Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
“I get the picture,” I said.
Jim Bob pulled off to the side of the road suddenly, as if
his hands wouldn’t hold the wheel anymore. He held them out to me and said,
“Shit. You look at that? I’m shaking like a virgin bride.”
We sat there for a time with the motor running and the
lights on, and Jim Bob said, “We could ditch this tape, tell Russel I fucked up
on the Fred Miller stuff, that my FBI contact was full of bull doo-doo, and
that it wasn’t a cover for Freddy after all. I could pretend to look some more,
and after a while, give up. Say I couldn’t find any leads. He needn’t never
know.”
“I wouldn’t believe that story if you told it to me,” I
said. “Not after knowing you just as long as I’ve known you. You wouldn’t give
up. You’re too egotistical.”
“True.”
“But even if we could get away with doing that, that
wouldn’t change what we saw or what Freddy’s doing, would it?”
“No. He’d keep right on keeping on.”
“Does that matter to you?”
“Damn sure does. I think the scumbag ought to be tied to the
highway and have a semi-truck driven over his head.”
“So what do we do?”
“Damned if I know,” Jim Bob said.
We drove on to town and got the beer and when we got back
Russel had the couch folded out and was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette
and watching the tail end of the news.
“Got some beer,” Jim Bob said, holding it up.
“That’s nice,” Russel said. He looked at me. “And you went
with him.”
“Yeah, I went with him.”
“For beer?”
“Yeah,” Jim Bob said, “beer.”
“What are you two homos really up to?”
“Beer,” I said. “Can’t a man go out and get a goddamn beer
without being hassled?”
I walked past the couch and went to my room and closed the
door and sat on the edge of the bed. I thought about the tape and the young
girl and the Mexican and Freddy. I thought about the gun and the blood and the
urine. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about anything. I wasn’t good at
that.
I thought about Ann and Jordan, but that made me more ill
than comforted.
I got up and went out again and passed by Russel’s couch.
“You got jock itch, Dane?” Russel said. “Settle down, you’re
making me nervous.”
“I want to walk, all right,” I said. “Okay if I do that? Am
I gonna get penalized or something?”
“Don’t get on the rag,” Russel said. “It’s just you’re
making me nervous. You and Jim Bob are acting like kids that got caught jacking
off or something.”
“I’m just homesick,” I said. “Jim Bob, can I use your phone
upstairs to call? I’ll pay the charges.”
“No problem,” Jim Bob said, “just don’t leave it talking.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Russel. “I’m just on a tear. I miss my
family.”
“Understand,” Russel said.
I went upstairs. The phone was on a little end table on the
landing and there was a chair there. I sat down and called home. On the third
ring Ann answered. I realized from her voice, which sounded as if it were
coming from underwater, that she had already gone to sleep. I looked at my
watch. It was later than I thought, and she always had been the early to bed,
early to rise type.
“Hi,” I said. “It’s me.”
“Richard?”
“No, your other husband.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, it’s me. How you doing baby?”
“Good… what time is it?”
“About ten-thirty. I forgot you’d be in bed. I wasn’t
thinking about the time.”
“Everything okay?” “Yeah.”
“I’m real tired, honey. I got to go to work in the morning.”
That Ann, what a romantic.
“Yeah, well… I’m sorry. I just wanted to call and say I love
you.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just tired is all. I love you too.”
“How’s Jordan.”
“In bed.”
“He okay?”
“Uh huh. You sound funny, Richard.”
“Connection. I’m tired myself. Ann?”
“Uh huh?”
“Do you think Jordan loves me?”
“Of course. You know he does.”
“I mean, do you think I’m a good father?”
“Yeah. You’re impatient and loud sometimes, but you’re a
good father. You’re a good husband too. Especially when you let me sleep.”
I almost laughed, but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Will you tell him I love him?”
“Uhhuh.”
“First thing in the morning, will you tell him that?”
“I will.”
“You won’t forget.”
“No, I won’t forget… Are you sure you’re okay, Richard?”
“I’m fine.”
“Call me tomorrow. Things are kind of fuzzy. I don’t wake up
too fast.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have called.”
“No, hey, it’s okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Don’t forget to tell Jordan.”
“I won’t. When are you coming home? We miss you.”
“Real soon.”
“Make it sooner than that.”
“I'll try. Good night, honey.”
“Good night, Richard.”
32
I awoke to Jim Bob shaking me.
“Get up,” he said. “I can’t sleep.”
“What if I could have?”
“You’d have been shit out of luck. Were you sleeping?’
“I was doing a pretty good imitation of it.”
“I keep thinking… you know.”
“The video,” I said.
“Yeah, that and Russel.”
I shifted and sat up on the side of the bed. Jim Bob sat
down in a chair by the window and pulled back the curtain and looked out.
Moonlight fell on his face like a silver blade. He looked different without his
hat, sitting there in a chair in his underwear.
He dropped the curtain and turned to look at me, his face
mostly in shadow now. “That bastard out there has been a friend of mine a long
time.”
“You haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years.”
“That doesn’t matter. We practically grew up together. I
thought about him there in the pen, thought about him a lot. I tried to stay in
touch with him, but he cut me off. He cut his wife and Freddy off… Shit, you
think him not being around Freddy could have made the kid that way?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to believe anything could make
somebody like that. You got to think they were born that way. Something
missing. Even Russel says he’s missing something himself. Has a hole in him and
his soul is seeping out of it.”
“That sounds like him,” Jim Bob said. “He’s not as bad as he
puts it.”
“He’s not like Freddy, that’s for sure. If he’s missing
something, he knows it and he’s trying to get it back.”
“You called your wife?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you some money for the call.”
“That’s all right. How was she?”
“Fine.”
“The boy?”
“Fine.”
“You’re a lucky man, Dane. Got a family. Someone to care
about you. I got what I do and the Red Bitch—and it’s got a dent in it.”
“You got pigs.”
“Yeah, but every now and then I eat them, so it’s hard to
form any kind of relationship. I don’t think they trust me.”
“Jim Bob, what are we going to do?”
“Got any hot ideas?”
“The cops. We give them a tip, send them the tape with an
address. Something like that.”
“Uh I thought of that. I thought beyond that. While you were
sleeping I decided to take some air, and I drove into town to that 7-Eleven
where we bought the beer, used their phone booth. Somehow it just seemed right
using the phone booth. I called that old ex-sheriff that owes me favors and he
called his son for me and his son called me back at the phone booth. I told the
son a what-if story about an FBI informant being given a new identity, then
getting involved in crime again. It sounded a lot like what we know about
Freddy.”
He paused to pull back the curtain again and looked out. The
moonlight didn’t look any better on his face this time.
“And?”
“And, the FBI won’t do dick.”
“What?”
“They gave him immunity see, and a new identity.”
“What’s that got to do with it? That was for another deal
altogether. This is separate.”
“Not the way the feds see it. Isn’t that they don’t want to
nail the bastard, but they see leaving him alone—at least for now—as the lesser
of two evils. Least that’s my informer’s theory on things. He doesn’t know the
particular case, but he’s known others like it. You see, the FBI fixed it for
Freddy to be dead, then told him he was safe as a tick in a bear’s ass. And
though they wouldn’t mind coming down on him with both feet and hitting him so
hard shit flies out at both ends, they’ve got their rep to protect.”
“Their rep?”
“You see, they did it so it looked like Freddy got himself
killed, doing something stupid like burglary. But if it floats to the top that
they actually hid his ass, and couldn’t keep it hid, other would-be squealers
are gonna think it’s all an FBI setup. That you don’t really get protected at all.
You squeal, they go through the motions of giving you a new identity, then bam,
they nab you. Maybe on a bum charge later.”
“But who would know? He’s supposed to be dead.”
“No one maybe. But if they bring him in, and the charges
start, maybe everyone. They can’t take the chance. Once he’s arrested or
killed, it would be hard to keep who he is a secret a second time. They might
be able to do it, but maybe not.”
“All right, they hurt a few informers’ feelings. So what?”
“Then next time the feds want to snag them a big bunch of
bad guys at the expense of saving one of them, and they’ve got someone who’s
thinking of squealing, the squealer might have second thoughts.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “This is still the United States of
America. You just don’t let a scumbag like that go.”
“Would you like me to give you a flag to wave, or do you
just want to sing the national anthem?”
“Bullshit,” I said again, only this time more heartfelt.
“Hush,” Jim Bob said, “you’ll wake up Ben.”
“All right,” I said, “what if the FBI or someone tips off
the Dixie Mafia as toe Mafia where this guy who double-crossed them is hiding?
Wouldn’t it be okay if they did the job for the FBI?”
“Then it would look like the FBI can’t hide the people
they’re trying to hide so good.”
“They can’t. We found him.”
“I found him. And I have a contact. And for the most part,
my contact knows I’m one of the good guys.”
“Couldn’t they have inside help too—the Dixie Mafia?”
“Yeah, they could. But I figure if they did they’d already
have gotten Freddy. No, I think he’s made a clean getaway. And there’s another
thing. Freddy is most likely killing Mex gals, not Americans. It’s not our
people dying.”
“But they’re dying here, in America. Texas, goddamnit.”
“Yeah, and it’s a crime no matter how you look at it, but the
FBI is letting it ride for now. In time they’ll take care of him. But it’s too
soon now.”
“What’s in time?”
“I don’t know. A year maybe. That way they could fix it so
it looks like an accident or something. But if anything happens now, it makes
the FBI look bad.”
“This is nuts. The FBI doesn’t want to look bad, so they’re
letting this psycho kill women and make videos of it?”
“They’re looking at the big picture, and we’re looking at
the smaller picture.”
“Ask those dead women how small the picture is.”
“I’m not saying I agree with them, Dane, I’m just saying how
it is. Look at it like this. The FBI was willing to let you think you killed
Freddy Russel to give him a new identity, and they didn’t even give you an
inkling what was going on. Not even when Ben out there went bug-fuck nutty and
came after you. Think of all the grief they caused him. Hell, made him insane.
The local cops helped out. I mean the law is like that. They stick together,
right or wrong. You wash my dick, I’ll wash your dick. The world don’t work
like Dragnet or Adam 12. Not when you get down to die dog or eat the hatchet.”
“Either the world is getting more complicated, or I’m just
now starting to see things as they are.”
“A little of both.”
“This connection with the FBI, he didn’t have anything else
to say?”
“He said my favors with his dad were all used up.”
“That’s it? No suggestions?”
“Just one. And I didn’t like it much.”
“Well?”
“He said we could take care of the bastard ourselves.”
33
We talked a while longer and decided on nothing. All the
choices sucked. Jim Bob finally gave it up and went upstairs to try and sleep
some. I tried to go back to sleep, but lay there looking at the ceiling. I
thought about how nuts things were. About how just a little while ago I was a
pretty happy guy who was unsure of just a few things, and a little worried
about what kind of father I was. And how now I was a very unhappy guy unsure of
many things, and even more concerned about what kind of father I was, because
nothing in the world looked easy or sure, and everything in the world had to do
with being a father. Everything.
I lay there thinking about Russel out there, sleeping now,
not knowing what we knew, trying to find some courage in his heart to go and
talk to his only son and tell him he loved him.
“Hi, son, I love you.”
“Hi, dad. I make movies. I kill girls and get it on video.”
It was all very sick and very sad, and it made me think my
dad had seen something in the world I hadn’t seen, shadows perhaps, those
waltzing shadows Russel had talked about, and the shadows were not something he
could live with, so he had taken a gun and put it in his mouth and pulled the
trigger and sent the shadows away. He didn’t have to face them anymore. All his
troubles had gone bye-bye. He didn’t have to worry about his honor. About being
a coward. The nature of the universe. The price of beer and peanuts and where
this month’s rent or house payment was coming from.
Across all the years of my life I had dreamed of many
things. Of toys and then bigger toys and a woman to love and a houseful of kids
and a life like Father Knows Best, and maybe to be rich and respected and to
have plenty of time on my hands and to like that time. But here I was with just
a few hours before morning, and they were horrid hours, and it was as if I had
more time than ever these days, and so much of it was there to kill, not to
enjoy, and that thought depressed me more. And on the other side of those hours
were more hours and I had a fear that after the next few days there would be even
longer hours full of those goddamn waltzing shadows.