Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

“I was there. Your dad is a pretty old fellow.” Then he rubbed his hand on top of Hackberry’s head. “Nothing is worth worrying about, Hack,” he said. “Just remember how long this place has been here and all the people who’ve lived on it and maybe are still out there, in one form or another, maybe as spirits watching over us. That’s what the Indians believe. Our job is to enjoy the earth and to take care of it. Worry robs us of our faith and our joy and gives us nothing in return. How about you and I go inside and play the pinball machine and order up a couple of those barbecue-chicken dinners? When we come back outside, one of those mermaids might be up there in the rocks winking at you.”

That was the way Hackberry always wanted to remember his father—good-natured and protective and knowledgeable about every situation in the world that a man might face. And that was the way he had thought of him without exception every day of his young life, up until the morning his father had taken a revolver from his desk drawer and oiled and cleaned it and loaded each chamber with a copper-jacketed hollow-point round, then placed a pillow behind his head and cocked the hammer and fitted the barrel into his mouth, easing the sight behind his teeth, just before he blew the top of his skull onto the ceiling.

The sun had gone behind the hill when Hackberry’s cordless phone rang and woke him from his dream. He checked the caller ID and saw the words “wireless” and “unknown.” He clicked the “on” button and said, “What’s the haps, Mr. Collins?”

“I declare. You’re on it from the gate, Sheriff.”

“It’s not much of a trick when you deal with certain kinds of people.”

“Such as me?”

“Yeah, I think you definitely qualify as a man with his own zip code and time zone.”

“Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“Hardly.”

“How’s the Oriental woman doing?”

“Call the hospital and see.”

“I would, but hospitals don’t give out patient information over the telephone.”

“Ms. Ling has had a bad time, but she’s going to be all right. What were you doing at her place? Just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“I have people watching it for me. Which is what you should have been doing.”

“Thank you. I’ll make a note of that. Are you done?”

“Pretty near but not quite.”

“No, you’re done, sir. And I’m done being your echo chamber. You’re not Lucifer descending upon Eden in a Miltonic poem, Mr. Collins. You were a bug sprayer for Orkin. You probably skipped toilet training and have lived most of your life with skid marks in your underwear. I know of no instance when you’ve fought your fight on a level playing field. You consider yourself educated, but you understand nothing of the books you read. You’re a grandiose idiot, sir. You’ll end on the injection table at Huntsville or with a bullet in your head. I’m telling you these things for only one reason. Last year you invaded my home and tried to murder my chief deputy. I’m going to get you for that, partner, and for all the other things you’ve done to innocent people in the name of God.”

“You need to be quiet and listen for a minute, Sheriff Holland. You probably have all kinds of theories about who hurt the Oriental woman and tore up her house. This defense contractor Temple Dowling has been looking for Noie Barnum all over the countryside, but I doubt it was him. There was a little man among that bunch in the truck. From what I could gather, he didn’t have a lot to say, but he was the one giving orders. I suspect that’s Josef Sholokoff. Do you call that name to mind?”

“Not offhand,” Hackberry lied.

“I once worked for Josef Sholokoff. He tried to have me killed. He sent three degenerates on motorcycles to do the job. Some poor Hispanic maid had to scrub them off the wallpaper in a motel room. I always felt bad about that. I mean leaving her to clean up such a mess.”

“Yes, you surely know how to write your name in big red letters, Mr. Collins. I don’t think Ted Bundy or Dennis Rader or Gary Ridgway or any of our other contemporary psychopaths quite meet your standards.”

“There are different kinds of killers in the world, Sheriff Holland. Some do it out of meanness. Some do it for hire. Some do it because they’re schizophrenic and attack imaginary enemies. Politicians have the military do it to increase the financial gain of corporations. Sholokoff takes it a step further. Ask yourself what kind of man would allow his people to vandalize a chapel and torture a female minister.”

“Sholokoff has declared war on the Creator?”

“You could say that. He’s a procurer. Is there anything lower than a man who lives off the earnings of a whore?”

“I don’t think you have a lot of moral authority in that area, Mr. Collins. You’re a murderer of innocent girls and women, which means you’re a moral and physical coward.”

“Could it be you who’s wanting in courage, Sheriff, and not me? Did you sit with a weapon by your hand while you waited on my call? Were you that fearful of a homeless man?”

Hackberry’s eyes swept the hillside, searching in the shadows that the trees and underbrush made on the slope. Then he examined the ridgeline and the trees growing up an arroyo and the outcroppings of sandstone and layers of table rock exposed by erosion, all the places that a man with binoculars could hide in the setting sun.

“You used a generic term. You said ‘weapon.’ What kind of weapon would that be, Mr. Collins?” Hackberry said.

“Maybe I was just trying to give you a start.”

“I always said you were quite a jokester.”