Me and Leonard drove over to see the lady. She was offering us good money to split between us and the agency. What she wanted us to do, as she put it, was meet up with her husband and have a discussion with him. The way she said it, it sounded like we were just going to set a date at a restaurant and have tea. Of course, that’s not what she meant at all.
It was early afternoon in September and some of the hot had gone out of the day. Midday it could get pretty warm in East Texas, but not like a month or so earlier when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, and going barefoot on cement was like walking across a pancake griddle. It was a pleasant change. Cooler weather was in the offing.
Me and Leonard were the kind of guys that never took anything at face value, or at least we liked to think of ourselves that way. So we thought we’d go over and talk to our client, Mrs. Devon, soon to be the ex-Mrs. Devon, and see if we thought her complaints were legit, or if she was just looking to have someone beat the shit out of her husband for vengeance and entertainment.
From the mouth of the street she lived on, across the way, we could see a new apartment complex, and not far from that was a long street full of fast food joints and doctor’s offices and the like. Along the street where she lived, there were a few houses still clinging to the past, like ancient souls waiting silently for death, or hoping for a last visit from somebody before they were knocked down flat and carried out.
Next to those were marginally better houses, prefab style, the sort of thing where a shell of a house could be put up in the weekend, and two weeks later plumbing and water would be ready. All that was needed then was furniture, kids to yell at, and a dog to crap on the lawn, which at least for a few months would be a patch of bulldozed red clay.
Mrs. Devon’s house was back from the street a bit. There were hedges on either side of her driveway, and they were well-trimmed but a little anemic. In the open garage there was a blue Cadillac that had aged well, and a closed-up barbecue grill pushed up against the wall with a sack of charcoal bricks stacked on top.
We parked behind the Cadillac and got out.
When the door was answered it was by a lady about six feet tall with black hair and a nice shape. She must have been about forty, and you could tell it if you looked real hard, but it was a nice forty, and the body seemed to belong to someone about twenty-five; she obviously had a gym membership, a trainer, and a special diet. She smiled and showed us that she had nice teeth. Her face was nice too. Her eyes were as green as Ireland. When she moved, something primal inside me moved.
After she confirmed we were who she was expecting, we came in and sat down on an elderly but comfortable couch. She asked us if we’d like a drink, and we ended up with ice tea.
“Jim Bob told me you could help me,” she said.
“Probably,” I said. “I mean, we have to check things out.”
“In case I’m lying and just want you to beat up my husband?”
“That would be it,” Leonard said.
“He hasn’t been all that clever about it,” she said. “I don’t think he’s trying to sneak, it’s just that no one has really seen him do anything, or will admit to it. No one but me. I really don’t want him arrested. I just want him to stop. The divorce is going to go through, and I don’t think he cares about that. He doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him. He just doesn’t like losing me. He wouldn’t have minded dumping me. But I dumped him first. That sort of got his panties in a twist.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Leonard asked.
“A few days ago. I had a gentleman over.”
“Someone you’re dating?” I asked.
“Someone I had one date with. Henry showed up and beat up my date. Bad.”
“So there’s your proof,” I said. “Have your date press charges.”
She shook her head. “No. My date wasn’t willing to turn him in, because Henry threatened to kill him if he did.”
“You think he’s capable of that?” I said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But my date thought so.”
“That happened here?” Leonard said.
“Yes. I had left the back door open. I didn’t think he was that dangerous. Henry, I mean. But he’s big and scary.”
“How big is he?” I asked.
“Six-five, maybe three hundred. Not a fat man. Does that scare you?”
“Hell yeah,” I said. “But it won’t stop us if we believe you.”
“All I got is my word, and no one else is talking. I thought I could give you his address and you could just check on him. Follow him around or something, see what you think. See if he shows up here. I’ve got so I lock all my doors and the windows too. I don’t know that he’s dangerous, but the beating he gave that man . . . it was quick and it was awful. I think he may have broken his ribs.”
“So he comes by a lot?”
“He used to knock on the door. Now he mostly just drives by, or pulls up in the drive and sits there. By the time I call the cops, he’s gone. They’ve talked to him, but he just says I’m lying, and I can’t prove it any other way. They can’t post a man twenty-four seven just on my word. And won’t. That’s why I’ve come to you.”
“Give us his address,” I said. “We’ll check on him. One of us can stay here with you if you like.”
“I have an extra bedroom so one of you can be here all the time. Jim Bob recommended you two and your boss, Mr. Hanson, very highly.”
“How do you know Jim Bob?” Leonard asked.
“We dated in high school. I lived in Houston then.”
“Jim Bob went to high school,” Leonard said. “I thought he came out of the womb the way he is, wearing that hat and driving that old Cadillac.”
“That would have been painful for his mother, don’t you think?” she said.
“It would,” I said. “It certainly would.”
“You lock up,” I said, “and we’ll go get a few things we might need, like an axe handle, and we’ll be back.”
“An axe handle?” she said.
“Call it insurance,” Leonard said. “You want the protection, you got to allow us to protect. And discourage.”
“You won’t kill him, will you?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Look, I really don’t want him hurt.”
“Only if he tries to hurt us,” I said.
“Why don’t one of you stay now?” she said. “Start this minute.”
“Because we have to decide if we believe you or not.”
“Oh.”
“In the meantime, lock this place up tighter than a nun’s chastity, and we’ll be right back.”
We walked out and waited for her to lock the door behind us. When we heard the lock click, we walked to the car.
In the car, backing out, I said, “What do you think?”
“Sounds legit,” Leonard said. “I think she’s scared and wants to get on with her life and wants him to know he’s not welcome.”
“If we beat the dog shit out of him, you think he’ll quit?”
“Hard to say, but I do know it works more often than you hear about. I had someone tell me, you know, you do that, they just come back. I’ve done it a few times, so have you—”
“And they didn’t come back.”
“Yep.”
“But sometimes they do.”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “Sometimes they do.”
“Henry sounds like he could be pretty hard-core.”
“Worrying about him being big?” Leonard asked.
“Crossed my mind.”
“What the axe handle’s for, my boy.”
“And if he turns us in for whipping his ass?”
“We were visiting a friend of a friend. That friend being Jim Bob, and she being the friend of that friend. Henry arrived. Violence broke out. Axe handles were lying about, and . . . well, you can figure from there.”
“And we just happened to be there when he showed up? With axe handles?”
/> “Exactly,” Leonard said. “It doesn’t have to be a true story, it just has to be our story. . . . You know, you’re getting cautious in your old age.”
“I am. I like having a nice home and Brett and a comfortable place to lay my head and put my dick.”
“Since I’m living at your house these days,” Leonard said, “I like you got a nice home and a comfortable place for me to lay my head, though I’m still in search of a place to lay my dick.”
“About that . . .”
“Yeah. I know,” Leonard said. “Like Ben Franklin said, fish and friends smell after three days.”
“No. I’m asking about you and John. The dick part, and the deeper meanings that go with it. How are things developing between you two?”
“Nothing much. We talk by phone now and again. I’m almost done with that business. I think you can only brood so long, wait on someone so long, and then you got to move on. But, I’ll move out soon enough.”
“Not what I meant,” I said. “Stay as long as you like.”
“Hell, I know that. I was joking. You can’t get rid of me.”
Brett was off on rotation from work. She was sitting at the kitchen table wearing white shorts and a big, loose, red T-shirt. Her thick red hair was tied back in a bushy ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. Her toenails were painted as red as her hair. She was drinking coffee. Leonard and I went over and poured ourselves a cup from the pot.
“Well?” Brett said.
“We think she’s for real,” I said.
“So, how are you going to play it?” Brett said.
“Leonard is going to stay there for awhile, and I’m going to be on phone service here at the house. Later, we can swap out.”
“What’s she look like?”
“She wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings at a glance,” I said.
“How about if they concentrated?” she said.
“No one’s feelings would be hurt that way either,” I said.
“Then you best just let Leonard stay there.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m queer,” Leonard said.
“Exactly,” Brett said.
“You don’t trust me?” I said.
“I trust you, but I don’t know her, and Little Hap likes pussy almost as much as life.”
“You know better than that,” I said. “Well, you’re right about the pussy part and life and all that. But you know what I mean. I’m trustworthy.”
“Yeah, but I’m still a little jealous.”
We had our coffee, then we got a few things together for Leonard. Toothbrush and toothpaste. Deodorant. Axe handle from the closet. A small handgun. That kind of stuff.
“Be sure and not shoot anyone,” I said.
“Gotcha,” Leonard said, got his keys, and drove his car away. I watched from the kitchen window until he was out of sight.
“He gone?” Brett asked.
“Yep.”
“Great,” she said. “Let’s screw like mongooses.”
We screwed like mongooses and one extra beaver and a water snake, and then lay in bed and watched TV. We watched The Fugitive Kind on some movie channel. I wanted a cool jacket like Marlon Brando wore in that movie. I knew I’d never have one. Besides, I didn’t have anything against reptiles, and it was supposed to be made out of them.
When the movie wrapped, another came on, and we watched part of that, but it wasn’t much, and we gave it up. I had a book to read and Brett had a biography. We stacked pillows behind us and lay there nude and read. It was one of our favorite things to do, following the whole mongoose thing, which got a number-one rating.
Three hours or so later, feeling lazy, I lay down and dozed. Brett woke me, freshly showered, dressed in blue jeans and a blue top, tennis shoes on her feet.
“Baby,” she said, “you’re taking me out. Get up and shower.”
I got up and showered, dressed, and we drove into town to a Mexican restaurant that served a good steak, better than average tacos, tamales, and the usual rice and beans, and so far no stomach poisoning. When it comes to good eats, nothing beats Mexican food, though Japanese is close. Sometimes I eat meat, I think about the poor cows, and then I think since I ate them, I might as well wear leather too. No use letting a discarded cow suit go to waste. But I wished I could just eat lettuce and tomatoes and tofu. Doesn’t work for me, though. I get sick. Hypoglycemia. I think about a lot of things on a full stomach. It’s easier to think about not eating something anymore when you just ate it.
When we got back to the house, Brett pulled on the big loose shirt she had been wearing earlier in the day and, as a treat to me, left off the panties. I pulled on my pajama bottoms as a treat to her, and a loose T-shirt, and climbed in bed. This was my favorite kind of day. Lazy.
I said, “You said you were jealous earlier, of Sharon Devon. You weren’t serious, were you?”
“A little,” she said.
“I’ve never known you to be jealous.”
“I didn’t think I was. I guess it’s because I want to see this arrangement as permanent.”
“I already saw it that way.”
“I did too, but you know, there were doubts in the back of my mind.”
“Because we’re not married?”
“That was there in an old-fashioned way,” she said. “But I don’t think that really matters. Not really.”
“But it is a braver commitment, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Look, honey,” I said. “I want to be with you. I’ll keep it like it is, or I’ll marry you. Whatever, baby. It’s you and me.”
“You once said something to me about having kids.”
“I was just in a mood.”
“I think you meant it.”
“I did mean it. But, you pointed out what should have been obvious to me: we’re a little too old.”
“I’m younger than you,” she said.
“Everyone thinks you’re twenty years younger,” I said. “And you look it. Pretty soon they’ll be thinking I’m your grandpa.”
“That could happen,” she said. “But, just in case. I looked into fertilization drugs, you know, to see. Case I might need them.”
“I wouldn’t want to have a kid just because you think I want one,” I said.
“I know that.”
“You are a mother, but I’ve never been a father. I figure I don’t become one, that might even be best.”
“You do know things would change,” she said.
I nodded. “I know. And what worries me is—”
“You don’t know if you can really change.”
“I been trying so long now, that I’m starting to think the trying and not doing it is as much a part of who I am as what I actually end up doing. Which seems to be hitting people in the head, shooting people—”
“And being their rescuer. Hap Collins, have I ever told you that all your doubts about yourself are none of my doubts? That I worry about you using my toothbrush instead of yours, and you sometimes pee on the floor, but as far as your worth as a person, even if you have done some things you consider dark, they do not faze me or concern me at all. Except if we have kids. And it’s not about what you’re doing, but about what it could do to a child.”
“I wouldn’t want him or her to grow up like me,” I said.
“I would want them to have your integrity,” she said.
I started to say something, but it was like a fist was in my throat.
“Let’s read,” Brett said.
We read a long while, watched the late movie, and then we did the mongoose thing again before going to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, it was to a knock on the bedroom door. I sat up. Brett was gone. Off to the hospital to nurse someone. Since I was upstairs in our bed, I opened my drawer and took out my revolver and lay back against my pillows.
I said, “Who is it?”
“Marvin.”
“Come in.”
Marvin ope
ned the door. He hobbled in on his cane and found a chair in the corner.
“How’d you get in?”
“You gave me an emergency key, remember?”
“Is this an emergency?”
“No. But I thought I’d take advantage of my key ownership and see if I could get some coffee. It’s nine already.”
I put the revolver in the nightstand drawer and pulled off the sheets and got out of bed, forgetting I hadn’t replaced my pajamas after mine and Brett’s mongoose moment last night.
Marvin said, “Oh, the humanity.”
Downstairs, with my pajama bottoms on, as well as a top, I started the coffee pot. I said, “You don’t have coffee at your house? The office?”
“Actually, I forgot to buy coffee for either place. Wife is mad at me.”
“Coffee is like a goddamn staple,” I said. “You don’t forget that. That’s just wrong.”
“What my wife told me.”
“So, what’s up besides you being here drinking my coffee?” I said.
“Talked to some cop friends. They said Mrs. Devon reported her husband beating a boyfriend up, and the boyfriend, though he looked like he had been through a meat grinder, wouldn’t press charges. Told them he got that way falling down. They didn’t have proof otherwise. They think his masculine ego was harmed and he didn’t want to harm it any more by admitting he got his ass beat like a bongo drum.”
“So, do the cops believe her ex is bothering her?” I asked.
“They do, but they can’t spend all their time waiting for him to show up.”
“Course, if he shows up and kills her, they can put their time into that,” I said.
“Well, they’ll have a pretty good idea who did it. At least solving it will be easy enough.”
“There’s that,” I said.
“Here’s the thing, though. They told me if he bothers her, and you’re there, don’t mess him up too bad, ’cause then you’ll be up a creek.”
“They know we’re watching?”
“Not officially, just my contact at the cop shop. He knows, and he’s not telling. But, you mess this guy up too bad, they’ll have to look around, and you two may come up in the investigation.”