“And what if we did?” Russel said. “We’re just a thief and a hog-raising private eye.”
“You’re sure this is something you want to do?” I asked Russel.
“It’s the first thing I’ve ever been sure of in my life,” Russel said. “Bad as it is.”
Jim Bob came over and poured me some more whiskey I didn’t want, poured Russel and himself another.
“What I’ll do,” I said, “is stay with you guys until you've looked things over, seen how it’s to be done. You might need me for something. When it comes time for… when it’s time, take me to the bus station.”
“Fair enough,” Russel said. “And thanks.”
35
“This here,” Jim Bob said introducing us to the man, “is Manuel Rodriguez. He’s in the country legal, but he ain’t a legal doctor.”
“That was a nice introduction,” Rodriguez said shaking our hands, “I hope to do the same for you another time, Jim Bob.”
“Important here everyone knows how we stand,” Jim Bob said.
“Ah, business,” Rodriguez said. He was a little guy, maybe four feet eight with black hair going gray at the temples. His eyes threatened to close even as he looked at you, as if he had been awake too long. He had some ill-fitting dentures, and I kept wanting to hold my hand under his chin lest they fall out while he talked. We were at his house. A hot little wood-frame place he shared with Raoul, three other women and a little girl. The place smelled of sweat and cabbage, and mildew that came from the old straw that backed the almost worthless water fan in the living room window. Two of the women looked to be in their thirties, the other, perhaps Rodriguez’s wife, was closer to fifty. They all wore clothes that were too small or too large. Jeans and blouses and flat-heeled shoes fresh from garage sales. The little girl wore a stained yellow dress and had a doll without any clothes. She sat on the floor and looked at me. I smiled at her. She smiled back, but she didn’t come over to see me.
Jim Bob had brought meat and vegetables with him, and he gave those to the older woman and she thanked him in Spanish and gave him a nod. He said something back to her, and she took the meat and put it in the freezer compartment of a bullet-shaped refrigerator and put the tomatoes in the bottom. She took the okra to the sink and started washing it. One of the younger women got a pan out from under the sink and set it on the drain board and the younger woman took a knife and cut the okra up and put it in the pan. The third woman stood by, as if on sentry duty. She had a stern face, like she had seen much and hadn’t liked any of it. I wondered if this was Raoul’s wife, the one whose pussy hair he didn’t want to plant. Raoul himself, after a friendly greeting, had gone outside.
No one introduced us to the women.
We sat on the couch for a time, and Jim Bob and Rodriguez talked about the weather and Jim Bob told him about his hogs. The third woman, the one that might have been Raoul’s wife, seemed to be taking a personal interest in me, and like the things she had seen before, I wasn’t any better. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. I checked my fly casually. Zipped. She finally quit watching me and left the room, no doubt to glare at some wallpaper or something. The little girl held up her doll for me to see, but it was a look from a distance. She still didn’t come over to see me. I smiled at her and she kept smiling. The two women at the sink kept their backs to us. Russel got up and went out on the front porch to smoke a cigarette. I twiddled my thumbs and tried to look interested in the conversation, which had switched from hogs to the Astros. Jim Bob and Rodriguez were worried about someone’s pitching arm. I wished I had a cigarette to smoke.
“Shall we go outside, gentlemen?” Rodriguez said.
“Why the hell not,” Jim Bob said, and we all went out to join Russel on the front porch. I smiled at the little girl on the way out and patted her doll on the head when she held it up to me.
It was cooler on the porch than inside. There was an old couch on the porch, and Rodriguez sat on that. Jim Bob sat down on the edge of the porch and Russel sat down on the steps. That left me to lean on the porch post, because the rest of the couch was a disaster area. Springs stuck up through the cushions like corkscrews craving your ass.
Rodriguez’s manner had changed now that we were outside. He looked a little more alert. “The money up front like last time?” he said going right into it.
“Five hundred up front,” Jim Bob said, “and if nothing happens, you keep it. We get some holes in us, I’ll pay you whatever it takes to plug them.”
“Last time,” Rodriguez said, “it was five hundred just for you.”
“It’s five hundred for all of us this time,” Jim Bob said. “You have to work on more than one of us, I’ll pay you for what it’s worth. You know my word is good.”
“Medicine, when you are not legal, is very expensive,” Rodriguez said, looking pained by the fact.
“I know that. Wouldn’t need you if you were legal. We just want to make sure we got someone here to take care of us so we won’t have to report any bullet wounds to the police.”
“I can only do so much. If it’s real bad—”
“We go through this every time,” Jim Bob said.
“I like you to know,” Rodriguez said, and he waved a hand at us. “I want them to know. I can only do so much without a hospital and nurses and the good medicines.”
“They understand,” Jim Bob said.
Rodriguez considered. “Five hundred for three up front is not much.”
“Take it or go fuck a goat,” Jim Bob said.
Rodriguez smiled and his false teeth looked certain to go for a dive. I started to leap for them, but by some miracle they stayed in his mouth. “I like goats,” he said. “They feel good and tight on the dick and they don’t talk back and want to have this orgasm thing. They just baa a little. But you see, I got the wife. And she does talk. She likes money. We have to pay the rent on this very nice place. She and I are legal, but the others are not. They work hard to pay their part of the rent, but they can’t get very good jobs—”
“I pay Raoul good,” Jim Bob said with more than a taste of indignation.
“And my wife and I, we’re not making so much either. Ever since the legal abortions, I’ve hardly made enough to put food on the table. And Rosalita, she has the bad knees. And there’s the little girl—”
“Christ,” Jim Bob said, “all right, all right cut the fucking fiddle music.”
“But I haven’t told you about the mother I send money to in Mexico.”
“Good,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t. I’ll make it a thousand up front, just to have you on hold, but that’s more than you’re worth. I’m doing this for your wife, who deserves an orgasm, by the way, and Raoul’s little girl. To hell with your old mother in Mexico. She’s probably been dead fifteen years.”
“Twenty,” Rodriguez said.
Jim Bob sighed like Atlas’s job with the world had just been handed to him. He got up and took out his wallet and turned slightly so Rodriguez couldn’t see in it. He took out some bills. He put the wallet in his back pocket again and went over to Rodriguez and bent down and placed the bills separate of each other along the Mexican’s leg and straightened up.
“Count ’em,” Jim Bob said.
Rodriguez did. “Very good,” he said. “A thousand. I am now on duty.”
“Just make sure you don’t go to Mexico anytime soon to see your old mother’s grave.”
Rodriguez laughed and showed those ill-fitting false teeth again. Damn, those things made me nervous. “I will be here until you tell me this thing is done and you do or do not need me.”
“Another thing,” Jim Bob said. “We’ll need to borrow a car for a day or two. Three at the most.”
“You are welcome to Raoul’s truck,” Rodriguez said.
“That’s generous of you with his truck,” Jim Bob said, “but I really didn’t want to send up a smoke signal everywhere I went. Something with four doors would be nice. Inconspicuous, unlike the Bitch. And since you
only have one other car, I must be talking about that one.”
“You must be,” Rodriguez said. “That would be the Rambler, of course.”
“Very good,” Jim Bob said.
Rodriguez shook his head. “The car is a great comfort to me. I have places to go, people to see, things to do.”
“How much?” Jim Bob said.
“About forty dollars a day,” Rodriguez said.
“Forty dollars a day,” Jim Bob said. “I can rent cheaper than that from fucking Hertz. I’ll give you twenty dollars flat out for as long as I need it. I’ll check the oil and water and bring it back with a full tank.”
“Very well,” Raoul said. ‘Twenty dollars for as long as you need it.”
Jim Bob looked suspicious. “That was too easy.”
Rodriguez shrugged. “It has three flats.”
36
When we got back from town with three new tires for the Rambler, Jim Bob said to me: “From here on out, you’re not paying anything. This is mine and Russel’s show, and I’ll put up the gravy. I got enough saved to do us just fine. You stay along for as long as you like, then cut out when you want.”
The Rambler was out back of Rodriguez’s house, parked in a little shed that had once held chickens and still held their calling cards: dirty feathers and dried chicken manure. When you walked in there, the smallest feathers and the dust rose up in a fine, dry cloud and tried to make residence in your nose and throat and choke you to death. The shed being constructed mostly of tin made it as hot as a lion’s balls in the Congo.
The Rambler looked sad there on its three flat tires and the one with tread so thin you could damn near see air through it. There was a coat of dust on it thick enough to plant turnips.
Jim Bob got the jack, tire tool and four-way tool out of the trunk, jacked up the front of the Rambler while Russel quickly loosened the bolts. Rodriguez came out to smile at us with his bad dentures.
“Good tires?” Rodriguez said.
“Best Sears sells,” Jim Bob said. “Would I jack you on tires?”
“You might do that,” Rodriguez said.
“They got tread on them and they hold air,” Jim Bob said, “and that’s a sight more than I can say for these dudes. Now run along and play and let us work.”
“Make the bolts tight,” Rodriguez said, and walked off.
When he was out of earshot, Russel said, “Can he be trusted?”
“Wouldn’t have brought him in on this if I didn’t think he could,” Jim Bob. said. “I’ve used him before, couple of times. Didn’t need him either time, but I was kind of comforted knowing he was there.”
“Yeah,” Russel said, “but we get hit we got to get to him in time.”
“Be an optimist,” Jim Bob said. “I am. Gets you through life happier than a lizard.”
“What about guns?” Russel asked.
“I got us covered on that.”
“When I shoot Freddy,” Russel said softly, “I don’t want it to… I want something that will take him out. You know what I mean. I don’t want him to suffer. Just bam and it’s over.”
“It’s how you use what you have,” Jim Bob said, “but I’ll try and get something with some punch. I’ve got a .357. That could be the thing. I also got the sawed-off and an Ithaca 12-gauge.”
“I don’t like the idea of a shotgun somehow,” Russel said. “It seems… messy.”
‘It is messy,” Jim Bob said. “It’s all messy… Look, you want to back out of this plan, suits me.”
“You back out,” Russel said, “and I’ll still go through with it, one way or another.”
“All right,” Jim Bob said. “I’ll get you something that’s a stopper. It’ll be up to you to put the bullet home.”
“I used to be able to shoot,” Russel said. He took off the old tire and I rolled the new, mounted one around to him and he put it on the wheel stubs and put on the lug bolts and Jim Bob let the jack down. Russel tightened the lug bolts, and we went around back to replace the other two.
When we were finished, Russel stood up and wiped his hands on his pants and said, “I want him to know who I am, and what I’m doing,” he said. “But I don’t want him to hurt much. I want it to be quick. That’s why I want the right gun, Jim Bob. You know what I’m saying?”
“I know,” Jim Bob said.
I drove the Rambler and Jim Bob and Russel went in the pickup. At the house, Jim Bob seated us at the kitchen table and gave us beers, then went upstairs and came back down carrying pistols.
He put one of the revolvers on the table.
“A .38, short-barreled, no sight. A belly gun. I thought I’d use it and the sawed-off double-barrel I got in the Bitch’s trunk. That way I’ll have some insurance should the Mexican get into things. I got a hunch both those boys carry guns.”
“The .357 is for me?” Russel said.
“Yeah.” Jim Bob reached in his shirt pocket and took out a little plastic case and put it and the .357 on the table next to the .38. “There’s your ammunition,” he said. “I’ve got a speed loader for you and a holster. You might want to wear one of my sport jackets so you can keep it out of sight.”
“Sport jacket?” I said.
“Well, I don’t wear it much,” Jim Bob said. “It ain’t my style.”
“I can believe that,” I said.
“I guess we’re set,” Russel said, looking at the gun as if someone had shit a turd in the middle of the table.
“I’ve got a snub-nose .38 in the trunk of the Bitch with an ankle holster. You can wear that for backup.”
“That’s all right,” Russel said.
“I’m not asking, I’m saying. I’m still running the show here, and I say you wear the ankle holster. None of this suits you, I got a couple more guns upstairs, .45 automatic, a .44 western style revolver and an Ithaca 12-gauge. All this is cold stuff, by the way. No way it can be traced unless we get sloppy and leave them lying around with our fingerprints on them.”
“Or they find your bodies,” I said. “Have you thought of that? They just might outshoot you.”
“I’ve thought I might get wounded,” Jim Bob said, “and that’s as far as I’ve thought. I won’t let myself think beyond that. Last two times I didn’t even get that. Came out without a scratch.”
“Was there shooting?”
“First time I bluffed. Second time there was shooting. I shot a little faster.”
“What now?” Russel said. “What’s our next step?”
“We leave the guns for now and start checking Freddy out,” Jim Bob said. “Follow him around for a few days. Find out where he goes and when, and figure how hard or how easy this is all going to be. We get his program down, then we make our own program. Then we do it.” Jim Bob turned to me. “I got the Rambler so if we needed a backup car, something less conspicuous than the Red Bitch, we’d have it. Ben and I’ll do the first watch in the truck. We find out anything that needs you and the Rambler, I’ll call you here. We may just want to switch cars so they won’t be seeing the same one all the time and get suspicious. Guess that’s all you need to know for now.”
“All right,” I said.
“Before you say that,” Jim Bob said, “understand exactly what you’re into. You’re helping plot a murder. We’re going to kill a man and you are an accessory to the deed. You don’t get caught, you got to go through life living with it. Think you can?”
“I don’t like the idea,” I said, “but if I went away now I’d still know you were going to do it, and my knowing is just as bad. I’m going to end up living with it one way or another.”
“I just want it understood,” Russel said, “that when it comes to Freddy, I do the shooting, Jim Bob.”
“No promises,” Jim Bob said. “Looks like Freddy is going to give me a ventilator shaft, I’m taking him out. I’ll do my best to do it your way, but I’m not putting my head on the block. I don’t go that far for anyone. Thing is we’re going to do it, and that’s enough.”
“When do we start?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” Jim Bob said. “Early.”
37
Next morning, well before light, Jim Bob and Russel drove away in the pickup. I stayed around the house and killed time. I had an early breakfast of fried eggs and burned toast and too-strong coffee. Later, about eight, I had a muffin and a glass of milk. Before noon I drank a beer. At noon, I ate a sandwich. I had some iced tea. I watched television; about half of a monster movie where irritated puppets were destroying a cardboard city. Where were The Three Stooges when you really needed them?
I was as nervous as a witch during the Inquisition. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my wife and son. I wanted to go fishing.
I went over and sat by the phone and looked at it.
It wasn’t intimidated. It didn’t ring. I stopped looking at it. I picked up a magazine about hog raising and read about ear mites in the South; they seemed to be a problem, but nothing that couldn’t be defeated. I wondered if Jim Bob’s hogs had ear mites. I wondered what the hogs thought about it if they did. I even tried to see the ear mite’s side of it. The phone still didn’t ring. It knew I was really watching it out of the corner of my eye. A watched phone never boils, or something like that.
I went upstairs, not to snoop, but because I had to do something. I was about ready to crawl along the wall like Spider Man. The door to Jim Bob’s room was open and I went in there. There was a big table with a computer on it and some computer manuals. There was a row of books next to his bed. The books were all Westerns, Louis L’Amour and T.V. Olsen. There was a shotgun on a deer-antler gun rack over the bed. I went over and tested the tips of the antlers with my finger. Not that sharp. That was all right. I wasn’t that sharp either. I was involved in a plot to kill a man I didn’t know and had never so much as spoken to. There was already one man dead by my hand, and I didn’t even know his name.
On top of the chest of drawers I found a Trojan rubber in its wrapper, some keys, change and a stack of magazines. Playboy, Penthouse, Gallery, and some real sleazoid types. I looked through them. I looked through the sleazoid types a couple of times. Maybe it was three times.