“Casting your nicotine habits aside,” I said, “anything else?”
“Rest of what I got is old news. But the new news, it could get me whacked, so like I said, I’m traveling. When I get the money.”
“You really just told us a lot of what we already knew,” I said.
“Don’t play me. There was some you didn’t know, right?”
Leonard reached out and thumped a finger on Weasel’s chest, causing him to wince.
“Better be telling the truth, Mr. Weasel, or you may never get to go up north, won’t have to worry about Frank or Barbecue Doug catching up with you. Being lied to makes me itchy, and I don’t like to itch, cause that makes me mad.”
“Cason, he’s used me before,” Weasel said. “My information is good. I mean, I’m not saying some of it might not be rumor, but rumor is what I got. There’s some stuff in there I think is real. Tell them I’m reliable, Cason.”
“So far you have been,” Cason said. “But there’s been a time or two where your information has lived on the border.”
“This is smack-dab in the middle of the territories with rumor on the edges,” Weasel said. “I keep bringing up the money, but nobody moves.”
Cason took out his wallet and pulled out the money for Weasel. Our money.
“Nice doing business with you, kind of,” Weasel said. “And keep me out of it. I don’t want to end up with that wire-cut smile and my balls buried in some nut’s backyard.”
“You’re out of it,” I said.
“Good,” Weasel said. “I was you people, I’d be out of it, too. Messing with Doug or Frank could be bad for you. One of them, someone connected to them, knows the guy with the wire, and money gets waved at him, the right money, he’ll pick up that wire again.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
“So you’re not hanging it up?” Weasel said. “Even after what I’ve told you?”
“Nope,” Brett said.
“Have it your way, honey,” Weasel said. “Remember I warned you people.”
“We got that sweet thought right up against our hearts,” Leonard said.
Weasel shrugged. “Listen here. I got one more thing for you. I wasn’t going to expand on this, go the whole hog, but I got to get right with myself—know I told you not only what I know is fact, but I got to tell you what might be rumor. Wasn’t going to say, cause it sounds maybe too odd, but that don’t mean it’s not coming from a solid place. Word is this deballer guy, he’s a company man carries their freight. Let me say it different. They got a man sometimes works for the company, whoever it is that owns the company, and he’s a free agent kind of guy.”
“The car company?” Brett said.
“The company. Doug’s businesses. It’s like a fucking octopus. There’s more than cars and women and blackmail in all this. Shit, I done told you that.”
“It’s nice to know your story doesn’t change up,” Cason said. “So we can stand some repetition.”
“Only a little,” Leonard said.
“Keeping in mind I’m still saying it’s rumor, and yeah, I know, I say it a lot, but it’s said by some that this wire-using motherfucker has connections with all the Dixie-flag-waving jackasses and southern assholes you can imagine.”
“Dixie Mafia?” I asked.
“Call it what you like,” Weasel said. “Doug and his bunch may be the saltiest crackers you can imagine, a bunch of good old boys. They’re shit-cracker tough guys with sweaty pits and bent noses and swastikas on their necks. They got women in that group, too, just as bad and mean as the men. Some got three teeth and two are in their pocket, but they also got sweet women with butter skin and a smile that looks like something you’d see under a magnolia tree with a picnic basket, but when you get close, those are shark teeth, and the basket is a fucking coffin.”
“How poetic,” Brett said.
“Make fun if you want,” Weasel said. “But they got those folks all over, some in businesses that you wouldn’t suspect. Some in back alleys, and some in stylish apartments in downtown Houston. They got gangs to do their work, and more than that, they got them a hitter more dangerous than all of them. Some think he’s just a story. The Canceler, they call him, on account of he cancels your fucking ticket, erases your plans. He’s the guy with the wire is what I hear. He’s got other methods, but when they hire him it’s because they want it done fast and smooth, otherwise they let the tattoo-necks do it. Those guys, offer them some cocaine, a twelve-pack, and a rubber pocket pussy, they’re ready to rock. But this guy, he’s not someone I want looking for me, and neither do you. He gets the big bucks, and he don’t get them by fucking up. What he gets paid is serious finance. The redneck Dixie-flag-waving cretins come and go, but this guy, he stays around. He hasn’t got any agenda about the South, about family, or any such shit. He’s got the ability if you got the money, and that’s the name of that game.”
“Have you seen him?” Leonard asked.
“I told you I don’t even know if he’s real. But someone is sure killing folks with a wire.”
“Description?” Cason asked.
“If I had a description of him, way I hear it, I’d be dead before I could describe him. Ain’t no one describing him, cause the ones might know him know better than to give that description. Just me giving out what I know, even if it turns out to be rumor, not fact, could be bad for me. Thus my exit plans, and I advise you folks to do the same.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said.
“You think you’re tough,” Weasel said. “Word about you guys is you are. That you’ve seen some shit and thrown some shit around yourself. That you’re like the brothers Death and Doom. Maybe you can handle the rednecks. You might do that all right. But this guy, let me tell you, whoever he is, he whacked two badasses I knew, maybe bad as you two, so whoever this guy is, this Canceler, he’s a special-ass hired killer. Hell. He’s the very devil.”
“If he exists?” Leonard said.
“Somebody killed them bad boys I know. That’s no rumor. The question is, how bad is the bad guy who done it? Rumors about him are true, then he’s the baddest of the bad, and you don’t want that hellhound set on your trail.”
“We might have another couple of questions before you leave town,” I said.
“I might can find out the name of the guy whose last name I can’t remember, you just got to have it, but let me tell you, I’m not going out of my way to do it. I told you my plans, and right before I make with the runaway, I’m going to score me some cheap trim and some expensive whiskey, then I am gone. You might not think so, but you got your thousand worth and some change.”
“Have a nice trip,” I said.
“You know that’s right,” Weasel said.
“I’ll run him home,” Cason said.
“Drive fast,” I said.
17
After Cason and Weasel left, Brett said, “This has gone from a missing-person case to blackmail and murder. Now we’re talking an invisible hit man who cuts off balls. Anyone believe any of what Weasel said?”
“Some of it,” Leonard said. “He kind of gets wrapped up in his own story, and it grows. He mentions the hit man and what he did, then at the end he tells us stuff about him he didn’t seem to know at first, that he’s part of a syndicate or some such, and he’s just waiting for a phone call, carrier pigeon, whatever, to get his orders for another hit. I don’t know what to think.”
“A while back I didn’t believe there was a guy and a woman who took in orphans and turned them into killers, but I was wrong,” I said. “I should have believed it. Vanilla Ride is pretty badass, and this could be someone just as badass.”
“Or it could be Vanilla herself,” Brett said. “She might fit the time line, and she’d be a pro they might hire.”
Brett did not have a soft spot for Vanilla, because Vanilla had one for me.
I said, “I don’t think this is her style—the wire and the balls cut off—though a woman might think that way
, cutting off the balls. It could be a comment on how she was treated when younger, and Vanilla wasn’t treated too well. Still, I don’t think it’s her. She goes for efficiency, not statement.”
“You have a blind spot for her,” Brett said.
“He has a blind spot for just about everyone, you give him time to consider,” Leonard said. “But I’m with him. I don’t think it’s her. Can’t say why, but I don’t. If this killer always does it this way, using the wire, maybe that’s an MO he can’t change, least not comfortably. It could be like a serial killer thing, a signature, except he gets hired to do it. He gets the pleasure and the money both.”
“Other side is,” I said, “maybe he does change up. Could be the employer is the one collecting nut sacks, way Weasel suggested. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he makes change purses out of them. But if he does a lot of hits, he may not do them all the same way, only does them that way because that goes with the payment.”
“Good point,” Brett said. “So see? It could have been Vanilla who did it, just fulfilling her boss’s request.”
“If it was, it wouldn’t matter now,” I said. “That’s in the past. She’s in Italy somewhere. Not here as a threat.”
“So she told you,” Brett said.
“I believe her,” I said.
“Because she’s beautiful?” Brett said. “That’s why you believe her?”
“Her looks have nothing to do with me believing her.”
“But she is beautiful, right?” Brett said.
“Some say so.”
“Oh, Hap. Really.”
“All right,” I said. “There’s nothing about her that makes you want to look away. Well, on second thought, she does carry a gun and will point it at you. She will shoot to kill, and we know she’s blown a man up.”
“Okay,” Brett said. “That might make you look away. But you’d look as long as you could.”
“You are putting words in my mouth. She’s not my type.”
“Damn, Hap,” Leonard said. “That’s one of them little white lies we were talking about.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Brett’s.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Brett. She is not my type, because you are my type.”
“And if I wasn’t around?” Brett asked. “Honest answer.”
“She might be my type. Except for that murderous assassin part. That would put me off.”
Brett said, “Maybe it would be best if it was Vanilla did it—killed those two men, I mean. I don’t think she’d bother you, and by extension, us. But if it wasn’t her, and there is a Canceler, isn’t that a bit scary?”
“I admit, it’s a bit scary,” I said.
She looked at Leonard.
“If he’s out there I’d like a run at him,” he said. “I think I can fuck him up.”
Brett thought for a while. “Do we continue?”
“You’re the boss,” Leonard said. “I wouldn’t trust Weasel to give me a cold. Hell, Cason brought him here, and he doesn’t trust him. Not completely. Guy like that, he works like psychics. They listen around, figure out what it is we’re interested in, then feed it back to us. He may have picked up clues from Cason when they first talked. I mean, Cason, he can be clever, but a guy like Weasel, fucking people around is what he does for a living. He takes a cold reading, swirls it around in his head a little, and by the time he comes to us he may have gotten enough from Cason to weave a story that fits the way we wanted it to fit. It’s like making someone believe in flying saucers. You do the whole thing on a person’s head, about how conceited it is to think we are the only thinking creatures in the universe, as if we think all that much. The flying saucers are a jump in logic. We are conceited, therefore extraterrestrial life is likely, therefore aliens have arrived on earth in flying saucers. But if that’s logical, why do they always land somewhere weird with some two-toothed ignoramus standing on a stump with his dick up a cow’s ass? The aliens cut the cow’s udder out, haul Two Tooth off to some place high in space, spread his ass with salad spoons, play with his pecker, and send him home. Why is that? That makes no sense. They’re so damn space handy why the fuck don’t they just let everyone know they’re here, hold a conference at the White House? Might be some folks out there that’ll come in for a landing some day, but so far, not so much, and I’m not holding my breath. But you talk shit right, and people believe it.”
Brett and I stared at him for a moment.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said.
“I’m using a comparison, you two. Surely you get it. Bullshit can be given a solid platform so anyone that’s willing to believe it can. It makes sense if you think about it,” Leonard said.
“You think?” I said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Brett said.
“Don’t wave me off. The flying saucer story really has to do with what we’re talking about.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said.
“Does too.”
“You had that hobbyhorse in your mental garage and pulled it out. You been looking for some spot to put that in a conversation.”
“Have not.”
“Have too.”
“Boys,” Brett said. “That will be quite enough.”
We gave each other a wicked look, and then we looked at the floor.
“Thing is, unless she was abducted by aliens, as far as Sandy goes, we still don’t know dick,” I said.
“He hasn’t quit,” Leonard said. “He’s picking at me.”
“Boys. I mean it. That’s enough. Look, we got a missing girl. We got dead folks connected to the missing girl. There are no cow udders and no aliens.”
“What I’m saying,” Leonard said. “I’m not saying there are. I’m saying it’s easy to believe in incredible assassins and all manner of bullshit if it’s presented to you right. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And now you’re done,” Brett said. “Right?”
“Right,” Leonard said.
“Here’s some hard, cold truths,” Brett said. “There’s no more money coming to us on this, and I don’t like the old bitch that hired us. Stay on this we go in the hole as far as money is concerned. It’s all gratis. And by the way, it’s a deep hole. Everyone got that?”
“Got you,” I said.
“Just so you know,” she said.
“We know,” I said.
“Story of our life,” Leonard said.
Brett was quiet for some time, but I could sense she was arranging thoughts in her head like a bricklayer laying bricks. She said, “I say we stick. See how this comes out. It’s about a missing woman, and I have a daughter, such as she is, and I know how I’d feel, cause I been there.”
I nodded. Leonard and I knew, of course. We had sort of rescued her daughter, Tillie, twice.
“Seeing it through, that’s all right by me, but sometimes it’s not a pretty picture,” Leonard said.
“I been around you two long enough to know that,” Brett said. “It’s not like I haven’t had my tit in the wringer a few times.”
“You’ve shown you’ve got what it takes more than once,” Leonard said.
“I think so,” Brett said.
“No doubt about it,” I said. “You got tough tits.”
“You can say that again,” Brett said.
“All right, then,” I said. “We’re in to the end. As for the Canceler, finding out about him, there’s another person I can think of has an ear to the ground. Better than Cason, I think. Maybe better than Weasel. We need someone wades through shit on a regular basis and can turn it into tapioca.”
“Ain’t that us?” Leonard said.
“I think this is deeper than our usual crap.”
“Oh, hell,” Leonard said. “You don’t mean that cornpone motherfucker—”
“Jim Bob Luke,” I said.
18
Of course I can figure it out,” Jim Bob Luke said. He smiled like an alligator and moved a well-chewed toothpick from o
ne corner of his mouth to the other with his tongue. “You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you?”
“We know, all right,” Leonard said. “But ego alone won’t solve what we’re up against.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jim Bob Luke said. “That’s only true if I’m a blowhard. And I’m not. I can do what I say. It has never occurred to me but once—and I was feeling kind of sick that day—that there might be something I couldn’t figure, couldn’t solve. And by the way, that day I had my doubts, I solved it anyway. That cured me from doubting me. I always say: I want someone smart to talk to, I go out back of the house and talk to myself. I am fucking sterling company.”
We were at our office, and Jim Bob, who lived in Pasadena, just on the other side of Houston, had driven down that morning after a phone call the night before, and he’d even brought doughnuts. They weren’t on my diet, but damn it, I had two of the chocolate-coated kind. Brett had three, and Leonard asked for his cookies and we gave them to him. I have no idea how many he ate. Now, if I could only remember how many doughnuts Jim Bob ate, I’d be one happy man. I think he also brought apple fritters.
Jim Bob wasn’t a young man, but he wasn’t exactly old, either. He looked younger than he was. He was long and lean with a quick smile and eyes that sometimes looked green and sometimes blue and I suppose were actually a shape-shifting gray; they changed with the light or the clothes he was wearing. Today they looked blue in his tanned face. He wore a black shirt with snap pockets, what we used to call a cowboy shirt. He had on crisp blue jeans and black boots with red explosions on the toes, like he had kicked something dead and bloody. He had a white straw cowboy hat with a wide paisley band and a big green feather in it. He had taken it off and had rested it on his knee. He always looked wrong without the hat on. Looked like the kind of guy that had been born with it on his head. His hair was a little sweaty and hat-shaped.
As always, Jim Bob appeared happy and in a good mood, though I knew behind that friendliness was a granite-hard reserve and a dark streak. He seemed like the biggest redneck that ever walked the earth until you spent time with him. Then you realized that behind that rawness, that laid-back coolness, was a sharp mind and quick reflexes and street-fighting skills. I had seen them in action. Woe to the man that thought Jim Bob was a simple Texas goober. He could not only fight, he could also think, and he was as brave as they come without being foolish. He had depth that he kept hidden, but you could sense it was there, the way the smell of ozone alerts you to the approach of lightning.