Joe Lansdale - Cold in July

“I will.”

“You won’t forget.”

“No, I won’t forget… Are you sure you’re okay, Richard?”

“I’m fine.”

“Call me tomorrow. Things are kind of fuzzy. I don’t wake up too fast.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have called.”

“No, hey, it’s okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Don’t forget to tell Jordan.”

“I won’t. When are you coming home? We miss you.”

“Real soon.”

“Make it sooner than that.”

“I'll try. Good night, honey.”

“Good night, Richard.”

I awoke to Jim Bob shaking me.

“Get up,” he said. “I can’t sleep.”

“What if I could have?”

“You’d have been shit out of luck. Were you sleeping?’

“I was doing a pretty good imitation of it.”

“I keep thinking… you know.”

“The video,” I said.

“Yeah, that and Russel.”

I shifted and sat up on the side of the bed. Jim Bob sat down in a chair by the window and pulled back the curtain and looked out. Moonlight fell on his face like a silver blade. He looked different without his hat, sitting there in a chair in his underwear.

He dropped the curtain and turned to look at me, his face mostly in shadow now. “That bastard out there has been a friend of mine a long time.”

“You haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years.”

“That doesn’t matter. We practically grew up together. I thought about him there in the pen, thought about him a lot. I tried to stay in touch with him, but he cut me off. He cut his wife and Freddy off… Shit, you think him not being around Freddy could have made the kid that way?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to believe anything could make somebody like that. You got to think they were born that way. Something missing. Even Russel says he’s missing something himself. Has a hole in him and his soul is seeping out of it.”

“That sounds like him,” Jim Bob said. “He’s not as bad as he puts it.”

“He’s not like Freddy, that’s for sure. If he’s missing something, he knows it and he’s trying to get it back.”

“You called your wife?”

“Yeah. I’ll give you some money for the call.”

“That’s all right. How was she?”

“Fine.”

“The boy?”

“Fine.”

“You’re a lucky man, Dane. Got a family. Someone to care about you. I got what I do and the Red Bitch-and it’s got a dent in it.”

“You got pigs.”

“Yeah, but every now and then I eat them, so it’s hard to form any kind of relationship. I don’t think they trust me.”

“Jim Bob, what are we going to do?”

“Got any hot ideas?”

“The cops. We give them a tip, send them the tape with an address. Something like that.”

“Uh huh, t"›“Uh I thought of that. I thought beyond that. While you were sleeping I decided to take some air, and I drove into town to that 7-Eleven where we bought the beer, used their phone booth. Somehow it just seemed right using the phone booth. I called that old ex-sheriff that owes me favors and he called his son for me and his son called me back at the phone booth. I told the son a what-if story about an FBI informant being given a new identity, then getting involved in crime again. It sounded a lot like what we know about Freddy.”

He paused to pull back the curtain again and looked out. The moonlight didn’t look any better on his face this time.

“And?”

“And, the FBI won’t do dick.”

“What?”

“They gave him immunity see, and a new identity.”

“What’s that got to do with it? That was for another deal altogether. This is separate.”

“Not the way the feds see it. Isn’t that they don’t want to nail the bastard, but they see leaving him alone-at least for now-as the lesser of two evils. Least that’s my informer’s theory on things. He doesn’t know the particular case, but he’s known others like it. You see, the FBI fixed it for Freddy to be dead, then told him he was safe as a tick in a bear’s ass. And though they wouldn’t mind coming down on him with both feet and hitting him so hard shit flies out at both ends, they’ve got their rep to protect.”

“Their rep?”

“You see, they did it so it looked like Freddy got himself killed, doing something stupid like burglary. But if it floats to the top that they actually hid his ass, and couldn’t keep it hid, other would-be squealers are gonna think it’s all an FBI setup. That you don’t really get protected at all. You squeal, they go through the motions of giving you a new identity, then bam, they nab you. Maybe on a bum charge later.”

“But who would know? He’s supposed to be dead.”

“No one maybe. But if they bring him in, and the charges start, maybe everyone. They can’t take the chance. Once he’s arrested or killed, it would be hard to keep who he is a secret a second time. They might be able to do it, but maybe not.”

“All right, they hurt a few informers’ feelings. So what?”

“Then next time the feds want to snag them a big bunch of bad guys at the expense of saving one of them, and they’ve got someone who’s thinking of squealing, the squealer might have second thoughts.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “This is still the United States of America. You just don’t let a scumbag like that go.”

“Would you like me to give you a flag to wave, or do you just want to sing the national anthem?”

“Bullshit,” I said again, only this time more heartfelt.

“Hush,” Jim Bob said, “you’ll wake up Ben.”

“All right,” I said, “what if the FBI or someone tips off the Dixie Mafia as toe Mafia where this guy who double-crossed them is hiding? Wouldn’t it be okay if they did the job for the FBI?”

“Then it would look like the FBI can’t hide the people they’re trying to hide so good.”

“They can’t. We found him.”

“I found him. And I have a contact. And for the most part, my contact knows I’m one of the good guys.”

“Couldn’t they have inside help too-the Dixie Mafia?”

“Yeah, they could. But I figure if they did they’d already have gotten Freddy. No, I think he’s made a clean getaway. And there’s another thing. Freddy is most likely killing Mex gals, not Americans. It’s not our people dying.”

“But they’re dying here, in America. Texas, goddamnit.”

“Yeah, and it’s a crime no matter how you look at it, but the FBI is letting it ride for now. In time they’ll take care of him. But it’s too soon now.”

“What’s in time?”

“I don’t know. A year maybe. That way they could fix it so it looks like an accident or something. But if anything happens now, it makes the FBI look bad.”

“This is nuts. The FBI doesn’t want to look bad, so they’re letting this psycho kill women and make videos of it?”

“They’re looking at the big picture, and we’re looking at the smaller picture.”

“Ask those dead women how small the picture is.”

“I’m not saying I agree with them, Dane, I’m just saying how it is. Look at it like this. The FBI was willing to let you think you killed Freddy Russel to give him a new identity, and they didn’t even give you an inkling what was going on. Not even when Ben out there went bug-fuck nutty and came after you. Think of all the grief they caused him. Hell, made him insane. The local cops helped out. I mean the law is like that. They stick together, right or wrong. You wash my dick, I’ll wash your dick. The world don’t work like Dragnet or Adam 12. Not when you get down to die dog or eat the hatchet.”

“Either the world is getting more complicated, or I’m just now starting to see things as they are.”