Bad Chili

  “Never been any proof of that,” I said, “though I don’t doubt it.”

  “Chief sent Horse Dick in to investigate drugs through the bikers. Maybe this is law enforcement, and maybe its the chief’s way of getting enough evidence on the bikers to make sure he gets a cut. Horse Dick figures this out, so he doesn’t hand in the videos. He hides them. That kind of explains why the chief isn’t pursuing this business. It could be more than just the gay thing.”

  “Problem with that theory, Leonard, is the video is of grease nappers, not drug lords.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Leonard said, and relit his pipe. “But it could all connect.”

  “I guess. Sounds thin to me. But if drugs were happening along with the grease napping, wouldn’t there be videos of drug activity?”

  “Maybe this was the best Horse Dick could get on them,” Leonard said. “Could be like the way you use income tax fraud to get gangsters for worse business. Nail them for grease, you put the drug business out of business.”

  “There’s something in that,” I said. “What about the other video?”

  “I was going to give it a look-see, but then you came home. My guess is more of the same.”

  We loaded the video. It wasn’t about grease napping. It was two guys walking, and it was easy to recognize the place. It was LaBorde Park. I recognized the bench the guys were walking past. I knew the camera view was being taken through the shrubbery across the way. The lighting was bad, just some of the pole lights in the park, and the camera jumped this way and that, but it was enough to see the two guys. They stopped walking, and one guy put his hands on the other guy’s shoulders. Now that their faces were toward us, code bars appeared, disguising their features. The guy who was being held by the shoulders got down on his knees and unbuckled his partner’s pants, probed for goober, found it, put it in his mouth.

  Suddenly some fellas burst out of the bushes. They rushed the guy doing the suck work, and the guy having it done on him stepped back and watched. The guy who had planned to treat the other one got kicked, slapped, and rolled in the dirt. This went on so long it was almost too much to watch. After a while the guy who had offered his dick came over with his tool still hanging out and a knife in his hand. He put the knife to the assaulted man’s throat, made him do what he had wanted to do in the first place. While the guy on his knees sucked, the guy with the knife used his free hand to pull a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He shook out a smoke and put it where the bar code was. His hand put away the pack and came up with a lighter, then the lighter flame went behind the code bar. The lighter came down and was put away. From the way the smoker acted, he could have been alone.

  The guy on his knees was still at work; the smoker used the knife to tap him on the head, to keep a kind of rhythm, sang, “Mama’s little baby love shortnin’, shortnin’, mama’s little baby love shortnin’ bread,” over and over. And he wasn’t even in tune.

  The others stood around and jeered and watched and wore their code bars. When the job was finished on the smoker, the others got in line and took their turn.

  When they were all finished, they shoved their victim down and went away. The camera went off and the video showed us some blackness, some gray, then it was over. It was one of the most humiliating things I’d ever seen.

  “Not exactly Oscar material, is it?” I said.

  “Jesus,” Leonard said. “What was that all about?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Was it staged?”

  “I don’t know,” Leonard said. “But I tell you this, if it was, it sure blurs the line . . . Amateur films?”

  “Maybe. But what’s the deal? One film on grease napping, the other on gay bashing? Or is it supposed to be some kind of sex tape?”

  “It didn’t have anything to do with sex, Hap. It’s about power, man. Gays, they’re more of a target than women or blacks. Most folks think a gay gets a beating, they get what they deserve.”

  “Could have been a gang of gays doing it,” I said.

  “That’s possible,” Leonard said, “but straights like their dicks sucked bad as anyone, especially when it humiliates someone and empowers them.”

  “I’m going to have to keep you away from those pop-psychology books,” I said.

  “You know, you’re right,” Leonard said. “I’m startin’ to sound like you. You won’t tell anyone I used that word empower, will you?”

  “I’ll try and keep it under my hat. But, whatever, the same question still begs to be answered. What is it all about? What’s the connection between grease and a fucked-up film like this?”

  Leonard shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something in the notebook. Me, I couldn’t make diddle out of it.”

  I got it and opened it. There were rows of letters. Stuff like YCU—ART—QWEP. Beside that, another set. And another. All across the page and down. I looked the notebook over slowly. There were ten pages of this stuff.

  “What the hell do you think that’s all about?” Leonard said.

  “This look like Raul’s writing?”

  “No.”

  I studied the notebook a few moments. I said, “Same number of letters in each group. Some of them have the same first three letters. Think about it.”

  “I have thought about it.”

  “It’s easy. It’s not like some super code. Probably someone’s personal notebook. It’s put together like this so most people picked it up wouldn’t put it together quickly, but it’s nothing takes a lot of work to figure out. In fact, it’s kinda stupid, really.”

  “You’re tryin’ to make me feel stupid.”

  “I like to grab the chance now and then.”

  “Come on, Hap. I’m depressed enough here.”

  “Phone numbers. You coordinate the letters with the numbers, and you got phone numbers. The first three are area codes.”

  I went to the phone, studied the letters on the dial, compared them to the numbers beside them.

  I said, “Lot of this is Houston area codes. Some of the others show up a lot are Dallas. I don’t know the rest.”

  I picked up the phone, dialed one of the long-distance numbers. A woman’s voice said, “East Side Video.”

  “Where exactly are you located?” I asked.

  She told me. I wrote it down on a pad while she talked.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I wasn’t quite sure.”

  I tried several other numbers. They were all video stores. I wrote them down. I gave the list of names and stores and their locations to Leonard and let him look it over.

  “It sort of connects,” Leonard said. “You know, like I almost got an answer, but not quite.”

  “I think these are stalk-and-rape tapes,” I said. “There’s stuff like this comin’ out of Japan. I saw something about it on one of those news shows a while back. I may not read the newspaper enough, but I try not to miss my TV. Stuff they do in Japan, they don’t actually show the rape. May be set-up stuff, but like you were saying about what we just saw, it blurs the line.”

  “What’s the deal with the Japanese tapes?”

  “Japanese started selling that shit here in the States. Video stores sold and rented it. It was damn popular till pressure was put on the stores to remove the tapes. Where do you think those tapes went?”

  “Under the counter,” Leonard said.

  “In a lot of cases, I think so. And if the Japanese government is getting pressure from our government, or just from watchdog groups, it occurs to me the U.S. might start producing its own videos. We are, after all, capitalists. Entrepreneurs here in LaBorde rough up gays in the park, film it, sell the stuff to the shitheads who’ll market it. The market will mostly be big cities.”

  “That works,” Leonard said. “Makers of this smut would have it pretty good ’cause most of the park gays, they’re underground. They don’t want to go to the police, admit they’re gay. And if they aren’t closeted, still, the idea of admitting to what happened, the humiliation, holds them bac
k. Very few talkers.”

  “Correcto. And my guess is some of those reports we’ve heard of beatings in the park, they were worse than we know about.”

  “And the chief kept it under wraps?”

  “It’s hard to know how corrupt the old bastard is. He may not be that crooked. We may be puttin’ shit on him he ought not have to wear.”

  “You always like to think that way, Hap. For someone’s been through things you’ve been through, you can be naive as a baby duck. There’s folks out there think if they make a dollar off this stuff, and they didn’t do what’s on the video, and no one was killed, and it’s a bunch of queers anyway, it’s okay to sell it. I think the chief may be one of them folks. I think he may be one of them only cares about the dollar, not even if someone’s killed or if he did it.”

  “I don’t think it goes quite that far. But the real question is, what can we do about it?”

  “These guys, whoever they are, they probably killed Raul to protect this racket, the grease, the gay-stalk tapes. And I’ll tell you, my friend, if the law won’t do it, I am gonna find out who’s who, and then ain’t nobody but the devil gonna know their names.”

  “Then you’d be just like them.”

  “Pullllleeeezzze. There’s few people think a roach exterminator is a murderer. I’m not talkin’ about beatin’ up and rapin’ innocent people who are lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. I’m talkin’ about stampin’ out a plague, man. Listen. I know how you are, and there ain’t no use talkin’. You do what you want? I’ve heard you rave about the horrors of the child sex trade in Thailand, the poor, the plight of blacks and women and gays, and all the stuff you gripe about, but me, I’m gonna do somethin’.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t care, Leonard. I said—”

  “Save it.”

  “Don’t be mad. I—”

  “I said save it.”

  Leonard got up, gathered the tapes and the notebook, shoved them inside the Jiffy bag, and went outside. I didn’t follow. I sat on the couch until I heard his car start up and go away.

  14

  That night I slept poorly. My mind wandered from that sick video to images of what had happened to Raul, and finally to Leonard. Leonard and I often fought. Leonard was quick to lose his temper, but something like this, I didn’t really know what to think, what to expect. I wanted to help him, but bending the law was one thing, breaking and stomping the shit out of it was another.

  I did what Leonard wanted, I’d have blood on my hands, and I wasn’t sure where we would stop once we got started. I had killed before, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t lose lots of sleep over it, as it had been self-defense, and no other alternative was available, but I thought about it and didn’t like it, and didn’t feel heroic. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I had to kill.

  I tossed and turned, finally got that business off my mind long enough to think about Brett. I thought about what she had done to her ex-husband. Was that self-defense or vengeance? Too bad Leonard was gay. He and Brett might go well together.

  Jesus, I liked Brett, but did I really need to fall for an unrepentant firebug woman with asshole children?

  Come to think of it, was I such a good catch myself?

  That’s the way the night passed, back and forth, an occasional snooze here and there, but mostly me tossing and turning and considering.

  I got up early, put on coffee, thought about calling Leonard, but didn’t. It was too early, and since he was already pissed, that wasn’t going to mellow him out any. While I mulled all this over, it started to rain. Good. Great way to start the day.

  I hung out till daylight, finished breakfast, and decided to call Brett. She ought to be getting home about now, and I figured before she dropped off to sleep, I might speak with her. I calculated the time it would take for her to drive home, and phoned. She didn’t answer.

  I waited a while, drank a cup of coffee, and called back. She answered this time. She sounded tired.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s me, Hap.”

  “I still remember you,” she said.

  “Well, hell, Brett. Now that I got you, I don’t know why I’m calling. I know you’re tired—”

  “Are you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tired?”

  “Actually, yeah. I’ve had coffee, but it isn’t helping.”

  “You came over, I know something might invigorate both of us. That is, unless you’re so tired you don’t think you can be invigorated.”

  “That’s me pullin’ up in your drive now.”

  * * *

  Fast as I wanted to get there, I took time to go by Leonard’s. I figured he was sleeping, so I didn’t knock. I wrote him a note and stuck it in the screen door. I gave him Brett’s phone number, told him to call me after noon. I wrote that I was sorry. That we should talk. I signed it “Mom.”

  When I got to Brett’s place she opened the door and let me in before I could knock. I stood just inside the doorway trying to get my breath. She was wearing a pair of brief red panties, some brand-new flip-flops, and a small dark mole like a chocolate drop on her right breast near the nipple. A very nice nipple, I might add.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I thought we’d call this a second date.”

  “I’m easy,” I said.

  “So am I,” she said. “And I got a whole box of rubbers on the nightstand to prove it.”

  “That’s what I call hospitality.”

  “Well, I am excited to see you,” she said, “but actually I had to rub ice on my nipples so they’d stand up like this.”

  She took me by the hand, led me to the bedroom. We embraced and kissed. She started removing my clothes, and I helped her. We lay down on the bed together.

  She said, “If you have a shoe fetish, I’ll leave the flip-flops on.”

  I laughed and she flicked them off. I helped her out of the red panties. I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. I used my tongue to taste the chocolate-drop mole. Much better than chocolate, actually. We made love for an hour, then fell asleep to the sound of the rain.

  When I awoke, Brett was leaning over me.

  “I really enjoyed that,” she said. “I even came.”

  “I hope you don’t mean in spite of me.”

  She laughed. “No. I don’t mean in spite of you.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I came too.”

  She laughed. “Men always come.”

  “Ejaculating is not the same as coming, in my book. It feels good, but when you really get off, you know the difference. It’s not just a release of pressure. It’s a special state of mind. You know, like when you switch channels on TV, and surprise, it’s your favorite movie just starting.”

  “By God, Hap, you’re a goddamn philosopher.”

  “I know it.”

  “What’s your favorite movie, by the way?”

  “You’re not going to ask me my astrological sign next, are you?”

  “I don’t cotton to that shit. I’m interested in movies.”

  “Casablanca. And I like slow walks in the park and I’m going to be a brain surgeon and try and help all mankind.”

  She laughed. “I like To Have and Have Not. That’s my favorite.”

  “That’s my second favorite.”

  “My second favorite is The Sound of Music.”

  “I like Casablanca and To Have and Have Not.”

  “That part where they sing the do-re-me song, or whatever it is. I love that.”

  “I like Casablanca and To Have and Have Not.”

  She slapped at me. “You don’t like The Sound of Music? It’s the greatest musical ever made! I bet you think it’s kind of sissy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hap Collins, I thought you were a sensitive man.”

  “I am,” I said, and pointed my finger at my eye. “Press right here and it hurts. But The Sound of Music, I’d rather have my dick nailed to a
burning building than have to sit through that shit again, and I don’t care if the popcorn is free and you’re giving me each bite with your vagina.”

  “Vagina?”

  “That’s a medical term for pussy, honey.”

  “God, Hap, you’re almost a doctor. . . . So you don’t like The Sound of Music?”

  “No. Actually, I loathe it. But you like To Have and Have Not. That’s good.”

  “I was always nuts about Bogart. I like Walter Brennan too. I like where he talks about being stung by a bee.”

  “Me too. I like Lauren Bacall too.”

  “You would.”

  “Shouldn’t I? You kind of remind me of her, actually.”

  “In what way?”

  “You’re both women.”

  “Asshole . . . You know what?”

  “What?”

  “What I want us to do is go in to the doctor and get checkups. Make sure there’s no AIDS stuff going on. I want to get past this rubber-on-the-dick stage real quick. I say we start our relationship with complete confidence.”

  “You won’t take my word I haven’t got AIDS?” I said.

  “I’ll take your word you don’t think you have it, and probably don’t, but you might not want to trust my word. I’ve been sexually active my whole life, Hap.”

  “And all that practice has really paid off.”

  “It’s not that I actually think I’ve been unsafe, but I want us to start with a clean slate.”

  “All right,” I said. “It’s a deal. ’Course, as you know, I’ve just had a lot of blood work, so I think we can safely say I’m okay.”

  “All right,” Brett said.

  “You’ll look at my charts, won’t you?” I said. “Talk to the doctor?”

  “Most likely.”

  “All right,” I said. “One thing, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m old-fashioned in one way. Well, maybe lots of ways. But if this is a relationship, and not just a good time, I want it to be a relationship.”