The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton

Clearwater’s door, knocking, and when he came to the door, saying, “Ma’am, I’ve got something real pretty in a little box here I’d like to show you if you wouldn’t mind me coming in just a minute,” and maybe Clearwater would laugh. And then Henry could ask him if he could borrow his car. Naw. It wouldn’t work. He’d better not. Clearwater probably wouldn’t even laugh. He looked like Clark Gable with big ears, but he acted kind of like . . . President Truman. Not very juicy at all.
    Blinky Smathers was five feet tall — five feet even. He usually wore a little flat British hat with a top that flopped forward onto the short bill. His big red face was square, his eyebrows came together in the middle, and his eyes bulged out. He didn’t talk — rather, he barked, hoarsely. As if he were six feet tall, he strode toward Clearwater, grabbed his hand, reached up, slapped him on the shoulder, and growled, “It’s good to see you, Bucky. On the muddy Okaloga. I got a hour or two.” Another man, wearing sunglasses, sat in the open driver’s door of Blinky’s Cadillac, picking at a wildflower, letting the pieces drop one by one.
    “Is he going to stay in the car?” asked Clearwater.
    “He’s not the talky type.”
    In a few minutes, Blinky and Clearwater faced each other, sitting in rocking chairs on the small porch of Clearwater’s cabin.
    “Do you want me to send you somebody to help you out?” asked Blinky. “Or do you want to keep the boy for these next two?”
    “He’s okay. So far.”
    “You know I’d like to do it myself, but I just can’t afford to get mixed up in it no more.”
    “I know,” said Clearwater.
    “Too much to look after. Way too busy.”
    “Yeah, I know, and it’s getting bigger all the time, ain’t it?”
    “Oh yeah. I want you up at the top with me, Bucky, right there beside me — just like in that first jeep.” Blinky held up the freshly lit tip of his cigar and looked at it. “You remember that — you riding my back so we wouldn’t have but one set of footprints?”
    “Of course I remember it.”
    “God, what fun. If they paid any attention to them footprints in that mud, they said, ‘Whoa. That was one heavy son of a bitch.’ Huh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Now. Okay — this new stuff, two safes, I’m keeping off the sheets. I can do that every once in a while. Just you and me and Teddy Lamont know about it. You remember Teddy. He’s the mole on this first gig, close to Panakala, Florida, at a plantation. I’ve drawn up a rough plan. You can smooth it out. A Sunday morning gig. Teddy will have some women in on it Saturday night for the hired hands around there. He’s assured me the coast’ll be clear. We’ll have to take the whole safe — with a forklift and dump truck — or at least you’ll have the forklift if you need it. The safe’s full of secret compartments. We’re lucky to have that truck and forklift, Bucky. They’ve come in handy. The mark, a Greenlove out of New York, you may have heard of him, will never report it missing. He can’t afford to. We know that. I’ll take a train down here to see the family. You’ll deliver the safe to me — right here at the cabin camp — and I’ll drive it back in the truck, get it open at the plant. You can follow me up there if you want to. But you know you can trust me. We’ll do a sixty-forty split. You decide what you want to pay the boy.”
    “Sixty-forty which way?”
    Blinky laughed. “Aw, Bucky. You’re still funny. Still funny. Now, the second gig is just as big, I think, but different. A doctor. We don’t need the safe. Just what’s in it. You can decide how to get him to open it. Straight job. The G-boys are about to start an investigation. Down in Drain. But the doc don’t know they’re after him. You know Drain?”
    “Oh yeah.”
    “The truck and forklift is already scheduled for you to pick up in McNeill.” Blinky handed Clearwater a folder. “It’s all in there. Get up