Lay Down My Sword and Shield (Hackberry Holland 1)

“I’m paranoid and suspicious by nature.”

“That’s part of the middle-class syndrome, too. It goes along with the hygiene thing.”

“I picked a hell of a ball game to relieve in. Between you, Cecil Wayne Posey, and that deputy at the jail I feel like I’m standing ten feet from the plate and lobbing volleyballs at King Kong.”

She took the bottle from her lips and laughed, and her almond eyes were suddenly full of light. She touched away the foam from the corner of her mouth with two fingers.

“I should have put on my Groucho Marx clothes this evening,” I said. “You know, a

n hour or so of Zeppo and the gang throwing pies while your people go up to the pen.”

I finished my drink, and the minerals and iron rust in the water tasted like a gladiator’s final toast in the back of my throat.

“You’re out of sight,” she said.

I poured a thin shot over the orange flecks in the bottom of the glass and drank it down. The smoky, charcoal-filtered taste of undiluted Jack Daniel’s, born out of Tennessee limestone springs and rickyards of hickory, rolled down inside me with the lightness of heated air, then I began to feel the amber caution signal flashing somewhere behind my forehead.

“Yeah, I’m a walking freak show. The next time I’ll appear with my whole act. Seals blowing horns, monkeys riding unicycles, jugglers, clowns with exploding bombs in their pants.”

“Wow, you really let it hang out,” she said. Her wet eyes were bright with refractions of light.

“It comes free with the ride home.” I poured the rest of the whiskey into my glass. “Come on, let’s drink.”

“What do you do when you’re not defending ex–Korean War buddies?” she said.

“I work for the money boys. Oil corporation suits, swindles against the government, the Billy Sol account. I also run for Congress part-time.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“Buy a copy of The Austin American November fifth. I’ll be smiling at you on the front page.”

“If you’re not jiving, you must be an unbelievable guy.”

“You want to talk about my geek act some more?” I said.

“I mean, what do you expect? You drop in here from outer space and come on like H. L. Hunt and W. C. Fields at the same time.”

“I was put together from discarded parts.” I finished my glass, and the amber light flashed red and began to beat violently.

“Tell me, really, why did you come here tonight?”

“I already told you. Television ruptures the blood vessels in my eyes.”

The Negro, the two girls, and the college boy walked out from the kitchen.

“There’s a man who likes to drink,” I said.

“You been reading my mail,” the Negro said.

“How about a case of Jax and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s?” I took a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet.

“We got a few more people coming over tonight,” he said.

“Get two cases. Take my car.”

“It’s just down the road. I’d get busted for grand auto in that Cadillac, anyway.”

He took the twenty-dollar bill and stuck it in the pocket of his denim shirt.