“This some kind of scam? You trying to put something on us?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a beef with your son. For breaking Jo Anne McDuffy’s windows.”
“He didn’t break any windows. Now get away from my door.”
“Why don’t you tell him to take the mashed potatoes out of his mouth and come here and defend himself like a man?”
“You by yourself?” he said, peeking around both sides of my head.
“Yep.”
“You think you’re gonna get a few bucks, right?”
“I wouldn’t spit on your money, Mr. Vickers.”
“Where you get off talking to me like that?”
“May I come in?”
“Is that one of Darrel’s little friends?” the woman at the table said.
“No,” Vickers replied.
“Ask him in or close the door,” she said.
Vickers’s face was knotted with consternation. He looked torn between shoving me into the rain or inviting trouble with his wife. “Come inside. And watch your mouth. Got it?”
I entered the foyer. Glass gun cases and the mounted heads of deer and elk and mountain goats and at least one moose lined the walls. The photos on the wall included Richard Nixon, Billy Graham, and Strom Thurmond. A large-print black Bible containing both the Old and New Testament lay on a small table under a lamp by the hall closet, the words “Bless Our Home” stamped in gold on the cover.
“What might your name be?” the woman said to me. Her hair was parted in the middle and pulled straight back; her features could have been shaped with a putty knife. She wore a black blouse with a white lace collar and had an animated sternness about her that suggested a conjugal situation similar to waking up each morning on a medieval rack.
“I’m Aaron Holland Broussard, Mrs. Vickers. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“He’s here about business, Dorothea,” Vickers said.
“What kind of business?” she asked.
“I heard Darrel was in an accident out by Ludlow,” I said. “I hope he’s okay.”
Vickers had gone back to the table and was still standing. He dropped his piece of fried chicken on his plate and wiped his hand with a cloth napkin as if cleaning a dirty wrench. “You talking about the damage to my race car? I got slammed up in a practice run at Castle Rock. This has got nothing to do with our son.”
“Just tell him to get out, Daddy,” Darrel said. “Take the quirt to him if you have to.”
Mrs. Vickers tapped her spoon on the tablecloth. “Both of you calm down. What’s this about a quirt?”
“I believe Mr. Vickers’s race car was involved in an accident with a school bus,” I said. “The one the beatniks ride around in.”
“What beatniks?” she said. “Darrel, have you been hanging around with beatniks?”
“No, he hasn’t,” Vickers said. “And you get out of here, Broussard.” He nailed me in the sternum with his index finger.
“No, we will finish this here and now,” Mrs. Vickers said. “Don’t lie to me, Darrel. Were you in an accident?”
“I was up by Ludlow. The bus came out of nowhere and hit me.”
“Why were you in Ludlow?” she said.
“Trying to help those girls.”