The Lost Get-Back Boogie

“What?”

“Your parole officer said you were straight and probably wouldn’t do time again. You must have had some real ingrown hairs in your asshole, buddy.”

Inside the office the deputy took off the cuffs, and I sat down in a wood chair in front of the sheriff’s desk. The room was poorly lighted and smelled of cigars, and the desk lamp shone upward into the red corpulence of the sheriff’s round face. There was a tangle of gray hair above the V of his shirt, and the roll of fat on his stomach hung heavily on his gun belt. The red stone on his Mason’s ring glinted when he moved the wet stub of his cigar in the ashtray.

“It looks like you can’t stay out of a sheriff’s office,” he said. “Yesterday you tried to file a complaint down in Ravalli County, and today I get to meet you after you did some target practice at the mill.”

I looked him back in the eyes, but because of the lamp’s glare, I couldn’t tell yet how hard he was ready to turn it on. He took a sandwich out of his drawer and unfolded the wax paper.

“Go down to the cooler for me, John,” he said.

While the deputy was gone, he ate the sandwich and didn’t speak, and I thought, Watch out for this one. The deputy returned with a beaded can of beer and set it on the blotter. The sheriff sucked out half of it with one quick upward turn of the hand, the sandwich bread thick and white in his mouth.

“Now,” he said, “this shouldn’t take either one of us long. You know all the rules, so we don’t have to explain a lot of things. We’ll take a statement from you, you can look over it and add or change anything, and I’ll get you into court within a week and then off to Deer Lodge.”

“I don’t even know what you’re charging me with, Sheriff.”

“Son, you weren’t listening too good. I don’t have time for a game. I can charge you with any one or all of a half-dozen things. I guess about the worst one down on your sheet might be arson.”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about.” Our eyes locked together and held until he picked up his cigar.

“I see,” he said, and turned his swivel chair partly into the shadow, obscuring his face. “Well, tell us what you were up to last night.”

“I was boozing in a couple of beer joints in Lolo and another place just south of Missoula.”

“Did you meet any interesting people who might remember you?”

“Ask them. I don’t remember. I was drunk.?

??

“Maybe you had a little trouble with a cowboy or knocked over some chairs.”

“Don’t recall a thing.”

He turned his big, oval face abruptly back into the light.

“You’re lying, son. Yesterday you were out at the mill raising hell about your pickup and your guitars, and last night you had Buddy Riordan’s Plymouth up on that mountain, and you drilled holes in those trucks like an infantry marksman. Some of my men ain’t the brightest in the world, or you wouldn’t have gotten back across that bridge. But the deputy made you, and that’s going to get you at least a two-spot. Now, if you want to piss around with us, we’ll see how much time we can add on to it.”

My con’s antennae quivered for the first time with a sense of hope. His eyes stared confidently into mine, but he had come on too strong and too soon. Also, I hadn’t been booked yet, and I realized that I might still have another season to run.

“I was at the mill yesterday afternoon, and I was driving Buddy’s car last night, but I don’t know a thing about your deputy or a bridge.”

“Why don’t you use your head a minute? You’re still a young man. You can be out with good time in nine months, and maybe Louisiana will waive on you if you get a strong recommendation from here.”

“Number one, I’m not going to take the fall for some local crap with that toilet-paper factory. Number two, you know the parole authority doesn’t work that way, Sheriff. They’ll send me straight back to the joint.”

He looked at me steadily and held the flattened wet end of his cigar to his mouth. Then his gaze broke, and he finished the rest of his beer.

“I don’t know what to tell you, then, son. It looks like you have things pretty well figured out for yourself.”

Without thinking, I put my fingers in my shirt pocket for a cigarette. The deputy behind me put his hand on my arm.

“That’s all right, John,” the sheriff said. “Tell me, what’s your connection with Frank Riordan?”

“I did time with his boy.”

“That’s right. Buddy was in the Louisiana pen, wasn’t he?” He lit his cigar again, and the red stone on his ring glowed with fire. “Tell me another thing, since you got it all tucked in your watch pocket. How far away from this jail do you think your life’s going to be?”