The Two-Bear Mambo

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “No.”

  “Come on, Bacon,” Leonard said.

  “No! I said NO! Are you deaf?”

  “Just tell me if this is right,” Leonard said. “You left here ahead of us, went into town, came home, and next night they came out and got you.”

  Bacon didn’t say anything, but he didn’t argue either.

  “They came out and got you ’cause someone let on we were here, that you helped us,” Leonard said. “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” Bacon said. “Cantuck, maybe. It could have been him. I don’t think so, but it could have been. Maybe Mrs. Rainforth, she could have said something wrong. Mr. Tim might have. It ain’t no tellin’. Please go. Please. They see you here …”

  “They’re not gonna see us,” Leonard said.

  “They gonna find out,” Bacon said. “Somehow, they’ll find out. They found out last time, didn’t they?”

  “Sorry, Bacon,” I said. “Really.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. You’re sorry. Just go on, now.”

  It was strange and painful driving into Grovetown. It’s impossible to describe the feelings that went through me as we came to the city-limits sign, and soon to the square. The square was fairly deep in water. You could pass through it, but the water was swift and it made me nervous. Once, when I was younger, I was following a pickup truck out of a hayfield where I had been working, and we’d had to stop working because a tremendous and unbelievable rain had fallen out of the sky. It was like someone had dumped an ocean on East Texas. But I was with my boss, who had given me a ride to the field, and he was taking me home, and we got behind this pickup, and we came to a bridge and the water was just too much for the hard dry ground., It had been too hot for too long, and when it finally did rain, it wasn’t absorbed. It was swelling, and water was already over the bridge, though it wasn’t deep. I think had we come to the bridge first, we would have tried to drive over it too, but the pickup in front of us tried it. The water hit the pickup like a battering ram, carried it into the bridge railing and the railing broke and the truck went over.

  There was nothing we could do. One instant man and truck were there, the next they were gone. The water carried the truck away and under, and it was three days later when the water went down that they found him. He was still in the truck, what was left of a cigar clamped between his teeth. That’s how fast he’d gone over and drowned.

  It had taught me a lesson about the power of water, and I had respected it ever since. I knew what it could do, and I was haunted by it. By the deeps. By the shallows. By water.

  Across the way I could see the Grovetown Cafe. Water was lapping over the curbing, threatening to enter the place. In my head I could see inside it and I could visualize all those angry people, falling down on us like cut timbers.

  We decided to start at Cantuck’s office, but we couldn’t get to it. The water was too high over there to park. We parked at Tim’s filling station, and walked over. I tell you, outside of the truck I was a nervous wreck. I knew it wasn’t wise, especially going into Cantuck’s office, but I wouldn’t go without the snub-nose and Leonard wouldn’t go without his pistol. We hid them in our coats.

  Water was seeping under the door and into the lobby when we arrived. The carpet smelled like a damp sheepdog. We were both breathing harder than either of us really should have been. Perspiration was boiling out from under my arms almost as fast as the rain was coming down. Leonard’s limp was more pronounced. He had gotten the original injury saving my life, and he’d healed up good, having only occasional trouble with it, but the beating we had taken had done his leg some bad business again, reactivated the old pain.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “Unless you want to have a sack race, I’m all right.”

  The secretary had taken down her Christmas cards and tree. She wasn’t glad to see us. Reynolds was out, which was, of course, a major disappointment.

  Cantuck must have heard us come in, because he came to the door of his office with a jaw full of chewing tobacco. He looked a lot less friendly than when I used to see him leaving the police station in LaBorde.

  “All right,” he said. “Come in.”

  We went into his office. Cantuck sat down, picked his spit can off the desk and pushed his chew into it with his tongue.

  “We just thought we’d drop in and say hi,” Leonard said, taking a chair. When he sat, water pooled beneath him.

  Cantuck sighed. He rolled his one good eye to the left, then the right, perhaps looking for sanctuary. I got a dollar out of my wallet and forced it into one of the cans on his desk. He eyed that, said, “You’re not thinking you’re softening me up with that, are you?”

  I sat down. Cantuck said, “If ever there were a couple of idiots, it’s you two.”

  “But we’re your idiots,” I said.

  Cantuck rubbed the back of his neck and ran a hand through his hair. “You know, you could cause some problems showin’ up here. I could have you run out of town. I could lock you up.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Because we’re your idiots.”

  “Don’t think ’cause you got me to a hospital I owe you some favors,” Cantuck said.

  “We’d never capitalize on a thing like that,” Leonard said. “But we did save your life.”

  “I’d have been all right,” Cantuck said.

  “You’d have bled to death,” Leonard said.

  “You didn’t do shit,” Cantuck said. “You were in the back seat, passed out.”

  “Hap saved us both,” Leonard said. “So you owe him.”

  Cantuck clasped his hands together, leaned his elbows on his desk, pushed his face against his hands. He said, “What is it you want? You want to know Brown is guilty? I can’t tell you. Being how he’s the Exalted Cyclops of the Klan here—or whatever they’re calling themselves these days—I figure he had to have known something. No one’s pinning him to it because he wasn’t there, and the boys are keeping the Klan pledge of silence. Now you know what I know, unless you don’t know we’re having some serious bad weather here and I think I’m going to send everyone home, along with myself, before we drown.”

  “What about Reynolds?” I said. “He involved?”

  “He’s a worthless piece of shit,” Cantuck said, “and I figure he’ll get my job. Brown starts enough grassroots unrest, makes people feel their jobs at the lumber mill, the Christmas tree farm are in jeopardy, the Mayor might see his way to appoint Reynolds. I don’t know. Maybe I want that. I’m tired of all this shit. I got one eye, a swollen nut, and more grief than I need. I been thinking about opening an antique store.”

  “Lots of guys with one eye and a swollen nut do that,” Leonard said.

  Cantuck actually grinned at him.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “We just think we might find a lead somewhere. Something to help us figure what happened to Florida.”

  “Oh yeah?” Cantuck said. “Couple of detectives, just like on the TV, huh? Seen some Matlock, have you? A few Perry Mason reruns. That’s good, and it’s good of you two to offer your vast experience in our hour of need. Way I’ve seen you guys operate, I don’t think you could find your dick with both hands, let alone figure out who did what to who and why.”

  “I just want who,” I said. “I don’t give a damn about why.”

  “And that’s why you’ll never figure the who,” Cantuck said. “It’s the why that counts.”

  “The why in this case is damn easy,” I said. “A black man killed a white man and a black woman started messing with it.”

  The Chief’s door opened then. I turned in my chair. It was Reynolds. He had a plastic hat cover over his hat and the water beaded on it like balls of Vaseline. From his feet to his knees was soaked. “Well,” he said. “My little buddies.”

  Leonard stood up as if to confront Reynolds.

  “Man, you look rough,” Reynolds said. “What happened? Get beat up in a cafe?”

  “Don
’t think because a roomful of people whipped my ass, you can,” Leonard said.

  “I don’t have to think nothing,” Reynolds said.

  “Get started on me,” Leonard said, “hope you brought yourself a sack lunch, ’cause you gonna be here all night.”

  Reynolds finally decided to notice me. “What about you, shit-head? You want me after I finish him?”

  “Naw,” I said. “Actually, just seeing how tough you are is making my bowels loose. Besides, Leonard gets through with you, what’s left for me?”

  “That’s enough,” Cantuck said.

  “Chief,” Leonard said. “All I ask is you give us fifteen minutes. Anywhere you say. Me and him, assholes and elbows.”

  “You heard me,” Cantuck said, “put the brakes on.” He stood up from his desk and leaned his hands on it. “Reynolds. You still work for me, and you knock on my fuckin’ door, you want to come in. And, I’ll tell you another little thing … close the door.”

  Reynolds, who was still holding the knob in his hand, gently closed it. Cantuck said, “Quit fuckin’ my secretary. She has a family.”

  Reynolds turned beet red. “Chief, I—”

  “Just shut up,” Cantuck said. “Now what the fuck did you want anyway?”

  “Charlene told me they was in here,” Reynolds said. “I wanted to know why.”

  “They come to donate a dollar to one of my charity cans,” Cantuck said. “Now pack your ass on out of here. I thought it was your business, I’d leave you a note or somethin’. Go on.”

  Reynolds went out and started to close the door. Cantuck said, “Tell Charlene to go on home. And you go on too—but not with her. And just in case you might feel you want to talk to someone about these boys being here. Someone like Brown. Don’t do it. Something happens to these pieces of shit, it might make me feel bad on account of they put money in my charity cans. Are you readin’ me here, son?”

  “Chief—”

  “The answer’s ‘yes sir,’ ” Cantuck said.

  “Yes sir,” Reynolds said.

  “Now go on,” Cantuck said. “Day’s too bad to hang out here. Word is the dam’s leakin’ like a goddamn sieve. Next thing you know, we’ll be digging bass out of our asses. Now get.”

  Reynolds went out and closed the door.

  “You really don’t like him, do you, Chief,” Leonard said.

  “Nope, I don’t.”

  I said, “Thanks, Chief.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “I don’t want you here neither.”

  “You say that,” Leonard said, “but you don’t mean it.”

  “Oh yes I do,” Cantuck said.

  “This sort of rejection from authority figures,” Leonard said, “it’s exactly what makes a fellow go bad. I read that in a book somewheres.”

  28

  Cantuck told us to go home, but he didn’t make it an official order, so we waded over to Tim’s station and went inside. He was sitting behind the counter with his feet up. When he saw us come in, his eyebrows went up.

  “Sort of thought I’d seen the last of you two,” he said.

  “You almost did,” I said. I looked at the pig’s feet in the jar on the counter. It looked like the same pig’s feet as before. I said, “Thought you sold lots of those?”

  “I lied,” Tim said. “I try to sell them to the out-of-towners. What do you boys want? I mean, is this safe for you?”

  “Can we sit?” Leonard asked.

  “Sure,” Tim said. “Go ahead. I’ll get us a little coffee.”

  He went and got the coffee. Leonard and I sat in the same chairs we had sat in before and Tim’s long coat hung on the same chair where it had hung before. I put my hand in my pocket and fondled my .38, lovingly. We listened to the rain on the roof.

  When I felt sure no one was about to charge through the door in a white sheet, I looked around the store, at the new pile of wood beside the stove—without a lizard this time—the crap under the barrel stove, the shiny blue something there, the dust bunnies, and the tobacco wrapper.

  Everything seemed just the way it had that Christmas we had come into Grovetown, except the aluminum Christmas tree was gone. It was hard to believe it had been nearly a month. A bit of wind rustled through the place as Tim came in with coffee. It blew dust bunnies across the floor and into the corners.

  When we had our coffee and Tim was seated, Leonard said, “You think your dad was behind what was done to us?”

  Tim thought a moment. “Maybe he didn’t have it done, but the ones done it done it cause he wanted it done. I bet on that. But why are you guys back?”

  “We’re stupid,” I said.

  “I believe that,” Tim said.

  “What about Reynolds?” Leonard said. “He behind any of this?”

  “Christ, boys, I don’t know. Why the third degree?”

  “Sorry,” Leonard said. “We’re just a little down on our social skills today.”

  “And nervous,” I said.

  “I bet,” Tim said. “Hell, boys, I’m glad enough to see you, but I think you ought to leave this to out-of-town law if you’re thinking of doing something yourself.”

  “We don’t know what we’re thinking,” I said. “We still haven’t found Florida.”

  “She could still be okay,” Tim said. “Run off somewhere for some reason we haven’t got a clue. And I tell you, I’m thinking of leaving out of here myself, for a while. That old Grovetown dam, they say it’s pretty creaky, all this rain. It’s got more water in it now than last time, and when it broke that time it was bad news. I want Mama out of where she is, but I haven’t been able to budge her. That dam breaks, her trailer park’ll be the first place to get it. There’s already places out there under four or five feet of water just from the seepage. Half the town has left already. Won’t come back until the rain stops or the water goes down.”

  “That’s to our advantage,” I said.

  “You two are fools,” Tim said. “This time, someone might succeed at what they tried last time.”

  “And you don’t want to be in the middle of it?” Leonard said.

  “Damn right,” Tim said. “You heard what they did to Bacon.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But if it’s your father behind all this, you said yourself you’ve got immunity.”

  “And what if it isn’t my father?” Tim said. “Guys, I’m sorry you got beat up. I’m sorry you got run off the road and nearly killed, but you came out all right. The guys involved confessed. Maybe they’ll get scared and pin my father to it in time. But why do you want to meddle anymore?”

  “You’re about the only one here who has really befriended us,” I said. “Maude and her boys a little. Cantuck in his own fashion. But you know these people. You might can tell us something can help. I feel there’s an equation we haven’t added up. I think we look at the factors just right, we ought to be able to get a total. Know what I’m saying?”

  “No,” Tim said.

  “Florida comes here because she thinks Soothe was murdered,” I said. “She wants to prove the Chief and the town are a bunch of bigots. She wants to buy this stuff the Yankee wanted to buy from Soothe and got killed over. Stuff that might or might not exist. She asks around. Talks to you. Gets a place to stay out at your mother’s, then disappears. Her car disappears. Her belongings disappear.”

  “That’s what makes me think she may have just driven off,” Tim said.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Doesn’t fit who she was. People can sometimes do crazy things, but by now we’d have heard from her. Something’s happened to her.”

  “You can’t be certain,” Tim said.

  “I’ve thought every angle. It looked to me at first that Cantuck might have something to do with her missing, but in light of the way things have gone, that doesn’t fit as well as it first did. Reynolds is possible. He and your father could have been in cahoots. They could have hung Soothe. Perhaps Florida somehow found out, so they got rid of her. That sound far-fetched?” />
  “I guess not,” Tim said. “I wouldn’t put anything past my old man. Not after the way he’s treated my mother and me. I tell you, him with all that money, and me with nothing. And owing him to boot. It gets my goat. And I hate to mention it, boys, but you owe me for some tires.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Leonard said. “You take a check?”

  “I don’t like to.”

  “Can you wait then?”

  “I’ll take the check.”

  Leonard wrote it out. Tim took it and put it in his wallet. “There now,” he said. “That’s all taken care of. You were saying … what was it?”

  “He was about to say, then we show up,” Leonard said, “not only are we a nigger and a nigger lover, but we’re treading on dangerous ground. Same ground Florida was on.”

  “So,” Tim said. “What can I do?”

  “What we want,” I said, “is for you to let us talk to your mother. You know, set it up with her. Maybe there’s something she knows that didn’t seem important at the time, but is now. Perhaps Florida left her clothes in the trailer and your mother took them.”

  “She’s not a thief,” Tim said.

  “He didn’t say that,” Leonard said. “What he wants is any bit of evidence we can find. If your mother has the clothes, then that could point to Florida being abducted, killed. Might be something in her clothes that’ll give us a lead. If we could find her car. Just something to start with. Anything.”

  “Hell,” I said. “We don’t know what we want, Tim. We just want it. Understand?”

  “Here’s what I’ll do,” Tim said. “I’ll ask her she knows anything. I’ll call out there. I want to talk her into leaving anyway, all this water risin’, but that’s all I’ll do. My mother is not a well woman, and I don’t want you two giving her grief. Got me?”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  Tim went in the back and we sat by the stove and waited. Five minutes later he returned.