Pontiac parked next to the curb. There was a man sitting in it wearing a cowboy hat. He didn’t look like any of the cops I knew. He didn’t look like a cop. He didn’t look like anybody I knew, period. He didn’t seem to be watching me.
The phone booth was next to a 7-Eleven store. I went inside and bought a Diet Coke in a plastic bottle and a bag of peanuts. I drank the Diet Coke down a bit, poured peanuts into it, and went outside. I climbed into my truck and looked in my mirror. The Pontiac was gone.
Probably just some guy waiting for someone in one of the houses along the street. Or maybe he’d stopped to check a map. Pull his dick. Anything. I had to lighten up. I was starting to be one paranoid sonofabitch.
I drove away, an eye on the mirror, watching for yellow Pontiacs or low-flying stealth aircraft with radar.
9
I didn’t go directly home. I was sort of afraid to. I figured Charlie would be searching my place, and if Leonard had heeded my warning, he wouldn’t be there. It might also be better if I didn’t come up on Charlie and his folks going through my underwear drawer. I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.
I drove downtown and went to the all-day dollar movie and had popcorn. The popcorn was okay, but the movie wasn’t very good. I walked out about halfway through and stopped off at the yogurt joint and had a cone.
When I finished my cone, I cruised over to the bookshop and looked around the magazine rack. I didn’t see any Boobs and Butts there. Where did Charlie find that stuff? I hung around long enough the clerks began to watch me suspiciously. I bought a couple comic books, a Batman and a Spider-Man, and left.
When I got home, Leonard wasn’t there. I gave the house the once-over, went out on the back porch, and saw him strolling toward me from the woods. He had the twelve-gauge in one hand, a shovel over his shoulder, and I could see his revolver in the waistband of his pants.
Leonard smiled. “Thanks for the phone tip. I watched from the woods. Charlie and a blue suit showed up with the sheriff. They worked your lock and went inside and looked around.”
“That means they have a search warrant.”
“Probably. They were inside about twenty minutes.”
“They did good. I can’t tell they’ve been here. They even locked the door on the way out.”
“They looked around outside too. Found the sheets covered in pig shit.”
“They take the sheets with them?”
“No. At this point they probably haven’t put the pig shit and my daring escape together. I was smart enough to bury my clothes in the woods. I was going to do the sheets next. Actually, I don’t think putting me and the pig shit together is going to mean anything anyway.”
“You’re probably right about that. Something new has happened. Now you’re connected to all this officially, and Charlie had to come check my place as a likely hiding spot.”
We sat down on the back porch and I told Leonard what I had found at his house. Told him about my conversation with Charlie.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Was the stuff really wrecked? Were my books ruined?”
“They’re messed up. Some of them.”
“The TV’s screwed?”
“Looks that way. And the stereo.”
“Shit.”
“Your J. C. Penney’s suit was tossed on the floor too.”
“Now that fucker is dealing with dynamite.”
I nodded. “I knew that would get you.”
“Seems to me someone thinks I have something I don’t. If I do, I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know how I came by it or why I’d want it. And even if I did, that’s no excuse to fuck with a man’s J. C. Penney’s suit.”
“Or maybe they think Raul has something.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Leonard said.
“Or maybe they thought Horse Dick had something, and now they think Raul has it, and they thought he was hiding it at your house.”
“Or someone thinks what Horse Dick had and Raul had, I now have.”
“Or maybe it’s a disgruntled hair patron of Raul’s,” I said. “A little too much off the ears and he’s ready to flatten the kid’s head.”
“Come to think of it, he cut my hair once or twice, and I sort of avoided him after that. He tended to poke you with the scissors.”
“I’ll tell you this,” I said. “If I had something that the guy owning that shoe printed wanted, I might be inclined to give it to him. Help him carry it out to the car, give him a blow job, wipe his ass, give his car a push uphill.”
“That big, huh?”
“No. I just made all this shit up for your amusement.”
Leonard sighed. “Sorry. I’m beginning to think I was born under a bad sign… Do you think Raul’s dead?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the news the cops got. Maybe to them it’s looking like you did him in too. I’m not saying he’s dead, I’m just saying if he is, it’ll compound things.”
“Jesus, I hope he’s all right. And not just for my sake.”
“We’re jumping a lot of ditches here for no reason, Leonard. We don’t know anything. Not really. Charlie gave me the impression something was up, though, but I think now it was just the fact they were going to search here and he figured you might be here. He’s trying to help. Guess it was good I called him when I did.”
“Long as we’re speculating, though, I just thought of something. What if the bikers didn’t know Horse Dick was gay?”
“Who says they care?” I said.
“I’ll stand by it for the moment. Considering most people aren’t that liberal about homosexuality, and these guys are about as open-minded as a scorpion. It’s a fuckin’ Dixie No Nigger Bar, for Christ sakes. You think it’s No Niggers But Queers Okay?”
“You never know.”
“Yeah, well, let’s place bets. So if the bikers first heard about Horse Dick being gay from me when I knocked knots on his head and uttered my classic line about his fuckin’ around with my boyfriend, could be they got rid of him themselves. They figured I’d get the blame, and that way they could kill two birds – or two fags, if you will – with one shotgun blast.”
“That’s a possibility, I guess, but that doesn’t explain your house being tossed. My guess is the incidents may not have anything to do with one another. They just unfortunately came together at the same time.”
“Maybe,” Leonard said. “Now what?”
“I think you ought to continue hiding out in the woods. I’ve got a pup tent, some camping gear, and I suggest we put it together and you use it. I’ll find you at the Robin Hood tree when I get some word, or I need you.”
The Robin Hood tree was a massive oak. It reminded Leonard and me of the great oak in the Robin Hood tales, therefore its nickname. It was near my place, on property of Leonard’s, and it was out back of the house he still owned, but had boarded up until he finished repairing and selling the house he had inherited from his uncle. A chore that had turned into one of the labors of Hercules.
“I’m going to be at the hospital tonight and tomorrow night,” I said. “I don’t know I can slip out during the day or not. I do, I’m going to wind up owing so much money I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pay, and still won’t be able to.”
We put the gear together, along with the two comic books I’d bought, and Leonard took the stuff and melted into the woods. I’d have to get him a suit of Lincoln green. For that matter, I had a green suit I had bought at J. C. Penney’s. I could loan it to him. Make him one of those little Robin Hood hats out of green construction paper, rob a tail feather from a chicken, stick it in the hat. I could call him Little Leonard.
