“It was merely an affectionate hug between comrades,” Leonard said.
“About the case?” Marvin said.
“Cason is having the disc checked,” I said, “and we’ll get back to you.”
Marvin said, “You know, guys, I don’t want to be paranoid here, but I’m starting to look over my shoulder.”
“You think we’re in danger?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Marvin said. “But if Kincaid is responsible for Bert’s death, it doesn’t take much to piss him off. Why would he bother? It’s just one more death that might tie itself to him. He could have let it go and probably been better off.”
“That may not be his way,” I said. “He strikes me as a man that likes to win at whatever game he’s playing, and from the looks of his office digs, he has the money to make the kind of arrangements he wants for most anything next to a body transplant.”
Marvin got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, came and sat back down.
“So, how do we play it?” he said.
“I’m not one for quitting,” Leonard said.
“Here’s my thought,” I said. “Best thing for us to do is to keep poking our noses in other people’s business and find out if someone will come out and play.”
43
I was lying in bed with Brett, and I had told her about our day and the day before. Leonard was downstairs sleeping on the couch. From where I lay I could see the window and the night sky. It was a velvet-soft night. No rain.
“How are things between Leonard and John?” she asked.
“John’s being taught that his sense of future direction ought to include deep desire for a woman’s vagina.”
“Who’s teaching him?”
“His brother.”
Brett shook her head. “Families can be a mess.”
I reached over and took her hand. “I’m gonna change the subject a little.”
“That sounded ominous.”
“I know you have a child, a grown child,” I said, “but have you ever thought about starting a family with someone else?”
“Someone else?”
“Yes.”
“Who would that someone else be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Someone off the street. Someone about my height and weight and general disposition.”
“You’re serious?”
“I guess I am.”
Brett lay without speaking for a long time. “I have thought about it, Hap. I’ve told you how much I love you, and how I stand by you. But … if we had a kid, there’s no way you could do what you do.”
“I could quit. Though I’m not sure what I’m quitting, since I don’t know what my job is.”
“You know exactly what I mean, Hap. Don’t act coy.”
“I think I could actually finish college.”
“You tried last year and quit.”
“I wasn’t motivated enough.”
“Now you are?”
“I could try. Unlike just about everyone else, I really had a good family. I know how to be a father. I would be good at it.”
“Your lifestyle isn’t exactly conducive to tricycles and soccer games and PTA meetings. You’d do all right for a while, and then you’d be … you know, back out there with Leonard. I don’t know if I could manage it. I have a grown child that drives me crazy. I don’t even know if I could have another one. I’m probably too old.”
“We could find out,” I said.
She reached out and patted my cheek gently. “I don’t think so, baby. I love you. I do. But, Hap … I don’t think so.”
44
Morning came, and downstairs I found Brett making coffee. I said, “Where’s Leonard?”
“I sent him to his place.”
“Sent him?”
“To get his stuff. His rent plays out in the next couple of days. He doesn’t need to be staying in some rat hole, and besides, I like having him around.”
“I like having him around too … but not that much.”
“It’s temporary. Me and him talked.”
“He has enough money right now to rent or put down dough on a good place, he just hasn’t done it. He’s cheap.”
“He’s not ready for that. Not with the way things are with John.”
“And things may never get better,” I said. “But they might. And if they don’t, he’ll move on. Leonard’s a survivor.”
“He is at that.”
“What we talked about last night,” she said. “I been thinking.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I was having a sentimental moment.”
She put her arms around me. My hands cupped her buttocks.
“How long before he gets back?” I asked.
“Let me start the coffee, then let’s go upstairs and see if you can make a hole in one before he shows.”
I let go of her. She turned off the coffee. She took my hand. We went upstairs.
Fore!
45
The case didn’t exactly die on us after that, but it went a little south for a while while we waited on Mercury to cross check things. Me and Leonard spent time at the little gym where we had a membership, and it was a cold place to be, as the heating wasn’t enough to warm up a mouse.
We were often the only people there. The owner was a big fat man whose only exercise was sitting in a chair near the door and taking money or, as in our case, checking memberships. The gym wasn’t pretty, but it served our needs. It had a heavy bag, which I hate, and a speed bag, which I love, and it had a good mat we could spar on and throw each other down on. I noticed that when I was thrown it hurt more than it had just a couple years back. Time seemed to have made the ground harder, even if it had a mat over it.
The cold made us train briskly, skipping rope, pounding the heavy bag, punching the speed. After that we sparred a little.
It was good and fun to work out with the weather going wonky, dropping uncharacteristically down to seventeen at night, and in the high twenties during the day. Weather like that, you had to keep moving. Even as we sparred our breath puffed little white clouds. It was odd weather for East Texas, the sort that came once in a blue moon.
We finished up by going over self-defense drills, doing them pretty rough, to make sure we weren’t slacking, then we did our groundwork, so we would be ready if we had to end up there, then we went into the cold shower room with our feet freezing on the tile, took hot showers not only to clean up, but to warm up, got dressed, and drove home.
When we got there, Cason’s car was parked out front with the engine running, the exhaust pumping into the cold air. After we parked, he climbed out, dressed in a bomber jacket and slacks and a shirt and tie. He held up a folder. “Mercury,” he said.
I invited him inside, sat him at the kitchen table with Leonard, and made some hot tea.
“How British,” Cason said, as he took his cup of tea.
“I see that dress code has kicked in,” I said.
“Yeah,” Cason said, “it has.”
“About the file,” Leonard said.
The file lay in the center of the table. Cason tapped it with a finger.
“Mercury cross-checked names, and there are people on the list that are kind of scary, including a nasty guy named Cletus Jimson.”
“Oh yeah,” Leonard said. “He’s a sweetheart.”
“You know him?” Cason said.
“We’ve crossed paths,” I said. “He doesn’t like us.”
“We’re often misunderstood,” Leonard said.
“Do you think Kincaid could have hired him to do it?” Cason asked. “Kill those folks?”
“Cletus doesn’t do that sort of work, he has it done,” I said. “I suppose Kincaid could have contacted him about a little help, though.”
“Jesus Christ,” Leonard said. “I hope it isn’t Vanilla Ride.”
“Who?” Cason said.
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Those other devil head murders. Ones up in Oregon and so on. Wh
en were they?”
Cason told us.
I said, “Those are too long ago for Vanilla. She’d have been in the womb. She’s not that old. And even if I add five or six years to what I think her age is, she’s still too young. I hope.”
“That’s a relief,” Leonard said. “I keep thinking we’ll see her again, and may not like it when we do.”
“I don’t think she and Jimson are on that good of terms,” I said. “Not the way I remember it. So, taking that fact and adding her youth to it, I think we can safely say, no Vanilla Ride.”
“Money and need make strange bedfellows,” Leonard said. “And I don’t think Cletus has forgotten us. He had these others killed for Kincaid … hell, maybe even June, and it all leads to us sticking our noses into his business, he might decide to put us on the list, and considering our past history, perhaps he’d do it with a certain amount of enthusiasm. But that’s private. You don’t need to know any more than that. He doesn’t like us.”
I nodded.
Cason had been watching us in a tennis-match fashion. Head first to one, then the other. “So, I’m sort of out of this part of the conversation,” he said.
“Yep,” I said. “We don’t want to explain that part of our past. But it’s possible Jimson did Kincaid a favor, if he got something big in return.”
“Should we talk to him?” Cason said.
“That could be tricky,” I said. “It’s like stirring up a snake. He’s sleeping all quiet like, hibernating maybe, and we go in there with a stick and twist him around with it, piss him off, and we are in for some shit when he may not have anything to do with this. So, we could get bit for nothing.”
“I got the impression you boys get bit a lot,” Cason said.
“That’s why we don’t want to get bit again,” I said.
Leonard looked at me, then looked away. He said to Cason: “I don’t mind talkin’ to him. We need to, we will. But is he the only one on your list? I think before we stir him up, we got to decide if these murders connect somehow with the murders in Oregon and the like. I think Jimson would kill his mother if he thought he could get a nickel for her bloody Tampax, but I don’t think he’d go out of the South. He’s sort of regional.”
“Yeah,” I said, “his territory is East Texas and western Louisiana mostly. I reckon he could do some business outside of this area, but I don’t know the business he’d do would be that sort of thing. He’s got his niche here. He’s got contacts and has the right people paid off, but up north, not so much would be my guess. What I think Jimson likes is being a big frog in a small pond. It’s his comfort zone.”
“Anyone else on that list suspect?” Leonard asked.
Cason nodded. “Couple others, but the thing is they aren’t that big-time. They’re little operations, and I got a feeling our killer, our Devil Red, is well trained and works for big money. That’s why I thought of Jimson. He’s much bigger time than the other two jokers.”
“Where are they from?” I asked.
“Midwest,” Cason said.
“Kincaid isn’t afraid to do business with bad people,” Leonard said. “Keep their taxes clean and fresh. So that makes it even more likely he would have been willing to make some kind of deal to get even for his son.”
“Maybe he just does their taxes and tells them how to save on weather stripping their homes,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” Leonard said.
“If Kincaid did arrange it, I’m not sure I blame him for wanting to get even,” I said. “Losing first a daughter to drugs, then a son to murder is bound to weigh on and mess up the mind—”
“Wait a minute,” Leonard said. “I just had a flash. Detectives like to call it inspiration.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What do you call it?”
“The drug-dead daughter,” Leonard said. “What do we know about her?”
“I think the whole she’s dead part about covers it,” Cason said. “Let’s look into it,” Leonard said.
“May I ask why?” I said.
“Yes,” Leonard said. “You can ask, but I got nothing to say about it yet. I may be full of shit.”
“All right,” Cason said. “We can check on her. I’ll get Mercury on it.”
46
After Cason left, we called Marvin and asked if he could set up a meeting with Jimson. The whole thing about telling Cason we didn’t want to see Jimson really meant we didn’t want Cason in on it. We had a history with Jimson. All bad. We didn’t want to put Cason on Jimson’s doo-doo list.
We sat around for about an hour, then Marvin called us back.
“What’d he say?” I said, pressing my cell phone to my ear while standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the yard, the house beyond. It had turned off clear and the sun was out, but there was ice in little spots where the water ran out of the grass and collected along the concrete walk at that side of the house. If I was married to Brett and had a child, the most I’d have to think about today was maybe going to work and coming in to read the papers and play with the kid. It was a pipe dream, but I liked it.
“He said he didn’t want to see you,” Marvin said.
“That’s not nice.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but my iddy-biddy feelers are crushed to the bone.”
“Mine too, but that’s what he said. He also said eat shit and die.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Yeah. Actually, I didn’t talk to him. But the message from his associate, one of his bodyguards, was pretty much in that ballpark.”
I turned to Leonard. “Jimson doesn’t want to see us.”
“Then we should respect his wishes,” Leonard said.
47
Within fifteen minutes we were on our way to the little burg of No Enterprise. It wasn’t much of a place, a four-way stop with a string of buildings here and there, but for some odd reason, Jimson lived over in that area and did a lot of his business in a little service station that also had sodas and liquor and snack goods, had some tables in the back with some chairs, and sold hamburgers. Good burgers, bad fries. The pie was good too.
Jimson spent a lot of time there in the afternoons with his goons. If he wasn’t there, well, we’d have chocolate pie with meringue. If he was there, we’d probably have it anyway. Maybe a hamburger. Me and Leonard, we believed in living large. It’s just how we roll.
It took us a little over half an hour to get there because there were some low spots in the highway and water ran across those, and in this weather they had frozen, making an occasional shiny ribbon of ice across the road. Mostly it took us a while because Leonard had a new country music CD and he wanted to hear all of it before we stopped. He said, “They get rowdy, and I get killed, I like to know I heard all of it.”
“You’re dead, what does it matter?”
“It’s the idea of it,” he said. “I just want to know I consumed it all, at least once.”
“You’ve heard it before.”
“But it’s a different collection of the same songs. I like that they’re in a different order.”
“Jerry Lee Lewis singing country sounds pretty much like Jerry Lee Lewis singing country in any order.”
“Oh yes, and oh so good.”
I had to agree. He told me to shut up and played the CD.
We were both armed. I had my permit pistol, and Leonard had a sawed-off shotgun without a permit fitted inside his long coat. He flared the coat back, he could pull it out of there faster than you could blink.
When we arrived the café part was absent of Jimson and thugs. In fact, it was absent of any patrons. There was a guy at the counter, and when we sat down back there, he said, “You got to come up here to get menus.”
I got up and got us a couple of menus. I noticed there was a large jar of pickled eggs on the counter and a small jar with a kid’s photo on it and a request for money due to burns received in a car wreck. I put a buck in the can and took the
menus back to where Leonard had picked seats. There was a door back there that was an emergency door. It didn’t open from the outside. Anyone came in, they had to come in the front door and come along the path between the counter and the tables to reach us. There was a wide row of glass to our left, but we were sitting at a table where I had my back against the wall, and had a bit of wall to protect me. Leonard was point man. Anyone came up, he could see them through the glass, and if need be he could cut down on them with that shotgun, start pumping out loads.
We ordered two hamburgers from the guy when he came over. He was a little nasty-looking for a man who worked as a cook. His fingers were nicotine stained and his teeth were the same. In fact, where the stains were missing, black decay had filled in between his teeth like dirt washed down from a hill.
Leonard said, “Two hamburgers, no fries, hold the hepatitis.”
“What?” the man said.
“I mean wash your hands. I like to think that’s nicotine, but for all I know it could be from you sticking your finger up your ass.”
“You guys leave,” he said.
“We work for the health department, mister,” I said. “I wouldn’t push it.”
He looked at me, said, “Show me your credentials.”
“We don’t carry any. We’re here to surprise people, not let them know we’re coming.”
“Credentials just show who you are,” he said. “I’m already surprised.”
“True,” Leonard said, “but you’ve got on my bad side. Go wash your hands.”
The man studied Leonard for a moment, figured quite correctly we weren’t with the health department, but he wasn’t really sure about throwing us out. Especially Leonard, who had a kind of lazy look that said “I’d love to kill you very much.”
“All right,” he said. “Two hamburgers.”
“After you wash your hands,” Leonard said. “And I even think or consider you might spit in my food or mess with it, I will personally see you get some big demerits. And on top of that, I will hold your face against the stove until it cooks your nose off.”