Bad Chili

  “Really,” Brett said. “I can’t visit. Old Lady Elmore runs a tight ship.”

  “That the fat lady looks like her feet hurt?” Leonard said.

  Brett grinned. “That’s her. And her feet probably do hurt. Mine do.”

  “Brett,” I said. “I don’t mean to bother you. This is kind of an emergency.”

  “Emergency?” she said.

  “No one’s hurt,” I said. “Well, not much. But inadvertently I may have got you into some deep shit.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “Can you get off?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” she said. “If I can get Patsy to take over for me. But she won’t like it. I was just on vacation.”

  “What about Ella?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t ask her right now,” Brett said. “I’m just glad she and I have started talkin’ again. She’s finally thinkin’ about leavin’ that shit Kevin.”

  “Good,” I said. “But you got to get off. Really. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important.”

  “Okay,” Brett said. “Okay. But will you go down to the lobby and wait?”

  * * *

  We sat in Brett’s living room, Brett and I on the couch, Leonard in a chair across the way. I explained all that had happened, told her about Jim Bob and our conclusions.

  “My God,” she said. “I certainly know how to pick my men.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I never thought it would come to something like this.”

  “This wrestler?” Brett said. “He threatened me?”

  “He knew about you,” I said. “He may have been talking out of the side of his mouth, but after what happened to Raul, and me, I got to be worried about you.”

  Brett sat for a moment. She looked at me. She looked at Leonard. She went into the bedroom and shut the door.

  Leonard said, “Sorry, Hap.”

  “Yeah.”

  The bedroom door opened. Brett came out with a holster containing a .38—.38s were certainly popular in my circles.

  “Let him come,” Brett said. “I like you, Hap. You got your warts, but so do I. You didn’t bring this on yourself. Let the fucker come. I’ll shoot him so full of holes he’ll think he’s a tennis net. I done burned one fucker’s head, guess I can put a bullet in another one’s.”

  I thought, goddamn, if this ain’t true love, I don’t know what is.

  23

  “They’re a little slow,” I said, “and I’d keep my conversation down to stuff like, ‘Bathroom’s over there,’ ‘Coca-Cola’s in the fridge,’ and ‘Do you want that bucket of chicken crispy or original recipe?’”

  We were in Brett’s living room, me and her, and we were looking out the window at Leonard, who had just arrived in my truck with Leon and Clinton. You could see them clearly beneath the bright streetlight.

  Leon and Clinton were two black twins in their thirties with heads like bowling balls and bodies like the columns that hold up the British Museum of Natural History.

  They were friends of Leonard’s. He met them after whipping their asses. They had given Raul a hard time at a convenience store, and Leonard, who was considerably smaller, heard about it, hunted them down, and wiped the floor with them. Him beating them like that had nothing to do with their toughness; they were tough. But Leonard was tougher. Better trained. And smarter. ’Course, bless their hearts, a snapshot of a human brain was smarter than they were.

  Since that time, they had been there for Leonard when he needed them. He needed them now, for me.

  They got out of the truck and stood around in Brett’s yard. Leon, also known as Scum Eye because he had some kind of condition that’d made his eye mat over, picked up a rock in the yard and threw it and hit Clinton in the back. Clinton, pissed, looked around for a rock, found one, and threw it at Leon.

  Leon, quicker than he looked, ducked and the rock struck something out of our sight that made Leonard, Clinton and Leon wince.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Christ,” Brett said. “Are them fellas housebroken?”

  “Barely, but they’re all right,” I said. “Anybody fucks with you, they’ll take them apart and reassemble them so that they don’t match up.”

  “They getting paid for this?” Brett asked.

  “We’re slippin’ ’em some bills,” I said. “They’d do it for nothing, but they haven’t got jobs. Got laid off at the aluminum-chair factory sometime back, and they haven’t worked since. All the brain surgeon jobs are taken. But they’re all right.”

  “They look a little scary?”

  “You ought to see Big Man Mountain.”

  Brett gave me a grim look.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But that’s the reality. These guys, they can take care of themselves, and they’ll take care of you.”

  “I can’t go to work with these fellas hanging on my neck,” Brett said.

  “I know. What we’re gonna do, we’re gonna put Clinton here. He’s gonna stay in the house while you’re at work. That way, no one’s comin’ in to wait for you. You get home, need something, he goes with you if Leonard and I aren’t around. Okay?”

  “Okay. What about work?”

  “Leon will be there. I don’t know he needs to follow you around. He’ll just be around. Sittin’ in the waiting room, the parkin’ lot, kinda watchin’ out. I don’t know we can do better than that if you’re going to insist on workin’.”

  “Like I said, landlord won’t fuck me for the rent.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s a fool. You got your pistol?”

  “Pistol-packin’ mama,” she said, reached down, and pulled up her nurse’s uniform. The gun was strapped to a holster around her thigh.

  “Would you like me to check and see that garter holster is too tight?”

  “That’s all right,” she said, lowering her hem.

  “You know how to use that?” I said. “Having it is one thing, using it is another.”

  “Hell, I’m certified to carry it. I took the course.”

  The course was for the new law passed in Texas where you could legally carry a concealed handgun after taking instruction in laws and marksmanship.

  “My guess,” she said, “is I’m the only one of us legal. And I could shoot before I was legal. And you can take that in any manner you want. I got a buck knife in my purse too. It isn’t legal. But I’ll tell you, that little honey, legal or not, will cut your fuckin’ nuts off with a wisp of a blade.”

  “I’d rather not talk about nut injury right now,” I said.

  “Sorry . . . That business gonna cut down on our activity?”

  “Not even if I have to tie them in a sling.”

  Leonard and the twins came inside. Leonard introduced them. Clinton, who did most of the talking, said, “How’re ya doin’?”

  “Fine,” Brett said. “Well, not really. There’s someone might want to hurt me.”

  “He ain’t gonna hurt nothin’,” Clinton said. “We tie that motherfucka in some fuckin’ knots is what we do.”

  “And he don’t like knots, we shoot him some,” Leon said, reaching under his sweatshirt, producing a large, greasy .45 automatic.

  “Yeah,” Clinton said, “like till our guns run out of bullets.”

  “Then we gonna reload,” Leon said.

  “Good,” Brett said. “That’s what I want to hear.”

  “That don’t stop him,” Clinton said, “we reload again.”

  “We get the idea,” I said.

  Brett turned to me. “What about you and Leonard?”

  “I figure we’ll do what the old Southern guerrilla fighters used to do in the War Between the States.”

  “And what was that?” Brett asked.

  “Cuss niggers?” Leonard said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Lynch niggers?” Leonard said.

  “Shut up, Leonard,” I said. “We’re going to quit waiting. We’re going to take it to them.”

  “Goddamn,”
Leonard said. “Now I’m inspired.”

  * * *

  Brett went back to work, Leon in tow. We left Clinton at the house with instructions not to eat Brett out of house and home, try and spare some furniture, and to piss in the toilet with the lid up.

  A little research gave us the location of King Arthur’s place, and next morning we drove out there. It was on a vast acreage of mostly red clay, because a bulldozer was pushing down trees when we got there, making it that way.

  We parked alongside the road and watched from the truck, over a barbed-wire fence. Watched the dozer work. It was knocking down hills of dirt that I figured were Indian mounds. They had the look of mounds, and in traditional East Texas manner, they were being pushed flat for progress.

  Fuck the Indians. Fuck the pottery. Fuck the heritage. Fuck the ground. Fuck the trees. Let’s get this shit flat, mud red and nasty, bring in that double wide.

  Which was exactly what had been done.

  Several of them.

  From where we sat we had a good view because there wasn’t any trees, just some stumps, and this big dozer knocking those annoying mounds flat. The property was all red clay for acres and acres, except for a patch of costal bermuda in one corner, and some steroid-fed cows and a big, red, metal barn, and, I swear, four double-wide mobile homes. Two long, two wide, linked.

  “Well, what we gonna do, brother?” Leonard said. “Charge in, beat the piss out of him?”

  “No, that’s more your style. I’m going to wait. We’re going to follow. We’re going to isolate. Then, we’re going to talk.”

  Jim Bob’s yellow Pontiac pulled up behind us and he got out and walked around to my side of the truck. I had the window down and he took off his cowboy hat and stuck his head in.

  “I hope you fucks ain’t sneakin’ around,” he said, “’cause you ain’t sneaky.”

  “We figure we’re all right,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you fellas have lived as long as you have,” he said. “You got charmed lives, that’s what I think.”

  “Clean livin’,” Leonard said.

  “Guess that’s it,” Jim Bob said.

  “How did you know we were here?” I asked.

  “I followed you from the nurse’s house.”

  “Why are you still sneaking around?” Leonard said.

  “Habit, I reckon.”

  “When in hell do you sleep?” I asked.

  “When I’ve got the time,” Jim Bob said. “As for other matters, like this King Arthur fella, maybe I can help you out, since I done been through all this some time ago. King Arthur, he don’t leave the place till after noon. Fact is, about one-fifteen every day, Monday through Friday. He drives over to the plant, goes in through a special back entrance. By five o’clock, he’s back out at the car, and he goes home. ’Course, I ought to mention that when he goes and comes from work, he goes with some guys look like they’d twist the heads off parakeets and suck the neck stumps for entertainment.”

  “You know everything, don’t you?”

  “Damn near it,” Jim Bob said. “What’s your plan?”

  “Actually,” I said, “we have a simple plan. Two plans. I want to talk to King Arthur, but what I figure is, we’ll follow Leonard’s plan.”

  “Which is?” Jim Bob asked.

  “We’re going to beat the old fart up till he comes through with a confession.”

  “Yeah,” Leonard said. “And we’re gonna beat up his companions too.”

  “King Arthur ain’t that old,” Jim Bob said. “About my age. And he looks to me like he can handle himself. As for you beatin’ the companions up, Leonard, I hope you’ve had your Malto-Meal.”

  “Well, what would you do?” I asked.

  “I’d beat the fuckers up,” Jim Bob said.

  * * *

  We left the dozer to its work, followed Jim Bob back to the Holiday Inn. We had coffee in the cafeteria and Jim Bob told us some things about King Arthur.

  “You know that King Arthur used to be a chili cook-off king, and that’s what catapulted his recipe to stardom, so to speak? Only thing is, they found ole King was payin’ judges off to vote for him. Didn’t matter it was some little local thing, or a big tadoo. He took winnin’ serious-like, right down to money and young pussy for the judges. Took to callin’ himself King Arthur. Started the chili business, and it skyrocketed. Didn’t hurt he was also into every goddamn dirty deal in East Texas, from runnin’ whores to makin’ sure black folks who owned stores paid a little kickback. They didn’t, their businesses had a way of attractin’ fires.”

  Jim Bob talked about King Arthur for a while, depressing me. Then somehow he and Leonard veered off into politics.

  While they generally agreed on issues, I went into the lobby, used the pay phone to call Brett’s house.

  She and Clinton had just watched a late-morning talk show.

  “This was a rerun about people who stole stuff out of stores to give as wedding gifts,” Brett said. “Whole family. Had ’em on television talkin’ about it, like they’re some kind of celebrities.”

  “These days they are.”

  “Bunch of white-trash thieves gettin’ their fifteen minutes. And funnier yet, or sadder yet, while they’re on the show, host gets a call from the hotel where these skunks are stayin’, and they’ve taken the towels and sheets and ripped the hair dryer off the wall. They found all the stuff in their luggage backstage, and now they’re in trouble again. I got access to all these channels, and this is the shit on them. It’s scary.”

  “You watched it,” I said.

  “Clinton made me.”

  “Hell, Clinton likes game shows,” I said.

  “All right,” she said, “you caught me. . . . How’s things?”

  “Right now they aren’t happening. But they will. We have a plan.”

  “What?”

  “We’re gonna beat up King Arthur and his goons.”

  “That’s well thought out.”

  “We might even steal his chili recipe.”

  “Make him eat it,” she said.

  “Say what?”

  “You had any of that stuff? I don’t know it could be a whole lot worse to put shit in your mouth.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “It would.”

  “All right, you win,” she said. “But not by much. You’re kidding about beating King up, aren’t you? Not that I mind, I just don’t know that’ll be such a good idea.”

  “I reckon we’ll do what we do when we come to it,” I said.

  “It’s good to know I got you fellas setting up a complicated sting,” Brett said.

  “Yeah. Must be comforting. Take it easy, baby.”

  “You too, hon.”

  I rang off, joined Jim Bob and Leonard. They were talking about muzzle velocity in rifles.

  I had another cup of coffee, listened till they wore down and we went to Jim Bob’s room.

  We watched television and jawed until noon, then headed for King Arthur’s.

  24

  Jim Bob drove my truck with the three of us crowded in it. We had Jim Bob’s shiny black twelve-gauge pump on the floorboard. I could smell the gun oil as we drove. I kept pushing my hand against my shirt, so I could feel the .38 beneath it in my waistband. Leonard was fumbling with the radio, trying to pick up a country station.

  I had been in a lot of encounters, more than anyone had a right to believe. I had grown up in a rough town and fought dozens of fights until I graduated high school. Most of them were simple, not life-or-death battles, but a couple or three had been heavy-duty. During the sixties I had grown my hair long, and there was plenty of redneck opposition to that, so I was on the line daily, arguing or fighting with someone.

  I had worked a number of blue-collar jobs, and the length of my hair had been an issue. More fights. I didn’t pick fights, and tried diplomacy first, but I was still too quick to use my fists, and though I don’t like to admit it, there was a time when I had enjoyed it. I didn’t lose my temper easy
, but once I did, it was savage, and afterwards I felt a strange hollowness that made me feel dirty and inferior to people around me.

  Once, late at night, Leonard and I discussed our physical encounters. Not only those that had happened to us together, but individual events. It was a strange moment, a mix of brag and fact, shame and pride, remorse mixed with euphoria.

  And here I was again, on my way to what would most likely turn into a confrontation, and perhaps more than a couple of punches. We weren’t carrying our guns to plunk at cans. My stomach boiled. My head throbbed. Yet, at the same time, I felt disconnected from my body; seized by a combination of fear and anticipation.

  We parked behind a closed-up fireworks shack down the road from King Arthur’s red clay nightmare, got out of the car and sat on the hood so we could watch when he drove by.

  Jim Bob said he knew the car, so his eyes were the ones on the highway. While we waited, he told us some funny stories and some bad jokes, then said, “All right, get in the truck.”

  We looked and saw a big silver Lincoln with dark windows cruising down the highway. A moment later we were behind it, hauling as fast as my little pickup would go.

  “Driver usually turns here,” Jim Bob said.

  Jim Bob was right. The car veered to the right, headed down a blacktop road that I knew would meet Old Pine Road, and finally onto the highway that would lead to King Arthur’s chili works.

  Jim Bob gunned the truck and started around. The Lincoln tried to be helpful, pulled hard right, but Jim Bob pulled hard right too. Next thing I knew, he was nosing my truck into the side of the Lincoln. Sparks flew up. Paint flecks flicked by the window.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Jim Bob paid no attention. He rammed hard with the pickup and the Lincoln began to veer. I realized it was starting to veer near the great oak where Horse Dick and Raul’s bodies had been found.

  Irony or accident? I had to remember to ask Jim Bob, provided I didn’t end up with the dashboard in my teeth, the motor sticking out of my chest.

  The Lincoln sailed onto the grass beside the road. The driver fought the wheel, missed the tree, but went over the edge of the incline, down the hill, clattered and bumped and slid into the weeds and slid again, this time sideways into the trees at the bottom. The Lincoln hit the trees with a solid whack and a crunch, and the sunlight caught taillight fragments flying into the air.