“I’ve heard about Goober Smith all my life,” Leonard said. “And the stuff about his chili and his murder and the missing recipe, but I never thought there was anything to it until Charlie gave us the skinny.”
“Want to watch a movie tonight? I see She Creature is coming on. We could pop some popcorn, get some Sharps.”
Leonard seemed distant, but he said, “Sure.”
We popped popcorn and watched the movie, but Leonard didn’t really seem into it. He had a kind of glassy stare through it all.
I was making out with this marvelous raven-haired beauty, and she was just about to expose her breasts when she grabbed me by the arm and shook me like I was in a paint shaker.
I came awake to Leonard standing by the couch where I slept.
“Hap,” he said, shaking me, “I solved the mystery.”
“What mystery?”
“Get up.”
“You’re kidding. I was dreaming of and just about to make love to a black-haired beauty.”
“She’ll wait.”
I pushed the covers down and sat on the edge of the couch. I felt like I had been plowed into the ground for fertilizer. Outside the rain hammered the house like a drum solo.
Leonard turned on the light. He brought a chair to the front of the couch and sat down on it. He was holding a Luger.
“This is my uncle’s Luger,” Leonard said.
“That’s nice. Right now I’d like to shoot you with it.”
Leonard held it in front of him. “I’m going to eject a shell.”
“How nice.”
He did. It flew up and over my head. “That was great, Leonard. Now let’s go back to bed.”
“Forward, just like Charlie said.” Leonard put the Luger in his lap. “But if this is the Luger.” He made a gun with his thumb and finger. “And I put it to my head, it wouldn’t fire in such a way as to shoot a bullet into the ceiling.”
“Which is what Charlie said.”
“Right. But, think about this. Goober was naked, as suicides often are. He knows he’s dying, or is going to be terribly ill, so he decides to kill himself. You try and hold the Luger in the normal way, it isn’t comfortable. I mean, you hold it just right it could fire through the head and ceiling, but like I said, it’s not a comfortable way to hold it.”
“I don’t think comfort was on his mind.”
“So he holds it this way, which is really more natural.”
Leonard put his finger to his head, thumb down. “Think about it.”
I did. I was starting to get interested.
“So, when he pulls the trigger, he gets powder burns on his hand, and upside down, it would eject the shell casing backwards, behind Goober.”
“What about the way the bullet went into the ceiling?”
“Well, if it’s flat against the head, it won’t go into the ceiling at all. It could be slanted, held either way, but it’s very comfortable holding it upside down, and easier to give it a slant, and therefore easier to fire through the skull and into the ceiling.”
“As I said, I doubt Goober was all that worried about comfort right then.”
“Okay. But the rest of it adds up pretty good, doesn’t it?”
I thought about that for a moment. “That’s all well and good,” I said, “but that still doesn’t explain the open safe, the missing recipe.”
“I think it does,” Leonard said. “Goober was secretive about his recipe to the point of phobia. So, when he decided to commit suicide it was the one thing he wanted to take with him.”
“But it wasn’t found.”
“Because he ate it.”
“You mean he put it in the chili?”
“That’s what I think. He made up a last batch, tore up the recipe like seasoning, put it in the chili. Had himself a big bowl, then blew his brains out. That way, no one would ever have his recipe. That’s why nothing else was taken from the safe. Simple really. Charlie and Jack are all wet. It wasn’t murder. The first impression was correct. Goober really did kill himself.”
“You know what, Leonard? I think you’re right for a change.”
“Good, now I can go to sleep.”
“Course, it’s all just guess work and will probably never be proven one way or another.”
“I’m satisfied,” Leonard said.
“You going to tell Charlie?”
“Sure. Tomorrow. I want him to know how smart I am.”
Leonard turned off the light, went into the bedroom, and closed the door. I stretched out on the couch and pulled the covers over me. I looked at the ceiling a while.
Sonofagun, I thought. He probably did figure it out.
The rain hammered on the house. Lightning flashed through the curtains over the living room window.
I closed my eyes, hoping the raven-haired beauty would be back.
Lansdale Chili
First, you cook a lot of hamburger meat. I’m not sure how much is a lot, but, you know, a lot. Anyway, you brown it, drain off the grease, and put it in a pot. Now cut some steak into strips and brown it, cut this up in chunks, and put it in the pot. Add a couple cups of water and six to twelve ounces of tomato paste. Put in two teaspoons of sugar, four teaspoons of chili powder, and ten cut-up juicy jalapeño peppers. Stir and add more water, be your own judge, but don’t make it too watery.
Now, a dash of cayenne pepper, a dash of Tabasco sauce, a teaspoon of garlic or some real chunks of garlic, add one tablespoon of olive oil—that’s so it won’t all clog up like a brick inside you.
Cut up two to three medium ripe tomatoes and toss this into the mix. Slice up a small onion and add it. Half a teaspoon of oregano. A tablespoon or two of black pepper and a half cup of ketchup.
Let this simmer for a damn long time, adding water when needed, but don’t add too much. Keep it thick. If it looks a little watery, then add more ingredients. It’s better at this point to add a cat or a parakeet than it is to add too much water.
After a few hours take a Pepcid and have chili.
If it doesn’t taste quite right, you probably followed the recipe too closely or didn’t take enough Pepcid. Throw it back into the pot, add some more of everything but water, and try again.
If your chili comes out of the pan in wads, then maybe you do need to add some water.
Dead Aim
“Too many guns is not like too many guitars.”
Hap Collins
Each time out, I assume that a job we’re hired to do will be exactly what we think it’s going to be, and frankly, some are. I don’t talk about those much because they’re boring. And for a long time I didn’t think of myself as a freelance troubleshooter, but instead, a guy looking for work to tide me over until I got my career going, whatever that might be. Then Leonard explained to me that I was actually practicing my profession, and that I was good enough at it and it was really what I wanted to do. That all that stuff about finishing out a degree at my age and becoming a teacher, or some such thing, was just so much talk.
After a short nervous breakdown, and a period of finding my center, as they say in martial arts, I got back on the horse, and now I’m riding, in the dark. But I’m at least on the horse and not being dragged around by it. I realized that Leonard was right. I also realized that like it or not, at the bottom of it all, I was a sometime killer.
When Leonard and I accepted a simple protection job, or what seemed simple, I was hoping, as always, that we’d just get it done and go home and Marvin would give us a check that didn’t bounce, and we’d be as happy as a stud horse in a corral full of fillies.
A guy named Jim Bob Luke recommended Marvin’s agency for the job. It’s not exactly a legit job, which is frequently the case. The problem was a lady who had known Jim Bob Luke asked him to help her out. She had an ex-husband who was stalking her, and had actually threatened her, but she couldn’t prove it. It was her word against his. Jim Bob was going to be busy and couldn’t drive to LaBorde to help out, so he put us onto it.
 
; Me and Leonard drove over to see the lady. She was offering us good money to split between us and the agency. What she wanted us to do, as she put it, was meet up with her husband and have a discussion with him. The way she said it, it sounded like we were just going to set a date at a restaurant and have tea. Of course, that’s not what she meant at all.
It was early afternoon in September and some of the hot had gone out of the day. Midday it could get pretty warm in East Texas, but not like a month or so earlier when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, and going barefoot on cement was like walking across a pancake griddle. It was a pleasant change. Cooler weather was in the offing.
Me and Leonard were the kind of guys that never took anything at face value, or at least we liked to think of ourselves that way. So we thought we’d go over and talk to our client, Mrs. Devon, soon to be the ex-Mrs. Devon, and see if we thought her complaints were legit, or if she was just looking to have someone beat the shit out of her husband for vengeance and entertainment.
From the mouth of the street she lived on, across the way, we could see a new apartment complex, and not far from that was a long street full of fast food joints and doctor’s offices and the like. Along the street where she lived, there were a few houses still clinging to the past, like ancient souls waiting silently for death, or hoping for a last visit from somebody before they were knocked down flat and carried out.
Next to those were marginally better houses, prefab style, the sort of thing where a shell of a house could be put up in the weekend, and two weeks later plumbing and water would be ready. All that was needed then was furniture, kids to yell at, and a dog to crap on the lawn, which at least for a few months would be a patch of bulldozed red clay.
Mrs. Devon’s house was back from the street a bit. There were hedges on either side of her driveway, and they were well-trimmed but a little anemic. In the open garage there was a blue Cadillac that had aged well, and a closed-up barbecue grill pushed up against the wall with a sack of charcoal bricks stacked on top.
We parked behind the Cadillac and got out.
When the door was answered it was by a lady about six feet tall with black hair and a nice shape. She must have been about forty, and you could tell it if you looked real hard, but it was a nice forty, and the body seemed to belong to someone about twenty-five; she obviously had a gym membership, a trainer, and a special diet. She smiled and showed us that she had nice teeth. Her face was nice too. Her eyes were as green as Ireland. When she moved, something primal inside me moved.
After she confirmed we were who she was expecting, we came in and sat down on an elderly but comfortable couch. She asked us if we’d like a drink, and we ended up with ice tea.
“Jim Bob told me you could help me,” she said.
“Probably,” I said. “I mean, we have to check things out.”
“In case I’m lying and just want you to beat up my husband?”
“That would be it,” Leonard said.
“He hasn’t been all that clever about it,” she said. “I don’t think he’s trying to sneak, it’s just that no one has really seen him do anything, or will admit to it. No one but me. I really don’t want him arrested. I just want him to stop. The divorce is going to go through, and I don’t think he cares about that. He doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him. He just doesn’t like losing me. He wouldn’t have minded dumping me. But I dumped him first. That sort of got his panties in a twist.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Leonard asked.
“A few days ago. I had a gentleman over.”
“Someone you’re dating?” I asked.
“Someone I had one date with. Henry showed up and beat up my date. Bad.”
“So there’s your proof,” I said. “Have your date press charges.”
She shook her head. “No. My date wasn’t willing to turn him in, because Henry threatened to kill him if he did.”
“You think he’s capable of that?” I said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But my date thought so.”
“That happened here?” Leonard said.
“Yes. I had left the back door open. I didn’t think he was that dangerous. Henry, I mean. But he’s big and scary.”
“How big is he?” I asked.
“Six-five, maybe three hundred. Not a fat man. Does that scare you?”
“Hell yeah,” I said. “But it won’t stop us if we believe you.”
“All I got is my word, and no one else is talking. I thought I could give you his address and you could just check on him. Follow him around or something, see what you think. See if he shows up here. I’ve got so I lock all my doors and the windows too. I don’t know that he’s dangerous, but the beating he gave that man . . . it was quick and it was awful. I think he may have broken his ribs.”
“So he comes by a lot?”
“He used to knock on the door. Now he mostly just drives by, or pulls up in the drive and sits there. By the time I call the cops, he’s gone. They’ve talked to him, but he just says I’m lying, and I can’t prove it any other way. They can’t post a man twenty-four seven just on my word. And won’t. That’s why I’ve come to you.”
“Give us his address,” I said. “We’ll check on him. One of us can stay here with you if you like.”
“I have an extra bedroom so one of you can be here all the time. Jim Bob recommended you two and your boss, Mr. Hanson, very highly.”
“How do you know Jim Bob?” Leonard asked.
“We dated in high school. I lived in Houston then.”
“Jim Bob went to high school,” Leonard said. “I thought he came out of the womb the way he is, wearing that hat and driving that old Cadillac.”
“That would have been painful for his mother, don’t you think?” she said.
“It would,” I said. “It certainly would.”
“You lock up,” I said, “and we’ll go get a few things we might need, like an axe handle, and we’ll be back.”
“An axe handle?” she said.
“Call it insurance,” Leonard said. “You want the protection, you got to allow us to protect. And discourage.”
“You won’t kill him, will you?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Look, I really don’t want him hurt.”
“Only if he tries to hurt us,” I said.
“Why don’t one of you stay now?” she said. “Start this minute.”
“Because we have to decide if we believe you or not.”
“Oh.”
“In the meantime, lock this place up tighter than a nun’s chastity, and we’ll be right back.”
We walked out and waited for her to lock the door behind us. When we heard the lock click, we walked to the car.
In the car, backing out, I said, “What do you think?”
“Sounds legit,” Leonard said. “I think she’s scared and wants to get on with her life and wants him to know he’s not welcome.”
“If we beat the dog shit out of him, you think he’ll quit?”
“Hard to say, but I do know it works more often than you hear about. I had someone tell me, you know, you do that, they just come back. I’ve done it a few times, so have you—”
“And they didn’t come back.”
“Yep.”
“But sometimes they do.”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “Sometimes they do.”
“Henry sounds like he could be pretty hard-core.”
“Worrying about him being big?” Leonard asked.
“Crossed my mind.”
“What the axe handle’s for, my boy.”
“And if he turns us in for whipping his ass?”
“We were visiting a friend of a friend. That friend being Jim Bob, and she being the friend of that friend. Henry arrived. Violence broke out. Axe handles were lying about, and . . . well, you can figure from there.”
“And we just happened to be there when he showed up? With axe handles?”
“Exac
tly,” Leonard said. “It doesn’t have to be a true story, it just has to be our story. . . . You know, you’re getting cautious in your old age.”
“I am. I like having a nice home and Brett and a comfortable place to lay my head and put my dick.”
“Since I’m living at your house these days,” Leonard said, “I like you got a nice home and a comfortable place for me to lay my head, though I’m still in search of a place to lay my dick.”
“About that. . . .”
“Yeah. I know,” Leonard said. “Like Ben Franklin said, fish and friends smell after three days.”
“No. I’m asking about you and John. The dick part, and the deeper meanings that go with it. How are things developing between you two?”
“Nothing much. We talk by phone now and again. I’m almost done with that business. I think you can only brood so long, wait on someone so long, and then you got to move on. But, I’ll move out soon enough.”
“Not what I meant,” I said. “Stay as long as you like.”
“Hell, I know that. I was joking. You can’t get rid of me.”
Brett was off on rotation from work. She was sitting at the kitchen table wearing white shorts and a big, loose, red T-shirt. Her thick red hair was tied back in a bushy ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. Her toenails were painted as red as her hair. She was drinking coffee. Leonard and I went over and poured ourselves a cup from the pot.
“Well?” Brett said.
“We think she’s for real,” I said.
“So, how are you going to play it?” Brett said.
“Leonard is going to stay there for awhile, and I’m going to be on phone service here at the house. Later, we can swap out.”
“What’s she look like?”
“She wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings at a glance,” I said.
“How about if they concentrated?” she said.
“No one’s feelings would be hurt that way either,” I said.
“Then you best just let Leonard stay there.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m queer,” Leonard said.
“Exactly,” Brett said.
“You don’t trust me?” I said.
“I trust you, but I don’t know her, and Little Hap likes pussy almost as much as life.”