"I doubt if the Judge wanted records."
"I'm sure he did not."
"He never mentioned any cash when y'all were doing his wills?"
"Never. The money is a secret, Ray. I can't explain it. I have no idea what he was thinkin'. Surely he knew it would be found."
"Right. The question now is what do we do with it."
Harry Rex nodded and stuck the cigar in his mouth. Ray leaned back and watched the fan. For a long time they contemplated what to do with the money. Neither wanted to suggest that they simply continue to hide it. Harry Rex decided to fetch another beer. Ray said he'd take one too. As the minutes passed it became obvious that the money would not be discussed again, not that day. In a few weeks, when the estate was opened and an inventory of assets was filled, they could visit the issue again. Or perhaps they would not.
For two days, Ray had debated whether or not to tell Harry Rex about the cash, not the entire fortune, but just a sample of it. .After doing so, there were more questions than answers.
Little light had been shed on the money. The Judge enjoyed the dice and was good at gambling, but it seemed unlikely he could have cleared $3.1 million in seven years. And to do so without creating paperwork and leaving a trail seemed impossible.
Ray returned to the tax records while Harry Rex plowed through the ledgers of donations. "Which CPA are you gonna use?" Ray asked after a long period of silence.
"There are several."
"Not local."
"No, I stay away from the guys around here. It's a small town."
''Looks to me like the records are in good shape," Ray said, closing a drawer.
"It'll be easy, except for the house."
"Let's put it on the market, the sooner the better. It won't be a quick sell."
"What's the asking price?"
"Let's start at three hundred."
"Are we spending money to fix it up?"
"There is no money, Harry Rex."
JUST BEFORE dark, Forrest announced he was tired of Clan-ton, tired of death, tired of hanging around a depressing old house he had never particularly cared for, tired of Harry Rex and Ray, and that he was going home to Memphis where wild women and parties were waiting.
"When are you coming back?" he asked Ray.
"Two or three weeks."
"For probate?"
"Yes," Harry Rex answered. "We'll make a brief appearance before the judge. You're welcome to be there, but it's not required."
"I don't do court. Been there enough."
The brothers walked down the drive to Forrest's car. "You okay?" Ray asked, but only because he felt compelled to show concern.
"I'm fine. See you, Bro," Forrest said, in a hurry to leave before his brother blurted something stupid. "Call me when you come back," he said. He started the car and drove away. Ray knew he would pull over somewhere between Clanton and Memphis, either at a joint with a bar and a pool table, or maybe just a beer store where he would buy a case and slug it as he drove. Forrest had survived his father's funeral in an impressive way, but the pressure had been building. The meltdown would not be pretty.
Harry Rex was hungry, as usual, and asked if Ray wanted fried catfish. "Not really," he answered.
"Good, there's a new place on the lake."
"What's it called?"
"Jeter's Catfish Shack."
"You're kidding."
"No, it's delicious."
They dined on an empty deck jutting over a swamp, on the backwaters of the lake. Harry Rex ate catfish twice a week; Ray, once every five years. The cook was heavy on the batter and peanut oil, and Ray knew it would be a long night, for several reasons.
He slept with a loaded gun in the bed of his old room, upstairs, with the windows and doors locked, and the three garbage bags :ked with money at his feet. With such an arrangement, it was difficult to look around in the dark and conjure up any pleasant childhood memories that would normally be just under the surface. The house had been dark and cold back then, especially after his mother died.
Instead of reminiscing, he tried to sleep by counting little round black chips, a hundred bucks each, hauled by the Judge from the tables to the cashiers. He counted with imagination and ambition. and he got nowhere near the fortune he was in bed with.
Chapter 14
The Clanton square had three cafes, two for the whites and one for the blacks. The Tea Shoppe crowd leaned toward banking and law and retail, more of a white-collar bunch, where the chatter was a bit heavier - the stock market, politics, golf. Claude's, the black diner, had been around for forty years and had the best food.
The Coffee Shop was favored by the farmers, cops, and factory workers who talked football and bird hunting. Harry Rex preferred it, as did a few other lawyers who liked to eat with the people they represented. It opened at five every morning but Sunday, and was usually crowded by six. Ray parked near it on the square and locked his car. The sun was inching above the hills to the east. He would drive fifteen hours or so and hopefully be home by midnight.
Harry Rex had a table in the window and a Jackson newspaper that had already been rearranged and folded to the point of being useless to anyone else. "Anything in the news?" Ray asked. There was no television at Maple Run.
"Not a damned thang," Harry Rex grumbled with his eyes glued to the editorials. "I'll send you all the obituaries." He slid across a crumpled section the size of a paperback. "You wanna read this?"
"No, I need to go."
"You're eating first?"
"Yes."
"Hey, Dell!" Harry Rex yelled across the cafe. The counter and booths and other tables were crowded with men, only men, all eating and talking.
"Dell is still here?" Ray asked.
"She doesn't age," Harry Rex said, waving. "Her mother is eighty and her grandmother is a hundred. She'll be here long after we're buried."
Dell did not appreciate being yelled at. She arrived with a coffeepot and an attitude, which vanished when she realized who Ray was. She hugged him and said, "I haven't seen you in twenty years." Then she sat down, clutched his arm, and began saying how sorry she was about the Judge.
"Wasn't it a great funeral?" Harry Rex said.
"I can't remember a finer one," she said, as if Ray was supposed to be both comforted and impressed.
"Thank you," he said, his eyes watering not from sadness but from the medley of cheap perfumes swirling about her.
Then she jumped up and said, "What're y'all eatin'? It's on the
Harry Rex decided on pancakes and sausage, for both of them, a tall stack for him, short for Ray. Dell disappeared, a thick cloud of fragrances lingering behind.
"You got a long drive. Pancakes'11 stick to your ribs."
After three days in Clanton, everything was sticking to his ribs. Ray looked forward to some long runs in the countryside around Charlottesville, and to much lighter cuisine. "
To his great relief, nobody else recognized him. There were no other lawyers in the Coffee Shop at that hour, and no one else who'd known the Judge well enough to attend his funeral. The cops and mechanics were too busy with their jokes and gossip to look around. Remarkably, Dell kept her mouth shut. After the first cup of coffee, Ray relaxed and began to enjoy the waves of conversation and laughter around him.
Dell was back with enough food for eight; pancakes, a whole hog's worth of sausage, a tray of hefty biscuits with a bowl of butter, and a bowl of somebody's homemade jam. Why would anyone need biscuits to eat with pancakes? She patted his shoulder again and said, "And he was such a sweet man." Then she was gone.