The coloreds who had been picked up for drunk and disorderly were still on the trotline around the oak tree, sleeping. Plug had fallen asleep guarding them, his back against the sheriff’s office, his shotgun across his lap. His helper, Tootie, who had half the brains Plug had and was ashamed of that half, was nearby, asleep in the grass. Rooster figured he was as drunk as those on the trotline.
Rooster decided not to wake them. Wasn’t like the men on the trotline were going anywhere, and he didn’t want to stir Plug or Tootie, especially that asshole Tootie. He didn’t want their company, not with what he had to do, who he had to see above the drugstore. About noon he’d let all the drunks go home, anyway.
He looked up the street where he had to go, thought, Sheriff Knowles wouldn’t have let him get into this kind of business.
“Rooster, you’re a good man,” Sheriff Knowles used to say. “You just need some direction.”
But Sheriff Knowles was gone now, and the only direction he was going now was up the street to see that man. And he didn’t want to see him. Ought to arrest him. But wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Didn’t have the guts. And he was in too deep.
Above the drugstore the whole top floor was an apartment. Rooster hated when he had to go up there, taking the wobbly stairs.
Inside, during the day, the dark curtains were pulled back from the many tall windows at the back, but it was never lit up good. Way the great overhang was, behind and above the drugstore, with all the pines and oaks at the top, it blocked a lot of sunlight and there were no electric lights in the entrance room, just a couple of lanterns and they were seldom lit, so there were always shadows. There was an unnecessary wooden divider halfway down the middle of the big room and it split so you could go right or left. The divider didn’t go to the ceiling, and if you were tall enough you could see over it. Rooster had never gone to the right, near the windows and the light, only left, along the dark hall where the floorboards made a sound like ice cracking and led into the dim rooms beyond where McBride liked to stay. Then there were the other rooms behind those, the ones he hadn’t been in. But he had seen the Beetle Man come from back there, and he didn’t like the Beetle Man. He called him that because of the long coat he wore and the little black bowler. Somehow, in his mind, they made him look like a big bug.
Rooster went up the stairs, adjusted his gun belt, squared his shoulders, knocked on the door.
There was a long pause, then the door was opened by a woman wearing only black silk hose and a red garter at the top of one of them. The rest of her was bare. She had one hand over her crotch like that hid something. Her breasts flopped and her blond hair was pulled up and pinned back and there were loose strands of it falling all over her face, as if the sun were running over her head. Her nose had a little white scar along the side of it.
Rooster took off his hat and held it, almost in reverence at what was before him. It sure beat having the Beetle Man answer the door.
“Come on in, sugar,” she said, moved her hand away from what it hid, like having made the effort was enough.
He had seen her before (though he was seeing a part of her now he hadn’t seen), but he didn’t know her name. When the blonde turned away, leading, her naked ass moved from side to side like a couple of happy babies rolling about.
They went left of the wall, where a row of decorative silver platters hung. He looked and saw himself in one of the platters, squashed and twisted by the silver and the light. They went alongside the polished bar, into a room full of couches and a bed, and in the center, a table with a white tablecloth on which sat a silver coffeepot, silver cups and plates. Above the table was an electric light on a string. The bulb was dusty and the light was poor. A ceiling fan cranked the air around and the air smelled of garlic and tobacco, a whiff of sulphur from struck matches.
McBride was lying on the couch directly across the way and the smoke from his cigar filled that side of the room and hung above him in a blue-black cloud. He was wearing a gray as ash silk robe. It was half open. The hair on his chest and forearms was gray and his mustache was too black. Rooster figured him for sixty, even if he looked a tough fifty.
He had on the stupid wig he wore when he was in the apartment. A big black thing that didn’t go with his Irish red skin. When McBride went out he wore a black bowler hat without the wig, and the hat fit tight, worn that way to battle the wind and hide his head, which Rooster assumed was bald or near it.
“Rooster,” McBride said, and stood.
The robe fell wide open and Rooster saw more of McBride than he wanted to see. McBride went over to the table, sat down in one of the chairs. As he sat, his wig shifted, and Rooster tried not to look. It was hard to figure where to look. High you had the hair, low you had, well, you had all of McBride.
“Sit, Rooster. Have a cup of coffee?”
Rooster sat. “Suppose,” he said.
“Good,” McBride said. “Hey, bitch, get us some coffee.”
“I ain’t no maid,” said the blonde.
“Fresh. And don’t make me ask again.”
The blonde went away. McBride smiled at Rooster from under his mustache.
“Sometimes you have to slap them a bit, high and low, but they come around, that’s for sure. What do you think of that ass?”
Rooster felt himself turning red. All he could say was, “It’s nice.”
McBride laughed.
“Nice. That’s some first-rate pokadope. Whatcha got? It’s early for me, and I was busy, as you can see. I don’t think you came over here to drink a cup of coffee.”
“No, sir.”
“Oil Festival go well?”
“I suppose.”
“Good. And your business here is?”
“The constable over at Camp Rapture.”
“How could a constable concern me-wait a minute. Ain’t it Pete’s bitch? Yeah. Heard about that. She’s the one when that old fart of a sheriff got killed, came over and pulled that nigger out while you stood around with your thumb up your ass. Hit Macavee with her gun, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How is old Macavee?”
“He left town.”
McBride grinned. “Gal sounds like some kind of punkin. Hear she’s good-looking too. That right?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose. Is she, or isn’t she? She look as good as the tail I got here?”
“She wears more clothes.”
McBride guffawed.
“Reckon she does.”
“She come by the office the other day with one of her deputy constables,” Rooster said. “They call him Hillbilly. Anyway, she showed me something. It was land maps. Maps of a colored fella’s land. Zendo. Only it was the maps before they was sliced up. You know what I mean.”