“Goddammit!” I said. “That’s enough!”
Brett gave me a look I didn’t like.
Leonard said, “He don’t talk, you can hit him some more, Brett. I promise.”
I looked at Leonard. “I don’t want it to come to us finding out who’s the toughest, brother,” I said.
“Me neither,” Leonard said.
“Then I advise you not make loose promises.”
Leonard grinned at me. I turned back to Red.
“Red,” I said, “I want you to tell your story, and boil it down to the essence. Tell it straight. We got questions, you answer them, quick like. You’ve caused us trouble. I’m past irritable myself. I’m damn near sick with this mess. You fuck around, we might all have pistols and a need to swing them. Hear what I’m saying?”
Red nodded, used his hand to wipe away a trail of blood that was flowing from a pretty deep cut across his forehead, a cut made from the sight on the revolver.
He said, “I knew y’all were folks would beat a midget.”
“I might kick a puppy, it bit me,” Leonard said.
Red made a grunting noise. “I believe you would, mister.”
“My whippin’ hand’s gettin’ itchy,” Brett said. “Talk, or your brains’ll see moonlight.”
“Ah, a line for the movies,” Red said. “Save it for when you write your life story, lady. They pick it up for film, they might even let you play the part.”
Red bent forward and let blood drip off his head and onto the ground. When he sat up, he was pressing his fingers against the wound. He said, “I told you how me and Wilber had our problems with Big Jim, and how we left out of here on our way to Mexico.
“Well, me and Wilber started to have a change of heart about the time we got near the border. It was shortly after Wilber strong-armed a diner owner and cook, a Mexican. I, on the other hand, took money from the cash register and stayed away from that sort of thing, which I not only prefer not to participate in, I prefer not to witness. I only engage in violence when it’s absolutely necessary and the money’s right.”
“Would you get on with it, you windbag?” Leonard said.
Red nodded. “So, Wilber, having just told the man how much he liked his steak ranchero, reached out and got hold of him, dragged him over the counter, and commenced to kick him. I should say, however, that the steak ranchero really was good, and that sort of bothered me. Eating a man’s cooking, bragging on it, then beating him like he stole something. I’ve eaten in some of the best Mexican restaurants in the United States and nothing quite prepared me for the fineness of his steak ranchero. It was the sauce as much as anything else that made it special, though I believe the meat was of an excellent quality.”
“Fuck the steak ranchero,” Brett said.
“All right, all right,” Red said, holding up his hand. “I’m a man who likes to tell a story complete. You never know when little details might matter. You might drive through that part of Texas at some point and want a good steak ranchero. I think the man will probably recover. It was a good beating, but I’ve seen people take worse and be able to function in time. So, he’ll probably be back to cooking eventually. It behooves a person to pay attention to almost anything. You never know when something can be of use to you. I can give you the name of the place if you want it.”
Brett said, “You know, you really are an idiot.”
“Personally,” Red said, “I believe that’s a prejudicial statement directed toward my size.”
“Your head’s same size as anyone else’s,” Brett said. “It’s the brain in it that’s questionable. I’m going to ask you one more time. Where is Tillie?”
“I’m coming to that,” Red said. “We took a car from the diner man, and as we neared Mexico it struck me quite soundly that I really didn’t care for south of the border that much. Everything’s different down there, and frankly, my whorehouse Spanish is nowhere as good as it once was. You don’t use it, you lose it. And Wilber, well, if you want someone kicked around and hammered, he’s your man, but public relations, that’s out. And public relations in Spanish, well, that’s certainly out. The only Spanish he speaks is on the menu at Taco Bell, and he has to read that off the card. I had to order the steak ranchero at the diner for him. He thought it was a ranch hero. Some kind of steak sandwich.”
“You just can’t lose that steak ranchero, can you?” Leonard said, and leaned on the car as if exhausted.
“So,” Red said, “we’re down South Texas way, and we start to consider our options, and this whole thing with Mexico, well, it’s not pulling my string and Wilber isn’t fond of it either. I decide we should call Big Jim in Tulsa. I tell him that I’m sorry, and that I did skim some money, but I also remind him that I made him a lot more money than the previous operator had been making him. I made promises that if he took us back we’d do right by him. So, he lets us come back. Not as managers of the whorehouse, but as drones. Working our way up again. He’s quite forgiving, actually. I admit I thought he might shoot us both, but a life on the run, living off crackers, having to manage some kind of peanut operation in Mexico where it’s hot as hell on a griddle, and where they speak Spanish faster than a calculator clicks … well, it was less than alluring.
“Case like that, sometimes you have to toss your hat over the windmill, so that’s exactly what we did. Big Jim let Wilber and me come back. We robbed a doughnut shop in South Texas of three thousand dollars and two dozen glazed, ate the doughnuts and used the money to catch a plane, flew on into Oklahoma City where Big Jim had a party meet us, and not with paper hats and party favors either.”
Red thought for a moment, as if sorting out details. “We were given a bit of an adjustment. A punishment, I suppose you might call it. I had to take a pretty good ass kicking. Literally. Numerous boots to the posterior, and I’ll attest to the fact that the gentleman administering the kicks was quite good at it. My butt is still sore. But, I took my medicine and got it over with.
“Wilber, on the other hand, resisted a bit, so they hit him with an axe handle across the neck, necessitating the brace. But, after that, Jim took us back into his graces. It was that simple. He forgave us. I must say I miss our former position of authority and wealth, but frankly, I’d rather start all over again with Big Jim than be down in Mexico trying to run a string of Mexican whores or a dice game out of the back of a greasy filling station. And one thing about Jim, he may be a pimp and a crook, but he has a sense of honor sorely lacking in some of our public servants.”
“Great,” Brett said. “Now we know what you’ve been doing these past days, like we give a shit, but you still haven’t said about Tillie.”
“Tillie,” Red said. “Yes. I was coming to that. She’s gone.”
“That’s it?” Brett said. “Ten minutes of your crap to tell us she’s gone? Gone where?”
“After I began to feel alert from the butt kicking, and Big Jim welcomed us back into the fold, he told us we were all heading for the whorehouse. He wanted Wilber and me there. My thoughts were that in time he was going to turn the operation back to us. Though, as Wilber has pointed out, sometimes I can be far too optimistic. We drove from Oklahoma City out to the whorehouse this morning with Big Jim. He even allowed that Wilber and I might partake of the products there, so, until your arrival, I was feeling very good. As if things were back on track. Wilber and I had just come back from Winston, a little town between Hootie Hoot and Oklahoma City, having gone there for dinner without any sort of escort or threats. We had a couple of steaks and came back, ready to relax, drink a bit, and perhaps, if the customers slowed, to partake of the female delights. Then your ugly faces showed up.”
“Big Jim?” I said. “He was the guy in the blue suit?”
“Yes,” Red said. “He was merely visiting. The guy standing next to him is actually the manager now, and I believe I should make note here and now that he’s not all that bright. Honest, because he’s stupid, but bright he isn’t. If his brain was a battery it wo
uldn’t give enough energy to fire up a penlight. Beside him Wilber is a mental gargantuan.”
Red took another moment to bend over and let blood drip off his head, onto the toes of his boots. Looking at him there in the moonlight, so small, the blood flowing like that, falling onto those little boots, I felt sick and sorry and sad. My father and mother hadn’t raised me to beat up midgets with pistols, nor to stand by and allow it to happen. I felt much smaller than Red, even if he was a cold-blooded killer and a windy sack of scum.
“It’s bad enough you came in there like that,” Red said, “but you stirred Big Jim up personally, and he doesn’t cotton to thugs off the street tampering with his operation or running away with his personnel.”
“I think maybe Big Jim might be led to think you were in on our arrival,” Leonard said. “I think he could be led to think that real easy.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Red said. “Why would I do that?”
“Could be that’s what he’s wondering,” Leonard said. “Maybe he’s thinking you linked up with us, and were getting back into his good graces to run some kind of scam.”
“What kind of scam?” Red said. “What could I possibly gain?”
Brett cocked the hammer back on the pistol and put the gun to Red’s head. “This is it, short stuff. The moment of truth. Where’s Tillie?”
Red rolled his eyes toward the gun barrel, said, “Seems, that as punishment for helping me, Tillie had to service most of Big Jim’s bodyguards. Except for Franklin because he seems to have trouble getting it up. He claims it’s a psychological ailment, but we all know he takes too many steroids.”
“We don’t care about Franklin and his dick problems,” Leonard said. “For heaven’s sake. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown here. Will you just tell us where Tillie is?”
“Good-bye, shit sack,” Brett said, and pushed the revolver hard against Red’s temple.
“Tillie was passed around, then sent to The Farm,” Red said.
“What’s The Farm?” I asked.
“Ever heard of the Bandito Supremes?” Red asked.
“I take it that isn’t one of the orders from Taco Bell,” I said.
“Certainly not,” Red said.
“Banditos are a Texas biker gang,” Leonard said. “They’re known to be in the drug business. The whore business. What have you.”
“No,” Red said. “Not the Banditos. The Bandito Supremes. They’re bikers too, or some of them are, or were. But they’re not even associated with the Banditos. They consider those guys sissies. They’ve fucked tougher guys than the Banditos behind the Catholic church. Could you take the gun from my head, lady? It makes me nervous.”
“It should,” Brett said, and eased the hammer down and pulled the gun back.
Red let out a deep breath. “The Bandito Supremes are modern Commancheros. Survivalist Nazis. Mostly they travel about, but they have headquarters in South and Southwest Texas, and Mexico. They have a farm, or what they call a farm, not far across the Mexican border. They do some work for Big Jim now and then. At certain types of work they can’t be beat.”
“I have a feeling that the work they do at this farm isn’t about growing vegetables,” I said.
“You are most correct,” Red said.
15
After we got Red’s story we sat around and thought about it awhile. As is usual with Leonard and me, we couldn’t think of anything clever. We either needed to do it or not do it.
Brett had just one thing on her mind, of course, and that was go for it, with or without us. That meant we could leave her to her fate, or we could go along. So there was really only one actual alternative. Head for Mexico and The Farm.
Brett gave Red an ultimatum. Either take us there or end up a maggot hotel. Red, being the practical sort, decided to be our guide once we got into Texas.
We hit some back roads, and finally broke out toward Amarillo, Red riding in the trunk. All the time we drove I hoped the little bastard wasn’t getting carbon monoxide fumes, and every so many miles I made Leonard stop so I could check on him. Each time I opened the trunk and asked Red how he was doing, he’d give me a little wave.
Finally Brett and Leonard wore out with that method and moved Red into the back seat next to me and replaced his position in the trunk with suitcases. Brett rode up front with Leonard, and for most of the trip to Texas the two of them talked about country music. Red even had some opinions. He seemed to favor the Roy Acuff era and thought the rock sound was fucking up country music and he didn’t like the way modern country and western singers danced around on stage. He thought they ought to just sing and go to the house.
One thing about Red, he was highly adaptable.
We arrived in Amarillo late that night. The town stank of slaughterhouses and stockyards. The air was absolutely thick with it. Sometimes breathing was like snorting a cow turd. It made me a little ill.
We stopped just outside of town and put Red in the trunk again, the suitcases in the back seat. Red was resigned by now and crawled inside without complaint, curled up next to the spare tire like a child crowding in close to his mother. He held his hat to his chest like a teddy bear.
We rented a cheap motel, because it had become part of our nature to do so, parked close to our rooms, and carried Red and his hat into Leonard’s room with the guns and the luggage.
Inside the place looked pretty much like every other cheap motel room we’d rented. I felt as if I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Like no matter where I went, I ended up in the same room.
Leonard went out then, came back about a half hour later with some groceries, a bottle of aspirin, and some children’s Band-Aids with Superman on them.
Red took about six aspirin and chased them with a Coke. I dabbed his bloody forehead with toilet tissue, slapped on a few Band-Aids. I stuck a wad of toilet paper to the head wound under his hair and left it there to dry.
“This is the sort of thing we have to deal with,” Red said.
“What?” Leonard asked.
“Little people. We deal with this all the time.”
“Getting pistol-whipped?” Brett asked.
“Abuse in general. And humiliation.” Red turned his focus to Leonard. “You thought of getting me Band-Aids, you immediately thought of children’s Band-Aids because of my size. You don’t take me seriously because I’m small.”
“They were on sale, asshole,” Leonard said.
“I take you seriously,” Brett said. “I pistol-whipped the shit out of you, didn’t I?”
Red shook his head. “You just don’t get it. None of you. Hap here, he might understand some, but ultimately, he goes with the flow. He’s not a man willing to follow his heart.”
“Were you following your heart when you strangled that woman who ran the whorehouse?” I said. “If you did do that.”
“Oh, I did it. But that had nothing to do with heart. That was business.”
“Consider this business,” Brett said.
“Are you getting paid?” Red asked.
“No,” Brett said.
“Then it’s not business,” Red said.
“I think it is,” Brett said. “In fact, I think it’s very serious business. And let me add this. I don’t find my daughter, you’re all out of business. Know what I mean?”
“Of course I do. Being small doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Nor does it mean I’m physically inadequate. Would you suspect I can bench-press two hundred pounds? I may not look it in these street clothes, but I’m well muscled. Perhaps this isn’t the thing to say in front of a lady—however, considering your actions of earlier, the idea of you being a lady might be questionable, so I think I can say it, and will. I have a big schlong.”
“How nice,” Brett said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said, “but you have to climb up on a chair to use it.”
Red was infuriated. “How much can you bench-press?”
“I don’t know,” Leonard said.
“I bet it isn’t m
uch for your size. You consider my size and the fact I weigh far less than two hundred pounds, and you’re talking about me moving some real weight.”
“That’s good,” Leonard said.
Red began to snort and rattle on about this and that. After about fifteen minutes of nonstop bullshit we had had enough. Leonard decided to gag him, and I helped. We used a pair of Leonard’s underwear to do the job. We tied the drawers in place with a belt from one of Brett’s dresses. Then we tied Red to a chair with a lamp cord and one of my belts.
When we were finished Leonard gave Red a pat on the head, said, “Just be glad them ain’t Hap’s drawers.”
Brett put Red’s hat on his head. Red shook the chair by rotating his hips and kicking his feet.
“You turn that over, I’m gonna leave you there,” Leonard said. “You’ll be damn uncomfortable lying on your side tied to a chair. You settle down there and after a while I’ll let you loose for a pee break, otherwise you’re gonna be miserable. And remember this, you ain’t got no extra clothes with you if you mess yourself. Though, I suppose tomorrow morning I could run over to the children’s department at a thrift store and pick you up some short sets.”
Red quit kicking. His little shoulders slumped.
Leonard turned on the television. There was a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos on. Leonard picked up Red’s chair and sat him right in front of the television set. He took the Western novel Taxi Man had given me and stretched out on the bed and began to read.
“Well, that television show is our cue to depart,” I said.
I glanced at Red: he had his head hung, defeated. On the television the audience was laughing as a toddler fell over the edge of a plastic swimming pool and banged his head against the ground.
Brett and I went to our room, carrying our little bit of luggage.
“I bought him some aspirin, didn’t I? Paid for it out of my own money.”
“Jesus, Brett. You hit him in the head with a gun barrel. A piece of steel. Aspirin doesn’t make it okay.”
“Well, aspirin’s for a headache ain’t it?”