The Big Book of Hap and Leonard

  “What’s the world coming to that you can’t just give a good old-fashioned ass-whipping anymore?”

  “He’s doing what they think he’s doing, they want you to whip his ass, just not so much he can make a good stink. If you can find him some place other than her place, that would be best.”

  “May not get to choose,” I said.

  About noon I drove over to Mrs. Devon’s house, and parked in the back behind the garage, next to Leonard’s car. We weren’t being wide open about what we were doing, but we weren’t being sneaky either. Sometimes a stalker isn’t a full-blown nut, and just the presence of someone who might embarrass them, or put a stop to their actions, can end the matter.

  Other times, however, it’s worse than that, and what it takes is kicking their asses up under their hairline. Then, sometimes that’s not enough. This situation was wide open.

  I had been inside the house about five minutes, drinking a cup of coffee offered to me by Mrs. Devon.

  I was sitting at the table with her and Leonard and the axe handle, which I had named Agnes.

  She said, “Really. I don’t want him hurt. I think you should just talk to him.”

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “This is just to dissuade six feet and three hundred pounds, if the need should arise.”

  “I really don’t think it will come to that,” she said.

  I thought she was sounding a lot more confident today. Maybe it was just a good night’s sleep.

  The doorbell rang.

  Mrs. Devon looked at me and Leonard, and we looked at each other. I got up and went to the door and looked through the little square of glass. There was a guy there. He wasn’t big. He was carrying a briefcase. I didn’t take him to be Mr. Devon.

  I opened the door. The man looked at me in a kind of stunned manner. “Is Mrs. Devon in?” he asked.

  “Who’s asking?” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Devon said, came over, opened the door wider, unlatched the screen, and let the man in. “This is my lawyer, Frank Givens.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and led him into the house and to the table, where he took a seat. I locked the screen back, and then the main door. I sat down in front of my coffee again. Givens was staring at Agnes lying on the table.

  “I hope I’m not in the way, Sharon,” Givens said.

  “Of course not,” she said. “This is Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. They are protecting me.”

  “Has Henry come back?” Givens asked.

  “Not yet,” she said. “And if he does, my friends here hope to encourage him to leave.”

  “Being a lawyer I don’t know exactly what to say to that.”

  “We just want to talk to him some,” Leonard said. “We can explain someone’s position real good, we take a mind to.”

  “I bet you can,” he said.

  “They do look like gentlemen who can take care of themselves,” Mrs. Devon said, “but then again, Henry is someone who can take care of himself as well.”

  “Yeah, but there’s two of us,” I said.

  “And we have an axe handle,” Leonard said.

  “Its name is Agnes,” I said.

  “Have you seen him yet?” Givens asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you seen those old stills from the silent movie about the Golem?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But if I haven’t, I get the idea.”

  “Thing is, he really wants Sharon back,” the lawyer said. “Not because he loves her, but because he wants her back. He thinks he owns her.”

  “Me and Henry were all right for awhile,” she said. “I just made a big mistake.”

  “How long have you been married?” I asked.

  “About . . . what is it, Frank?”

  Frank looked as if the answer soured his stomach. “Almost four years.”

  She patted Frank, the lawyer, on the arm, said, “Me and Frank, we were married once.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “That was some years ago.”

  I looked at Frank. The look on his face made me feel that he might not think it had been that long ago.

  “We were married young,” Mrs. Devon said. “We got along fine, but the fire played out. And then I was on my own for awhile, a few years ago I met Henry. He was interesting. Worked in the oil business, and then the business played out, and so did we. I know that sounds terrible. Like it was the money. And maybe it was. We had a nice place, not like here. . . . Oh, I guess this is all right. But we had a nice place, and then the money was gone—”

  “And the fire went out,” I said.

  “Are you being judgmental?” she asked.

  “Quoting you,” I said.

  “You aren’t paying us enough to be judgmental,” Leonard said.

  “Please be respectful,” Givens said.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “I’m just saying the fire went out for you, but not for him. I can see you’re a woman that could have that effect on someone.”

  She smiled at me. “You think so?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  She looked at Leonard and smiled. “What do you think?”

  “I think heterosexual stuff is confusing to me. I like what men have in their pants, not women.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  “That bother you?” Leonard said.

  “No. No. Not at all. I just didn’t know. I mean, you look so masculine . . . I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Yeah you did,” Leonard said, “but it’s all right. Look. The gay folk who fit your idea of gay folk are the ones that stand out. We come from both ends of the spectrum. Some of us even learn how to have sex with heterosexuals and fake a happy orgasm. Mostly those guys are preachers and politicians. Me, I’m a tough guy. Even us queers can make a fist. End of story.”

  “I assure you, I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. “You come highly recommended. The both of you.”

  Looking at Mrs. Devon I had an idea then why Jim Bob wanted us to do this job. He probably still had the hots for her. She wasn’t only good-looking, it was the way she talked, the voice, the way her eyes half-closed when she was serious. I even felt a little sorry for Henry then, and Frank Givens the lawyer. I felt like she was a woman that could tell you a sincere lie.

  “I can see you’re well protected by these gentlemen,” Givens said. “That being the case, I’ll get right down to business. I have the divorce papers with me. They’re all set. He’s contesting the divorce, but at this stage, there’s nothing he can do to keep you from going through with it. All you need to do is sign.”

  “But he can be a pain in my ass,” she said.

  “That he can, Sharon,” Givens said.

  We left Givens and Mrs. Devon, who we had been told to call Sharon, sitting at the table discussing divorce plans. Me and Leonard went out in the backyard and stood around.

  “How about that, Givens is her ex-husband,” I said.

  “And he still loves her,” Leonard said. “And she doesn’t even know it.”

  “Oh, she knows it all right,” I said. “I think she’s something of a manipulator.”

  “Starting to doubt her stories about hubby?”

  “Not necessarily. I’m just saying she’s manipulative. I think she’s using Givens to get the kind of deal she wants for very little money. And she might be feeding him a little possibility, if you know what I mean.”

  “A chance to rekindle the fire.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do we stick with it?” Leonard said.

  “So far we don’t know things are any different than what she says. But I do have the feeling I’m in a play. A bit actor.”

  “I know what you mean,” Leonard said. “I feel a little played in some way, and I don’t even know what it is. But we’re getting paid.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s that.”

  “Goes on too long we might have to ask fo
r more money.”

  I nodded.

  “But, if she doesn’t offer us any more, and we haven’t discouraged her hubby—”

  “We’ll stay anyway,” I said.

  “Yep,” Leonard said. “It’s our way. It’s not a good way, but it’s the honorable way.”

  “And it’s just about all we got.”

  “Our honor?”

  “No. Our way.”

  What we decided was Leonard would stay at the house, as originally planned, and I would try and locate the husband. If I could catch him leaving his place, lurking around Sharon’s house, as soon as he acted like a threat, then I’d go after him. Probably after I called Leonard for reinforcements. We’re tough, but we’re not stupid. Double-teaming would be the best system. That way, we could possibly convince Henry the better part of being an asshole was staying at home and minding his own business, letting Sharon go her own path.

  Sounded and seemed simple enough.

  I had an address for him, and me and Agnes went over there and sat on a hill that looked down a wooded lane. I could see his driveway from there. I sat for a moment and got my shit together, then drove down and past his house and took a look.

  The house was pretty nice, but it wasn’t well attended. I could understand that. I hated yard work. The front yard was grown up and the trees needed trimming, and it stood out because the houses on either side of his were out of House Beautiful.

  He had an open carport, and in the carport was a not too old Chevy truck. I drove to the end of the street, to the dead end there, turned around, and went back up and sat at the top of the hill. Up there the neighborhood changed, and was not so nice. I parked in the lot of an abandoned laundromat. There were other cars there. It had become a parking spot for the chicken-processing plant on the far side of the highway that broke Haven Street, the street Henry lived on.

  I had a good view from my parking spot, and nothing was going on down below. I wondered if Henry had a job now that the oil had played out. I wondered if he had money. I wondered if he was as big as they said. I wondered why I was doing this.

  I had a CD player with me, and I listened to a CD Leonard had given me, Iris DeMent. It was good stuff. A few years back I wouldn’t have listened to it. When I was young I associated country with ignorance and backwoods. The music still carried some of that with it, but no more than what a lot of rap carried with it; when it was ignorant, it was urban ignorant. It always depended on who was doing it, and how it was done. I was thinking about that as seriously as if I were going to write a paper on it, when the house I was watching moved. Well, the door did. I saw a man big enough to eat the balls off a bear while it was alive and make it hold its paw against the wound walk out to the mailbox, open the lid, and yank out some mail. He was so big I was surprised he could get his hand in there. Frankly, I didn’t know people could grow that big. He may have been six-five or six-six, but in that moment he looked seven-six. His shoulders were just a little wider than a beer truck and he was about as thick the other way as City Hall.

  We had to deal with that motherfucker, we were going to need a bigger boat. Certainly a bigger axe handle. I think we had to graduate to a baseball bat. Maybe a cannon. He might take the axe handle away from us, swallow it, and pull it out of his ass as a sharpened stick with our names tattooed on it.

  As I watched him walk back to the house, a little chill went up my back and crawled across my scalp. I pulled out my cell and called Leonard.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said.

  “You know, this Henry guy. I just saw him. He’s big.”

  “How big?”

  “Do you remember that robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still?”

  “Ouch.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “He still at home?”

  “Yep.”

  “You gonna keep watching?”

  “Ever vigilant,” I said. “Just wanted you to know what we were up against. And for all we know, he’s armed.”

  “You’re exaggerating?”

  “Nope, I’m being conservative. You know the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The robot in that one. More that size.”

  “Bigger ouch,” he said. “Watch yourself.”

  “If I want to see something way pretty, that’s exactly what I do.”

  I closed up the phone and put on an old rockabilly CD and listened to that. This went on for hours, me sitting and listening to CDs. I went through everything I had twice and got so bored I was close to playing with my dick. Then I saw people coming from across the street toward the lot. A bunch of people.

  I looked at my watch.

  It was quitting time at the chicken plant. Or at least it was a shift change. Pretty soon I’d be the only car in the lot, and that wouldn’t be as good. I was considering what to do next, if I needed a new parking spot or what, when I glanced down the street and saw Henry’s Chevy pull out of the drive.

  I followed him to a Burger King. He went through the drive-through and I pulled in after him. Looking at his head through the back window, it looked as big as a bowling ball, but with a close haircut.

  He made his order, and then I ordered some fries and a big soda, and followed to the checkout window. He went through. I went through. He drove home. I parked again in the abandoned lot. It was just me up there with Agnes, my drink, and fries. And, of course, my precious thoughts.

  Leonard called.

  “You want to switch shifts?”

  “Nope. I’m fine. I think I’ll wait until after dark, then you can drive over and we’ll swap out.”

  I told him exactly where I was parked, and hung up.

  I rolled down my window. The air was cool. The mosquitoes, however, were busy. I was about to roll the window up again when I heard a shot.

  I was positive it had come from Henry’s house. I had seen a flash of light behind the window. And it was a gunshot. I was certain. I had heard quite a few of them. I thought about just going home or waiting for a neighbor to call, but all the houses were dark on either side of Henry’s, and since it wasn’t really late, I figured no one was home. If they were, they might not have even recognized what the sound was. Sometimes shots don’t sound like much, especially when they come from a small-caliber gun.

  I had a revolver in my glove box. I got it out. I picked Agnes off the seat and got out of the car. I put the gun under my shirt, in my waistband. I carried Agnes in my left hand and held her down by my side. The street was pretty dark for the neighborhood. There was no one moving about except a cat, and he didn’t seem all that interested.

  I went across the street slowly and came up in Henry’s yard. I thought I should have called Leonard, but I hadn’t. I had just reacted. In the stealth business they call that poor planning.

  I took out my phone and turned it off and put it back. All I needed was for it to ring while I was putting on the sneak. I went to the front door and touched it, using my shirttail to tuck my hand into. No use leaving prints.

  The door was locked.

  Okay.

  I eased around the edge of the house, and now I had my gun out. I was breathing a little heavy. Maybe Henry had fired the shot. Popping a rodent. Didn’t like a TV show and was showing it what he thought of it. There could be all kinds of explanations. The one I figured most likely was that someone had shot someone.

  Taking a deep breath, I eased my head around the edge of the house, stooping down low to do it. No one was there. The yard was open, with no fence at the back, but there were some thick trees and they went over the hill toward where the highway curved.

  I eased around and took a better look. The back door was a sliding-glass door. It was open. I went over there on tippy-toes and looked inside. Dark in there. I moved away from the door and leaned against the wall and thought things over. The smart thing was to call Leonard. Or go away. Those were good choices and safe.

  Me and my gun and Agnes went inside.

&nb
sp; It was dark and I couldn’t see, and I figured if anyone was still in the house, they’d have had time to adjust to the dark. They would be able to see fine. They’d be able to shoot fine.

  I leaned against a wall and thought that any moment there would be a shot I wouldn’t hear, and it would be all over.

  Around the corner from where I leaned was a hallway. There was a break to the left. There was some light in there, but it was the outside light. It was darker in the house than outside.

  I moved from my spot, inching carefully into the room beyond the hall. It was a kitchen. A nice kitchen with a nice table and chairs and a coffee pot I could see on the counter, and leaning over the sink, his elbows in it, his knees on the floor, was our big guy Henry.

  I said, “Henry?”

  Henry didn’t call back.

  I went over easy, and a little wide. There was a light switch on the wall next to the sink. I used the back of my wrist to flip it on. The top of Henry’s head was up against the windowsill. He must have been looking out the window when it happened. Maybe at me and my car up there at the parking spot; he might have had my number early on, standing there in the dark seeing what I was doing while someone was coming in to see what he was doing. Someone with a gun. There were brains and blood on the wall and a little on the window, and a lot of it had run down into the sink; most of it had gone down the drain, but as the blood pumped slower, it had started to go thick. He was still big, but that didn’t matter much now. You don’t get too big for a bullet, if it’s placed right.

  I didn’t shake him to see if he would come around.

  I leaned Agnes against the wall, got out my phone and called Leonard.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said.

  “You know that big guy?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Henry.”

  “We are not going to have to fight him. We are not going to have to deal with him.”

  Leonard was silent for a moment. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Not for him it isn’t.”

  “You hurt him?”

  “No.”

  “Killed him?”

  “No. But someone did.”

  “Shit,” Leonard said. “You sure he’s dead?”