Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

Jack snapped the ammunition drum onto his submachine gun and laid the gun lopsidedly inside the guitar case. He wiped the oil off his fingers with a paper towel and gazed somberly into Noie’s face, his eyes melancholy and shiny. Then as though he had been holding his breath underwater to the point where his lungs were bursting, his mouth fell open and his lips creased back in a broad smile. “Got you, boy! I had you convinced you were bunking with Jack the Ripper. My mother was an elementary teacher in Okemah, Oklahoma, and died of Huntington’s chorea. My last job was at a Pee-wee Herman theme park. I couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“What about the submachine gun?”

“I’ve got a whole collection of rare firearms in Rio de Janeiro. One day I’ll show them to you. You don’t believe I’m a rich man, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe, Jack.”

“That’s because you’re a good kid. Get out your checker set, and let’s put on a pot of coffee and play a game or two.”

THE INFORMATION THAT came in from the National Crime Information Center on Dennis Rector was of little value, other than to indicate that he had been arrested twice for DWI and once for domestic battery, and the United States Navy had given him a general discharge for the convenience of the service. His wallet contained an Arizona driver’s license, a Social Security card, fourteen dollars, a condom, a GI can opener, a coupon for a box of cereal, a speeding citation that was four months old, a torn ticket to a concert in Branson, Missouri, and a photograph of the deceased in a navy uniform standing next to an Asian girl wearing a shift and flip-flops. Written in pencil on the back of the photograph were the words “With Luz, Mindanao, Aug. 6, 1982.”

In his right-hand pocket Rector had been carrying seventy-three cents in change, three metal finger picks, and a half stick of gum wrapped in tinfoil.

Hackberry placed Rector’s possessions in a manila envelope and gazed out the window at a pallid and sultry sky and hills that barely contained enough moisture to go with the greening of the season. What was the sum total of a man’s life? Scraps of paper issued by the state? A photo taken with a peasant girl on the rim of the New American Empire on the anniversary of Hiroshima’s bombing? A ticket to a country-music event at which the stage performers wore tasseled red, white, and blue costumes and offered up a meretricious tribute to a culture that celebrated its own vulgarity? A half stick of chewing gum?

Who was Dennis Rector, and what had he come to confess? How could a man who had acquired so little and left such a microscopic trace on the planet be so serious about himself that he would take his own life? What could he have done that was that bad?

Hackberry picked up his desk phone. “Would you come in here, Maydeen?” he said.

Ten seconds later, she was standing in his doorway, pear-shaped, wearing a flowery western shirt with her department-issue trousers and a stitched belt and too much lipstick, her perfume flooding the room. “Are you gonna just stare at me or tell me what you want?” she said.

“If someone said to you ‘I ain’t no Judas Iscariot,’ what would you say was on his mind?”

“Did you call him a Judas?”

“I didn’t. To my knowledge, no one did.”

“I’d say he sold out someone who trusted him, and his guilt was eating his lunch. Are we talking about the guy who hanged himself?”

“That’s the guy.”

“It seems like he had biblical stories on his mind. Like the crucifixion in particular.”

“I believe you’re right.”

“You think he knew Cody Daniels?” she asked.

“He knew Josef Sholokoff, that’s for sure.”

“You think Sholokoff crucified Daniels?”

“I think it was either Sholokoff or Krill. Except a guy like Dennis Rector wouldn’t have occasion to be mixed up with someone like Krill. So that leaves Sholokoff. Is Pam still at lunch?”

“She got a call from the Blue Bonnet Six. A guy skipped on his bill and stole the television set out of the room. Before he skipped, he tried to sell the owner something called a Dobro. What’s a Dobro?”

“A guitar with a resonator in it. It’s played with metal picks, like the ones I just put in this manila envelope.”

“The guy who hanged himself played a musical instrument?”

“Evidently. Why?”

“Musicians make poor criminals. Outside of wrecking hotel rooms, they’re amateurs when it comes to serious criminality,” Maydeen said. When Hackberry didn’t reply, she said, “Know why that is?”

“I think you’re fixing to tell me.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said.

“Has R.C. called in yet?”