Forty-Four
I MEET UP with Burt Webb at Scobee’s the next morning, a little before eight and before he heads off to work.
Bess brings over two steaming mugs of coffee and leaves the pot.
Burt tells me, “I keep trying to make this town as safe as I still think it’s supposed to be. Which means the opposite of that stupid sign on the outskirts of town.”
Our usual skillet breakfast sandwiches—double over-easy egg and cheddar biscuit—are in front of both of us, along with a plate stacked with well-done bacon, Bess asking, “How in the world did that get there?” as she walks away.
I’ve already told Burt about the text I’d received at Rowdy’s the night before, not long after the scene with Roof and Lynyrd and their boys. When I’d gotten to that part of my story, he’d stopped me, a grin playing across his lips, a little egg drip along with it at the corner of his mouth.
“Heard about all that from Tay,” he says. “I was on my way to meet her there before I realized I’d left something behind at the office. But she was already on her way home when she called and told me to forget it.”
“She wasn’t too happy with me.”
“So I was told,” he says, “in rather colorful language.”
He wipes his mouth, still grinning at me, still looking to me like the big kid I’ve always known.
“Look at it this way,” he says. “You don’t even need a wife of your own to get pissed off at you, on account of you’ve got mine.”
I call up the text and hand over my phone. Burt says it probably came from a burner, that even a dumb-ass like Roof Crockett, even with him being a Crockett in Cross Rivers, isn’t enough of a dumb-ass to send out a threat that instantly becomes a permanent electronic record.
When he hands back my phone he says, “There’s really not a whole lot of people he could be threatening here, right? I mean, I know how popular you are around here. But you’ve always kept the circle tight.”
I tick off the list on my fingers: My grandmother. Charlie Hall and his son. Abby. Vince Tarplay.
When I finish, he says, “Forgot one there, buddy.”
“Who?”
“The former Taylor McCarter,” he says.
“Didn’t think I had to put her on my list knowing she’s at the top of your own list,” I say. “And guessing you’re probably even less popular with the Crocketts than I am.”
“I’ve spent more time pissing them off,” he says, adding, “For all the damn good it’s done me.”
As we talk, breakfast customers come through the front door. He gets as many greetings from them as I do.
“Well, one thing sure hasn’t changed with you,” he says. “People still seem to know you’re in town.”
“Used to be the right people when we were kids. Not the kind who keep making me feel like I’m outnumbered.”
“I’m gonna take this threat as real,” Burt says. “But I gotta face facts. With nothing more than an anonymous text to go on, even if I do try to get up in Roof’s grill, Hader will just boot me right out of the way, same as he always does when the Crocketts are anywhere in the picture.”
He eats a piece of the bacon we didn’t order and looks pretty happy doing it.
“But what I can do for the time being is keep sending cars,” he says, “past the farm every chance I get, and having a presence in front of Abby’s apartment building as often as possible.
” He sighs. “We’re a small force here, Silas.
Too small for what all is going on these days.
But when I tell the others that it’s for you, I have a feeling it’ll put a little extra pep in their step. ”
I decide to tell him then about the shot into my windshield that night outside of Rowdy’s.
“And you didn’t think that was worth reporting to your old bud?” he asks.
“I just assumed it was one of those dirtballs I’d caught dealing drugs outside school.”
He takes his last piece of bread and soaks up the last bit of yolk on his plate. I’ve always liked to eat. But not like Burt Webb does, and has, for as long as I can remember.
I pour us more coffee.
“Listen, there’s something I want to say, just because I don’t know how long I’m gonna stick around.”
“Talk to me.”
“This is home, and always will be, you know that as well as anybody,” I say. “But there’s a part of me feeling the way you do when you’re only going through a city to change planes. The difference with me is that I don’t know what my final destination is supposed to be.”
“I get it,” he says. “You don’t have to tell me any more than that.”
He’s always been that kind of friend. The best kind. Knowing what you need even when it might only be for him to back off and give you all the room you need.
“But I want you to know,” I continue, “that as long as I am here, I will do anything I can to help you, whether it’s with drugs or those girls. And I mean anything.”
He slowly shakes his head now. “Drugs and girls,” he says. “Sounds like we’re discussing Briar Crockett’s business plan. Or at least part of it.”
“I thought the girls working for him were older, or so we’ve always been told,” I say. “And not ones he wanted to get disappeared.”
“And not high school girls,” Burt says. He sighs again. “Aw, Silas, who the hell knows?”
“Here’s what I know,” I tell him now. “I’m not afraid of Briar Crockett. Or his idiot sons.”
“Maybe you ought to be,” he says. “Not just telling you that as a friend. Telling you that as a cop.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“We were joking about Taylor before,” he says, “and getting on her bad side. Well, boy, you’re already there with the Crockett family, and you’ve only been back in Cross Rivers for about ten minutes.”
“I told EJ that I might have poked the bear by going to see Briar,” I say. “But the more I think about it, maybe he and his boys are the ones poking at me now.”
He looks down sadly at a plate that looks as clean as if it had just been set down in front of him.
“Just don’t want you to get run over like your dog.”
I wave at Bess for the check.
“You were as good a teammate as I ever had, even though we didn’t play together all that long,” I tell Burt Webb. “Now I’m asking you to let me be just as good a teammate to you.”
He stares at me, a smile in his eyes, and hesitates just slightly until he puts his hand out for me to shake.
“Deal.”
“Deal,” I say.
“But on one condition,” he says.
“You got it.”
“Didn’t tell you what it is yet.”
“Doesn’t matter what it is if you’re the one doing the asking.”
“I have to be the one who calls the plays,” Burt says.
“Whoa,” I say. “You forget who you’re talking to here?”
“Deal breaker for you?”
“No,” I say. “But here’s one condition back at you: I get to call an audible if I have to.”
Burt says, “Long as you run it by me first.”
“What if there’s no time?”
“Make time,” he says.
“Got it, Coach.”
“In that case, you are officially deputized by absolutely no authority I have from the town of Cross Rivers,” he says. “Especially not on my salary. Or rank.”
“Great,” I say. “Do I get a badge?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Are you going to tell Tay about this arrangement?” I ask as we head toward the door.
“Less of a chance.”
When we’re in the parking lot, he informs me that he’s ready to give me my first assignment.
“Fighting crime?”
“A personal appearance,” he says. “Figure I need to work you in slow, Deputy.”