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  “Did he seem sick?” Leonard asked.

  “He seemed stressed. Like he was having some troubles. He thought he had Alzheimer’s. He said that much.”

  “And did he?”

  “I don’t know. But he thought he did. He wanted to square things up in case his mind was going or his time was up. That’s the way he expressed it.”

  “What I’m really asking is, did he say anything about me, other than what I inherited?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Leonard said, but I could tell it wasn’t all right.

  “I guess you know this, he shot a number of people a few months back. Or so the story goes.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean he killed anyone. I heard about it through the grapevine. I’m originally from that part of town. Where your uncle lived. My mama still lives there. Seems your uncle had some trouble with the people next door. Supposed to be a crack house.”

  “It is,” Leonard said.

  “Someone over there was playing around, shot some bottles off a post in his yard. I suppose they were talking about a bottle tree.”

  “They were,” Leonard said.

  “Your uncle was on his porch when it happened and a shot almost hit him he said, so he got his shotgun and went over there and shot some men on the porch. He had rat shot in the gun. Way it worked out, the police showed up and he got hauled in and the men went to the hospital to get the shot picked out. Your uncle was let go, and far as I know, it wasn’t even in the papers.”

  “Happened in nigger town is why,” Leonard said. “Bunch of niggers popping one another isn’t news to the peckerwoods. They expect it.”

  “I suppose,” Florida Grange said. “Anyway, that’s something I can tell you about him, but that’s about all.”

  I could tell Leonard was secretly pleased. It fit his memory of his Uncle Chester. Strong and upright, didn’t take shit from anyone.

  Grange had him fill out some papers and gave him some to take with him. By the time they were finished, the dentist drill had begun to whine.

  “I’m sorry,” Florida Grange said. “Let’s go out in the hall.”

  We went. Leonard said, “I guess I don’t really have anything else to ask, Miss Grange. Sorry I pulled you out here.”

  “I’m tired of the drill anyway,” she said. “And if you’re going by Leonard, call me Florida.”

  “OK, Florida. Thanks.”

  “You have any other questions, give me a call,” she said.

  “Is it OK I ask a question?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone significant in your life right now?”

  “Not really.”

  “Any possibility of me taking you to dinner?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Collins.”

  “I clean up pretty good.”

  “I’m sure you do, but I think not. Thanks for asking.”

  On the way down in the elevator, Leonard said, “Hap Collins, Lady Killer.”

  6.

  In the car, while Leonard drove, I looked through the contents of the envelope.

  “Anything there mean anything?” Leonard asked.

  “Got a bunch of pizza coupons. Some for Burger King. And you get real hungry, we can buy one dinner, get one free at Lupe’s Mexican Restaurant.”

  “That’s it? Coupons?”

  “Yep.”

  “Christ, he must have been losing it.”

  “I don’t know. Coupons save lots of money. I use them. I figured up once I’d saved enough on what I’d normally have spent on stuff to buy a used television set.”

  “Color?”

  “Black and white. But I bought some Diet Pepsi and pork skins instead.”

  “Coupons seem a strange thing for Uncle Chester to give to a lawyer to hold for me. He could have left that stuff on the kitchen table.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t thinking correctly. Coupons could have taken on valuable import. And the key was with them.”

  “Goes to a bank safety-deposit box, I figure.”

  “You said that, Sherlock.”

  “We’ll check it out right now.”

  “Leonard?”

  “Yeah.”

  “These coupons, I just noticed, they’re a couple years expired.”

  Inside the LaBorde Main-and-North First National Bank, I took a chair and Leonard spoke to a clerk. The clerk sent him to a gray-haired lady at a desk. Leonard leaned on his cane and showed her the key and some of the papers Florida Grange had given him. The lady nodded, gave him back the key, got up, and walked him to a barred doorway. A guard inside the bars was signaled. He opened the door and Leonard went inside and the guard locked it behind him. A few moments later, Leonard was let out carrying a large manila envelope and a larger parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine.

  “You’ll love this,” he said, and held up the envelope. “Inside’s a paperback copy of Dracula and a fistful of newspaper clippings, and guess what? Another key. There’s not a clue what it goes to. Uncle Chester’s brain must have got so he didn’t know his nuts from a couple acorns.”

  “What about that?” I said, indicating the larger parcel.

  “I opened it already.”

  “I can tell that by the way the twine is rewrapped. What is it?”

  Leonard was hesitant. “Well…” He took it over to one of the tables and untied the twine and unwrapped the package. It was a painting. A good painting. It was shadowy and showed a weathered two-story gothic-style house surrounded by trees; fact was, the trees grew so thick they seemed to imprison the house.

  “Your uncle do this?”

  “I did. When I was sixteen.”

  “No joke?”

  “No joke. I used to want to paint. I did this for Uncle Chester’s birthday. Maybe he’s giving it back to me now, letting me know things aren’t really forgiven.”

  “He’s certainly giving you other things. Money. The house.”

  “Coupons and a copy of Dracula.”

  “That’s right. Is that all there was? Nothing else?”

  “Nothing, besides the fact you’re right. There’s the house and I’m gonna get one hundred thousand dollars and you aren’t.”

  So, I thought Leonard was gonna be richer, and that would be all right, and we’d go back to normal, except for him not working in the rose fields, and me, I’d be heading on back to the house and back to the fields, provided I could get my old job again, or another just like it, and Leonard, he’d be putting his uncle’s place up for sale and living off that and his inheritance, maybe put the dough into some kind of business.

  I was sad for Leonard in one way, losing a loved one, but in another, that Uncle Chester was a sonofabitch far as I was concerned, way he treated Leonard, and I was glad Leonard had gotten some money and a house to sell, and a secret part of me was glad the old sonofabitch was dead and buried and out of sight.

  So, that afternoon after seeing the pretty lawyer who wouldn’t go out with me, Leonard drove me home and dropped me off and went away. I figured he was at his place, his feet propped up, listening to Dwight Yoakam or Hank Williams or Patsy Cline, smoking his pipe full of cherrytinted tobacco, perhaps reading his uncle’s copy of Dracula or contemplating his loss and gain, wondering what he’d end up doing with his money.

  In the long run, except for the fact he was gonna wither and die like everybody else ever born, I figured things for him were going to be fine as things can get fine.

  But I hadn’t counted on the black cloud of fate.

  7.

  The black cloud of fate came with rain, of course.

  Two days later, early afternoon, I was sitting on my front porch taking in the cool wind and the view. One moment there was just the same red, empty road that runs by Leonard’s place, and beyond it, great pines and oaks and twists of vines, and above it all, clouds as white and smooth as God’s own whiskers, and th
e next moment, the wind abruptly changed direction, blew harder from the north, turned damp and sticky, and the clouds began to roll and churn and go gray at the edges. Out of the north rolled darker clouds yet, and they filled the sky and gave up their rain and the pines became purple with shadow and the road turned from red to blood-clot brown, then darker. The rain slammed down hard, and the wind thrashed it onto the porch in steel-colored needles that stung my face and filled my nostrils with the aroma of wet earth.

  I got out of my old wooden rocking chair and went into the house, feeling blue and broke and missing Leonard.

  I hadn’t heard from him since he’d dropped me off, and I’d called his place a couple times and only got rings. I wondered if he’d finally gotten his money. I wondered if he were spending it. It wasn’t like me and him to go more than a couple of days without touching base with one another, just in case we needed to argue about something.

  I thought I’d call him again, maybe drive over there after the rain, see if his phone might not be working, but about then the phone rang and I answered it.

  It was my former boss, Lacy, the Old Bastard. He sounded friendly. A warning flag went up. I figured whoever had taken my place in the fields had gotten a better job bouncing drunks or shoveling shit, or maybe died of stroke or snakebite, or taken up preaching, which was a pretty good career, you had the guts not to be ashamed of it.

  “How’s it hanging, Hap?”

  “To the left.”

  “Hey, that’s my good side. Nut over there’s bigger. You ready to come back to work?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re calling from the field?”

  He forced a laugh. “Nah, we had a down day.”

  That meant either no one showed up, or certain supplies couldn’t be coordinated, or they’d expected the rain.

  “That little thing the other day,” he said. “Let’s let it go. I won’t even dock you. Tomorrow we got to have a good day, losing this one. So, hell, Hap. I can use you.”

  “Man or woman’s got hands and isn’t in a wheelchair, you can use them.”

  “Hey, I’m offering you a job. I didn’t call up for insults.”

  “Maybe we can jump that shit pay a little. Another fifty cents an hour you’d almost be in line with minimum wage.”

  “Don’t start, Hap. You know the pay. I pay cash, too. You save on income tax that way.”

  “You save on income tax, Lacy. Wages like that, I don’t save dick. I’d rather make enough so I had to pay some taxes.”

  “Yeah, well…” And he went on to tell me about his old mother in a Kansas nursing home. How he had to send her money every month. I figured he probably shot his mother years ago, buried her under a rosebush to save on fertilizer.

  “Couldn’t your old mother whore a little?” I said. “You know, she’s set up. Got a room and a bed and all. If she can spread her legs, she can pay her way.”

  “Hap, you bastard. Don’t start fucking with me, or you can forget the job.”

  “My heart just missed a beat.”

  “Listen here, let’s quit while you’re ahead. You come on in and I’ll get you working. Tell the nigger to come on in when he’s ready.”

  “Shall I tell Leonard you called him a nigger?”

  “Slipped on that. Force of habit.”

  “Bad habit.”

  “You won’t tell him I said it, all right? You know how he is.”

  “How is he?”

  “You know. Like that time in the field, when him and that other nig – colored fella with the knife got into it.”

  “That guy ever get out of the hospital?”

  “Think he’s in some kind of home now. I’m surprised Leonard didn’t do some time for that. You won’t tell him about the ‘nigger’ business, will you?”

  “I did tell him, there’s one good thing about it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You already got the roses for your funeral.”

  He rang off and I had the fifty-cent raise for me and Leonard both, just like I thought Leonard might actually go back to it.

  Frankly, I had a hard time seeing me going back to it, but a look at the contents of my refrigerator and a peek at the dough in the cookie jar made me realize I had to.

  My mood moved from blue to black, and I was concentrating on the failures of my life, finding there were quite a few, wondering what would happen ten years from now when I was in my midfifties.

  What did I do then?

  Rose-field work still?

  What else did I know?

  What was I qualified for?

  I wasn’t able to tally up a lot of options, though I spent considerable time with the effort.

  I was considering a career in maybe aluminum siding or, the devil help me, insurance, when the phone rang.

  It was Leonard.

  “Goddamn, man,” I said. “I been wondering about you. I called your place and no answer. I was beginning to think you’d had an accident. Refrigerator was lying on top of you or something.”

  “I didn’t go back home,” Leonard said. “Not to stay anyway. I packed some of my stuff and came back here to Uncle Chester’s.”

  “You calling from there?”

  “His phone got pulled from lack of payment. Months ago. I’m calling from a pay phone. You want to know what I’m wearing?”

  “Not unless you think it’ll really get me excited.”

  “I’m afraid clothes have to have women in them for you to get excited.”

  “Maybe you could talk in a high voice.”

  “Cut through the shit, Hap. I’m gonna live at Uncle Chester’s awhile. I been going through his stuff. I feel like I want to do that, get in touch with who he was. And more importantly, find out what this fucking key goes to.”

  “His main coupon collection.”

  “Could be. I’ve looked everywhere. I got other reasons too. I want to fix the house up some. Maybe sell it for more than I can get now.”

  “Sounds smart, Leonard. Things are swinging here too. I got my old job in the rose fields back.”

  “Lose it again.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Hey, you toted me some, move over here a bit, least till I do what I got to do, and I’ll keep you fed and in toilet paper.”

  “I don’t know. That’s more charity than I like. I don’t even have a bum leg.”

  “Me neither. Hardly. I’ve been moving around some without the cane. Mostly without it. I don’t plan to pick it up again, I can do without it. Look, Hap. It ain’t charity. You can help me fix the place up.”

  “What I can’t fix, which is nothing, I shit on. You know that.”

  “You can tote a hammer, hand me nails. And there’s something else. These fucks next door. I got no problems with them yet, but I feel one brewing, way they watch me. They’re biding their time. I’d like to have you at my back, and there’s always the chance they’ll get you first, instead of me. I like the idea of a buffer.”

  “Well, I can see that.”

  “Good. Can I count on you?”

  I considered working for Lacy again. I thought of the rose fields, the heat, the sticks, the dynamic pay.

  “What the hell do you think?” I said.

  8.

  The real repairs and cleaning began in earnest.

  I went to live with him in Uncle Chester’s house the next day, and he got the bed from then on and I got the couch. During the days we did repairs, or rather Leonard did. I walked around with a hammer and nails and fetched things, hummed and sang to myself. I do some pretty good spirituals. Leonard said that’s the way it ought be, a black man with a honkie servant could sing a little gospel.

  We spent a lot of time on the roof, taking off the old tin and putting down some real roofing. I trimmed the big oak that was scratching the roof all by my ownself, managed to saw off the offending limbs without sawing through a finger or busting my ass on the ground.

  It was hot as hell up there and the glare was bad enough you ha
d to wear sunglasses while you worked. I began to tan and lose weight, and I liked the feeling so much I gave up beer and excessive numbers of tacos.

  When I wasn’t holding down roofing for Leonard to hammer, wasn’t fetching something, I’d look off at the crack house and wonder who was inside. People came and went there pretty brisk come late afternoon, and right on through until morning. Come full day, things got quiet. Selling crack wore you out, you had to get some rest before the next tide came in.

  Whole thing depressed me, seeing kids and adults, and even babies on the hips of female druggies a couple years into having their period, lining up over there like it was a cafeteria.

  I saw a couple of cop cars during that time, and there was even a bust and some folks were hauled in. In fact, it was Leonard made the call, but the next day, same guys that left the house were back. One of them was Mohawk, the other was Parade Float. Great strides in my understanding of our judicial system were made without leaving the house and yard.

  Way it worked was simple. I’d had it all wrong. You broke the law you didn’t have to really suffer. See, a guy sold drugs to kids or anyone else, they could come get you, they could lock you up, but come morning, you knew somebody, had some money, a good lawyer, a relationship with the bail bondsman, you could go home, get a free ride back to your house. Have some rest, a Dr. Pepper and a couple of Twinkies to lift your spirit, and you were in business again, if come nightfall you had the supplies.

  It was depressing, and the folks next door must have known we felt that way, ’cause they liked to hang out on their front porch come dark and stare at us. We could see them over there beneath their little yellow porch light, congregating like the bugs that swarmed the bulb above them.

  And their light and our porch light, when we used it, was about all the light there was for Comanche Street, because the street lights had long been shot out and no one had come to replace them. If they had, the crack house people would have shot them out again. The only beacon they wanted on the street was their beacon, one that called people to their place to buy something to make them spin and float, help them coast through another few hours.