Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

“You have?” Sam said. “Playing detective, huh? That’s sweet. That’s real sweet. Plebin, come here, will you?”

I went over and stood by him. He put an arm around my shoulders and walked me off from Jasmine and Martha. He whispered to me.

“Plebin. You’re not learning, man. Not a bit. Not only are you fucking up your life, you’re fucking up mine. Listen here. Me and the old lady, we’re not doing so good, see.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Toni has always been so great.”

“Yeah, well, you see, she’s jealous. You know that.”

“Oh yeah. Always has been.”

“There you are. She’s gotten worse too. And you see, I spend a lot of time away from the home. Out of the bed. Bad hours. You getting what I’m saying here?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled me closer and patted my chest with his other hand. “Good. Not only is that bad, me spending those hours away from home and out of the bed at bedtime, but hey, I’m so bushed these days, I get ready to lay a little pipe, well, I got no lead in the pencil. Like a goddamn spaghetti, that’s how it is. Know what I’m saying?”

“Least when you do get it hard, you get to lay pipe,” I said.

“But I’m not laying it enough. It’s because I don’t get rest. But Toni, you know what she thinks? She thinks it’s because I’m having a little extracurricular activity. You know what I mean? Thinks I’m out banging hole like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, Sam, but…”

“So now I’ve got the rest problem again. I’m tired right now. I don’t recover like I used to. I don’t get eight hours of sack time, hey, I can’t get it up. I have a bad day, which I do when I’m tired, I can’t get it up. My shit comes out different, I can’t get it up. I’ve gotten sensitive in my old age. Everything goes straight to my dick. Toni, she gets ready for me to do my duty, guess what?”

“You’re too tired. You can’t get it up.”

“Bingo. The ole Johnson is like an empty sock. And when I can’t get it up, what does Toni think?”

“You’re fucking around?”

“That’s right. And it’s not bad enough I gotta be tired for legitimate reasons, but now I got to be tired because you and your daughter and Ma Frankenstein over there are seeing heads in boxes. Trailing some innocent bystander and trying to tie him in with murder when there’s nobody been murdered. Know what I’m saying?”

“Sam, the guy looks the part. Acts it. There’s been murders everywhere the circus goes…”

“Plebin, ole buddy. Hush your mouth, okay? Listen up tight. I’m going home now. I’m going back to bed. You wake me up again, I’ll run over you with a truck. I don’t have a truck, but I’ll borrow one for the purpose. Got me?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Good night.” He took his arm off my shoulders, walked back to his car and opened the door. He started to get inside, then straightened. He looked over the roof at me. “Come by and have dinner next week. Toni still makes a good chicken-fried steak. Been a while since she’s seen you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Give her my love.”

“Yeah. And Plebin, don’t call with any more murders, all right? You got a good imagination, but as a detective, you’re the worst.” He looked at Jasmine. “Jasmine, you stick with your mother.” He got in his car, backed around and drove away.

I went over and stood with my fellow sleuths and looked down at the mannequin head. I picked it up by the hair and looked at it. “I think I’ll have this mounted,” I said. “Just to remind me what a jackass I am.”

Back at the apartment I sat on the bed with the window open, the mannequin head on the pillow beside me. Jasmine sat in the dresser chair and Martha had one of my rickety kitchen chairs turned around backwards and she sat with her arms crossed on the back of it, sweat running out from under her wool cap, collecting in her mustache.

“I still think something funny is going on there,” Jasmine said.

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

“We know something funny is going on,” Martha said.

“We means you two,” I said. “Don’t include me. I don’t know anything except I’ve made a fool out of myself and Sam is having trouble with his sex life, or maybe what he told me was some kind of parable.”

“Sex life,” Jasmine said. “What did he tell you?”

“Forget,” I said.

“That Sam is some sorry cop,” Martha said. “He should have at least investigated Waldo. Guy who paints and cuts up mannequins isn’t your everyday fella, I’d think. I bet he’s painting and sawing them up because he hasn’t picked a victim yet. It’s his way of appeasing himself until he’s chosen someone. Akin to masturbation instead of real sex.”

“If we could see inside his trailer,” Jasmine said, “I bet we’d find evidence of something more than mannequins. Evidence of past crimes maybe.”

“I’ve had enough” I said. “And Jasmine, so have you. And Martha, if you’re smart, so have you.”

Martha got out one of her little cigarettes.

“Don’t light that in here,” I said.

She got out a small box of kitchen matches.

“I can’t stand smoke,” I said.

She pulled a match from the box and struck it on her pants leg and lit up, puffed, studied the ceiling.

“Put it out, Martha. This is my place.”

She blew smoke at the ceiling. “I think Jasmine’s right,” she said. “If we could divert him. Get him out of the trailer so we could have a look inside, find some evidence, then maybe that small town idiot cop friend of yours would even be convinced.”

“Waldo’s not going to keep a human head in there,” I said.

“He might,” Martha said. “It’s been known to happen. Or maybe something a victim owned. Guys like that keep souvenirs of their murders. That way they can fantasize, relive it all.”

“We could watch his place tomorrow,” Jasmine said, “then if he goes out, we could slip in and look around. We find something incriminating, something definite, there’s a way to cue the police in on it, even one as stubborn and stupid as Sam.”

“I’m sure Waldo locks his doors,” I said.

“That’s no trouble,” Martha said. “I can pick the lock on Heaven’s door.”

“You’re just a basket of fine skills,” I said.

“I used to work for a repo company, years back,” Martha said. “I learned to use lock jocks and keys and picks on car doors and garage doors. You name it, I can get in it, and in a matter of moments.”

“Listen, you two,” I said, “leave it be. We don’t know this guy’s done anything, and if he is a murderer, you damn sure don’t need to be snooping around there, or you may end up on the victim list. Let’s get on with our lives.”

“Such as yours and mine is,” Martha said. “What have I got to look forward to? Selling a few books? Meeting the right man? Me, a gargoyle with a golf club?”

“Martha, don’t say that,” Jasmine said.

“No, let’s call a spade a spade here,” Martha said. She snatched off her wool cap and showed us her bald head. I had seen a glimpse of it a time or two before I went to work there, when she was taking off and adjusting her cap or scratching her head, but this was the first time I’d seen it in all its sweaty, pink glory for more than a few moments. “What’s gonna pull a mate in for me? My glorious head of hair. I started losing it when I was in my twenties. No man would look twice at me. Besides that, I’m ugly and have a mustache.”

“A mate isn’t everything,” I said.

“It’s something,” Martha said. “And I think about it. I won’t kid you. But I know it isn’t possible. I’ve been around, seen some things, had some interesting jobs. But I haven’t really made any life for myself. Not so it feels like one. And you know what? After all these years, Jasmine and you are my only real friends, and in your case, Plebin, I don’t know that amounts to much.”