Frankie came to the door, eased out into the hallway.
“She’s sleeping,” she said.
“Maybe we could talk for awhile then,” Marvin said. “Down in the cafeteria. I came to see her, to tell her in person about the outcome, but I wanted to see you as well.”
“When you tell her, I guess that’s not going to look so good for me,” Frankie said.
“Let’s go downstairs to the cafeteria, have some coffee.”
When they had their food and were sitting at a table away from the others, and there weren’t many in the cafeteria, Frankie said, “No matter what you might think, I really do care about her. I didn’t care so much for Tom after awhile, but I cared for her. And I’ll tell you this. I never planned to rob anyone. You’re wrong about that.”
“Am I?” Marvin said.
“I was seeing Jim, and I knew about the money, and he even bragged to me about it. He thought that might cinch the deal, me and him staying together. Maybe he just wanted to impress me right then. He was getting the goods, you know, so I don’t see how he needed to impress me anymore than he had.”
“Sounds like you still care about him.”
“Not at all, but I’m trying to tell you how things were then. What he told me didn’t endear him to me at all. It just confused me. I decided I wanted out of the relationship, and I went back with Tom. There was an easy excuse I could tell Jim. That Tom and I are trying to fix our marriage. It wasn’t really any better, our marriage, but it’s the excuse I used. I was actually thinking about turning Jim in to the law. But I was uncertain. And then Tom and I seemed to be getting along, and like an idiot, and I have no excuse except I was young, but I told Tom about the money. What Jim told me about it being Dixie Mafia money, and that he laundered it, got a big cut.”
“And that gave Tom ideas,” Marvin said.
Frankie nodded, sipped her coffee. “Yes. It did. I knew I had messed up immediately. I mean, if there ever was a sorry criminal at heart, and in action, it was Tom. And the idea that he could steal the money and no one would know who did it, and the law wouldn’t be bothered at all, and Jim would take the heat, for him, that was just too perfect to pass up.
“So, he tries to talk me into helping him. He wants me to give him a key. But I didn’t have a key. No one had a key but Jim. He always locked up. The doors in and out. He never locked his office. He never locked his desk. Cocky, I guess. And since the money most people would want was in the vault, he wasn’t worried. That little bank hadn’t been robbed since the famous robbery years before, and it hadn’t turned out so well for them. Arrogance on Jim’s part, I suspect.
“But that day me and Tom had the argument, he came to the bank and asked me for some money. I wouldn’t give it to him, and then I realized he was just putting up a front. He had other ideas. He told me he wanted to hide in the store room, and for me not to let on. That he had plans. I think he thought I’d draft in with him on account of, well, there he was and he was saying he was going to do it and I wouldn’t have a choice.”
“You didn’t report him. So I guess you did make a choice,” Marvin said.
“No. I didn’t report him. He hid there and I didn’t say anything. I thought he’d take the money and leave, and that would be that. I mean, it was Mob money. Not the people in the town.”
Marvin added some milk to his coffee. “How’d you think he’d get out?”
“The chimney. I knew what he had planned. I knew how he thought. Never occurred to me he’d get stuck. He was so cocky about what he could do. And then there was that long weekend, and then the bank moved. It was months before they even opened the museum. I mean, damn. No one even cleaned the chimney after all these years.”
“I found out they blocked the chimney off at the top,” Marvin said. “Found that out yesterday. They had sealed it off some time ago, and hadn’t even noticed Tom was down there. I guess, you wanted to see him, you’d have to be looking. They just slapped some concrete on the bricks and put a piece of metal in the chimney, cemented it in.”
“What about . . . getting him out?”
“They already have. They took the entire chimney out to remove the body, or what was left of it. Mostly bones in clothes. Rats had been at the money. Wasn’t worth a thing. Just some chunks and mostly dust. All of it in a leather bag, and that wasn’t in too good a shape either. Pocked with rat and insect holes.”
“I thought he had taken the money and run off,” Frankie said. “I thought he got away with it. Figured he got away and maybe got himself killed some other way down the line.”
“He thought he’d squeeze through. But the chimney, for all its large size, it was built small inside. He got about halfway up, and the thing was even smaller there. Bad design. Bad luck for Tom.”
“All that time,” Frankie said. “In the goddamn chimney.”
“How’s Mrs. Craver taking it?”
“She doesn’t know all the details,” Frankie said.
“No one but me and you and Drake and Tulip know all the details,” Marvin said. “I guess I was trying to be dramatic and wanted an audience. Like in an old mystery movie. What does she know?”
“That you found Tom. That he was in the chimney, and was there to steal money. I left my connection out. Thought you could fill her in on my part. I just couldn’t tell her. I didn’t have the courage or the heart to let her down. I’m the last thing she has to cling to.”
“How’d she take Tom’s death?”
“Well enough. I think she just wanted to know what happened. She never expected him to come to any good, but she wanted to know, and now she does, and I think it was a relief.”
“Her health?”
“She won’t recover,” Frankie said, pushing her coffee cup away from her. “They say she’s got a few days at most. She comes around from the drugs about midday for a few hours. You can explain it all to her then.”
Marvin shook his head. “Nope. Me and Drake, we figure you were an idiot, but you didn’t really steal anything. And it was Mob money. And Jim was Mob, directly or indirectly.”
“He was still a human being.”
“But he’s a dead human being. You’re trying to do right, Frankie. You care about your mother-in-law. It’s a twenty-five-year-old crime. You haven’t stolen anything in the meantime, and if it’s any consolation, I believe your story.”
“Thank you,” Frankie said and reached out and touched Marvin’s hand.
He patted her hand and smiled. “I think it’s best we leave it alone from here on out. No one in town lost any money. The Mob made Jim and the two guards in on it pay, and that seems like a fitting end to all of it. I’ll try and see Mrs. Craver later today. But I won’t have anything new to add to what she knows.”
Frankie opened her purse and took out a check. She gave it to Marvin.
“Mrs. Craver signed this, told me to give it to you.”
Marvin looked at it.
“This is a lot more than we agreed to,” Marvin said.
“She wants you to have it. I want you to have it. Take it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am. Mrs. Craver is.”
“All right then,” Marvin said. “That’s the end of my argument.”
That night at home, Rachel and Marvin had dinner. When they finished, Rachel said, “Want to watch some TV?”
“Sure.”
“We can surf the channels, see if there’s something interesting,” Rachel said.
“Sounds good.”
They went in the living room with glasses of ice tea and sat on the couch, Rachel on one end, Marvin on the other. They watched TV for a few minutes, and during a commercial, Rachel said, “What you told me about Mrs. Craver, about Frankie, not turning her in. That was the right thing to do.”
“I think so,” Marvin said.
Rachel slid over closer to Marvin and let her hand rest on top of his. “You’re a good man, Marvin.”
“Think so?”
“Stup
id now and then,” Rachel said, “but at heart, a really good man.”
Marvin didn’t say anything to that, but he smiled. A little later he put his arm around Rachel’s shoulders, and she placed her head against his chest.
Not Our Kind
When I got out of school that day, I drove over to the Dairy Queen to get a hamburger before I had to go to work at the aluminum chair plant. I had a work permit, so I got off early, and I usually grabbed a burger, and then I drove out to the plant and worked until midnight. A lot of us from high school worked there, making fifty-six dollars and fourteen cents a week, which wasn’t even good for 1968.
I was sitting at the back of the Dairy Queen, eating quickly, and was about halfway through the burger when four boys from school came in. I knew one of them pretty well, and the others a little. We all knew each other’s names, anyway. I can’t say any of them were friends of mine. We ran in different circles.
They saw me and came over. Two of them sat down in my booth, across from me, and the other two sat out to the side at a table and leaned on their elbows and looked at me. I didn’t like their attitude.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“You’re seeing it,” the one I knew best said. His name was David. Last time I saw him was at the Swinging Bridge, and there had been a fight there for money. My new friend Leonard was there. He won the fight. It was a friend of David’s he fought, and he beat the guy’s ass like a tambourine and made some money.
Actually, that fight, lit by a huge tire fire, was the first time I met Leonard, and we hit it off, and we saw each other again in Marvel Creek, running into one another accidentally at first, and then finally on purpose. He lived over in LaBorde with his uncle, but they came to the general store in Marvel Creek to shop, which I didn’t understand. Everyone in Marvel Creek goes to the larger city of LaBorde to shop, but his uncle had a store in Marvel Creek he liked, place where he had been buying shoes for a long time. He liked it, Leonard said, because the owner never told him to come around back, even before laws were passed that said he didn’t have to.
David said, “We were talking about you the other day.”
“Were you?” I said.
“Yeah. Some. We been seeing you around with that nigger.”
“Leonard?”
“One name is as good as another for a nigger. ‘Boy’ will work. We’ll call him ‘Boy.’”
“I won’t. And if I was you, I wouldn’t call him that. You might find yourself turned inside out and made into a change purse.”
“You think he’s tough, don’t you?”
“Don’t you? You seen him whip some ass at the Swinging Bridge, same as me.”
“We seen you whip some too,” another of the boys said, “but that don’t scare us none, about you or the nigger.”
The big guy’s real name was Colbert, but everyone called him Dinosaur on account of he was big and not that smart. He was a football player and he thought he was as cool as an igloo. He was said to be the toughest guy in school. That might have been true. He hadn’t been at the bridge that night. I didn’t know if he’d seen me and Leonard together or not, but he was riled about it, thanks to David.
I didn’t like where this was going. I kept eating, but I didn’t taste the rest of the burger.
“Way we see it,” David said, and bobbed his head a little so as to indicate the others, “you aren’t doing yourself any good.”
“Oh, how’s that?”
“Ought not have to spell it out for you, Hap. Hell, you know. Hanging with a nigger.”
“You mean Leonard.”
“Yeah. Okay. Leonard the nigger.”
I nodded. I didn’t realize until that moment that I really liked Leonard, and these guys I had known all my life, if only a little, I didn’t care for that much at all.
“Word’s getting around you’re a nigger-lover,” Dinosaur said.
“Is it?”
“Yeah. You don’t want that,” David said.
“I don’t?”
“Are you trying to be a smartass?” Dinosaur said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I put one foot out of the booth so I could move if I had to, could get a position to fight or run.
“There’s talk, and it could reflect on you,” David said.
“In what way?”
“You think girls want to date a nigger-lover? And way we hear it, this guy’s queer as a three-dollar bill, and proud of it. A nigger queer, come on, man. You got to be kidding me.”
“But he has such a nice personality,” I said.
“You aren’t going to listen, are you?” David said. “Girls don’t want to date no nigger-lover.”
“You said that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“So, you have come here to spare me being viewed in a bad way, and to make sure I don’t lose my pussy quota? That’s what’s up?”
“You’re making light of something you shouldn’t,” David said. “We got a way of doing things, and you know it.”
“We got to keep it protected,” Dinosaur said.
“We?” I said.
“White people,” David said. “Now that niggers can vote and eat with us, they think they can act like us.”
I nodded, glanced at the two that hadn’t spoken. “You guys, you thinking the same?”
They all nodded.
“Civil rights may change how the Yankees live,” David said, “but it won’t change us.”
“That’s why I don’t like you guys.”
This landed on their heads like a rock.
“You don’t have to like us, but we can’t have one of our own hanging about with niggers. He’s not our kind. He’s not one of us.”
“You know, it’s really been nice, but I have to go to work now, so I’ll see you.”
I got up and eased past Dinosaur, keeping an eye on him, but trying to look like I wasn’t concerned.
They all stood up. I was about halfway to the door when they came up behind me. David grabbed at my arm. I popped it free.
“You better take in what we’re saying,” David said.
“I could throw you through that window glass right now,” Dinosaur said.
“You might need yourself a nap and a sack lunch before you’re able to throw me through that glass, or anywhere else for that matter,” I said.
I was bluffing. I was a badass, and I knew it. But four guys, badass or not, are four guys. And one of them was a fucking freak of nature. I was reminded of how freakish he was with him standing almost as close to me as a coat of paint. He was looking down at me with a head like a bowling ball, shoulders wide enough to set a refrigerator on one side, a stove on the other.
About that time, the manager, Bob, came out from behind the counter. An older guy, red-haired, slightly gone to fat, not as big as Dinosaur, but I’d seen him throw out a couple of oil workers once for throwing ketchup-soaked fries against the Dairy Queen glass to see who could make theirs stick and not slide off. They didn’t get very far in that game.
What I remember best was one of those guys, after Bob had tossed them out like they were dirty laundry, pulled a knife and held it on Bob when he came outside to make sure they were leaving.
Bob laughed, said to that guy, “Should have brought yourself a peppermint stick, you oil-field trash. They’re a hell of a lot easier to eat.”
This with the tip of the knife pressed to his stomach. The guy with the knife and his buddy believed Bob. Believed him sincerely. They were out of there so fast they practically left a vapor trail. It seemed they were standing there outside the Dairy Queen one moment, and the next their car’s taillights were shining red in the distant night.
Bob said to David and the others, “All right, boys. Take it outside.”
I thought, shit. Outside isn’t going to be all that better for me.
We all started outside. Even Dinosaur didn’t want a piece of Bob.
As we were going, Bob put his hand on my shoulder.
The others turned and looked at Bob.
“Unless I’ve developed a stutter, you know what I said.”
They hesitated about as long as it takes to blink, and went out.
Bob waited until they were outside and looking through the glass. He made a shooing movement with his hand, and they went away. After a moment I saw their car drive by the window and on out to the highway.
“They’ll be watching for you, son.”
“I know.”
“Hanging with niggers is frowned on. I got some nigger friends, but you got to know how to keep them at a distance. I go fishing with a couple of them, but I don’t have them around at my house, sitting in my chairs and eating at my table.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll remember that.”
“Still, no cause to pick on someone. You or the nigger. They don’t get to choose to be niggers. And you can get along with most anyone, and learn from most anyone, even a nigger. I learned how to catch catfish good from one.”
Well, Bob was better than the other four.
I bought a bag of chips and a Coca-Cola on ice to go, went out to my car, and drove to work. I was about halfway to the aluminum chair plant when Dinosaur, driving a Ford Mustang, pulled up behind me. The other three guys were in the car with him. They followed me to work. I parked close to the door and got out with my chips and Coca-Cola. I slurped at the Coca-Cola through a straw as I walked. I was saving the chips for dinner break. It was a light dinner, but I’d been trying to drop a few pounds. I was always prone to picking up weight, and I had to watch it.
I turned at the door into the plant and looked at them.
Dinosaur shot me the finger.
I shot him the finger back.
We had really showed each other. Funny how that can make people so mad. It’s their finger in the air, and that’s it. It has about as much actual effect as a leaf falling from a cherry tree in Japan.
They drove way, screeching tires as they left, and I went to work.
Next few days in school I’d see them in the hall, and I never once avoided them or tried to get out of the way. They were not always together, though sometimes they were, and Dinosaur bumped me a couple of times as he went by. I kept my cool. Once David said to me as he passed, “We’ll get you, nigger-lover.”
Hap and Leonard Ride Again Page 9
