Savage Season (4 page)

"All right," she said, and told it.

It was a pretty simple story.  The judge made an example out of Howard.  Gave him two years at my alma mater, Leavenworth, later cut it to eighteen months for good behavior.  I wondered if she left Howard while he was in prison, and if he got more letters and visits than I had.

While Howard was in prison he met a man called Softboy McCall, who fancied himself a gangster.  He had been in the can a while and wasn't getting out soon.

When he found out Howard was from Texas he took immediate interest in him.  He was a Texan too.  Waco, Texas, to be exact.

Softboy and Howard got close.  Softboy told Howard what he was in for—this time, anyway.  He had robbed a small East Texas bank (are there any other kind?), and the day they robbed it, it was chockful of money.  More money than a bank that size ought to have, even if it was a weekend and payrolls were in.

Softboy thought it was laundered money, loot being processed through the bank by big shots.  He was more certain of that later when a lesser amount than he stole was reported.  Softboy claimed to have made a take just over a million.

During the robbery, there was a shootout with a guard at the bank.  The police were somehow alerted, and they got there before Softboy and his two accomplices could escape, and there was more shooting.  The guard and a policeman were wounded, and all three of the robbers were injured.

Still, they got to their getaway car and drove away.

Day before, the driver of the car had gone to the bottoms and found a place to hide a motorboat, and they had made for that.

Before they got to it, one of the robbers died, and when they got there, the driver went toes up.  All that was left was Softboy and the money.

Softboy managed to push the car off into the water to hide it and he managed to load the money in the boat and get it going.  But he didn't get far.  He hit a stump or something and was thrown out.

He made it to shore, into the woods, and crawled around through the underbrush for the next three days, feverish and hallucinating.  Didn't know if he was going in circles or what.

Eventually he came across a trail and followed that.  Next thing he knew, he was on the highway leading to Marvel Creek.  He passed out, and when he awoke he was in the Marvel Creek hospital with a policeman sitting in a chair beside his bed.  Seemed some motorist had discovered him and pulled him out of the highway and called the law.

When he got better, the police tried to get him to show them where the boat had wrecked, but he couldn't.

He didn't know.  He didn't even know how he and his partners had got to the boat in the first place.  He hadn't been the one who stashed it, and hadn't been along when it was stashed.  After the robbery, he'd been too out of his mind with pain to notice.

The police searched along the river for days, but didn't find evidence of the boat, the car, or the bodies.

Never did.

Softboy told Howard he had bad dreams about all that money underwater and the fish eating it.  Said he wanted it spent, and that if Howard found it, he'd split it with him.

At this point in the story, Trudy paused and Leonard said, "Trusting sort of guy, wasn't he?"

"Suppose he thought Howard was honest enough," Trudy said.  "Assumed Howard felt about him the way he felt about Howard."

"Or wanted Howard to think he felt that way." I said.  "Make a guy feel wanted, he'll do things for you.  Get Howard to find and coordinate the dough, and old Softboy could use it to bribe guards and prison officials.  Make life a little easier in the joint.  Considering his situation, it'd be a worthwhile gamble."

"Three days before they let Howard out," Trudy said, "Softboy was killed by an inmate with a knife made out of a spoon.  The fight was over something silly.  A dessert, I think."

"So there goes Howard's obligation to Softboy," Leonard said.  "He decided to get the money, and he dealt you in, and Hap dealt me in.  Well, this is all good and everything, but I see some problems here.  First of all, I take it Howard's already tried to find the money.  Am I right?"

Trudy nodded.

"The police have looked and Howard's looked and they've come up with nothing, so what makes anyone think we can do better?" Leonard said.

"That's where I come in," I said.  "I grew up in Marvel Creek, and I know those bottoms."

"Bet a lot of folks who knew the bottoms helped the police search, and they still didn't find it," Leonard said.

"There's something else," -Trudy said.  "Softboy didn't tell the police about the Iron Bridge, but he told Howard."

"The Iron Bridge?" Leonard said.

"When Hap and I married he used to talk about it some, that it was this place in the bottoms...  How does it go, Hap?"

"It was an uncompleted bridge.  Stuck out over a wide place in the water.  Oil companies had started it back in the fifties before the oil ran out.  All sorts of stories about that place.  Lovers parked by it.  There was a story about this guy went down there and hung himself off the bridge because of some girl, or some such thing.  Said his ghost was still down there.  That when the moon was right you could see him hanging from the bridge.  Also there's a story about this couple went down there to park, and some men came up on them, raped the girl and tied the spare tire to the guy and threw him off in the water.  Lots of stories."

Trudy said, "Softboy told Howard, last thing he remembered after the wreck was lying on the bank, looking downriver and seeing the Iron Bridge."

"Thing is," I said, "the bridge isn't on the river.  It's down a narrow creek that comes off of it.  Don't even know if the creek's got a name.  Pretty jungle-like down there.  Softboy could have been wounded so bad he got off the river without realizing it, but I figure they were never on it, just thought they were.  They were on this creek all the time, and the only place that creek could have had water wide enough and deep enough for a boat is a stretch near the Iron Bridge."

"That dough would have long dissolved and washed away by now," Leonard said.  "You might find some coins, but that's about it."

"Softboy and his partners were going to carry the money downriver a ways and bury it," Trudy said.  "They had another car stashed a little farther on, and they thought they could get away, go back when things cooled off and recover the money.  Softboy told Howard they had the money in waterproof cylinders and those were in a big aluminum cooler fastened down in the front of the boat.  Chances are, the waterproof containers are still there, and so is the money."

"When was the last time you saw this bridge?" Leonard asked me.

"Eighteen, nineteen...  maybe twenty years ago."

Leonard shook his head.  "Hell, man, I've come to pick you up for work and you couldn't even find the shoes you took off the night before, let alone find something you haven't seen in twenty years."

"True...  but my shoes didn't have a million dollars in them."

Chapter 5

When we finished talking, Trudy said she was going to take a shower and lie down for a while.  After being up most of the night thinking, talking, and screwing, I needed a nap too, but I refrained.  I like to think it was because I had strong character.  It was, of course, because I didn't want to be anywhere alone with Trudy right then.  I had a hunch she would have harsh words to say to me about Leonard, and I wasn't up to it.  I didn't want her to get me near a bed, either.  She could really talk in bed, and if she talked long enough and moved certain parts of her body just right, I might agree to have Leonard shot at sunset.

When I heard the shower running, I got a pen and a paper and wrote Trudy a note.  Gone to Leonard's to make arrangements for leaving.  Back by lunch.  In case you want to come over...

And I drew her a map to Leonard's house.

Me and Leonard went over to his place and he put some clothes and a paperback of Walden in a suitcase.  He got out a thin foam rubber mattress and some blankets and rolled them up in a bundle, then got his Remington .30/06 and a box of shells out of the closet.  He put the suitcase, the bedroll, the rifle, and the ammunition on the couch.

"Where's your twenty-two target pistol, Leonard?"

"Put up."

"Don't you think we might need it? Maybe you know a place that's got some bazookas and hand grenades we could buy, maybe couple of land mines.  Shit, what is all this? We're going to swim down and get some money, not shoot it."

"Comes to your ex-wife, I get paranoid."

"She's a pain in the ass, overly idealistic, but she isn't going to ambush us."

"I don't know what she might get us into.  I think she leaps before she looks, and I don't know this Howard guy from nothing.  He got pals, or are we the only fools in on this?"

"She said there were two others—idealists all.  They're going to take their shares of the capitalistic banker's money and give it to a good cause."

"No shit? What cause?"

"Save the seals, I guess.  Maybe the whales.  Hell, I don't know.  She didn't say."

"I get any money out of this, I'm gonna put it to a good cause too.  Me.  The seals got to fend for themselves.  They don't have bills to pay."

"I hear that."

Leonard went over to the scarred fireplace mantle, got his pipe and tobacco down, and sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace.  He pulled a long fireplace match out of a metal cuspidor by the hearth and put it in his lap.  He packed his pipe quickly and expertly, pulled the match over the fireplace brick and lit it.  He puffed and considered me.

"How did I let you talk me into this?"

"My perky ass had something to do with it.  Christ, Leonard, perky ass?"

"I came up with that because I thought it would annoy Trudy."

"You being alive annoys her."

"Old Man Lacy is gonna be needing field hands in a few days, and he'll call, and I won't be here.  I'll be wasting my savings trying to find a pipe dream in the Sabine River.  Get back from this with no money and my tail between my legs, I might be out of a job permanently."

"There's always room for field hands.  Look, we're out of that crap.  I think we should go out and do something, even if it's wrong."

"And it is.  That's stolen money."

"All this time has gone by, the insurance company is bound to have paid off, and if it's laundered, no sweat."

"How are we to know one way or another? It might all be marked stuff, or whatever it is they do to trace money."

"We'll take our share to Mexico.  We can make some deals down there.  We might have to lose a few thousand to get it changed to pesos, no questions asked, but we can do it.  We can stay there awhile.  The money will be worth ten times what it is here.  We can buy senors for you and senoritas for me.  We can get drunk on Mexican beer."

"I can't go off and leave my dogs."

"Fuck it, I'll go down there, get the money changed and mail you your half in pesos and you can get it changed to dollars....  Bring you and your goddamn dogs down there for a vacation.  I'll get them some of those little Mexican dogs to date.  There's some way to do business.  Bank robbers do it all the time."

"You been giving this some thought.  Usually Trudy comes around and you're ready to join the Peace Corps, tie yourself to a pine and save it from a chainsaw."

"Bottom's fallen out of my convictions.  Trudy's got me thinking again, all right, and maybe last night she had me thinking the way she wanted, but not today."

"Like I said, Hap, it's your glands.  You got more control over them in the daylight.  But come sundown and you're home in bed between her legs, you might sing some different notes."

"No, she's got Howard on a string too.  I can stand her coming back to me if I can fool myself for a while, but I won't sit around and let her swing from one end of the string to the other."

"I didn't think it was a string she was swinging on."

"I'm going to make some jack out of this, then slide on out."

"Won't be easy.  You been a bleeding heart a long time."

"This heart's bled out.  Gone dry as toast.  You don't think so, hide in the bushes and watch me head for Mexico."

Leonard grinned at me.  "After all I've said about you being such a sap, don't know if you suit me much this way.  You make me a little nervous.  You being Trudy's patsy is what makes you adorable.  There's a kind of ignorant charm about it.  Like having a big dumb pup around that hasn't quite learned to quit shitting off its papers."

"That's sweet, Leonard.  I'll try to remember that."

We decided to take Leonard's old blue Buick instead of my pickup.  Trudy could go with us if she wanted, or go ahead in her Volkswagen.  Whatever suited her.  We loaded Leonard's suitcase, rifle, ammo, and bedding into the Buick's trunk, then tossed in some rope and camping supplies, just in case.

"We'll need some diving equipment," Leonard said.  "Dry suits, I figure.  Wet suits are probably too cold in this weather, not that a dry suit is much better.  They hold pockets of air and pinch you."

"You know more about this stuff than I thought."

"Just enough to get us drowned.  But I do know this: cold as the water is right now, it'll deaden your brain.  Though in your case, that may not be a new experience.  I know this too: it's my goddamn savings we're using to rent this stuff."

"But you have my goodwill, Leonard."

"I been wanting that something furious."

"You rent this stuff, won't it blow our cover?"

"Hap, my good but dumb man.  We aren't going to tell what we want it for.  Just say we want the experience of a cold-water dive.  They don't give a damn if we drown or turn to ice cubes, long as we pay down good, give them enough to buy new equipment if we lose it."

"Leonard, you are my hero.  When I grow up I want to be just like you.  Can I, huh, can I?"

"Need some black paint first, but that isn't gonna make you as pretty.  And it would be nice if you were a lot less stupid.  Come on.  I need to call Calvin and see if he'll feed my dogs while I'm gone.  Then I've got to cry over using all my money to finance this dumb idea.  Stick close, now.  Never know when I might say something wise."