Bad Chili cap-4

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I guess those dumb yard butts were better than those wooden Holstein cow sprinklers with a hose for a tail that swirled around and around tossing water. But not much.

  I looked down the street, both ways, for no particular reason. Still looking for clues, I guess. All I noted was the street seemed to have changed a lot in the last few months. Some of the big trees along the pocked asphalt road had been cut down, and where there used to be shade there was sunlight. This neighborhood wasn’t the best in the world, with its poverty and drug problems, but I had liked coming here.

  Now, Leonard’s house no longer seemed like Leonard’s house, like my home away from home. Things had changed. On the street. In the neighborhood. In the house. In our lives.

  Perhaps I missed Leonard having a new crack house to burn down next door. He had burned two of them. Well, three of them, if you count the time I helped him do one.

  Who knew? Maybe they’d move a new one in any day now. Hope springs eternal.

  I took a moment to think about the sex life I didn’t have. Damn. I was getting as bad as Charlie. This kept up, me and him would be fucking.

  I thought about Lt. Marvin Hanson, lying in bed in a deep coma. I assumed if I thought about how bad he had it, I could feel a hell of a lot better about being me.

  It didn’t work. I still felt like shit.

  I watched a couple of blue jays fighting in Leonard’s oak tree. Listened for a while to a small dog bark savagely at something somewhere off to the south. The dog didn’t want to stop barking. A car drove by, an old black man at the wheel, one arm out the window. He was wearing a blue baseball cap with the brim pushed up. He looked hot and tired and satisfied. I looked at my watch. Three-forty-five. Guy was probably just off work from the early shift at one of the plants around town. Must be nice to have a shift. A regular check. Probably had a wife to go home to. A dog. Some kids. A TV with cable instead of foil-covered rabbit ears. I used to have an antenna, but the wind blew it away. I wondered where my antenna was. I wondered where my youth was. I wondered if that fucker who drove by got the American Movie Classics channel.

  The wind died down and I began to feel uncomfortably warm. I unbuttoned my top shirt button.

  I watched the blue jays fight some more. The dog had stopped barking. I still felt warm. I checked out the pink house with chocolate trim again. The colors hadn’t changed and the lawn butts were still in place.

  I looked at my watch once more.

  Three-forty-six. Time was certainly shooting by.

  I scratched my balls, got in my truck, and drove away from there.

  8

  I stopped at a pay phone and called Charlie. Before I could tell him the state of Leonard’s house, he said, “I hope you got something good.”

  “It’s not that good. It’s about Leonard’s house. I just went by there. It’s been ransacked.”

  “Maybe Leonard did it himself. Came back, grabbed some stuff he needed, made a mess.”

  “I didn’t say it was messy. I said it was ransacked.”

  I described the place to him. He was silent. If he had an opinion he didn’t voice it. Just before I started collecting Social Security, he said, “You need to come up with Leonard.”

  “I’m working on it. Am I to think you no longer think he got nailed by bikers?”

  “I think all kinds of ways. It keeps me from getting bored. And if you know where Leonard is, you ought to tell me.”

  “So far, nothing.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Hap?”

  “Gracious, no.”

  “I’m not fuckin’ around here. This is some serious business.”

  “I know that.”

  “You put him up, hide him out, that’s a crime. You know that. Right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you talkin’ through a cardboard tube?”

  “It’s my cold. It’s getting worse.”

  “My cousin, he had a cold like that, neglected it. Fucker died. You takin’ medicine?”

  “I’ve bought some, but no, I haven’t taken it yet. And I don’t believe you had a cousin who died of a cold.”

  “Maybe it was my mother’s cousin.”

  “You really aren’t that concerned about my cold, are you?”

  “Hey, you’re sick, I’m sick.”

  “You think you’ll soften me up, then I’ll confide something to you, don’t you?”

  “You said it, I didn’t.”

  “Let me ask you something. Raul. Is he a suspect in this case?”

  “Everybody is a suspect. I’m thinking of running my wife in.”

  “Come on, Charlie. You got Raul in custody? Know where he is?”

  “No, and if you know where he is, you’d best tell me.”

  “I just called ’cause I thought you should know about the house. You might want to go over there, bring some of your people, see if you can find a real clue. You could even bring your little Dick Tracy fingerprint kit.”

  “You probably fucked up anything might have been there to find.”

  “I don’t think so. I know I’m not a real policeman like you-”

  “You’re not even a stuffed animal in a police hat.”

  “Very true. But unlike you, I don’t have to step in shit to know a pile when I see it. And there is some shit goin’ on here that’s got nothing to do with Leonard. Not directly. At least I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound all that certain to me. Maybe you got to step in shit after all.”

  “Could be. But I did find a couple clues. You might take note of some footprints out back. They look to belong to Andre the Giant.”

  I told him about my trek through the woods to the road, what I found there. I told him what I had touched. I said, “By the way, as you well know, it won’t be any surprise to find my fingerprints all over that house. And here’s an idea, and this is just an idea, mind you, and I don’t want you to take offense since it’s from a layman and you’re a real policeman with a badge and gun and everything, but you take fingerprints, what I’d do is see you have any other than Leonard’s, Raul’s, or mine.”

  “My,” Charlie said, “you’re a regular Boston Blackie. This stuff about fingerprints. And that footprint business. Shit like that’ll bust the case wide open. All we got to do is make a cast of those footprints, make a shoe from that. Then we can go door to door and have people try it on. Shoe fits, we run the fucker in… All right, Hap, get this. Time is running out, and I better not find you’re fuckin’ around on me.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Charlie.”

  “The hell you wouldn’t.”

  “Charlie, you really got to either smoke more so you’ll be less irritable, or you got to quit smoking so you can get some poontang and be less irritable.”

  “What I’d like is to fuck like a snake, then afterwards smoke like a chimney. Hap, you listen here. We’re buddies, but when it comes to murder, that don’t buy much. Hear me talkin’?”

  “I hear you. I keep hearin’ you. What the hell is with you? I still think you’re pissed about Kmart closing down.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to get over. But don’t change the subject. I’ll make sure Leonard gets as fair a shake as he can get. If it’s self-defense, I’ll do all I can to get him off. But I’ll tell you now. I’m comin’ after him, and if I discover you’ve had anything to do with hiding him, then I’m coming after you too.”

  “You said I had twenty-four hours. My understanding of that was I found him during that time, could straighten out things, you wouldn’t bother me. Even if I did know where he was. Isn’t that right? I had twenty-four hours, didn’t I?”

  “ Had. You got a lot less now. But I also said no promises if things changed around here.”

  “Has something changed?”

  Charlie let me hear the electricity in the phone for a while.

  “Well, has it?” I asked.

  “Just find Leonard,” Charlie said, “and listen close. I’m coming after
you,” and he hung up.

  I thought about that a moment, then understood what Charlie was trying to tell me. I called Leonard. I let it ring a couple times, hung up. Let it ring a couple times, hung up. Then repeated it. I hoped he’d realize it was some kind of code.

  The third set of rings someone picked up the phone. I said, “This is me. If that’s you, might I suggest a stroll in the forest?”

  The phone went dead. I took a moment to wonder if my phone was tapped, decided things had happened too quickly for that. I was okay. I was just feeling a streak of secret agent.

  I pushed out of the phone booth and walked over to my truck. Down the road a piece I saw a yellow ’66 Pontiac parked next to the curb. There was a man sitting in it wearing a cowboy hat. He didn’t look like any of the cops I knew. He didn’t look like a cop. He didn’t look like anybody I knew, period. He didn’t seem to be watching me.

  The phone booth was next to a 7-Eleven store. I went inside and bought a Diet Coke in a plastic bottle and a bag of peanuts. I drank the Diet Coke down a bit, poured peanuts into it, and went outside. I climbed into my truck and looked in my mirror. The Pontiac was gone.

  Probably just some guy waiting for someone in one of the houses along the street. Or maybe he’d stopped to check a map. Pull his dick. Anything. I had to lighten up. I was starting to be one paranoid sonofabitch.

  I drove away, an eye on the mirror, watching for yellow Pontiacs or low-flying stealth aircraft with radar.

  9

  I didn’t go directly home. I was sort of afraid to. I figured Charlie would be searching my place, and if Leonard had heeded my warning, he wouldn’t be there. It might also be better if I didn’t come up on Charlie and his folks going through my underwear drawer. I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.

  I drove downtown and went to the all-day dollar movie and had popcorn. The popcorn was okay, but the movie wasn’t very good. I walked out about halfway through and stopped off at the yogurt joint and had a cone.

  When I finished my cone, I cruised over to the bookshop and looked around the magazine rack. I didn’t see any Boobs and Butts there. Where did Charlie find that stuff? I hung around long enough the clerks began to watch me suspiciously. I bought a couple comic books, a Batman and a Spider-Man, and left.

  When I got home, Leonard wasn’t there. I gave the house the once-over, went out on the back porch, and saw him strolling toward me from the woods. He had the twelve-gauge in one hand, a shovel over his shoulder, and I could see his revolver in the waistband of his pants.

  Leonard smiled. “Thanks for the phone tip. I watched from the woods. Charlie and a blue suit showed up with the sheriff. They worked your lock and went inside and looked around.”

  “That means they have a search warrant.”

  “Probably. They were inside about twenty minutes.”

  “They did good. I can’t tell they’ve been here. They even locked the door on the way out.”

  “They looked around outside too. Found the sheets covered in pig shit.”

  “They take the sheets with them?”

  “No. At this point they probably haven’t put the pig shit and my daring escape together. I was smart enough to bury my clothes in the woods. I was going to do the sheets next. Actually, I don’t think putting me and the pig shit together is going to mean anything anyway.”

  “You’re probably right about that. Something new has happened. Now you’re connected to all this officially, and Charlie had to come check my place as a likely hiding spot.”

  We sat down on the back porch and I told Leonard what I had found at his house. Told him about my conversation with Charlie.

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “Was the stuff really wrecked? Were my books ruined?”

  “They’re messed up. Some of them.”

  “The TV’s screwed?”

  “Looks that way. And the stereo.”

  “Shit.”

  “Your J. C. Penney’s suit was tossed on the floor too.”

  “Now that fucker is dealing with dynamite.”

  I nodded. “I knew that would get you.”

  “Seems to me someone thinks I have something I don’t. If I do, I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know how I came by it or why I’d want it. And even if I did, that’s no excuse to fuck with a man’s J. C. Penney’s suit.”

  “Or maybe they think Raul has something.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Leonard said.

  “Or maybe they thought Horse Dick had something, and now they think Raul has it, and they thought he was hiding it at your house.”

  “Or someone thinks what Horse Dick had and Raul had, I now have.”

  “Or maybe it’s a disgruntled hair patron of Raul’s,” I said. “A little too much off the ears and he’s ready to flatten the kid’s head.”

  “Come to think of it, he cut my hair once or twice, and I sort of avoided him after that. He tended to poke you with the scissors.”

  “I’ll tell you this,” I said. “If I had something that the guy owning that shoe printed wanted, I might be inclined to give it to him. Help him carry it out to the car, give him a blow job, wipe his ass, give his car a push uphill.”

  “That big, huh?”

  “No. I just made all this shit up for your amusement.”

  Leonard sighed. “Sorry. I’m beginning to think I was born under a bad sign… Do you think Raul’s dead?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s the news the cops got. Maybe to them it’s looking like you did him in too. I’m not saying he’s dead, I’m just saying if he is, it’ll compound things.”

  “Jesus, I hope he’s all right. And not just for my sake.”

  “We’re jumping a lot of ditches here for no reason, Leonard. We don’t know anything. Not really. Charlie gave me the impression something was up, though, but I think now it was just the fact they were going to search here and he figured you might be here. He’s trying to help. Guess it was good I called him when I did.”

  “Long as we’re speculating, though, I just thought of something. What if the bikers didn’t know Horse Dick was gay?”

  “Who says they care?” I said.

  “I’ll stand by it for the moment. Considering most people aren’t that liberal about homosexuality, and these guys are about as open-minded as a scorpion. It’s a fuckin’ Dixie No Nigger Bar, for Christ sakes. You think it’s No Niggers But Queers Okay?”

  “You never know.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s place bets. So if the bikers first heard about Horse Dick being gay from me when I knocked knots on his head and uttered my classic line about his fuckin’ around with my boyfriend, could be they got rid of him themselves. They figured I’d get the blame, and that way they could kill two birds – or two fags, if you will – with one shotgun blast.”

  “That’s a possibility, I guess, but that doesn’t explain your house being tossed. My guess is the incidents may not have anything to do with one another. They just unfortunately came together at the same time.”

  “Maybe,” Leonard said. “Now what?”

  “I think you ought to continue hiding out in the woods. I’ve got a pup tent, some camping gear, and I suggest we put it together and you use it. I’ll find you at the Robin Hood tree when I get some word, or I need you.”

  The Robin Hood tree was a massive oak. It reminded Leonard and me of the great oak in the Robin Hood tales, therefore its nickname. It was near my place, on property of Leonard’s, and it was out back of the house he still owned, but had boarded up until he finished repairing and selling the house he had inherited from his uncle. A chore that had turned into one of the labors of Hercules.

  “I’m going to be at the hospital tonight and tomorrow night,” I said. “I don’t know I can slip out during the day or not. I do, I’m going to wind up owing so much money I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pay, and still won’t be able to.”

  We put the gear together, along with the two comic books I’d boug
ht, and Leonard took the stuff and melted into the woods. I’d have to get him a suit of Lincoln green. For that matter, I had a green suit I had bought at J. C. Penney’s. I could loan it to him. Make him one of those little Robin Hood hats out of green construction paper, rob a tail feather from a chicken, stick it in the hat. I could call him Little Leonard.

  When I had a few things packed, I took some cold medicine and drove into town on my way to the hospital. The sky was a gigantic charcoal smear backgrounded by a dying burst of red sunlight, bright and jagged as if God’s heart had exploded. Bats filtered about, radaring for bugs.

  I drove over to a burger joint and had a burger, thought about everything that had been going on, then thought about nothing. By the time I arrived at the hospital God’s heart had bled out, and all that was left was a dark stain, like blood drying on a brick.

  I was uncertain what I was supposed to do at the hospital, so I parked and went right up to my room. My name was still written on the paper in the slot outside the door.

  I peeked inside. It was dark in there. The bed next to where I had slept was still empty. My bed, where I had had such joyous moments watching pigeons, was also empty.

  I turned on the light, pulled back the closet door, and looked in there. My gown was dangling from a hanger. At least I assumed it was my gown. Same style. Same color. Plenty of room for my ass to hang out. I knew for a fact I’d had one just like it.

  I looked at my watch. I was a half hour early. I sat in the visitor’s chair beside the bed and wished I’d gone home first to get something to read. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could make out the pigeon poop on the sill, the stuff I’d named Leonard.

  I turned on the TV and watched a news program.

  About eight-twenty Doc Sylvan came in. “Thanks for showing up. It’s nice of you. You know, I didn’t think you would. If you hadn’t, I’d have made sure the insurance didn’t cover shit.”