I squinted through the pale darkness toward the police car and saw the pickup camper. The driver stepped out and walked to the far shoulder to view the damage. He carried a flashlight in his left hand and a pistol in his right.
"What"d he do?" I asked.
"Shot their tires, I imagine."
Brad came up carrying a torn T-shirt, which he handed to Lloyd. "Marcella has her baby."
"Thank you," Lloyd said. He pressed the T-shirt against his cut.
"That truck was back at the cafe," Brad said.
Our savior returned to his cab and drove up to where we stood next to the trailer. He rolled down his window and smiled at me. I smiled back. His eyes were amused, and he had this tiny gap in his front teeth that made him appear impish.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi."
He turned his attention to Lloyd. "Are you okay?"
The shirt m.u.f.fled Lloyd"s voice. "It wasn"t worth killing anybody."
"You folks were in trouble and I had to help." He waved the pistol vaguely back in the direction of the upside-down patrol car. "Neither one is hurt-just shook up some. They won"t be pursuing anyone else today."
Bernard was stooped over with one hand on the car and the other hand on his lower back. A.B. pulled himself out a broken window. When he stood up I heard a groan. Both had that stunned posture men get right after they"ve been popped in the face with a baseball bat.
The man in the truck leaned a hairy arm on the windowsill. "Their car is full of broken gla.s.s and smells like a brewery. Why were they after you?"
Lloyd said, "Long story."
I figured somebody should thank the guy. Even though I wasn"t nuts about his methods, he had just saved our a.s.ses. "Thanks for helping us," I said. "I don"t know what we"d have done if you hadn"t come along."
He stared right at me. For the first time all trip I was conscious of the no-bra deal. "Glad to have been of service. I specialize in saving damsels in distress."
Lloyd spit blood.
There didn"t seem like anything to do but watch Bernard and A.B. stumble around their car. They were looking for something-an upper bridge or a contact lens or something, I don"t know what. The air had that smell like right after it starts raining, the same smell you get when a neighbor changes his oil. The road glistened, so it must have been raining lately and stopped. I wondered what was supposed to happen next. Bernard had to come up with a story explaining a t.i.ts-up patrol car full of broken beer bottles. Would he leave us out, or would the countryside soon be crawling with armed-to-the-teeth cops with orders to shoot to kill anyone in a big white ambulance pulling a horse trailer?
The hairy man must have read my mind. "You folks better follow over to my place. It might be a good thought to lay low for a day or so."
Lloyd was studying our rescuer. "We don"t have much choice," he said.
The man nodded, as if the plan were settled. He kept his eyes on me while he talked. "I live thirty miles up the Hiwa.s.see River. It"s remote, they"ll never find you."
As Lloyd, Brad, and I walked up front to Moby d.i.c.k, Brad said, "I don"t trust that guy. He smiles like Freedom."
I couldn"t decide if I trusted him or not. He was intriguing-dangerous and southern-the way I always pictured Stonewall Jackson.
"So far he"s behaved like a gentleman," I said. "He saved us when we were in trouble. He didn"t have to save us." I opened the driver"s door. "What do you think, Lloyd-evil snake or knight in shining armor?"
"I think..." Lloyd dropped the blood-soaked T-shirt into my hand. His eyes were angry. "I"ll drive from here on."
40.
His name was Armand Castle. He was a sculptor. To prove it he led Marcella and me into the barn-turned-studio, where iron skeletons lay around in various levels of completion. What Armand did was he found sc.r.a.ps of metal and junk in old dumps and welded them into these conglomerations he gave names like Mobocracy and Pain. The camper was full of bed frames and brake shoes and unidentifiable angle iron he"d picked up driving across the state.
"I will wager you could use a drink," Armand said.
"How"d you guess?"
"That was one heck of a job of driving. One heck of a job. How about you, Miss Marcella, ready for a toddy?"
Marcella touched her bun. "Maybe just one." Shocked the h.e.l.l out of me.
Armand stuck his head in the trailer, where Brad held two flashlights while Lloyd sorted through the chaos. "You fellas hungry? You want a drink?"
Lloyd said, "No." Not "No, thank you" or "Thanks just the same." His voice held no hint of politeness. Rudeness wasn"t like him. In fact, rudeness was less like Lloyd than any other person I knew except maybe Dot Pollard back at the Killdeer Cafe. I decided he was jealous. Armand was good-looking and creative and he"d rescued us, and Lloyd couldn"t handle not being top dog on the block.
From Shane, on the other hand, I expected rudeness.
"Are you kin to the family who founded the White Castle restaurant chain?" He was bent over loosening his ankle clamp so he could drain onto the front yard.
"I believe the White Castle restaurants are named after the shape of their first building, not the family who owns them. I"m kin to the Virginia Castles," Armand said.
"You look as if you own White Castle. They sell the worst hash browns in the food industry, although the term bad hash browns is redundant."
"I avoid hash browns altogether."
"Did you make your money on square hamburger patties?"
Armand was being amazingly patient, considering he"s the kind of man would shoot the tires off a cop car. "I made my money by outliving my father."
"That explains a lot about you."
"Pay no attention to my friends," I said. "They"re ex-alcoholics, and ex-alcoholics are always holier-than-thou jacka.s.ses."
Shane turned his head to give me a hard look. I expected a mean shot back, but it was more like he decided I wasn"t worth fighting with. That"s the feeling I got, anyway. Instead, he said, "Your escapade seems to have affected the seals on my reservoir."
"Did that rolling around make you spring a leak?" Marcella asked.
He retightened his clamp. "I would appreciate the use of strong tape, electrical tape might be best."
Armand started up the steps. "I imagine we can find you some electrical tape, old-timer."
"Call me old-timer again and I shall leap from this chair and flail you."
Armand stopped and his eyes jerked back around to Shane. He seemed about to say one thing, then switched to something else. "It was only a term of respect."
Shane"s hands went white on the sides of his wheelchair. "I don"t need your respect."
"You"re just mad "cause you peed on yourself"-I smiled at Shane-"again."
Armand"s house was a three-story brick box at the bottom of a long hill. In the dark, you couldn"t see the Hiwa.s.see River, but I knew it had to be close by because I could smell it. Smelled like Dothan Talbot"s crotch.
The inside of his house was the cleanest inside of a house I"ve ever seen, which is saying a mouthful considering my mother dusted her light bulbs daily. Mom at least left two Reader"s Digests on the lazy Susan so people would think our family kept up on current trends. Armand"s house didn"t have a magazine, not a plant, not a family photograph. The front room was mostly black couches and gla.s.s-topped tables with a few pole lamps. A foot-high statue of an armless woman with her robe around her hips stood on a lapis lazuli column. The coolest thing about the room was the marble floor. Houses in Fred Astaire movies had marble floors, but I"d never seen one in person.
"I believe the tape is stored in the laundry," Armand said.
The statue had polished t.i.ts. I said, "Your maid must have known when you"d be back."
He stood with his hairy arms crossed next to a door leading off into the rest of the house. "I have no maid. Domestics gossip, and more than anything, I cannot stand gossip."
Marcella"s face took on a lost puppy eagerness. "You"re rich, aren"t you, Mr. Castle?"
He smiled that urbane look. "I"m comfortable."
While Armand was off digging up tape I circled the room, inspecting his tastes in art. I couldn"t figure this guy out, which frustrated me because I can almost always figure guys out. He talked too polite for a man with a full, untrimmed beard. The art on the walls was primarily Impressionist landscapes with some Pica.s.so-like fragmented animals thrown in-no people pictures. Maybe he was gay. Sometimes gay guys live alone in clean houses.
Marcella wallowed in embarra.s.sment. "I can"t believe I asked him if he was rich. What got over me? This is a room out of House and Garden."
"I can"t stand up anymore, Marcella. You think an alarm would go off if I sat on one of these couches?"
"No, that"s not likely. Why would an alarm go off?"
"I was joking, Marcella."
She wrinkled her nose. "I"m sorry, I missed it."
Armand returned wearing a different Hawaiian shirt and rubber flip-flops. You could see hair on the tops of his big toes. He carried a silver tray with a role of electrical tape, a decanter of dun-colored liquid, three cut-gla.s.s gla.s.ses, and a covered candy dish. "Your friends do not approve of my company," he said.
"They"re jealous because you"re a gentleman and they"re not," I said.
Marcella stepped toward him. "We don"t have gentlemen in Texas."
"Come now, I"m certain a few gentlemen dwell in Texas, perhaps around Beaumont."
"I don"t know Beaumont, but there"s not a one in the Panhandle." Her hands were wringing each other like wash rags. "I"m truly sorry I asked if you"re rich. You must think I"m gauche. It"s just this house is so clean, no one but a rich person would have a house this clean."
He filled the bottom of a gla.s.s and handed it to her. "I thought your question showed both rare candor and grace. Here, drink this, it"ll help you relax."
"Only one, though. I"m nursing." Marcella took a sip. "Jesus in heaven, what is it?"
Armand poured three fingers in each of the other two gla.s.ses. "Something my neighbor cooks up. The recipe has been in his family for generations. I shall explain the process after I give Mr. Rinesfoos his tape."
"You better let me do that. I need to check on the boys-they"re asleep. Besides, Shane doesn"t like men seeing his tally-whacker." Marcella carried her gla.s.s and tape out the door.
"Charming woman," Armand said, sitting next to me on the couch.
"Her husband"s followed us a thousand miles so far. I think we lost him this time."
The hand that held a gla.s.s out to me had a big diamond ring on the fourth finger. "Moonshine, my dear?"
"I"ve heard of this stuff all my life but never tasted any. Isn"t it amazing the stuff you hear about all your life but never come in contact with? Take hookers and Communists. I met my first hooker yesterday, I think it was yesterday, but I"ve heard stories about evil Communists since the day I was born and I"ve never yet met one." The moonshine tasted sweet, like Yukon Jack, only it had a touch of cough syrup-kickback.
"I"m sorry my friends are being t.u.r.ds," I said.
He drank from his gla.s.s. "You are a beautiful woman. I cannot blame them for not wanting to share."
The beard was animalistic, but the fingers were delicate. I didn"t know what to think, and my stomach was showing signs of whirlies. "If I was sober I wouldn"t trust you, Armie. I don"t think I trust you anyway."
With a small flourish, he opened the candy dish. "Try one of these, they"ll help you appreciate my finer traits."
"Those are green pills."
"How right you are." He tossed two in his mouth.
"I"ve got enough problems, I don"t need pills. What are they?"
"Something else my neighbor whips up in his bathtub."
"You"ve got quite a neighbor."
"I have him on retainer. They"re weak relaxants, the Appalachian home-remedy version of a tranquilizer."
"I could use a relaxant."
"You"ve had a hard day, little lady. You deserve to relax."
The moonshine was smoother on the second sip. "I get real angry when Shane calls me "little lady.""
He touched my hair with his hand. "I mean it only as a term of respect."
I popped a pill in my mouth and slugged it down with moonshine. Washing tranquilizers down with whiskey is hard core. Made me feel like Judy Garland.
Time lost sequentially. Which is to say I got f.u.c.ked up and made a horse"s a.s.s out of myself. Most of the night is lost in blackout, thank G.o.d, but I remember Marcella throwing up after one drink. I had a loud fight with Shane in which we called each other names you can"t take back; Lloyd"s face floated somewhere away from his body, judging me with the sad, Jesus eyes; I must have set a personal record for banging shins on furniture.