The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (19 page)

Now, I happened to know for a fact that he'd written and submitted that letter on Saturday, before anyone knew that Bob was going to freak out and Eddie was going to run off or anything like that. But the paper didn't decide to run the letter until today, and it served to get folks more fired up against Reverend Parkins than to get fired up about Bob. It was like they blamed Reverend Parkins for all the things that went wrong on Labor Day. And that was a real bad thing, 'cause folks in Cullman was already against the black folk. But this got them set to fetch their guns.

Which probably meant that Mrs. Parkins would be even more set on moving away from town.

When school was all over, I rushed out the door 'cause I figured, if you're going to get shot in the face by a CIA agent, you might as well get it over with. Martha stopped me just at the sidewalk.

“Hey,” she said, “I think we need to put aside our differences for a little bit. This whole newspaper thing is going to push the Parkinses out of Cullman forever.”

Put our differences behind us? I wasn't sure women knew how to do that, but I reckoned I could give it the benefit of the doubt.

“Well, it's really just the timing that's all wrong, really. That letter would have been better if it'd hit before Eddie ran off.”

“Exactly,” she said. “So what we need to do is remind people that Bob is still just as bad a guy whether his son is gone or not.”

Wow, that was low, even for a girl. I shook my head and tried to sidestep her.

“Don't you walk away from me again, Johnny Cannon,” she said.

“Look, it ain't right. We should just let it alone. The poor son of a gun just lost his kid. He's having enough trouble without us trying to make him look bad to people.”

“It's not like Eddie died or anything,” she said. “He ran away. Because Bob is a bad person. I don't see what the issue is.”

That made my stomach feel like it was doing a cartwheel.

“But, ain't that dirty politics?” I asked. “I mean, dragging a fella through the mud when he's already been knocked down for the count?”

“Didn't you listen to Mr. Braswell?”

Nope.

“Sure, but I've forgotten what he said.”

“He told us that Machiavelli quote, ‘The end justifies the means.' So it's okay.”

Well, now I really wished I'd been listening, 'cause I would have loved to have let Mr. Braswell know how wrong he was. That was something me and Mrs. Buttke used to have fun talking about in detention, about all the things folks claimed people said but they didn't really say. And that Machiavelli quote was one of her favorites.

“Machiavelli didn't say that,” I said.

“Mr. Braswell said he did.”

“Well, he's wrong. Mr. Braswell also said that Vice President Johnson would maybe make a pretty good president, and we all know that wouldn't be true.”

She didn't say nothing to that, so I reckoned that meant I could keep on going.

“But Machiavelli did say something else, he said, ‘Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many.' ”

That had been Mrs. Buttke's favorite quote for me. She said it to me every time I'd start to whining about folks that was staring at my scars.

“Okay, so?” she said.

“So that means if you ain't going to put in the time to really get deep with somebody, it ain't right to claim you know all about them. Even if everybody else claims they do. This stuff between Eddie and Bob, it's a lot more complicated than making headlines and getting folks to change their votes.”

She shrugged.

“So?” she said. “The important thing here is that the Parkinses are in trouble and this is the way to help them. By making Bob look bad to everybody.”

“Why are you so hung up on helping the Parkinses? They'll be fine, they always are.”

She looked at me in disbelief.

“I can't believe this,” she said. “Our best friend is in trouble and you don't want to jump in and help?”

Well, now that made me a little mad.

“Our best friend?” I said. “
Our
best friend? He's
my
best friend, plain and simple. You've got all your best friends lined up behind you, all them girls you hang out with and talk about boys and all that nonsense, but Willie's all I got. The only other fellas that came close before him was Eddie, which ain't saying much, and my brother. And he's dead. So don't go acting like you get to lay claims on Willie as your best friend. You have your girls, but he's the only best friend I got.”

She looked hurt by that.

“Glad to know where we stand with each other,” she said, then she turned to storm off.

Well, at least I got her out of my way. I'd probably hate myself later, but it was effective in the moment. I started to head along to Mr. Thomassen's.

She stopped and turned back around.

“You're a pig, you know that?” she said.

She was either talking about how I smelled or how I ate, that was for sure.

“You and I, we're friends,” she said as she came back over to me. “Willie and I are friends. The three of us are friends. But you don't treat me the same as him. You treat me different.”

“That's 'cause you are different,” I said. “I paid attention when we was studying the human body.”

“See, when you say ‘different' and when I say ‘different,' we're meaning two different things,” she said. “Because, yeah, we're different. Obviously. I'm a girl. We have different anatomy. I look at the world a little differently than you do. I have different issues you don't have.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“But when I say you treat me different, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that you take all those differences we have and you decide that I'm weaker, dumber, more emotional, more manipulative, or less in touch with reality than you are. Like I'm some stupid china doll or a frail flower that you need to be delicate with and protect from the world.”

It's funny, I'd actually written down once that she was like a china doll and I was her superhero. I didn't see how that was insulting.

“What's so bad about wanting to protect you and impress you? Thinking you need a little bit of special attention?”

“It's not your job,” she said. “I never asked you to protect me. And to act like you and Willie aren't just as fragile and frail and in need of special care as I am is what makes you a pig,” she said. Then she turned and stormed off.

I couldn't believe she just said that. I had to blink back a few tears, and worried somebody'd call me a sissy or something. Once I got myself in order, I ran on over to Mr. Thomassen's.

The door was locked when I got there, which wasn't no surprise, 'cause Mr. Thomassen had been pretty fickle about working ever since he got his money back from Cuba. He still opened up shop most days, but there wasn't no consistent time or nothing. I asked him once why he even bothered since he was rolling in cash, and he told me it was 'cause it was important to have a good work ethic so folks knew you wasn't lazy. Then I asked him why he was making so many sideburns uneven, and he told me to go on home. So I stopped asking him.

I looked in through the window and Mr. Thomassen was leaning on his counter next to his cash register, talking to Short-Guy and the other Caballeros. And also a couple other fellas I wasn't expecting to see with them. Bob Gorman and Bull Connor.

I knocked on the window and Carlos came to let me in.

“¿Por qué están aquí?”
I asked him, which means “Why are they here?”

“Esperan información de Short-Guy que podría ayudarles,”
he said. Which means, uh, well, I ain't exactly sure what it means. Something about Short-Guy getting information that might help them, I reckon.

I walked over to stand next to Short-Guy. He had all the keys taken off a key ring and had them lined up between the shaving cream and the jar of razors. He was looking in his notebook and reading what it said.

“So, we traced this safety deposit key to a bank in Mobile,” he said. “And this is a house key. The etching here on the corner shows that it was made in a factory in Florida, and that factory only ships in-state, so it's probably to some place there.”

“What about this one that says ‘Do Not Duplicate'?” Bull Connor said, pointing to a square one. “Looks like a government key to me.”

Short-Guy cleared his throat.

“That one's a little unsettling,” he said. “It's a key to a federal building in Texas.”

“Where in Texas?” Mr. Thomassen said. Short-Guy glanced at Bull and Bob.

“I'm not at liberty to say,” he said.

“I don't care about that,” Bob said. “Will any of these keys help me find my boy? Every minute we ain't looking is a minute he could get strung up by the Tiggers that's out in the woods, or worse.”

Mr. Thomassen cleared his throat.

“I've told you not to use that language in here,” he said.

“My boy is gone,” Bob said. “And you read that letter the Tigger preacher wrote. So don't you tell me I ought to act more civil to them.”

“And, in answer to your question,” Short-Guy said, “yes, this one.” He pointed to a silver key he had down at the end. “This key was made and cut in Birmingham. It's an industrial lock. Based off the scratches and some of the etchings, it's probably to a factory or a warehouse. So, if I had to guess, I'd say your son was taken down there.”

“If he's in Birmingham,” Bull said, patting Bob on the back, “we'll find him. I'll get the police chief to start searching every blamed warehouse in the city limits.”

Bob sighed and nodded.

“Thank you,” he said. “It's good to have friends with power.”

“And you'll have it yourself, soon enough,” Bull said.

Short-Guy picked up the keys and stuck them all into an envelope, then he put them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Which was going to make it harder to steal them from him.

“Speaking of your impending power,” Mr. Thomassen said, “do you happen to know why Sheriff Tatum is retiring?”

“Why would I know that?” Bob said.

“You knew he was retiring before anyone else, didn't you?” Mr. Thomassen said. “Did he mention any reason?”

“Before you start implying anything or suggesting you have suspicions,” Bob said, and his temple started showing a vein on it, “you might remember that I've got the support of the people right now. They all believe in me. And they're all more concerned about my boy than about some old man who's retiring from his position.”

“El pueblo quiere ser engañado,”
Carlos said. Which meant “The people want to be deceived.”

“What's that mean?” Bob said through gritted teeth.

“It means I wish you well,” Carlos said.

Bob let out a long huff. “Look, right now I just want my boy back. But tomorrow, I'll go back to wanting that sheriff badge. So we need to find my boy so I can focus on what's important.”

Pa grunted at that, but he held his tongue until Bull and Bob left out the door.

“Part of me hopes Eddie didn't get taken, but that he ran away,” he said. “Seems like he'd have a better life away from Bob than with him.”

Short-Guy grunted like he reckoned he agreed and then he reached for his hat off of the coatrack.

“Better get these keys back to the office,” he said. “They want to look at this federal key and see what sort of funny business is going on.”

I watched him head to the door and all I could think of was the envelope that was hidden inside his coat, which had the keys Rudy and Eddie needed so they could get out of town, which might finally make my life resemble normal. I had to come up with a way to stop him.

“You're going to go see your people with that face?” I asked.

He stopped and turned around. “What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Well, you got five-o'clock shadow so bad I think Peter Pan's going to come and try to glue it to his face.”

He blinked at me like he didn't get it.

“You know, 'cause he's hunting his shadow and all?” I asked.

He looked over at Mr. Thomassen. “Does it look bad?” he asked, and he rubbed his cheek.

Mr. Thomassen shrugged. “It could be closer,” he said. Then he went over and sat down at his piano and started playing a jazzy tune. “But you'll probably be fine.”

Short-Guy nodded and turned back to the door, still rubbing his cheek to feel his stubble.

“Unless you're trying to impress some lady,” I said. Tommy once told me that, when in doubt, bank on the fact that fellas are always trying to impress girls. It worked, too, 'cause he stopped in his tracks and looked at me.

“How'd you know about that?” he asked.

“It's pretty obvious,” I said.

He looked sheepishly at them other fellas.

“Marge is our secretary,” he said. “She's so dainty and pretty. Like a china doll.” He went over and sat down in the barber's chair. “I better get cleaned up.”

“Do you ever tell her she's a china doll?” I asked.

“Oh no, you can't tell them those things. Girls don't like to hear the truth about themselves,” he said. Then he snapped his fingers at Mr. Thomassen. “Let's get to it.”

Mr. Thomassen kept playing his piano.

“I'm sorry,” Mr. Thomassen said, “but George Gershwin's work deserves to be finished once it's started.”

“Fine,” Short-Guy said, and he got back up. “I'll hit a barbershop on the way.” He started back toward the door.