“I think it was licking our heads that wore him out,” I said. “I feel like I need a hair dryer.”
“Or, better yet, more hair,” Leonard said.
“Says the man who has started cutting his short.”
“It’s the style, Hap. If there is one thing I am, it’s stylish.”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
When we crossed the Sabine River Bridge we were the only car out there. A high mist was rising off the water and it was entangling itself in the trees on both sides of the riverbank and blowing across the road in slow motion.
I pulled over and put the address my former schoolmate Sharon had given me into the GPS, then continued onward.
It was eleven thirty.
24
The house wasn’t in town but on the outskirts near what we used to call the Gilmer Highway. It sat off the highway a goodly distance but could be seen from there. There were houses behind Sharon’s house, and they went back a way and were separated only by small yards.
There were a few well-cared-for trees in the yard, and there were lights on behind the windows of one large room. A car was parked under a carport.
“She said come alone,” I said, “so that’s what I want her to think I’ve done.”
“That’s all right,” Leonard said. “I’ll sit with Rex and the gun. Something looks or sounds fishy, I’ll be there like a shot.”
I cruised past her house, turned around, and parked in her driveway. Leonard slid down in the seat and waited there with the gun from the glove box in his hand.
As I made my way up the walk, I saw through the trees that there was a white pickup parked out to the side of her house, behind some hedges. It wasn’t exactly hidden, and it might not mean anything. Maybe the truck had got up in the middle of the night and drove itself there, perhaps liking the view. Maybe the truck belonged to the owners of the house behind Sharon’s house.
But in for a penny, in for a pound, the motto of the dedicated investigator, the mantra of a fool.
I knocked gently on the door. Hardly any time went by before Sharon opened it. She was still wearing her waitress outfit. She smiled at me. It was another of those moments when she was a girl again, back in high school, with a line of suitors.
“Come in,” she said.
I did. I stood near the door and waited. “You have something more to tell me?”
“I do. Something to show you. Wait one minute.”
She went down a hall and turned into a room and out of sight. I rocked on my heels. It was a nice house. Too many knickknacks for me, but nice. I could see into the kitchen from where I stood. There was a large clock on the wall with a white background. It was an old-style clock, not digital. The black hands really stood out. I watched the second hand swing around in a circle a few times.
Perhaps Sharon didn’t have any information, and she was changing into a negligee, hoping to rekindle that old school spirit. That would be awkward. Brett didn’t let me date.
After a moment I heard movement, looked up. Sharon was coming out of the room at the back and she wasn’t wearing a negligee. The redheaded man from the café was with her. He wasn’t wearing a negligee either. He had a gun held down against his leg. I would have preferred the negligee.
Sharon looked wimpy. She stepped to the side so that the redhead was directly in line with me. He patted his thigh with the gun. He smiled the kind of smile a shark does right before biting the head off a tuna.
I said, “I wasn’t expecting a threesome. But before we start, I don’t do anal. Or anything that involves rubber dicks and lube oil.”
Redhead kept smiling. It wasn’t because he liked my humor. “You try and run, I’ll pop you. I can shoot quick as a cat can jump.”
“But can you hit anything?” I said.
“That too. Don’t believe me, try me.”
“Sorry, Hap,” Sharon said. “Professor, he says for you to do something in this town, you do it, even if you don’t agree with it. For the record, I don’t, but he said, so I did.”
“That’s all there is to it?” I said. “You’re a Judas because Professor says you ought to be?”
“Red here made me an offer. I need the money. And he said he’d break one of my arms if I didn’t.”
“I let her choose which one,” Red said.
“Well, damn, that sure makes me feel a sight better,” I said.
“I am sorry. Really, Hap. I meant what I said today. I wished you’d asked me out a second time.”
“You’re just making it sweeter,” I said. “So, they really call you Red?” I said.
“Sometimes. Where’s the nigger?”
“She said to come alone.”
“But where is he?”
“A hotel in Tyler,” I said.
“Which one?”
I told him where we had been but didn’t mention we had checked out. I told it convincingly, I thought.
“Bet you figured you were going to get you some nooky, didn’t you?” Red said. “Sorry you’re going to miss out. She’s got some good stuff. This is done, I might be coming back to see her.”
Red reached out and patted Sharon’s ass with the gun.
Sharon turned bright red. I thought that was swell. That was sweet. She turned red because she got her ass patted, but she was fine with giving me to the wolves. It doesn’t take all that much to go to the cops. She could have done that.
“I’ve dipped my wick there a few times, haven’t I, honey?” Red said.
Sharon didn’t answer, just looked straight ahead, sad and still blushing.
“What I’m going to want you to do,” Red said, “is go out the door there and then out to your car. You’re going to drive me and you where I tell you to drive. Later, I’m going to get the nigger. Divide and conquer. Always the best way to do it. Coming alone, that was stupid, boy.”
“So, Professor has all this power, but he just sends you?” I said.
“One town, one ranger,” he said.
“You’re no Texas Ranger,” I said.
“Easy-peasy. You get popped, then I’ll have to give the nigger some attention.”
“Might not like the attention you get back,” I said. “You’re going to need you, the twins, and maybe a pet alligator.”
“Sure,” Red said. “Go. Out the door.”
I went out. Red prodded me with the pistol in my back, pushed me toward my car. I couldn’t see Leonard in it.
When we got to the driver’s side, Red said, “You drive where I tell you to drive, and you live longer. I might have you drive out somewhere far away and let you out and take your car. George pays for cars to be mashed up by that fucking machine. He gets through, don’t matter who owned it. What’s left you could slip under a door. Course, way it might work is I could leave you in the car when he mashes it. I could do that. I’ll let you worry about which I’m going to do. And drive carefully and slow. I get carsick when I’m not driving.”
“Like I give a shit,” I said.
He popped me one in the back of the head with the barrel of the pistol. It wasn’t too hard, but it wasn’t a love tap either.
I opened the car door, looked for Leonard. He wasn’t in the car.
Red said, “Wait a minute. I want to check.”
He pushed me aside, had me stand back about four feet. He leaned inside the car, over the front seat, and took a look at the backseat, and that’s when Rex hit him. I had forgotten about him.
It was like a shark attack. Rex’s wide jaws clamped on Red’s face, right over his nose and mouth. The impact of it was like a punch, knocking Red back and onto the ground, the dog coming out after him, close as a natural appendage, his body a mass of coiled muscle.
I stepped on Red’s gun hand while Rex tore a large chunk of Red’s face off and then grabbed him by the throat and bit deep, making a sound like someone snapping a crisp celery stick. Blood gurgled like coffee in a pot.
Red’s hand went limp. He let go of the gun. I kicked it under th
e car.
Leonard came out from the bushes holding the automatic. He stood where he was, across the way from me, watching Rex work.
Sharon came to the door, put a hand to her mouth, and let out some air. Red was being whipped around by Rex as if he were wet laundry. I felt drops of blood land on my face. Red tried to scream, only managed to make a sound like someone gargling peanuts, and then he didn’t make any more noise besides what his swinging body made on the gravel in the driveway. After a moment, I could hear bones cracking in Red’s face.
I had no idea a dog could be that strong. Red had to weigh two hundred pounds, but he might as well have been a feather the way Rex manhandled him.
“Bad dog bite,” Leonard said.
“I’ll say.”
Leonard walked over to me. “Shall we call Rex off?”
Rex had quit shaking Red, was just holding him to the ground by the neck with his jaws.
“Don’t think it matters much now.”
I looked to Sharon. She stood in the doorway. She was gray as ash in the porch light. She had one hand against her throat, as if to protect it from a dog attack.
I said, “Rex doesn’t like people pushing his friends around.”
“Oh Jesus,” she said.
“You should have asked for him a little earlier,” I said. “I think he shows up now, it’ll be too late. Jesus couldn’t resurrect that motherfucker. Only way he gets up is with a forklift.”
25
The interrogation room was much nicer than the one in LaBorde or, for that matter, any I had ever been in, and I have experience.
It was small, but it was very neat, and you could smell the freshness of the wood paneling. There was a nice long table with no scratches on it, and Leonard and I were sitting on one side of it with our hands on the table. Our hands were free now, but we had worn handcuffs earlier, when Delf had us picked up by a very nice big black policeman with a very big gun.
That was all right. I was the one that called the cops to come out.
Delf came in. He wasn’t as friendly this time. He looked at us like a housewife spying rot in store cabbage. He sat down. He had a notepad in his hand. He placed that carefully on the table. He glared at us the way Marvin looks at us. It made me feel homey.
“This is a nice room,” Leonard said.
Delf ignored him.
“Sharon, she backs up your story. Said she had no choice but to set you up. She was under threat of death.”
“I believe that,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I like it.”
“How’s Rex?” Leonard asked.
“Animal control,” Delf said. “They’re considering putting him down.”
“Don’t do that,” Leonard said. “He was in our car, minding his own business, when Red tried to look inside. Red had a gun, I might add.”
“You had a gun too,” Delf said. “And it’s not registered to you.”
“It’s Hap’s. I could see a man with a gun through Sharon’s windows. I got the gun and got out of the car. Also, I had to pee. Rex hadn’t got him, I would have. Rex isn’t at fault here. He’s my dog and he was protecting the car we were in while I was pissing in the shrubs.”
“What’s funny,” Delf said, “is that dog looks exactly like the dog Junkyard George owns, and here’s another coincidence. That dog’s name is Rex too.”
“Do tell,” Leonard said. “Pretty popular dog name, huh?”
Delf took a deep breath and let out a tubercular-sounding sigh.
“Red set me up,” I said. “He planned to get rid of me, and Leonard was next. He wanted us divided to make it easy. Sharon said to come alone. I didn’t. I had Leonard and Rex.”
“Yeah, well, as I said, Sharon tells pretty much the same story,” Delf said. “Let me tell you something. I believe you guys. I believe her, for the most part. I could make a big deal out of this, but we’re going to call it self-defense by use of dog. I’m not going to put in my report you stole the dog.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Leonard said.
“Is, isn’t it?” Delf said. “I don’t like Professor, don’t like what he had in mind for you. Don’t care much for Sharon either. Red wasn’t with her the whole time. She said he came over about ten, waited. She knew he was coming. She could have called and told me. I could have set him up. She likes the money they were going to pay her more than she liked you not being killed. I believe she was threatened, but she had a way out and she didn’t take it.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Leonard said. “And that cheeseburger, at the place where she works. They use funky cheese.”
“You know,” Delf said, “they do. Kind of, I don’t know, chewy, and not in a good way.”
“Exactly,” Leonard said. “What about Rex? Can I have him back?”
“I don’t think George needs him. I’ll have him brought over to you. They got him all muzzled and shit. Pit bulls, they can be dangerous.”
“Only if you make them that way,” I said. “Rex, he did what he did because Red pushed me. He likes me. He didn’t care for Red. He loves Leonard. He ought not to be blamed for defending me and the car. He hadn’t, me and my car might be flat and in a pile out at George’s junkyard.”
“Did Red say George wanted it done?” Delf asked. “Getting rid of you two, though, I’m beginning to understand why someone would want to.”
“He said Professor wanted us taken care of, and he talked about having George crush my car with me in it,” I said.
“That’s thin,” Delf said. “You say it, but Red can’t say now that he said it. Professor and George can deny it. It’s nothing, really.”
“But Sharon backs it up,” I said.
“She does, but some lawyer wants to play it cute, they could say she’s covering her ass. Could say Professor wasn’t in on this shit, just her and Red for some reason. They’ll find a reason. Still, I’m talking to Professor and George. One of them might drop a ball and not mean to.”
Delf sat there for a long while saying nothing.
We said nothing.
The air conditioner made a peculiar sound. It was kind of cold in there.
“Now, here’s something else,” Delf said, “and I just throw it out there, because I don’t believe in this being just one of those things, since all manner of shit has been happening since you two came to town. But does the name Ace mean anything to you?”
We both shook our heads.
Delf studied us as if the word LIE was stamped on our foreheads.
“Big black guy, about the size of a tree, wore a bear-ear hat and used to date Jackie, the missing girl whose father turned up dead? I know you know some of this story. Jackie used to live with George until she got some kind of Martian mind-meld and got smarter and figured out George and her whole family and the whole fucked-up religion they belonged to was bogus…the name Ace still doesn’t ring a bell?”
“Oh,” Leonard said. “That brother. Yeah. We know who he is, but dead? Wow. That’s some shit.”
“Ain’t it?” Delf said. “I didn’t say he was dead, now, did I?”
“I’m a good guesser,” Leonard said.
“Then you do know him?”
“Jackie’s mother told us about him,” I said, “and not happily.”
“That whole nigger-in-the-woodpile business made her nervous,” Leonard said.
“Did it now?” Delf said.
“And Jackrabbit’s brother, Thomas,” Leonard said, “he kind of gave us a vibe like he might think Jackrabbit ought to be killed for riding a brother’s dick. Didn’t you get that vibe, Hap?”
“I did.”
“Someone took what was probably an ax to his head and left him in the house where Jackie used to live,” Delf said. “I got to wonder why he was there, and who killed him, and who called in that he was murdered. Call turned out to be from a phone booth in Tyler, Texas. Where were you guys holed up?”
“Tyler,” I said.
“Pretty coincidental,” Delf said.
> “Naw,” Leonard said, “lots of people stay in Tyler.”
“Uh-huh,” Delf said, but he left that line of questioning alone. He turned to another. “Was Jimmy or Lou mentioned in any of this business by Red? You know, them being involved.”
“Nope,” I said.
“The twins?”
“Nope.”
“Know what? I’ll be glad when I can let you two go home. Or to prison. Or to a home for the demented. Someplace other than here.”
“Lot of people feel that way,” I said.
26
We spent the night in a jail cell. It’s cheaper than a Holiday Inn. It was a small room with bars and the door was locked. We had one shitter and a bunk bed. I got the bottom bunk, Leonard got the top. Unlike Holiday Inn, the cell had room service of a sort. They fed us sandwiches. That’s a plus.
Delf said us being in jail for the night was all for show.
It seemed real enough, though.
During the night, I dreamed of Rex and Red, how Rex’s teeth ripped Red’s face, how his jaws clamped on Red’s head and crushed it like a Chinese paper lantern. The memory of it was so intense, I awoke several times. I glanced at Leonard’s bunk. He was sound asleep.
Son of a bitch.
Come morning, about six thirty, we were let out of our cozy little room by the big black cop that had picked us up. He had his cap pushed back on his head. He was heavy around the middle and had legs like railroad ties. He had a face that looked to have collected some violence.
“Good morning,” he said as we rolled out of bed, still wearing last night’s clothes, of course. They didn’t even spring for little orange pajamas.
“And good morning to you,” Leonard said as he dropped down from the top bunk.
The cop unlocked the door.
“Y’all can come out,” he said. “I’m supposed to take you so you can have breakfast. I’ll eat with you. We didn’t have an introduction last night, since I was putting you in cuffs, but my name is Johnny Williams. Breakfast will be your treat.”
He drove us over to the café in a cruiser. I had yelled for shotgun, so Leonard got the backseat. It was no longer raining, but from the night before the streets were as shiny as a snotty nose.