“I can’t promise money.”
“Can you promise bloodshed?”
“Most likely, but if I find a way to do it without killing, that’s the route I’ll take.”
“Just so you know, he’s violent, efficient, but hard to manage. Kind of guy you don’t know much about, because there’s not much for him beyond the moment. He only likes a few people, and who knows? One day he might get out of bed, have a tough bowel movement, and decide to kill everyone in the house. With him it’s like playing Russian roulette with a one-shot revolver.”
“Don’t sugarcoat him so much.”
“Oh, actually I am sugarcoating him.”
“Well, we’re not looking to have someone to do the dishes and macramé sweaters.”
“Good thing. You want me to call him?”
“Yeah. I’ll chance it.”
“Let me know where you’re staying, and he’ll come. I’ll be with him, but I won’t stay. Later, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
When we rang off, I turned to Leonard, said, “We got one more.”
“I know of another,” Leonard said.
40
Couple years back I started getting cards from places in Italy. I knew who was sending them. I only knew one person in Italy. The cards were random kinds of cards. Christmas, birthday, get well, Halloween, all manner of things. There was a stack of them. There were no notes in them. Only a single number. Except the last card, which read: IF EVER.
Me and Leonard drove to my house and parked boldly in the drive and went inside. Leonard stood near the front door while I went upstairs and climbed on a footstool in the bedroom closet and removed the little door there that led up into the crawl space. I still had a few cold guns and some ammunition up there. There was also a small metal box. It had those cards in it with the random numbers. I carried it to the bed. I removed the cards from it. I looked at the envelopes and laid them out by date. Then I took each card out of its envelope and lined up the numbers by dates. I had figured out months ago what they were. If you arranged them in order, then put Italy’s country code in front of it, it was a phone number. Plus the card that said: IF EVER.
Brett knew about them and knew what they were. She didn’t like it, and I said I would throw the cards away, but I didn’t.
I used a pad and pen by the bed and wrote out the complete number and put it on the night table by the bed, sat on the bed, and used the home phone to call the number. It rang for a long time. A machine picked up. The words were first in Italian. I had no idea what was said. I kept listening. Then in English. “Dry cleaner’s. Leave a message.” It was one of those mechanical female voices, robotic and clear.
I said, “It’s if ever,” and hung up.
I tore up the number I had written out and tossed it in the trash can, put the cards back together, placed them back into the metal box, and put it back where it belonged. I went down, said to Leonard, “Now we’ll see.”
“All right, then,” he said, and we left.
41
When we got back to the safe house Jim Bob was inside making lunch. He had cooked steaks and baked potatoes and had bought all the goods that go with them. He had bought a six-pack of Dr Peppers for Leonard, two jugs of unsweet ice tea, and a six-pack of Lone Star for himself. He had bought an apron and was wearing it. It had writing on it where it draped over his chest. The writing read: KISS THE COOK.
Over lunch—which, I might add, was well prepared—we told him we had one thug lined up for sure and a professional who might come on board.
“That makes four, maybe five,” he said.
“I want to talk to the Barbecue King first,” I said.
“To rile him?” Jim Bob said.
“Maybe.”
“What I’d suggest heavily is that if we want to take the fight to them, let’s not just march up to his house and start some shit. If he’s behind this, and it looks like he is, he might have a little army at his command. There’s the eight guys, but then there’s the Barbecue King’s own guys.”
“Technically he doesn’t run the barbecue business anymore,” Leonard said.
“Beside the point,” Jim Bob said. “He’s rich. He’s powerful. He owns the car company, and that means he runs the illegal side businesses, which will make him cautious in the extreme. Guys like that, they are always scared, because there’s always someone looking to take over, and frequently they plan to do it by giving their rivals a nice vacation, so to speak. Give me a few days to do a bit of surveillance. I’d rather do it alone. Easier to hide one than two or three. So in the meantime, hang out and stay cautious.”
* * *
After two days a small four-door white pickup pulled up out front, and a man got out on the driver’s side. He was tall, dark of skin, but it was hard to get an ethnic take on him. His head was shaved and shiny. He could have been black, Samoan, American Indian, or maybe even Asian. Probably all those things. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt that showed he worked out. He wasn’t bulging with a lot of theatric muscle but instead was lean, had a boxer’s build. He was carrying a compact leather bag. He moved like a cat.
There was a man on the passenger side, and he got out. It was Cason.
It was just me and Leonard in the house. We were in the kitchen looking out the window at their arrival.
“Looks like Cason has brought us the cavalry,” I said.
“Looks like one big asshole to me,” Leonard said.
We went on the front porch as they walked up. The big man moved as if well oiled but not in any hurry. He had the languid but somehow threatening stride of a tiger. When they were standing at the bottom of the porch, Leonard and the big man took to eyeing one another immediately.
“This,” Cason said, “is Booger.”
“How you fuckers?” Booger said. He had a sweet baritone voice that might have encouraged his mother to have enrolled him in the high school choir.
“Us fuckers are fine,” Leonard said.
Booger gave him a Cheshire Cat grin.
“Where’s Jim Bob?” Cason said.
“Out,” I said. He had, of course, been gone a couple of days, and we hadn’t heard a peep yet.
“How about all us fuckers go in the house?” Leonard said.
Booger made with his Cheshire Cat grin again.
We went in the house, and Booger went straight to the refrigerator and looked inside. Leonard had been doling out his Dr Peppers since Jim Bob brought them. There was one left. Booger grabbed it and swigged about half of it down instantly.
Leonard looked at him as if he had just taken a shit in the middle of the floor.
I touched Leonard’s arm casually. He turned and looked at me.
“Son of a bitch,” Leonard said.
Booger swigged more of the soft drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, said, “What was that you said, Leroy?”
“Leonard,” Leonard said. “I said, son of a bitch. That’s my Dr Pepper.”
“Not anymore,” Booger said. “Maybe I can save you a swallow.”
“I’m the only bad nigger drinking Dr Peppers in this house,” Leonard said.
“Now there are two bad niggers,” Booger said. “Though, technically, I’m as much of this as that. I’m what you might call a mutt. More of a junkyard dog, really.”
“That’s not what I was thinking of calling you,” Leonard said.
“Come on, guys,” Cason said. “I’ll buy more Dr Peppers.”
“A case,” Leonard said.
“A case, then,” Cason said.
After a while Cason went away, left Booger with us, and let me tell you, there was one big draft in the room when he departed. Partly it was due to how Leonard and Booger felt about each other, but it was more than that. Booger was like a slice of cold shadow.
Late afternoon we fixed supper, sat and ate at the table. I said, “Booger, we’re glad to have your help, but the pay sucks. Meals and this roof over your head and a chance to get killed.”
/> “I won’t get killed,” Booger said.
“You know what we’re up against, or may be up against?” I said.
“Cason told me.”
“Maybe eight guys, and who knows, it could be more.”
“That’s all right.”
“Course, we got to find them. It may take time.”
“I got time.”
“We’ll have to fix you up with some guns.”
“Got my own equipment.” Booger looked at Leonard and smiled. “When’s Cason bringing those Dr Peppers?”
“You know,” Leonard said, “one day you’re going to pull on the wrong rope, and it just might be tied to me.”
“Wouldn’t that be delightful?” Booger said.
“Maybe less so than you imagine,” Leonard said.
“You look to me, both of you, like you might be getting a little past it.”
“There have been various opinions on the matter,” Leonard said. “The ones who held your opinion lived or died to regret it.”
Booger grinned, leaned back in his chair, said, “You going to make coffee, Happy?”
“Hap,” I said. “And you can make your own damn coffee.”
“You old men watch football?”
“Not really,” I said. “But there’s a TV here if you want to watch it. Keep it turned down, though. I plan to read.”
“I hope you plan on being alert,” Booger said.
“How alert are you if you watch TV?”
“I can hear a dog taking a dump in the yard and watch TV at the same time.”
“And leap small rivers and buildings at a single bound, and you’re half horse and half alligator,” Leonard said.
Booger gave Leonard a cold smile.
“You know,” Booger said, “I killed my mother and fucked her dog, and her I liked.”
I wasn’t sure if he was kidding.
Leonard said, “Yeah, but what if it had been a Doberman, smarty-pants?”
Booger delivered his cold smile again.
After a while Booger padded lightly into the living room and turned on the TV. He found a sports channel and watched an old classic football game.
Me and Leonard went out on the front porch. We sat on the steps and watched the day grow gray. Leonard said, “I don’t like him.”
“If he’s as bad a dude as Cason thinks, as Booger himself thinks he is, we are going to need him.”
“What if he isn’t?”
“Then he’ll get himself killed. Does he make you nervous?”
“No,” Leonard said. “He irritates me.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay,” Leonard said. “A little.”
“What makes him scary is that he doesn’t seem to really have anything or anyone inside that shell. He’s here so he can kill someone, and that’s it. Maybe some odd loyalty to Cason. But in the end, it has nothing to do with setting things right. It’s a whole different country where Booger dwells. My guess is he isn’t all that different from those we have been calling the Canceler. They’re serial killers who have made killing their profession. Slight bend in the road, and Booger could be one of them.”
“I believe that,” Leonard said.
“Believe he killed his mother?” I asked.
“No,” Leonard said. “Well, I don’t think so. He might have fucked a poodle, though.”
“Do you believe he can hear a dog shit in the yard from inside the house while watching TV?”
Leonard gave me a serious look. “Can’t everyone?”
42
The days were hot and the nights were warm, but in the house around Booger there was a coolness stronger than the air-conditioning. Sometimes Booger decided to talk, and he talked at random about all kinds of things, sports and such, and he loved to talk about dead things, and things he wanted to make dead, and it was a long list and seemed to be made in order of desire.
We had one CD that Leonard had brought with him, and we played it on the laptop I had brought with me. It was Restless by Kasey Lansdale. Booger took to playing it more than us. He played over and over one cut in particular. “Sorry Ain’t Enough.” I wondered if those words meant something to him. I doubted he was sorry, but I figured anyone who had done him wrong, at least in his eyes, could never be sorry enough to please him.
We hung out like that for three more days, growing nervous about the wait, and me and Leonard growing nervous because of our companion. I could hardly sleep at night for worry Booger might get bored and decide to kill us in our sleep. But on the last of those three days of waiting, midmorning, Jim Bob showed up.
When he saw Booger he did a kind of double take. “Who’s this? The fucking golem?”
“You can ask me,” Booger said. “I know all about me.”
“Okay,” Jim Bob said. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Booger.”
“Ah, well, that clears it right up,” Jim Bob said. “And I don’t like the way you’re looking at me, asshole.”
“The hat and boots, you look like one of those little dolls you buy in Texas souvenir shops,” Booger said.
Perfect. Jim Bob and Booger, like Leonard and Booger, were already in love. Soon bloody kisses would follow.
“I’ve known you a few seconds, and I wish you dead,” Jim Bob said.
“You can’t imagine how important being liked is to me,” Booger said and showed that smile again.
“Son, you maybe ought not mistake a rattler for a king snake.”
“Here’s a little conversation starter,” Leonard said. “Booger here killed his mother, who I think was a mountain lion, and fucked her poodle, who I actually think was a stuffed plush toy.”
Booger and Leonard did a stare-off. I could see this was not going the way I wanted.
“We’re all on the same team,” I said. This was kind of like that lame invocation “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Leonard spent what seemed like an eternity trying to stare down Booger. Booger didn’t even seem to notice. He yawned.
“Again,” I said. “Same team.”
“Yeah, well, same team or not, right now, since I’m the one with the information, I’m the goddamn quarterback,” Jim Bob said.
“Call the play,” I said.
“You sure this fucker is okay?” Jim Bob said.
“You can depend on me,” Booger said.
“Cason vouched for him,” I said.
“Don’t let us down, kid,” Jim Bob said. “You turn out to be someone doesn’t know the difference between diarrhea and hamburger gravy, you may not only get yourself killed, which I can live with, you might, most importantly, get me killed, and that would be a fucking loss to the world, I guarantee.”
Booger’s face was a blank.
“According to Cason, he’s done stuff,” I said.
“All right, then,” Jim Bob said, and he finally quit glaring at Booger. “Here’s the score. I got our Barbecue King’s schedule down. He’s got a couple of bodyguards, which tells me that any doubts to the contrary about him not being into some shit other than barbecue royalties can be tossed. If you’re just making money off a barbecue deal you don’t need thugs.”
“There are just the two?” Leonard asked.
“From what I can figure. You wanted to talk to him, Hap, and I think that’s a good idea. As far as a squad of hit men, I got nothing out of my surveillance. Not that I expected them to all be hanging out at his house eating free barbecue and swapping recipes for making their own ammunition. I only got his schedule down for a week, but it seems pretty rigid. He gets out and about some, but it’s the same thing over and over, and then he stays home a lot. I watched his house for so long I began to know the birds that were sitting on the telephone wires and named each and every one. The house has a very tall fence around it, but if you drive up Livery Drive and park up there, you can look down over the fence. Nothing odd seems to be going on, but then again, not every week is going to be go-daddy time. Here’s the thing, though. Every day
he goes to a Japanese restaurant to eat sushi. I guess he’s had enough barbecue to hold him. Doug looks to be in his fifties, good shape, gray hair. Looks like a retired businessman. Polo shirts and dress pants and comfortable but expensive shoes.”
“How would you know a good shoe from a bad shoe?” Leonard asked.
“I know lots of things,” Jim Bob said. “Thing is, I think the best time to brace him without everything going Sam Peckinpah is to catch up with him at the Jap joint.”
Nice. Jap joint.
“The bodyguards don’t even go inside. I don’t think he’s really worried about anyone wanting to snap his ass, and that makes me wonder about some other things.”
“If he’s actually connected to all this?” Leonard said.
“Maybe he just thinks he’s invincible,” Booger said.
Jim Bob gave Booger a stare. There was a lot of malice in that look. It didn’t change Booger’s demeanor at all. He could have been talking about gutting someone or going out for an ice cream.
“All right,” I said and looked at my watch. “He eat at noon?”
“For whatever reason he’s at the restaurant twelve-fifteen on the dot. I watched him go there every day. One day I went in and ate not too far away from him. He sits by himself. He has his phone with him, and he puts it on the table, and now and then texts or e-mails on it. He takes his time. He’s there at least an hour, sometimes longer. I think it’s kind of a temporary office. He finishes, pays his bill, goes out to the car, where the two guys are waiting. They drive him home. Actually, once in a while it’s just one guy. Like I said, the bodyguards seem more out of habit than need. Like he’s keeping up appearances. I haven’t got that figured altogether.”
“I think it’s best I go see him alone,” I said. “We don’t want to overwhelm him with numbers.”
“You know what you’re going to say to him?” Jim Bob asked.
“It’ll come to me.”
“All right, but one of us, at least, ought to be nearby,” Jim Bob said.
“That’ll be me, of course,” Leonard said.
“All right, then, you watch his back, and me and Booger will not be far from there, a phone call away if it comes to that. There’s a Burger King just down the road.”