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  And what would happen after Will was convicted? What if he wasn’t convicted? The old man, would he hold a grudge either way? Some people lived by the feud. I had known a guy in the war, over in Afghanistan, and this Afghan kid had made some kind of gesture or face at him. I don’t know. I didn’t see it happen. He told me about it, and he was burnt up by it. Stuff like how we were there for them, and it wasn’t appreciated.

  I was there because I was in the army to get the opportunity to get an education as a helicopter pilot. I got it, never used it, bought out a guy’s frame shop in downtown Laborde instead. But this guy, I think he went back and killed that kid. I don’t know for sure he did, but I know they found a kid dead, and his tongue had been cut out. I got to thinking maybe the kid stuck out his tongue at him and the guy just couldn’t let it pass. I don’t know. I told my CO about it, but there wasn’t a thing could be proved, just speculation.

  There was this other guy in our unit at the time, Cason Statler, and it was on my mind, so I told him and a buddy of his, guy they called Booger, what my suspicions were. Booger was what you might call a sociopath, or in East Texas terms, a bad son of a bitch. I shouldn’t have said a thing in front of him. He didn’t care for anyone. Except Cason. Not sure why, but he loved the guy like a brother. Next day they found the soldier I told them about dead with his tongue cut out, same as the kid. I always thought it was my loose mouth got him killed. What if that guy didn’t do the murder? What if I was wrong? I think what got him done in was when I spoke to Cason, Cason said something like, “Bastard did that doesn’t deserve to wear the uniform and ought to pay for what he did.”

  I figured Booger, hearing that, did the killing for Cason, or at least it was that way in his mind. He went out and found the soldier and killed him and cut his tongue out, pinned it to the soldier’s chest with a pocket knife. No one could prove anything. I just hoped I was right about that soldier being guilty.

  Thinking on that made me think about Cason. Me and him had been pretty good friends, on account of we were both from East Texas, him being from a town not far over from Laborde. After the war I didn’t try to keep up with him, and he didn’t try to keep up with me. Maybe there were too many old memories there, things we didn’t want to dredge up, so I hadn’t really wanted to see him.

  Until now.

  Five

  I got on the internet the next day and looked to see if I could find Cason. I remembered he said he had been a journalist, so I added that into the mix. He was easy to find. He had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his newspaper work in Houston, but was no longer living there. After that it was an easy jump through the internet to find out he still worked at a newspaper, but no longer in Houston. He was working at one in his home town, not that far away. Camp Rapture, an old lumber camp that had blossomed into a pretty good-sized town.

  I got on the phone and called the paper, pretty sure I’d hang up when they answered, but I didn’t. The receptionist asked me my business.

  “I need to speak to Cason Statler.”

  The next moment he was on the phone.

  “You remember an old desert rat?” I said.

  “A bunch of them. Which one are you?”

  “Tom Chan.”

  “Why, you old dog-dick-sucking sonofabitch.”

  “Oh, come on, man,” I said, falling right back in with our old way of joshing. “You act like that’s a bad thing.”

  He laughed and we talked a bit, about how we had been only about twenty miles apart all this time and not knowing, and so on. I didn’t mention that I had never even tried to look him up. I didn’t have to. I knew he knew, and I figured he had been just the same when it came to me, but now that I had found him, it was damn near like old times, but without being shot at or worried about being blown up. We went on about this and that for awhile, the war coming into it, but not too direct, and then I said, “You know, I hate to call you up like this, but I got this problem that I thought I could talk to you about. I don’t know why I need to talk to you exactly, but I’m thinking I do. I’m not asking for money. I’m not asking you to do anything, other than listen. Maybe give some advice.”

  “You saved my bacon once, and I haven’t forgotten that.”

  “That was me and your friend Booger,” I said. “We did it together.”

  “Christ,” Cason said. “Don’t say his name. When you speak of the devil, he might appear.”

  “So can we talk?”

  “I’m pretty flexible,” he said, “being as I’m the best goddamn reporter here.”

  “Not bashful, are you?”

  “A bashful fellow never has a chance with the ladies,” he said. “And I do like the ladies.”

  Six

  Kelly was off from school as a teacher for the Christmas holidays, but she had to go in that day to do some kind of work of her own, something to wrap up the term. Nothing official, just a day by herself in her classroom.

  As she was getting ready to leave, dressed in slacks and tennis shoes, a baggy shirt and no makeup, I said, “If it’s all right, I’m going to drive over to Camp Rapture and visit an old army buddy.”

  “An army buddy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Male?”

  “All the way.”

  “Why this, all of a sudden?” she asked.

  “I don’t know exactly,” I said. “Maybe I want to ask him some advice.”

  “About the hit-and-run, about testifying?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Look,” she eased up to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “I know I came down pretty hard last night. I mean, I’m scared. I won’t kid you. But you’re doing right. We’ll just have to make sure the law protects us.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “But you still want to see your friend, you don’t have to go tell him what a shitty wife I am about not supporting you, and all that.”

  “That’s not it. Hell, you have legitimate concerns. I don’t know, maybe it’s because me and him haven’t talked in awhile. Maybe it’s because we shared a few things in the service. I don’t know exactly why I need to see him.”

  She cocked her head, making her dark hair dangle to one side like a curtain. She studied my face for a moment, gradually smiled the smile I like so much. “Sure. I’ll see you later. Have fun.”

  Kelly went on to school. I called into the frame shop, telling my assistant, Dean, I’d be out for the day, and then I drove over to Camp Rapture, listening to music all the way. I used the GPS, so the newspaper was easy to find. When I went inside, I saw Cason get up from his desk at the back, smile and start walking toward me. He looked exactly the same as I remembered, only without the uniform. A big good-looking guy that made everyone else around him self-conscious, me included.

  I stuck out my hand, but he grabbed me and hugged me.

  “Good to see you,” he said.

  Everyone in the office looked at us. Cason said, “It’s okay. Me and him have been fucking for years.”

  A few of the reporters laughed, a few looked offended.

  He threw his arm around my shoulders and we started out. He called out as he left, “We’re going to a motel for awhile, right after we stop at Walmart and buy a big jar of Vaseline. We like to keep it simple, don’t we, honey?”

  “I suppose we do,” I said.

  Seven

  There was a little coffee shop in the center of town, or what used to be the center back in the old days when there was a town square. It was a mixture of coffee shop and trinkets, actually, stuff from Camp Rapture’s history. There were photos on the wall. An artificial Christmas tree wearing shopworn ornaments. Cason pointed at one of the photographs. It was an old black-and-white one, and from the way people were dressed, I guessed it was from the 1930s.

  He tapped the glass over the photo, said, “See that woman?”

  “Yeah. These days you’d call her hot.”

  “She’s my grandmother.”

  “Naw,” I said
.

  “Yep. Sunset Jones. She was a constable once. They got pictures of her all over town. She became constable because she killed the former constable, who, by the way, was her husband.”

  “I guess that saves on elections and divorces.”

  “He was a big bully. What it saved on was him raping her. He was trying when she got his gun and killed him. Did it during a tornado.”

  “Some gal,” I said.

  “She was. Here, let’s get this table.”

  He guided me to one in the back. A waitress came over. She was about twenty-five, I guess, dark- haired and well-built. She had nice face with a very interesting, if slightly crooked nose. Cason flirted with her a little, and it didn’t hurt her feelings any. He was the kind of guy that could walk into a room and girls would stick notes in his pocket with their names and numbers on it; actually, the one time we were stateside together I saw that happen when we left base to go to a bar. I didn’t get any notes.

  I ordered coffee. Cason ordered a breakfast. We made with some more general bullshit, and then the coffee and his late breakfast came. I showed him photographs of Kelly and Sue I had in my wallet, pulled up some on my cell phone.

  “They’re better than you deserve,” he said, “based on looks alone.”

  “I know it,” I said.

  “Me, I got a line of girlfriends that I’ve left or they’ve left me and I got a job at a struggling newspaper, and a book I’ve been working on for ten years, and so far I’ve just about made it to page fifteen, and about two paragraphs are any good, and that’s the dedication. You’re doing all right, Tom.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and we talked a little more bullshit.

  While Cason ate, he looked at me over the fork that was dipping regularly into his mouth, said, “So you got something on your mind, and it isn’t about your family photographs, my love life, or the niceness of the latrines we had over in Sand World.”

  “Oh, those were very nice,” I said. “I loved peeing down a pipe.”

  “Well, at least they didn’t make us shit down those things.… Oh, wait. They did.”

  We laughed. I said, “Yeah, I guess there’s something else.”

  “Don’t be shy,” he said.

  “All right,” I said. “This is what I got.”

  I told him the story. When I finished, he said, “I see what you’re worried about, of course. But, man, you need to do the right thing.”

  “I’m afraid the right thing might be the wrong thing,” I said. “Right now I’m not worried. I mean, no one outside of the police know I know who was in the car. But once it gets out there, well, it could be a problem.”

  The waitress came back and poured us both another cup, tried to linger, but Cason didn’t flirt with her this time. He wasn’t rude, but she could tell he wanted her to go, so she did. I watched her go. It was a nice departure. I’m happily married, but that hasn’t killed the instinct to look. That’s all I do is look, all I want to do, but hell, you got to do it; it’s built into the DNA.

  Cason eyed me, said, “So, I haven’t seen you in years.… How many?”

  “I don’t know, almost six years.”

  “Sounds about right,” he said. “And you thought you’d just come to me and ask my opinion on this? Six years goes by and we don’t talk, and now we’re talking. Why is that, Tom?”

  “I guess I just needed someone to discuss it with. Kelly, she’s trying to hang tough, be with me on this, and she said she was this morning. But the other night she wasn’t so sure. And frankly, I wasn’t either.”

  “What you’re saying is you don’t trust the police to keep you safe.”

  “What I’m saying, Cason, is they talk to me like they might not be able to, like I’m taking a big chance here. It’s almost like they’re trying to talk me out of it.”

  He nodded. “First thing, let me lay this out. I know damn near all the criminals who have their nests in East Texas. I know these assholes, the father and son you’re talking about, Pye and Will Anthony. I’m a reporter, remember, and believe it or not, this part of East Texas is a hotbed of drugs, prostitution and murder, and this Pye and his son are the generals. Well, a general and an over-motivated private, that being Pye’s boy Will. They took over things after Cox ended up in the can. Cox thought he could hold onto it, and he would have been the better one to do it, but it didn’t work out that way. He was out of sight and out of mind, and what power he had he couldn’t maintain, not in jail. He didn’t have access to the money there. The Anthony pair nabbed the greenbacks, and they nabbed the power. They’re crafty more than smart, but when you get right down to it, it’s the crafty motherfuckers you have to worry about. They don’t do what’s logical at any moment in time. Or if it is logical, it can go wonky out of nowhere, because they’re impulsive. They got a screw loose, these guys, and they got people working for them that aren’t the professionals that Cox had. They know what they’re doing, in the basic way. I mean they can hot-wire a car, put the right amount of talc in a batch of cocaine to soften it up and spread the dope, they can shoot straight and cut a throat as perfectly as if they laid it out with a plumb line. But they don’t care who they make mad, or who they hurt, or how. They are petty. And if they are petty, think how they’ll be for something this serious, the boy possibly going to prison for life, maybe even getting a needle full of poison. Manslaughter most likely. Leaving the scene of a crime, and so on. But either way, serious business. I know of one man, who crossed them in some way or another, nothing big, and they sawed off his legs with a handsaw, while he was alive. Nearly bled to death, but lived. They didn’t expect him to live, but he did. He never admitted they did it, because I think he wanted to keep the rest of himself intact. Everyone in the underworld knew it, and I knew it, and the cops knew it, but the guy wouldn’t say it was them. He feared they’d get to him eventually if he did. Thing was, about a year later, he was found dead in a Little League baseball field. Know what they’d done? They’d cut him up and put him in the place of home plate, just this chest and lower body. They came back on him anyway, even if he didn’t talk, decided maybe they should have finished the job the first time. They found his arms in a dumpster, the hands still attached, and the hands clutching his dick, which they had superglued together. That was their way of making a joke. Not nice guys. Not nice at all.”

  “Damn,” I said.

  “Damn is right.’

  “Maybe I should hire someone to protect me,” I said. “Someone besides the police, someone whose job is just that, protection.”

  “Can you afford it?” Cason asked.

  “I can.”

  “On a frame-shop salary?”

  “It’s more lucrative than you think. I also have a guy works for me, Dean, he does school photos for me. We have a number of accounts, including here in Camp Rapture. People like photographs of their children, so we got that going. We also offer to frame them. It works out well. I got a bit of inherited money as well. Uncle who lived in California died, had a big batch of cash, and I ended up with part of it. Not sure how, didn’t even know him that well, but that’s neither here nor there. I have the money.”

  Cason sipped his coffee. “There’s a couple of guys I wish were available, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. I tried to get them on a simple job not long ago, for a friend, but they’re out of Texas right now, doing something else. They had something to do with Cox going down, or so I hear through the grapevine. But, they’re going to be gone for awhile, so that won’t work.”

  “Don’t tell me about the guys I can’t have,” I said.

  “Listen here, Tom. Here’s a thought. You think it over. Like you said, you’re okay right now. The beans have not been tumped over, so to speak. But you get to thinking you need help, well, there is someone.”

  “Oh shit,” I said. “You don’t mean—“

  “Booger,” he said. “You could get him. Pay him, he’ll do the job. Have me stick with him while he does it, you’ll come out without him sho
oting you and setting fire to your home.”

  “Same old Booger,” I said. And I wasn’t saying it with humor.

  “Exactly. He’s in Oklahoma. He’s got a bar and a shooting range, but not in his name. He has a guy that runs it for him. He has a construction business too. He hires out now and then, and I don’t mean to pour your drinks or your cement. He has other people who do that.”

  “I thought he’d be a felon by now,” I said. “In prison.”

  “He would be if he’d ever been caught. So would I, frankly.”

  “I won’t ask you about that,” I said.

  “And I won't talk about it. I’m only going to talk about the stuff you need to know, and here it is, same as I said before. You go home and think it over, and if you decide to testify, and I think you will, and you believe you need some security that’s more than the cops, you call me. I can take off here, say I’m working on a story, throw some bullshit thing together later, and still take their breath away here at Camp Nowhere. But Booger, we got to be sure we want to bring him in. We can’t just think it’s a good idea, we got to know it is, because he comes loaded for bear, literally and metaphorically. Thing is, though, on something like this, should it go ugly and nasty as the devil’s asshole, we want him with us. He’ll dive into that hole without holding his nose if he’s been paid to do it. Or he thinks I want him to. I try not to ask him to do too much, but I owe you. Come to think of it, I owe Booger too, but somehow he thinks he owes me.”

  “You think you owe him, and this is how you repay it?”

  Cason laughed. “Don’t be silly. Giving him a job like this is the kind of thing Booger calls Free Pussy.”

  Eight

  When we got to the register to pay up, Cason took the bill and I thanked him. He flirted a little with the waitress, but she wasn’t having any after the cold shoulder Cason had given her earlier. She took the money and gave him a “Thank you, sir,” and we left.