by John Clayton
Perched high up on the seat was Jack Senior, in his summer-weight plaid coat and, for his formal outing on the tractor, an iridescent sky blue ascot. He cheerfully waived as each person got up the nerve to zip around him in spite of the oncoming traffic.
Hell, I didn’t know he knew how to fix a tractor. But then, I’d heard a vague reference to the fact that he worked the farm some after his father dropped out of the picture and before he went to college.
He started to wave at me just like everybody else—that is, until he saw who it was. He hesitated a split second and then gave me the same wave and big grin. Going to get his free lunch, albeit a little late, on a borrowed tractor. Like it was the most normal thing in the world to do. Brass balls misapplied, I thought, as I whipped ahead of him and careened into Jezebel’s parking lot.
***
Fanny’s car was already parked up close to the front of the building, indicating that she was early, for once. Wonder of wonders! I hurried to meet her in the sunroom, mostly to avoid Jack Senior when he arrived, hiding for a reason that even I didn’t quite understand—but whatever it was it certainly felt compelling.
Hank Cooper and the boys were as usual rollicking at the bar. Suddenly Hank jumped up on the polished walnut surface and performed an obscene version of some sort of hula. I had almost made it to the sunroom when I heard a monstrous scream.
Jezebel had toppled Hank off her bar and was twisting his ear, leading him hobbling along on all fours toward the front door. Jack Senior graciously held it open, and extended his usual courteous greeting as Hank stumbled across the threshold. The rest of the boys were laughing and clapping as if it was a fully choreographed finale to the hula—which I suppose it really was.
***
Fanny drank her double bourbon while I explained about Old Oilhead’s story to the sheriff and being arrested. “It’s got to be Old Oilhead,” I said. “Or else, why would he keep trying to set me up?” I motioned at Jezebel for service, but nobody noticed, since Jack Senior had the whole bar in stitches as, with waving arms, he described something to do with either his fixing the tractor or his driving it here.
“Maybe Mr. Clarence P. Yancy is only telling the truth as he sees it,” Fanny suggested.
“Then why leave out so much? Like what he was doing all this time?”
“And what was he doing?” Fanny got straight to the point.
I thought for a minute, annoyed about my little slip. I was still holding back, having only explained that Old Oilhead had also had full access to Pickerill’s house. Fanny and I had remained friends through the thirty years that I’d lived here even though her financial fortunes went up and mine went down. And we’d shared one thing in common. We’d both ended up with a spousal relationship we didn’t like. Her husband worked himself into a heart attack and mine didn’t work at all.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her that I’d been having an affair with Mr. Clarence P. Yancy. So I slithered to obfuscation. “Not much, I guess. But I’m sure he’s hiding something.”
And then I leaned forward and whispered, “I’m going to sneak into his house tonight while he’s over at the Bottom’s Ford Elks Lodge.
“And you’re asking for company?” Fanny picked up on my unstated question.
“Yes.”
“And moral support?”
I nodded
“And you trust me more than you trust Jack Senior.” She was laughing. She didn’t think Jack Senior was untrustworthy. She had a pretty easy relationship with him, except for the obligatory remarks about him not having a job. And even that didn’t really mean that much to her. But then, she wasn’t continually having to struggle to make ends meet. In her case, the struggle had taken the form of an exaggerated and perhaps unnecessary drive to be the biggest developer in Mason County—and it had left her a widow.
But that thought was several steps removed from the here and now, so I got back on course. “Jack Senior has developed these late-coming scruples about violating the law.” I didn’t mention that he might go off chasing women at the wrong time. “You’re the only person I can really trust,” I said. “Tonight at nine, I’ll meet you at your place.”
“In dark clothes?”
“It’s best, I think.”
“Well, then, I’d best go shop for a wardrobe.” She drained her glass and got to her feet.
I didn’t have to shop but I got up and followed along anyway. Nobody had noticed me calling for a drink, and with Jack Senior still spinning his yarn, nobody saw me leave without getting one.
Chapter 8
Ready?” I asked
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Fanny took a sip from her flask and grimaced. Not at the bourbon which generally didn’t have that effect, but more probably at what she had semi-volunteered for. She, at least, looked the part—black turtleneck and pants matching the charcoal on her face. I, on the other hand, looked like an intellectual lump of coal, having gotten a speck of charcoal in my eye and having had to switch from contacts to my black horn-rimmed glasses. They were sure to reflect the light from anybody else wandering around with a flashlight, which, on second thought, seemed pretty unlikely.
“Are you sure we can’t just wait until he’s home and ask him whether he has the jewels?” Fanny asked.
“He’s been lying already. Why would he tell us the truth?” Besides, we had to do it this way. I knew that he kept a little strong box in the back of his closet. I’d seen him putting it back once as I came out of the shower about nine months ago. That’s what I wanted to see. That meant that not only did I have to get the box, but I had to make it look, for Fanny’s benefit, like I wasn’t looking for it. I figured about fifteen minutes of randomly searching would do the trick. After finding it, we’d be out in twenty minutes total.
Fanny hopped out of the passenger side while I wiggled out of the driver’s seat of her old Geo. We’d thought that Fanny’s Mercedes or my van would have been too obvious, so we’d driven her backup car. I’d also chosen to drive. Lou Overhouse always let Fanny off with a warning since she was gentry, but there was no sense in drawing attention to ourselves. She’d always been a drinker, but ever since Rob had died she’d been hitting the bottle pretty hard. I’d have been happier if she’d been stone sober tonight, but I was chicken to try the reconnaissance alone and had to take what help I could get.
So here we were, sneaking through the used car lot that constituted Old Oilhead’s side yard. There were a dozen nondescript cars and trucks sitting around glistening in the light rain that had started about an hour before. I glanced back. The Geo looked like it was just right for a teenager’s parentally approved first car.
I suggested that Fanny try the front door while I went around back, with my flashlight and the house key that I still had. “Keep it,” he’d said. “You’ll be back.” Old Oilhead always locked everything, but Fanny didn’t know that. Therefore, I fished the key out of my pocket, unlocked the back door, and called to Fanny that I had found an open entrance.
***
The inside was as neat as a pin. The house was a Colonial reproduction from the forties with furniture to match, except for the absence of ashtrays. Fanny had agreed not to smoke, another reason not to take over twenty minutes.
We spent ten minutes working our way forward by flashlight, each taking a separate area, pulling out drawers and trying to put things back where they were. After going through the kitchen, dining room and living room, we met in the front hall.
Fanny motioned toward the telephone answering machine on a little stand in the hall by the door. The light was blinking, but I shook my head. “Federal crime,” I said.
“Better restrict ourselves to local burglary,” she snickered.
“Try the basement,” I told her, “look for hidden little crannies,” knowing full well that the phone didn’t have what I wanted. “I’ll do the upstairs.”
On the way up, I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. I was startled at the imag
e. Not too bad. I should wear horn rims and basic black more often, I thought. But those thoughts led to procrastination, so I ignored myself. Bypassing the office and the spare bedroom, I headed down the hall to the master bedroom that we had always used.
I was confronted by a four-poster bed complete with a canopy and historically accurate mosquito netting. Next to the door stood a long-handled bedwarmer, even though the house had central heating and air conditioning. I wondered for a split second whether Old Oilhead wore a stocking cap when he slept. I could imagine that he did, but since I’d never spent the night with him, I didn’t know for sure…I went straight for the back of the closet.
The small filing box was a cube measuring maybe 18 inches on each side. It wasn’t locked. Pulling the closet door closed behind me, I started going through the box, holding the flashlight in one hand and pulling out files with the other: fifteen-year mortgage, almost paid off, insurance policies on self, house, and car, appraisal for all the furniture—more than I would have expected. Honorable discharge from the army after three years. Now that I didn’t expect at all. He didn’t seem the type. And finally in the bottom of the box, I came to a smaller box, maybe six by ten inches and five or six inches high, big enough for a bunch of jewels. It was secured with a built-in three-wheel combination lock. I tried his birth date, which I knew since we’d celebrated his last birthday here. Nothing. Then his street number, first part of his phone number, last part of his phone number. Still nothing. And it was getting close to our twenty-minute time limit.
I shoved the bigger box back into place, and carried the small box down the stairs to call Henry Adams, forgetting that it was after ten p.m., that is, until I got his wife Lucille on the phone. Now there was a pair. She counterbalanced his friendly accommodation to the world with a tartness that could be canned with sour pickles. In fact, I think that she was the only thing in the world of which Henry was really afraid. She never let him work or talk on the phone after ten. That was her quality time and he’d better be there. But I had less than two hours to get the thing open. I didn’t want to risk waiting until morning.
So I begged, receiving a comment about poor white trash with as much equanimity as I could muster, before she said that he wasn’t available for work until morning and finally let him on. Fortunately, his sense of responsibility for helping me was higher than his sense of self-preservation. He agreed that he might have a tool that could get it open and said he’d meet me in his shop in about twenty minutes.
I found Fanny in the basement, chewing on an unlighted cigarette and pawing through a stack of neatly arranged underwear next to the drier. In less than a minute she had rearranged the pile and headed up the stairs after me.
***
Except that just as I was about to burst from the basement stairs into the hall, the front door swung wide open. Fanny came crashing into my butt as I slammed on the brakes and shoved the basement door closed to just a crack. Fanny had kept quieter than I would have if I’d just had my nose suddenly mushed. She squeezed her head between my legs so she could peer out through the crack too.
It wouldn’t be Old Oilhead, since he was always punctual to a fault, even when he didn’t know someone was keeping track. I was wondering who else would be interested in the house, when then there came a big sneeze. The hall light came on, revealing Clarence P. Yancy himself, with a handkerchief stuffed up against his face. Must have had to come home early because of a cold. He switched on the speaker of the answering machine and stood back as he gave a big blow into his handkerchief. The first call was me canceling out the following night. He made a gurgling noise. The second was an offer on a car. He carefully wrote down the information on the notepad next to the phone and snorted. I couldn’t tell whether because of his congestion or the price of the car. The next call was from a credit collection agency in Detroit wanting to know whether he was the Clarence P. Yancy who lived in Mason County, Utah, and who owed a bunch of money to a clothing store in Minnesota. He flipped to fast forward before it had finished explaining the legal ramifications of not paying one’s debts. Next was a call from a woman whose voice I recognized as that of the new librarian, Mable Sharpe, who had recently transplanted herself from a small town in southeastern Virginia. Couldn’t stand the dampness there she’d said. Others said she was too plain to catch a husband and was trying different waters. The voice bounded in with no preamble: “I’ll forgive you for canceling out on tomorrow night if you’ll come over tonight and keep me company.” There was a pause as if she was reading notes. “I really did want to see that revival of Cats in Washington, but maybe we can go this weekend. You can pay Saturday scalper prices for canceling. See you.”
Old Oilhead hit rewind without listening to the rest of the messages and bounded up the stairs. I was considering whether to risk trying to make the kitchen door, when he came bounding back down, swallowing a handful of pills as he came, washing them down with water from his toothbrush glass. Vitamin C, I guessed. He was out the door with only a short stop to deposit the glass on the hall table and flick off the light.
I waited for my eyes to adjust before I let Fanny and myself out of the stairwell. If he hadn’t seen the extra automobile in his lot by now, he probably wouldn’t. Besides, there was nothing to do if he had. We might as well leave as calmly as possible. It’s just that I didn’t know whether to be pleased that he had canceled a date with someone else to “help” me or pissed that he was seeing her at all while he claimed to be temporarily disconnected from me—especially since Emily Patowski thought he was cute.
But then, if he was out playing with his new girlfriend, it gave me more time to unlock the box—the thought of which reminded me that Old Oilhead probably stole the jewels in the first place and was now trying to frame me in spite of his offers to assist.
***
“You gotta go see Sambo Short,” Henry said.
Fanny and I were standing in Henry’s shop/barn, which was about like mine except that he had stuff for shoeing horses rather than a pile of antiques. We both had about the same amount of broken-down junk.
He’d tried the same numbers I had, plus a couple I hadn’t thought about, like different sections of the zip code. Then he tried to wedge the top loose with a thin knife.
I suggested smashing it and then replacing it with another one.
Henry looked at me like I was crazy, but Fanny supplied the words. “In Mason County? By tomorrow morning?”
“Sambo’s the only one for this problem,” Henry repeated.
Now I’d lived here for nearly thirty years and I’d never heard of Sambo Short, but then there were lots of things about the black community that I didn’t know. “Where do I find him?” I asked.
“I’ll take you,” Henry said. “In the morning,” he added, as I followed his gaze through the barn door to the face looking out of the upstairs bedroom window. “He’s a locksmith. When there’s something I can’t manage, I take it to him.”
So we agreed that Henry would take Fanny and me first thing in the morning to see Sambo Short.
***
I’d passed the intersection with the unimproved state road plenty of times but I’d never noticed it. It was located only about ten minutes out of Mason City on an only-somewhat-better state road heading southwest. We made the turn and rode up a little valley for about five minutes, the mountains on both sides getting higher and higher as we went. Henry had picked me up in his truck since he thought it best that I avoid Lucille this morning. Fanny had been under the weather and hadn’t made it. The road meandered back and forth across a babbling brook that passed through concrete culverts. The state maintenance people probably scraped the road once a year and threw some gravel down on the really rough spots every five years or so. It took us twenty minutes to go the five miles.
At a sign saying William B. and Elvira Short, RFD Route 1, Mason County, VA, we turned through a big mud puddle, undoubtedly made even bigger by the rain which had been coming down steadily since the
previous night. Henry followed barely discernible tracks under towering pines until the tracks petered out about fifty feet further on. The road surface was replaced with a series of rock ledges out of which sprouted wildflowers and weeds that more or less defined the edges of the beaten path. The rocks were low enough that Henry was able to bounce right over them as I, with white knuckles, hung on to the lockbox. The tall trees fell back from the rocky area and we could see the overcast skies for a few minutes before we suddenly plowed back into a muddy road that crawled along under a fresh succession of towering pines.
I could feel more than see the little valley widening out.
“Sambo’s not very sociable.” My voice was bouncing up and down with the jolts.
“Wife has agoraphobia,” Henry said. “Fear of crowds,” he added, explaining what I knew. But then I never told him that I knew when he did that. Sort of inverse snobbism on my part I guessed. “They moved out here about a year after they were married,” he continued.
The road suddenly opened onto a field of new corn just peeping through the well-harrowed ground. Behind the ten or so acres of cornfield was a large white frame house with a dark bluish gray slate roof—rather than the unpainted shanty I had expected. Smoke curled up from one chimney, a vegetable garden had been planted close to the back door, a white barn stood beyond the garden, and a polished Ford sedan was parked next to the front porch—they must have washed it after every trip to the main road.
I hopped out, still tightly clutching the box—and remembering, too late, that I didn’t have an excuse ready for not being able to open it. Henry was just calling out, “Sambo,” when out of the front door and down the steps came the tallest, skinniest white man I think I ever saw—at least here in Mason County.
He shook hands with us and asked, with a grin in my direction, “What kind of rich people paying you to get me to fix their safe this time?”
