Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

It was a longer walk than he remembered, and the cold air bit at his lungs. There was no moon, just streetlights, and he kept thinking he’d see a cop car coming around a corner, a light flashing on him, nailing him. But it didn’t happen.

He got to thinking about what Kayla was asking, and he started to get mad. Started to get mad at himself for listening. There wasn’t anything worth his getting out here in the dark. He should have had her come get him, let him lie down in the backseat. Should have told Tad after all. He thought about all this, but he kept walking.

He got to his place and watched from across the street, stood in the shadow of an elm.

Cops could easily post a watch at his place. He would if he were them. They could hide and wait for him to show up for his car, get something from his house. The whole damn thing made him nervous. Course, Kayla was a cop. She’d probably know if it was done through the department, any kind of watchdog business like that. But it could be the chief, the sergeant. They could be doing it on their own.

Course, that would be harder, just the two of them. How many shifts could they manage?

Maybe the thing was to turn himself in, or go to Tyler, tell the cops there the situation, get some help.

Yeah. That would be good: “I hear sounds. I found a dead body in my house. Me and some friends, one of them a cop, put the corpse in a freezer; then we decided to put it on the chief’s couch with a sign around its neck, ’cause we know he and the sergeant murdered Joey because I saw it in a fucking vision.”

Harry took a deep breath and let out a puff of cold white air. He was just about to step across the street when he was nabbed and spun around.

Tad said, “You don’t sneak for shit, kid. What the fuck are you doing?”

“I didn’t want to tell you.”

“No shit. Figured that much. You got to learn to watch behind you.”

“I did.”

“I was in the shadows. You had your shit together better, you’d have seen me. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Tad, I didn’t mean to sneak.”

“You call that sneaking? You came in from that call, you had a look on your face like you were gonna steal the silverware. Since I use mostly plastic throwaways, I knew that was out. Just waited till you got ready to do what you were gonna do. And by the way, don’t try to play poker. You can’t hide shit with that face. Come on, kid. Give me the rundown.”

Harry told Tad what Kayla had told him.

“Look, whatever she’s got, she can tell me,” Tad said. “Fact is, this hurts my goddamn sensitive feelings. I’m in on this, kid. I said that and meant it. Can’t really get any fucking deeper, you understand?”

“I’m sorry. Just she’s got something she wants me to see and she said not to bring you.”

“Something heavy? That’s what she said?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s heavy, how’d she get it to her house, and now how come she can’t move it?”

“I don’t know…. You’re not saying—”

“That I don’t trust Kayla? Course not. She wanted to nail your ass, help the cops out, get that big promotion, she could have had you nailed long ago. Your balls would be bronzed and mounted on a piece of board. She’s got a stake in this herself, so I trust her. It’s a screwy setup, no shit, but I’ve got no reason to doubt her.”

“You said that twice.”

“Did I?”

“You did.”

“I’m just suspicious by nature. Kind of guy that’s skeptical of being skeptical. So, though I trust her just fine, what say we do some insurance?”

“I feel guilty doing a thing like that.”

“Me too. For about fifteen minutes.”

Harry and Tad pulled over a block up from Kayla’s place, next to a big sweet gum that grew out from the curb, alongside a clutch of tall, sharp-bladed bushes. The moon made the bushes throw swordlike shadows. They got out of the car, stood in those shadows. Harry unlocked the trunk.

“I don’t know, man,” Harry said, “the fucking trunk? It’s nasty in there. You could die of carbon monoxide or something.”

“Not just going a block down. Don’t lock it. Just let me hold it nearly shut. After a bit, I’ll get out and check around, see if things are okay.”

“You could just ride in the driver’s seat.”

“You’re expected. I don’t want to embarrass you by showing up like that. Just do it my way.”

“This is bullshit, Tad. Kayla wouldn’t play me.”

“Talia played you.”

“Different.”

“Do it for me. I get there, look around, take a peek inside from the outside, things seem all right, I’ll walk home.”

“Too far.”

“I’ll walk up a few blocks, go to the shopping center there, maybe catch a picture show, get a taxi home. Come on, do it. We’re out here in the big middle of everyone, someone puts an eye to their window, they might see us, wonder what the fuck I’m doing getting in the trunk. They could call the cops, and, as we both know, they aren’t the folks we want to see right now.”

“All right.”

Harry lifted the trunk and Tad climbed inside and pulled the lid down most of the way, left a crack he could see out of. “Drive slow,” he said.

Harry parked out back in the alley. As he got out, he saw Winston sniffing about. The dog raised its head and looked at him, then went back to sniffing, eating something out of a bush at the corner of the house.

A gritty-kitty turd, most likely.

Harry went through an alley between houses to the front of Kayla’s place and, feeling nervous, he knocked.

He was glad everything was okay and Tad was full of it, because as soon as he came in the door to Kayla’s throaty, “Come in,” he knew there were no problems.

Things were cool as an ice tray.

He felt the tension go out of him as he walked down the hallway, smelled her perfume on the air, looked through the gap that divided hallway and den, saw Kayla sitting in a chair in the near dark (there was a dim light from the kitchen), her uniform shirt open, her breast exposed, smiling.

And he thought: She did lie. She brought me here for another reason.

A good one.

That’s why she didn’t want Tad to know. But is it really worth the chance of me cruising about in my own car? Couldn’t we have done this in the bedroom at Tad’s place?

Then Harry realized something.

Kayla wasn’t smiling.

She was showing her teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. He couldn’t tell that right off in little to no light, but now that his eyes had adjusted a bit more, he realized she was grimacing.

And her breasts, they were pocked with dots. He could make those out now. A cigarette smell was mixed with the perfume. He hadn’t noticed that before, but now that his lust had subsided, he did.

Kayla didn’t smoke.

The sergeant, who had been against the wall near Harry the bear, stepped out into the wide breach between hallway and den, said, “Howdy, dumb dick.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Kayla said. “I’m so sorry.”

Harry felt someone behind him, turned. It was the chief. He looked a lot less like a grandfather now. And he had a friend with him. A black automatic.

“A gal can only take so many cigarette burns on the tits before she calls,” the chief said. “And actually, that’s not what did it. I promised to put a cigar in her nether regions and light it, let it burn down. She wasn’t up for that. True love has its limitations. Am I right, Officer?”

Kayla’s head drooped as if it might fall off her neck. “I’m so sorry, Harry. So sorry.”

“You two, you thought you were so smart, but there was one problem. Kayla’s perfume. She wasn’t supposed to wear perfume to work, you know, but alas, just couldn’t help herself. And that dead body you left on my couch, awful, but the sign—the sign Kayla made—it stunk of her perfume, and no one else has that smell but Kayla…. Who’s Tad?”