Where You Once Belonged(2)

“You son of a bitch,” Bird said. “What are you doing back here?”

“That you, Bird?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“I seen you in the mirror. Only I had about decided you wasn’t going to speak to me. I thought you just wanted to admire this car.”

“I’ll speak to you,” Bird said. “I’ll speak to Bud Sealy too.”

Burdette stared at Bird, then he laughed once, loud, harsh. So his laugh hadn’t changed at all; it was the same sudden explosion that everyone remembered.

“That’s right,” Bird told him. “Go ahead. Enjoy it. You still got a few minutes.”

“Why’s that? Because you already told Bud Sealy I was here?”

“No. Because I’m going to.”

“Go ahead, then. I ain’t going nowhere. And you can tell Bud—” Burdette seemed to think. He spat once more out the window into the street, this time onto the pavement at Bird’s feet. “You can tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

“You son of a bitch,” Bird said. “You goddamn—”

Then abruptly Ralph Bird stopped talking. He moved away from the car and began to walk up the street toward the corner. He turned once and looked back, then he began to trot. By the time he reached the corner he was running. At Second Street he turned and ran east toward the courthouse a block away. He ran on, his arms pumping, a small dapper middle-aged man in suit and tie, running along the dark sidewalk past the storefronts and the brick facades, and then across Albany Street and up the courthouse steps.

At the top of the steps the light in the main hallway shone out through the glass doors onto the concrete, but the doors were locked and he stood for a moment in a panic, rattling the doors and pounding on the glass. Finally it occurred to him that it was late Saturday afternoon. So he turned and stumbled back down the steps and immediately began to run again, along the high brick wall of the courthouse toward the corner of the building and then around it and along the sidewalk toward a red light above another door. This door was unlocked and he threw it open and ran down a flight of stairs to the basement. In the first office off the hallway he found Dale Willard, Holt County deputy sheriff, sitting at a desk with his feet up. Willard was clipping his fingernails.

“Where’s Bud?” Bird cried. He stood panting at the counter.

Willard looked up at him.

“Where’s Bud Sealy?”

“He’s not here.”

“I can see that. Where is he?”

“Right now? He’s at home eating his supper.”

“Then Jesus Christ, get him on the phone. Tell him to get over here.”

Willard allowed his feet to drop from the desktop and slowly he sat up in the chair. He leaned forward and began to brush the fingernail clippings from his shirtfront onto the green blotter on the desk. He was making a neat pile. “Something bothering you, Ralph?” he said. “You sound a little excited.”

“What?” Bird said.

He was still standing behind the office counter, panting and sweating, his face as red as beets and his eyes looking as though they belonged in the head of an alarmed poodle.

“Excited? Listen. By god, if you ain’t going to call him, at least reach me that phone so I can. What’s his number?”

“No. I imagine I can call him myself,” Willard said. “Soon’s I know there’s a reason to call him. Soon’s I have some idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about?” Bird said. But he was shouting now. “I’ll tell you what—” Then he seemed to catch himself; he appeared to make an effort to be calm. But it didn’t quite work, so that he began to speak now to Willard as though he were addressing an idiot. “What I’m talking about,” he said, talking too slowly, “is how that son of a bitch is back in town. That’s what I’m talking about. Now call him.”

“Sure. But which son of a bitch is that, Ralph?”

“What? You mean you—”

“I mean you haven’t said yet.”

“Well it’s Jack Burdette. Jesus Christ, you’ve at least heard of him, haven’t you? You know who he is, don’t you?”

“Yes. I know who Jack Burdette is.”

“And you know what he did, don’t you?”

“I know what he did. Everyone in Holt County knows what he did.”

“Then call Bud Sealy. Goddamn it. Here that—” But again he was shouting. The momentary restraint he had managed to place on himself had disappeared and so he was shouting once more, his face inflamed and outraged above the loosened tie. “Here that son of a bitch is back in town again and he’s driving a red Cadillac with California plates. And he’s got it parked out in front of the Holt Tavern and if you don’t quit asking me these goddamn questions and get up off your fat—”

“That’ll do,” Willard said. He stood up and leaned toward Bird. “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

“—he’s going to—What?” Bird said. “What’d you just say?”

“I said, ‘Shut your goddamn mouth.’ Now go over there and sit down. I’ll let you know if I want anything more out of you. In the meantime keep your mouth shut.”