Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

Bo sat back and looked at Howell, all amazement. “You kidding me, John?”

“Nope, afraid not. She heard some rumor or other about your being dirty…”

“Where did she hear that?” Bo interrupted. His curiosity was not feigned.

“I’m not sure, from somebody at the capitol, I think. Anyway, there was nothing to back it up. Scotty just got a wild hair up her ass about it. There can’t have been much to it, because the paper wouldn’t send her up here to work on it. In fact, they fired her for being a pain in the ass.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

“Oh, she had grand visions of breaking a big story all on her own, so she quit her job, got together some tame job references, and just came on up here. She reckoned if it panned out, they’d welcome her back with open arms.”

“Well, that’s the damndest thing I ever heard,” Bo laughed, slapping the table. “She sure had me for supper.”

“Oh, you’d have figured it out already, but she swiped the reply to your letter to Neiman’s.”

“Funny you should mention that; I was getting ready to call that guy in Dallas.”

“I figured you would, eventually. That’s why I wanted to tell you this now.”

Bo wrinkled his brow. “Why is that? Why are you telling me about it?”

“Well, I didn’t want you to fly off the handle when you heard about it. She hasn’t really done any harm, and she’s on the point of giving up the whole thing and going back to Atlanta. She’ll be coming in any day, now, telling you her mother’s sick or something, and that she has to leave.”

“You been working on this with her? Is that why you’re up here?”

“Oh, hell, no. I’m up here to work on a book, just like I told you. Well, not exactly like I told you.” Howell looked around and lowered his voice. “I’m not working on a novel. I’m ghost writing an autobiography for Lurton Pitts.”

“Fried chicken Lurton Pitts?” Bo looked skeptical.

“The same, and if you ever tell anybody about it, I’ll kill you, Bo. It’s hack work for some fast money, and I don’t want anybody ever to know I did it. Neither does Pitts, for that matter.”

Bo still was unconvinced. “Listen, John, it’s time you were straight with me all the way.”

“Denham White is Pitts’s lawyer. He got me the job. I kid you not, Bo, come on out to the cabin and I’ll play you the tapes and show you the manuscript. Wouldn’t you like to hear from the horse’s mouth how ol‘ Lurton found God?”

Bo laughed and shook his head. “No thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” His laughter faded. “How long you known Scotty?”

“I recognized her the first time I walked into your office – she started on the paper a few months before I left, and I’d seen her around the newsroom – so I went along with her.” Howell chuckled. “I can tell you she’s been going nuts and getting nowhere.”

“Well, of course not,” Bo laughed. “I told you I’m as clean as a hound’s tooth, didn’t I? What was she hoping to find out?”

“I don’t know – fixing speeding tickets, taking bribes – half the sheriffs in Georgia are into that sort of stuff, I guess.”

Bo looked vastly relieved. “Well, she could grow old trying to pin any of that shit on me.”

“Look, Bo, I don’t want you mad at her. I mean, she’s harmless. She’s gotten to like you a lot, and I think she’s pretty much ashamed of herself.”

“Well, I ought to kick her little ass, I guess, but I’m not mad.”

“Well, look, can you just let it ride? She’s already given up, really; she’s just hanging on because of her pride – you know how she is.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cocky, all right.”

“She really thinks she’s pulled the wool over your eyes. Leave her that, anyway. She’ll go back to Atlanta and beg her job back thinking she’s the ace undercover reporter; that there just wasn’t anything to find. And if your name ever comes up again at the Capitol or at the paper, she’ll defend you to the death on the grounds that if she couldn’t pin anything on you, nobody could. Anyway, if she ever knew I told you, she’d kill me in my sleep.”

Bo roared. “Oh, Jesus, she sure would, wouldn’t she?” He laughed until the tears ran down his face.

He was biting, Howell thought. Hoped. “We got a deal then? Not a word to her? Not ever?”

“All right, buddy. She’ll never know I knew. But you realize, I’ve got something on you, now. You ever cross me, and I’ll tell her you told me. You wouldn’t live another twenty-four hours!” He dissolved in laughter again.

Howell left Bubba’s a few minutes later thinking he’d done the right thing. After all, he hadn’t told Bo much of anything he didn’t already know. If things worked the way he hoped they would, most of the heat would be off Scotty, and Bo might think he was home free.

He’d be damned if Bo would be home free. With what Howell knew, now, he and Scotty had a chance of taking him. Just a chance. Howell didn’t feel as good about that as he should have, he thought. He genuinely liked Bo; he wished the man were as clean as he said he was.

Howell was in gear, now, with Lurton Pitts’s autobiography. He had outlined a book which was close to the order in which Pitts had placed things in his tape recordings, and he could sit for three or four hours at a time, marshalling all the skills that his newspaper career had earned him, typing words into the word processor as fast as he could think them. It would be a short book, he reckoned; no more than a hundred and fifty or sixty pages when set in type, an ideal length, Howell thought. It was bad enough feeling the hack; he would have felt a criminal if he had needlessly prolonged the agony of a reader who, for whatever reason, felt he had to get through the book.

He stopped for a moment and searched his mind for a reference. Unable to come up with it, he flipped through the boxes of tape for the reel onto which he had dictated his original notes. He threaded the tape and fast-forwarded half way through it, then listened. To his surprise, not his own voice, but that of Bo Scully came out, talking about the O’Coineens, of having received a letter from Joyce, written for her by Kathleen. He remembered that he had been using the recorder in its voice-activated mode on the day of that visit from Bo. He listened to Bo’s story again, then stopped the tape and rewound it. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought it might be a good idea to hang onto that recording.

He heard Scotty’s car outside, and shortly, she bustled in. “What’s for dinner? Anything left to eat around here?”

“I went to the grocery store this morning,” Howell said, filing the tape away. “We’ve got everything.”

“Terrific. I’m starved.”

“The down side is, you have to cook. I’m bushed. Been working like a dog all afternoon.”

“Drink?”

“Sure, bourbon. I deserve it.”

“Come on,” she said, handing him his drink, “I can’t believe you’ve been working to hard.”

“Oh, not just the book. I’ve been at the deduction game today, too. I’ve figured some things out, I think.” He opened a desk drawer and got out the sheets copied from Bo’s schedule.

“What you got?”

“Before I tell you, I think you ought to know I had lunch with Bo today and blew whatever little cover you might have left.”

Scotty stared at him. “You did what ?”

“I told him everything. How you were a silly little cub reporter who, when her paper wouldn’t go along with her, left her job – got canned, actually – to work on an unsubstantiated rumor; how you beat your brains out and found nothing; how you’ll probably cave in before long and go back to Atlanta with your tail between your legs.”