Judd said, "Don't want to get caught short."

They stacked it to one side and Judd pulled up a plastic chair and sat down, staring at the money, while the banker and lawyer dug into the rest of the paper, insurance policies, deeds, photographs, a couple boxes of jewelry.

THAT WAS in the afternoon, in which some other things happened, but none that turned out to be important.

IN THE EVENING, Joan Carson sat in the candlelight at Tijuana Jack's and looked terrific. She wore a cotton summer-knit dress the color of raw linen, with a necklace of marble-sized jade beads that perfectly matched her eyes. She had a scattering of faint freckles across her short nose, and Virgil noticed for the first time that she had a chipped tooth, which gave her a tomboyish vibration.

She leaned toward him, her dress opening just enough to reveal the tops of her breasts, though Virgil looked resolutely into her eyes, and she whispered, "Motherfucker?"

Virgil whispered, "That's what the man said." He laughed, a low, chuckling laugh, and said, "Junior Judd's sitting down, staring at the money, two hundred thousand dollars on the table, three inches from his nose. He's absolutely drooling on it. Then the lawyer says-Turner says-like it's a big mystery, 'I don't see the will here.' And Judd jumps up and screams, 'Motherfucker!'"

She giggled, and rubbed her nose, her eyes bright with amusement.

Virgil continued: "I thought we were gonna have to club him down to his knees, to keep him off Turner's throat. Turner keeps saying, 'It wasn't me, it wasn't me,' and Judd's walking around saying, 'Motherfucker! Motherfucker!' and the bank guy pulls all the receipts and it turns out old man Judd went into the box a week ago. We talked to the vault lady, and she says when Judd went into it, he told her he didn't want one of those privacy booths, he just wanted to get out a document. She saw it, and it was in a beige legal envelope, and we all think it was the one-and-only will."