I said, “Listen, if we got nailed for everything we did, we’d all be in jail.”
He laughed. “Hey, I like you. I like your attitude.”
Daisy brought our beers and I watched while Tap pulled out a ten. “Run us a tab,” he said to her.
She picked up the bill and moved back toward the register where I saw her make a note. Meanwhile, Tap studied me, trying to figure out where I was coming from. “I bet you never robbed nobody at gunpoint.”
“No, but my old man did,” I said easily. “Did time for it, too.” Oh, I liked that. The lie rolled right off my tongue without a moment’s thought.
“You’re b.s.-in’ me. Your old man did time? Don’t give me that. Where?” The “where” came out sounding like “were.”
“Lompoc,” I said.
“That’s federal,” he said. “What’d he do, rob a bank?”
I pointed at him, aiming my ringer like a gun.
“Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn.” He was excited now, as if he’d just found out my father was a former president. “How’d he get caught?”
I shrugged. “He’d been picked up before for passing bad checks, so they just matched the prints on the note he handed the teller. He never even had a chance to spend the money.”
“And you never done any time yourself?”
“Not me. I’m a real law-and-order type.”
“That’s good. You keep that up. You’re too nice to get mixed up with prison types. Women are the worst. Do all kind of things. I’ve heard tales that’d make your hair stand right up on end. And not the hair on your head neither.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. I changed the subject, not wanting to lie any more than I had to. “How many kids you got?”
“Here, lemme show you,” he said, reaching in his back pocket. He took out his wallet and flipped it open to a photo tucked in the window where his driver’s license should have been. “That’s Joleen.”
The woman staring out of the picture looked young and somewhat amazed. Four little children surrounded her, scrubbed, grinning, and shiny-faced. The oldest was a boy, probably nine, snaggle-toothed, his hair still visibly damp where she’d combed it into a pompadour just like his dad’s. Two girls came next, probably six and eight. A plump-armed baby boy was perched on his mother’s lap. The picture had been shot in a studio, the five of them posed in the midst of a faux picnic scene complete with a red-and-white checked cloth and artificial tree branches overhead. The baby held a fake apple in one chubby fist like a ball.
“Well, they’re cute,” I said, hoping he didn’t pick up on the note of astonishment.
“They’re rascals,” he said fondly. “This was last year. She’s pregnant again. She’s wishin’ she didn’t have to work, but we do pretty good.”
“What’s she do?”
“She’s a nurse’s aide up at Community Hospital on the orthopedic ward, night shift. She’ll work eleven to seven. Then she gets home and I take off, drop the kids at school, and swing back around to the station. We got a babysitter for the little guy. I don’t know quite what we’ll do when the new one comes along.”
“You’ll figure something out,” I said.
“I guess,” he said. He flopped the wallet shut and tucked it back in his pocket.
I bought a round of beers and then he bought one. I felt guilty about getting the poor man sloshed, but I had another question or two for him and I wanted his inhibitions out of the way. Meanwhile, the population in the bar was thinning down from ten to maybe six. I noticed, with regret, that Shana Timberlake had left. The jukebox had been fixed and the volume of the music was just loud enough to guarantee privacy without being so obtrusive we’d be forced to shout. I was relaxed, but not as loose as I allowed Tap to think. I gave his arm a bump.
“Tell me something,” I said soddenly. “I’m just curious.”
“What’s that?”
“How much money did you and this Bailey fellow net?”
“Net?”
“In round numbers. About how much you make? I’m just asking. You don’t have to say.”
“We paid restitution on two thousand some-odd dollar.”
“Two thousand? Bull. You made more than that,” I said.
Tap flushed with pleasure. “You think so?”
“Even bumpin’ off gas stations, you made more, I bet.”
“That’s all I ever saw,” he said.
“That’s all they caught you for,” I said, correcting him.
“That’s all I put in my pocket. And that’s the honest truth.”
“But how much else? How much altogether?”
Tap studied up on that one, extending his chin, pulling at his lip in a parody of deep thought. “In the neighborhood, I would say, of … would you believe, forty-two thousand six hundred and six.”
“Who got that? Bailey got that?” “Oh, it’s gone now. He never did see a dime of it neither, as far as I know.” “Where’d it come from?” “Couple little jobs we pulled they never found out about.”
I laughed with delight. “Well, you old devil, you,” I said, and gave his arm another push. “Where’d it go?”
“Beats me.”
I laughed again and he got tickled, too. Somehow, it seemed like the funniest thing either of us ever heard. After half a minute, the laughter trickled out and Tap shook his head.
“Whoo, that’s good,” he said. “I haven’t laughed like that since I don’t know when.”
“You think Bailey killed that little girl?”
“Don’t know,” he said, “but I will tell you this. When we went off to jail? We give the money to Jean Timberlake to hold. He got out and next thing I know, she’s dead and he says he don’t know where the money’s at. It was long gone.”
“Why didn’t you get it when the two of you got out?”
“Ah, no. Huh-unh. The cops prob’ly had their eye on us, waitin’ to see if we’d make a move. Goddamn. Everybody figured he killed her for sure. Me, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like him. Then again, she might of spent all the money and he choked her in a fit.”
“Naw. I don’t believe that. I thought Pearl said she was knocked up.”
“Well, she was, but Bailey wouldn’t kill her for that. What’s the point? The money’s all we cared about, and why in hell not? We done jail time. We paid. We get out and we’re too smart to start throwin’ cash around. We laid low. After she died, Bailey told me she was the only one knew for sure where it was and she never told. He didn’t want to know in case he ever had to take a lie detector test. Gone for good by now. Or maybe it’s still hid, only nobody knows where.”
“Maybe he has it after all. Maybe that’s what he’s lived on the whole time he’s been gone.”
“I don’t know. I doubt it, but I’d sure like to have me a little talk with him.”
“What do you think, though? Honestly.”
“The honest truth?” he said, fixing me with a look. He leaned closer, winking. “I think I gotta go see a man about a dog. Don’t go “way now.” He eased off the stool. He turned and pointed a finger at me solemnly like a gun. I fired a digit right back at him. He proceeded to the John, walking with the exaggerated nonchalance of a man who’s drunk.
I waited fifteen minutes, nursing my beer, with an occasional glance at the door to the unisex facility. The woman who’d been dancing with Shana Timberlake was now playing pool with a kid who looked eighteen. It was nearly midnight by then, and Daisy started cleaning off the bar with a rag.
“Where’d Tap go?” I said when she had worked her way down within range of me.
“He got a phone call and took off.”
“Just now?”
“Few minutes ago. He still owes a couple bucks on that tab.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. I laid a five on the bar and waved away any change.
She was looking at me. “You know Tap’s the biggest bullshitter ever lived.” “I gathered as much.”
Her gaze was dark. “He might have been in trouble some years ago, but these days he’s a decent family man. Nice wife and kids.”
“Why tell me? I’m not hustling his buns.”
“Why all the questions about the Fowler boy? You been pumping him all night.”
“I talked to Royce. I’m curious about this business with his son, that’s all.”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s just something to jaw about. There’s nothing else going on.”
She seemed to soften, apparently satisfied at the benevolence of my intent. “You here on vacation?”
“Business,” I replied. I thought she’d pursue it, but she let the subject drop.
“We close about this time weeknights,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay while I lock up in back, but Pearl doesn’t like anyone around when I close out the register.”