Honky Tonk Samurai (Hap and Leonard) (11 page)

“Until now,” I said. “Five hundred dollars and you’re singing.”

“Cason told me a thousand,” Weasel said.

I looked at Cason. He grimaced. “I did.”

“All right,” I said. “A thousand. But still, why now?”

“Haunts me some, you know. It’s on my head. Never even seen the bodies, but I can imagine them cause I know people who know people who know the cops, and they got the news, the specifics from them, the cut throat and balls and all.”

“You told us that part,” I said.

“Did, didn’t I? Man, I just thought I could do something like kill Frank and maybe Sandy. Just thought it. I see this dead dog got hit the other day, you know, on the highway, and I pull over and throw up. I know now I couldn’t have done no such thing. Think I’m even more puny now than I was then. I can step on roaches and I can rat out people, but killing for money, I can’t go there. That’s some kind of house I don’t want to live in.”

“Aren’t you scared to tell us all this after keeping quiet for so long?” Brett asked. “Even for the money?”

“A little,” Weasel said. “You got big mouths, I’m scared a lot.”

“They don’t have,” Cason said.

“That’s some partial comfort, brother. It’s bothering me, this thing I considered doing, and had I done it, I’d have that shit heavy on my head. I didn’t, but I led to the hit men getting hit, and they could just have easily have done the job they were hired to do. That would have been on my head, too. That’s why I’m laying it all out to you. And there’s the money Statler here is offering, too, so I’m not claiming just to be a good fucking Samaritan. But my conscience, and the money…well, I think, why not? Next day or two I’ll be out of town for good. Going back up north. I’ve been down here, let me see…seven, eight…no, nine years, and I don’t get it here. I’m going back where plain old bad people are just that. They don’t come with a side of ‘honey chile’ and grits, then a blackjack or a pipe upside the head and a soda bottle jammed up the ass, or throats and balls cut off with sharp wire. Now I get my money?”

Cason looked at me.

“What about Sandy?” I said. “She doesn’t show up in this story a lot.”

“Not a major player is my guess,” Weasel said. “Think she did her part, and it was over. Could be Red Mop got to her before he got his balls lifted, and that’s why she isn’t around to spend Christmas. I’m going to guess she quit stinking about five years ago. But hell, I don’t know. I know he didn’t get Frank, so that means he may not have got this Sandy, either.

“Frank’s company could have done this Sandy in for some reason or another. I don’t really know Sandy, just of her. Couldn’t pick her out of a fuck movie if her name was tattooed on her naked ass in neon. Never met her. All I know is the name Sandy, and I got that from the guy Ron talked to, Red Mop, one they found down by the railroad tracks.”

“And Ron?” Leonard asked.

“He turned quiet, like me. Decided he wasn’t such a manipulator. Quit trying to hire killers. He’s still alive. I figure they figure he gives up on trying to be a gangster they’ll let him keep living. Guy like that, he goes dead, it might be bad for Frank, or whoever he…she…is connected with, so they might think it’s better to let Ron live. And maybe Ron’s still paying the blackmail. I don’t know. I know this. Me and him are alive, and my balls are still swinging, and whatever happens to him is on his head, and the same goes for me, and he ain’t my goddamn worry. I’m taking the thousand, and couple days from now, I’m gone. I won’t even leave any body odor.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cason said.

“All right, look down on me you want, but you won’t be looking long, cause I’m going to be out of here like a goddamn winter goose. I had to talk to people, ask about this shit Cason wanted, and one of them, well, they might see a dollar in it for them, and there’s guys out there that would eat a pile of shit and call it a chocolate soufflé if they were getting paid. I figure they would spring it all loose on me first chance they got. Way I figure, on down the road, this Ron, he might turn up dead after all. You know, enough time goes by. Some kind of accident, you see. I don’t want the same for me. Neither me nor Ron are talking, not about that, and not to each other, but could be at some point Frank, his bunch, his boss, they could be thinking they want to make sure that never happens, the us-talking part. So when we think we’re safe and they got enough distance between what went on, they hit us. That’s my thinking. About that money? Going to need that for traveling.”

“You said Frank’s bunch,” I said. “Who does Frank work for?”

“You see, it’s just that kind of thing made Ron quit. He realized he hits Frank, maybe this Sandy, that’s just the tip of the spear. Ain’t you been listening? I done said that more than once, that I don’t think Frank is the brains behind all this. I know her a little, enough to know she’s smart, but she ain’t that damn smart. Ron figured out he would have had to hire someone to kill every goddamn body, and he wasn’t even sure who was holding the cards.”

“So who can you name?” I said. “Come on—toss us something for our thousand smackers.”

“Well, a guy that’s got a finger in the pie is Doug Creese. His father, James, was just a bare-ass redneck that got lucky because he could make good barbecue. Said James used to find dead animals on the highway, fix them up good with sweet barbecue sauce and a long time in the smoker. Not unusual for old backwoods barbecue stands, using highway meat. People like that could barbecue a turd and make you think it was a sausage link. But his son, Doug, one you got to worry about, took it over, got prime meat and no more roadkill. He opened a string of barbecue houses. Played like they was upscale, charged more for a chopped beef than a filet mignon, and there was folks willing to pay the dough for it cause they thought they was, like, getting more for their money, it being on a fancy bun with seeds in it and shit. It was an all-right sandwich, but price like that, you could raise and kill a cow yourself and butcher it out cheaper. Well, all right, that’s an exaggeration.”

“Oh, really?” Brett said.

“Oh, hell, lady, you are so hot-looking I can take insults off you all day.”

“Why, thank you, Weasel,” Brett said.

“Creese’s Barbecue,” Leonard said. “Shit, I heard of that. Hell, I’ve eaten it. Good barbecue. But like you say, the prices are stiff. They’re damn proud of it.”

“Yep,” Weasel said. “Creese’s Barbecue. Doug wasn’t really interested in barbecuing meat, though. He wasn’t interested in having pocket money and a car didn’t smoke oil. He wanted more. Wanted to fart half-dollars and shit thousands. He’s that kind of guy. Hell, I’m that kind of guy, but I’m starting to know that isn’t going to be how it is for me. It’s always going to be pecking shit with the chickens, as you boys say. I come to that conclusion one long night after I looked in the refrigerator and realized I had a head of black lettuce and a bottle of water about half drank up.”

“Actually,” Cason said, “it’s not your good or ill fortune we’re interested in.”

“Not that I was thinking it was,” Weasel said. “Doug uses the barbecue success to finance some other businesses, ones not so on the up-and-up. Finally, the barbecue gets famous, and he sells the joints, and for big money. That sets him up high and tight, but it’s still not enough. He was already running some low-level hookers in New Orleans. Had some meth labs cooking and all manner of shit going on. But now he has big money, and though he sold the barbecue places, he still gets a cut, so he’s got that dough pouring in, so he starts running higher-class whores, ones who can walk on stiletto heels without wobbling and can cross their legs with a happy promise. He starts setting up more businesses for fronts, finds ways to make big money in a lot of ways, some of them legal, some of them not so legal.”

“Like car lots and blackmail,” I said.

“That would be it,” Weasel said. “People don’t really know the businesses he owns because of the way he hides them. Some he’s up front with, but others he dresses down so it isn’t so out front. He’s the tail that wags the fucking dog.”

“So it’s really the former barbecue guy owns the car lot?” I said.

“That’s how I hear it, and all that comes the fuck with it, but I tell you, that’s just what I heard. All I got is what I heard. I heard most of it lately, when I was asking around, stuff I hadn’t heard before, or stuff that didn’t quite have a shape to it. Barbecue Doug may just be another cog in the wheel, which could be a really, really big wheel. One thing for sure, he lays low. Don’t see him around much. He’s tight to the house. Goddamn, I need a smoke or a chew. You know, I didn’t chew until I got around all these goddamn cracker motherfuckers here in East Texas.”

“Casting your nicotine habits aside,” I said, “anything else?”

“Rest of what I got is old news. But the new news, it could get me whacked, so like I said, I’m traveling. When I get the money.”

“You really just told us a lot of what we already knew,” I said.

“Don’t play me. There was some you didn’t know, right?”

Leonard reached out and thumped a finger on Weasel’s chest, causing him to wince.

“Better be telling the truth, Mr. Weasel, or you may never get to go up north, won’t have to worry about Frank or Barbecue Doug catching up with you. Being lied to makes me itchy, and I don’t like to itch, cause that makes me mad.”

“Cason, he’s used me before,” Weasel said. “My information is good. I mean, I’m not saying some of it might not be rumor, but rumor is what I got. There’s some stuff in there I think is real. Tell them I’m reliable, Cason.”

“So far you have been,” Cason said. “But there’s been a time or two where your information has lived on the border.”

“This is smack-dab in the middle of the territories with rumor on the edges,” Weasel said. “I keep bringing up the money, but nobody moves.”

Cason took out his wallet and pulled out the money for Weasel. Our money.

“Nice doing business with you, kind of,” Weasel said. “And keep me out of it. I don’t want to end up with that wire-cut smile and my balls buried in some nut’s backyard.”

“You’re out of it,” I said.

“Good,” Weasel said. “I was you people, I’d be out of it, too. Messing with Doug or Frank could be bad for you. One of them, someone connected to them, knows the guy with the wire, and money gets waved at him, the right money, he’ll pick up that wire again.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

“So you’re not hanging it up?” Weasel said. “Even after what I’ve told you?”

“Nope,” Brett said.

“Have it your way, honey,” Weasel said. “Remember I warned you people.”

“We got that sweet thought right up against our hearts,” Leonard said.

Weasel shrugged. “Listen here. I got one more thing for you. I wasn’t going to expand on this, go the whole hog, but I got to get right with myself—know I told you not only what I know is fact, but I got to tell you what might be rumor. Wasn’t going to say, cause it sounds maybe too odd, but that don’t mean it’s not coming from a solid place. Word is this deballer guy, he’s a company man carries their freight. Let me say it different. They got a man sometimes works for the company, whoever it is that owns the company, and he’s a free agent kind of guy.”

“The car company?” Brett said.

“The company. Doug’s businesses. It’s like a fucking octopus. There’s more than cars and women and blackmail in all this. Shit, I done told you that.”

“It’s nice to know your story doesn’t change up,” Cason said. “So we can stand some repetition.”

“Only a little,” Leonard said.

“Keeping in mind I’m still saying it’s rumor, and yeah, I know, I say it a lot, but it’s said by some that this wire-using motherfucker has connections with all the Dixie-flag-waving jackasses and southern assholes you can imagine.”

“Dixie Mafia?” I asked.

“Call it what you like,” Weasel said. “Doug and his bunch may be the saltiest crackers you can imagine, a bunch of good old boys. They’re shit-cracker tough guys with sweaty pits and bent noses and swastikas on their necks. They got women in that group, too, just as bad and mean as the men. Some got three teeth and two are in their pocket, but they also got sweet women with butter skin and a smile that looks like something you’d see under a magnolia tree with a picnic basket, but when you get close, those are shark teeth, and the basket is a fucking coffin.”

“How poetic,” Brett said.

“Make fun if you want,” Weasel said. “But they got those folks all over, some in businesses that you wouldn’t suspect. Some in back alleys, and some in stylish apartments in downtown Houston. They got gangs to do their work, and more than that, they got them a hitter more dangerous than all of them. Some think he’s just a story. The Canceler, they call him, on account of he cancels your fucking ticket, erases your plans. He’s the guy with the wire is what I hear. He’s got other methods, but when they hire him it’s because they want it done fast and smooth, otherwise they let the tattoo-necks do it. Those guys, offer them some cocaine, a twelve-pack, and a rubber pocket pussy, they’re ready to rock. But this guy, he’s not someone I want looking for me, and neither do you. He gets the big bucks, and he don’t get them by fucking up. What he gets paid is serious finance. The redneck Dixie-flag-waving cretins come and go, but this guy, he stays around. He hasn’t got any agenda about the South, about family, or any such shit. He’s got the ability if you got the money, and that’s the name of that game.”

“Have you seen him?” Leonard asked.

“I told you I don’t even know if he’s real. But someone is sure killing folks with a wire.”

“Description?” Cason asked.

“If I had a description of him, way I hear it, I’d be dead before I could describe him. Ain’t no one describing him, cause the ones might know him know better than to give that description. Just me giving out what I know, even if it turns out to be rumor, not fact, could be bad for me. Thus my exit plans, and I advise you folks to do the same.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said.

“You think you’re tough,” Weasel said. “Word about you guys is you are. That you’ve seen some shit and thrown some shit around yourself. That you’re like the brothers Death and Doom. Maybe you can handle the rednecks. You might do that all right. But this guy, let me tell you, whoever he is, he whacked two badasses I knew, maybe bad as you two, so whoever this guy is, this Canceler, he’s a special-ass hired killer. Hell. He’s the very devil.”