Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
19
I suppose it was midnight. I hadn’t looked at a clock in some time. I was sitting on the hood of Brett’s car with my back against the windshield. I had my hands under my shirt, on my revolver, just in case I needed to blow Herman’s brains out.
Above me was a great and beautiful canopy of stars. They seemed different stars from East Texas stars. They were brighter and closer. They looked sharp enough to cut your hand.
On the far side of the hood, stretched out, his feet dangling over the front of the car, was Herman. He had his hands behind his head and his eyes open. His belly heaved like a great turtle sleeping.
Leonard was in the front seat, stretched out, catching a catnap. Red was in the back seat. Red thought Leonard was awake watching him, so when Red went to sleep, Leonard took advantage of it. Brett was in the house, lying on the dirty mattress and the pew. She had spent two hours cleaning the prairie dog cages, feeding and watering the critters. Somewhere, buried inside her, was a housewife with an apron and fuzzy house slippers. Of course, in Brett’s case, that internal woman wasn’t wearing anything but the apron and slippers, and there was a shovel, lighter fluid, a box of matches, and a revolver nearby.
Herman spoke suddenly, “It’s strange how a man perceives things. Once, I felt nothing. Then I felt everything. Now I feel nothing again, except remorse. I can’t lose remorse.”
“Not sure you should,” I said.
“It’s odd. I went my way and did the things I did, and one day I began to think about my brother. I hadn’t missed him until that moment. Hadn’t thought of him at all. I was like our parents. He was just an embarrassment. Then one day I’m in Dallas. I was there to kill a man because I had been hired to kill him. He was not an important man, but he had insulted a man who had the money to have him killed, and I was the man to do it. I had gotten the job through the Bandito Supremes. They are something, Hap. Once they were nothing more than a two-bit motorcycle gang, running a few drugs, selling whores. Now, they have little to do with motorcycles. They are a large clearinghouse for disaster, and they get a slice of every disastrous pie they bake. Part of that pie went to me. Anyway, I’m in Dallas and I’m not thinking about this guy I’m going to kill at all. I had already made up my mind how to do it and make it messy the way the client wanted it, and I’m waiting for nighttime when I’m going to do it, and I see these kids playing in the park, and one of them is little and ugly and redheaded and these other kids are picking on him. Hitting him. Tossing rocks. Yelling at him. Stuff like, ‘We’d rather be dead than red on the head,’ and the kid’s running, and they’re busting him from every side, and there’s a kind of frenzy going on. I believe, down deep, in each of us, especially males, there’s a hunter-killer switch of sorts, and sometimes odd things can set it off. We still have a pack mentality, and this kid was wounded, and the pack smelled blood, and they were all going for this kid, and though I can’t say he would have died from it, he would certainly have been hurt. And it wasn’t that I was particularly moved by children prior to this, but the redheaded kid pulled something inside of me, another kind of switch, and I could see my brother in this child’s place, and suddenly I’m up screaming and I chased the boys off and helped the redheaded kid up. He ran away from me as fast as he could. That was it. End of story. But something moved inside me. It felt strange, and it felt good. Where the freezer had been, there was suddenly this wave of warmth, an open oven. I had never really felt that before. I didn’t know exactly what it was. You know what I did, Hap?”
“No.”
“I went ahead and killed my man. Then I went home to my parents. I hadn’t seen them in years, and I shot them both with a twelve-gauge pump shotgun with remarkably smooth action. A Remington, to be exact, and if I were still in the business, it’s a tool I would highly recommend.”
I felt the hackles move on the back of my neck. I made sure I had a good hold on the revolver under my shirt.
“Very methodically I shot them, making sure they knew it was me doing it. I went down to Mexico and stayed there for a while, on The Farm, but the law never put anything together. The shotgun was cold. The crime was spur-of-the-moment. Nothing was taken and I moved on immediately. A fine method of operation I might suggest if you should ever suddenly decide to be a serial killer.”
“Well, I am still trying to put a career together, so I’ll keep that in mind.”
“They were my parents, Hap. They were Red’s parents, and they had sold him to the circus. Me, they had raised me with some kindness and respect, but I hated them. I knew when I saw that redheaded kid being chased and hurt that I hated them. It was because of Red that I hated them. They had sold him with no more hesitation than they might a pup from a litter, and they had gotten away with it. Somehow none of this had meant a thing to me before. Red had meant nothing to me, but that day I had a sort of epiphany. I sought Red out.
“It was quite easy to track him down. I went to the circus and bought Red back.”
“I thought there was a fight.”
“Red tells people that. I think it makes him feel less like a piece of meat to have someone fighting over him. Buying him back is only a little better than selling him. There was no fight. In fact, he could have left at any time. He just didn’t have any place to go. I could have taken him away without money crossing palms, but I wanted to keep Gonzolos happy about the arrangement. I didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself or Red. You’ve got to consider the business I was in.”
“Red claims an elephant rolled over on the owner. Any truth to that?”
“I don’t know. It could have happened. Red likes to put frills on his life. I don’t blame him. It hasn’t been a very special life. I took Red into business with me. He had the mind for it. He had been used for years, so now he was willing to use others. He was a natural, as I had been. Then one day, in Galveston, it became necessary to nail a young girl’s hand to a boat paddle to make her father pay a debt, and in that moment, I had another feeling. I don’t know how better to describe it. In the girl’s eyes I saw myself mirrored, and somehow, where before I had been able to see people like paper cutouts, this time I could see this was a living, breathing child, and when she screamed it was more than a sound. Something snapped inside me.
“I just walked off. Went into hiding. The Bandito Supremes sent men after me. I killed them. Finally we reached a kind of peace. I got religion, but religion worked only for a short time. It allowed me to say, ‘Yes, I have done these horrible things, but now I am saved in Christ, and I am a good man now, and I’m leading others to salvation.’ Then, one night, like tonight, I looked up at the stars and knew in that moment there was nothing out there. Just like that it came to me. There’s no God. There are just stars. And the stars are nothing more than dying lights, and between them is dead darkness. From time to time I still try and believe in God. I use his name. But now I know there’s nothing there, and I can’t hide behind God. I know who and what I am and it’s very hard to face. And Red. He’s like I used to be.
“It’s strange really. Sometimes I look at a tree, or a bush, or whatever, and I see it for what it is. Something dying. Everything that lives is just something dying. It’s not a wonderful revelation. I no longer feel the need to bathe or to even clean my surroundings. I want them as foul as I feel. Does that make sense to you?”
“I suppose,” I said.
“I am bathed not in the blood of Christ, but in the darkness of lost revelations. A pompous way of saying there is nothing to my life but emptiness. Do you ever feel that way?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But it passes. As Leonard has pointed out, I’m like the guy goes out in the yard and steps in a pile of horse shit, and where he or someone else would say, goddamn, I’ve stepped in horse shit, me, I’m looking for the pony.”
Silence for a while. Then: “What I will do,” Herman said, “is I’ll take you to find this girl. I’ll help you find her and take her away.”
“Brett will appreciate that,” I said.
“I will appreciate it myself,” Herman said. “Perhaps I’m no less selfish than before. I’m not doing this for Brett. Or you. Or even to save my little brother. I’m doing it for me.”
20
Next morning I rode with Herman in his truck to drop his prairie dogs at his distributor’s ranch. Money changed hands, the dogs were unloaded, and we drove back.
When we got to the church and parked, we saw Brett out back of the place running a water hose over her naked body. In the rosy morning sunlight, her wet red hair cascading over her pale freckled shoulders, the thin line of fiery hair on her pubic mound, her breasts swaying as she bent beneath the water hose, I had a feeling I had just glimpsed what heaven must offer twenty-four hours a day. With maybe a fifteen-minute break for some kind of tonic.
With the water running hard, Brett hadn’t noticed us. She swished, turned and bent and showed us her bottom, then turned and saw us. She frowned, shrugged her shoulders and went back to it.
We just sat in the truck, not knowing what to do. Finally, I opened the door and got out and Herman did the same. We walked around to the front of the church.
Herman said, “I just remembered why I like women.”
“Yep,” I said. “Me too.”
“She’s your woman, isn’t she?”
“She’s her own woman, but she lets me hang out with her.”
“For the first time in a while, I want to take a bath.”
“Just a few kinds words, Herman,” I said. “You need it.”
The door to the church was open, and when we looked in Red was tied up and gagged and lying where Brett had been. Herman went inside and began untying him. I didn’t try to stop him.
When the gag was removed, Red began to sputter. “That nigger did this.”
“Ixnay on the iggernay,” I said. “I don’t like it, and Leonard, he likes it less.”
“He tied me up for talking too much,” Red said. “He said I was a nuisance.”
“You are a nuisance,” Herman said.
“Et tu Brute?” Red said.
“Where is Leonard?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” Red said. “I can’t believe this. He tied me up like a prize pig and left me here. He’ll pay for that. My mother used to put me in the closet, lock me in when she wanted to be rid of me. I told myself I would never allow another person to do what she did.”
“We’ve been doing it for days,” I said.
“That’s right,” Red said, “you have. And I promise there will be reprisal.”
“I’m going to help them,” Herman said.
“What?” Red said.
Herman nodded. “That’s right. I haven’t done much with my life, Red, and you’ve done nothing with yours. Let’s do something constructive for a change.”
“Rescuing a whore?” Red said. “Are we saving her from a fate worse than death? I have news for all you knights, Tillie’s cherry has long been removed from the box and the cherry’s consumed and the box is trampled, if you get my meaning.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” I said. “We’re not rescuing her from sex. We’re trying to rescue her from abuse.”
“She’s been abused so long she thinks it’s foreplay,” Red said.
“I think perhaps one day she figured out it wasn’t,” I said. “That’s why she wants to come home.”
Brett appeared in the doorway wrapped in a towel that didn’t cover too much. Another towel was wound around her head and hair. She was carrying a bar of soap. “It’s hard to have privacy here,” she said.
“Wow!” Red said. “Lady, may I say you could be serious money on the hoof if you wanted to trade professions.”
“No thanks,” Brett said. “I borrowed some soap and some shampoo, Herman. My suggestion is you take advantage of it as well. And these towels could use some soap themselves.”
“Herman and I were just discussing his body odor,” I said.
“I hope you weren’t discussing anything else,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “We had no idea what you were doing.”
“And you spent a while making sure you had no idea,” she said.
“We couldn’t move,” Herman said. “The blood had sunk to our lower extremities.”
“I know where it sunk to,” Brett said. “Leonard tied the turd here up so I could shower and he could nap in the car.”
“Herman is going to help find Tillie,” I said.
“That right?” Brett said, and for the first time in days she looked excited.
“Yes,” Herman said.
Brett walked over to the end of the pew where her clothes lay. She took hold of her panties, and very deftly put them on without losing the towel or giving us a sideshow.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“Today,” Herman said. “The sooner the better.”
Brett slipped on her jeans. It was like the reverse of a snake wiggling out of its skin. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s real good.” She turned, pulled the towel from her body, tossed it on a pew. With her naked back to us she pulled on her shirt while we held our breath. She removed the towel from her head, shook her hair, and when she turned the shirt was half buttoned and her hair fell against it and dampened her breasts. She pulled a long comb from her back pants pocket and began carefully dragging it through her wet hair.
“How long after you three get through looking at my titties are we going to do this thing?” Brett asked.
“We could look a long time,” Red said.
“But we won’t,” Herman said. “We’ll do this soon as the three of you are ready.”
We talked briefly and made some general plans. Brett recovered her revolver where she had hidden it outside under an overturned bucket, stuffed it in her pants, and while Herman stripped off out back and bathed, we went out to see Leonard.
I opened the back seat door and tapped him on the leg. He squirmed, and I tapped him again. When he rolled over, he had a pistol in his hand.
I said, “Howdy.”
He put the gun away, mumbled something and sat up. He rubbed his neck and the back of his head and finally said, “First thing I want to do when I can is jack off, take a good shower, and sleep in a good bed. Maybe eat a steak and a bag of vanilla cookies. I need some cheering up.”
“I don’t feel so spiffy myself,” I said.
“Me neither,” Brett said.
“Sorry about that masturbation line,” Leonard said.
“That’s all right,” Brett said. “I’d like a good fingering myself.”
“Herman is going to help Brett find Tillie,” I said.
Leonard nodded, got out of the car and leaned against it. He said, “That’s good. I’m glad. When are we going?”
“Pretty quick,” I said.
“Those two,” Leonard said. “Can we trust them?”
“Herman, maybe,” I said. “Red, not at all. There’s other problems. We got to go to Mexico sneaky like. We can’t just walk across the border with our guns and enough ammunition to start a revolution.”
“Any idea how we’ll do that?” Leonard asked.
“Herman claims he has a border connection,” Brett said. “But it’ll cost us some money. A thousand dollars. I got the money, so if Herman’s telling the truth, that’s done.”
“I don’t know,” Leonard said. “I wouldn’t trust either one of ’em far as I could throw ’em. Though, the midget I could probably toss pretty far.”
“I hate that little shit,” Brett said. “Far as I’m concerned, I’d put up a hoop and watch you make baskets with him.”
“What’s it going to be?” I said. “We going to trust Herman or not?”
“I have to,” Brett said.
“No you don’t,” Leonard said. “We go Herman’s way, but we don’t trust him. We keep our eyes open and don’t get too lax. I say we put Red in the trunk again.”
“Suits me,” Brett said.
“Not me,” I said.
“Always the fuckin’ humanitarian,” Leonard said.
“He could get gassed, die on us.”
“Your point?” Brett said.
“Amusing,” I said. “But it could happen.”
“He’s right,” Leonard said. “Then we got a dead midget to explain. Another point, we do this thing Herman wants, pay this guy to get us across the Mexican border with our weapons, what then? What about The Farm?”
“I asked him that,” I said. “The Farm is a way station and pleasure house for the Bandito Supremes. Where they are, they feel pretty safe. Got authorities paid off, and there aren’t any immediate authorities anyway.”
“Recreation,” Brett said. “That’s what they’re doing with Tillie. She’s just meat for them. These Bandito Supremes want a little R and R, well, Tillie’s there for them. Sort of like a piece of equipment in a rec room. It’s disgusting.”
“Way you got to look at it, Brett, is like this,” Leonard said. “She ain’t doin’ nothin’ she wasn’t already doin’. She’s doin’ more of it and maybe in rougher circumstances, but it’s not a new experience, so it’s not necessarily a worse life than before. Important thing is, we’re gonna go in there and get her.”
“Herman says the place really isn’t guarded that well,” I said. “There’s so many of them they don’t worry much.”
“How many?” Leonard asked.
“It can vary from time to time,” I said. “Depends.”
“So there could be fifty or a hundred?”
“It’s possible. But there could be three.”
“That’s my man,” Leonard said. “Still looking for that pony.”
“Pony?” Brett said.
“Tell you later,” I said.
“Anyway,” Leonard said, “we’re going to cross the border with all our little guns, then we’re going to waltz in there and shoot the shit out of fifty, maybe a hundred guys. Or maybe three guys, and we’re going to take Tillie with us, get back across the border, and head for the house. That doesn’t sound like much of a plan, Hap.”
“Herman thinks we can maybe do it at night,” I said. “Go in and get Tillie and not cause too much of a ruckus. He knows the place well, and he knows the country around there fairly well.”
“Here’s the good part,” Brett said. “Herman’s connection, he hasn’t seen in ten years. That doesn’t work out, then we have to figure a way to get ourselves across the border.”
“Then, if we managed to do this thing,” I said, “we got to deal with the Bandito Supremes coming after us.”
“I don’t know that’ll amount to much we get a good lead,” Leonard said. “These guys are a bunch of thugs, not the Deerslayer. I doubt they could track sperm on their legs.”
“Herman says the Bandito Supremes are vengeful,” Brett said. “They’ll follow us if they know who to follow. You’d think one little whore wouldn’t be worth it.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that,” I said. “It’s that old macho mentality about crossing the line, and holding the line. Herman was lucky once. If they know it’s him this time, they aren’t going to make any pact. And besides, there’s another reason Herman wants to go. He doesn’t want to come back here even if they don’t see him. He wants to start over. Sort of remake himself.”
“He tell you that?” Leonard said.
“No,” I said. “Not exactly, but that’s what I get from him.”
“He’s got some kind of fantasy going he can take Red away from the life of a thug,” Brett said, “turn him into something better.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said, “and a kind word to a crocodile will get you a smile.”
“It all boils down to this,” I said. “Do we still want to go in?”
“You know what I have to do,” Brett said.
“Then you know what I have to do,” I said.
“I don’t have to do shit,” Leonard said, “but since I got nothing but laundry waiting at home, let’s do this thing.”