Rusty Puppy

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “How much money?” Reba asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You won’t be buying a car with it. Besides, you don’t even have a driver’s license.”

  “I could sell that car,” she said.

  “There is no car,” I said. “A bit of money.”

  “I don’t get out of bed for five dollars,” she said.

  “Since you made ten from me last time,” I said, “I know your price.”

  “To point to a door, yeah. Not for everything else.”

  “So you got something?” Leonard asked.

  “No,” she said. “Just asking. I can pay attention a lot better for enough money.”

  “We’ll make it worth your while,” I said.

  “What I’d like to do is give you to some kind of clinic for experimentation,” Leonard said. “Something to do with cutting off heads and packing them in ice.”

  “You can go fuck yourself,” she said.

  “Get back from my truck,” Leonard said. “All of you. All the way away from it.”

  Everyone moved away, but Reba the four-hundred-year-old vampire took her time, strolling lazily away from it. She said to Leonard as he was getting in the truck, “They experiment on me, it’s ’cause they want my essence.”

  “Essence?” Leonard said. “You ain’t got no essence, girl, unless it’s from lack of taking a bath.”

  Reba shot him the finger. “I’m up in that shower ever’ morning, you wiseass motherfucker.”

  He shot her the finger back.

  We left out of there.

  As we tooled along, I said, “You have such a way with children.”

  “I got deep love for them little stinky-ass motherfuckers.”

  20

  At the funeral home we spoke to a pleasant young black man in a black suit and white shirt with a black tie and black shoes with a shine so bright it hurt my eyes. He asked us to wait and went away.

  Leonard stuffed his hand in his pants pocket, said, “And he shoots.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  About five minutes later a very fine-looking black woman in a black dress that, though conservative, looked more than adequate on her and showed just enough of her sleek legs that no one could cry foul came out and shook hands with us.

  “I’m Karen Wilson,” she said.

  We introduced ourselves, then followed her into an office positioned off the chapel. When she was seated behind her desk, and we were sitting in comfortable chairs in front of it, the young man brought us all coffee on a silver tray, along with spoons and packs of sugar and sugar substitutes. The coffee was in nice china cups with flower designs. They were about the size of a thimble with a cup handle that I could barely get my little finger through. We prepared our coffee and sipped it and I tried not to spend too much time checking out the mortician, because she was certainly nice to look at, and my first impression had actually not done her justice. Forties, very dark-skinned, with thick shoulder-length hair and a smile that showed some very well-taken-care-of teeth.

  The young man stood near the door while we sipped, his hands folded in front of him and over his crotch as if they were a fig leaf.

  “This is my son Kevin,” Ms. Wilson said. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  We nodded at him, and she smiled at him, and that must have been his cue, because he went out.

  “No one has even asked about Mr. Weed,” she said. “Well, there was one lady, but she was mostly interested in finding out if he had died with money in his pockets.”

  “Why, that would be the lovely Tamara,” Leonard said. “That was quick.”

  “There’s no one to pay for his funeral, but we’re going to do as nice a job as we can.”

  “You’re absorbing the price?” I said.

  “Well, unless you’re friends or family.”

  “No,” I said. “I only talked to him a couple times. The cops have the body examined?”

  Her lovely features soured. “They weren’t even curious. Whoever did what they did to him rolled him out here. I think it was some sort of joke to them. We called the cops, they came by, said, ‘Yeah, he’s dead. Hit by a car.’ I pointed out that he had taken a beating, had several bullet wounds, and that there weren’t any cars I was aware of that fired bullets, and he had been run over several times, so, yes, a car was involved, but the bullets had been part of the equation. He had mud ground into his body along with the tire treads over his face. There won’t be an open-casket service, and besides, who’s coming? I know that sounds harsh, but that’s the truth. I’m going to give him a simple coffin and a burial at what we call Potter’s Field, which is the back end of the old black cemetery. I don’t know his preference of religion, if any, but I am a minister as well as a mortician, so a few words will be said over him. Anyone deserves that much.”

  “What did the police say after you told them about the condition of the body?” Leonard asked. “Explained he wasn’t just hit by a car?”

  “They acted like they were writing things down, then left. I followed up this morning and they said the case was closed. I asked did they catch who did it, and they said they couldn’t discuss it, and the next thing I know I’m listening to a dial tone.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “I thought so too,” she said, and then paused. “You know, I really don’t know who you two are.”

  I explained what we had been hired for but didn’t give out any major information, because, frankly, we didn’t really have any. I gave her a stripped-down version of events, leaving Charm and the sawmill out of it.

  “I know about Jamar’s death,” Ms. Wilson said. “We prepared him for services. Most business of that sort for the black community ends up here.”

  “You mean you embalmed him?” Leonard said.

  “Of course.”

  “Beat to death,” Leonard said. “Maybe not as bad as Mr. Weed, but bad enough they both ended up in the same condition. Dead.”

  “Correct,” she said.

  “Let me get back to Mr. Weed,” I said. “We were thinking his death and our case might be connected.”

  “They both had a lot of bruises and cuts, like they had been hit a lot,” she said, “but Mr. Weed had bullet wounds and was crushed by a car. Jamar was beat to death. Still, similar enough to make me curious. But then again, I’m not a detective.”

  “So cops didn’t ask you about the condition of the bodies, didn’t have an autopsy done on them, didn’t see a connection?” Leonard said.

  “The police seldom seem interested if someone is killed in this part of town,” Ms. Wilson said.

  “Or dumped in this part of town,” Leonard said.

  “Good point,” Ms. Wilson said. “And now that you mention it, I think Mr. Weed was killed up near the old abandoned sawmill. I hadn’t really thought that much about it, but it makes sense.”

  “Why would you say that?” I asked.

  “His shoes, knees of his pants, had sawdust mashed into them.”

  “There’s a lot of sawmills in these parts,” Leonard said.

  Karen Wilson nodded. “True enough. But that’s the nearest one, and if he was killed there, and whoever did it wanted to get rid of him, this is a close and ironic place to dump him.”

  “So you think the murderers are into irony?” I asked.

  “Actually, I have no idea,” she said, “I’m just winging it. I’ve read too many murder mysteries.”

  “Maybe we should read more of them,” Leonard said.

  “Another curious thing,” she said, “Jamar had sawdust on his body as well. I think that’s interesting, don’t you?”

  “We do,” I said.

  “I’ve probably said too much,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m a mortician, not a detective.”

  “You said that,” I said, “but you are proving to me you’re pretty astute in the detecting area. That stuff about the sawdust, for one.”

  “Well, I really don’t know much abou
t anything,” she said.

  I could see she immediately regretted what she had said earlier and was trying to patch it up a bit. I understood that. This was the community she had to work in, and the police in Camp Rapture seemed to pretty much do as they pleased, so it was best not to get on their bad side.

  “Anything we’ve talked about here,” I said, “it won’t get back to the Camp Rapture police. A lot of it we already know, and what we didn’t know about Mr. Weed’s body, what you told us, that’s something the cops already know. They saw the body. They know what it looked like and they know how he died.”

  “And maybe who killed him,” Leonard said.

  “I’m sure they are doing the best they can,” she said.

  That sounded about as sincere as a nine-year-old boy’s fart apology.

  “No worries,” I said, and stood up. I reached across the desk and shook her hand. Leonard did the same, and we left.

  21

  While Buffy licked the last of the food out of her bowl, I used a ladle to dip chicken soup out of a pot into deep blue bowls, then placed one in front of Brett and one in front Chance. They sat at the table with their heads in their hands, staring into their soup. They looked miserable. Red noses. Swollen eyes. Listless.

  Finally Brett lifted her head and looked at me. “Crackers.”

  I got a box of crackers and opened them and placed them on the table. I poured them each a glass of ice tea.

  Brett sniffed and raised her head, showing me her Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer nose. “So, how’s the investigation going?”

  “It sucks,” I said, and poured myself a bowl of soup. I gave them large spoons, took one for myself, then sat on the far side of the table away from their diseased bodies. There was hot sauce on the table and I poured a bit of it into my soup. It goes with all kinds of soup, not to mention just about everything but ice cream, and Leonard says it’s pretty good with that, you mix it right.

  “Appreciate the soup, Dad,” Chance said. “I think I’m worse. I was doing better, but now I’m worse. It’s bad, and then it clears up a little, or seems to, but it’s just going out for reinforcements. What really peeves me is I had a flu shot.”

  “This brand of flu wasn’t one they expected to be a real threat this year,” Brett said. “It wasn’t in the vaccine. They were wrong. I had a flu shot too, and I hate needles. I got needled for nothing.”

  “You’re a nurse and you hate needles?” Chance said.

  Brett nodded slightly. “I didn’t mind sticking someone else with one, and I don’t get sweaty when I need to have one stuck in me, but I don’t like it. I mean, who does?”

  “I hear you,” Chance said. “Wow. This soup is hot. Face-of-the-sun hot.”

  “Yep,” I said, “just burned all the hair off my tongue. Let it cool.”

  “It’s like lava,” Brett said.

  “You can cook for yourself next time,” I said.

  “But it’s good lava,” Brett said. “Nice chicken lava.”

  “That’s better,” I said. “I suppose you don’t want any hot sauce. it’s a different kind of hot, and it really spices the soup up.”

  “No spices,” Chance said. “My belly won’t take it.”

  “Do you have any guesses about the murders?” Brett said.

  “They’re connected,” I said. “That’s my best guess, and not exactly a Holmes and Watson moment. But I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb to say that. They were both beaten, though in Timpson Weed’s case, he was also shot and run over by a truck. The confusion is why did Timpson say he saw the cops beat Jamar to death, but no one else in the projects saw a thing?”

  “Perhaps they’re all lying,” Brett said.

  “I don’t think so. I think the four-hundred-year-old vampire can be trusted.”

  “Who?” Chance said.

  I explained about Reba.

  “I’m not even sure Jamar’s body was found at the projects anymore,” I said.

  Brett slurped her soup.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s cooled enough to eat, and it’s good, and I sound like Oliver Twist sucking up his last drop.”

  “You can have more,” I said.

  “More please?” Brett said, and held the bowl toward me.

  I took it and put more in the bowl, placed it in front of her, and sat back down.

  Chance was staring off into space. She said, “What if Weed was telling the truth about what he saw, or telling the truth mostly, but wasn’t telling the truth about where it happened? Maybe he’s more involved than he wanted to let on, so he’s assuaging his conscience with a half-truth.”

  I felt like a lightbulb turned on. It was low wattage, but the bulb was burning.

  “Sorry,” Chance said. “I took a criminology course.”

  “Let me think on it,” I said.

  22

  At the office, Leonard said, “So what we have here—besides this excellent bag of vanilla cookies that I have brought for myself, and none for you—is an idea Chance threw out that you grabbed onto? She is one smart young lady, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tastes like duck once you cook it right, it’s a duck. And I think this case looks like a duck.”

  “I got lost somewhere,” I said.

  “Yeah, I think I extended that metaphor too far.”

  “I think Chance may be onto something,” I said. “I think what we were getting from Timpson Weed was guilt, but not the sort I thought it was. Originally, I thought he felt guilty because he had seen a murder and couldn’t get the cops to do anything about it. Could be more to it than that, because I was also thinking about what Reba said.”

  “Oh, that little fountain of wisdom.”

  “She said Timpson had done a lot of jail time.”

  “Chicken fucking.”

  “That was when he was a teenager, but remember she said last time he came out of the jail, he was beat up.”

  “He is black and lives in Camp Rapture. That’s kind of the way it goes. Get arrested. Get beat up. Nice lunch on the county, shit on a shingle. Pay your fine, and after another ass-kicking, go home.”

  “Guess I’m thinking we may be looking at the wrong duck,” I said.

  “So you admit there is a duck?”

  “I do. What if Timpson, the old chicken fucker, knew what happened to Jamar and lied about how, not what?”

  “Because he had a conscience? I don’t know, Hap. He didn’t lose sleep over those chickens, I bet. Here’s a hole in your theory, and you’ve heard it before, and I keep coming back to it because it makes sense and you don’t. Why would he go to the cops if he saw the cops kill Jamar? That would be like climbing into a hot frying pan and asking for lard to be poured over you.”

  “Perhaps we should find out who Timpson spoke to at the station. I say we go back to Manny.”

  I reached for a cookie. Leonard pulled the bag away.

  “Nope. You did me dirt with that old lady, giving her my sweets.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “My joke is you put your hand in my cookie bag, you draw back a bloody stump.”

  “Man, you do not forgive, do you?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  23

  We arranged to meet Manny at a dog park in LaBorde. She said she wouldn’t meet in Camp Rapture.

  It was a nice cool day. The dog park was a large fenced-in area down by a creek with a number of hardwood trees growing around it. Leonard had once punched a smartass college kid on the jogging trail there. A sweet memory.

  Inside the dog park there was a concrete bench beneath a large pecan tree, and we all three sat there while Trixie ran about barking at larger dogs who seemed to be sizing her up for a sandwich.

  “Those assholes drive by my house frequently,” she said. “Not Coldpoint. He’s the superior, so he sends Sheerfault. Sheerfault rides around with this guy that isn’t even a cop. It’s against regulations, but if we start talking about the regulations they
break, you’ll have to go buy a couple pens and half a dozen notebooks to list them.”

  “This guy with him,” I said. “Bobo?”

  “Ah,” she said. “You’ve met.”

  “We have indeed,” I said. “He wanted to dance, but I declined.”

  “He looks like a guy that might step on your feet a lot,” Manny said.

  “Yep, that’s what I’m thinking,” I said.

  “We got a question you might can answer,” Leonard said. “Timpson Weed.”

  “Chicken Fucker, or Egg Breaker, some people called him,” she said.

  “You know our man,” Leonard said. “Question is this. According to what we heard, and keep in mind we got this from a four-hundred-year-old vampire midget—”

  “Say what?” Manny said.

  “Ignore him,” I said.

  “This midget said Weed was arrested quite a few times, and he came back and looked like he’d been beat on,” Leonard said.

  “There are rumors,” she said. “Sorry I have to come back to rumors, but that’s what I’ve got. That and suspicions. There are people they arrest on a regular basis, people on the margin, with little money and little recourse to real law, and they often end up beat up. There’s always some excuse. The inmates were in a fight. One of them gave a jailer or an officer some trouble and they had to get rough with them. Mostly it’s men, sometimes women.”

  “You see any of that happen?” I said.

  “No. I knew it went on, though. A multitude of rumors of that nature is why I quit and am now living on savings. My bit of pension seems to be held up in a pit of legal quicksand. I’ll get it, but they’re making it difficult. They’re claiming I sexually harassed them. Them being Coldpoint and Sheerfault. They’re doing that because I have a suit against them for harassing me, and for other transgressions, as my lawyer puts it.”

  “Was Jamar ever arrested?” Leonard asked.

  “I don’t know. As for this Weed character, definitely he was arrested. Drunk driving. Drugs on him. About once a week for a year he got arrested, but he was always loose in short time, and then he kind of fell off the radar until the kid was killed.”