Wild Animals by Robert Sims Reid

Author:Robert Sims Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Argo-Navis

♦♦♦

Back at the office, Bartell found Cash and Thomas Cassidy huddled at Cassidy’s desk, with Cash playing Phineas T. Bluster to Cassidy’s eternal Howdy Doody. In today’s episode, though, Howdy was grim, and Phineas was almost apologetic.

“I can’t believe he’d of done this to you on purpose,” Cash said.

“Jesus Christ, Cash,” Cassidy said. “You’ve got a lot to learn. You really do need representation.”

Cassidy, it happened, had made good on his offer of lunch, and while Cash was busy trying to figure out what Caesar had to do with a salad, he’d told Cassidy what he knew about the story line of Busted Heart II. Something about the renegade young sheriff rescuing his reformed outlaw father from the old gang that’s trying to intimidate the old man back into life on the run.

“That miserable sonofabitch,” Cassidy steamed. “I had my agent send McWilliams that novel over a year ago.”

Cash sat on the edge of Cassidy’s desk and shook his head sadly. “I know Brand ain’t no saint, Tommy. And I guess he probably is a sonofabitch too. But I’m telling you, he ain’t a thief. Lord God, he’s got so much money, he don’t need to steal.”

“That’s not the point,” Cassidy said. “Hollywood people don’t steal because they need to. They do it because they can. They do it just to stay in practice. And then, goddammit, they think you should be flattered to have something they think’s worth stealing.”

“I thought,” Bartell ventured, “this new movie was a western.”

“Give me a break,” Cassidy huffed. “You substitute horses for cars, dynamite for plastic explosives, and there’s your goddamn western. I’m telling you, Ray, I wrote that fucking story. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m calling my agent right fucking now.” Not wasting further time on show business amateurs, Cassidy grabbed the phone and began pounding out numbers.

Now Cash shrugged, slid off the desk, and rambled over to his son’s side of the office. “You know, this don’t look much like a police station to me. You got any wanted posters around?”

Bartell was about to observe that he thought his father knew more about the insides of police stations than that, when Red Hanrahan came straggling in, looking as though he’d just returned from witnessing unspeakable carnage.

“Lawyers,” Hanrahan growled.

“Yep, yep,” Cash clucked, not missing a beat. “I shared a drunk tank once with a lawyer. Over in Lewistown, it was. Poor bastard kept mumbling something about habeas corpus. Putting on airs, that’s how it is with lawyers. He looked like a regular old corpse to me.”

“Right after this recess,” Hanrahan went on, “we head into chambers. Now this lump of toe jam called a defense attorney is claiming his client’s too irrational to continue with the trial. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Bartell thought about Skelton, and the cast of nuts he’d just left out at that walk-in clinic Merle Puhl called a ranch. “You’re lucky, Red. At least you’re dealing with a real criminal. Me, I’m still trying to find a scorecard.

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