Part 38 (1/2)

”You'll learn to love me,” I said, and begged off dinner with some vague excuse. I had to meet Harry Nesbitt at Uncle Jolly's and this time I decided to keep the meeting to myself.

I headed back to the hotel to take a quick shower.

There were four phone messages in my box. Three of them were from Doe Findley. The fourth was from DeeDee Lukatis.

44.

UNCLE JOLLY'S.

I put on my oldest jeans, a faded cotton s.h.i.+rt, clodhopper boots, a nasty old Windbreaker from my narc days, put my .357 under my arm, and slipped a bob-nosed .22 into my boot. It was about eight o'clock when I headed out Highway 35 south.

I was thinking about Doe, and I was also thinking about DeeDee Lukatis. She had obviously left the message at the desk. It was handwritten.

Dear Jake: You probably don't remember me. The last time I saw you I was barely 15. I need to talk to you about a matter of some urgency. My phone number is below. If we miss each other I'll be at Casablanca after ten tonight.

An old friend,

DEEDEE LUKATIS.

It was followed by a P.S. with her phone number. I had tried it but there was no answer. I might have ignored the message except for two things. DeeDee Lukatis was Tony Lukatis' sister, and Tony Lukatis had once been Doe's lover. That would have been enough to warrant a phone call. But Babs Thomas had also told me that DeeDee Lukatis was the personal secretary of my favorite Dunetown banker, Charles Seaborn. That made it very important. She might know a lot about Lou Cohen's relations.h.i.+p with Seaborn.

Then I started thinking about Doe. Her first two phone messages had been simple and to the point: ”Please call Mrs. Raines about the stud fee.” Nice and subtle. The last message informed me that she was out for the evening but I could call her after ten in the morning. That was to let me know Harry was back in town. I felt a sudden urgency to see her, knowing I couldn't, and I felt some sense of guilt at not calling her earlier in the day.

Uncle Jolly's Fillup ended that reverie. The place wasn't hard to find. It would have been harder not to find.

It looked like a Friday night football game. A country cop was directing traffic, most of which was going down the same dirt road I went down. I followed the crowd about two miles through pine trees and palmetto bushes to the parking lot. Through the cracks and peeling paint I could just make out the sign: PARK HERE FOR UNCLE JOLLY'S FILLUP.

A hundred cars in the s.p.a.ce, at least.

I parked among dusty Chevys and Dodges, Pontiacs with high-lift rear ends, and pickup trucks with shotguns in the rear window gunracks, and drifted with the crowd. As I pa.s.sed one of those big-wheel pickups, the kind with wheels about six feet high, the door opened and the Mufalatta Kid stuck his caramel-colored face out.

”You take a wrong turn someplace?” he asked.

”What're you doing here?” I asked.

”Just checkin' out the territory.”

”Me too.”

”Glide easy, babes. Strangers make these people real nervous.”

”What's this all about, anyway?” I asked him.

”You mean you don't know why you came all the way out here?” he said incredulously. ”s.h.i.+t, man, I guess you are psychic. This is the dog fights, babes.”

It jolted me.

Dog fighting was the last thing I expected. Bare-knuckle boxing, a p.o.r.no show, a carnival, a lot of things had occurred to me when I saw the traffic jam, but dog fighting was the farthest thing from my mind.

”Dog fighting,” he repeated. ”Not your thing, huh?”

”Jesus, dog fighting. I didn't know they still did that kind of thing. ”

”Well, you do now, man, 'cause that's what it's all about.”

”You going to bust this little picnic?”

”Me? All by myself? s.h.i.+t. If I was that f.u.c.ked up I wouldn't have any life line. These people take their sports real serious. You wanna die in a backwoods swamp in south f.u.c.kin' Georgia? If I was you, what I would do is, I would hightail my a.s.s back up the road and be glad you're gone.”

”I don't want to start a thing,” I said lamely.

”So how the f.u.c.k did you wind up here?”

”I was invited,” I said.

”You are a piece of work, all right. Stick was tellin' me about you. 'He's a real piece of work,' he said. He left off that you're nuts.”

”Well, that's what happens when you're in a strange town,” I said. ”You'll do anything for a laugh.”

We watched a lot of coming and going, a lot of lean men in felt hats, overalls, and galluses, a lot of weary women in Salvation Army duds dragging four- and five-year olds with them, a few friendly arguments over the merits of the dogs, two freckle-bellied high school kids wandering off into the brush to settle a dispute over a cheerleader who looked thirteen years old except for a bosom you could set Thanksgiving dinner on, a woman nursing a child old enough to tackle a two-dollar steak, and a few blacks, all of whom were men and all face-creased, gaunt-looking, and smiling.

As it started getting dark, the visiting team rolled up, a group of edgy, sharp-faced badgers in polyester knits. Mug-book faces. Twenty in all and traveling in a herd. The Romans had arrived; time for the festivities to begin.

”Track dudes,” Mufalatta said. ”Always a bunch don't get enough action at the races. Look at those threads, man. Now there's a f.u.c.kin' crime.”

Next the emperor arrived-in a silver and gray stretch Lincoln limo big enough to throw a Christmas party in. The chariot stopped for a chat with the guard at the road.

”That's Elroy Luther Graves in that car there,” the Mufalatta Kid said. Now I knew what the Kid was doing there.

”Elroy Luther?”

”That's his name, babes, Elroy Luther Graves,” he said.

”Nice to know,” I said, and decided to get a peek at the man everybody seemed to have a healthy respect for. As I started toward the limo, I ran into the back of Mufalatta's hand. He never looked at you when he spoke; he was always staring off somewhere at nothing in particular.

”Uh-uh,” he said.

”Uh-uh?” I said.

”Uh-uh. Not that way.”