Big Joe chuckled once before he remembered he was supposed to be a dickhead.
Bubba went on, “Lurlene Grady, er Donna Hyatt, sent me a nasty letter from the women’s prison. You remember her? She helped kill Melissa Dearman, my ex-fiancée and Neal Ledbetter, and had a map about where the Civil War gold was located. She would like it ifin I recanted and she threatened to ‘get me.’”
“Found an old rusted car instead of the gold, dint they?” Big Joe asked reflectively. “Civil War gold would have been nice.”
“Ain’t no gold.” Bubba nodded firmly because he was tired of saying that, and went on, “Then there’s you.”
“Me?”
“You ain’t forgiven me for roundhousing you.”
“Boy, ifin I hadn’t forgiven you, you wouldn’t be sitting here. You’d be in Huntsville. Don’t matter a lick ifin you were goin’ to save Jesus Christ from the cross, you still hit a law enforcement official. And in the great lone star state of Texas that is still a felony.” Big Joe smiled again, proud of his statement.
“And I am grateful that you let that one go,” Bubba said, attempting to add a note of contriteness.
Big Joe digested that for a long minute. “You tick anyone else off?”
“Not that I know about.”
“What about the director’s wife?”
“Marquita?”
“Someone said you and her were right friendly the other day,” Big Joe said.
“I asked her about Kristoph,” Bubba said. “She said I could look into it.”
Big Joe snorted and unsteepled his fingers. “Does she know about your track record?”
Bubba shrugged. Is there someone who doesn’t know?
“So you looked into it,” Big Joe said. “You find anything? Mebe that’s why someone’s trying to shoot you while not actually shooting you? Would have been funny as hell ifin that cute little movie star had plugged you proper.”
Bubba thought about it. The image of McGeorge with her funny little smile popped into his head. “Nothing springs to mind,” he said and it was half a lie.
“You ain’t playing tiddlywinks with…Marquita Thaddeus?”
Bubba was outraged. “I got a girlfriend,” he protested. “Damn fine girlfriend.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Big Joe said and looked at his fingernails as if contemplating a manicure. “Heard tell ya’ll broke up.”
Bubba wasn’t sure how to take this. Sure, Mary Lou Treadwell had said something similar, but most of Pegram County made the fine art of gossiping seem like a trait learned right after they began to walk at a year old. Rumors got twisted around faster than green grass through a diarrheic goose. Willodean had been acting oddly. She had been avoiding him. She didn’t answer her phone when she was off. She had seen him in the hospital and had offered to drive him home, but Bubba knew she was working.
Bubba knew very well that doubt was an ugly thing and the last thing he wanted to do was let Big Joe know that he’d hit the mark with his pesky little arrow.
“Besides Marquita Thaddeus is old enough to be my mother,” Bubba stated steadfastly. “Good looking woman, but I like Willodean Gray just fine.” More than that, but I ain’t saying it to Big Joe.
Big Joe nodded knowingly. Between the shrewd affirmation and the Jim Nabors music, he probably had a very high rate of confessions. Even Bubba had a barely suppressed inclination to confess to something when Big Joe cast his unerring legal glance upon him. “I stole a piece of Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum from the corner grocery store!” Bubba thought he might yell if he didn’t bite down on his lower lip. It didn’t even matter that he had been nine years old and he had brought it back before he’d even opened it. The grocer had thought it was funny as heck. Bubba hadn’t thought that cleaning the grocer’s windows until his arms almost fell off was funny, but his mother wanted him to learn a lesson about consequences.
“So ain’t no one you kin think of?” Big Joe asked.
Bubba shook his head. McGeorge = funny little smile. McGeorge = access to special effects. But then half the film crew had access to the special effects and weren’t they a little more secure with the firearms? That was because it would hardly be the first time someone had been killed with something they’d thought was safe. A crew member had been talking about Bruce Lee’s only son’s death for that very same reason.
“The director fired the special effects guy and they brought on a licensed weapons specialist for the duration of the film,” Big Joe said.
I expect that’s a little late, Bubba thought a little mutinously.
“Mebe you should wear a bullet proof vest when you’re filming, boy,” Big Joe suggested. “Although you ain’t my favorite person, a hole in you just ain’t fun.”
He stood up and towered over Bubba for a moment that the police chief clearly savored.
“I’ll show myself out,” Big Joe said. “Don’t leave town for the time being.”
“And where in hellfire do you think I’m goin’?” Bubba couldn’t help himself from asking. “It ain’t like I have a passport and a ticket to Rio.”
Big Joe didn’t reply but turned and walked out of the kitchen. Bubba heard the front door open and shut a moment later and watched as the police chief meandered out to his car. He paused to give Alfonzo an intense glance. Alfonzo was back at work on the mansion. The paint was starting to look good on the big house and Alfonzo was working hard. However, Pilar and the babies had remained inside. It was entirely likely that the two youngest Garcias were napping.
As Bubba was looking at the house, he saw the curtain twitch in an upper window. It was the red room on the third floor. The entire room was decorated in crimson and stayed that way for decades. A Snoddy ancestor (It had been a great, great grandfather, Bubba believed.) had kept his mistress in the room while his wife was dying in a second floor bedroom. The colors were fading and the gilt needed to be refinished, but it was a perfectly serviceable guest room that afforded the room’s occupant, Pilar in this case, an unobstructed view of Bubba’s house.
Bubba retrieved another RC Cola and popped the lid with his good hand.
Precious wandered in for a look and decided it was safe since Big Joe had departed the house. If she had known he was outside she probably would have gone to mark his tires, which was a habit of hers since she tended to make certain people she did not like were urinated upon.
Bubba had been told that female dogs do not mark items but clearly it had been from an individual who had never owned a canine of the feminine persuasion. He sat back at the table and looked out as Big Joe climbed into his patrol car.
As the official vehicle backed out, Bubba noticed the crimson curtain twitch again. Of course, these were people who were in collusion with his mother, Miz Adelia, and Willodean Gray. They took midnight trips down rutted lanes out the back way of the Snoddy Estate and avoided the DEA van parked in the front. Naturally, Pilar would be curious and cautious about who was coming and going on the Snoddy properties.
Bubba grunted. Alfonzo and Pilar were probably regretting the moment they climbed into bed with Miz Demetrice Snoddy.
Shaking his head, Bubba looked around. The world wasn’t going to stop spinning on account of any issues he was having. He reached into his pocket and touched the check from the movie people. He’d found it when he’d cleaned out his shirt pockets. He’d forgotten to cash it and he needed to do it before something else happened.
Bubba grabbed his wallet and his truck keys. Precious heard the jingle and her head came up inquisitively. Bubba nodded. “Ride, girl?”
Oh, yes. Ride. Dogs love trucks.
* * *
The bank was open. People stared at Bubba and he pretended not to notice. He deposited the check into his checking account and took the receipt with the hand that wasn’t restricted by a sling. When he returned to Ol’ Green, Precious was resting her prodigious nose on her paws as she looked at chipmunks frolicking nearby.
Bubba saw a nondescript van parked across
the street from the bank. It was about as obvious as a sore thumb among the plain sedans and plainer trucks in the vicinity. The driver was hidden behind a newspaper. Bubba could tell it was the Pegram Herald, although he wasn’t sure how much the driver was getting out of it since it was upside down.
Huh, he thought. The DEA is following me now. One more thing on my big list. God, he prayed to himself. You, the God. I don’t doubt that, and I know bad things happen to good people. All the time. Your testing of us. I totally get that. But God, I’ve already bin shot this week and arrested and in jail and I’m thinking my girl is getting ready to break up with me, so can you oh, cut me a little slack? Thanks in advance. Amen.
With that thought, Bubba decided that he would find the girl in his head and demand that she eat some lunch with him so that he could cajole some answers from her. It took him about thirty minutes to find her out on the highway. She had pulled over Stella Lackey’s Lincoln Continental. The Conny was in front, the Bronco, with its red and blue lights flashing, in the rear.
Bubba pulled in behind the Bronco, got out of his truck, and leaned against the door. Willodean stood beside Stella’s car door using a gadget that looked like a cross between a remote control and a cell phone from the nineties. She looked back at Bubba only once, but that was enough to make him stay where he was. She didn’t need his assistance with Stella and she didn’t need any body language that implied that she needed his assistance.
“I know, Miz Lackey,” Willodean was saying as she punched buttons on her device. “It’s hard to do the speed limit when there’s places to go, but having to go back home to get your dentures does not qualify as an emergency.”
“That’s because you don’t got dentures,” Stella retorted.
“Perhaps when I do have dentures, I’ll understand,” Willodean said soothingly. “In the meantime, would you really want to cause an accident because you couldn’t chew your ribs at the restaurant?”
“Thems good ribs,” Stella said, her voice a little more compliant.
“I’m sure the owner of The Hogfather’s will put them in a to-go box,” Willodean said. She was using her best calm voice. Bubba likened it to her school teacher voice. She was patient and she was willing to be polite, but she wasn’t in the mood for nonsense.
“Don’t taste right after it’s gotten cold,” Stella complained.
“You were doing 79 in a 55 zone, Miz Lackey,” Willodean said. “That’s almost 25 miles an hour above the speed limit. One more mile above that and it would have been a felony. What if you had caused an accident and gotten someone killed? Could you really live with that? Just because your ribs were getting cold. That’s not worth it.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Stella admitted. Then she grinned slyly. “Say, ain’t you getting married to Bubba? I hear tell you have so many bridesmaids and groomsmen that you lost count.”
Bubba hesitated in scratching his nose.
Willodean didn’t say anything for a long moment. “That’s just Lloyd Goshorn telling big stories, Miz Lackey. His stories get bigger and bigger the more drinks you pour into him.”
“My son was buying,” Stella admitted.
“Lloyd really needs to go into detox,” Willodean said, “and he should probably stop telling stories, too.” There was a whirling-clicking noise and Willodean handed something to Stella. “There. You’re on the docket. If you want to take a defensive driver’s course in lieu of paying the ticket, you can do so. This is your first ticket in over ten years, so that would be one way of getting out of paying for it, but it will cost to take the course and it’s a full eight-hour day.”
“Will there be men there?”
“It’s my experience that there will be,” Willodean said.
“Well, a widow like myself could always use a new way to meet men,” Stella said and her tone was hopeful.
“Good luck, Miz Lackey,” Willodean said, “and slow down, please.”
The electronic window on the Lincoln Continental went up as Willodean walked back to her Bronco.
Bubba chewed on his lower lip. Now that he had Willodean to himself, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. He had asked God to cut him some slack and now that the slack was cut, he was at a loss.
Willodean glanced at him as she paused by the Bronco. She put the gadget inside the vehicle, turned off the dome lights, and simply looked at him.
“Lunch?” Bubba asked. “The Hogfather’s sounds good right now.”
The edges of her perfect mouth twitched just a little.
The Conny spit dirt as its wheels spun. Stella got the big car back on the highway with only a slight slide of the rear end as she gunned the big V8 motor. Willodean winced.
Chapter 19
Bubba and the Winsome Willodean
And
Bubba and the Delightful DEA
Wednesday, March 13th
The Hogfather’s was fairly crowded or everyone in the immediate vicinity had heard Bubba was taking Willodean to the locale and immediately rushed over to witness what might or might not happen. Bubba grimaced as every face turned in unison to watch them as he held the door open for Willodean. It was as if a spotlight suddenly settled upon them.
Bubba glared at their audience. Ted Andrews, Pegramville Fire Chief and general busybody, grinned broadly from a nearby table. He sat with Melvin Wetmore, a local mechanic Bubba had once worked with, and the Teasdales. The missus Teasdale was Miz Demetrice’s sworn evil archenemy. (There had been a certain incident where both women had worn the exact same hat to a church function. Hat? Dress? Something like that. Words had ensued, which escalated into insults that respectable southerners and Texans would never repeat in polite company. Blood oaths had been sworn that they would never speak to each other again.) Bubba’s mother would cross the street in order to avoid coming close to Susan Teasdale.
At another table the honorable Mayor John Leroy Jr. sat with Tandy North, Alex Luis and Risley Risto. Tandy blinked at Bubba and swatted the mayor’s hand away from her thigh. Alex winked at Willodean, although it might have been intended for Bubba. Risley’s eyebrows lifted as if he was surprised to see Bubba alive and walking around. Then his eyes came to rest on Bubba’s sling.
Nearby, Wallie, the construction contractor who’d built most of Bubba’s new house, chewed on a rib while elbowing Wilma Rabsitt who then snarled at him. At the same table sat Alice and Ruby Mercer. The three women were all active participants in the Pegramville Women’s Club and fervent gossips. The four of them at the table eyed Bubba and Willodean as if the pair was the main entrée and they had been marooned on a desert island for a long time.
There was even a group of zombies in one corner booth. It was somewhat difficult to tell where the fake blood ended and the barbeque sauce started.
A few people took their cellphones out and started tapping away in a way that was less than surreptitious. One even took a quick photo of Bubba and Willodean.
“Mebe we should go someplace a little less crowded,” Bubba suggested.
“I’m hungry,” Willodean said, glaring down the sisters Mercer with a single expressive look, “and I only have an hour.”
And wasn’t it interesting that two people cleared out a table just as the words came out of Willodean’s perfect mouth.
Bubba glowered at the pair, Roy and Maude Chance, owners and editors of the Pegram Herald, moved to the counter with their plates. Roy said, “Get this to go, Jethro? We got a call about a story.”
“Your cell phone dint ring,” Bubba said darkly.
“It’s on vibrate, Bubba,” Roy said cheerfully. “Get your head out of that T-rex’s ass.”
Willodean tucked herself into the seat that Maude had vacated and presented her back to the remainder of the room.
Bubba sat down opposite her and looked out the window where Precious gazed longingly at the restaurant from the open window of the 1954 Chevy truck. Apparently, she knew what the giant neon pig in front of the building meant. So did the two
men in identical sunglasses and jackets in the gray van parked three cars down from Bubba’s truck. They had lost their insouciant expressions and looked somewhat famished. One said something excitedly, and Bubba didn’t have to be a lip reader to understand that he was trying to convince the other one that they needed the Michael Corleone special featured on the great hog-shaped blackboard out front.
Bubba looked back and found that everyone in the restaurant had rearranged themselves to have Bubba and Willodean in their direct line of sight. Some of them had actually turned their chairs and slipped into already crowded bench seats so that they could eat and watch at the same time. It would have only been better if there had been popcorn, but Texas barbeque would have to suffice.
A waitress appeared and Willodean said, “Tea. Unsweetened tea.”
“You don’t want sweet tea?” the waitress asked. “But it’s the best sweet tea in the—” Willodean turned her glare toward the waitress and the waitress said, “Unsweetened tea, oh-kay.”
“The pork and chicken plate,” Willodean added. “I want okra and the slaw on the side and make sure it’s a big bowl of bread. Just go ahead and bring the butter out. The real stuff and I’m going to need several napkins so don’t skimp. Then follow those suckers with peach cobbler. Big scoop of vanilla on that.” She tapped the table. “You want something to eat, Bubba?”
Bubba said, “Uh, you goin’ to eat all that, Willodean?” Then he wished a bolt of lightning had just struck him instead of being allowed to open his mouth. “I mean, you don’t usually…you don’t, um.” Perhaps someone would take pity on him and slit his throat on the spot. If he acted up enough perhaps the DEA guys out front would shoot him. Perhaps it would be in the head and someplace that would permanently shut his mouth. “I think I might have the special.”
“Sides?” the waitress asked.
“Beans and potato salad and pardon me, do you have some pliers so I kin get my feet out of my mouth?”
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 19