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  “Yeah?”

  “Sure, but again, it won’t be top of the line. Think of it like going from a leg that’s a stump to getting a peg for it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like that good a deal.”

  “It’s the deal I got.”

  “You’re either the best con man I’ve ever met, and I pride myself on certain skills, or you’re the dumbest son of a bitch ever squatted to shit over a pair of shoes.”

  “I’ll accept either moniker.”

  She sat there in her underwear awhile, and I sat there in mine. She had another drink. I poured myself a short one. We had the back door open and there was only the door screen, but with the light on in the kitchen, insects were gathering on it, and the air coming through, even without the bedroom fan or the swamp cooler, was pretty pleasant. Neither of us was in a hurry.

  “All right,” she said.

  (7)

  I had the Cadillac and was buying it as planned, made a deal with Smiling Dave to trade in the one I had. I didn’t tell him all that Nancy had told me about her business, but I did tell him I wanted to take up payments minus what she and Frank had paid, and he let me.

  He should have. So far that week, I’d sold three cars, and I came in on Saturday, my day off, and sold another. I didn’t plan on actually letting Nancy have the car in the end either. Never trust a used-car salesman. I also didn’t plan on seeing her again, but I won’t lie to you, I thought about her. Her long legs and that blond hair and that belly button. I thought about that drive-in theater and the cemetery that only had a dead horse in it and some scraped-up dirt and some markers with nothing under them, their planned-for occupants out in the woods somewhere rotting away. That seemed like a nice combination of businesses.

  “What did you think about that Craig woman? Some looker, huh.”

  “She was all right.”

  “All right? Shit, boy, there’s men that would have crawled over ten miles of broken glass naked and fought a pack of savage midgets to get some of that.”

  “Savage midgets?”

  “It just came to mind.”

  “Yeah. Well, I got a close first cousin that’s a midget, just a little-bitty guy, and I find that talk offensive.”

  “Hey, Ed. I’m sorry.”

  I laughed. “I’m fucking with you. He’s not even a first cousin.”

  Dave squeaked his chair around so that he could look right at me. “Asshole. How about some coffee?”

  “Sure. Which means I get up and make it.”

  “This body doesn’t get around as good as yours. And besides, I’m the boss.”

  I stood up, got the percolator set up and the Folgers in it, put it on the hot plate, and got it going. I took two cups out of the overhead pantry and set them beside the hot plate, sat down, and waited. We talked some more about this and that, then we drank coffee, and Smiling Dave smoked a turd rope.

  “You know, Ed, there’s times I lie down at night, think maybe I’m pushing the line too much, selling some of the kinds of junk cars I sell.”

  “We sell some good ones too.”

  “Does that make it better? The now-and-then good car, like that Caddy? I lay down, think about some piece of junk I’ve sold someone, made money off of, and lot of them folks have families and such. I mostly get this way when I have indigestion, and a little later, after an Alka-Seltzer, I say fuck ’em, buyer beware. But I got moments when I think about some of the exaggerations—shit, lies I’ve told. Some of them stink so bad, I damn near think the Department of Health will show up, have me quarantined. You ever have moments like that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah. Well, used to I didn’t either. I get a few now. I think it’s old age. There’s a sentimental element to it. Wish I didn’t get that way at all.”

  “Take another Alka-Seltzer.”

  “Yeah. I hear you.”

  “You going to start giving fairer prices, truer deals, Dave?”

  “Oh, hell no. It’s just a feeling now and then, not a transition of philosophy. What we got going for us, Ed, is that people think life is fair, that it’ll work out for them. That the government has their best interests at heart. That commercials on TV are trying to sell them something worth having when most of what they’re selling is just to sell it. Know how to talk up a bucket of shit as a cure for baldness, there’s some meathead will buy it and pour it on his slick noggin. You play on what people think is right, and what they think is some special product, then they got to have it. Everyone’s got to have it. I tell someone that dead-rat smell in the trunk of a car is new-car smell, if they want the car, that’s what they’ll start smelling. We convince them. It might stink like a dead rat a week later, but for a few days, they’re driving around in it while it’s still working okay, it’s a smell they like.”

  (8)

  A couple weeks passed. Dave had gone to get a burger and bring me back one, and I was standing in the office, looking out the window, thinking things had turned a little slow, and I see Nancy driving up in her piece of junk.

  Electric butterflies fluttered along my spine when I saw her and there was a vibration in my head like someone had set off a tuning fork. I went out and met her in the lot just as she was getting out of her car.

  She was wearing blue jeans today, kind that looked like she had been poured into them, and a nice top and tennis shoes. Her hair was a bit wild-looking, like a palomino horse with its mane in the wind.

  When she got out of the car, she gave me a look that made me step back a pace.

  “You are some kind of shit, Ed.”

  “I’m a used-car salesman. What did you expect?”

  “My dad was a used-car salesman, and honest.”

  “That right?”

  “Yep. He hardly kept food on the table but didn’t lie about the junk he sold. I got to tell you, Ed, that was some line of crap you pitched me, about coming to take me out. And I bought it. I been around for a girl my age, seen some things, but I bought it.”

  “When did you decide it was crap?”

  “When you were telling it to me, but later I got mad about it.”

  “Yeah. I’m pretty good. I have time to work on my patter out here in the lot and, on slow days, in the office.”

  She smiled. It surprised me. “Okay, you got the Cadillac, but I been thinking about that night, and I been thinking about my husband being gone, and I been thinking you might want to come back over, have a drink, and haul my ashes, no Cadillac involved. I mean, you already got the milk, you might as well come back and visit the cow.”

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  “I bet you have, but you didn’t come. One thing, though. You said you’d fix me up with a better car for free. Was that bullshit too?”

  “Pretty much. But you want to pay a little, got the money, pay it outright, I can put you in something better than you got.”

  “You’re a piece of work, Ed.”

  “And so are you.”

  “The fox doesn’t like to get outfoxed, that’s the thing.”

  “Tell you what. You trade in that piece of shit and let me pick you out a car that is cheap but runs well, and I’ll put a new set of tires on it and buy you dinner.”

  “I don’t go out much. Married, you see.”

  “I can buy some groceries, come over and cook for you.”

  “You cook?”

  “You bet.”

  “All right, then. Show me the car.”

  (9)

  I did get her a car, and I even kicked in some of my own money to make it work, but I didn’t tell Dave that. I got the commission, but considering how I had helped her out, it was a substantial loss. But I still had the Cadillac.

  When I was a kid, my father, gone now, run off somewhere, was one of the world’s greatest human train wrecks, but he told me a thing that stuck. He used to say a Cadillac gave the impression you were living well, and people would respect you, they saw you in that kind of car. You might be living in a cardboard box wrapp
ed in a bath towel at night, but if you owned a car like that, people thought differently about you. Thing was, of course, you had to be able to have the Cadillac. And now I had one.

  As for me and Nancy, things happened fast after that.

  I went out to her place on summer nights, and the days went by, and then the weeks, and about ten months in, lying in bed, I said, “So, your husband. Any idea when he’s coming back?”

  “He won’t be coming back. You could say we are divorced without papers.”

  “You mean separated.”

  “Tomayto, tomahto.”

  “I keep thinking, nights I’m out here, some night I’ll be sleeping and I won’t wake up because he’ll get that shotgun you got and splatter my head all over the sheets.”

  “That won’t happen, Ed. Frank is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yep.”

  “Since when?”

  “I guess we’re talking shortly after we bought the Cadillac.”

  “Paid down on the Cadillac, he died, and you didn’t tell me, lied to make me think he was around?”

  “That might have been a good move, to do it like that, but no. He had an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “The kind you have when your wife sneaks up on you from behind with a hatchet.”

  I felt my blood chill. “You’re messing with me, right?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I could say you did it, that we had a thing going and you did it. You hit him with an ax and then you threatened me so I wouldn’t talk.”

  I sat up in bed. “Whoa, baby. You just said he was dead before we met, right after you bought the Cadillac from Dave. I wasn’t even on the lot when you bought it.”

  “I could adjust my timeline a little.”

  “Damn, girl.”

  “What happened was you were infatuated with me so you decided you’d kill him. You snuck out here, picked a hatchet out of the barn, and, let’s see, I can say Frank went out there, maybe to drive the Cadillac, and you came up from behind and killed him with the hatchet. I know all this because I’ll say I went out there with Frank. It was a plan you made me part of on threat of death. I went out there and you killed Frank, and then we buried him in the pet cemetery, put him in the box with the dead pony.”

  “He’s buried with the pony?”

  “I thought he’d like a pony ride to hell.”

  “Listen, Nancy. I don’t like that idea you got even a little bit.”

  “You’re not supposed to.”

  “I think maybe I can explain the truth to the police. I can tell them the truth and I bet they believe me.”

  “Over a pretty young thing that’s been bullied by a big, mean used-car salesman? Like you said, those used-car folks, they’re liars from the get-go. Except my ol’ dad, of course. Well, the dad I made up. My real dad was a pimp and I grew up in Fort Worth with his hand between my legs.”

  “Look here, Nancy. You don’t have to do this. I’ll give you that Cadillac, no charge.”

  “You’re lying. You just want to get out of here, but you got to understand, that won’t help you.”

  “No. I’m serious. I can get you the Cadillac. I can make that work, and I won’t say a word to anyone.”

  “Ha. Got you.”

  “What?”

  “I was messing with you. You are one big sucker, Ed. You aren’t so tough, and you just thought you had a line of patter. How was that?”

  I breathed a large sigh of relief. I felt as if I were melting into the mattress. I was covered in sweat. “Goddamn. You had me going, all right.”

  “I was getting a little bit even for what you did to me, though I don’t consider us exactly even yet. I pulled a joke, you got my Cadillac. I played that out a little more, I’d have that car back. But even I couldn’t be that mean. Someone else, I could have. But I really do like you, Ed.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah, but you aren’t so slick. That was a stupid story, and you bought it. I guess, though, you might have been the kind of guy that would decide to kill me to keep me from spreading that around, and then you would be a real murderer. Isn’t it funny how things might go?”

  “Damn, Nancy. You got a mind that goes all over the place.”

  That’s when I should have packed it in, but there was something about her, and I don’t just mean her looks and the sweet and musky way she smelled, though that didn’t hurt matters. It was something else. Something rotten and at the same time intriguing. It was like a sour kind of whiskey that you had to get used to, and because of how it made you feel, you were willing to.

  Later in the night, with Nancy in a deep sleep, I went to the bathroom, and after I washed my hands, I got to thinking.

  I quietly opened some bathroom cabinets and looked around. There was a shaving kit. I pulled the zipper and looked inside. Shaving cup with a bar of soap in the bottom of it, a shaving brush, and a double-edged razor and some blades.

  Guy leaves, wouldn’t he take his shaving kit? What was in the bedroom closet? His clothes?

  Stop it, Ed, I told myself. A guy and a girl split up, doesn’t mean he takes everything with him. He might buy new, or he might plan to come back and get the stuff, or maybe he decides it’s easier to forget it.

  He was probably on the road selling encyclopedias. He probably had a new girl, some new clothes, and a shaving kit with a fresh toothbrush and razor.

  But the thing was, Nancy had planted a seed.

  (10)

  The seed grew slowly. It took a while to make a tree. I kept seeing Nancy, but I slept nervous, thought of hatchets and horses and husbands and deep graves. My warning bells and whistles were going off all over the place, and I could hear them, but I refused to listen.

  One afternoon I was having my beer and TV dinner, and Melinda showed up. She was wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. She looked even younger than she was. After I let her in, I went back to my TV dinner, but I stopped on my way to it and turned off the TV. It was the news. It was depressing. “What’s going on, kid,” I said.

  “I came to get you to go back with me and see Mama.”

  “I’m kind of worn out.”

  “It doesn’t take that much energy to eat a shitty TV dinner.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I really like to work at it. I get through, that damn little tray will be shiny like a well-oiled baby’s ass.”

  “Yeah. Well, finish it. You’re going with me. Not taking no for an answer. You haven’t seen her in a while, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it—she’s not doing so well.”

  “Still drinking, I presume.”

  “You know she is. Not long ago, she found some of Dad’s old aftershave and hair oil and drank that. She drank a bit of furniture polish before I could get it away from her. I saw her take a swig of pure rubbing alcohol once. I grabbed it and poured it out.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I finally started buying her beer. That doesn’t work for her like the whiskey, but it keeps her away from the whiskey, which makes her a little crazy.”

  “You’re not making it a damn bit better. It’s all alcohol, and it’s not doing her any good.”

  “You’re drinking a beer.”

  “But I don’t drink but now and then, and not too much. I don’t have a problem with it.”

  “She says the same thing.”

  “This isn’t about me. I’m not drinking aftershave and hair oil.”

  “If I didn’t buy her anything, well, who’s to say what she’d do? She’d be slipping out and walking to town, looking for liquor. She’s also got this guy comes around, sells her a pint of this or that. Sometimes the liquor is clear, sometimes brown. I can’t stop that from happening. I’m at work, but I found out about it. People I know know him and they told me.”

  “Where’s she get the money for it?”

  “I don’t think she’s buying it with money.”

&nbs
p; “Goddamn it.”

  “It’s just because she’s got it bad, Ed. Real bad.”

  “Run that son of a bitch off.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not that big, nor am I that fierce. This guy, he’s good-sized. But Ed, she’s got it bad right now. She doesn’t look that great.”

  “That’s why I don’t visit. It’s like going over to watch someone bleed out.”

  “Come on, Ed. Come with me.”

  I finished my beer and got my coat, and we left out of there, went over to the dark den of sad dreams and at least one bad liver.

  (11)

  I drove over to the trailer, riding behind Melinda’s heap. It was a hot night and I had the Cadillac’s window down, and the speed of the car and the wind coming in wasn’t much help. It felt like panting dog breath and it didn’t smell a lot better, as the wind had picked up a nasty aroma, like something dead was in the woods along the road.

  I didn’t want to use the air conditioner for some reason. I wanted to feel that hot wind. I wanted to feel and smell something real, not artificial. I can’t explain that, but that’s how I felt.

  When we got to the trailer, Melinda parked and I pulled up close behind her and we both got out and I followed Melinda to the door.

  Inside, the mobile home smelled of a few days’ cooking. At some point, they had eaten fried fish. It made my stomach knot.

  The light in the living room was on, and it was bright enough I could see into the little kitchen, which was without a door. I saw a pile of greasy and food-flecked dishes piled in the sink, like dead soldiers in a common grave.

  I said to Melinda, “Doesn’t anyone wash the dishes?”

  “Be my guest. I’ve switched to paper plates. Wait here a minute, let me make sure she’s decent.”

  Melinda walked down the hall and opened the bedroom door without knocking and went in. In what light was there, I saw disturbed dust motes floating.

  After what seemed like a long time, Melinda came out, closed the door, and motioned me over.