Lost Man's River(248)
“Speck’s some talker, all right.” Concerned about Sally, Harden peered off down the beach. “Enjoys hell out of his own stories, so everybody else gets a kick out of ’em, too. And he don’t hide his thinkin, he tells it to you straight, least when he ain’t lyin.”
“Straight and dirty,” Andy House agreed.
Daniels came out of the bushes yanking his zipper. Jerking a thumb in Whidden’s direction, he bent to speak into Andy’s ear, lowering his voice to a loud hoarse whisper. “One of them damn Hardens, now—and I ain’t sayin which one, case he feels shy about it—we made him some big money before he quit, but he won’t settle up the $700 he still owes me for nothin in the world but gas and groceries!” Daniels raised his eyebrows in disbelief, peering from one face to the next for a clue to such perfidious behavior. “Last time I seen him, he told me, ‘Speck, you’ll get that money, don’t you worry!’ ” Here he paused to give Whidden a deadly smile. “And I told him, ‘Boy, I might look like a spring chicken, but I ain’t gettin no younger and I want what I got comin!’ Know what this young Harden says to a poor old man? Says, ‘Speck, if you kick the fuckin bucket fore you get your money, you won’t have a worry in the world, and I won’t neither!’ ”
Andy said, “Your language ain’t improved, I see.”
“Weren’t my language! That was Whidden talkin!”
“There’s a young lady down the beach, is all.”
Daniels lurched drunkenly around to stare off down the shore. Blinking to adjust his sight, he took his hat off and wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. Sally had her back to him, and when she bent over from the waist, picking up seashells on the sandy point, Speck shaded his eyes against the sinking sun, the better to appraise the finer points of her hindquarters. When she straightened, he turned back to the men, visibly moved. “Well, she’s a lovable little thing, I can see that.” He hitched at the crotch of his disconsolate old pants. “I sure hope I don’t steal her off you fellers.”
“I hope so, too, cause that is your own daughter.”
“Good God A-mighty, Whidden! I forgot!” In prayer, Speck put his hand over his eyes. “Ain’t life a pity? I mean, what is the world comin to when a man is begrudged a piece of his own daughter?” He watched Whidden’s grin as it twisted off his face.
“That ain’t no way to joke!” Andy protested.
“Ain’t no way to joke?” Speck studied the blind man like a specimen, nodding his head over and over. In a cold flat voice he said, “I believe you was jokin some just now about my smell. You recollect that day over to Miami when I come into your gas station and you done the same? Well, next time I come to town, I dropped by to say I had a bath and lived to tell the tale! What do I find? A whole swarm of Cuban Spanish—loud radios, babies, big-fin cars, the whole fiesta! So I says to ’em, ‘Now what in the name of Jesu Cristo have you spicks gone and done with Andy House?’ And one of ’em shows his teeth in a gold smile and lays his thievin fingers crost his eyes like the blind monkey. And he says, ‘Finito! See Seen-yore! Seen-yore Andy ees finito!’ ”
Speck nodded some more, undaunted by Andy’s wide blue gaze. “ ‘See Seen-yore.’ Them Cubanos told me all about you. So what you got to say about it? You finito? Struck blind for your sins by your First Florida Baptist God—I bet that’s what your nice little missus decided! Probably decided you was spendin too much time layin on top of her—”
Andy grunted as if his wind had been knocked out. His big face looked slapped red. “Ol’ Speck,” he said, tasting that name. “You sure don’t change much.” He drew closer to the fire.
Daniels drew his flask out of his coveralls and helped himself to a hard snort before passing it around. Nobody took it. “Since when?” he challenged Lucius. “Since Gator Hook? Ain’t gone to drink with a man that’s on your list?” He took a few turns like a dog before settling slowly. Raising the flask, he toasted them all in an ironic sweep, and when he lowered it, he fastened on Whidden Harden, seeking a purchase. “That li’l Sally is a tough customer and then some,” he began. “Too tough for me. And she got you pussy-whipped, just like I warned you. Otherwise, you’d be back workin for me. Workin out what you still owe me,” he added quickly, lest Whidden imagine he was wanted on his own merits, or that Speck Daniels might excuse old debts just because he was his son-in-law.