“What’s he talking about?” Donny said, looking at Smoke Stack.
“They don’t know nothing,” Smoke Stack said. “They’re just talking air. Don’t pay them no mind. You really don’t know them, then just keep your mouth shut.”
“What they like to do,” Leonard said, looking right at Donny, “is they hire some dumb ass to drive their car, and then they kill him and split it between themselves.”
“What, for one less split we kill a guy?” Smoke Stack said.
“Yep,” I said. “And, hey, you fellas, what makes you think one of you isn’t next? Were you all in on the previous job? Are there some bodies in the woods somewhere?”
I could tell from the way a couple guys looked at Smoke Stack that I had hit a chord.
“You guys don’t listen to this shit,” Smoke Stack said. “And you, Donny. Ain’t I treated you right? I been more of brother to you than your own brother.”
“You mean you’ve kind of let him do what he wants,” I said, “because at the bottom of it all, you don’t care about him. He’s just a pawn. It’s tough being a father or mother or big brother, cause they got to tell you stuff you don’t want to hear, make you do stuff you don’t want to do. But you, you can just tell him everything’s all right, even when it isn’t.”
“I ain’t got to do nothing,” Donny said. “My brother, he ain’t much of a man.”
“And Smoke Stack is?” I said. “Your brother works his ass off for you. Butt wipe here steals what he wants and hangs out. Not a whole lot of manly in that.”
“I could snap you like a stick,” Smoke Stack said.
“No,” I said. “No, you couldn’t.”
“You talk tough with a gun,” Donny said. “I’ve seen what he can do. You ain’t so tough.”
“What?” Leonard said, grinning at Donny. “Smoke Stack? Tough? With some drunk, maybe? Some poor guy half in the bag. You think he’s bad because he has muscles and tattoos and cigarette breath. Hap here, on his worst day, could turn him inside out and make him say how much he likes it.”
“Ha!” Smoke Stack said.
I went over and gave Leonard my gun. Now he had one in either hand. I took off my jacket, hung it over the door knob of the door I’d kicked open.
“Why don’t I show you that he’s not so tough,” I said.
“That’ll be the goddamn day,” Smoke Stack said.
“This is, in fact, that day,” Leonard said.
Smoke Stack grinned at Leonard. “I get through mopping the floor with him, you’re next, nigger.”
“Oh, don’t make me wet,” Leonard said, then he waved the guns at the others. “All you assholes, except Smoke Stack, and you Donny, all of you over here and on your bellies. Make like fucking run-over snakes.”
They did what they were told. They lay on the floor on their bellies by the wall, lifted their heads up to see what was going on.
Leonard looked at them, said, “All you dick cheeses, all you move is your heads, savvy? Donny, you sit on the couch. You get a bird’s eye view.”
“Why we doing this?” Smoke Stack said.
“Because we can,” I said. “And because you think you’re tough as an old saddle.”
“You’re too old for me,” Smoke Stack said to me.
“Yeah, well, I’ll try not to hurt you too bad.”
“I think tough guy is starting to waffle, Hap,” Leonard said. “I think he’s looking for a hole to run into.”
Smoke Stack said to me, “We get started, it goes bad for you, your man will step in with the guns.”
“He’s got the guns to keep your friends in line. It goes bad for me, I’ll take my beating, and then we’ll leave.”
“Shit,” Donny said. “Think you can beat Smoke Stack, you’re crazy. I seen him whip two guys once, and one of them with a board.”
I felt a little nervous right then, because that old adage about how bullies are always cowards isn’t true. Sometimes they’re bullies simply because they can do what they say they can do, and they enjoy doing it.
Leonard said, “Yeah, but it ain’t how many guys he whipped, it’s the guys. Hap, he wasn’t one of those guys.”
“He whips Smoke Stack, hell, I’ll go with you,” Donny said. “That’s how much faith I got in him.”
Smoke Stack looked at the kid and nodded.
“All right,” I said. “I don’t whip him. You stay, and we’ll go, and we’re out of your life. You rob banks, you fuck goats, you do what you like. We’re done.”
“You’ll be saying stuff to folks you shouldn’t, like we’re going to rob a bank,” Smoke Stack said. “We wouldn’t want people believing something like that. You ain’t got no proof of nothing that way.”
“We’ll make it simple for you,” Leonard said. “You whip Hap, we’ll leave, and then, so you don’t cry at night, you can always come and try to kill us before we let the cat out of the bag. We’ll give you a whole two days. You got our word, and that’s better than yours, I’m sure.”
“I whip him,” Smoke Stack said, nodding at me, “then I’m coming for you. That’s gonna be a treat.”
“You don’t even know me,” Leonard said, then smiled at him. “And you don’t want to. But if Hap slips on a banana peel, then I’ll put the gun away, and me and you can dance all over this place.”
“Hey, Smoke Stack,” I said. “You gonna talk us to death, or you gonna show me what you got.”
There was a clearing between the people on the floor and the couch where Donny sat. Leonard was by the open door, pointing the guns. Smoke Stack moved forward, and as he did he crouched a little and put his fists up. He smiled at me, came closer.
He hooked a big right. I could have seen it coming with a bag over my head. I stepped into him at an angle and the punch went around me. I popped a jab in Smoke Stack’s eye, hooked him to the throat. He had his chin down, so the hook was a so-so shot. Still, he didn’t like it. He stepped back with a sputter, coughed a little, and came at me windmilling. I leaned way right when he was right on me, put out my foot and caught his ankle as he rushed. It catapulted him forward and into the wall and caused him to knock a hole in the sheet rock with his head, then to roll on top of his gang members.
When he got himself straight and turned, I kicked Smoke Stack in the balls so hard people in China had heart pains. I stepped in quick and gave him a left hand three stooge poke in the eyes, hit him with a right cross that came from hell without a bus ticket and that smacked against the ridge of his jaw. He twisted and went down and started to get up, but didn’t.
“You waitin’ on reinforcements, Smoke Stack?” I said.
“What he needs to get up,” Leonard said, “is a fucking winch truck.”
Smoke Stack finally got upright, rushed me with his head down, bellowing like a bull. I hooked my arm under his neck as he came and went back on my hips and kicked him in the nuts again and lifted him over me so that he hit hard on his back on the floor. I could hear the breath go out of him, loud as an elephant fart.
I flipped back so that I landed straddling him, slammed my forearm into his nose and chin. Once. Twice. Three times.
He quit struggling. I got up and looked down at him. His face was bloody. He rolled over on his stomach and started crawling away, like a roach that had had its rear end stepped on. Then he collapsed, quit crawling. He was unconscious.
Donny was looking at me with his mouth open so wide you could have turned a semi truck around in there.
Donny said, “Did you kill him?”
“Just his pride,” I said. “And maybe one of the two brain cells he had. That leaves him one so he knows how not to shit himself. Now, come on.”
Donny looked at Smoke Stack, then at me. “I don’t know.”
“We had a deal. You can come, or Leonard here will pistol whip the goddamn shit out of you and we’ll take you anyway. You can go without knots and bruises, or we can fix you up. You get to choose. And you get to choose right now.”
Donny nodd
ed.
“We’ll be taking all your guns,” Leonard said. “We’re gonna make Donny crawl under the porch and bring them out. He’s going to do that without pulling one, so that way we don’t have to shoot him. You can check for your pistols at the bottom of assorted lakes, creeks and rivers. And if you follow us, I will personally shoot holes in your head and when they find you, your guns will be shoved up your asses.”
WHEN WE WERE in the car, Donny seated in back, said, “But he was so much bigger.”
“David and Goliath,” I said. “Ever read that passage in the Bible?”
“No. What’s it mean?”
“It means David got lucky,” I said.
“Only Hap wasn’t lucky,” Leonard said. “He was skilled. Smoke Stack, he’s got big arms and a big mouth, but he was gonna get you killed, kid. We done you a favor, and you don’t even know it.”
“I don’t believe that,” Donny said, but his voice didn’t hold a lot of conviction.
“Yeah, well, you can be stupid, or you can be lucky, and right now, you’re goddamn lucky,” Leonard said.
“I didn’t think anyone could do that to Smoke Stack,” Donny said.
“Your problem, kid,” Leonard said, “is you haven’t been doing a whole lot of thinkin’, just reactin’, and you hadn’t been around long enough to know life ain’t like the movies. I get the whole lost-your-parents thing. Been there. But that don’t have to turn you stupid. That’s a choice, like wearing green stretch pants. You don’t have to do it.”
“My brother shouldn’t have done this,” he said. “He shouldn’t have asked you guys to do this.”
“Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” I said. “We’re trying to save you from yourself. But, we got a time limit, boy. You fuck it up later, then we done what we could. You can go back to being stupid and probably shot to death in a car out in the woods. But, for right now, we got other plans.”
“What plans?” Donny said.
“Pancakes,” Leonard said.
WE WENT TO my place and made pancakes. It was late by the time we did, and Brett came in. She was carrying a newspaper. She saw Donny sitting at the kitchen table with a large glass of milk and a plate of pancakes covered in syrup. He was eating heartily. Leonard sat across from him with a Dr Pepper. Leonard thought Dr Pepper went with most anything. Brett nodded at Leonard and Donny, said to me, “So, you found a child in the yard and took him in to raise.”
“Found him under a rock,” I said. “Can we keep him? We’ll build him a pen out back.”
She smiled at me. “We’ll think it over. You got any more pancake batter?”
“Coming right up, banana pancakes,” I said. “I should work at IHOP I’m so good at this.”
I went about making her pancakes. While I did, she sat at the table and looked at Leonard for an explanation. Leonard told her all about it.
Brett looked at Donny, said, “Honey, you could have been in some real trouble.”
“I just wanted to make some money.” he said, and the way he looked at her it was hard to determine if he was seeing a sister figure, a mother, or someone he wished he was old enough to date. Brett had that effect on people.
“So taking someone else’s money is okay so you can have some?” she said.
“Smoke Stack said it’s not someone’s money if they can’t keep it,” Donny said. “And besides, that’s bank money, it’s insured.”
“Someone pays out the insurance, baby boy,” she said, “and that might be me if I bank there.” She picked up the newspaper and hit him a pretty good whack in the back of the head. “Bad dog. Bad, bad dog.”
Donny lowered his eyes, said, “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“You haven’t been thinking,” she said. “You been hearing some bullshit, is what you been hearing, and I got to say, for you to take it as fact, you must want to believe it. There’s people born stupid, but you’re one of those Hap calls the Happily Stupid. They believe what they hear, not what they investigate or think about. They’re the ones that don’t listen to news, they listen to opinions and editorials and think it’s news. Rumors and lies and sometimes the truth. It’s all the same to them.”
“I haven’t had it so good,” Donny said.
“So, you’re like a special case?” Leonard said.
“Ain’t no one matters but yourself,” Donny said. “That’s what Smoke Stack told me.”
“Then that means you don’t matter much to him,” I said. “He’s telling you the truth when it comes to his philosophy. He doesn’t care about you or anyone else. You’re just a cog in the machine, and he wouldn’t mind replacing you with another cog at the drop of a hat.”
I put Brett’s pancakes in front of her and heated up the syrup a little in the microwave. I brought it to her and then got her a cold glass of milk. I sat down across from her.
When I sat, I put my hands in front of me, clasped together, and Brett said, “You okay, Hap?”
“I cut my knuckles.”
I held them out for her to see.
“So you did.”
“I think I can use some sympathy.”
“We’ll talk about it when we go to bed,” Brett said.
WHAT WE ENDED up doing was not going to bed right away, but calling Marvin, and getting him out of bed, and pissing him off, but he came over anyway. He came over with the information about the body found in the woods, and in fact, he had gotten a copy of a photograph from one his cop friends, had it in a big yellow envelope. We didn’t look at it right away.
Once he had some of my pancakes, his attitude was better. We went into the living room, and Marvin told Donny some of what he knew. He took the photo out of the envelope and showed it to Donny. It was a clear photo of a man behind the wheel of a car. He had a hole in his forehead, and he was swollen up so bad his shirt collar had rolled into the swell of his neck. Insects had been at him, and a string of ants were clearly visible crawling into his nose.
“No gun was found,” Marvin said. “He didn’t shoot himself.”
“That could be anyone at anytime,” Donny said.
“Yeah, it could,” Marvin said. “It’s a possibility it is someone unrelated to your buddy Smoke Stack. It could be a pumpkin painted up to look like a man. But I don’t think so. Timing’s right, the description of the car fits.”
“There’s lots of cars like that one,” Donny said.
“You got me there, kid. You’re bound and determined to get yourself killed. So have at it. You want to take the chance it’s not connected, that’s your bailiwick. Me, I’m going home.”
Marvin stood up, leaving the photograph on the coffee table.
On his way out, Marvin picked his hat and cane off the back of a chair, said, “Nice knowing you, kid. Next time I see you, it’ll be in a photograph like that one.”
Marvin went out and closed the door.
“Bullshit,” Donny said.
“He’s just trying to help,” Brett said.
“He’s trying to scare me,” Donny said.
“Yeah,” I said, “he is. I hope it’s working. You damn well better be scared. This is some serious business we’re talking about. Smoke Stack, he’s a loser. He’s so cool and important, why’s he live in that shithole and have a bunch of other losers hanging around him, and that includes you. But it doesn’t have to.”
“He does all right,” Donny said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Well, he don’t keep his left hand up worth a shit.”
“Or his right,” I said.
THAT NIGHT WE put Donny in the little guest bedroom we had built for Leonard. It wasn’t very big, but we had built it onto the back of the house. There was a window that Donny could climb out of if he were ambitious. The only thing was, Leonard was sleeping in the bed under the window and near the door. Donny was sleeping on a pallet on the floor. Donny would have had to have been a Ninja to get out that window and Leonard not know it.
As we walked him to the bedroom and I laid out his pallet,
Brett brought him pajamas and a towel for a shower, Leonard said, “I’m a light sleeper. And if you wake me up, thinking you’re going to sneak out. I’m going to beat the hell out of you. That’s as simple as I can put it.”
Donny looked at me.
“He will,” I said.
“Here,” Brett said, handing him the towel and pajamas. “Baby, you ought to listen to these boys. They know what they’re talking about. Like your brother, they just want to help you.”
“My brother is a loser,” Donny said.
“Your brother quit a good job to come here and take care of you,” Leonard said. “He went from high living to low living. He’s a janitor. Good honest work, but not work of his choosing. He did that for you. He may not be perfect, but he did it for you. That means something.”
Donny didn’t say anything to that.
Brett said, “You should listen. Those people you were with, hell, not people… Those beasts you were with. They aren’t human. They’re hyenas. They might have been people once, but they’re hyenas now. You don’t have to be one too. You get to choose. That’s the difference between you and a natural born hyena. There’s a choice for you. For the animal there isn’t, but for humans to choose not to be animals, there is.”
“Actually,” Leonard said, “I like the hyenas better than humans.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Donny said.
“That’s what scares us,” I said.
“He knows,” Brett said, and took hold of Donny’s chin with her thumb and forefinger. “He’s just not ready to admit it… And Donny, honey, be sure and take that shower before you lay down to sleep. You’ll sleep better, and you won’t stink.”
Donny looked as if someone had just stuck a hot shot to his balls.
“Not trying to hurt your feelings,” Brett said, “just fact. Girls sure don’t want to be around some stinker. And you’re kind of cute, if you’d clean yourself up.”
“Really?” Donny said.
“Really.”
“Smoke Stack said if you got money, you got