Baker grabbed Vince Hogan by one flabby, sunburned arm and pulled him forward.
"Hey! What's the idea, Big John?"
Baker turned his head so Nick could see his lips. "Is this one of em?"
Nick nodded firmly, and pointed at Vince for good measure.
"What is this?" Vince protested again. "I don't know this dummy from Adam."
"Then how come you know he's a dummy? Come on, Vince, you're going to the cooler. Toot-sweet. You can send one of these boys to get your toothbrush."
Protesting, Vince was led to the Power Wagon and deposited inside. Protesting, he was taken back to town. Protesting, he was locked up and left to stew for a couple of hours. Baker didn't bother with reading him his rights. "Damn fool'd just get confused," he told Nick. When Baker went back around noon, Vince was too hungry and too scared to do any more protesting. He just spilled everything.
Mike Childress was in the jug by one o'clock, and Baker got Billy Warner at his house just as Billy was packing up his old Chrysler to go someplace - along piece from the look of all the packed liquor-store boxes and strapped-together luggage. But somebody had talked to Ray Booth, and Ray had been just smart enough to move a little quicker.
Baker took Nick home to meet his wife and have some supper. In the car Nick wrote on the memo pad: "I am sure sorry it's her brother. How is she taking it?"
"She's bearing up," Baker said, both his voice and the set of his body almost formal. "I guess she's done some crying over him, but she knew what he was. And she knows you can't pick your relatives like you do your friends."
Jane Baker was a small, pretty woman who had indeed been crying. Looking at her deeply socketed eyes made Nick uncomfortable. But she shook his hand warmly and said; "I'm pleased to know you, Nick. And I apologize deeply for your trouble. I feel responsible, with one of mine being a part of it and all."
Nick shook his head and shuffled his feet awkwardly.
"I offered him a job around the place," Baker said. "Station's gone right to hell since Bradley moved up to Little Rock. Painting and picking up, mostly. He's gonna have to stick around for a while anyway - for the... you know."
"The trial, yes," she said.
There was a moment then in which the silence was so heavy even Nick found it painful.
Then, with forced gaiety, she said, "I hope you eat redeye ham, Nick. That's what there is, along with some corn and a big bowl of slaw. My slaw's never been up to what his mother used to make. That's what he says, anyway."
Nick rubbed his stomach and smiled.
Over dessert (a strawberry shortcake - Nick, who had been on short rations during the last couple of weeks, had two helpings), Jane Baker said to her husband: "Your cold sounds worse. You've been taking too much on, John Baker. And you didn't eat enough to keep a fly alive."
Baker looked guiltily at his plate for a moment, then shrugged. "I can afford to miss a meal now and then," he said, and palpated his double chin.
Nick, watching them, wondered how two people of such radically different size got along in bed. I guess they manage, he thought with an interior grin. They sure look comfortable enough with each other. And not that it's any of my business anyway.
"You're flushed, too. You carrying a fever?"
Baker shrugged. "Nope... well. Maybe a touch."
"Well, you're not going out again tonight. That's final."
"My dear, I have prisoners. If they don't specially need to be watched, they do need to be fed and watered."
"Nick can do it," she said with finality. "You're going to bed. And don't go on about your insomnia; it won't do you any good."
"I cant send Nick," he said weakly. "He's a deaf-mute. Besides, he ain't a deputy."
"Well then, you just up and deputize him."
"He ain't a resident!"
"I won't tell if you won't," Jane Baker said inexorably. She stood up and began clearing the table. "Now you just go on and do it, John."
And that was how Nick Andros went from Shoyo prisoner to Shoyo deputy in less than twenty-four hours. As he was preparing to go up to the sheriff's office, Baker came into the downstairs hall, looking large and ghostly in a frayed bathrobe. He seemed embarrassed to be on view in such attire
"I never should have let her talk me into this," he said. "Wouldn't have done, either, if I didn't feel so punk. My chest's all clogged up and I'm as hot as a fire sale two days before Christmas. Weak, too."
Nick nodded sympathetically.
"I'm stuck between deputies. Bradley Caide and his wife went up to Little Rock after their baby passed away. One of those crib deaths. Awful thing. I don't blame them for going."
Nick pointed at his own chest and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.
"Sure, you'll be okay. You just take normal care, you hear? There's a .45 in the third drawer of my desk, but don't you be takin it back there. Nor the keys either. Understand?"