“Yeah, and she shit herself,” Wilber said.
“Yes,” said Red, “there was that. Defecation. Most unpleasant. I was reminded of the chimpanzees I used to work with.”
“Had on a muumuu,” Wilber said. “It ran down her legs. Got on my hands, all over my pants and shoes. Had to throw them away. The pants, not the shoes. Shoes cleaned up all right.”
“It took us a good part of a half hour to finish her,” Red said, “and I bet that piano wire cut all the way to the bone, and still she struggled. I’ve never seen anything like it. The woman was a regular Rasputin.”
“And she just shit all over everything,” Wilber said.
“You said that,” I said.
“Seemed the more I tightened that wire, the more she fought,” Red said. “Wilber there, big as he is, couldn’t hold her down. When it was over, we were both exhausted. It was quite a rumble tumble.”
Red looked at Brett to see what effect he was having. Brett’s face held no more emotion than the revolver in her hand. I could see a flash of disappointment roll over Red’s face, but he covered it with a puff of his cigar. A cloud of dark tobacco smoke rolled up and gathered about his red head like smoke above a forest fire. Red leaned over and thumped his ashes in an ashtray on the nightstand next to the bed.
“You telling this so we’ll know how tough you are, or just because you like to hear yourself tell it?” I said.
“Both,” Red said. “And Maude has to do with Tillie, and that has to do with Jim, and finally with us, then you. I’m wanting you to know too, that though Wilber and I have had our disagreements with Jim, I think Jim is one heck of a good fella.”
“Ain’t no one nicer to niggers,” Wilber said. “He’s got lots of niggers work for him, and Indians, and that’s more than can be said for folks down this way.”
“Jim is quite advanced when it comes to equal opportunity employment,” Red said.
“He’s got some old niggers work for him too,” Wilber said. “He’ll hire an old nigger fast as a young nigger. ’Course, just for certain jobs.”
“Frankly,” I said, “Jim’s work relations don’t interest us all that much.”
Red nodded. We were all close friends now. “Big Jim does have his problems, however. Gambles too much.”
“He’ll gamble on anything,” Wilber said. “I’ve seen him bet on how long a guy’s dick would be. And that fella had to get it out too, and Big Jim, he could guess a thing like that.”
“But he isn’t homosexual, or anything like that,” Red said. “He just likes to gamble, and the wilder the gamble, the more he likes it. Always pays up when he loses too. ’Course, he don’t lose much. Big Jim’s a character. All in all, you couldn’t ask for a nicer more honest employer in this type of business.”
“Tell us about Tillie,” Brett said.
“Well, Tillie worked for Maude. She was one of Maude’s girls, you see. When we did Maude in, we put the old reprobate in a piano crate with about three hundred pounds of rocks to keep her company, drove her all the way to Arkansas and dropped her hefty self in a lake. We made it a kind of holiday, stopping to see scenic markers and points of interest along the way, though we drove over there faster than we drove back. She started to acquire an aroma about the time we got to the Arkansas line. When we completed the chore, we returned to Tulsa to see Jim. Jim was so pleased, he put me in charge of Oklahoma City and sent Wilber with me as a kind of enforcer.
“Let me say that the two of us merchandised more tail than Maude had sold in her lifetime. She had been holding out on Jim, but she hadn’t been doing anywhere the business she could have. We set up little safaris, had girls hauled across state lines, doubled our truck stop business, and set up new houses in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. We even had a traveling trailer we drove about Oklahoma, hitting the high spots. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to slip a girl into a rest home to help some old codger enjoy his last days. They’ll blow six months’ snack allotment for one good night with a woman. Some who hadn’t had an erection in years were astonished to discover they could manage quite nicely with the right stimuli.
“I’m sure our girls hastened a few deaths that way, but considering the alternatives, I doubt the old fellas really minded. Besides, when you’re seventy-five or so, after a full-course dinner and a slice of young tail, what else you got to look forward to?
“ ’Course, you got to bribe lots of interns and nurses and stuff, so it’s not quite as profitable as it should be.”
“About Tillie,” Brett said.
Red nodded. “The traveling trailer was, in many ways, our busiest little sideline. Your daughter was part of that recreational tour from time to time, Ms. Brett.”
“Then you were Till’s pimp these last few years?” Brett said.
“I suppose you could say that,” Red said, “though it doesn’t have quite the professional ring I prefer. I like to think of myself simply as a businessman, and Wilber here as the pimp.”
“Yeah,” Wilber said. “I’m the pimp. I keep the girls in line. I take care of the johns don’t want to pay, and if shit goes on some place I ain’t, we got … had … fellas took care of things for us.”
“We were doing quite well selling women,” Red said. “So we were able to give Jim almost double what Maude had been giving him, and still there was money, and, well, I hate to admit it, but greed got the better of us. We thought since Jim was making double what he was making before, he’d be happy, and not realize we were making almost as much as he was.”
“But he found out,” I said.
“I’m afraid so,” Red said.
“Man,” said Wilber, “we fucked up a sweet business.”
“Yes, we did,” Red said. “It became necessary that we depart. Some of Jim’s men paid us a visit, and but for
