Free Go With Me by Castle Freeman Page A

want, and what they mostly look like is a state prison for the half bad.
    “Well,” Lester said.
    Nate opened the driver’s door and got out of the truck.
    “You probably want to wait out here,” Lester said to Lillian.
    “I’m not sitting out here alone,” said Lillian.
    “Suit yourself,” said Lester. He left the truck and turned toward the building.
    “Aren’t you going to take your gun?” Lillian asked him.
    “Gun?” Lester asked.
    “That’s right,” said Lillian. “Your package? Aren’t you going to bring it?”
    Lester paused. He seemed to consider. Then he shook his head.
    “I guess not this time,” he said.
    The three of them had started toward the building when a door marked OFFICE in the near end of the first floor opened, and a tall man stood in front of it looking at them. He was a big one, all right: six and a half feet high and in no way skinny, with a long tangled beard that hung from his chin to his chest. The beard was black at the sides and gray down the middle and made the man look like he was in the act of eating a skunk headfirst.
    The bearded man approached them.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” he said.
    Nate took a step toward him and turned a little, so his left shoulder was toward the man. But then Lester said, “Hello, Stu.”
    The man looked past Nate to Lester. “Oh, yeah,” he said.
    “How have you been, Stu?” Lester asked.
    “What do you want?” asked the man.
    “Blackway,” said Lester. “We’re looking for Blackway.”
    “What for?”
    “He’ll want to see us,” Lester said. He looked at Nate. “Ain’t that right?” he asked Nate.
    “That’s right,” said Nate.
    “That’s right,” said Lester.“Blackway’s a lucky man today. We’ve got some good news for Blackway. He’ll want to see us.”
    “He ain’t here,” said Stu. “He was, but he left.”
    “That’s too bad,” Lester said. “Ain’t that too bad?” he said to Nate.
    “That’s too bad,” Nate said.
    “Blackway will be hot about missing us,” Lester said.“Won’t he?”
    “He will,” said Nate.
    “He won’t be happy,” said Lester.
    “He won’t,” said Nate.
    “His partner’s here,” said Stu. “You can see him.”
    Just then a woman in a room on the second floor began to laugh. She began, and she didn’t stop: a high, clear, unhinged laugh as though she was being tickled. She laughed until she ran out of breath, then she started in again.
    “ Hee-hee-heee-heee. Oh, hee-heee-heee. ”
    “What did you say?” Lester asked.
    “You can see his partner,” said Stu. He turned and led them up a flight of concrete steps to the second-floor balcony and along it to a room halfway down. He knocked on the door. It opened immediately. A man stood in the doorway, filling it. In the adjoining room the woman’s laughter went on and on. The man in the door stepped back out of the way. Nate, Lester, and Lillian followed Stu into the room.
    In the room there were four men. One sat in a chair at a credenza against the wall to the left. The others stood: one beside the bed, one in the corner beyond the bed, and the fourth, who had let them in, near the door. On the bed were two large suitcases.
    All the lights in the room were on. There was a big window in the wall opposite the door, but its heavy drapes were closed tight.
    The man standing beside the bed was snapping shut the lid of one of the suitcases when the three of them entered behind Stu.
    The man sitting at the credenza looked up at them. He blinked. “Uh, who are they?” he asked.
    From the next room the crazy woman’s noise was louder than it had been out on the balcony. It wasn’t laughter now, but a broken wail, a howl as of the world’s lonesomest coyote on the world’s lonesomest prairie. “Say what?” asked Stu.
    “Who are they?”
    “Looking for Blackway,” said Stu.
    “ Yoo-ooo-woo-wooo-wooo. ”
    “What?” said the man at the credenza. “Which one is that?” he asked