“I’m just too pooped to pop right now. I need some food, some coffee, and a blood transfusion.”
“You’re injured?”
“I’ve got a cut or two, but nothing serious.”
I had plenty of questions but decided for the moment it was hopeless. Leonard was too goony, hungry, and stinky to be around. I said, “Get off your ass and take a shower. I’ll run to town and get some food. You and I have some serious talking to do. And throw those clothes away. Wear some of my stuff.”
“I think not. None of your underwear’s got designs or colors, or, for that matter, room enough for my equipment.”
“I sure hate you aren’t going to have colored underwear. You got a date?”
“Not anymore.”
“Raul?”
“It’s a nightmare.”
“Leonard, you are in some serious shit.”
“Serious pig shit.”
“Look. Take a shower. I’ll be back shortly. But I do have one question.” I nodded at the twelve-gauge. “You haven’t shot anyone lately, have you?”
“No, but I’ve certainly wanted to.”
“Never mind right now. Listen up. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t answer the door. Don’t go anywhere and don’t shoot anybody. And don’t piss on anyone either.”
“I’ll do my best.”
6
When Leonard went into the bathroom, I took the sheets off the bed, folded them together, toted them to the trash can out back, and stuffed them inside. I got my keys and climbed in my truck.
The truck I loved had been lost in a flood in Grovetown, Texas, and my latest ride was a blue, ’79 Datsun pickup with a rust hole in the side. I didn’t love the Datsun, but at least I didn’t have to push it up hills. While I was offshore Leonard had made a point to come out and start it and drive it a bit to keep it running, and it hummed like a sewing machine.
I hummed it into LaBorde, cashed my checks, put some money in the bank, pocketed the rest, bought some groceries and cold medicine, got some food at Taco Bell, and drove back to the house.
When I got home the place had aired considerably, and Leonard, wearing my blue jean shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of my black jeans, was seated at the kitchen table with his legs crossed, wiggling one bare foot. He was drinking a cup of coffee. He looked a hell of a lot better than when I left him.
“You look like a black man again, instead of a gray man.”
“Well, I feel like an asshole. Hope you brought plenty to eat. I’m starved. Say, aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital? I mean, now that I notice, you don’t look so good yourself.”
“I got a cold.”
“You got out of the hospital for me, didn’t you, Hap?”
I told him what Charlie had told me. I told him about leaving the hospital. I told him Charlie was giving me a bit of time to sort things out.
“Goddamn,” Leonard said. “This has turned into one serious fiasco.”
“Thing is, it hasn’t gotten out of hand yet. Charlie’s keeping the connection between you and this biker’s murder to himself. But that won’t last. He’ll have to say something eventually, and who’s to say someone else won’t put it together? Once the connection is established, you better have a damn good idea what’s clickin’, and it better be plain as day.”
“I don’t know exactly what is clickin’.”
“Did you kill the biker?”
“I told you I didn’t shoot anybody. I didn’t even know the sonofabitch was dead until just now. You think I’d kill someone and not tell you?”
“I had to ask.”
“All right. You’ve asked.”
Leonard looked pouty for a moment or two. I said, “Start by tellin’ me what happened. You didn’t just decide to roll in pig shit, did you?”
“No. That was sort of a natural by-product of my adventure. And believe me, without you it just wasn’t the same. We’re like the Hardy Boys, you know.”
“No. I’m a Hardy Boy, and you’re Nancy Drew.”
“I’ll let that slide. Hap, when we were at the hospital, and I went out of the waiting room, I didn’t really plan to go anywhere. But the Doc was taking his time, and I thought, well, I’ll step out, get something to eat for us and come back. But it didn’t work that way. I drove off and couldn’t get Raul off my mind. The boy drives me crazy.”
“Aren’t we a little old for this kind of infatuation? All this huffin’-and-puffin’ shit?”
“I guess, but I got to thinking about him and drove out to the house. I thought he might be there. Had his fling with the biker, and maybe it was over and he’d come back. Wild thoughts, but that’s what I was thinking. Thing was, I didn’t know how I’d feel about him coming back if he did, but I wanted to see him again. It’s that simple. Little bastard had my nose open.”
“Want to open your nose, you should try pig shit. I have a cold, and that opened my nose right up. That mess on the carpet, you’re cleaning that.”
Leonard nodded. “What say we eat first, then go out on the back porch and talk?”
We finished the Taco Bell food, and I opened a can of tuna and a jar of mayonnaise, whipped a tablespoon of mayonnaise with the tuna and put it on bread. Leonard ate the sandwich and then another. When he finished, I made another pot of coffee and we went outside with cups of it.
The back porch wasn’t much. It was close to giving up the ghost. The boards were gray and fiercely weathered, but the view out there wasn’t bad. There was the dark East Texas woods, topped by the sky, which was a peculiar blue this day, made all the more beautiful by the golden brightness of the sun; the clouds flowed across it like lilies cast upon a great and tranquil ocean. Off to the right was a creek. You could hear the water gurgling, like a happy woman humming. There was a slight breeze. Outside you couldn’t smell the mildew, dust, and pig shit. Leonard talked.
“Stuff I was gonna tell you about me and Raul, it don’t seem like much now. Not after what’s happened. All I can say is things were falling apart. I guess I knew they would in time. We were just too different. He was a little too young for me, from another world really. Wanted someone didn’t like guns and boxing and martial arts. Someone more refined.”
“I hear the word refined, Leonard, I think of you.”
“You bet. But we weren’t doing so good, and he got so he wasn’t coming home like he should, and here I was staying up nights watching Dave Letterman and John Wayne movies, and he’d come in tired and cranky and short on explanation. Hell, I guess I knew he was fuckin’ around. But I love the guy, you know, so it blinds you. I thought maybe I was just being stupid jealous. Thought the trouble we were having was a stage we were goin’ through. I believed his shit about he was working-”
“Working?”
“Yeah. He finished hairdressin’ school. Kind of elite business. He was gettin’ into this deal they got now where the rich folks have the hairdresser come around to their place to do the work. Big money in that. Kind of like hiring a bartender for the night. Or maid service.”
“I didn’t know Raul knew a comb from a scissor.”
“It was a short course. Three months. He took it while you were out helping exploit the earth of its natural resources.”
“Go on. You were sayin’…”
“Well, things were tense, and the next-door neighbors were still pissed I’d burned their crack house down,
