale blue limit. Fitzgerald had had the place built ten years before, out of redwood, shingles, stone, and glass. He’d had it built low, all on one floor, like a new house ought to be. He’d spent a lot of money. Fitzgerald did pretty well. He was the biggest logger in that part of the state, he had a couple of dozen men working for him. Maybe he wasn’t a genius, but he was honest and fair, he’d been lucky and he’d worked hard, and he’d done pretty well for himself. Until now.
They found the house shut up tight with the blinds down and no lights showing.
“Nobody’s here,” said Lillian.
“Don’t look as though there is, does it?” Lester said.
He got down from the truck and went to the front door. He tried the knob and found the door locked. He rang the bell. No response. Inside the house, a dog began to bark, not a big dog, by the sound, but a little, yapping dog. Lester began knocking on the door, and as he did he began calling, “Fred? Fred? Come on, Fred.”
The door opened a foot and Fitzgerald peered out. He looked like hell: no shave, skin gray, eyes red, clothes slept-in, breath like an empty bottle in which a mouse has died.
“Les?” said Fitzgerald.
“Morning,” Lester said. “We see you for a minute?”
“We?” Fitzgerald said.
Lester beckoned toward the truck, and Nate and Lillian got out and came to the house to stand with Lester. Fitzgerald watched them unhappily from the doorway.
“Who’s she?” he asked Lester.
“Blackway’s been making trouble for her,” said Lester. “We’re trying to get it sorted out.”
“Blackway?” said Fitzgerald. He stepped back from the doorway and tried to shut the door against them, but Lester put out his hand and held it.
“Fred?” he asked.
“Oh,” Fitzgerald said. “Sure.” He stepped back and let them into the house. A little brown dog, some kind of terrier, yapped at them from behind Fitzgerald’s legs as they entered.
“Shut up,” Fitzgerald told the dog. He closed the door and turned the lock. Then he rattled the door to make sure it was tight.
“I’m a little under the weather, here,” said Fitzgerald.
“I can see,” said Lester.
“Been up all night,” said Fitzgerald.
Lester nodded.
“Night before, too,” said Fitzgerald. “Truth is, I’ve been pretty shitfaced. Cynthia doesn’t like me to start drinking in the morning.”
“How is Cynthia?”
“Like me. Worse. She took a sleeping pill. Went to bed.”
“You ought to do the same.”
“Can’t,” said Fitzgerald.
“What about Heidi?” Lester asked him. “Where’s she?”
“She’s at school,” said Fitzgerald. “She doesn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“You want coffee?” Fitzgerald asked them.
“No,” said Lillian. Nate shook his head.
“Sure,” said Lester.
“Come on,” Fitzgerald said. He turned and wobbled ahead of them toward the kitchen. When the others started after him, Fitzgerald’s dog began barking at them all over again.
“Shut up,” Fitzgerald told the dog.
In the kitchen Fitzgerald waved them toward a round table with four chairs. On the table were two or three dirty glasses and a halfempty bottle of Jim Beam. On the table as well lay a big Colt revolver, loaded.
Lester took a chair and sat at the table where he could watch Fitzgerald. Nate and Lillian remained standing. Lester looked at the revolver on the table. With his forefinger he gently pushed its barrel around so it pointed off to the side.
“What’s this for, Fred?” Lester asked Fitzgerald.
“I’ve been sitting out here,” Fitzgerald said. He was at the stove. He made two cups of instant coffee and carried them, one at a time, to the table. He sat across from Lester and picked up the bottle. He held the bottle over Lester’s coffee cup, waiting.
“Sure,” said Lester.
Fitzgerald poured whiskey into Lester’s coffee, then into his own. He set the bottle down.
“What’s this for?” Lester asked again.
Fitzgerald drank from his cup.
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Come on, Fred.”
Fitzgerald’s little dog seemed to have taken against Lillian, who stood behind Lester’s chair. The dog began yapping at her. Lillian knelt and held out her hand for the dog to approach, but it backed away from her and kept on yapping.
“Shut up,” Fitzgerald told the dog.
“We’re looking for Blackway,” Lester said.
“Then you’re drunker than I am,” said Fitzgerald.
“Fred?”
“He was here,” said Fitzgerald. He looked at the revolver on the table. “That was my uncle Joe’s,” he said. “He was a game warden. You remember him?”
“Sure,” said Lester.
“He carried it,” Fitzgerald went on. “The shells were his, too. Joe’s been dead for twenty years. I don’t even know if they’d fire anymore.”
“What happened with Blackway?” Lester asked him.
“I saw Joe fire it once when I was a little kid,” Fitzgerald said. “He couldn’t get it to hit a god damned thing.”
“What happened, Fred?”
“Makes a pretty good bang, though,” Fitzgerald said.
“Fred?”
“Listen,” said Fitzgerald.“Blackway and I weren’t ever friends or anything. It was a business thing. Blackway knows a lot of people: people that have money, people that want money. Say maybe he knew somebody who had some woods, wanted to raise some cash. Blackway would talk to the owner. He’d make the contract. Then we’d go in and do the cut, Blackway gets a fee. That was all. Maybe once, twice a year, Blackway would come in with a job for us. He was like an agent. Once or twice a year. Not that often.”
“Sure,” said Lester.
“So, late April, May,” Fitzgerald said, “Blackway comes in with a job on a big lot in Jamaica. Owner’s not around, he’s here summers, lives in — I don’t know — Boston. But Blackway’s got his signed contract: so many feet, bounds, roads, you know how it works. It was two hundred acres, all on the side of the mountain, over there. Looks okay, so off we go.”
Lillian took the chair beside Lester and sat. When she did, the little dog jumped up from its place on the floor by Fitzgerald’s feet and began yapping at her again.
“Shut up,” Fitzgerald told the dog.
“We’ve been in there I guess six weeks,” he went on. “Monday morning, I get a call at the office from George, the job boss. Seems he’s had a visit from a Mr. Simmons and a sheriff ’s deputy. Those are Simmons’s woods we’re cutting. Simmons is the owner. He is pissed. He wonders what the hell is going on here. He doesn’t know anything about any logging job. He doesn’t know anything about any contract. What he does know is he’s got about forty acres less woods than he thought he had. Seems he’s headed to the office with the deputy.”
“Some mistake,” said Lester.
“What I thought,” said Fitzgerald. “I wasn’t too worried. It had to be some kind of confusion, didn’t it? Because, after all, I had the contract, Blackway’s contract. It was a done deal.”
“Sure,” said Lester.
“So Mr. Simmons and the deputy turn up. He’s hot, yes, he is. He’s one of these rich guys, owns his own mountain, thinks every tree on it is his pet tree. The deputy? The deputy acts like he’s having trouble keeping awake, the way they all do. I bring out my contract, show it to Simmons. Simmons says he never saw it before in his life, never signed any such paper, never heard of Blackway, never talked about logging those woods with him or anybody else. His signature on the contract? Forged. And what am I going to do about his trees?”
“Blackway forged the owner’s name on the paper?” Lester asked.
“Somebody did,” said Fitzgerald. “That was Monday. Of course, I tried to reach Blackway. Of course, I couldn’t. Mr. Simmons says I’ll be hearing from his lawyer. I expect I will, too. I don’t have a lawyer. Deputy told me to go to Ripley Wingate.”
“Wingate,” said Lester. He looked at Lillian. Lillian raised her eyebrows at him, but said nothing.
“That was Monday, like I said,” Fitzgerald went on. “I was going to see Wingate the next day. That night, middle of the night, Cynthia and I are in bed, sound asleep. I wake up. For a minute I don’t know why — then I do. Somebody’s sitting on the edge of the bed, our bed, just sitting there in the dark. I feel his weight on the bed, and it wakes me up. Now I can see him, kind of, in the moonlight coming in the window, his shadow. I reach for the light.