James Burke - Feast Day of Fools

R.C. went back to his table with the clipboard. “I got to do these dadburn time logs,” he said to the man at the next table.

“I bet that’s what we’ll all be doing when somebody drops a nuclear missile on us,” the man said.

“I never thought of it like that. I think you got your hand on it.”

“Hope we get some rain. This is about the hottest place I’ve ever been,” the man said.

“You know what General Sherman said when he was stationed here? He said if he owned both Texas and hell, he’d rent out Texas and live in hell,” R.C. said.

The man tilted up his orange juice and drank it empty, swallowing smoothly, never letting a drop run off the side of his mouth. R.C. went back to eating, his long legs barely fitting under the table, his jaw filled with food, one eye on his clipboard. “This stuff is a royal pain in the ass,” he said. “I’m going back on patrol. If they want my time logs filled out, they can fill them out their own self.”

“If I were you, I’d put the times in there somebody wants and not worry about it. That’s how organizations are run. You just got to make things look right. Why beat yourself up over it?”

“You sound like a guy who’s been around.”

“Not really.”

“Where you staying at, exactly?”

“A little vacation spot a buddy of mine has got rented. It’s just a place to go hunting for rocks and arrowheads and such.”

“Look, is somebody coming to pick you up? You looked like you were limping.”

“I’ll hitch a ride. People here’bouts are pretty nice.”

“I don’t mind driving you home. That’s part of the job sometimes.”

“No, I was in an accident a while back. I don’t like to start depending on other people. It gets to be a habit too easy.”

R.C. picked up the remnants of his nachos and chili dog and threw them in the trash, then sat down at the table with the man, who was now feeding a Ding Dong into his mouth. “You seem like a right good fellow,” he said. “The kind of guy who don’t want to hurt nobody but who might get into something that’s way to shit and gone over his head.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I always figured if a guy makes a mistake, he ought to get shut of it as quick as he can and keep on being the fellow he always was.”

“That could be true, but I think you’ve got somebody else in mind.”

“You’re not from Texas, but you’re from down South somewhere, right?”

“Me and a few million others.”

“But you weren’t raised up to keep company with criminals. It’s got to grate on you. I reckon that’s why you hitched a ride here today.”

“You want a Ding Dong?”

“Not right now,” R.C. said, and fitted one end of his handcuffs onto the man’s left wrist and snicked the ratchet into the locking mechanism. “Mind if I call you Noie?”

“I’ve answered to worse.”

“You have a friend who drives a Trans Am that has Michelin tires on it?”

“Can’t say as I do.”

“Where’s Preacher Collins at, Noie?”

The man squinted thoughtfully and scratched at an insect bite on the back of his neck with his free hand. “Who?” he said.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Maydeen said, standing in Hackberry’s doorway.

He looked up from his desk and waited.

“R.C. says he’s got Noie Barnum hooked up in the back of his cruiser,” she said.

Hackberry stared at her blankly.

“He says Barnum walked into a convenience store down by the four-lane,” she said. “He’d hitched a ride to have lunch there.”

“How does R.C. know it’s Barnum?”

“He says the guy looks just like his photo, except he’s a little leaner. He’s got a limp and maybe has some broken ribs.”

“The guy admits he’s Noie Barnum?”

“R.C. didn’t say. He just says it’s him.”

“What about Jack Collins?”

“R.C. said there were Michelin tire tracks where Collins’s car was parked yesterday. I didn’t get it all, Hack. Want me to notify the FBI?”

“No.”

“You don’t?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I did. How about losing the tone?”

He stood up from his desk, staring out the window into the brilliance of the day, at the wind whipping the flag on the pole, at the hard blueness of the sky above the hills. His right hand opened and closed at his side. “Tell R.C. to bring him through the back.”

“Hack?”

“What is it?”

“You always say we do it by the numbers.”

“What about it?”

“Pam told me about you almost shoving a broken pool cue down a bartender’s throat in that Mexican cantina.”

“R.C.’s life was hanging in the balance. Why are you bringing this up?”

“I could have done the same thing to the bartender, maybe worse, and so could Pam or Felix and a few others in the department. We wouldn’t be bothered about it later, either. But we’re not you. All of us know that, even though you don’t. You go against your own nature.”

“Where’s Pam?”

“In the restroom, the last time I saw her.”

“Believe it or not, Maydeen, sometimes I have my reasons for doing the things I do. We’re not the only people who want to get their hands on Noie Barnum. The less anyone knows about his whereabouts, the safer he is. You got me?”

“Yes, sir, I expect so.”

Hackberry looked down the street to see if R.C.’s cruiser had turned into the intersection yet. He tried to clear his head, to think straight, to keep the lines simple before he gave up his one certifiable chance to nail Jack Collins. “Fill in Pam and get the trusties out of the downstairs area. I want the prisoners in the cells at the end of the upstairs corridor moved to the tank. Barnum goes into total isolation. No contact with anyone. His food is brought to him by a deputy. No trusty gets near him. We’re in total blackout mode regarding his presence. Simply said, he doesn’t exist. You copy that?”

“I guess that means no phone call.”

He gave her a look.

“Got it, got it, got it,” she said.

Hackberry went out the back door and waited for R.C. The alleyway was empty in both directions. Think, he told himself. Don’t blow this one. Why would Barnum be in a convenience store by himself? Collins wouldn’t allow him to go wandering about on his own. They either had a fight or Barnum got sick of Collins’s ego-maniacal rhetoric and decided to take a stroll down the road and find some other company. But why had he stayed with Collins in the first place? To find Krill? To find some Al Qaeda operatives in Latin America and even the score for the death of his half sister? That made more sense than anything else.

R.C.’s cruiser turned in to the alleyway, the flasher off. Hackberry looked at all the rear windows of the building. He saw a face at one of the windows in the upstairs corridor. A deputy or a trusty? R.C. helped his prisoner out of the backseat of the cruiser, and the face went away. The prisoner’s wrists were cuffed behind him, the tendons in his neck corded with either embarrassment or anger. In the sunlight, there were pinpoints of sweat on his forehead.

“I’m Sheriff Holland, Mr. Barnum,” Hackberry said. “You are Noie Barnum?”

“Your deputy called me Noie. But I didn’t tell him that was my name.”

“Have it any way you like, sir. You’re in protective custody, but you’re not under arrest. Do you understand the difference?”

“Yes, you’re saying I don’t have the constitutional right to a phone call or a lawyer.”

“No, I’m saying this is a safe place for you.”

“I think I’d just rather hike down to that cafe we passed and have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and be on my way, if you don’t mind.”