“R.C., you’re not a sonofabitch, after all,” I said.
He looked at me strangely, his thick hands on the tabletop.
“Well, I hope your brother was wearing his brown britches when he watched the late news last night,” he said, then blinked at Rie, his smooth face uncertain. “Excuse me. I forget I ain’t in the oil field sometime.”
She smiled at him, and he took in his breath and opened his fingers. We hadn’t eaten at the jail that morning, and I could smell the pork chops and slices of ham frying on the stove. We ordered steaks and scrambled eggs, with side orders of hash browns and tomatoes.
“You must have put your fist plumb up to the elbow in that man’s stomach,” R.C. said. “I’ve never seen a man dump over that hard. I thought he was going to strangle right there on the ground.”
“The local news boys must have done a good job,” I said.
“They sure as hell did. They got it all. You smiling with handcuffs on and them two cops holding you by each arm. I bet Bailey needed a respirator if he seen that.” R.C. laughed and lit a cigar. “Goddamn, if I wouldn’t mark off all that bail money just to see him trying to get to the phone.”
The waiter brought our steaks and eggs and set a pot of coffee on a napkin in the center of the table. I cut a piece of steak and ate it with a slice of peppered tomato. R.C. was still laughing with the cigar in his mouth.
“You reckon he’s already called the mental ward in Austin?” he said.
“I think it’s been a good morning for you,” I said.
“Hack, you and him have been giving me hell all these years, and by God I don’t get many chances to bail my lawyer out of jail.”
“How bad is it going to be, Hack?” Rie said.
“I don’t know.”
The door opened and the rain swept across the floor. I felt the cool air against my neck.
“Miss Rie, don’t worry about Hack losing in court, because he don’t.”
“It might be a little more difficult this time,” I said.
“I remember once I was almost chopping cotton on Sugarland Farm, and you had the case dismissed in a week.”
I remembered it also—painfully. Four years ago R.C. had drilled into a state-owned oil pool and had bribed three state officials, one of whom went to the penitentiary.
“He walks into court with that white suit, and it don’t take him five minutes to have everybody in the jury box watching him.”
Rie looked at me, and I dropped my eyes.
“Once he got a colored man off for raping a white woman, and I swear to God the jury never even knew why they let him go.”
“It’s almost noon. Let’s have a beer,” I said.
“You know you ain’t going to get any time. Why you let this girl worry?”
“Order some beers.”
“You really think they’re going to put somebody from your family in the penitentiary?”
“Would you shut up, R.C.?”
His face was hurt and embarrassed, and Rie touched my hand under the table.
“You’re giving away all his secrets,” she said. “He hates to admit that he’s anything but a left-handed country lawyer.”
He looked at her eyes, and his face mended as though a breeze had blown across it. He was in love with her, and if I hadn’t been at the table his performance would have grown to absurd proportions.
We finished eating, and R.C. paid the check and left a three-dollar tip on the table. We walked across the flooded street in the rain to his Mercedes, and he opened the car door for Rie and held the umbrella over her head while she got in. The inside panels were covered with yellow rolled leather, and the black seats were stitched with a gold longhorn design, and on top of the dashboard there was an empty whiskey glass and a compass inside a plastic bubble. We drove slowly out of town while the water washed back in waves over the curbs, and R.C. pulled a pint of Four Roses from his coat pocket and offered it to us.