Joe Lansdale: Waltz of Shadows

He shook his cigarette pack. It was empty. He wadded it up and tossed it on the floor. He looked at me. “I’m gonna talk some more, I’m going to need some wine. My throat’s getting dry.”

I got the wine bottle and gave it to him. He took a drink from it, made a face like it was vinegar, set the bottle on the carpet next to the pile of cigarette butts.

“I tell you, Uncle Hank, whole thing was over, and I got to thinking on it, I began to feel good about it. Not mad anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want to do it again. But I wasn’t mad. We went over to Dave’s place and watched it on video. I’ve never been so turned on in all my life, seeing me and the others on film. Shots of the train coming, throwing out its light. The sounds of mine and Sharon’s breathing and that train whistle, it was some kind of aphrodisiac.”

“I’ll stick to oysters,” I said.

Bill picked up the wine bottle and took a long gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said,” Don’t worry, Uncle Hank. I’m coming to the photo book. What I know, anyway.”

“Time you get there, I’ll be too old and blind to look at the pictures-provided I really want to.”

“I tell myself I don’t want to look at them either, but I keep looking. Last night I got up and went to the bathroom, got to thinking about that damn book lying in here, and I came back and turned on the lamp and sat there and looked at it for a half hour before I went to bed. Had bad dreams. Told myself never again. But this morning, before I called you, I got it out again.”

Bill shook the wine bottle and turned it around and around in his hand. “I should have told that Dave sonofabitch, all of them, goodbye. But I didn’t. I felt initiated into something. How many guys you know have got off with a N to bthat Da beautiful woman to the thunder and lights of a speeding train?”

“Want the short list?”

“Exactly.” He finished off the wine, and continued his story.

· · ·

So I’m hanging out with them, and one day we’re over at Dave’s apartment, and he says out of nowhere, “Now’s the time.”

Just like that. “Now’s the time.” And everyone goes quiet. Dave could do that to you. He was a psycho, but there was something about him. Just his voice could pull you up straight.

He starts laying out what he’s got in mind, and if ever I was born for a superior stupid moment, I was agreeing with what he wanted. His idea was we kidnap someone. Not kidnapping the way you’re thinking. Not for money. Least it wasn’t for money at first. And the plan wasn’t to keep them for any real length of time. Sort of a thrill kidnapping. That’s why I agreed to it. I thought of it as being pretty harmless.

Dave said he wanted us to pick some guy who looked kinda stiff. Someone this kind of thing would really jack around. Not that anyone I can think of, except maybe the crowd I was running with, would get a kick out of being kidnapped. But he thought we’d grab a real straight and give him a serious thrill. Make him think we’re gonna do something drastic. Scare him good. Then we’d paint his balls blue, and let him go. I mean, literally, paint his balls blue. Or something stupid like that.

I know, it’s ridiculous. But you got to understand the frame of mind I was in. My whole life, since my Dad’s death, has been kind’a screwed. Mom did her best. I know that. I’m not putting the Indian sign on anyone. I’m just saying, I feel kind of… out there. Like the airlock blew on the space ship and sucked me into space without my suit and I’m gasping for air.

Suddenly I’m getting balled by this gal looks like a movie star, and I’m around people who know how to make me feel alive.

We spent a few days figuring on how to choose our victim. We didn’t want to pick a kid. That was too mean. And what’s it take to scare a kid? No challenge in that. We figured on some guy fat and happy, cruising along with life paying him all the dividends.

Me and Dave were like the scouts for the victim. We decided to go over to the public library every day, hang out there in the morning reading the newspapers, pretending to study our books, and from the windows by the street, we could see Imperial Bank across the way. Figured if we wanted a fat cat, that’d be where we’d find him. Going in and out of the bank.

Me and Dave got our eyes on this guy we’d seen a couple days in a row. Or rather Dave did. He said right away, “That’s our guy.” I guess it was Dave’s show all along. I never got the impression he meant for me to pick anybody. It was always him. He was just letting me and the others go through the paces.

Guy we picked showed up at the bank every day about ten-forty-five. Real straight laced. Looked thirtyish. Well built. Grey suit one day, blue the next. Always a white shirt and a dark tie. Hair cut and combed and sprayed just right. Looked like the kind of guy if he wasn’t doing suit ads in the Sears catalogu Sear and a dae, he’d be reading you the news on TV. I remember thinking he probably had a blond wife with a nice ass and two kids and lived over on the good side of town. Made all the right parties. Most likely had his picture in the paper now and then.

· · ·

We watched till he came out of the bank, then we got in Dave’s car and followed him. Sure enough. The good side of town. You know where that great big house is on the hill overlooking the University on University Drive? One where the property trails off down that deep wooded slope, toward the creek, then rises up high on the other side?

That was the house. We watched our guy go inside, and it didn’t take much for us to figure who he was. It was on his mail box. Guy named Doctor Benjamin J. Parker.

Dave knew who he was, and when he told me, it rang a bell. The cosmetic surgeon. I’d seen the Doc’s ads all over. In the newspapers. On television.

Guy like that, all the titties he’s stuffed, we figured he had money enough to put on toilet rollers for wiping his ass.

Next day, third day in a row, we went back to our post to watch him. When he showed up, we knew we had somebody with a pattern. Ten-forty-five, every work day, this dude was at the bank.

Next time, we were waiting outside the library. Dave had his video camera, and was taping the historical marker by the library. One tells about the Texans turning back the Mexicans during the war for Texas Independence by firing a cannon full of gravel and nails, or beatin’ a hundred of them to death with turkey legs, or some such shit. When Doc showed up, Dave turned and pretended to be taking shots of the street and the old bank front. As he was doing that, he got Doc and this fat guy in the video too.

Fat guy was in his fifties. Gray haired. About five-nine. Must have weighed over two-hundred-and-thirty pounds. Wheezy looking fuck. Walked like he had tacks in his shoes. Wore a red and green suit coat looked like it belonged on a carnival barker. It was oversized in the shoulders so it would button around his fat belly. He had on these lime green pants, and scuffed brown shoes, and these stupid, thin, white socks you could see through. Wore a wide, red and green striped tie like they used to wear in the seventies. Big enough to dry off on after a shower. All that motherfucker needed to make him just right was some Christmas lights.

Anyway, our Doc is going up the steps of the bank, and the fat guy comes out of the bank then, and they nod at each other. Casual like. Nothing overly friendly. Just two guys being polite. Doc reaches into his coat and brings out an envelope, which he drops. The fat guy picks it up, brings it in close to himself, and smiles. Then he reaches out and hands Doc back the envelope. Good Samaritan stuff. Right?

We got home and looked at the video, to show the others that we’d found our perfect victim, and we noticed something funny. We ran it back a few times for a looksee. The envelope the fat guy hands the Doc, it’s not the one the Doc dropped. Doc’s envelope was slightly oversized. The fat guy handed him back a regular size envelope and pushed the other one inside his coat.