Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

Virgil said, “Well, little folks, let’s take it on up to the cabin and see.”

Virgil, Bev and I unloaded the car and toted the sacks and boxes into the cabin.

Virgil looked around. “You just pick a cabin at random and break in?”

“My brother Arnold owns it.”

“Good. You got enough problems.”

There were a couple thermoses of coffee and some honey buns and milk, and we started there. The kids ate and then went back outside to play.

Virgil took a couple of newspapers from a paper sack and laid them on the table. One was our local paper, and the other was The Houston Chronicle.

“Bad news travels fast,” Virgil said.

“Give us the synopsis first,” I said. “Then we’ll read it firsthand.”

“All right,” he said.

We sat down at the table and I poured us coffee in the cups Virgil had brought. Virgil said, “It’s hard to know where to start.”

“Just start,” I said.

“Your house burning down is being reported as possible arson. By you.”

“Me?”

“It looks as if you burned your house down to possibly fake your death so you could escape the pornography charges.”

“Pornography charges?” Bev said.

“This morning, about the time your Main Street Store opened, it was raided by the police, following a hot tip, and guess what they found in the back? Videos of child pornography. Graphic stuff.”

“Raymond Sanchez runs that store,” I said. “He wouldn’t have anything to do with that kind of crap.”

“That’s what he said. He said he didn’t know the cassettes were back there. He says you brought some stock in not long ago and put it back there yourself.”

“I did bring some stock in. But it was just movies. Stuff that I bought second hand from Mark Flendie’s video store when he went out of business. Nothing special. I didn’t even tell Rayeven telmond to put them out.”

“That was Raymond’s story too,” Virgil said. “Now think how that sounds.”

“Like I hid the stuff.”

“And were selling to special customers. One customer supposedly heard through word of mouth you were renting and selling child pornography, and says he spoke to you about it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Says he made arrangements to rent a video from you for a hundred dollars. Says you came after hours, opened up and rented it to him. This witness, of course, works for the cops.”

“Fat Boy,” I said.

“It gets worse,” Virgil said.

“How could it?” Bev said.

“Seems your nephew left a note that incriminates you.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “He sure did. I have it.”

I removed the creased note from my wallet and told Virgil about my experiences out at Arnold’s trailer. I told him about the purposeful mistake of Bill referring to himself as William.

“Then, after he was dead, he got down and typed a new one,” Virgil said.

“Typed?”

“It’s been matched to the manual typewriter in Arnold’s bedroom. Note was written on the back of wrecking yard stationary. It says you and him and Arnold were into Satanism and child pornography. Said you even used your own children for it. Says he couldn’t take it anymore, so he was doing himself in. Oh, another little tidbit I haven’t mentioned. Arnold’s trailer was chock full of child pornography. Boxes of it. Pictures. Magazines. Video cassettes. According to the newspaper, even a very explicitly blown up photo of a child and a grown up in the act of anal intercourse was tacked on the bathroom door.”

“That sonofabitch, that goddamn sonofabitch,” I said. “It wasn’t there when I was, and that was after Bill was hanged.”

Virgil showed us a photo in the local newspaper of Arnold’s trailer. His truck was visible in the photo. Its tires weren’t flat.

“They went back and cleaned up,” I said. “Put new tires on the truck, probably the wrecker, so it wouldn’t look like an outside job. They saw the note was gone, wrote a new one with the typewriter. What about Arnold? Anything?”

“They might have caught up with him,” Virgil said. “And if they haven’t, they’re painting a pretty tight scenario here. Arnold could sing the truth all day and all night and no one would listen.”

“We’ve got cassettes,” Bev said. “The photo album. The note. Our experiences.”

“Your experiences are just your word against Fat Boy’s,” Virgil said. “He’s their trusted informant. Child pornography is a real problem right now. A hot topic. So’s Satanism. Fat Boy has built a good case. Nothing could have come down on you heavier. What you gr. What ot on your side is a photo album, and that might be your personal collection. You could have done all those murders, or knew about them, taken the photos yourself. Fat Boy can play it anyway he wants. The videocassettes? He could say he suspicioned the Doc had bad intentions and tried to set up a sting, but the Doc hired someone else before he was able to put his own plan into motion. Fact that it was Bill and his friends took the video could even add weight to Fat Boy’s story. He might have to backstory it better than that, find a way to throw the Doc to the wolves without getting anything stinky on himself, but as you see, he’s up to it. The other cassette helps their case. It shows Bill was into weird sex, paints him and his buddies as a bunch of freaks. The note Bill wrote, well, it could have been a note he wrote to you special. To let you know what he was planning. The William stuff, it’s not much. It might not be his legal name, but who’s to say he doesn’t go by it?”

“Virgil,” Bev said. “We had nothing to do with child pornography. Nothing.”

“I know that, lady. Fat Boy probably set that stuff up last night after he thought he took care of you. He was building that case against you no matter what. When it turned out you got away, he just worked that angle into his plans. The picture looks like this: You and Hank have been involved in child pornography. The cassettes confiscated at the Main store back that up. Supposedly Arnold and Bill had a falling out over the smut business, the Satanism stuff, something. They fought. Arnold took off, and Bill, remorseful about the whole undertaking, hanged himself, but not before leaving an incriminating note. Meanwhile, you two saw how things were going with your partners, panicked, burned your place down so you could take a powder.”

“They think we’re so stupid we’d burn the place down, then take off in the truck,” I said. “Wouldn’t that give us away?”.

“Papers imply you were trying to make it look like a burglary and murder. Trying to make the police believe the burglar took what he wanted, killed your family, then stole the truck.”

“They’ve done everything but hang us,” I said.

“We’ve been in this town, this community, for years,” Bev said. “People know us. Know we’re not like that.”

“Many do,” Virgil said. “I’m sure some are saying, ‘No way.’ But you want the sad truth? I think most, hell, maybe all, are saying, ‘You just never know, do you?’ Think about it. The TV and papers are full of this kind of shit all the time. About the next door neighbor who was well liked and very quiet, and what do they find but a bunch of babies buried under his porch with their buttholes stretched.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Bev said.

“Sorry,” Virgil said. “I’m trying to make a point, Mrs. Small. I’ll tell you flat, you’re ruined in Imperial City. You get Fat Boy to say he set it all up, and you’ll still be ruined. It won’t be remembered you were proved innocent. It’ll be remembered you were associated with child pornography. You might even have trouble going somewhere else, but you won’t be able to stay in Imperial City. I promise you that.”