Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard Read Free Book Online Page B

Germany, in ’35.’ He says Honey Deal thinks there’s a good chance her ex-husband knew him. Walter Schoen. Kevin said they asked Walter about him. All he did was shake his head.”
    â€œI imagine,” Virgil said, “you want to talk to this guy yourself.”
    â€œI’ve been thinking about it, and his ex-wife, Honey. I asked Kevin if he thought Walter Schoen was attractive to women. He said, ‘You think Heinrich Himmler is? That’s who Walter looks like.’ What I wanted to know was why a smart, good-looking girl from East Kentucky would care to marry him? Kevin said, ‘Honey thought she could change him, turn him around.’ I said, ‘Hell, that’s what all women try to do.’ He said she told him marrying Walter was the biggest mistake of her life, so far. I’ll get with her first,” Carl said, “then Walter Schoen. Kevin talked to his boss and he talked to the Bureau office in Tulsa, and they vouched for me, so I can do pretty much what I want.”
    â€œSince the Hun was a friend of yours.”
    â€œHe could be, once the war’s over. I hope he stays alive.”

Five
    N arcissa Raincrow, Virgil’s common-law wife of thirty-nine years, called out supper was ready and served them fried chicken and rice with gravy at the round table in the back part of the kitchen. Narcissa, fifty-four now, had been living here since she was sixteen, hired to wet-nurse Carl when his mother, Graciaplena, died giving birth to him. This was in 1906. Virgil had married Grace and brought her here from Cuba after the war with Spain. Carl was named for Grace’s father, Carlos. Narcissa, unmarried, had delivered a child stillborn and needed to give her milk to a newborn infant. When Carl first brought his wife, Louly, to the house he told her that by the time he’d lost interest in Narcissa’s breasts, his dad had acquired an appreciation, first keeping her on as housekeeper and cook, finally as his common-law wife. Virgil thought she looked like Dolores Del Rio only heavier.
    Narcissa said to Carl eating his chicken, “I got a letter from Louly you can read if you want. I write her, she always answers my letter.”
    Carl said he talked to her on the phone every week.
    Virgil said, “You tell the FBI agent your wife’s a marine?”
    â€œI tell everybody I meet,” Carl said, “Louly’s a gunnery instructor at a marine air base. Shows recruits how to fire a Browning machine gun from the backseat of a Dauntless dive-bomber without shooting off the tail. Louly’s having all the fun.”
    â€œHe misses the war,” Virgil said.
    â€œHe would still be in it,” Narcissa said, “he wasn’t shot that time.” She said to Carl, “You lucky, you know it?” And said, “Virgil tell you the FBI man called?”
    â€œI tried him, he was gone for the day,” Carl said, busy with his chicken and rice. “I’ll see him tomorrow.”
    â€œHow come he asked for Carlos Webster?”
    Carl saw his dad stop eating his supper to watch him.
    â€œI told Kevin I was Carlos. I’m thinking of using it again while I’m in Detroit.”
    â€œNobody’s called you that since you were a boy,” Virgil said. “Or up to when you joined the marshals and they started calling you Carl. You’d tell ’em you’re Carlos and come near having fistfights over it till your boss calmed you down. You recall why you wanted to stick with Carlos?”
    Carl said, “’Cause it’s my name?”
    â€œStill a smarty-pants,” Narcissa said.
    â€œYou were wearing it like a chip on your shoulder,” Virgil said. “You know why?”
    â€œI know what you’re gonna say.”
    â€œâ€™Cause a long time ago that moron Emmett Long took your ice cream cone and called you a greaser. I told you he couldn’t read nor write or he wouldn’t be