Rogues

by George R. R. Martin

  “And you know all this and couldn’t do nothing?” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Isn’t that nice? Listen here, chief in LaBorde said you were smarter than you looked, so I’m thinking what I said before. There’s stuff you can do I can’t. Law and all. But, you get caught doing it, I didn’t tell you to do it, and you say I did, I’ll call you a big fat liar. I’ll even arrest you. How’s that for modern law enforcement?”

  “I can live with it,” I said.

  It took some doing, but I finally talked Brett into letting me take her home. I called Leonard on my cell, but he didn’t answer his. I left him a message. I drove over to downtown Bullock, which was a cross street, and went over to the Go-Mart and found Kevin Crisper. He was a man in his forties trying to look thirty. He had similar tattoos to Robert. Kevin looked like a man who had been soaked down wet and overheated in a microwave. Skin like that was last seen on Tutankhamen’s mummy. That said, he had muscular arms, the kind of muscles some people are born with, long and stringy and deceptively strong.

  I walked over to him, said, “I hear you can sell me some things.”

  “Some things?” he said. “What kind of things? I look like I got something to sell? Pots and pans. Maybe gloves or shoes?”

  “I was told you had some entertainments. Guy named Robert told me. You are Kevin, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Kevin lifted his head, said, “When did Robert tell you that?”

  I backdated the time, just in case Kevin had some idea when Robert bit the big one. I added, “He said there’s a girl that could do me some favors, you know. For some money.”

  “You heard all that, huh?”

  “I did.”

  “He didn’t offer just to take care of you himself?”

  “He said he worked for you and that I should talk to you.”

  “That’s funny he should say that,” he said.

  “Look, you got the goods or you don’t. I got money. I want some services. I’d like to party with a girl and I’d like to make myself right. You know where I’m coming from.”

  He nodded. “Say I know how to get this girl, the stuff you want to get right, you think I’d have it on me? Think I got that girl’s pussy in my back pocket along with a sack of blow?”

  “That would be handy if you did.”

  “Listen here, tell you what. I like Robert, and since he sent you, I got a place where you can come for the stuff, and the girl. We don’t use a motel. There ain’t but one and everyone knows everyone.”

  “So where is this place?”

  “You going to be around tonight?”

  “Could be.”

  “You want some leg and some head-twister, then you got to be around.”

  “Head-twister?”

  “Stuff I’m selling. It’s a mixture. You take this stuff your dick gets hard, your head gets high, and you’ll have so much fun you’ll drive over and slap your mama.”

  “That right?”

  “Way I hear. ’Course, I don’t sample that shit myself.”

  “That’s not much of a selling point,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s not that. I sample the girl, of course, but the rest of it, that’s product, man. You dip into your own product, especially with it being available, you can get in Dutch pretty quick.”

  He gave me a time and an address. I thanked him and tried to look excited. I drove over to the one café and parked out front and sat behind the wheel and called Leonard again. I had some idea that the Michigan thing was near wrapped up, that he ought to be driving back down and in Texas by now, but it appeared it had taken more time than expected because I got the same thing. No answer. I left him a detailed message, even told him where I was supposed to be and at what time. I gave him the same directions Kevin had given me. I went in the café and had some coffee and a sandwich. I figured I might want to be fortified. I bought a sack lunch and an axe handle at the feed store and put it in the car, and then I drove out to where I was supposed to meet Kevin. Only thing was I was four hours early.

  I tried Leonard a few more times, leaving the same directions, but whatever he was up to, it didn’t involve having his phone on. The location Kevin gave me was not deep in the woods, but it was out of town, which would of course suit his kind of services. But since I didn’t think Tillie, possibly the only lady working the grid, so to speak, was truly available, and since I knew Robert was dead as a pair of posthole diggers, and had a suspicion Kevin knew it as well, I thought I wouldn’t rely on his hospitality to bring Tillie straight to me. Me and Brett and Leonard had rescued her once before, a few years back, from something stupid she had gotten herself into that sounded a lot like this, and frankly, there was a part of me that wanted to leave her to it. I couldn’t do that because she was Brett’s daughter. That was the big part. The other part was I was me. I seem to be one of those guys who would help a rabid dog across the street if I thought it were confused on directions.

  I thought over the directions I had been given, then varied from them. I found a little road to go down, a hunting trail, and then a little path off of it. I parked there and hoped no one found my car and decided they’d like to hot-wire it and drive it off, or for that matter, just vandalize it. I got my pistol out of the glove box and stuck it in the pants at the base of my spine, and pulled my shirt over it. I got the food I had bought extra at the café, a hamburger and fries and a canned Diet Coke, tucked the axe handle under my arm, and walked to where I understood the meeting place to be.

  When I could see the house, which seemed pretty rickety and set off partly in the woods, I was pretty sure my suspicions were confirmed. Anyone coming here expecting pussy and drugs was a dumb-ass. I wasn’t actually expecting either, but I was a dumb-ass, because here I was. I went to the house and checked the door. It was locked. I went around back. The door there was locked too, but it was thin. I thought that would be my surprise entrance, kicking the door down. I could do it now, and wait on him, but if he came around back, or that was his preferred way of entering, the joke could be on me.

  I walked off in the woods to the left of the place and found a tumbled-down tree to sit on. I had my supper, which was all right if you had no taste buds and your stomach was made of cast iron. I only ate a few of the french fries, being as how they were greasy enough to give a garden statue the shits. I drank the Diet Coke and ate the burger. The meat seemed suspicious, but I was already hungry. I always got hungry when I thought I might kill someone or get killed myself.

  As it grew dark, mosquitoes came out and buzzed around, and a few bit me. I wondered if they were carrying the West Nile virus, or maybe something worse. I slapped at them. I caught a chigger on its way up my pant leg, heading for my balls; I felt proud to have rescued them.

  After a while I saw Kevin drive up and park and go inside the house. I saw a light go on. He didn’t have Tillie with him. He didn’t seem to have anything with him. He was early too. I thought I would wait a few minutes, then surprise him. I looked at my watch. I’d give him a few minutes to feel secure, then I’d surprise him. ’Course, if he had a gun, which he would have, the surprise would be on me. ’Course, I had one too, but when guns come into play, anything can happen.

  I thought about this, and I thought about that, and then I thought I felt something cold at the base of my skull, and since this was the dead of summer, even if it was just now dark, I knew it wasn’t a cold breeze.

  It was a gun barrel.

  I can’t explain how much like a dick I felt. Here I was putting the sneak on them, and they had put the sneak on me. I turned around slowly. A short fat man with a face that looked like it had been used for missile targeting, it had so many pocks, was smiling about $15,000 of much-needed dental work at me.

  “I could shoot you, you know,” he said.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “What we’re gonna do, is we’re gonna walk up there and see Kevin. Stand up first.”

  I stood up, leaving the axe handle on t
he log. He patted me down with one hand and found my pistol and stuck it in one of his baggy pants pockets. He picked up the axe handle with his free hand and tapped my shoulder with it.

  “Walk on up to the house,” he said.

  I was getting old, I figured. Any other time I would have been prepared. Or so I told myself. I had thought I was being smart getting there early, but they had put the sneak on me, putting moon-crater face in the woods to wait, and Kevin to come up like a staked goat.

  “There’s a road behind the woods here, dickhead,” said Moon Crater. “I come up on that, then through the woods. I hid out and waited. I thought I might have to do some serious sneaking, but you picked a spot not that far from me. It was easy, man. Kevin said he thought you thought you were a smart guy, but you’re not really so smart, are you?”

  “I have to agree with that,” I said.

  In the house Kevin was waiting. He said, “No snatch or juice for you, huh? ’Course, that isn’t what you were coming for, were you? I didn’t like your looks from the start.”

  “You ain’t got no mirrors at your house?”

  Moon Crater whacked me across the back of the legs with the axe handle hard enough I went to my knees.

  “I got a suspicion you got some other reason to see me. I got a suspicion you might be looking for Tillie, or Robert. I got to tell you, I think you know Robert’s dead.”

  “You got me,” I said. “I know he’s dead. What about Tillie?”

  “She’s all right, but she won’t be long,” Kevin said. “Mr. Smith likes to get all the juice out of a product before he lets it go. He gets her hot-wired enough on something or another, he can sell her out until there’s nothing to sell, you know. She then gets a hot shot, looks like an accident. They find her in a ditch somewhere with toadstools growing out of her ass.”

  “Robert didn’t look like an accident.”

  “He proved more of a problem. Things got out of hand. You see, he was dipping, him and the cunt. We don’t like dippers, unless maybe it’s with chips and dip.”

  Kevin and Moon Crater liked that. Both of them laughed. I figured they didn’t get out much.

  “Get him in the chair,” Kevin said.

  They were ready for me. The chair was arranged in the middle of the floor. I did have a nice view through a window when Kevin moved out from in front of it, which he did from time to time. I could tell he lied about sampling his product. He had some of it in him right then, and it was giving him a nervous twitch. They put me in the chair and Moon Crater tied my legs and arms to it with rope while Kevin held Moon Crater’s gun on me. When I was good and tied, Kevin said, “Now you got to tell me what you’re up to.”

  “You can take a running leap up a donkey’s ass,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s not nice,” Kevin said. “Jubil, hold this gun.”

  Jubil, aka Moon Crater, took the pistol. Kevin picked up my axe handle. I knew I was going to regret having brought that. He swung it hard against my shins. The pain jumped from my leg to my spine to the base of my brain. For a moment I thought I was going to be sick to my stomach and black out.

  “That’s got to hurt,” Kevin said.

  “You think,” I said. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t good, but it was something, even if it sounded as if it were coming from a very small man under a pillow in the corner.

  Kevin went over and put the axe handle by the front door. He reached in his pocket and took out a long pocketknife. He flipped it open.

  “This house was left to me by old grandma. It’s not much, but I come here now and then for things. And I got a sentimental spot for it, even if it is starting to go bad. That being the case, what I want to say is, I don’t want to bloody it up, I don’t have to. So, for your sake, and mine, you should talk.”

  “I talk, you’re just going to let me go?” I said.

  “Sure,” Kevin said.

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’m gonna kill you. But I can make it quick, a cut throat. Nasty to think about, but it gets over quick. Bleeds out good. Robert, I ended up having to shoot him a couple of times. Not so good. He was in pain right up until that last bullet. You, I can make you last a long time with this here knife.”

  “So my choice is I talk and you cut my throat, or I don’t talk and you cut on me a while till I do?”

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Right then, by the window, I saw Leonard’s head go by. I stalled. I said, “So what would you like to know? I might have some answers, long as it doesn’t involve math problems.”

  “Okay. First, who the fuck are you?”

  I said, “I’m a census collector.”

  “That’s going to get you cut,” Kevin said. “I’m going to have to take an ear.”

  “Before you do,” I said, “I really need to tell you something.”

  “What would that be?” Kevin said.

  “Hell is coming,” I said.

  At that moment the door burst open, propelled forward by Leonard’s foot. Leonard spied the axe handle, and he had it in his free hand before you could say, “My, is that an axe handle?”

  Leonard said, striding forward, “Queer, roughhouse nigger, coming through.”

  He stepped forward quick and caught Moon Crater in the teeth with a left-handed swing of the handle. It knocked Moon Crater to the floor, sending the gun spinning away from him.

  The light caught the black gleam of Leonard’s close-shaved head, and it danced in his eyes, it danced along the length of the brand-new axe handle. The axe handle cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. When Kevin met the wood there was a sound like someone’s slapping a belt on a leather couch, and then there were teeth and there was enough blood flying out of Kevin’s mouth I was sure Grandma’s house was ruined. It splattered on the wall and on the window, teeth clattered on the floor.

  Kevin hit the floor on his belly, dropped the knife. He tried to crawl for it, but Leonard stomped his hand and the axe handle came down again. This time it was a sound more like someone chopping the neck off a turkey with a meat cleaver.

  Kevin didn’t move after that lick, but just for good measure, Leonard hit him again. He went over then to Moon Crater, who was trying to get up, and kicked him in the mouth. That dental work Moon Crater already needed was going to cost a lot more now.

  When Kevin came awake, he was strapped to the chair where I had been. Leonard was nearby, leaning on the axe handle. I was squatted down in front of Kevin. Moon Crater was still stretched out on the floor. If he wasn’t dead or in a coma, he probably down deep in some part of his being wished he was.

  “Howdy,” I said.

  “Fuck you,” Kevin said, but it was hard to be sure if that was actually what he said. He was spitting up blood.

  “If you leave here,” I said, “and it’s possible, you might want to pick up your teeth, not confusing them with the gems that were in Jubil’s mouth. You might want to put them in a glass of water and freeze them. I hear they can do wonders with knocked-out teeth now.”

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name is Hap, and this is my brother, Leonard. But you two have already met.”

  “Glad to make your fucking acquaintance,” he said.

  I stood up, turned to Leonard. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I was on my way home when you called. Started driving back two days ago, but I was in blind spot for the phone. Bottomland. I got your message a little late.”

  “Not too late, though.”

  I turned back to Kevin. “Kevin,” I said, “you and me, we got to talk, and I got to get some answers, and if I like them, I’m not even going to cut your throat.”

  They told us Tillie had been taken by the Gospel Opry guy, Buster Smith, and that Kevin and Moon Crater had helped him take her. She was in an old theater. I knew the theater. I was from Marvel Creek, and when I was growing up I went to many movies there. They had a stage at that theater, a movie screen behind it
. They had kid shows and they brought out clowns and jugglers and special entertainment. It was awful and I was always glad when they got off the stage and turned off the light, leaving me with the roaches and a movie.

  Leonard didn’t want to leave them with their car and he decided he didn’t want to fuck it up. He wanted to fuck them up. I don’t like that sort of thing, but, hey, what you gonna do? They started it.

  Leonard put them in the trunk of his car and I followed in mine after he dropped me off. We took them into the river bottoms. Leonard let them out of the trunk. They got out, though neither felt well. Leonard had really laid that axe handle on them. He said, “Thing I’m going to do is break both your legs. One apiece.”

  “No need in that, Leonard,” I said.

  “I know. I just want to do it.”

  “Look now,” said Kevin. “Listen to your friend. We just work for that dickhead. We’re out of it. We hope you get the girl back.”

  “Oh, we’ll get her back if she’s to be gotten back,” Leonard said. “But here’s the thing. You were going to kill my friend. Had I not showed up, you would have. So which leg”?”

  Kevin and Moon Crater looked at me.

  “He’s sort of got his mind made up,” I said. “And you were going to kill me.”

  “But we’ll die out here if our legs are broke,” Moon Crater said.

  “Don’t be so goddamn dramatic,” Leonard said. “You’ll still be able to crawl, maybe find a stick to support yourself or something. Really, it’s not our problem.”

  “Which leg”?” Leonard said. “Or I choose.”