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  Archer slowly drew his gaze away from her. “So you came here all those years ago and the town starts to make something of itself at the same time. Am I to imply a connection?”

  The other man chuckled. “I like you. I like how you handle yourself.”

  “Man favors a compliment same as a woman,” said Archer, tipping his hat at the lady.

  “Fact is, I’ve been instrumental in putting Poca City on the map. Got my finger in all the pies worth anything. Saw its potential, you could say. And now that potential is being realized.”

  The man ran his gaze over Archer’s long, broad-shouldered, muscular frame.

  “You look like you can handle yourself just fine. Bet you were in the Army.”

  “I did my bit. About three years without ever seeing America once. Why?”

  “A strong and brave man, then, who knows how to survive difficult circumstances. Which means you’re just the hombre for me.” He took out a wad of cash as big as any fist Archer had ever made in prison or seen coming his way.

  The man trimmed five twenties off the pile and laid the bills on the bar within easy reach.

  Archer made no move to pick them up.

  “Well?” said the man.

  “Fellow hands out cash like that, something’s expected. I’m just waiting on details.”

  The man guffawed again and slapped Archer on the shoulder a bit harder than was necessary. He immediately grimaced and shook out his hand.

  “Damn, you made of rock or what, soldier?”

  “Or what,” said Archer.

  “I like to pay for potential. And I trust my instincts. Maybe we can do some business.”

  Archer still did not pick up the money. He finished the last finger of his drink and set it down. He said nothing and neither did the man, for a bit.

  All around them gazes flitted to this little group and then away. Maybe it was the money in plain sight. Maybe it was something of a visceral nature between the two men, with the woman hanging on as the lovely sidekick to whatever was going on here.

  The man took his time removing a cigar from his pocket, efficiently slitting the cellophane band with a switchblade, trimmed the end with the same tool, put the knife away, dropped the cellophane on the bar—the bartender swept it up—and then he lit the cigar with a platinum lighter. He puffed luxuriously on the stogie a couple times until it was drawing properly, put the lighter away, and eyed Archer, who’d been watching the deliberateness of the man’s actions with fascination.

  The man held up the smoke and said, “This here’s from Cuba. Finest in the world. I like all my things that way.”

  Archer glanced once more at the woman. “I can see that.”

  “Now to business. You can do a job for me. That money there will be your payment.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “A man owes me something. I’d like you to collect it for me.”

  “What man and what something?’

  “His name is Lucas Tuttle. Lives down the road a ways. And the something is his Cadillac.”

  “Why does he owe that to you?”

  “I made him a loan and he failed to repay it. The Caddy’s the collateral.”

  “Maybe he forgot. These things happen.”

  The man pointed to the cash. “Hundred dollars. Take it or leave it.”

  He tapped his ash free right on the wood grain of the bar. The skinny bartender once more swooped in and cleared the mess with a cloth.

  Archer snagged an ashtray from in front of the big farmer who was draining highballs at an alarming rate. He placed it right under the fellow’s stogie, drawing a sneer from the banker man.

  Archer said, “I have to know some more. Like, how do I know he owes you anything? I go there and take his car, that’s stealing. You go to the joint for that in a heartbeat. You understand me? So I need to know if you’re giving me a bum steer or what.”

  The man nodded appreciatively. “I like a man who’s cautious. I’m one myself.” He glanced at his lady. “Am I not cautious, Jackie?” He gave her right buttock a hard squeeze that made her wince a bit and then removed his hand.

  The creature named Jackie glanced at Archer, maybe to show she still counted for something here, and then dutifully turned her attention to her man before saying, “Cautious as a young woman with a drunken man in close proximity.” Her voice was surprisingly husky and assured. It starkly emboldened every fantasy of her Archer was holding.

  The man perched his cigar on the ashtray and pulled something from his pocket. It was a mess of wrinkled papers. He unfolded and straightened them out, placing them on the bar. On the pages was a swath of tiny, printed writing.

  “This is a promissory note. For five thousand dollars. See, this is the amount I loaned Tuttle. In good faith and everything. Man needed the money and he came to me. I loaned him the cash from my own pocket. You can see the amount here and his signature there. Now, on this page.” He flipped through to a second one. “This is the security that I required for the loan and which he provided. You read your way right down there.” He paused. “Hold on, you can read, can’t you? Things might not work out between us if you can’t.”

  “I can read,” said Archer, with a touch of impatience because he was feeling it. “Even did two years of college before the war came calling.”

  He caught the woman’s eye on this. She seemed to be calculating him in a new and maybe more favorable light.

  He ran his eye over the paper.

  “Nineteen forty-seven Cadillac Series 62 sedan painted dark green. And the license plate number is listed.”

  The man pointed to the page. “That’s right. That’s the collateral for the loan that was not repaid. That’s what I want you to get for me.”

  Archer scratched his chin. “Okay, got a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Nothing personal, but how do I know he didn’t repay you?”

  “Now you’re thinking. I like that. Well, here’s how. If the man had paid the loan, this note would be returned to him. Fact that I still got it shows that never happened. Tuttle’s a smart man and he’d never have let his money go without getting this in return. See, this is same as cash money, mister. Same as those five twenties right there. And you see the date the loan was due.” He shuffled back to the first page and stabbed at a line with his finger. “Right there. You read that. Go on.”

  Archer did so, doing the numbers in his head. “That date’s exactly two months ago yesterday.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Got me another question.”

  “You like your questions,” said the man, and Jackie giggled.

  “How come it’s two months past due, and you don’t have the money or the Caddy yet? You don’t strike me as a man overly full of generosity.”

  The man looked at Jackie. “This gent is a keeper, Jackie, I’m telling you.”

  Jackie commenced shooting admiring glances Archer’s way and giggled once more.

  “She your wife?” asked Archer, though he saw no ring on her.

  “I got me a wife, but she ain’t it,” said the man offhandedly.

  Jackie’s giggle died in her throat as she glanced, embarrassed, at Archer. She took a sip of her gator bog drink and said, “There’s no need to be like that.”

  The man glanced at her, a look on his mug that Archer had seen many times before on gents, especially in bars, and one he had never once liked.

  “Did I ask for your opinion, sweet cheeks?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  His hand shot out, gripped her wrist, and squeezed. “Then keep it to your goddamn self, you hear me?”

  Archer tensed and was about to jerk the man’s hand off her, when he caught a look from Jackie that silently pleaded with him to do no such thing. Archer relaxed back against the bar as the fellow gave Jackie’s wrist one more grind and then flung her hand away as he drilled her with a look of quiet satisfaction. “Just so we understand each other, honey.” He turned back to Ar
cher like nothing had just happened.

  “So?” asked Archer expectantly, masking his anger.

  “The truth is I’ve tried to collect on this debt, only Mr. Tuttle is not amenable to honoring the debt.”

  “And how many men have you paid a hundred dollars to try for you?”

  “Well, I will concede that you are not the first. The exact number I prefer to keep private. But I will say that Lucas Tuttle is not a man you want to crowd.”

  “And suppose I try and fail? Do I keep the money?”

  “Depends on the effort expended. I mean, you can’t just waltz on down the road and make a feeble attempt at obtaining my collateral and then expect to get the cash, now can you?”

  “I don’t expect so, no. Then, you would be the judge of that?”

  “I would be, but I’m a reasonable man. Wouldn’t be in business for long if I weren’t.”

  “And if I failed your expectations, I’d have to give this back?”

  “Well, the fact of the matter is, soldier, till you deliver me the car or show me the efforts you undertook to my reasonable satisfaction, you don’t walk out of here with that money. I just put it there as what they call an inducement.”

  “Supposing I have expenses in gaining back your collateral? How am I to pay for them with nothing up front? You see my problem?”

  “What sort of expenses?”

  “Till I see the lay of the land and this Mr. Tuttle in particular, how should I know?”

  The man looked warily at Archer, then at the money, and then back at Archer.

  “You’re the first one to lay out that issue.”

  “Well, I’m looking ahead. Maybe I get this done for you, there’s more opportunity for me in Poca City, like you said.”

  “How much front money are we talking about then?” asked the man warily.

  “I’d say two Jacksons would do amply.”

  The man picked up a pair of bills and handed them to him. “I’m placing my faith in you. Now, see here, what’s your name, soldier?”

  “Aloysius Archer.”

  “That’s a heckuva name. You go by your Christian name, son?”

  Archer shook his head. “Too hard to spell and most folks can’t pronounce it. I go by Archer.”

  The man put out his hand. “I’m Hank, Hank Pittleman.”

  “Well, Mr. Pittleman, let me see what I can do. Now, if I get the car for you, doesn’t that mean he gets that paper you showed me marked paid? So, do I need to take that with me?”

  Pittleman smiled, took a long puff on his stogie, and shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s not how this works, Archer.”

  Squinting through the man’s wispy curtain of cigar smoke, Archer said, “Well, tell me how it does work then.”

  “Like your expenses, how can I know what I’m gonna get for a 1947 Cadillac? I might get five thousand for it, though I sure as hell doubt it. I was crazy in the head for not asking for more collateral.” He glanced here at Jackie. “Maybe my heart is just too soft. The point is, Archer, even if a miracle happened and I got some poor sucker to fork over five grand for the Caddy, the debt still isn’t paid in full because there’s interest on top. I got to make a profit on my money. You see that, don’t you? Money neither is nor should be free.”

  “I always like to make a profit off my money too.” He rubbed his fingers over the twenties.

  “Say I sell the Caddy for three thousand, then Tuttle still owes me another two thousand plus interest, plus my incidental costs of collection.” He tapped the pile of twenties. “Like this. Adds up.”

  “Mr. Tuttle has dug himself one deep hole.”

  A smile creased Pittleman’s face. “Hell, I didn’t make him take my money, did I?”

  “You have his address, and directions there? I don’t know the area.”

  Pittleman took out a thick pencil and wrote something down on a bar napkin and slid it over to Archer. “When do you expect to do this then?” he asked, pocketing the pencil.

  “Soon.”

  “What does soon mean?”

  “Pretty soon.”

  He put the twenties in his jacket pocket.

  Pittleman watched this move. “Now, so you know, I have technically just made a loan to you. Though not a scrap of paper has passed between us to legally memorialize that arrangement. But my money has long strings attached. Same as Tuttle’s. And I demand honesty and integrity in my associates. Expect the same of myself.”

  “Well, I aim to deliver both, Mr. Pittleman.”

  In response, Pittleman drew the switchblade from his coat pocket once more, sprung it open, and speared the remaining twenties lying there, pinning them to the wood of the bar. The knife quivered there like a pine tree in the wind.

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Archer didn’t even look at the blade or the stabbed twenties. “Now, where can I reach you most times?”

  “Right here at this time will do, every day except Saturday and the Sabbath.”

  “And then you’ll be at worship?”

  “No, then I’ll be with my dear, beloved wife.”

  Pittleman suddenly clutched his head and grimaced in pain.

  “Hey, you okay?” asked Archer, gripping him by the shoulder.

  “Must be all this cheap hooch.”

  Recovered, Pittleman unpinned his knife and thrust it back inside his pocket after closing it. “I trust I will hear good news from you, Archer.”

  Archer tipped his hat first to Jackie and then to Pittleman.

  “I will do my best.”

  “For me you will, you mean?”

  “Well, can you see it any other way?”

  Archer headed to the door while most of those at the bar, and Pittleman and Jackie in particular, watched him go.

  He was no longer shuffling. He was walking upright, springy and brisk, like any free man with serious folding money in his pocket would.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS FIVE MINUTES before nine in the morning. The sun was scaling the sky, which was a dazzling blue without a single cloud marring its surface. As Archer stood there on the pavement, looking up, he had started to doubt that cumulus was even allowed here.

  Then he lowered his gaze and turned it to the Poca City Courts and Municipality Building. Done in the rococo style and also decidedly on the cheap, the structure was easily big enough for the unwieldy name chiseled across its imitation stone front that was bracketed by false spindle turrets and its middle filled in with even more curious architectural elements. It looked to Archer like it had been dropped from a fairy tale into their midst. A castle without a king or queen; he wondered what they had done with the moat.

  Archer spat on his hand and wiped it through his hair before replacing his hat there. He had sink-washed his shirt, undershorts, and socks the night before, letting the breeze dry them fine. His worn and dusty Oxfords had been spit-polished. He’d even found an iron at the hotel, and for a nickel’s worth of rental time had done the best he could on his suit and shirt; he’d even given his slender tie a few passes. He’d stopped by a barbershop and splurged for a shave overseen by a tiny, wrinkled black man with no teeth, who wielded his strap and razor like a musketeer. His jaw and chin had never been this smooth since he’d dropped from the womb.

  He was as smart-looking as he was ever likely to be, he figured.

  The lobby had marble floor tiles in swirls of emerald green and fat columns holding up a ceiling with murals depicting things close to the musical infants stuck in the fountain, just with more color and poorer taste. He quickly found the proper department, emblazoned as it was on a black-backed directory, in a lobby that was full of strays looking for direction, as he was.

  The elevator was a grill-door operation, which Archer still did not cotton to. So he walked two floors up and headed down the hall counting office numbers as he went. He neared the sheriff’s haunts and also that of the tax revenue bureau. A uniformed man in his fifties came out of the former’s door as he passed by and gave
Archer the once-over. He had on a big Stetson hat, a Colt long-barreled revolver in a waist holster, and sported a gut that one would see coming around the corner before one did its owner. Pinned to his broad chest was a shiny pointed star.

  “Where you headed, son?”

  “Parole Office,” said Archer.

  The man’s eyes gleamed with condescension. “Carderock?”

  Archer nodded, fingering his hat.

  “Ernestine Crabtree’s the parole officer,” said the man.

  “That’s what my paper says.”

  “She’s a damn fine-looking woman.” The man tongued his lips and his eyes tightened and his nostrils flared. “Damn fine.”

  “Okay,” said Archer.

  “But she don’t mess with your kind, son.”

  “I’m not looking to mess with anyone, least of all my parole officer.”

  “She likes men with badges,” he said, pointing to his own. “You tell her Deputy Sheriff Willie Free says hello.”

  “Will do, Sheriff Free.”

  Archer watched the man saunter down the hall before he turned and walked on.

  The door was half-frosted glass above, transom over that, stained and scraped pine down below.

  Engraved across the glass was: PAROLE OFFICE: ERNESTINE J. CRABTREE.

  Archer drew a calming breath and wondered what the next few minutes would hold for him. He gripped the knob and pushed the door open.

  The room inside was small. Varnished parquetry floor, walls painted white, whirly fan going above, the smell of cigarette smoke enticingly lingered as did a trail of its vapor in the air. Well, this place had the bus beat by a mile just on the tobacco issue, he thought. There was a hat tree in the corner from which dangled a woman’s trim, green pillbox hat.

  He closed the door behind him, glanced down at the floor, and saw the piece of folded paper that apparently had been slipped under the door. He bent down and picked it up.

  He read the words on the page. They were crude and mostly misspelled. And they were all of a sexual and violent nature directed at Ernestine Crabtree.

  Archer’s mouth curled in disgust as he scrunched up the paper and put it in his pocket.