Feast for Thieves (4 page)

“Hang on a minute,” she said. “What rhymes with ‘luminous’?”

I furrowed my brow. “Not sure what you’re getting at ma’am.”

She frowned, exasperated. “
Where she had at one time descended into an aureole of light luminous
—it’s my poem, see? I’m almost finished, but this last line needs a rhyme.”

“Well, I’m here to see the sheriff.” My voice was curt, and I glanced about the room. Two closed doors on the left led into what I guessed to be offices. Behind the girl sat a row of four jail cells. One was occupied by six sleeping drunks. In the other, five wide-eyed men paced, all muttering to themselves. A third cell was packed so full I couldn’t tell how many men were inside, all yelling and hollering general deviances. The fourth held two women of ill repute. One was sitting with her head in her hands. The other raised her eyebrows and whistled my direction.

The girl sighed over the noise and frowned again. “Well, the sheriff’s not here. You’ll need to wait.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Can you tell me how long he’ll be?”

The girl looked up for the first time, rankled her nose, then closed her eyes. “
Their hands united like a raven in flight, where she had at one time descended into an aureole of luminous light
. There—that’s all I needed to do, reverse the words.” She opened her eyes again. “Now, what were you asking?”

I tapped my foot. “You got too many beats in your last line.”

“No I don’t.”

“Sure you do. Count it out.”

“It’s perfect the way it is.”

“Look, lady,” I said, “if you’re so smart, how come you asked for my help in the first place?”

“Look mister—” The girl folded her arms. “I don’t know you, but if you don’t like my poetry, then you’re no friend of mine.” She pointed to a hard-backed seat against the far wall. “You can sit
over there. The sheriff will be here when he gets here.” She paused, glared, and added, “Will there be anything else?”

I glared back at her. “You’re plumb full of sassafras, aren’t you?” I judged her to be eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Without waiting for her to answer, I walked to the chair, sat down, and set my left boot on my right knee.

Just then the front door opened and a man I reckoned to be the sheriff walked in. He was mustached, tall and barrel-chested, and wore a black three-piece suit with a thin matching black bow tie. His hands were big, his face jowly but muscular, and he wore a white Stetson tilted rakishly to one side.

“Any calls?” he asked.

The young woman shook her head. “All was quiet on the Western Front. Deuce Gibbons passed out cold and hit his head in cell three, but I called the doc, who says he’s okay. Oh—and this fella’s in a hurry to see you.” She nodded toward me with a scowl.

“Cup of coffee first. Have him follow me in.” He motioned to one of the closed office doors.

The young woman looked my direction and gave a half snicker. “You want coffee too? Help yourself.”

“Not when it’s mixed with arsenic,” I muttered, and followed the sheriff inside his office.

“Close the door.” He motioned to a chair. “Why you here?”

I set the gunnysack on his desk and sat down.

He untied the top, stared inside, smelled the bills, and let out a low whistle. He closed the bag up, sat back in his chair, and draped his left arm on the cabinet behind him, his right arm on his knee near his revolver where I couldn’t see the fingers. For a moment he grinned, studying my face. Then his smile faded and his eyes became stern.

“You listen to me good, boy. From here on out I’m asking the questions. You will not say another word unless I tell you to speak. You got that?”

I nodded.

A knock came at the door and the young woman poked her head inside. “Sheriff, what rhymes with horizon, as in
They watched the sun set as it disappeared on the horizon …”

The sheriff studied the girl a moment. “Prison. Hellion. Rebellion. Brazen. Emblazon. Liaison. Raisin. Crimson.” He scratched his head. “Bunion … Does that help? Oh wait—” He motioned to the gunnysack. “Take this out of sight and count it for me, will ya?”

The girl smiled at him, took the sack, and closed the door behind her.

“Now—” He returned his attention to me. “I’ve been a lawman for a lot of years, and the way I figure it, there are only two reasons why a man walks into a jailhouse with a sack full of money, which creates a powerful dilemma for me. One, the man has found the money and is returning it for a reward. Since I’ve never seen you around town, and the reward money hasn’t been posted in the newspapers yet, I’d be hard-pressed to understand where a man such as yourself heard about any reward. That primes me to think you fall into the second category.” His voice trailed off and we sat in silence at least two full minutes. All the time he studied my face.

Another knock sounded on the door and the young woman appeared. “Total comes to $18,549. You need anything else, Sheriff? Another cup of coffee?”

“Nah—thanks.” He nodded toward the door. The girl disappeared again. The sheriff opened a folder on a desk, checked a figure, then closed the folder and sat in quietness again, studying me intently. At least five more minutes passed. We could hear the prisoners shouting through the walls.

“Sir.” I broke silence. “You mentioned a second reason, sir?”

The sheriff flushed and slammed his hand on the cabinet. “You will not speak unless spoken to!”

I nodded.

The red drained from his face and he leaned back again, although I could tell he was still tense. “First question: where’d you serve, son?”

“Sir, Dog Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, sir.”

The sheriff nodded but remained otherwise expressionless. “506th, eh? One of Colonel Sink’s boys. Name and rank?”

“Sergeant Zearl Slater, sir. Actually … uh … my last rank was private.”

“Zearl?” The sheriff’s eyebrows raised. “Your name is Zearl?”

“Sir, it was the name my father gave me, but, yeah, everybody calls me Rowdy.”

“Well, Private Rowdy Slater who used to be a sergeant—” he drummed the fingers of his left hand on the cabinet. “Don’t move.” He hit a buzzer near his desk phone. The young woman appeared again. “Get Martha on the switchboard,” he said. “Have her connect you to West Point. Let ’em know who’s calling and that I want to speak with Five-Oh-Sink—they’ll connect you. He’s now assistant division commander of the 101st last I heard.”

The girl nodded and went to her desk. Three minutes later she stuck her head back inside the door. “Colonel Robert Sink is on the line.”

“Bob!” the sheriff said. “Halligan Barker out in Texas. Yeah—I know, far too long.” He laughed. “Look, Bob, we’ll catch up on small talk another time. Right now I’ve got a fella in my office says he was one of your boys. What can you tell me about Zearl Slater? Dog Company.” The sheriff went silent as he listened. A few times he nodded. A few times he said, “Is that so?” All the while he kept his eyes on me. He wasn’t smiling. “Thanks, Bob,” he said at last and hung up the phone.

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“So you spent time in military prison.”

“Sir, yes sir.” My voice was low.

“Why?”

“A bar fight in Mourmelon, sir. I got drunk and busted a guy’s head in. Turns out he was a major.”

“How long he spend in the hospital?”

“Long enough to give me six months.”

“Anything else I should know about that?”

“Sir, that’s about it, sir.”

The sheriff pursed his lips. “Ever wounded?”

“Took a bullet in my side during Operation Market Garden. Passed clean through and I was able to rejoin my unit soon.”

“Anything else about that story?”

“Sir, that’s about it, sir.”

The sheriff took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat again. “According to my talk with the colonel, there are a few details you’re leaving out, Private Rowdy Slater, which brings me to reason number two why a man would walk into a jailhouse with a sack full of money. It’s because the man committed the crime himself, is now remorseful, and wants to change his ways.”

I opened my mouth, but the sheriff abruptly held up his hand. “Keep your mouth shut, boy. That’s an order.” The man’s eyes were firmly set.

I nodded.

He leaned forward in his chair. “What the colonel said was that the major you busted in the head had it coming. Seemed he got fresh with a French civilian, a married woman, and you stepped in and defended her honor. The major swung wide, fell down like a sack of horse hockey, and hit his head against the bar—that’s the only reason he got hurt so bad. Four paratroopers, a tank commander, and the bartender all signed affidavits at your court martial swearing that’s how it happened. But because of your past record of carousing, the judge advocate thought it best to teach you a lesson. Is that how you remember the story?”

I swallowed. “That’s what they say, sir.”

The sheriff was on a roll. “Colonel Sink also informed me that after you got wounded back in Holland, you had a golden ticket home if you wanted it, but you broke out of the hospital and rejoined your unit. You weren’t even healed yet, but you chose to keep doing your duty because you didn’t want to leave your brothers alone on the line. When a man doesn’t tell such things about himself, then that tells me something about the man’s character. Understand what I’m saying Private Slater?”

“I don’t think so, sir. Not exactly.”

The sheriff wouldn’t stop. “The colonel furthermore informed me you helped silence the guns at Brecourt Manor. That action saved a heap of men’s lives down on the Normandy beaches. You received the Bronze Star for valor, and in Carentan you pulled three wounded men to safety while a German sniper rained down a hailstorm of lead. After the men were safe, you went back and took out the sniper. You killed at least twenty-three enemy due to your sharpshooting ability, and twenty of those occurred in the most harrowing and dangerous battle situations. So my conclusion is you’re a scrupled man who doesn’t fear death, although you’ve made some mistakes, Private Rowdy Slater, and that’s what brings me back to my dilemma. Any clue what that might be? Answer if you know.”

“Sir, no sir.”

The sheriff inhaled sharply and held his breath until I thought he was going to explode. Then he released it and the words rushed out of him angrily. “It means next election I lose votes. If you found the stolen money, then the bankers’ committee needs to pay you a reward, which makes them aggravated and they campaign against me next November. But if you stole the money in the first place and returned it because your conscience grew heavy, then I send you to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and those boys hate it when an attempted murder of a public safety officer is
involved—which is how they’ll see it because the bank guard got walloped over the head.” He paused just long enough to breathe. “The state factors in your prior criminal record, and then they get itchy to send you to Huntsville. Other states send you to the chair only for capital murder, but in Texas we fry you for a whole host of felonies, providing you don’t get lynched first. Big case like this costs big taxpayer money, and that means I get an angry call from the governor who riles up folks to campaign against me. You’d think folks would be happy because the money’s been found, but that’s the hard-luck life of the sheriff in Cut Eye. You tracking with me? Powerful folks get aggravated and I lose votes, and then Mayor Oris Floyd pushes through the man he wants into office, and I most definitely do not want that to happen! Savvy what I’m saying? Answer me, boy. Do you?”

I swallowed dryly and nodded.

“So here’s how this is going to work.” The sheriff moved his right hand to his hip, looked me straight in the eyes, and unlatched his holster. “In a minute you and I are going to take a drive. My secretary’s going to come along as a witness because my deputy is so straightlaced he won’t understand why a man of justice needs to take this sort of action. And since I don’t know for sure whether you’re a criminal or a hero, I’m going to be polite to an American citizen and pose it as a question—are you coming or not?—and since I’m the man with his hand on the gun, that means you’re gonna say yes.”

FOUR

T
he backseat of the sheriff’s car smelled like old winos. I wasn’t handcuffed, but the doors were locked. The sheriff drove and the secretary sat in the passenger’s seat.

We headed east on Main, turned south onto Highway 2, and followed it past the baseball fields where we turned right onto Lost Truck Road and drove for another mile. The sheriff slowed the car and turned left onto a rutted dirt road overgrown by bushes. In half a mile the road ended.

“Get out,” he said.

Wasn’t nobody around. The sun was hitting its afternoon stride and the sky was cloudless, the air hot. A trail lay before us bordered by tall grass, and the sheriff motioned for me to walk ahead of him. His secretary followed, still with a scowl on her face. The sheriff brought up the rear.

Within two hundred yards we reached the river, although this looked more like a fork off the main branch. A swath of land flattened out halfway across the flowing water and a pool had formed in the eddy on the other side. Pine trees and high grasses ringed most of the pool. If my heart hadn’t been pounding in my chest, I would have looked upon the area as scenic. We stopped by the water’s edge. The sheriff’s right hand hovered near his holster, and the three of us shivered in silence a few minutes; at least that’s the way my nerves felt. Finally the sheriff spoke.