“I am virile,” I said.
“You are an animal. It went on and on. I had to stop for gas, and you two, you’re back there still pumping away while I get gas, and might I say the sight of your raw white ass riding up and down was not a pleasure.”
“Then why were you looking?”
“I wanted to see how it worked. Shit, what do I know about being heterosexual? Curiosity set in, you see.”
“I think you wanted to see my butt.”
“That was an accident, and frankly, it’s left me a little scarred. So I put in the gas, drove to a hill overlooking a park bench, and you two went at it for hours.”
“It wasn’t hours.”
“Well, it was a long time. The car was rocking so much I was getting seasick. I got out and sat on the bench and watched the car rock. When you finished back there, I thought, Thank goodness. But then the two of you were at it again. Had no shame.”
“We were young and passion made us stupid and immodest, and I think you are exaggerating a mite.”
“I kept sitting there, and the car kept rocking, and I know for a fact that was how you actually met Chance’s mother.”
“I know you know.”
“What I been thinking is how could a beautiful girl like Chance be made from you, and, if you’ll pardon me, I think her mother would have screwed anything with pants on and maybe a few others wearing short-shorts or a kilt?”
“Our urges have nothing to do with Chance.”
“Actually, they have everything to do with her,” Leonard said.
“Well, okay. But not that night. I don’t think.”
“What messes me around is Chance looks like you, but somehow on her it’s good. Hear what I’m saying? Her mother looked good too, the way I think heterosexual women are supposed to look if they look good, but Chance looks like you.”
“Is there a point to all this?”
“Yeah. Don’t ever tell Chance how you met her mother, outside of saying you met in a café. I know you have a way with the women sometimes, and I don’t get it, but then I wouldn’t. Still, that was cheap. The two of you making a sausage sandwich, and now I know what came of it.”
“She forgot to take the pill, or the pill didn’t work. I asked her if I should use protection, and she said she was on the pill. I’m no idiot.”
“You are an idiot, Hap. You took the word of some woman you had just met. But, considering the result was Chance, then or later, I guess that makes it kind of all right and makes me an uncle, but wow, you buy a hamburger, and the next thing I know you two are in the backseat doing the nasty.”
“We just clicked, man. I liked her.”
“You liked something. And I think she did a lot of clicking.”
“We dated awhile, and you need not be so judgmental. You’re dating off the Internet, and dry holes at that. That’s no better, you know?”
“You have a point. I think because I couldn’t get it up today, and you always can, or so you say, I was a little jealous. And the other thing, well, I didn’t like what you did that night. There wasn’t any courting going on. Just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”
“I got her number. We spent time together after that.”
“Time is one thing to call it.”
“This coming from you. Once again, let me remind you: Internet. No courting. Quick fuck. Dry hole.”
“Yes, but I’ve come to expect more of you.”
I laughed. “You are a piece of work, Leonard. That was many years ago. I hadn’t been broken up with Trudy that long, and it was the one time in my life I was prone to drink. The only time I ever drank, to be exact. And I didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. Why are we talking about this?”
“I’ll say it again. A bit of jealousy at your ability to perform at the drop of a hat, and for a lengthy period of time. And also, I thought about it today, and thought it might be an embarrassing memory, and that would be fun. But you don’t look embarrassed.”
“No reason to. So, having trouble with your pecker, huh?”
“I think it’s psychological. It’s all this stuff with John. Used to, I got up in the morning, had a cup of coffee, I’d start climbing the walls like a goddamn monkey, masturbating all over the place. Had John there, well, I’d bend him over and fuck him hard enough to drive him to town and send him through the car wash.”
“You are such a romantic,” I said.
“Now, my dick droops, looks like one of those things they used to sharpen knives on. A strop.”
“But smaller. Listen, Leonard. Don’t let it get to you. Jealousy of my sexual prowess has ruined many a man. And I’m sorry you got a look at my ass, because once my godlike body is revealed, no man or woman will ever suit you again.”
“You are so full of shit. I have seen your charm fail you more than once. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.”
“First I was a hot sex machine, now I’m a blind squirrel.”
He chuckled. It was all absolutely juvenile, but we had done it for years, and I think ribbing each other over everything from sex to hair loss was our way of connecting; verbal comfort food.
“Part of the problem is fucking and loving aren’t always the same, Leonard. Romantic you’re not, but I think the way you talk about John is bullshit. You love him.”
“Yeah. Damn me…Hey, why are we riding around with Buffy? We dropping her off at the mall?”
“Because my family has the flu.”
“And you’re bringing flu germs into my ride, along with dog odor?”
“I’m not sick. Brett and Chance are asleep, so there’s no one for me and Buffy to play with, so I called my bestest friend forever.”
“And when he couldn’t make it, you called me. Again. But why is Buffy in the backseat?”
“She likes your ribald stories,” I said.
“We’re going to get ice cream cones at Dairy Queen, aren’t we?”
“Buffy likes a good cone.”
“You really wanted me to take you to get your dog an ice cream, and that’s why you called me, isn’t it? You wanted to save gas and give Buffy a cone and not have Brett know about it. You heard her say the dog is getting fat.”
“I left a note and said we were going riding with you. No secret. Brett will figure out where and why I went.”
“Unless you get home before she wakes up.”
“Then I would have to remove the note, and me and Buffy would be silent conspirators together. And you will also be involved.”
“I’m your patsy.”
“That is correct.”
“You, Hap Collins, are a liar.”
“It’s a white lie. And look at it this way. You got to tell me about your dick problems, and you got to tell a true-as-shit story about my manly prowess.”
I looked back at Buffy. She was leaning over the seat with her nose pressed against my cheek.
“She knows we’re going for a cone,” Leonard said.
“Brett thinks I spoil her.”
“You do,” Leonard said.
“A princess deserves special things. Also, I thought we might do something else. Talk to the cop that got fired for letting Charm go.”
“Manuela. You know where she lives?”
“Right before I called you, Marvin called me. He says the cops in Camp Rapture are known as shit stains on the underwear of law enforcement. And that’s a quote. He did say he knew the deputy that got fired, though, and called her a ‘good egg.’”
“A good egg? He’s been watching old cop shows again, hasn’t he?”
“I think so. He gave me her address.”
“I underestimated you. I thought you were merely using Buffy to get yourself an ice cream cone, but you are after evidence.”
“We are detectives.”
“This fired cop’s place close to our Dairy Queen?”
“Not that close,” I said. “And besides, Buffy needs to go to the office.”
“She have paperwork?”
“No, but she does like to tidy up.”
“All right, then, after we have our cones and drop the Buffster off, we’ll drive a little faster on our way over.”
12
We went through the drive-through at Dairy Queen. I got a chocolate cone, and Buffy and Leonard had vanilla. Dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, and Leonard always prefers vanilla.
We didn’t actually speed up, as Leonard had suggested, but drove around town slowly, eating, listening to Lightnin’ Hopkins on the disc player, me holding Buffy’s cone so she could lick it until she was down to the cone itself. Then I gave it to her. Her tongue turned blue from the ice cream, and when she was done she stretched out on the backseat and closed her eyes. I think her brain was frozen.
Finished up, we drove Buffy to the office. I took her for a short walk out in the grass beside the office, cleaned up her poo, put her inside, then we drove to the address I had for the deputy, Manuela Martinez.
It was solid dark when we got to Ms. Martinez’s place. The CD in the player was now finishing up a Kasey Lansdale tune, “Can’t Blame You for Trying.” The house was a small house in a less expensive part of town, and it was on a street with similar houses on both sides. Nice houses, but nothing dramatic, middle class with a view to moving upwards. A little better house than mine and Brett’s place, brick, with a yard lit by a porch light strong enough to make the moonlight wish for greater wattage. The flowers near the porch were wilting.
There were lights behind the windows, and there were lights on in most of the houses along the street. There was a black pickup truck and a white Ford under the open carport at the Martinez house. Leonard parked at the curb and we walked up the sidewalk that led to the porch and I pushed the doorbell.
We could hear it ding-dong inside, and then a small dog started yapping, and after a few moments we heard a female voice say, “Shut up, Trixie.”
Trixie shut up briefly, but by the time Manuela came to the door and cracked it, the dog was barking again.
“Hush, Trixie,” Manuela said. I could see the dog through the cracked door. It was a small, mixed mutt, and this time it went quiet and sat, looking at us with what I deduced was an angry-dog expression.
“Yes,” the lady said. She was petite with thick black hair and a fine face that was almost model material, but she had a long scar from her left ear to the tip of her chin. I liked it. It wasn’t deep, it was just a strong white line on a fine dark face. She wore a loose black T-shirt and yoga pants. She was barefoot.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said.
“Are you?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My hand that’s behind the door,” she said. “It’s holding a Smith and Wesson.”
“Is that some kind of old-fashioned typewriter?” Leonard said, and grinned.
“No. But it does make a rat-a-tat sound if I pull the trigger just right.”
“We’re not here to bother you,” I said.
“Well, recently I have been bothered.”
“We are not whoever it was that bothered you.”
“Selling Jesus or sewing machines, you are still on my shit list.”
“Neither,” I said. “I don’t think they sell sewing machines door to door, so you can mark that off your list. Jesus has mostly moved to the Internet, I think.”
“It might be cool, though,” Leonard said, “if Jesus was selling sewing machines door to door.”
“You are Manuela Martinez?” I asked.
“I am.”
“We’re here to talk with you about a young lady named Charm. Her mother, Louise, asked us to. She claims her son was murdered by the law and that her daughter was harassed by them. She has us looking into it.”
“Private detectives?”
“Very private,” Leonard said.
“You carrying?”
“Just our handsome selves,” Leonard said.
She smiled a little. “All right, come in, but I’ll hold on to my gun for a while, if you don’t mind, and I’ll have to pat you down.”
“Really?” Leonard said.
“Really.”
“Would it matter if we minded about your gun?” Leonard said.
“It would not.”
“That’ll be just fine, then,” Leonard said.
13
The house was simple but nice inside. Through an alcove I could see into the living room. The couch in there was fat with colorful cushions. A painting on the wall of a great fish jumping appeared to have been stolen from a motel. On the left side of the room, mounted on the wall above the couch, was a very large game fish with a long snout, like the one in the painting. It was coated with dust.
Manuela patted us down, finding no weapons except our razor wit, which was much more self-contained than usual due to her holding that pistol.
She eventually invited us to sit on the couch. Manuela sat in a fat cushioned chair that matched the couch. Trixie jumped up and lay down across her knees. Manuela put one hand on the dog’s head, and in the other she held her weapon.
“We have a few questions, just to verify what we were told,” I said.
“Who actually sent you? I’m thinking you ought to talk to my lawyer. I have a lawyer on this business, the firing, so if you’re sent from the department in any manner, shape, or form, you can fuck off.”
“We’re not trying to trick you,” Leonard said.
“We work for Louise, really,” I said. “She said her daughter, Charm, was picked up for drunk driving, but when she asked the cops for the Breathalyzer, they refused, chained her standing up with her pants slightly pulled down in back, left her that way until morning. You came along and let her loose. Is that accurate?”
“What are your names?”
We told her. We told her about the agency and mentioned Marvin Hanson.
“Marvin,” she said. “Sure. I should have gone to work in LaBorde, but he wasn’t chief there then. Still, would have been better off than Coldpoint and Camp Rapture.”
“It’s starting to sound as if going over Niagara Falls on a log would be better,” Leonard said.
“That’s the truth,” she said. “All right. You know Marvin, and you used to work for him, so I’ll talk. A little. I don’t know about the Breathalyzer part, but she was cuffed, and her pants had been pulled down slightly in back, showing her butt crack, and no one would let her pull them up. Her hands were chained in front of her. The officers in charge were mad when I pulled them up for her, and they were madder yet when I uncuffed her and let her go.”
“What made you decide to let her go?” I asked.
“It’s a boys’ club there, and I had a bad feeling about it, and then I looked at the arrest report, and it seemed dodgy. I mean, here’s a girl not in a cell, but bound to a radiator, right where perps are brought in, and they’re ogling her booty. I knew enough laws had been violated there wouldn’t be a real case anyway. I figured Coldpoint was the main one who had violated them. He doesn’t like it when people don’t do exactly what he says, legal situation or not. He can talk calm and sound intelligent, because he is, but he is a narcissist of the first degree. You know he was in trouble for a shooting some years back, black teenager who got a warning shot in the back of the head, as we say.”
“And you were fired over letting Charm go?” I said.
“They said I wasn’t holding up my end, but that’s not the real reason. Like I said, it’s a boys’ club of the worst kind, so I wasn’t all that upset to leave. I was married for a while, and that job ruined my marriage. Wish they’d let me go a couple years ago. At least then I’d have my marriage and not just some trophy fish he caught mounted on my living-room wall. That really has to go, by the way.”
“Yard sale,” Leonard said. “Some bozo will buy it and claim he caught it.”
“You know, maybe it is best my husband is gone. I never did understand all that trophy fishing and hunting. Had a lion’s head somewhere. Maybe he took that with him. Might be in the ga
rage attic. But damn, I did like my job, and I did take it home with me, so I can’t blame Brian for becoming annoyed with that.”
I waited a moment while she studied the fish on the wall, then turned her head to study us again.
“Did Charm say anything to you?” Leonard said.
“She was crying and she had a camera around her neck, and she said it was starting to wear on her, that it was heavy, and could I at least take that off of her, but I let her go. My guess is Coldpoint wanted to con her into sex, saying if she did that he’d let her go. I don’t know that, but rumor is that’s his brand and that it works more often than you might think.”
“Lot of rumors,” Leonard said.
“That’s true, but that place stank like week-old fish, and there’s things I know that aren’t rumors. I’ve shared those with my lawyers. Charm wasn’t playing the game the right way for him, so he decided to punish her. Like I said, he can’t stand to lose. He was mad at me already because I wouldn’t have sex with him. He said he could help me move up the ladder. I told him there was nothing at the top of any ladder he provided I wanted, and I didn’t think my vagina was a ladder, or for that matter a basement.”
“A camera?” Leonard said.
I was focused on the vagina part, but Leonard had been more practical.
“Yeah. It wasn’t a big camera,” Manuela said, “but with it hanging around her neck all night, and with her standing, it probably felt like a truck tire.”
“Anything else you can tell us, Miss Martinez?” I asked.
“Not really. And everyone calls me Manny. I let Charm go. Because of that, I went to court, and Coldpoint lost the first round, though I still have more court dates ahead of me. That shit never ends. Main reason they lost on me letting that girl go was they didn’t have any Breathalyzer results and the usual judge they have on their payroll wasn’t presiding. He was on a fishing trip, so it didn’t work out so well for them, and it not working out so well for them isn’t something they’re used to. Anyway, after the trial, that’s when Coldpoint started harassing the brother for harassing them.”