and started into the courthouse and met Buford coming out.
“Hello, Jack,” he said, smiling. “Catch any fish?”
“A few bass,” I said. “No catfish, though,” I went or lying, because I had promised to bring him one and hadn’t.
“How about a cup of coffee?”
“Fine,” I said. “I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”
“Come on. Let’s go over to Barone’s.” Buford was a handsome man somewhere in his forties, but he looked younger than that. He was big, about my size, with coal-black hair graying at the temples and very assured gray eyes and a quiet, poised demeanor that made women crazy about him. He was a college graduate and smart, but he always wore a big white hat with the brim turned sharply up at the sides like any ham politician, and he would lift it clear of his head in a courtly gesture to every woman of voting age that he met, even when he was driving a car. Men liked him just as well, and people who must have known he was crooked would vote for him.
We crossed the square, dodging cars, and went down the street to the big neon sign that said, “Barone’s.” It was full of chrome and big mirrors and the clattering sound of dishes, with a counter and a row of booths upholstered in imitation leather. In the back, next to the swinging doors going out into the kitchen, a heavy oak door bore a sign reading, “Members.” It was supposed to be a club, and I guess in a way it was, but the membership was limited to anyone who could prove he had the price of a drink.
We went on in, and it was quieter here and the lights were less garish. The room had a small bar along one side and some more booths, with a stand at the back holding a half-dozen slot machines. Up front there was a juke box. There was no one in the place except the bartender and a large blonde in a tight black dress talking to him. It was the owner herself, Billy Barone.
She turned and smiled. “Good morning, Sheriff. Hello, Jack.” Her hair was waved, and looked as if it had been carved out of lemonwood and buffed down with wax.
We sat down in the last booth and she came over. “What will you officers of the law have this morning?” she asked, still smiling, and giving Buford a long, lazy glance.
“Black coffee for me,” Buford said. “With a shot of Bacardi rum on the side.”
“You’ve been a bad boy, Sheriff,” she teased. “And how about you, Jack?”
“Breakfast,” I said. “Ham and eggs and some coffee.”
“It wouldn’t be safe to take all that on an empty stomach,” Buford said. “You’d better have something.”
“All right,” I said. “Bourbon.”
The bartender brought the drinks over, and in a minute a girl came in with Buford’s coffee. He pushed two nickels across the table toward her. “How about putting those in the juke box?”
I knew he detested juke boxes and their canned noise, aside from the money they brought him—he owned a part interest in the outfit that controlled them and the slot machines and pinballs. It wasn’t hillbilly music he wanted; it was privacy.
“Here’s how,” he said. We drank. The juke box hissed, then commenced its blaring.
He took out a cigar and lit it, then removed it from his mouth and looked at it in the manner of a man who loves good cigars. He’s an odd one, I thought, a queer mixture, and not somebody I’d want to tangle with unless I had to. That nineteenth-century courtliness fronted for a lot of toughness you could see sometimes looking out at you from behind the noncommittal eyes.
When he talked business he never wasted words. “The grand jury convenes next week,” he said quietly.
“And—” I said. It had met before.
“We’ve got trouble. There’s talk. And too many people that a month or so ago would have been asking me for something just happen to be looking in store windows now when they meet me on the street. Most of it is Soames. He’s got his teeth into that business about the Demaree kid, and he knows where the kid got drunk. The word is going around now that he’s going to blast the lid off everything Sunday, and everybody’s going. He’s been doing a lot of looking around. Normally, it wouldn’t amount to much, but just before the grand jury it’s dangerous as hell. Soames, unfortunately, isn’t just