Elmore Leonard - Tishomingo Blues

The two guys were out on the lawn now, coming by the tank.

The cowboy hat was that shade between white and tan, the brim rolled where he'd take hold of it. This one walked tall in what looked like cowboy boots, long legs in slim-cut black jeans, his starched-looking white shirt buttoned up and tucked in tight. His bearing, along with the sunglasses under the hat brim, gave him a straight-up military look. Or a state trooper on his day off. The other one had a smaller frame, wore his clothes loose, his shirt hanging out and what hair he had slicked back hard.

Dennis kept waiting for them to look up; he'd give them a wave. They didn't though, they walked past the tank toward Floyd Showers, Floyd pinching his cigarette butt, looking up as the one with his hair slicked back called to him, "Floyd…?" and Dennis heard it the way he might hear a voice, a word, when he was at the top of his dive, bringing his legs up to go into a reverse pike…

"Floyd…?”

And Floyd had that look as if caught in headlights and turned to stone, the poor guy hunched inside that suitcoat too big for him, now reaching up to hang on to a guy wire.

It was never in Dennis' mind these guys were friends. If anything he thought the straight-shooter in the cowboy hat might produce a pair of handcuffs. It was the other one doing the talking, words Dennis couldn't make out. He watched Floyd seem to stand taller as he shook his head back and forth in denial. Now the slick-haired one drew a pistol from under his sportshirt hanging out. A long thin barrel-it looked to Dennis like a.22 target pistol called the Sportsman, or something like that. The one in the cowboy hat and trooper shades stood looking out at the grounds like this was none of his business. But then he followed once the slickhaired one took Floyd by the coat collar and brought him around back of the tank, out of view from the hotel.

Now they were under the scaffolding, eighty feet directly below Dennis.

He turned on the perch to face the ladder and was looking at the Mississippi River and Arkansas and a wash of color way off at the bottom of the sky losing its light. He wanted to look down but didn't want to stick his head over the top rung of the ladder and see them looking up at him. He wanted to believe they'd come all the way across the lawn from the hotel without noticing him. He wanted to dive, enter the water ten feet from them in a rip so perfect it wouldn't make a sound and then slip out of the tank and run, run like hell. He heard Floyd's voice. He heard the words "Swear to God," and heard a sound like pop from down there, a gunshot or somebody driving a nail with one blow of the hammer, a hard sound that reached him and was gone. Dennis waited, looking at Arkansas. He heard three more pops then, one after another in quick succession. There was a silence, Dennis thinking it was done, and the sound reached him again, that hard pop . A minute or so passed. He saw them come around to the side of the tank, moving away from it.

Now they were looking up at him.

Dennis turned enough to watch them, the two talking to each other, having a conversation Dennis couldn't make out until their words began to reach him, talking as they held their gaze on him.

"You think I cain't hit him?"

"You fire enough rounds maybe."

This coming from the hat and sunglasses looking up at him in the gloom.

"Shit, I bet I can hit him on the fly."

"How much?"

"Ten dollars. Hey, boy"-the one with his hair slicked back raising his voice-"let's see you dive."

"Would you dive offa there?"

Talking to each other again.

"I'd jump."

"Like hell."

"I was a kid we'd jump off a bridge on the Coosa River."

"How high was it, twenty feet?"

"It wasn't high as this'n, but we'd jump off'er." He called out again, "Hey, boy, come on, dive."

"Tell him do a somersault."

The same thing Dennis was telling himself, a triple in a tuck, as small a target as he could make himself, hit the water and stay there. It was his only move and he had to go right now, before the one started shooting. Dennis turned to face the tank, raised his arms… and the lights came on in the pitching cage across the way.

First the lights and now he saw Charlie Hoke coming out on the lawn, Charlie in his white T-shirt that said LET'S SEE YOUR ARM across the front, Charlie yelling at the two guys, "The hell you bums doing here?"

Sounding like he was calling to a couple of friends.

They saw him. They'd turned and were walking toward him, Charlie saying, "Goddamn it-you trying to mess up my deal?"

That was all Dennis heard.

The three were walking toward the pitching cage now, Charlie paying attention to the one in the cowboy hat who seemed to be doing the talking. While Dennis, watching-wound tight and rooted to the perch-tried to make sense of two guys Charlie knew shooting the guy Charlie had brought to work here. They stood talking by the cage a couple more minutes. Now the two walked off toward the hotel and Charlie was coming out on the lawn again.

About halfway to the tank he called out to Dennis, "You gonna dive or what?"

HE DOVE, DYING TO GET OFFthat perch, showed Charlie a flying reverse pike and ripped his entry without seeing the water, came up with his face raised to smooth his hair back and could hear Charlie out there clapping his hands. Dennis pulled himself up to the walk that circled the rim of the tank, rolled his body over it, hung and dropped to the ground.

Charlie stood waiting for him in the early dark.

"That was pretty, what I could see of it. We got to get you a spotlight."

"Charlie, they shot Floyd." Dennis saying it and wiping his hands over his face. "They took him back there and shot him five times. The little guy. He had what looked like a twenty-two, like a target pistol." All Charlie did was nod his head and Dennis said, "Maybe he's still alive."

That got him shaking his head. "They want him dead, that's what he is."

"Charlie, you know those guys? Who are they?"

Now he looked busy thinking and didn't answer.

"The one in the cowboy hat," Dennis said, "I thought at first he was a sheriff's deputy or a state trooper."

Charlie said, "You ought to see him with his sword. When they dress up as Confederates and refight the Civil War. But listen to me. You don't know nothing about this."

"I don't even know what you're talking about." "Floyd. What you saw. You weren't here, so you didn't see nothing. I'm the one found the body." "You want to protect those guys?"

"I'm keeping it simple, so neither one of us sticks our neck out."

"What if somebody was looking out the window? They see me up on the ladder, and the two guys?" Dennis glanced toward the hotel saying it.

"People come here to gamble," Charlie said, "not look out the window. Anybody happened to, what would they see? Nothing. It was dark."

"It wasn't that dark."

Charlie put his hand on Dennis' shoulder. "Come on, let's move away from here." They walked toward the hotel, Charlie saying, "You ever see anybody in the swimming pool? Hell no, they're inside there trying to get rich. I mean it, you got nothing to worry about."

Not sounding worried himself, talking Southern in his way. It didn't help Dennis. "But you know those guys. They kill Floyd and you say to them, `You trying to mess up my deal?' "

"I meant their hanging around here. I know 'em as the kind you don't want to be associated with. Understand, I did not know they shot Floyd till they told me. I come out, I thought they mighta stopped by to scare him, remind Floyd to keep his mouth shut is all."

"About what?"

"Anything. Hell, I don't know." Charlie let his breath out sounding tired of this.