Twenty minutes later, Cane and Cob passed by a group of soldiers on horseback gathered around the front of the courthouse. Wondering what they were up to, Cane stopped his brother and casually lit a cigar, listened to a man with a thick black mustache tell the others that their main objective was to find a Lieutenant Bovard. Apparently, he’d been missing since sometime yesterday. Satisfied that the patrol had nothing to do with them, the brothers walked on and entered Goldman’s Restaurant, advertised in the window as THE PREMIER DINING EXPERIENCE IN SOUTHERN OHIO. A man in a slightly frayed tuxedo sat at an out-of-tune piano, sipping from a paper bag and picking out melancholy notes like might be played by a guilt-ridden ax murderer in the wee hours. After debating whether or not to even acknowledge the two’s presence, a waiter in a white coat led them to a table under the chandelier in the middle of the room, then rather disdainfully placed leather-bound menus in their hands. Though Curtis Skiver had grown up the son of a penniless wheelwright in nearby Massieville, his years serving as head ma?tre d’ at Goldman’s had gradually caused him to forget his roots, and he absolutely detested waiting on hicks nowadays. Besides being ignorant of the most basic table etiquette, they ordered the cheapest item on the menu and never left a tip. However, when the one in the cheap suit asked for eight lobsters, along with boiled potatoes and slaw, an entire plate of macaroons, and the most expensive bottle of champagne on the list, he perked up a bit. Perhaps Mr. Goldman was onto something after all. Curtis had thought it ridiculous when his boss had him order two dozen of the lowly crustaceans from Boston, but the old man (he was always bragging that he was an innovator, a man ahead of his time, though for what reason, Curtis had never been able to figure out) had boldly claimed that with the right marketing, lobster could be turned from a food looked upon as fit only for the lower classes into a delicacy sought after by the rich. And though the waiter insisted that the pair show him proof up front that they could pay for such an expensive spread, to his credit he subsequently took it upon himself to show them how to crack the shells and dig out the meat and dip it into the special sauce that Goldman hoped to someday peddle in groceries all over America.
Cane and Cob were still sitting at the table with white napkins tucked into their shirts when Sugar walked by the window and casually glanced inside. Perhaps because he was so weak from hunger—the only thing he had eaten in several days was a bowl of soup in the jail made from carrot scrapings and potato peelings—it took him a moment to realize that he was looking right at two of the bastards who had shot the hell out of his beloved bowler, two of the same men pictured on the wanted poster that the pack of white motherfuckers down at the river showed him right before they tossed him over the bridge like a sack of garbage, and on that other flyer he’d seen hanging inside the jail just today. They looked different—for one thing, the cowpoke shit was gone—but he was almost positive it was them. He went across the street and hunkered down in the doorway of an empty storefront and waited, wondering where the skinny one might be. Thirty minutes ticked by before they came out of the restaurant chewing on toothpicks. The fat one was limping, and Sugar remembered the rag wrapped around his leg. It was them, no doubt about it. He followed them around the corner to a theater, watched them stand in line to buy tickets and then go inside. Not sure yet how to proceed, he stood down the street half a block and waited. Fifty-five hundred dollars, that’s what the poster had said. He smiled to himself. After all the torment and trouble he’d been through in the past week, things were finally starting to look up.
67
JUST AS THE still slightly baffled waiter at Goldman’s was handing Cane his change from a hundred-dollar bill, Chimney walked out of a florist’s shop called Charley’s with a dozen red roses just shipped in from Florida by train, and laid them on the front seat of the Ford. A man who’d come to the Whore Barn last night bearing a single wilted carnation for Peaches had given him the idea. By this time, he had gone from thinking he would offhandedly offer Matilda a way out of whoring to figuring this was the most important night of his life, and he wanted to make the best impression possible. He tried not to worry, but he was growing more apprehensive by the minute. What if she refused him? How should he react? And what if the pimp wouldn’t let her go? What then? He started the car, wondering as he turned the crank if he should put the top up, then decided he could do that later. Distracted by all the questions and doubts running through his head, he nearly collided with a couple of soldiers on horseback while making a U-turn in the street. Ignoring their curses, he continued south down Paint Street toward the Whore Barn, but then, just as he got to the paper mill, he decided he better have a drink to settle his nerves before going any farther. The only bar around was the Blind Owl, that dismal joint he and Cane had stopped at right after meeting Matilda for the first time, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t like he was going to hang out there all evening. He pulled the Ford over and shut off the engine, sat for a minute going over the speech again that he planned to dazzle her with once they were alone in the tent. The sun was beginning to set when he got out of the car and went inside. The place was empty, and only one coal-oil lamp was lit to lessen the gloom. Even it was doing little but sputtering blackish fumes. He was just sitting down on a stool when the keep came out of the back room with a sullen look on his face. “A shot and a beer,” Chimney said, pushing his derby back on his head and resting his skinny arms on top of the bar.
“Only if ye got fifty cents,” Pollard said.
“Don’t worry, I got the money.”
“You know how many times I’ve heard that shit?”