Honky Tonk Samurai (Hap and Leonard) (21 page)

W
e drove over to Leonard’s place. I waited outside in the car in case any baddies appeared. After a while Leonard came downstairs carrying a small canvas bag with clothes and such in it.

At the cop shop we met up with Marvin, and then we led him out to the bikers’ lair. I like to think of it that way. A lair. I’ve read far too many Doc Savage books.

Behind Marvin came a few unmarked vehicles and some guys in a couple of Humvees and a green pickup truck, probably army surplus. German Shepherds were in the truck bed. The dogs, with their tongues hanging out, looked like they were going to the dog park.

The lair was easier to find in the day. When we got near it, Marvin pulled over, and the Humvee pulled up on the passenger side. Leonard rolled down his window.

“Go in and check it out, Billy, and don’t get shot,” Marvin said to the Humvee driver, who had gotten out and was leaning on Leonard’s door, looking in through the rolled-down window.

“Yes, sir,” Billy said. He was a stout man, probably in his forties, who had kept himself in shape. He had a series of small moles along the side of his nose that resembled stair steps leading to his forehead. He had the air of someone who could take care of himself. My guess was he had actually been a soldier and had probably seen some action. Then again, maybe he was just constipated and wanted to go home.

Leonard explained where the place was and how to finish getting there. He told him where the dog bodies were as well. Billy got back in the Humvee, and away they went. We let the two Humvees move ahead, the pickup truck following. The dogs looked happy. They didn’t know they could be shot.

We waited where we were until we got a radio message from Billy.

There wasn’t much to it. Happily, it was anticlimactic. They found most of the bikers sleeping around the remains of the tire fire and in the trailers like a bunch of kindergarteners who had played too hard and had gone back home and were taking their naps. There wasn’t any resistance. They had used their energy chasing us.

Cops had a warrant, so they searched the place good, found meth and meth-making supplies. They found a lot of weapons and ammunition. When they went out to the place in the woods where the dead dogs were, they found Samson on the pile. Regime change had taken about one evening and possibly part of an early morning. Sentimentality was not strong among that biker club. In that crowd you’re the head badass until you aren’t.

At some point, whoever took over decided they had chased us enough and it was time to start fresh. They hadn’t even so much as thrown Samson in the ditch before they got high on their own product. As an old gray-haired addict called Two-Toe George told me and Leonard once, “When you start wanting meth more than you want pussy or a rib-eye steak, then you know you got, like, a serious fucking drug problem.”

Two-Toe George was a philosopher. He was, as you might expect, short in the toe department, having cut off a chunk of his right foot with an ax while trying to smash a snail with it. He said he did that when he was high. Was certain right then that the snail was actually a spy machine made to look like a snail, that it had cameras and was watching him.

Turned out it was just a snail. But the loss of those toes put Two-Toe on the clean-and-sober chart for three days, and then he went back on the meth as soon as he could. Couple years later, in a scummy motel outside of Lufkin, Texas, he put a cheap automatic he had used the day before to rob a gas station of sixty-five dollars and a Peanut Pattie to his head, told the whore he was with he could bounce a bullet off his skull, and said he’d like to show her. He proved in a split second he could in fact not bounce a bullet off his head. It blew his brains all over the motel wall. The whore stole his meth and was caught four days later by the cops trying to sell her three-year-old child for a fix.

Fortunately, the addicts the whore tried to sell the child to weren’t as far gone as she was, and they turned her in. The child went to Texas Child Protective Services, and she went into the system, was probably making license plates or such somewhere in a big concrete compound with guards all around.

More cops arrived. Two of their vehicles were large vans. They put their captives in that and drove them to the police station. The guy with the missing kneecap was still alive, and nobody else had died from the car collision, though the woman who had done the nice cartwheel had a broken arm and a broken ankle. She was so high she was feeling no pain. Billy said she tried to get up and dance a step or two to show she hadn’t been using. Her ankle cracked, and down she went. She and a few others got a ride to the hospital.

When we were back at the cop shop we didn’t go inside. Marvin thought it best we not see any of the bikers who might have seen us.

“Doing what I can to slide you two out of this,” Marvin said. “Here’s the address where you’re going to be. Bring Brett and Chance there as well.”

“What about Frank?” Leonard asked.

“We decided no cell for now. We got her tucked away in a nice little apartment with a twenty-four-hour guard. Next thing is to figure how much of her story is true and how much is bullshit.”

“Quite a coincidence that Weasel, who helps people create new identities, is also the guy who helped Jim Bob create one.”

Marvin nodded. “As I’ve said before, coincidences do happen. I can live with that if the rest of Frank’s story checks out.”

As we drove away, I called Brett, told her to stay where she was for a while and that I’d get back to her and tell her where to meet us before too long. I gave her a bit of the rundown. She took it in stride, switched the subject.

“You know what?” she said.

“What?”

“Me and Chance, we’ve had a lot of fun.”

“That’s good. What’s she up to?”

“She’s showering, and I’m making motel-room coffee. It smells a little like the dirty-clothes hamper. Chance and me, we just been talking, almost nonstop. It’s like a mother talking to a daughter, for real. My daughter I mostly yell at and try to tell her how to screw her head on straight. Chance, she’s got some emotional wounds, but overall, she’s okay. Shit, Hap. If she isn’t your daughter I’m going to be disappointed. I think there may be a real monkey wrench somewhere in her path.”

“You explain to her about what me and Leonard were doing?”

“I decided not to even play with that idea. Not just yet, anyway. I’m working up to it. Thing is, it’s hard to explain what you do.”

“She doesn’t need to know all the gory details,” I said.

“Sandy? Anything?”

“Nothing, really. That girl disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“More likely she is in the face of the earth,” Brett said.

“Looking more and more that way.”

“Shower has quit running. I’m going to let you go. Call me when you’re ready for us to come home. I think I can keep us busy for a while. I like spending money.”

I rang off.

“You’re already starting to look like a concerned parent,” Leonard said.

“Think so?”

“Oh, yeah. You want that girl to be your daughter, don’t you, brother?”

“I think I do.”

“Family isn’t always about blood. We prove that.”

“Yeah, we do. But it would be cool if she was. I think she may be someone special.”

“You can help her, kin or not,” Leonard said. “Shit, man, that’s what you do, help people.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but except for a chosen few, I don’t really like them.”

“There is that,” I said.

The phone rang. I looked. It was Brett again.

I answered it, but it was Chance, not Brett.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself.”

“Last night we bought some animal crackers out of the motel vending machine, a carton of milk. It made me think of you. I enjoyed our talk.”

“Me, too. I don’t remember what we talked about, except animal crackers, but I enjoyed it, too.”

“We talked about music and warm milk,” she said.

“We did at that.”

“I just wanted to tell you about the animal crackers.”

“Yeah, well, that’s good. I’m glad you had some more. Watch Brett, though. She’ll eat them up.”

Chance laughed softly. “She is so cool.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You go on and take care,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Sure,” I said, and she rang off.

Leonard looked at me. “I think I detect a mist over the eyeballs.”

“Fuck you.”

“A tremble of the lips.”

“You heard me.”

“She’s your daughter, can she call me Uncle Leonard?”

“She can call you Uncle Asshole. That would be more accurate.”

“I like it,” Leonard said.

“Listen,” I said, changing the subject. “Maybe we ought to go back and see if Weasel really left town. He might be still hanging around.”

“Why would he?”

“Because he may never have been under threat like he wanted us to believe. He and Frank may both be in on this deeper than they admit. Weasel wanted that thousand, told us enough to make us happy to let him have it, but maybe he knows a lot more. Like who this Canceler actually is.”

“All right, then. Let’s saddle up.”

W
easel’s place hadn’t been urban-renewed since last we saw it, and no volunteers had dropped by to brighten it up with fresh paint. The bottom part of the duplex still had the windows knocked out. Weasel’s car was still parked where it had been before. It hadn’t been detailed. It looked like the same piece of shit.

We put on cloth gloves we kept in the glove box, which was a swell place for them, went up the stairs again, and leaned on the door. It was still locked. There were windows on either side of the door. We tried them—Leonard one, me the other. They both slid up.

I looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone watching. In fact, there didn’t seem to be anyone around at all. It was like it had been last time. The whole area looked abused and then forgotten. The morning light didn’t freshen it any.

I climbed through the window I had opened, and Leonard went in through the other. We both had handguns.

The house smelled stale from having been closed up, and it was hot because there was no air-conditioning—no electricity, in fact. It had that odd feel you get from an empty house. Then again, that didn’t mean it was really empty. We went through the house with our guns and looked around. There was one very nice room with a bed in it and a computer on a desk, and there was a laptop in a case by the closet. I opened the case up and looked at the laptop. The closet was full of clothes. The desk drawer had a number of flash drives in it.

I joined Leonard in the kitchen. We looked in the refrigerator. There was food in there, lots of it. Of course, he decided to leave, he could have abandoned the food. But his clothes and the laptop? The place wasn’t much, but it was clean. I hadn’t expected Weasel to be a good housekeeper.

We sat at the kitchen table, having helped ourselves to cold diet colas from the fridge, our guns on the table.

“Could be the computer is here because he’s coming back,” Leonard said.

“Maybe it’s like I thought. He isn’t really on the run. But then again, I get a feeling he hasn’t been here in a while, so I’m starting to shoot down my own theory. But if he did run, would he leave the computers? They’re the tools of his trade. Or at least part of it, creating identities. He’d make a false one for himself and not leave anything behind that might incriminate him if the cops came looking.”

“And maybe he writes letters to the editor on one, watches porn on the other.”

We drank the diet colas and took the cans with us, trying not to leave any DNA around that might come back and bite us on the butts in the future.

Outside on the landing, our pistols tucked under our shirts, we pushed the windows closed, went downstairs. We were about to get in the car when something struck me. I turned and looked at Weasel’s junker and that black piece of cloth hanging out of the trunk. I was thinking I knew what that cloth belonged to.

I pointed it out to Leonard, said, “I got a shitty feeling.”

In the back of my car is a tool case with tools I mostly don’t know how to use, but there was one thing in it I could handle. A crowbar. I could break an arm and I could jimmy a lock with it. After the hammer, it was my tool of choice. I got the crowbar and Leonard looked up one side of the street and I looked up the other.

Nothing but a black cat crossing the road. I thought it might be the same cat that Leonard had told to clean up the bottom of the duplex the first time out.

At Weasel’s car I stuck the crowbar under the edge of the trunk and tried to pry it. Leonard said, “You’re being so goddamned delicate you’re making me nervous. Give me that.”

He took the crowbar and rammed it into the crack of the trunk near where the black cloth dangled and sort of squatted as he pulled down on the bar like a handle. There was a snapping sound and the trunk popped open and out of the trunk there came a smell that once you smell it you never forget it.

There was the rest of the black cloth. It was part of what Weasel had been wearing the day we saw him. A loose black shirt. Weasel didn’t really look much like Weasel now. The heat and time had done some work. He was lying on his side away from us, but his head was turned as if he were trying to look over his shoulder, and his mouth was open. There were teeth missing. One of his ears had been cut off. I could see that his throat had been cut. His pants were pulled down to his ankles, and one knee was lifted slightly. I had an idea that if we were to roll him over and look he’d be missing a set of balls.

“Well,” Leonard said. “He’s had a bad day.”

“Yep.”

“Seems he wasn’t making that stuff up about the guy who cuts throats with a wire and takes balls away with him. He really should have left town sooner.”

We closed the trunk and put the crowbar back in my car and looked around. Still nobody. Even the cat was long gone.

We rode away.

T
he address Marvin had given us for the safe house was on the edge of town, and just five years back would have been in the country, but the town had spread out and almost met it. Few more years and it would be part of LaBorde. But for now the little yellow house was off the highway and down an asphalt road, set back off that by a long gravel drive that ran straight up to the house.

There was a faded gray garage separate and near the house, and the garage door slid up to let cars in and had to be opened by hand. Inside there was room for two cars. We opened it and parked the car inside but left the garage door up. Across the asphalt road was a large pasture with a big barn on it. It was worn and made of logs and the logs had began to rot; it was for the most part a full structure, though there were gaps in its side and you could see hay stored in there in bales.

The house was small and untidy. The living room had a saggy paisley-covered couch and one fat matching armchair and a coffee table with so many coffee rings stained into it it almost appeared to have been designed that way. There was a small TV on a stand. It was an old-style TV. The face of it was about the size of a microwave oven. There was a DVD player stacked on top of it. A wire ran from it through a gap in the wall. Apparently we had cable.

The kitchen smelled of old grease, and the floor was covered in cheap yellow linoleum with blue flowers and some long-ago stepped-on cockroaches. When we walked, something sticky on the floor grabbed at our shoes. The linoleum was curling where it met the kitchen cabinets. The cabinets were stocked with quite a few canned goods, and that was swell if you wanted to eat beets or green beans, because that’s all there was, except for a can of cranberry sauce with the berries in it. There were blue plastic plates and jelly jars to drink out of, and the kitchen drawers were stuffed with utensils, including a few plastic forks and spoons. There was a kitchen table with a series of mismatched chairs drawn up around it.

I sat on the couch, and the cushion sagged. I called Marvin, told him what we had found at Weasel’s place and that he ought to get over there while there was evidence to get.

Marvin sounded worn-out and anxious and was in no way pleasant.

“I told you to go to the safe house,” he said.

“We’re here.”

“Now you are. You had suspicions, you should have called and told me. I could have checked out Weasel’s digs myself. What the fuck, Hap?”

“No one knows we were there,” I said. “Though we did pry the trunk with a crowbar.”

“Damn it. Don’t mention you were there or that you pried anything open. That part will be marked down to a worn-out trunk that popped open. You wipe prints?”

“Duh. We wore gloves.”

“Actually, that was pretty good detective work. Don’t tell Leonard I said that.”

“Leonard, he said we did some good detective work.”

Leonard saluted.

“Funny,” Marvin said. “Go to bed. We’ll discover Weasel on our own.”

There were two bedrooms. Leonard was quick to choose the larger one and make camp. I slung my overnight bag into the other one, pulled the blinds to keep out the morning light. I climbed out of my clothes and into bed in my underwear. I lay there and listened to Leonard snoring across the hall. I had meant to close the door but had been too tired to do it. I thought I really ought to get up and do that. That was going to be my next move, but to do that I first had to open my eyes and will myself out of bed. I was seriously planning that when I fell asleep.

Late afternoon we were up and dressed. We split the can of cranberry sauce, said to hell with all this sneaking around, and drove to town. We do not follow directions well. I remember my kindergarten teacher telling my mother, “Hap would do very well if he could just learn to follow directions.”

And I remember my mother sighing and saying, “Tell me about it.”

We bought a large cardboard container of coffee at Starbucks as well as a quickie breakfast of eggs and bacon inside what might have been an English muffin and drove back to the safe house and ate and sipped our coffee. When we finished, I called Brett. She answered on the first ring.

“How are you?”

“Peachy,” I said and gave her a rundown.

“You had quite a night. I can tell by your voice that you’re not quite right.”

“I saw a person shot, some people hit by a car, blew a man’s kneecap off, was shot at, a lot, was chased by thugs, scolded by Marvin—unfairly, I think—and me and Leonard found Weasel dead in the trunk of his car stinking to high heaven. And the toilet here is small and rocks when you sit on it. So the usual.”

“Sorry, Hap.”

“My own fault, getting into shit like this.”

“So nothing on Sandy?”

“Zip,” I said. “I get to thinking she might be out there, alive, hiding somewhere, or maybe just a stack of bones and rotting clothes under a rock, and mostly what we do is ride around and shoot at people and take a regular shit.”

“There’s not much else you can do, Hap. It’s been some years since she disappeared. And if she’s dead, and I don’t mean to sound cold, but what’s the hurry?”

“
If
she’s dead,” I said.

“What do you think?”

“That she’s been fertilizing the soil for some time, but I don’t want to think that. What if I’m wrong, and she’s in some hellhole being forced to whore out? Maybe they’re doping her, hurting her. I think about it too long I feel sick to my stomach.”

“I know how you take things to heart,” she said, “even when it’s not your fault and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can only take it a day at a time, love.”

“Look,” I said, “I think you should stay where you are. There’s not enough room here, really. And I think it’s best we just stay separate for now. Can we afford for you to stay where you are or someplace similar?”

“For a while,” she said. “Then we’re going to have to make new plans. And Chance, she doesn’t know about all this, not the real inside scoop, anyway. But she’s no idiot. I can’t find my way into ‘Daddy is back home shooting the kneecaps off bad guys and breaking legs with crowbars, so we have to stay away right now.’”

“I assume she is not in the room with you.”

“Downstairs having breakfast. She thinks we’re just spending time at the hotel because you’re having the house sprayed for termites.”

“That was your story?”

“I thought about telling her you and Leonard had been quarantined for bubonic plague, but that seemed a little extreme.”

“You told the right lie. You know this means we are no longer empty nesters. We have a dog and maybe a daughter.”

“At least it isn’t Leonard. I say that with love.”

“Damn. I didn’t even think to ask I’ve been so preoccupied. What about Buffy?”

“Right here beside me. We got her from the boarder, brought her back here this morning. We couldn’t leave her, Hap. She is really doing well. I think hotel life agrees with her. They not only allow dogs here, they have dog treats and doggie beds and a place outside for them to poop, provided you clean up afterward. This is a life Buffy could become accustomed to. She seems to like watching cartoons.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It is, but what I’m thinking is maybe we should get out of East Texas for a while. I’m thinking up a big lie to justify that, and I may be getting one cornered. I’m going to lay it on Chance when I get it worked out. I have to tell her something. Say I was planning a vacation and she ought to go with me, all expenses paid as long as they aren’t large expenses. I think I can talk her into that, justify it with some bullshit. But Hap, she isn’t stupid. The girl is smart. She’s going to know I’m telling her shit don’t smell when it does. It might take a little time, but she’ll come to it.”

“If anyone can sell her on a line of shit, it’s you.”

“I’m not sure that was a compliment. You know, Hap? I really, really like her.”

“I don’t actually know anything about her. I want to like her.”

“You can’t help but,” Brett said. “I’ll be devastated if she isn’t your daughter. She’s a buddy. We have so much in common, and she’s so young to be such an old soul.”

“Or you’re a young soul,” I said.

“Aw, how sweet. I like that. Baby, I feel like I’m running out on you. Taking a sabbatical during a time when you need me there with a shotgun and some face paint. I just don’t know what to do with Chance under the circumstances. I don’t mind putting my ass on the line, but not hers.”

“You’re making the right choice. Let her have some time when she’s not scuttling to survive. Daughter or not. You like her, that’s enough. And there’s really nothing you can do here. To be honest, I’m not sure there’s much further we can go as far as Sandy is concerned. She dead-ends at the dealership.”

“So you want to throw in the towel?”

“Just because I don’t think there’s much further we can go doesn’t mean I’m smart enough to quit.”

“You’re a terrier, and Leonard is a pit bull.”

“Technically, I think pit bulls are terriers, too. Leonard is waving hello.”

“Wave back. And let him have his cookies, and don’t get killed, okay?”

“Not in my plans,” I said.

“Tell Leonard I said to watch after you.”

“He always does.”