"I don't care for the sound of your talk, Leonard," Trudy said.
"Wasn't supposed to be music," Leonard said. "Maybe you prefer a classical Negro dialect? A little foot-shuffling?"
"Can it, both of you," I said. "This is coming off worse than I thought. I want to deal Leonard in. What's it matter? It's not costing you any more, and you'll have an extra hand. Way you talk, we could use him. He's had some diving experience, for one thing. We need that. I been in the water a few times with a suit on, but that's about it."
She turned to stare out the window at the field. My mother did that when she was exasperated with me. I almost expected Trudy to threaten me with a paddling.
She turned her coffee cup around on her saucer. The light from the window was on her face and showed some of her age.
"Sometime today," Leonard said. "After a couple minutes, pouting bores me."
She looked at us. "All right, but I don't like being railroaded this way, Hap. You should have discussed it with me first. There's enough between us you could have done that."
"I didn't ask because I knew you'd say no, and I want Leonard in. It's not anything I'm trying to put over on you. He's stood by me through some tough times, some of them your fault. I want to see him profit the way you say you want to see me profit. You don't want both of us, no problem. Deal us out."
"It's something else to explain to Howard," she said. "He wasn't keen on me asking you in, Hap."
"I've got faith you can wrap this Howard around your big toe," Leonard said, "and I don't even know the poor sap."
"You know what's wrong with you, Leonard?" Trudy said. "You're jealous. You're in love with Hap here and you're jealous of me."
"Hap's all right," Leonard said. "He's got a nice, perky ass, but he's not my type."
"You two be friends," I said. "It's easier that way."
"I'll put a lid on it," Leonard said, "but with me and her it's business associates, not friends."
"It couldn't be any other way," Trudy said.
Leonard and I sat at the table, Leonard by the wall and me across from Trudy. She glared at Leonard, then me. "One hundred thousand is a lot less than two hundred thousand, Hap. Sure you want to do this?"
"Yep, and I want him to hear the story from you. I haven't told him anything except there's some money to be made. He hears what you got to say, he may not want in."
Trudy got up, poured another cup of coffee and came back to the table. She sipped it and started her story.
"My last husband, Howard, was involved in nuclear protests. Traveled across the country speaking against nuclear reactors, leading marches against their sites. During a protest in Utah, he was responsible for cutting a fence and getting inside a compound and damaging government property. He felt that it was his responsibility as a human being—"
"No politics," Leonard said. "It affects my heart. Just the straight goods."
"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."