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The two guys were out at the edge of the patio now, this side of the swimming pool. Yeah, it was a cowboy hat, light-colored.
De
Floyd hardly ever spoke unless asked a question; he'd answer and that would be it. De
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.
De
"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 De
Now they were under the scaffolding, eighty feet directly below De
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. De
Now they were looking up at him.
De
"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 De
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 De
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 De
About halfway to the tank he called out to De
3
HE DOVE, DYING TO GET OFF that 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. De
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." De
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," De
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?"