Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

It was smooth. Magician smooth. But us running that tape backwards three or four times to get a good look at the Doc, Dave picked up on it, and af Son smoter it was pointed out, we all saw it.

A planned swap if ever there was one.

Next day we went to the Square with the video, took a position down by the old hardware store they’re remodeling, and used that as our focus. You know, like we’re filming some historical bit, which considering all the renovation going on down on Main Street and the Square these days, fits in for a good cover.

Doc shows up like usual, goes in the bank. No fat guy this day. So we don’t take any video. We wanted to know if there was something to really see before we got down to business, this stuff with the envelope being so intriguing and all.

Next day we hung out in my car. Parked across the street from the bank in front of the library. Got the video ready. Doc comes on time, and the fat man’s there again. They go through the same envelope routine. Doc dropping. Fat man picking it up and trading with him.

Comes to us then that possibly the fat guy’s got some pictures of the Doc doing something he shouldn’t do. Maybe when the fat guy switches envelopes, he’s giving the Doc negatives or something.

Whatever reason, this fat guy, he’s got Doc by the short hairs, and he’s giving them a tug, you know. And Doc, he’s got it arranged where he can pay off in a public place so he doesn’t have to be alone with the fat guy. Scared of him, maybe. Something like that.

So, we had a joker in the deck. That made it better. We decided to play the Doc like a fiddle. Kidnap him, make like we’re in with the fat guy. Tell the Doc whatever’s been paid isn’t enough. More’s got to come. Or else. He could make up his mind what “or else” meant.

I was thinking, guy like this, kind of money he’s got, we could put a serious bite on him. Maybe ten-thousand apiece. More. We get our kicks any way we go, and get a little money out of the deal, which personally I could use, and nobody gets hurt.

We set shifts following him. Me and Sharon doing one. Dave and Carrie one. Bob odd man out. Then we’d mix it up. We took turns parking nights down in the University lot so a couple of us could cross the highway, go into the patch of woods and work our way over the creek and up the hill. From there, we could watch the house.

We got damn good at shadowing. Got Doc’s pattern down perfect. Saw he did have a blond wife with a good ass, if no kids, and he and the blonde seemed to run in pretty different paths. When he came home in the afternoon, she went out and didn’t come back until late. Hour or so after she left, he’d come out dressed in tee-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, and drive over to the Court Club.

Hour or so later he’d come out of there red and sweaty, drive back home. Stay until seven-thirty. Then he’d come out dressed the way he dressed during the day. Suit and tie. Most nights he’d go down to the Chinese restaurant on University.

I ended up following him there and watching him a couple of nights. He took a table at the back, semiprivate, halfway behind one of those screens with the butterflies and birds painted on it. But if you sat up front, looking in the big wall mirror there, you could see a lot of what was going on in the back, behind the partial screen.

Not that he was doing anything unusual. But there was this waitress always waited on him. College girl. Dark haired. Pretty. Tits like zeppelins. She talked to him extra friendly-like, showed a lot of teeth. They got pretty handsy now and then.

Didn’t take a genius to see something more than polite conversation was going on. Whenever he got ready to leave, he scooted a fifty dollar bill under his plate. I know, ’cause on my way to the restroom I took a look.

Saw too he wasn’t any thirty years old. He was quite a bit older, but those workouts kept him pretty well preserved, that and the fact I figure he’d had some of his colleagues pull his face up and tie it behind his ears.

After the restaurant he’d run a few errands, then go home. About midnight, the wife’d come home. Early in the morning, two or three, Doc’d go out the back door and down the hill into his private park in the woods by the creek. There was a wooden bridge over the water and stone seats and figures that look Oriental in design. There was a roofed, three walled pavilion.

Me and Sharon were the ones found the park, since we were the first ones to get the duty of hiding out back of Doc’s house. Finding the park was a neat surprise. The night was comfortable and the moonlight coming through the trees was kinda sexy. There were spots you could see through the woods and down the hill, watch car lights moving along University Drive, and beyond that, you could see the lights of the University itself.

It was like a little Never Never Land in the middle of the city. Protected from all the jokers down there that had to work and struggle to buy shoes for their kids and pay their electric bill. It was sweet and comfortable.

Me and Sharon were supposed to be watching the house, but I got to tell you, that time of morning, the whole idea seemed pretty stupid. We figured it was just Dave’s way of playing Secret Squirrel. So we sat on one of the benches there and got to necking. Few minutes later we heard brush breaking. Someone was coming from the direction of the highway, heading up the hill toward us.

We got behind some brush and laid still and peeked out. We heard someone cross the bridge. Pretty soon we could see her. It was the waitress from the Chinese restaurant. Big Tits.

She moved up the hill toward Doc’s house, and that’s when we heard someone coming down the hill toward her. Doc, of course. He had a bundle of blankets with him. They hugged and kissed and went down to the pavilion. He rolled out the blankets on the floor and they got naked and fifteen minutes later you could hear that pussy poppin’.

Me and Sharon laid there a long time, quiet as the dead, and watched them. Finally, they finished up and got dressed. Doc gathered up his blankets. They kissed, said something we couldn’t hear, and Doc went up the hill and Big Tits went across the creek and out of sight.

We crawled to the top of the hill and watched Doc go into his house, through the back door which he’d left unlocked. Then we went back down the hill, giving Big Tits plenty of time to get away. We went to my place and did some momentous fucking ourselves. Next morning we reported to Dave what we’d seen.

That’s the way it went all work week. Same schedule. Doc wrapping up each day doing the belly rub with Big Tits. Sth ng oWeekends, the Doc and his wife went around town together, shopping, the movies, eating out, that sort of thing. But it was all business, no smacky mouth, no holding hands. Two blocks of ice couldn’t have had less fun than those two.

This Doc, I had to admire him. Hours he kept, action he was getting, way he kept on keeping on. He had some kind of constitution.

After we got the Doc’s schedule down, Dave told us plans had changed again. We were going to jump the doctor in his house. We weren’t going to kidnap him and we weren’t going to do anything childish like paint his balls blue. We were going to point a gun at him and get some kind of payment plan going. Really scare him by making him feel vulnerable in his own home.

I didn’t like the idea much. Especially the gun part. Even if Dave said it would be unloaded. And I thought everyone else was taking this change of plans a little too smoothly.

Following Doc around, playing private detective was all right. The rest of it, I didn’t want to go through with. But I kept telling myself it would be okay. And there was the money, and I couldn’t stop liking that part.