“What’s the gun for?” I asked.
“He’s the nervous type,” said the midget.
“What about you?” I said. “You nervous?”
“No, I’m not nervous,” said the midget. “Not as long as he’s got the gun. Y’all sit somewhere.”
Brett took a chair and I sat on the edge of the bed so I could see both guys. I said to the big guy, “You shoot that off, you got the noise to worry about.”
“I’m not that worried,” said the big guy.
“Drink?” said the midget.
Brett and I declined. Brett said, “One of you called me about my daughter.”
“That was me,” said the midget.
“Told me you had information and to bring money for it, and I have. Five hundred dollars.”
“We should have said a thousand,” said the midget.
“But you didn’t,” I said. “You said five hundred and here we are with it.”
“It’s all I got,” Brett said.
“And we don’t know what you got is worth five hundred dollars,” I said.
The big guy said, “It might not be worth five cents, but we can take the five hundred dollars anyway.”
I reached quickly behind my back, under my shirt, and pointed my gun at the big man. I said, “You might not.”
The midget laughed. “You know, you could be right.”
The big man wiggled the gun against his thigh like he wanted to lift it. I said, “Nope, nope, nope.”
“Easy does it, Wilber,” said the midget. “This man’s got a look in his eye. Like someone who might have grown up on cowboy movies.”
“Let’s just have you put the gun on the table there, away from your drink,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to confuse what you might be reaching for.”
The midget made with his odd laugh again.
Brett moved slowly and smoothly and her hand went under her skirt and came back out. She was holding the snub-nose. She pointed it at the midget.
“Oh, ho,” said the midget.
“Just in case you got a gun too, shorty,” Brett said.
“I got one,” the dwarf said, “but it’s in my suitcase.”
“I told you that was a dumb place to put it,” said the big man, placing his automatic on the table.
“Turns out you’re right,” said the midget. Then to me: “I thought you said a gun would make noise.”
“It will,” I said, “but like your buddy here, I’m not that worried about it. Now, you either got something to say, or you don’t.”
“We got plenty,” said the midget. “First, I’d like to say you got good legs, lady.”
“Thanks,” Brett said. “My day’s made.”
“I’d also like to know what these bugs are all about. Is this a consistent thing here in East Texas?”
“Every year about this time,” I said. “They’re not usually this thick. Don’t usually mate this long. Lots of them are supposed to signify a forthcoming bad winter or lots of rain. Might be both. Least that’s the folklore.”
“In Oklahoma we’re having quite a run on mosquitoes,” the midget said. “Big things. Very fat. They carry disease, you know?”
“We’ve got mosquito problems here too,” I said. “And roaches. And June bugs. And all manner of squiggly-shit bugs who have names I don’t know, but that’s all the entomology lesson you get today. Tell us what you got to tell, or we walk. With the five hundred dollars.”
“Walk, you don’t learn about daughterpoo,” said the midget.
“Yeah,” I said, “but we walk after I pistol-whip the both of you, and what the two of you learn is it hurts.”
“You look like a man would hit a midget,” said the midget.
“You betcha,” I said, and tried to sound convincing, the way Leonard would sound, because he was definitely a man would hit a midget, or anyone who fucked with him.
The midget touched his jacket, said, “I want to reach inside here, get a match and light my smoke. That okay?”
“No,” Brett said. “I don’t like it.”
“I talk better I got a smoke,” the midget said.
“I bet you can talk good either way,” I said. Then to the big guy: “I’m liking where that gun is less and less. Brett, you mind taking it?”
Brett leaned over and grabbed the automatic off the table and dropped it onto her lap. She held the .38 on the big guy now. The big guy looked at the gun in her lap, then at her face, then at her gun. He grimaced, and
