“So I am,” Jim Bob said. “Well, this Stevens, his boy come down here to go to the university. Damnedest thing was they sent him here to get him out of the big city, thought he’d be nice and safe here. Neither one of ’em knew Custer liked to suck dicks. Anyway, Stevens had a chum down here named Richard Dane. Few years back I did some work for ole Dane, and Dane recommended me to Stevens.”
“You get around, don’t you?” I said.
“I certainly do,” Jim Bob said. “There ain’t hardly a town in East Texas I ain’t worked in one way or another. There’s people all over the place got problems, and I’m a problem solver.”
“You left out what this Dane recommended you to do,” Leonard said.
“Well, this boy, Custer, he come down here and got in with boys liked to do the brown-eye express, and pretty soon he’s hanging out in the park shoppin’ for goober. He meets a guy, and this guy takes him into the middle of the park, then a bunch of guys jump out, beat him up, knock Custer’s teeth out, make him do a circle suck and a goober jerk for about fifteen minutes.”
“And they put it on film,” I said.
“Exactly. Custer decides to phone his parents about the fact he’s a Hershey highway kinda guy, tells them what happened. They get all bent out of shape about his sexual preference, but when they drive down to see him, see the beatin’ he’s took, hear about the video, they forget all that shit and do the right thing. They go to the police. They talk to the chief. He gives ’em a line of shit, but they can tell pretty quick-like he don’t give a fuck about a fag and they get vibes he thinks the whole thing serves the boy right.
“To shorten it up, the boy leaves school, goes home, and they wait for justice. And wait. And wait. Chief ain’t do’n dick. He’s shufflin’ some papers. Now, Richard Dane comes in. He’s in contact with Stevens, and he’s the one recommended the boy go to college here in the first place, so Dane, he feels guilty. He tells Stevens I done some work for him once came out satisfactory, and he might want to hire me to snoop around. Stevens hires me. I know Charlie on the department from a little job a year back. I call him, drive down to visit. Charlie helps where he can, but it ain’t much. He tells me about the other beatings in the park. All of them swept under the rug by the chief, so I start poking my nose around and this fella McNee keeps comin’ up.”
“Horse,” I said.
“That’s the one,” Jim Bob said. “I check out the park, this guy’s always around. There’s gay action, this guy’s around. You wouldn’t believe how many propositions I got from goober grabbers while I was doin’ this.”
“You don’t hear me propositionin’ you,” Leonard said.
“Yeah, well, it was just the good-lookin’ ones,” Jim Bob said. “I was flattered, but I don’t swing that way. But hell, I played the game a little. There was even one with a fat ass and a funny hat I might have had a fantasy or two about.”
“Cut the shit,” Leonard said. “Get on with it.”
“I’m doin’ this for a while, then this Raul shows up. He’s with Horse. I start seein’ him around. It don’t mean nothin’ until I go to the park one night with my standard queer duds on-”
“What are standard queer duds?” Leonard said. “Do I look like I got on standard queer duds?”
“Well, I don’t know what you got on underneath,” Jim Bob said.
“You’re startin’ to fuck with me,” Leonard said. “I don’t like it.”
“Like it or don’t like it,” Jim Bob said. “There’s a way most of them fellas dress. I ain’t puttin’ ’em down for it, but they dress a certain way, ’specially if they’re tryin’ to get their cable up a butt. I dressed way I seen them dress. And it worked. So there.”
Leonard leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. He looked as if he could eat ground glass and chew nails.
Jim Bob said, “I’m tryin’ to connect with these fucks beat up Custer Stevens, so I’m roamin’ the park day and night, and one night this fella, a good-sized fella, comes up to me and makes with the come-on.
“I’m thinkin’, now, if this guy just wants to play and I lead him on, I’m gonna feel kinda silly when it gets to the part where I’m supposed to swing my rope, but I play along, and this guy leads me to a spot, and these guys come out of the bushes on me. I had to give a couple of them an attitude adjustment with my blackjack.”
Jim Bob suddenly produced the blackjack from his back pocket and slapped it into his palm. “Couple of shots from this and it’s lights out and a headache in the mornin’. Them fuckers bolted. When they did, I seen there was someone else runnin’, some fuck in the bushes. I chased after him. He had a video camera. I was closin’ on him when this guy – one led me into ambush in the first place – caught up with me and jumped me. It was the fella I shot to hell last night. White guy with the moon craters. I wrestled that fuck all over the park, got him in a step- over-toe hold, and cranked on that baby a while.”
Jim Bob replaced his blackjack, sucked more beer, continued.
“By this time his buddies, ones weren’t unconscious, got their shit together, and one of them had a gun, and I hadn’t brought mine, and I knew that was my cue to go to the house. So I darted, and they let me dart. I made it to my car, and what do I see as I’m jettin’ away from the park? The guy with the video camera, and he’s gettin’ on the back of this Harley, and ole Horse is drivin’, and you got one guess who this video man was.”
“Raul,” Leonard said.
“On the nosey,” Jim Bob said. “They were videotapin’ this shit for their pleasure. Or, to be more precise, for money.”
“Raul was the cameraman?” I said.
“You betcha,” Jim Bob said.
I watched Leonard’s face do a series of moves, then settle.
I turned back to Jim Bob. “Did you know these tapes were going underground to video stores?”
“Having encountered similar things before,” Jim Bob said, “I sort of put it together. And it didn’t take a genius to figure the folks I had my little tadoo with in the park were the ones beat the Stevens kid up and that Horse and Raul were connected. I followed them. And later I followed them some more. Sometimes one, sometimes both.”
“I guess all that watchin’ got you connected to me and Hap,” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” Jim Bob said. “And I found out Raul went out to King Arthur’s place to cut hair, and later to his plant. And then all this shit starts comin’ down, and I get to puttin’ it all together, tryin’ to make a case I can give the cops, and guess what. I lose track a bit, next thing I know Horse gets his head blown off and Raul disappears.”
“And what did our intrepid investigator deduce from all this?” I asked.
“I figured Leonard done ’em both in. I figured I had to follow that part of the story too, you know, construct the whole picture. So I come here and I see you come out of the house, Hap. I been spot-checkin’ you two ever since. You got good taste in nurses, Hap.”
“Leave her out of this,” I said.
“Nothing raw meant,” Jim Bob said.
“Charlie knew all this?” Leonard asked.
“Nope,” Jim Bob said. “I didn’t keep Charlie informed. I got the original info from him, then I was on my own. I didn’t even know he knew you two until after Horse bought his ticket. I seen him talkin’ to you then. And I talked to him yesterday some.”
“When did you decide I wasn’t the killer?” Leonard asked.
“When the cops decided you weren’t,” Jim Bob said.
“But still you followed?” I said.
“That’s right,” Jim Bob said. “I didn’t know exactly what I was followin’, but I was followin’. I was checkin’ other leads too. You guys weren’t the only ones. You’re lucky I was followin’ last night.”
“And why were you?” I asked.
“I thought it was time you and me met, talked,” Jim Bob said. “I realized we were after the same thing – folks behind all this shit. I thought I’d talk to you, then Leonard. I was on my way to your place when Big Man Mountain passed me in the Impala and I seen you in the back. And you didn’t look like you were on your way to the skatin’ rink. I turned around, followed, and you know the rest.”
“Bottom line,” Leonard said. “What’s this all about?”
“What do you figure?” Jim Bob said. “I’ve showed you mine, now show me yours.”
Leonard looked at me. I nodded. Leonard said, “We figure King Arthur has some thugs who are stealin’ grease, and Horse gets in with these thugs as an undercover cop. He takes some secret video of King Arthur’s men
