Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

“Nice of you to try and cheer us up,” I said.

“I don’t want to feed you any bullshit,” Virgil sa” Virgid. “The thing we’ve got to consider now is Fat Boy, and I think the way to go is to discredit him.”

“How?” Bev asked.

“Well, I’m working on that,” Virgil said.

· · ·

Virgil stuck with us that day. We mostly ate, drank coffee and soda pop and talked. The kids did all right until late afternoon, then they became bored and whiny and argumentative.

We decided on a cookout. We gathered dry limbs and set them up so a fire could be made. We took some of the paper sacks the groceries had come in, and tore them in strips and poked them through the gaps in our woodpile. I lit the fire and got some thin limbs from an oak tree, and Virgil sharpened the tips with his pocket knife. We got some weenies and hot dog buns, and cooked the weenies on them and made hot dogs without any fixings. By the time we’d eaten, it was solid dark.

Bev said: “Thanks, Virgil. You brought enough food for an army.”

“I eat like an army,” Virgil said.

The kids were wired, but Bev and I maneuvered them into the bathroom to wash their dirty feet, and got them off to bed with a minimum of fuss. When they were tucked in good, Bev and I joined Virgil at the kitchen table.

“Always wanted some kids I could fuss at and a wife I could yell at, and she could yell at me back, and we wouldn’t stay mad,” Virgil said. “You know, only kind of fights I ever had with wives were serious and led to divorce. We never argued about little things. My Dad always said, you can’t fight about piss on a goddamn toilet lid or a messed up toothpaste tube, you haven’t got a marriage. I think he was right.”

“Virgil,” Bev said. “Do we have a chance?”

“I’m involved, you’ve always got a chance. And on that note, I need to head back. Tomorrow, I’ll hit this problem running. You’re only safe here for little while. Someone will get to checking, discover Hank’s brother owns this place, and the cops will be here to investigate… Hank, why don’t we make sure that fire’s out before I go.”

I got a pan for splashing water onto the fire and we went out back to the weenie roast site. I used a stick to spread the coals while Virgil carried the pan down to the dock to dip water.

A moment later I heard him yell.

I looked up. A big man was wrestling him to the ground in front of the dock. Virgil was banging away with the pan, hitting the man on the side of the head, and having about as much effect as a mosquito dive bombing a mannequin.

I bolted down there and kicked the big man in the face and drove him back. He rolled and came up fast and hit me below the knees even as I remembered the. 38 in my waistband and failed to draw it.

Suddenly the big man was on top of me and his fist was in my face. Virgil arrived with his pan and hit him on the side of the head. The big man twisted off of me and swarmed Virgil with a series of punches that laid Virgil on the ground, unconscious, still clutching his pan.

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I scrambled up and the two of us came together swinging. Then a chunk of shiny metal came out of the dark and punched against the side of the big man’s head, and Bev said: “You’re dead, motherfucker.”

“Hold it, hold it,” the big man said.

I hit her arm, drove the. 32 up. The shot barked at the sky. I got hold of her wrist and twisted the gun out of her hand. “Don’t,” I said.

The big man carefully turned his moonlit face toward me. I hadn’t recognized him in the dark, but when he spoke, I knew who he was.

“Bev,” I said. “I’d like you to meet my brother, Arnold.”

I pried the pan out of Virgil’s grasp, which was only a little easier than amputating his hand at the wrist, took it down to the dock and dipped some water. I came back and poured it on Virgil’s face. His eyes fluttered. He said, “Goddamn.” Arnold and I got him under the arms and pulled him to his feet. We half-carried, half-dragged him to the cabin. Bev tagged along beside us with her. 32.

By the time we reached the kitchen, Virgil was completely conscious, though I didn’t get the impression he wanted to show us any dance steps. We sat him in a chair, and me and Arnold found chairs for ourselves. Bev, the only currently uninjured party, leaned against the kitchen sink, the. 32 on the counter beside her. I couldn’t tell from her face if she was relieved she hadn’t shot Arnold, or if she was disappointed it hadn’t been Snake or Fat Boy. Maybe it was a little of both.

Introductions were made without handshakes and we checked the damages and dabbed up with wet paper towels Bev provided. The pan had given Arnold some sizable knots on the forehead, and I had bloodied his nose. When he turned just right, the light on those knots made him look like one of those weird aliens on Star Trek.

Virgil had a headache and a swollen jaw. My sides and stomach were hurting from the punches Arnold had thrown. I’d had more damage done to me in the last few days than I’d experienced in a lifetime.

“Bubba,” Arnold said. “We gotta quit hittin’ on one another.”

“How in the hell did you get here?” I asked.

“You got anything to eat?” Arnold asked. “I’m so hungry I could suck the guts out of a gopher.”

We fixed Arnold a sandwich and poured him a soft drink. Bev said, “I almost killed you. I thought you were one of them.”

“And I thought you folks were them,” Arnold said. “I was pretty certain you and Hank were dead, and hell, I didn’t know Virgil here.”

“No real harm done,” Virgil said. “I can take it. I’ve been married four times.”

“I thought I’d finally reached some sanctuary,” Arnold said, “then you showed up, and I didn’t know you, and I didn’t recognize Bubba, and after what I been through, I lost it. I’m just so goddamn tired and weak I can’t think.”

“Been any less tired, you’d have killed me,” Virgil said. “You’re a strong sonofabitch.”

Arnold said to me, “I went by your house. You know what happened there, I guess?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We were home when the fire started.”

“The kids?”

“They’re okay,” I said. “They’re in there sleeping. Fat Boy and Snake gave us a visit. I know they gave you one. I went to your place before they came to mine. I saw what was done to Bill.”

“They were pros,” Arnold said. “I was taking a dump when they came up. Never even heard them, and the way I was stinking up the place, I didn’t smell that scummy bastard with the snake on his head till it was too late. I’d just finished wiping my ass, when Snake opened the bathroom door.

“I tried to take him, but he was fast, and there I was, literally caught with my pants down and my ass hanging out. He hit me with the butt end of a knife he was carrying.”

“I got a taste of that too,” I said.

Arnold chewed and swallowed the last of his food, said, “I got hold of one of his legs and tried to bring him down, and he whopped me some more with that knife hilt. Caught me just right. When I came to, I was in my living room lying on the floor with my ankles and wrists tied and my pants still down. Fat Boy was there. He had a. 45 pointed at me.”

“It’s a sweet little instrument,” I said. “He’s showed it to me too.”

“Snake was doing some work on Billy. Had him bent over a chair with his britches down. They liked you with your britches down. Snake was using the hilt of his knife to do some business on Billy’s asshole. Sometimes he’d use his thumb under the base of his balls. I’ve never heard anyone scream like Billy screamed. Fat Boy said, anyone looked at Billy’s asshole later, they’d just think I’d been fucking him… I’m sorry, Beverly. I’m just trying to tell it straight.”