Bubba groaned and reached for the receiver on the nightstand. “‘Lo,” he said as he brought it to his ear and mouth.
“BUBBA!” someone cried into the other end. Bubba winced. “What it be like, homes?”
“This here is Bam Bam!” Bam Bam added, although Bubba had already figured it out.
“‘Lo,” Bubba repeated because coherent thoughts were almost impossible without coffee in his system.
“I got a lead on something very suspicious,” Bam Bam said. “I be hoping them DEA agents ain’t following you around, so we kin go check it out. Me and David, you remember that fella who used to dress up all in purple? Well, we started talking with film crew people at this great little dive bar ya’ll have here. Grubbies? Grubs?”
“Grubbo’s,” Bubba said.
“Grubbo’s,” Bam Bam confirmed. “And we found someone who knew somethin’ somethin’. We gots to reconnoiter with this fella and see what be up, yo.”
“Reconnoiter,” Bubba repeated. It was a four syllable word and one that made his head hurt.
“It means check it out,” Bam Bam said helpfully.
Bubba rubbed his eyes with his free hand. If memory served him he needed to be on the film set at ten a.m. There was a big showdown scene to be shot. All the zombies would be blown to smithereenies while the hero and heroine flew away into the sunset in a conveniently provided Cessna that the heroine had learned to fly from her long dead father when he hadn’t been long dead or a zombie. (The last was an assumption that Bubba made, but he thought it made sense that a zombie wouldn’t be giving his daughter flying lessons.)
He didn’t have a line in the scene except for the odd grunting zombie moan. But he would have to wear the prosthesis on his face again and those dagnummed white contact lenses.
Then he needed to chat with Pilar about what she’d seen out her window. Bubba had finally decided that it didn’t matter what his mother was doing or not doing with the Garcias. It couldn’t be that bad in the larger scheme of things, as long as Miz Demetrice would rethink her whole Let’s-Use-Bubba-as-a-Diversion technique. Lastly, but not leastly, there was Willodean Gray. He didn’t care if the whole town was watching. He was going to do what he had determined to do weeks ago.
“What is it that this fella thinks is goin’ on?” Bubba rumbled.
“I don’t know,” Bam Bam said. “But it’s illegal and wicked whacked. That’s what he told me after he had done eight shots of pink pantie droppers.”
“Pink pantie droppers,” Bubba repeated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that was.
“That’s gin, white tequila, mixed with a little vanilla ice cream and pink lemonade,” Bam Bam said. “That bartender was all like ‘Yo, I kin mix a kickin’ drink, yo, and you cain’t drink just one.’ And the bitchin’ part was that he could and we couldn’t. I don’t remember how I got back to the hotel last night. Lucky I didn’t wake up with a new tattoo.”
“Gin, tequila, ice cream, and pink lemonade,” Bubba said. It didn’t sound good. It sounded like the next morning the guy would be tasting ice cream and pink lemonade until he had thrown it all up. Then he would have pinkish ice cream burps for the rest of the day and he would never, ever, never want to have pink lemonade or vanilla ice cream or tequila again.
“Well, Gus, that’s the fella, said he’d clue us in this morning.” Bam Bam paused for a moment. “Them DEA fellas ain’t there, are they?”
Bubba lifted his head incrementally. He could see out the window but not so much that he could tell who was or wasn’t there. “Beats me. They were following me last night.”
“Following you,” Bam Bam said warily. “I heard tell about them people. They don’t give up. You’d best take the back way out this morning.”
“They might even have the phone tapped,” Bubba suggested slyly, feeling his Wheaties for a moment.
Bam Bam didn’t reply for a long moment. “Oh, hell no,” he said finally, “I don’t know who this is. I dialed the wrong number, yo. My name is Martin Jones from Duncanville, Texas, and I have nothing to do with anything illegal. I paid my taxes on time last week. I renew my car insurance every year on time and early, too. I took my mama to church last Sunday. I tithe. I tithe eleven percent!” There was an abrupt sound that indicated that he had disconnected the line.
Bubba smiled sleepily and put the receiver back into the cradle.
* * *
An hour later, Bubba picked up the phone downstairs to see if he could get in touch with Willodean Gray. That whole thing had been dragging out too long. He was busy but not so busy that he couldn’t take a moment to try to mend a fence. Everything else was done. He’d showered, brushed his teeth, fed his dog, and paid his bills. All he had to do was put them in the mailbox on his way out and wave to the DEA agents as he went.
However, the phone was dead.
Bubba stared at the phone. He leaned to the side and saw that it was still plugged into the wall.
Precious bayed at something outside. Bubba frowned at the phone and put it back. He’d have to call the telephone company from the big house if he wanted it repaired. In the meantime, he needed to find his keys, put his bills in the mailbox, and hope that he could find Willodean this morning before she started a shift.
There was a knock on his door and he opened it to find the sun had come out from behind a large black cloud. The sudden bright light almost blinded Bubba. But Willodean stood in front of him. Dressed in blue jeans and a Cowboys jersey, she was clearly not headed for work, and she still looked like a million bucks. A billion. No, her worth is undefinable.
The next moment she was kissing him and her arms were wrapped around his neck, not that Bubba minded in the least. He certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. Bubba lifted her up and walked her back into the house. Precious continued to bay at something but Bubba pushed that observation to the farthest edge of his thoughts.
When Willodean finally came up for air, they were sitting in his living room, with her on his lap and her arms still wrapped around his neck. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” she said. “How’s your arm?”
“It’s better,” Bubba said, diving into the green depths of her eyes. “You goin’ to tell me what the matter is?”
“I’m going to,” Willodean said. “I wasn’t sure how to say it. I’m still not.”
“Okay, just say it,” Bubba said, “I reckon you’re not breaking up with me on account of all that smooching. I don’t think a girl like you would kiss a fella like that ifin you were planning on breaking up with him.”
“Break up with you?” she said with evident surprise. “What gave you that idea?”
Bubba grimaced. “Well, you ain’t bin around. And you’ve bin avoiding me.”
“Steve Simms came down with a case of shingles and two of the other deputies have some kind of weird swine flu. I had to go to the doctor because I was worried about—” Willodean cut herself off.
“You ain’t sick, are you?”
“No, I got a shot,” Willodean said with a weak smile. “I had to have a special kind of shot. Very special.”
“Okay,” Bubba said slowly.
“Your phone doesn’t work,” Willodean said, “or I would have called you.”
“It was working an hour ago,” Bubba said and gently brushed a lock of her hair away from her forehead. “The whole DEA arresting me thing don’t bother you?”
“Your mother,” Willodean said in explanation. “Miz D is a bad girl,” she added, but her tone indicated that Miz Demetrice’s badness was an acceptable tradeoff for her positive attributes.
“You like her,” Bubba accused genially.
“Most people do,” Willodean answered. “She isn’t mean to people unless they’re mean to her first.”
“That’s getting to be a long list,” Bubba said. “And what would you call planting fake evidence in my truck so that no one would be watching her and her two handy people for the moment? That’s not mean?”
“Miz
D didn’t think you’d be hurt,” Willodean said. “It’s not like you haven’t been arrested and put into jail before. Also she knew they’d have to let you go because it wasn’t really illegal drugs.”
“She tell you that?”
“No. She didn’t have to.”
“I know, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it. I wouldn’t have minded the whole arrested thing but did she have to do it while I was eating lunch with you?” Bubba chuckled. “I dint get to finish my meal or my conversation.”
“I ate your dessert,” Willodean confessed.
“They make good red velvet cake,” Bubba said.
“Better than mine,” Willodean said. Bubba knew that he was supposed to fill the moment with an obligatory “No. Your cooking is fine.” But it would have been a big fat lie and he tried hard not to lie. It was always a pain in the ass trying to remember what lies he had told to whom. Besides Willodean couldn’t cook. Oh, she could cook but what she made didn’t turn out well.
“We need to go back and finish both, unless you’d like to finish the conversation now,” Bubba said sincerely.
Willodean nodded. “It’s time.”
Naturally that was the moment that something interrupted them. Miz Demetrice walked into the front door, saying, “Your truck has flat tires on it, Bubba, and the Garcias need to go out, so could you be a dear, and oh.” She stopped as she came around the corner of the living room entrance and looked at the pair of them. “I suppose I should have knocked.”
Bubba’s eyes rolled. “Your timing is excellent, Ma.”
Willodean glowered. Then she climbed off Bubba’s lap and stood up. Bubba’s shoulders slumped.
“What do you mean my tires are flat?” Bubba asked.
“All four,” Miz Demetrice said. “Who did you tick off?”
“You apparently. The fella who tried to frame me for Kristoph’s murder.” Bubba looked at his fingers and spread them out as if preparing to count them. “Mebe God. I ain’t sure. I aim to ask Him the next time I go to church.”
“I didn’t flatten your tires, dearest,” his mother told him. “I wouldn’t have stooped so low. Really, my back has been aching this week, picking up and putting down babies.”
“You did frame me this week, Ma.”
Miz Demetrice tut-tutted, as if framing her own son was something that was done every day of the week. “It was flour, for goodness’s sake. Can you take the Caddy and dawdle by the front gate for a little while and make sure the DEA get a good look at you, that’s a dear.”
There was a noise from the door and a toddler came bouncing down the hallway and paused by Miz Demetrice’s legs. The little girl reached up and tugged on the bottom of his mother’s sun yellow dress.
“Uh-Carlotta!” Pilar’s voice came. “She’s so busy!”
Pilar stopped behind Miz Demetrice and Carlotta. “Lo siento. That child is a barrelful of monkeys. I turned my head for three seconds, I swear. She’s like the Flash, you know the comic book man who goes really fast. And you left your front door open.”
Bubba glanced at Miz Demetrice meaningfully.
Alfonzo appeared behind the others. He held the other child with one arm and had a diaper bag hung over the opposite shoulder. Blanca waved her hands up and down and wore an expression that indicated that Hurricane Blanca was about to commence. “¿Qué pasó?”
Miz Demetrice picked up the child at her hem. She winced as she pulled Carlotta into place. “See. I’m going to have to go see that chiropractor. Bubba, you’d best get moving on that end because I’m not going to be the granny who—”
“Miz D!” Willodean protested and wonder of wonders, his mother shut up abruptly.
Bubba looked around and was mildly surprised that so many people could fit into the small hallway and the miniscule living room.
“While ya’ll are here,” Bubba started until Blanca let loose a horrendous cry. Her little face contorted into a rictus mask of fury.
“I think,” Bubba started again. Blanca paused only to take in a breath. She waved her little chubby arms up and down, demanding something.
Alfonzo murmured to the child, patting her on the back. “I fed her already,” he said. “She had a nap, too. This one will not be calm. I don’t know what’s bothering her.”
Pilar asked something in Spanish that Bubba didn’t catch.
Bubba stood up. He walked over to Alfonzo. “Hey little girl. What chu all upset about? Ain’t nothing but a thing, is it?”
A new face caught Blanca’s attention for a moment. She reached for Bubba and Alfonzo let Bubba take the child. “I just think you need a little moment, don’t you, princess?” Bubba asked. “And you are a little princess, aren’t you?”
Blanca gurgled uncertainly.
Pilar glanced at Alfonzo uncertainly.
Willodean stared at Bubba uncertainly.
Miz Demetrice didn’t look at anything uncertainly.
Carlotta said, “Hufla maboo!”
Bubba tested the back of Blanca’s diaper with a babysitter’s expertise. There had been the time when he had been put in charge of five children all under the age of three, and only one had been potty trained. (Although the term “potty trained” didn’t mean the same thing to Bubba as it meant to the mother of the allegedly “potty trained” child.) That had been a week where his mother was trying to overturn a series of Texas laws designed to prevent women from…he couldn’t remember exactly what. Miz Demetrice had been successful and Bubba had learned the As to Zs about quickly and efficiently changing a diaper. He had also learned that when one child went, the others were apt to follow. Going number two generally had a cascading effect and not in a pretty waterfall sort of way.
Then the smell usually followed. Bubba grimaced. He snagged the diaper bag from Alfonzo’s shoulder and went into the living room. He spread out a throw with one arm, glad that the wound on his shoulder was feeling much better, and carefully laid the baby on her back. Blanca waved her arms and kicked.
“I think she did a poopenetta,” Bubba said. He tickled Blanca under the arms and she wrinkled her little face. Then he popped the bottom snaps of her onesie. He glanced up and Pilar said quickly, “Let me do that.”
Bubba said, “I got it.” There was a little amount of wanting to show Willodean that he really was good with children and a little bit of knowledge that everyone was suddenly acting a little odd.
Alfonzo said, “Really, maybe I should do it. That’s a little messy. Hershey squirts worse.”
“Poopie wipes off,” Bubba said sagely. He chuckled and added, “Poop happens.” He looked down at Blanca and murmured, “Ain’t that right, little one? You just got a little case of mookie stinks?”
Blanca kicked again but it was clearly in agreement to what Bubba was saying.
“I don’t think no one likes to have dookie drop-drops in their underwear, right, baby?” Bubba asked in a sing-song voice.
Miz Demetrice said, “Bubba, perhaps you should just let—”
Bubba’s head came up, he saw that everyone was watching him with horrid anticipation.
What in hellfire and tarnation? Bubba thought. His hand hesitated just a little.
Blanca’s tiny face crumpled again. She didn’t like the poop in her pantsies anymore than anyone else did.
“It’s all right,” Bubba said to Blanca. “I kin take care of this business. I bet there’s a little baby powder in that bag. We’ll just take them diapers off.” His fingers efficiently found the tabs at the sides of the disposable diapers. “You remember, Ma. One of them babies had a mama who only used cloth diapers. I must have poked myself with them pins about twenty times before I learned better. Safety pins, hah.”
Bubba glanced back at the crowd watching him. He would have thought he was performing an exacting surgery on an infamous patient if he didn’t know better. “I like them disposable ones better. You know Jeffrey Carnicon calls them 10,000-year-old-kaka-bombs because he says it takes that long for them to decay in a la
ndfill. That Jeffrey. He shore likes to put his nose into everything. But since when is that a crime for someone who lives in Pegram County?”
Bubba dug in the diaper bag with a free hand while he tickled the little girl under the chin with the other. “Bet ya’ll have some wipes in here, and a new diaper, too. Shore you do.” He pulled out a folded diaper and a package of baby wipes. Then he extracted a travel size bottle of baby powder. “All prepared, just like I knew you would be.”
Then he pulled the diaper away from the baby.
Bubba stared downward, dumbstruck for a long moment. “What the Sam blazes?” he asked finally and glanced back at his observers.
Miz Demetrice clucked disapprovingly.
“Uh,” Pilar said.
“Perhaps you should…” Alfonzo started to say and trailed off.
Willodean pointed at the baby. “Bubba,” she said and it was too late.
The baby who was known as Blanca and was supposed to be a girl baby, giggled and a stream of urine erupted from him and immediately soaked Bubba down. He might have just made a great big stinky poo poo but he had saved the peeing for when the diaper came off.
Bubba tugged a wipe out and was cleaning his face off when someone else came into the house and said, “I’ve got a gun and no one moves an inch.”
Bubba sighed. “Kin I finish changing the poopy diaper?”
Chapter 24
Bubba and the
Discomposed Denouement
Friday, March 15th
Bubba finished the diaper job with a calm efficiency that, under the circumstances, surprised even himself. Blanca, or whatever his name was, waved his arms cheerfully and gurgled in a pleased note. Everyone had been herded into the living room and was staring at the interloper with the gun.
“Not again,” Willodean said. “I cannot believe this. Is every gun-wielding murderer on the face of the planet drifting through Pegram County at any given time?”
“Ixnay on the urderermay amenay,” Miz Demetrice said out of the corner of her mouth.
Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies Page 24
