The Knights of the Cornerstone

by James P. Blaylock

  “Then if it goes bad, I’ll make them take me along. Do they know Donna’s a Knight?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Taber said. “Donna’s not part of this equation.”

  “Of course not,” Calvin said. “I wouldn’t ask her to be part of it, although maybe someone should ask her. Someone asked me, and she’s more competent than I am.”

  “I’m not going to ask her,” Taber said. “I won’t stop her if she’s willing, but I won’t ask her. And nobody asked you in so many words. Sounded to me like you made up your own mind. ‘I think I’ll stay,’ is what you said.”

  “That’s right, I did, and I thank you for the opportunity to say it.” Calvin listened to the wind, rustling through the willows. Two nights ago he had been outside looking in.

  “But it was a choice,” Taber said. “You could have gone right on being uncommitted, with no skin off your nose, except maybe a little pride. Donna was committed from the get-go. She’s already a Knight. And besides, I like that girl. I just don’t want her in the vicinity.”

  “We’re all put to the test, Miles,” Nettie said. “If we never take the test, we don’t know how we’ll fare. It’s like how we stand up to temptation. It’s the only thing that shows what kind of mettle we’ve got. You know that. You preached that little sermon yourself more than once.”

  “Nettie’s right,” Betty Jessup said. “You and Lymon gave Calvin the opportunity to make his own mind up. We all did. We’ve been waiting for him to sign on ever since he rolled into town. Cal had the choice, and he up and did the right thing. So to answer your question, Cal, Bob Postum’s crowd doesn’t know Donna from Adam. There’s no reason they should. She just recently moved back out to New Cyprus, and she’s been a Knight for about a month.”

  “They shouldn’t have known that Hosmer had the veil, either,” Whitey said, “but they did.”

  Betty shrugged. “I think we ought to let Calvin say what’s on his mind, and then if it sounds like anything at all, we’ll call in Donna and ask her. Let the girl speak for herself.”

  “And remember one thing,” Taber said. “They don’t know Donna from Adam unless they saw her rescue Cal out there in the quarry. We know they saw her car.”

  “I don’t think they saw her,” Calvin told him. “They were behind us the whole time.”

  “What about today, out on the river, when you were coming back up on the Whaler?”

  “We were pretty far upriver, and they headed the other way.”

  Taber remained silent now.

  “She can drive any car,” Whitey said to Taber. “She doesn’t have to drive her own. We’ll put her into that new Mustang Doc Hoyle bought. He won’t argue about it.”

  “All right, Cal,” Taber said finally, “what’s the plan? And whatever it is, we’ve got to have an alternate take on the whole thing. We’re going to give Donna a comfortable way out, and I’m going to encourage her to take it.”

  GAS’N’GO

  Calvin passed the stone marker, heading out toward the highway in his pockmarked Dodge, the heat through the broken-out windows mixing with the cold air from the air conditioner. The wind was still blowing, now and then peppering the side of the car with sand, and the desert shrubs shuddered in the gusts. In the light of day, his Gas’n’Go plan seemed pitifully naive for about a half dozen reasons, not the least of which was that it depended on Postum’s wanting the veil so badly that he would play by some variety of rules—that he would be willing to barter Uncle Lymon for it. But why would he start that now? “Everything he says is a lie,” Hosmer had told him, and so far everything Hosmer said was the truth.

  By now Donna was somewhere down 1-40 just west of Needles in Doc Hoyle’s white Mustang. She had called Calvin a couple of minutes ago, and was twenty minutes behind him if he held it to sixty miles per hour. That would give him time to negotiate. She was his first line of defense—or rather retreat. A car full of Knights—further backup—was waiting beneath the bridge over the river right outside Needles. He only had to hold down the number two on his cell phone to send out the distress signal, and then they would move into action, whatever that meant. The whole thing looked likely to be a fine kettle of fish. He clanked down over the wash and up onto the empty highway, heading west.

  The last few miles to the Gas’n’Go seemed to take no time at all, and he set the turn signal and slowed down, spotting the Postum-mobile in the parking lot as well as an old-model Chevy van, painted white and primer gray and with a two-by-four front bumper and no front plate. As far as he could see, no one sat in either one of the vehicles. He and Donna could outrun both of them easily in the Mustang if it came down to it, which he hoped to God it wouldn’t.

  He wondered suddenly if his uncle was being held in the back of the van, and he angled across the lot and pulled alongside it, then got out slowly, glancing in through the rear window. But there was a plywood partition like a bulkhead just inside the double doors, marked with a glued-on explosives warning—another Beamon truck, probably, and perfect for hiding a prisoner. He rapped against the side panel—the first notes of “Shave and a Haircut”—as he walked by, listening for an answering “two bits,” but there was nothing. Could be Uncle Lymon was tied up. …

  He glanced in through the driver’s side and noticed that the keys were in the ignition, and for one wild moment he considered climbing in, starting it up, and driving the hell out of there like Mr. Toad, leaving his beaten-up Dodge behind. It would be heroic if Uncle Lymon was in fact tied up back there, and sheer idiocy if he wasn’t. …

  “Don’t even think about it,” a voice said, and he looked up to see his old friend the Bullhead City smoker regarding him from a few feet away.

  “Think about what?” Calvin asked. The man had his hand in the pocket of a pair of khaki cargo pants. Plenty of room for a weapon.

  “Whatever you were thinking about.”

  “I was thinking about getting some chili cheese fries and a soda,” Calvin told him.

  “Then you came to the right place. Bob says to go ahead and bring the box, if you’ve got it. And you better hope you’ve got it.” Calvin returned to the car, got the box out of the trunk, and followed the man toward the door, studying his back. He was short and wiry, and Calvin was fifteen years younger, although the last time Calvin had been in a fight was in the third grade when a girl named Yolanda Kleemer had given him a bloody nose and ruined his life in elementary school. He wondered if Donna could fight like Yolanda Kleemer. He nearly laughed.

  Shirley Fowler was cooking at the griddle when they walked in, frying up cheeseburgers, and at one of the two picnic tables sat Bob Postum and two other men, one of whom, unfortunately, was the tall, lanky man from the quarry, who wouldn’t be a big Calvin Bryson fan after the merry chase the other day. The other was maybe sixty years old, stocky, and mostly bald. His nose had apparently been broken a few times and set by a drunk. He looked prodigiously unhappy at the moment—sad rather than angry. They were all sipping coffee out of foam cups.

  “Cal!” Postum said, standing up and putting out his hand for a shake. “This here is Calvin Bryson,” he said to the others. “Out here from L.A., where he’s in the rare book business. I help him out now and then with some hard-to-find titles.”

  Calvin hesitated, but then he shook hands, even though he was fairly sure now that Bob Postum was some kind of grinning devil. Not shaking hands would mean starting things up in some way, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. Best to avoid it altogether—play the game, wait for his opportunity. “I thought I’d join you,” he said to Postum.

  “Do we look like we’re coming apart?” Postum asked, and then laughed. Maybe later Calvin would think it was funny. “Meet Pat Yorkmint and Stillwater Mifflin, Cal. They call him Stillwater because he runs deep. Isn’t that right?” he asked. Mifflin nodded heavily. Postum’s sense of humor was apparently lost on the man. “You already met Jefferson Davis here.” He nodded at the small man. “Most people call him ‘Defferson’ on account of
he’s hard of hearing.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” the man muttered, and Postum laughed again and winked hard at Calvin.

  “What’ll you have?” Shirley asked him.

  “Chili cheese fries,” Calvin said to her. She nodded, loading the burgers onto buns that were laid out on wax paper in little pastel-colored plastic baskets.

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Grape soda, I guess.”

  “Soda’s in the case,” she said. “Opener’s on a string at the end of the table.”

  He grabbed a cold grape Nehi, found the church key hanging from the string, and opened the bottle. He watched Shirley dip the wire basket of fries into the hot oil. She looked efficient and bored. There was no indication that anything was up, or that she recognized him, and he wondered how much Taber had told her, hoping that she knew enough to duck out the back if things got rough. The radio played the usual country-western music—a sad song about being a long way from home and family—and Calvin realized that Mifflin, the bald-headed man, was singing along with the song under his breath now, singing as if he meant it.

  Shirley set the cheeseburgers on the table, each of them accompanied by a bag of chips and a wedge of pickle.

  “These are deli pickles?” Mifflin asked, forgetting about the song and looking up sharply. “Cold process?”

  “Yessir,” Shirley said. “You cook a dill pickle and you ruin it, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “That’s just how I feel,” Mifflin said to Calvin, squinting his eyes to add emphasis. “Pickles are like people. When they come off the vine they’re pretty much equal, and then they get screwed up along the way. A pickle don’t know that, but a man does. You don’t see a pickle with regrets.”

  Calvin nodded at him, at a complete loss for words.

  “I like them big fat dill pickles they’ve got at the ballpark,” the tall one said.

  “You like big fat ugly women, too,” the small man told him. “Because that’s all you can get.”

  The tall man shrugged, as if there was no reason to argue. Calvin couldn’t remember the man’s name. Then he noticed that the wrapper of a peppermint patty lay next to his plate, and it came to him—Pat Yorkmint. What if it had been an Abazaba, he wondered, or Cup of Gold? Mifflin pointed what was left of his pickle at Calvin and said, “Now a dill pickle chip is whole ’nother matter, not to mention a gherkin. I like a good gherkin, although they’re hard to find. One thing about your grocery store gherkin …”

  “God damn!” the small man said, looking at Mifflin as if he’d just as soon kill him right then and there, but Postum gave him a hard look, which he seemed to take seriously. He sat back on the bench and shrugged, indicating he had nothing more to say.

  For a long space there was no noise but the sound of rustling wax paper and chewing. “Pass the salt, Walt,” Postum said at one point, and he salted his fries heavily and then squirted ketchup on them, set the ketchup down, and stabbed the fries around in the ketchup, getting them just right. The whole thing was distinctly surreal—time taken out of everyone’s busy day to have a sit-down meal and a parlay, all very civilized, just like Julia Child recommended. Mifflin was a dainty eater, holding the burger with both hands, his pinky fingers extended, whereas Postum pretty much porked it down, mopping the ketchup out of his beard with his napkin. Calvin wanted to do something crazy—shout, break into song, sweep the cheeseburger baskets onto the floor. His anxiety level was climbing into the desperation zone. He looked out toward the parking lot. The dry wind gave him the jitters. A sheet metal sign blew back and forth on its hooks, and a crumpled newspaper flew out of the trash can and whirled away into the sky, bound for Oz. Donna was maybe five minutes out.

  “Nothing like a good burger,” Postum said, winking at Calvin.

  “Amen to that, brother,” Yorkmint put in.

  Shirley brought his chili fries, poured more coffee into the foam cups, put the check on the table, set the coffeepot on its hot plate, and went into the back room, leaving them to it. Maybe she’d stay there, Calvin thought, or better yet, just go out the back, get into her car, and drive home to Essex.

  “How does this work?” Calvin said as soon as she was out of sight.

  “Pretty much like I told you,” Postum said, wiping his hands with a napkin. “You in a rush here? Don’t like your fries?”

  “I’ve got a date,” Calvin said, glancing out the window again and immediately wishing he hadn’t.

  “She picking you up outside? You seem to be eyeballing those gas pumps like you’re expecting the Pep Boys to roll in.”

  The suggestion was so startling to him that it had to have shown in his face. “Figure of speech,” he said.

  “Figure of bullshit, I call it,” the small man said senselessly. He looked at Calvin with strangely intense loathing.

  “Go ahead and eat your fries before they get cold, Cal,” Postum told him. “Chili fries aren’t worth anything cold.” He dug his wallet from his pocket, fished out a fifty-dollar bill, and slid the check and the fifty under the salt shaker. “Anyway, forget that date of yours. Have you got the goods, is the question. Deffermint, open up the box.” He gestured at it, but it took a moment for the small man to realize that he was being spoken to. He put the last bite of his cheeseburger down and reached into his pocket, and Calvin braced himself, ready to tip the whole table over if he took out a pistol. The least Calvin could do was wreck their lunch for them. Then he could be shot in the back going out the door and die like a dog on the highway. …

  The man came up with a little switchblade pocketknife, clicked it open, and slit the tape. Postum pulled back the flaps, reached inside, and drew out the veil, letting it fall open and staring at it carefully. Calvin waited for him. The reproduction was good—he’d say that much for it. He had sketched the face in charcoal on grocery bags until he got it right, and then reproduced it onto a thin piece of tattered muslin cut out of some weatherworn window curtains. After washing out excess charcoal and drying it, he had fixed the charcoal with a can of hairspray, and then hung it in the desert wind all night to get rid of the smell. The likeness was close enough to the original so that it would satisfy anyone who didn’t have the original to compare it to. It didn’t have the effect of the original—the power—but they wouldn’t know that. Postum held it up again and looked through it. He shrugged.

  “All right,” he said, nodding heavily, “what’re your terms?”

  “What do you mean, what’re my terms?” Calvin asked.

  “Well, the two of us talked about money, but I suppose you’ve got grandiose new ideas by now. I thought I’d give you a chance to renegotiate, but if it’s just the money you’re after, we’re about through here.”

  “I want Al Lymon, obviously. I don’t give a damn about the money. If it was just the money, I wouldn’t be here at all.”

  “That’s downright noble, Cal. It pains me to say I don’t have Lymon with me, though. We left him back at the ranch. He’s not for sale.”

  “You don’t have the veil, either,” Calvin said, staring straight back at him.

  “I’ll be ding-donged,” Postum said, breaking into a grin. “Is that right? Ain’t this it?” He held up the veil and looked at it one more time, then put it back in the box. “You could have fooled me silly—taken my money and gone on your way. And now you tell me this is a fraud? What did I say to you about trying to bluff?”

  “Yeah, it’s a fraud,” Calvin said truthfully. “The real veil is up the road a ways, safe. You deliver Lymon and it’s yours. We figured he might not be here, so I’m authorized to negotiate, and I’m negotiating. That part isn’t any bluff.”

  Postum stared at him for the space of thirty seconds, and then said, “Son, I just don’t believe you. I think this is it. I think they sent in a boy to do a man’s job. Sorry to have to say that. If there’s negotiating to do, we’ll get to it in due time.”

  “Think what you want, but …”

  Out of the corner of his eye, C
alvin saw a white car swing a U-turn into the lot and stop on the other side of the gas pumps. It was everything he could do not to look.

  “That’s gracious of you, allowing me to do my own thinking. What I think is I’ll keep this one, is what I’ll do. We’ll let our … expert … authenticate it. That’d be your uncle. If it’s a clunker, we’ll shoot him in the head, cut him up, and feed him to the catfish. A school of them big fifty-pound bullheads are like hogs in a pen—they’ll eat anything you give them and then crap out the teeth and bones somewhere downriver. They’ve got a digestive system that’d put an alligator to shame.”

  Yorkmint let out with a wolf whistle. “Look at that piece out there!” he said.

  Calvin looked, since he’d been invited to, stopping himself from telling Yorkmint to watch his mouth. It was Donna all right, washing her windows, the Mustang pointing back east, toward Needles. She was paying a heap of attention to the job. She glanced toward the store, and worked away with the squeegee and towel again. Calvin realized that Shirley had come back into the store and was leaning against the counter.

  “Apparently she’s not going to buy any gas,” Postum said to Shirley. “She’s just going to use up a bunch of them expensive blue towels you’ve got out there.”

  “She’s not the only one that does that,” Shirley said. “Seems like half the people on the road drive in here just to clean off the bugs. It’s just the cost of doing business.”

  “Stillwater, why don’t you step on out there and inform the young lady that the polite thing is to buy gasoline to go along with the rest of the services. Check her oil while you’re at it. Women have no idea of checking their own oil.”

  “Me?” the bald man asked. “She ain’t doing no harm. Couple of towels is all it is. …”