Joe Lansdale - Devil Red

I was lying in bed with Brett, and I had told her about our day and the day before. Leonard was downstairs sleeping on the couch. From where I lay I could see the window and the night sky. It was a velvet-soft night. No rain.

“How are things between Leonard and John?” she asked.

“John’s being taught that his sense of future direction ought to include deep desire for a woman’s vagina.”

“Who’s teaching him?”

“His brother.”

Brett shook her head. “Families can be a mess.”

I reached over and took her hand. “I’m gonna change the subject a little.”

“That sounded ominous.”

“I know you have a child, a grown child,” I said, “but have you ever thought about starting a family with someone else?”

“Someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Who would that someone else be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Someone off the street. Someone about my height and weight and general disposition.”

“You’re serious?”

“I guess I am.”

Brett lay without speaking for a long time. “I have thought about it, Hap. I’ve told you how much I love you, and how I stand by you. But… if we had a kid, there’s no way you could do what you do.”

“I could quit. Though I’m not sure what I’m quitting, since I don’t know what my job is.”

“You know exactly what I mean, Hap. Don’t act coy.”

“I think I could actually finish college.”

“You tried last year and quit.”

“I wasn’t motivated enough.”

“Now you are?”

“I could try. Unlike just about everyone else, I really had a good family. I know how to be a father. I would be good at it.”

“Your lifestyle isn’t exactly conducive to tricycles and soccer games and PTA meetings. You’d do all right for a while, and then you’d be… you know, back out there with Leonard. I don’t know if I could manage it. I have a grown child that drives me crazy. I don’t even know if I could have another one. I’m probably too old.”

“We could find out,” I said.

She reached out and patted my cheek gently. “I don’t think so, baby. I love you. I do. But, Hap… I don’t think so.”

Morning came, and downstairs I found Brett making coffee. I said, “Where’s Leonard?”

“I sent him to his place.”

“Sent him?”

“To get his stuff. His rent plays out in the next couple of days. He doesn’t need to be staying in some rat hole, and besides, I like having him around.”

“I like having him around too… but not that much.”

“It’s temporary. Me and him talked.”

“He has enough money right now to rent or put down dough on a good place, he just hasn’t done it. He’s cheap.”

“He’s not ready for that. Not with the way things are with John.”

“And things may never get better,” I said. “But they might. And if they don’t, he’ll move on. Leonard’s a survivor.”

“He is at that.”

“What we talked about last night,” she said. “I been thinking.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I was having a sentimental moment.”

She put her arms around me. My hands cupped her buttocks.

“How long before he gets back?” I asked.

“Let me start the coffee, then let’s go upstairs and see if you can make a hole in one before he shows.”

I let go of her. She turned off the coffee. She took my hand. We went upstairs.

Fore!

The case didn’t exactly die on us after that, but it went a little south for a while while we waited on Mercury to cross check things. Me and Leonard spent time at the little gym where we had a membership, and it was a cold place to be, as the heating wasn’t enough to warm up a mouse.

We were often the only people there. The owner was a big fat man whose only exercise was sitting in a chair near the door and taking money or, as in our case, checking memberships. The gym wasn’t pretty, but it served our needs. It had a heavy bag, which I hate, and a speed bag, which I love, and it had a good mat we could spar on and throw each other down on. I noticed that when I was thrown it hurt more than it had just a couple years back. Time seemed to have made the ground harder, even if it had a mat over it.

The cold made us train briskly, skipping rope, pounding the heavy bag, punching the speed. After that we sparred a little.

It was good and fun to work out with the weather going wonky, dropping uncharacteristically down to seventeen at night, and in the high twenties during the day. Weather like that, you had to keep moving. Even as we sparred our breath puffed little white clouds. It was odd weather for East Texas, the sort that came once in a blue moon.

We finished up by going over self-defense drills, doing them pretty rough, to make sure we weren’t slacking, then we did our groundwork, so we would be ready if we had to end up there, then we went into the cold shower room with our feet freezing on the tile, took hot showers not only to clean up, but to warm up, got dressed, and drove home.

When we got there, Cason’s car was parked out front with the engine running, the exhaust pumping into the cold air. After we parked, he climbed out, dressed in a bomber jacket and slacks and a shirt and tie. He held up a folder. “Mercury,” he said.

I invited him inside, sat him at the kitchen table with Leonard, and made some hot tea.

“How British,” Cason said, as he took his cup of tea.

“I see that dress code has kicked in,” I said.

“Yeah,” Cason said, “it has.”

“About the file,” Leonard said.

The file lay in the center of the table. Cason tapped it with a finger.

“Mercury cross-checked names, and there are people on the list that are kind of scary, including a nasty guy named Cletus Jimson.”

“Oh yeah,” Leonard said. “He’s a sweetheart.”

“You know him?” Cason said.

“We’ve crossed paths,” I said. “He doesn’t like us.”

“We’re often misunderstood,” Leonard said.

“Do you think Kincaid could have hired him to do it?” Cason asked. “Kill those folks?”

“Cletus doesn’t do that sort of work, he has it done,” I said. “I suppose Kincaid could have contacted him about a little help, though.”

“Jesus Christ,” Leonard said. “I hope it isn’t Vanilla Ride.”

“Who?” Cason said.

“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Those other devil head murders. Ones up in Oregon and so on. When were they?”

Cason told us.

I said, “Those are too long ago for Vanilla. She’d have been in the womb. She’s not that old. And even if I add five or six years to what I think her age is, she’s still too young. I hope.”

“That’s a relief,” Leonard said. “I keep thinking we’ll see her again, and may not like it when we do.”

“I don’t think she and Jimson are on that good of terms,” I said. “Not the way I remember it. So, taking that fact and adding her youth to it, I think we can safely say, no Vanilla Ride.”

“Money and need make strange bedfellows,” Leonard said. “And I don’t think Cletus has forgotten us. He had these others killed for Kincaid… hell, maybe even June, and it all leads to us sticking our noses into his business, he might decide to put us on the list, and considering our past history, perhaps he’d do it with a certain amount of enthusiasm. But that’s private. You don’t need to know any more than that. He doesn’t like us.”

I nodded.

Cason had been watching us in a tennis-match fashion. Head first to one, then the other. “So, I’m sort of out of this part of the conversation,” he said.

“Yep,” I said. “We don’t want to explain that part of our past. But it’s possible Jimson did Kincaid a favor, if he got something big in return.”