Savage Season cap-1

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I didn't look at Leonard. I could sense he wanted me to, but I didn't want to see that well-deserved I-told-you-so look.

  "You guys are some kidders," I said to Paco. "I thought they wanted the money for a cause and you just wanted the money. Turns out you're really in this together, and you all just want the money."

  "No," Chub said. "Not true. We have a purpose. Thing is, we require it all. We thought there would be more and we could give you some. But little as there is, we can't afford it.

  We made a pact that if there wasn't enough for our needs, we'd have to appropriate your share."

  "It's needed for a buy," Paco said.

  "Drugs?" I said.

  "Guns," Chub said.

  "Guess you're going to give them to some South American revolutionaries to fight their capitalistic oppressors," I said. "Something like that."

  "Something like that," Chub said. "Only we're not giving them to anyone. We're the revolutionaries."

  "Oh shit," I said.

  "Great," Leonard said. "Bozo the clown and his clown buddies with guns. Probably gonna have live ammunition too."

  "We need all the money," Chub said, "because the weapons we're buying are state of the art. Right, Paco?"

  "Sure," Paco said.

  "Paco said if we found this money, he had connections and he could get to them right away. People he's worked with before. Right, Paco?"

  "Right."

  "He's been checking with them all along, in case we got the money. He's got them to quote us some prices. We theorized that we'd need quite a lot of them and plenty of ammunition, and we'd need money for when we went underground, so we could make payoffs, buy food, supplies, that sort of thing. Enough for us to get established before we started robbing banks."

  "Banks?" Leonard said. "You're going to rob banks?"

  "Not for the money. Of course, we'd have to have some of it to finance things. But we'll give a lot of it to supporters of politically correct causes."

  "Politically correct," Leonard said. "I love that."

  "We didn't really intend to cheat you, but with so little money there, and our plans being as ambitious as they are, we had to. It's nothing malicious or personal, it's a matter of priorities."

  "Ah," Leonard said. "I see. For a moment there, I just thought we were getting fucked."

  "We're going to have to keep you awhile," Chub said. "Until we make the buy and go underground. Let you loose now, you might spill the beans. We don't want anyone knowing about us just yet. Soon everyone will be aware of us, and we'll be glad for it."

  "I wouldn't tell a soul," Leonard said. "Think I want the world to know I got snookered by you goofs? Some revolutionaries you're gonna make. You couldn't find your shifters with both hands."

  "Paco's done this sort of thing before," Chub said.

  "Yeah," Leonard said, "and all he got out of it was a burned-up head."

  "Fooled you, didn't we?" Paco said.

  "I'm afraid you did," I said.

  "We have to do something," Chub said. "This country is rapidly going the way of fascism. The spirit of the sixties can't be lost—"

  "Christ," Paco said. "I'm going to join the fucking capitalists you don't shut up."

  Chapter 20

  Another cold night, but not as cold as it had been at the Sixties Nest. The heat worked well here and there was some of it in every room, and the rooms were slightly larger and better-looking, much less depressing. Logs crackled pleasantly in the living room fireplace. Still, it wasn't comfortable. We'd slept sitting in armchairs, and to add insult to injury we were in Leonard's house, Howard and Trudy having spent the night in Leonard's bed, except when they took their turn sitting on the couch with their guns, watching us, looking as if at any moment a great Shootout was inevitable.

  They had taken their watch together about midnight. I could see the clock on the fireplace mantel, could hear the bastard tick the minutes away as if dropping water on my head. Paco was sleeping somewhere in the kitchen and Chub was wrapped in blankets on the floor near the fireplace.

  For lovers, Trudy and Howard didn't look at each other much. They sat on the couch at opposite ends. There didn't seem to be any electricity between them. They had become, at least in their minds, hard-nosed professionals in the last twenty-four hours.

  They had all changed. With us prisoners, our captors had taken on an unconscious swagger. Maybe they hadn't wanted this to happen, us being out of step with their plans, but since it had, they were eating it up. It gave them reason to tote their guns. They were having a taste of revolutionary foreplay. Orgasm was anticipated.

  I nodded in and out, watching Trudy and Howard watching me and Leonard, and came completely awake and reasonably rested to the sound of Chub groaning. Trudy was toeing him awake. "Your turn," she said. "There's coffee. Don't go back to sleep."

  "Don't talk to me like a kid," Chub said. Coming awake like that, he'd momentarily forgotten the lessons of analysis. How he wasn't bothered by anything.

  "They got no respect for you because you're fat," Leonard said.

  I looked at Leonard. I hadn't noticed him coming awake, and he had awakened as grumpy and sarcastic as ever. No wonder he didn't have any lovers. Who'd want to wake up to Groucho Marx every morning?

  "You get thick," Leonard continued, "everyone treats you like you're a talking pork chop."

  "You don't bother me," Chub said. I doubted that. Earlier, before he bedded down, during one of my awake moments, I had seen him standing near the living room window, examining his reflection in the dark glass, and I could tell from the way his shoulders slumped that what he saw was not what he wanted to see. He got up, washed his face at the kitchen sink, drank a cup of coffee, got his gun from under his pillow, and took to the couch.

  "We're going for a walk," Trudy told him.

  "Outside?" Chub said.

  "No," Howard said. "We thought we'd circle the fucking couch."

  "Just asking. It's cold out there."

  "Say it is?" Howard said.

  "You're all jumpy," Chub said. "Come on, we're in this together." Chub's face wore the same sad look it had in that photo of him as a kid. He so desperately wanted to be treated like an equal, he couldn't help but act inferior.

  Howard took a deep breath. "Yeah, well listen, we get back, we'll help you take them for a bathroom break."

  "I got a big dick," Leonard said, "but it don't take but me to hold it while I piss."

  "We wouldn't want you to be lonely," Howard said.

  "What if we got to pee now?" Leonard said.

  "Hold it," Howard said.

  "Is a number two, a doodie, any different?" Leonard asked.

  "Hold that too," Howard said.

  Leonard looked at me. "He's just too tough. When he talks I get this little rush in my loins, don't you?"

  During this exchange Trudy had disappeared into the bedroom. She came out now wearing a bundle of clothes, her big lumberjill coat topping it off. "Put something warm on," she said to Howard.

  He went into the bedroom and came out a few minutes later bundled as heavily as she was. They went out the front door. I closed my eyes and dozed.

  Next time I came awake, it was to the sound of the back door opening and closing.

  Trudy and Howard came in through the kitchen, red-faced from the cold. The bottoms of Howard's pants were spotted with wet dirt and the toes of his shoes were tipped with it. Trudy looked as clean and desirable as ever, even decked out like a little she bear in her winter coat.

  I looked at the clock in spite of myself. Two-forty-eight. Time flies when you're having a good time.

  Howard got his pretty little automatic out and pointed Leonard to the bathroom. When Leonard finished, I took my turn and went back to my chair.

  It was three A.M.

  Moving right along.

  Leonard went right back to sleep. He even snored. For me it was more nodding in and out. Once I awoke and Chub had gone back to his place on the floor and Paco was on
the couch, gun in his lap. There was a saucer on the arm of the couch and it was full of cigarette butts and there was a cigarette in his mouth and a cloud of smoke hung over his head. He looked a little twitchy. It was the first time I'd seen him that way. There were beads of sweat on his wrecked face and that studied cool he'd had was on vacation. When he saw I was awake he called some of the cool home, smiled, gave a slice-hand wave and picked up his gun with the other hand.

  I thought about jumping him, but I also thought about getting shot. If Leonard were awake, I might signal to him, and we could jump him at the same time. The bastard couldn't get both of us.

  Or maybe he could. And if he only got one of us, I didn't want it to be me, and I assumed Leonard felt the same way— about himself. And if we did take him, it probably wouldn't be without a noisy struggle, and that would bring the rest of them awake, and they all had guns.

  I gave Paco the foulest look I could muster, twisted in my chair, and was about to close my eyes when Trudy came out of the bedroom. She was carrying a flashlight, wearing her lumberjill outfit again, only this time with less bundling under the coat.

  Paco looked a question at her.

  "Can't sleep. Going to take a walk."

  Paco nodded.

  She went out through the kitchen. She was a walking kind of gal this night. I closed my eyes and slept. It was Trudy coming back that woke me. She wasn't all that loud, but I wasn't that deep in sleep either. She came in red-faced from the cold again, pulling off her brown cotton gloves. She came over to the edge of the couch, looked at Paco, then stared at me for a long, hard time. I studied her in return. The bottoms of her pants and the toes of her boots were crusted with clay and there were a few pieces of gravel stuck in the clay at the front ridge of her boot like ugly gems on hard red velvet. The great Hap Holmes deduced she had been out walking along the edge of the creek, where Leonard had tried to build up his land to keep it from washing away.

  She tired of trying to stare me down—which was good, I was about to look away—and walked behind the couch and into the bedroom and closed the door.

  "She's still got the hots for you bad," Paco said.

  "Save it," I said.

  The clock showed a little after five.

  I didn't go back to sleep again. By six, Howard and Trudy were both up. Trudy had already showered and was wearing one of my shirts with a clean pair of jeans. Everyone else had on what they had worn the night before. Howard got guard duty. The rest went into the kitchen and scrounged through Leonard's stuff for breakfast. Leonard awoke in time to see them using up his coffee, his bread and butter, and most importantly, his vanilla cookies. Losing the cookies really bugged him. He had a passion for them, kept them hidden even from me. Paco found them by accident and put them on the table so they could be had with coffee, and though we were offered some, I could tell it was no fun to Leonard to get his own cookies from assholes.

  I had picked up tidbits of information here and there, listening to them talk when we were at the Sixties Nest, and now here at Leonard's, and I had a good idea of their general, if not specific, plans. With the exception of Paco, who was tight-lipped and unreadable, they weren't secretive about the general stuff. They had brought us here because the guns they intended to buy were to be bought someplace outside of LaBorde, and neither LaBorde or that place were excessively far from Leonard's house. Last, but not least, Trudy said Paco had contacts in LaBorde that would help them go underground. They weren't ex-movement people, they were drug runners. But the method for getting lost from the mainstream was the same no matter what your purpose. After all, Paco had done it for years. They only had to follow his lead.

  I hoped they would do what they were going to do and get it over with, then let us go. I didn't want to spend another night sleeping in a chair. The rose fields seemed like a better career today than yesterday. I wanted out of the picture. I wanted to toss away its frame and knock down the wall it hung on.

  But when we were out of this mess, I was uncertain what I'd do. If I went to the police, I had to tell them about the money I'd helped find. I could lie my way around it for a while, but if they caught one of the others, the truth would come out, and I might end up viewing the world from behind bars again. Maybe Huntsville prison this time, but a prison just the same. The difference in their exercise yards would not be of enough interest to make the time appealing. And even if I didn't mention Leonard, one of the foiled revolutionaries might. Leonard wouldn't like prison any better than I had or would again. Yet, if I said nothing, innocent people might die during one of the group's holdups, and no matter how I might rationalize it, that would be on my head.

  It was not an exciting morning. Paco used Leonard's phone a couple of times to mutter a conversation at someone, and with the exception of Howard, who was sitting on the couch with his gun, guarding us, we were essentially ignored.

  Finally Trudy came over and sat on the couch, reached under her (my) shirt and took the gun out of the waistband of her pants and said to Howard, "I'll watch awhile."

  · Howard got up and went to the table, laid his gun beside the bag of cookies, opened the bag and went to work. I could almost feel Leonard flinch while Howard ate. Leonard sure loved his cookies.

  I smiled at Trudy. It was not a nice smile. "You're all jackasses," I said.

  She smiled at me. It was not a nice smile. "Whatever you think, Hap. You and I aren't connected in any way anymore. It's just not there. What you say doesn't matter to me. You don't do what we say, try to get away before we're ready to let you go, try to screw things up, we'll shoot you. Wound you if we can. Kill you if we have to. Don't think our past will keep me from pulling the trigger myself. Understand?"

  "All too well."

  "What are you going to do with us, and when?" Leonard said.

  "Paco's got to make another call, then we'll know when and where to meet our contacts, know better what we're going to do."

  "Why not have them come out here and we can have a party?" Leonard said. "They can finish off my cookies."

  "Better yet," I said, "leave us here. Cut the phone lines or something, let the air out of Leonard's tires. Go your way and leave us be."

  "If I knew everything would go smooth, I would. But I want you two with us until the moment we've got the guns and we're ready to go underground. We have some kind of delay and you two are free, you warn someone, then we could get caught before we're ready to make things work. And if our game plan doesn't go right, something about this buy sours, we can have here for a home base for a few days till we put something else together. I want us prepared for any emergency. When it all works out you'll be with us, and if it doesn't happen here, we'll let you out some place where you won't be able to get to a phone too quickly. Not someplace so isolated you'll freeze to death or be too miserable."

  "We sure wouldn't want to inconvenience you none," Leonard said.

  "Then Paco's going to take us to meet our underground connections. New transportation has been arranged. We'll ditch the van, and—"

  "And the rest is history," I said.

  "We'll try to make a difference," Trudy said.

  "Take the money and give it to the goddamn whales," I said. "This is stupid. You with a gun? Think about it."

  "I have. I've been for gun control all my life, and now here I am with one. Soon to have more. But I've given to the whales and I've given time and what money I could get to most everything. This time I'm giving myself, and I'll make a difference."

  "Hap told me about the bird you drowned," Leonard said. "I think that makes you ready for anything, a stone killer."

  "Oh, shut up, Leonard," Trudy said.

  "Serious now," Leonard said. "You could call yourself the Ice Birds. You know, like the Weathermen or the Mechanics, only you can be the Ice Birds on account of you're bad enough and mean enough to drown a sparrow. Shit, I want in. I'll drive and you shoot."

  "It's all comedy to you two," she said. "Exist from day to day, watch out for yourself
and each other, and that's it. You're not contributing to anything beyond your moment. If it doesn't affect you immediately, then it's of no consequence."

  "Sounds right," Leonard said.

  Trudy leaned back into the couch and held the gun in her lap. She said, "You're hopeless."

  "That may be," Leonard said. "But what I'd like to do is call a friend who's been feeding my dogs, tell him I'm home and not to come over. I don't want you Ice Birds—"

  "Don't call us that."

  "—getting touchy and shooting an old man for one of the bureaucratic, capitalistic pigs that run our society. And I'd like to go out and feed them. Anyone else tries, Switch will take their face off. You can bring your arsenal along so I don't run off."

  "Call him," Howard said. He had been listening on the sidelines, and now he was waving Leonard out of his chair with his automatic. "Any tricks, though, and you could get yourself or Hap hurt."

  Leonard made the call. It was quick and simple and friendly. No codes were passed. He went out and fed the dogs and Paco and his gun went with him. The morning crawled by like a gutted turtle. About noon Paco made a call. When he quit mumbling into the phone he said to the others, "They got a place and a time for us to meet. Sounds okay. Think we can get this over with pretty quick. Get the money, and let's do it."

  Chapter 21

  We went in the mini-van. Chub drove. Paco sat in the front seat beside him. Trudy and Howard sat in the middle seat and turned around and pointed towel-covered guns at me and Leonard in the backseat. Outside the weather had turned wet with icy rain and the wipers whipped at it like a madman trying to tread water.

  "Can we stop for burgers on the way?" Leonard said.

  No answer.

  We caught the loop and took it around LaBorde, out past the city limits to a stretch made up of long metal storage buildings, and finally the old Apache Drive-in Theater.

  It was no longer in operation and would possibly someday become the site of a number of rectangular aluminum buildings the size of aircraft hangers. Before TV hit it a left, and some years later video cassettes finished it with a hard right cross, it was the place to go, but now it was condemned junk.