Joe Lansdale - Bad Chili

“All right,” I said. “Get the phone. But before I go, King, let me come back to what I said in the first place. Stay away from me and my friends.”

“Gladly,” King said.

The big man got the phone out of the car and gave it to King. King started to dial as if we weren’t there.

Jim Bob said, “You boys take it easy till we’re gone. Just leave your guns on the ground.”

We went up the hill backwards, our guns pointing at them. Jim Bob eased the truck back onto Old Pine Road.

As we cruised along, I said, “Well, we sure scared him.”

“Yeah,” Jim Bob said. “King was so nervous, he’d had a cot and a pillow, he might have taken him a little nap.”

We went to Leonard’s house, called the cop shop and asked for Charlie. He was out, but the dispatcher promised to shoot a message to him. Five minutes later, he called back and I answered.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“We need to see you,” I said. “Me, Leonard, and Jim Bob.”

“All right. I’ll be there pretty pronto-like.”

“You don’t sound as cheery as you’re tryin’ to sound,” I said.

“Actually, I’m having a bittersweet day. But for the moment, I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll tell you the sweet part when I get over there, though.”

“What about the bitter?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “See you.”

We were sitting on Leonard’s front porch in the swing seat when Charlie drove up. It was a sticky day with the sun bright as God’s eyes and the sky a milky blue. The air smelled of mowed yards and perspiration. The scent of gun oil was still on my hands.

Charlie got out of his car and lumbered up the walk toward the porch. He didn’t look good. Tired. Hair uncombed. No porkpie hat. His clothes were wrinkled and shiny-looking, as if he hadn’t changed them in days. He smiled weakly, shook hands with all of us. He and Jim Bob exchanged some greetings.

Charlie sat down on the edge of the porch, got out a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag that turned about a quarter of the cigarette to ash. He held the smoke, and then let it out slowly through his nose and sighed as if he had just laid down for a good long nap.

“What you boys got?” he asked.

“We ain’t sure,” Jim Bob said. Then he told Charlie what had gone on, including running King off the road and us pulling guns on him. He left out Big Man Mountain and the two thugs he’d shot to death. He ended with: “King call in any charges?”

“Not that I know of,” Charlie said. “But this running people off the road, it ain’t good, pardner.”

“I didn’t think he’d call in,” Jim Bob said.

“King could still be innocent,” I said.

“I think we got our man,” Jim Bob said. “What’s the odds of two tapes and a notebook with King Arthur Chili on it being unrelated?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “King seemed pretty confident to me. He wasn’t worried about the grease business, and he actually looked surprised when we brought up the other video, the notebook.”

“I’ve seen some good liars,” Leonard said.

“I damn near don’t see nothing but liars,” Charlie said. “Got so I think everyone’s a liar. I find someone who isn’t, I stick to them. I wasn’t that way, all three of you goons would be under the jailhouse already.”

“Any thoughts on any of this?” I asked Charlie.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “King has been in some shit, though most of it slides off of him, but murder… I wouldn’t put it past him, but so far he’s avoided that little bugaboo. He’s got him a bunch of little rackets, but he gets caught, he usually squirms out of it. And he’s got money. And lawyers. And he’s got the chief, who I’m sure gets a pretty good chunk of pocket change from King himself.” Charlie paused and smiled. “Thinking of the chief makes me think of Hanson. And my good news.”

“You ain’t gonna say what I think you are, are you?” Leonard said.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah. He came out of the coma.”

“I’ll be goddamn,” I said.

“I talked to his wife,” Charlie said. “She said the doctors think he’s okay, just addled. He’ll be down awhile, have to have some physical therapy later, but they say he seems all right. Confused some.”

“I would be,” I said. “Last thing he remembers is sliding into a tree, then he wakes up at his ex-wife’s house with tubes in him. That would be disconcerting. You seen him yet?”

“Not yet,” Charlie said. “I got to give it some time. They’re holding back visitin’, ’cept for the immediate family.”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Leonard said, “you are part of the immediate family.”

“Well,” Charlie said, “the immediate family doesn’t see it that way. I don’t think they like cops much. That’s the whole beef between him and his wife. ’Course, now that I think about it, I don’t like cops much either.”

“I don’t know Hanson well,” Jim Bob said. “Met him a couple of times on business-related affairs here, mostly heard about his reputation. He used to be on the cop force in Houston a few years back. He busted a big case or two there. That’s all I know, but what I do know of him, he seems like a good man.”

“Good as they get,” Charlie said.

“He’s going to be all right?” I said. “I mean, really all right?”

“You mean in the head?” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“They think so.”

“Well, I’ll be goddamn,” I said. “I figured he was ruined for life.”

“You can’t underestimate that fella,” Charlie said. “He always comes back. And tougher than he was before. Now, what is it you want from me?”

“I think we got our answer when King didn’t call in,” Jim Bob said.

“King doesn’t want trouble for the grease racket, doesn’t want to direct attention to himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s in on this gay-bashin’ video business,” I said. “He could be tellin’ the truth.”

“King Arthur don’t know from truth,” Charlie said. “He used to be a used-car salesman.”

“Well,” Leonard said, “there’s a strike against him.”

“Amen,” Jim Bob said.

“And he did some bible-thumpin’ too,” Charlie said.

“Way I remember it,” Jim Bob said, “bible-thumpin’ is like an automatic two strikes.”

“With an extra penalty,” Leonard said.

“Looks to me like there isn’t anything I can add here,” Charlie said. “I can harass King if you want to give me the videotape on the grease stealin’. He might readily cop to that part. We could maybe nail him on that.”

“I like the idea of puttin’ him in for the worst of it,” Leonard said.

Jim Bob nodded. “Me too.”

I nodded as well. “Can you give us a little more space?”

“Hell,” Charlie said. “I haven’t give you dudes anything but space. But, yeah. A little. Y’all got a beer?”

“Aren’t you on duty?” I said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, “but I’ll take my badge off and close my eyes while I drink.”

“That’ll work,” Leonard said. “Let’s go inside.”

Charlie actually had three beers and kept going out on the front porch to smoke cigarettes. On his last trip to the porch I joined him, said, “Tell me the bitter.”

He looked off at the heavens, which had changed. The sun had fallen behind some darkening clouds and the sky itself had lost its milky blue look and had clabbered. Everything was still.

“Tornado weather,” Charlie said.

“The bitter?” I said.

Charlie took a deep drag on his smoke, said, “All right. You know, all this stuff ’tween me and Amy about cigarettes? The sex?”