Joe Lansdale: Devil Red

We were led off the hall through another war-elephant-size door and into a library that made the one downtown look like a used-book store. The books smelled of leather and old paper and more knowledge than could be acquired in three lifetimes, plus a whiff of cigar smoke covered in a light overcoat of air freshener. The place had a masculine feel about it, with leather couches and chairs and sliding ladders to climb onto to look at books on the upper shelves. There was a large window at the back and looking through it we could see a shiny pond out there, recently swollen by the rain. Beyond that was a wall like out front.

The maid told us to make ourselves comfortable and went away.

We sat on the couch and Leonard said, “Can you believe this is in the center of town? Hidden up here in the trees?”

“I can’t believe a place like this is anywhere,” I said. “I thought they made this stuff up for the movies.”

“The movie screen wouldn’t be wide enough to hold this place,” Leonard said. “It might take a few theaters just to get that hallway in frame.”

A moment later a woman came into the room. She was some woman. She looked like she was dressed to go out on the town, and not our town. Someplace in Manhattan, perhaps Paris, London, or Rome. Her long blonde hair was waved and she wore a pantsuit of shimmering white and she had a small glass in her hand and it was half-filled with a golden liquid that I knew wasn’t fruit juice.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. It was a nice voice full of pep and insincerity. “I’m June. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t offer you a drink. I thought we could race through this rather quickly.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

She came and sat in a leather chair across from us and put her drink down on the wooden coffee table between us, no coaster. It was a heavily stained table and it was the only thing in the room besides the books that looked old.

“So, you’re private detectives,” June said, smiling. She had nice teeth and just the slightest bit of an overbite.

“We’re not exactly private detectives,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

“We’ve still got the training wheels on,” Leonard said.

“So should you be on the job?” she asked.

“We’ve had a lot of experience,” I said. “We’re just not what you’d call official. We’re operatives. We work for a private detective.”

“So someday you may get a little badge, a whistle, and a canteen,” she said.

“Our boss,” Leonard said, “he started with Where’s Waldo books to sharpen us up, but now we’ve moved on to interviews. We mostly ask short questions.”

“I see,” she said. She grinned and leaned back and sipped her drink and studied Leonard, then me. Her eyes were very green and very penetrating.

“You boys look a little rough,” she said. “Like you’ve been around the block a few times.”

“Maybe more than a few,” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I like the way you look. Most of the men I know use skin cream and have straight noses and the most violent thing they do is grunt playing table tennis. Sometimes, in their sleep, they fart dramatically. Oh, I’m telling, aren’t I?”

She moved her head slowly, so we could have a look at her profile, and then she moved it back and sipped her drink.

“It’s just that I don’t know why my mother is bothering with all this, or why she would send you to talk to me. There’s nothing I can add. Ted and his girlfriend were murdered for sex and money. Though they didn’t get the sex, and my guess is they didn’t get much money.”

“Do you know what was actually stolen besides his ring?” I asked.

“Well, he may have had money in the wallet,” June said. “But I don’t know.”

“Credit cards?”

“Most likely. Several. Mostly filled to the brim and leaking over, would be my guess.”

“Did the police say anything about anyone trying to use them after his death?”

“No. I know you’re thinking that might mean the robbery was a sham. But I think whoever did it panicked and took what was in the wallet and was afraid to use the cards. Afraid they’d be tracked. Or maybe the cards got canceled before the killer could use them, and they just disposed of them.”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her long panted legs and dropped her head slightly. I was sure she knew the effect this had; the way her hair fell across one eye, and the way she looked when she lifted her head and smiled that sexy beaver-toothed grin.

“Look,” she said, “my brother, he and I weren’t close. I’m sorry about what happened to him, but it was an unfortunate accident. Wrong place. Wrong time. I suppose it could have been someone who knew him, knew he was going to be there, thought he had money, and jumped him, but I think he was a victim of opportunity.”

“What about the girl?” I asked.

“She was a tramp. And in case you’re vague on that, let me translate. She was Miss Insert Slot B.”

“That covers a lot of ground,” I said.

“And a lot of ground was covered,” June said.

“Only thing that surprised me about her was that she got killed in the daytime.”

“Beg your pardon?” Leonard said.

“She didn’t go out in the daytime.”

“Fear of skin cancer?” I said. “She freckled?”

“Nope… Wait for it… She thought she was a vampire.”

“Big teeth?” Leonard said. “Bite your neck, suck your blood? Wear a cape? Turn into a bat?”

“I doubt she turned into a bat,” June said. “A bitch maybe, but not a bat.”

“So, you’re not denying the cape?” he said.

She smiled at Leonard.

“You knew Mini, then?” I said.

“Some. Liked to wear black and her hair was dyed so dark it looked like strands of shadow. She mainly went out at night. Claimed the sunlight made her weak, unless she needed to go out, and if she did, she seemed spry enough. She was out that day, wasn’t she? The day she got popped. She was said to drink blood. Mostly it was her who said it. She was a goddamn nut. Being a nut was kind of her hobby. Some people collect stamps or keep a diary, she practiced doing nutty things.”

“It probably has nothing to do with anything,” I said, “outside of it’s just weird as all daylights and I want to hear about it, but could you give us some more background on her?”

“I didn’t know her well. I didn’t want to know her well. But she told me a few things when she got out of jail.”

“Jail?” I said.

“Yeah. She and my brother dated for a while, and I was trying to patch things up with him, because, as I said, we didn’t get along. So, in the process, me and her hung a little and she talked a lot. I picked up other bits of her story here and there. Mini roosted with a really screwball crowd. Especially Evil Lynn.”

“You’re yankin’ me?” Leonard said. “She had a friend named Evil Lynn?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of yanking you.”

She smiled at Leonard seductively. I thought: Lady, you are wasting the possibility of a few wrinkles around your mouth on someone who is seriously batting for another team. Look this way.

She didn’t.

“Was Evil Lynn her real name?” I asked.

“Of course not. Her last name was Gonzello. I called her Godzilla, not Evil Lynn. I can’t remember Godzilla’s first name. Cassie. Candy. Canola. Something like that. Only met her once, at my brother’s place, and that was enough. There were several of them, actually. Vampires I mean… Let’s walk outside. My husband used to smoke cigars in here, and I can still smell them, and him. Both stink.”

We walked through the hallway, outside into the backyard. There were trees and a few leaves, and there was a man in work clothes walking around with a stick with a point on the end of it. He was stabbing the leaves and putting them in a big, black plastic bag he was dragging.