Joe Lansdale - Devil Red

Early morning someone let Yo-Yo out of the bedroom. Listening to that all night, even Yo-Yo’s pert little ass made me horny. But Yo-Yo the cat didn’t swing that way. To compound matters, it didn’t help any that Constance came out of the bedroom adorned in a thin white T-shirt that showed she had very pert nipples and more ass than shirt.

She said excuse me and went to the bathroom and came out wearing dark sweat pants with the T-shirt. The ass was protected, but the nipples still looked like. 45 slugs.

Constance offered us some breakfast, and while she was in the kitchen, Cason came out in sweatpants and a wifebeater, scratching his nuts.

I said so Constance couldn’t hear, “I had the impression you had a girlfriend at home.”

“We aren’t connecting like we used to,” he said.

“You seem to have been connecting with Constance last night.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Well, since it sounded like you were screwing next to my air mattress, you made it more of my business than I expected. There were a couple moments when I thought I ought to be wearing some kind of contraceptive. Leonard had morning sickness.”

Leonard, who was sitting on the couch in his shorts, nodded. “I’m going out later to buy a bassinet and a baby stroller. Do you have a color preference?”

Cason smiled a smile so thin no teeth were visible, said, “You can both go fuck yourself.”

“I’ve tried,” Leonard said. “Doesn’t work.”

We ate breakfast, and then Cason made some calls on his cell while Constance got ready for work. Turned out she was now working for a private investigation agency. A cooler more successful one than Marvin’s. Fifteen agents worked there, and unlike us, they were most likely real detectives, and one of the real detectives was a hot blonde who could screw all night and work all day and had a cat named Yo-Yo.

Constance exited the bathroom, looking professional in a black suit with a frilly white shirt. Her hair was brushed and glossy as a show horse’s mane. She sat on the couch and put on her shoes. I noticed her toenails were painted pink and had little silver stars in the middle of them.

I asked her, “Do you know a private investigator from Houston named Jim Bob Luke? Know it’s a long shot, but I was just wondering.”

“That conceited asshole,” she said, giving me a hard look. “Yeah, I know him. He a friend of yours?”

“No,” I said. “Leonard knows him.”

Cason, with his boyish phone charm, got us a meeting with Howard Kincaid.

Driving over there, me at the wheel, I said to Cason, “No problem with him talking with us?”

“I told him we were investigating his son’s death, looking for new connections. I didn’t have to say much else.”

Howard Kincaid had his office in one of the supertall buildings downtown. It seemed to be made completely of glass and metal and the only stone about it was the wide steps in front, and that stone was polished. In the sunlight the building was as shiny as the snot under a kid’s nose. There were people moving about on the street and cars crowding mine as I drove. I was glad I was visiting Houston, not living there. Three days in a place like this I might have a screaming fit. Of course, that couldn’t be any worse than sitting in a chair and crapping on myself.

We found a parking place in an underground garage and took an elevator up to the floor we wanted. When the elevator opened, the floor was so freshly buffed it gave off a shimmer like a heat wave in the desert, not quite as bright as the building outside, but bright enough. There was a large opening at one end of the hall, and in it were a lot of plants. It also had brightly colored birds in cages, and the birds were trilling. I hate seeing birds in cages. I had an urge to open the cages and let them out.

We cruised through the jungle of plants without being attacked by tigers, and into an even wider foyer. There was a desk there. There was a young black woman behind it. She appeared fresh and professional and very nice-looking. Her dark brown eyes were as smooth and cool as refrigerated chocolates. She smiled at us as we walked up. She gave Cason an extra smile, and I thought she showed him more teeth than she showed us. They were nice teeth, by the way.

Cason told her why we were there. There were a series of chairs along one side of the foyer, and we went over there to sit while she pushed a button on her phone. She talked quietly for a moment over the intercom.

“You can go in right away,” she said.

As we passed her desk, Cason gave her a wink, and she smiled. Just before we went inside, I said to Cason, “Are there any women who don’t like you?”

“Yes,” Cason said. “But it’s a short list.”

Kincaid’s office was about the size of an airport and there was some nice furniture there, including a large couch, and there were paintings on the walls. The paintings were mostly of birds, though there were some that looked to be nothing more than splashes of color. Maybe the splashes were birds too.

Kincaid was sitting behind a large desk, and he looked older than sixty by no more than a hundred years. He was white-headed and his face seemed to have collapsed at some point and been blown back into shape with a water hose. He hardly had a chin and there was a clear tube running up from behind the desk that ended in a little fitting that went into his nose. He was on oxygen. The gray suit he was wearing was like a tent that folded up around him. I saw that he was in a motorized chair.

At a smaller desk nearby was a middle-aged woman in a blue dress. She was stout of build but nice-looking. Her hair was tinted blonde and well sprayed. She looked healthy enough to wrestle a steer.

She got up from behind her desk with a catlike grace and came out to greet us, shook our hands, told us her name was Miss Sara Clinton. She directed us to chairs in front of Kincaid’s desk the way a waitress shows you your table.

“Which one of you is Mr. Statler?” Kincaid asked. When he spoke, the words fell out of his mouth as slow and gentle as a sweet afternoon rain. Hearing him talk made me sleepy.

Cason said, “That’s me.”

“I spoke with you over the phone.”

“Yes.”

“These are your associates, of course.”

“Yes,” Cason said, gesturing to each of us. “Leonard Pine and Hap Collins.”

“Hap,” he said, “that’s an unusual name. Is it short for anything?”

“Hap,” I said.

He smiled a little. The act of talking seemed to tire him out. “You mentioned my son. I wanted to know what you had to say, but what can be said? He’s gone, and the people who did it are, according to the police, all dead.”

Cason nodded. “That’s true, sir. We have been asked by the mother of a boy who was killed with one of the women, Mini-”

“I know who she is,” he said, not wanting to hear the rest of the name. “I followed the case, obviously.” His voice was less gentle now, like the rain had suddenly been disturbed by thunder. “You aren’t lawyers are you?”

“No,” Cason said.

“Good.”

“Why would we be lawyers?” Leonard asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but I had this sudden feeling you might be, that maybe you were trying to tie me to the whole mess, a civil suit. Well, I thought maybe all of you were lawyers but you.”

He nodded at me.

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult.

Leonard leaned over to me, said, “I look like a lawyer.”

I thought: Let’s get your deerstalker and have you put it on, and then we’ll see how much you look like a lawyer.

“Why would you think that, sir?” Cason said. He was using all of his buttery personality, and it was working. I suppose it was the reporter in him, experience with others. He hadn’t been buttery when we first met him.