Once Upon a River Page 0,99
to let this young lady stay in the boat until she finds her ma. I don’t like to see a girl out alone with nobody looking after her.”
“Take her to your house.”
“I got fifteen people living in my place this week. The folks I’m related to seem to think I’m a free hotel. There’s nobody on your boat but a few mice.”
“Well, she’s going to have to give me something for it,” Smoke said. He turned toward Fishbone and then back to Margo. “You can buy that boat from me on one condition. That you shoot me in the head before they take me to a nursing home.”
Margo wished she could read his expression through the glasses.
“What you saying that for?” Fishbone said. “I’m not going to help you, and she isn’t, either. You’d take killing more seriously if you’d been in the war, Smoky.”
“It ain’t my fault I couldn’t go in the army,” he said.
“Well, if you had, you’d’ve seen how killing anyone, yourself included, is nothing to joke about.”
“You spend too much time at church,” Smoke said. “You’re becoming a regular church lady.”
Fishbone shook his head. “Smoky, you ought to be careful what you say to people.”
“You heard my nieces. They have it all figured.” The old man paused to catch his breath. “They’re having me declared unfit in court. I’m going to lose my freedom.”
“Don’t ask other people to do your dirty work, Smoky. I could probably shoot and bury all the black men I wanted, but I’ll go to the electric chair if I start killing white people, even useless old ones like you.”
“A hundred bucks for my boat,” Smoke said to Margo and took a breath. “But you’re going to help me when the time comes. And I reserve the right to buy my boat back if you don’t hold up your part of the bargain.”
“Do it yourself if you’ve got to do it. Don’t go dragging anybody else into it,” Fishbone said, leaning down and brushing a bit of cigar ash off his black leather shoe.
“I’m going to try,” Smoke said to Margo in a quieter voice. “But if you want my boat, my Pride & Joy, you’re going to owe me.”
“You people always surprise me,” Fishbone said. “Talking that way is unnatural. Life and death is God’s business, not yours.”
“I went to that goddamned nursing home every day for lunch when my sister was in there. I saw people turning into ghosts made out of those mashed potatoes they got, taste like plaster of Paris. I’m not going to die in that prison.”
Margo nodded at the word prison.
“I need somebody to shoot me before they come get me. I need a beautiful kid like you to finish me off. You’ll kiss me on the cheek and then blow my head off.”
“You want to get her in trouble with the law?”
“Nobody’s going to care about a sick old man dying,” Smoke said.
“If this young lady shoots you with that Marlin,” Fishbone said, “they’ll trace the bullet to her microgroove barrel. And if she shoots you with a shotgun, everybody is going to hear the blast. You’re not thinking about what happens to anybody else after you’re gone.”
“So drown me in the river.”
Fishbone shook his head, as though giving up on serious talk for the day.
“Maybe I’ll die in my sleep and you’ll both be off the hook. Kid, you give me a hundred dollars and I’ll sign over my Pride & Joy, and you can go register it in your own name. You’ll have to take her a little ways downstream. But don’t go far.”
“Don’t take the girl’s money. What do you need a hundred bucks for? Just let her use the old thing.”
“To prove I sold it and didn’t give it away. If I start giving things away, the judge will say I’m losing my faculties. I’ll write her a receipt saying she paid for it and keep a carbon copy.” His color looked healthier the longer he argued with Fishbone.
“Probably your nieces won’t even notice if it’s gone.” Fishbone bit the plastic cigar filter and spoke through his teeth. “They are not your most observant ladies.”
“A hundred dollars.” Margo pulled from her wallet five twenty-dollar bills. She would have paid a lot more.
“And a promise you’ll help me at the end,” Smoke said. He took off his glasses again and let them lie in his lap while he looked at her.
Margo was afraid to look back at him to see how serious