jump over it, you fall in it. It’s a knack, brother.”
“Poor Beatrice,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Poor Beatrice. And poor Ferdinand. I wonder about him.”
We had warned the Mexican authorities that Ferdinand’s life might be in danger as well, but again they gave us the Easter Island treatment. It was the same when we told them about Billy’s friends. That was about as exciting to them as egg salad.
“If Ferdinand is alive,” I said, “you don’t think he thinks we did it, do you?”
“Naw. Hey, Billy Boy.”
Billy, who was sitting against the wall with his head hung, looked up.
“Go over there and put your goddamn nose in the corner. I’m sick of looking at you “
Billy went, stood with his nose in the corner like a child.
“When I judge fifteen minutes, I’ll let you out of the corner,” Leonard said, “but don’t you fuckin’ look at me, you hear?”
“Yeah,” Billy said.
“Change that to Yes sir, Mr. Pine, sir, or you ain’t even imagined the beating you’ll take, you piece of shit.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Pine, sir.”
“Now you’re cookin’ with gas.”
We were sitting close together on Leonard’s bunk, talking quietly. I said, “You don’t think Billy did it, do you?”
“No. I think he got thrown out the night before, just like he said. He didn’t get the lovin’ he thought he was gonna get, and the next mornin’ he was still mad, and when she didn’t answer the door, he thought you were casting your harpoon, so he got the gun and came to scare you.”
“But you scared him.”
“I did. But, if you had answered the door, you would have scared him. Maybe not as good as me, but good enough.”
Next afternoon Charlie arrived with Jim Bob Luke.
Charlie had gotten rid of the straw boater and had gone back to his porkpie. He was also wearing a Hawaiian shirt as usual.
Jim Bob is a private investigator and hog farmer out of Pasadena, Texas. A friend of Charlie’s. He saved my life once.
He was wearing a blue western shirt with silver snaps, jeans that looked as if they had seen a lifetime of rodeos, and a white hat, creased, the brim turned up sharply on both sides. He had a little feather in the hatband and a toothpick in his mouth. The hatband was made out of rattlesnake hide and it still had the head on it, but he probably could have done without it.
He came and peeked at us through the bars.
“Damned, if this ain’t the Ritz-Carlton, and you boys are uglier than I remember.”
“And you’re just as sweet as I remember,” Leonard said.
“Gettin’ lots of hog pussy, Jim Bob?” I said.
“Just if they get muddy,” Jim Bob said. “That’s the way I like it. They twist them little curly tails and it’s all I can do not to cream my jeans.”
“You’re a sick sumbitch, Jim Bob,” I said.
“I tell you,” Jim Bob said, “you boys got a way of gettin’ your dicks between the ground and a horse hoof, don’t you?”
“Hap does. And I suffer because of it.”
“Leonard, you’re a fuckup that’s got an excuse,” Jim Bob said. “Without Hap, you’d fuck up on your own. It’s just you boys’ nature. I know. I’m the same way. Damn, it smells like a goddamn fart in here.”
“They feed us a lot of beans,” I said.
Charlie hadn’t said a word. He took off his porkpie hat and slapped it on his thigh for some reason. His face wore the look of a very tired man or maybe just one who wished he had a better class of friends.
“I’ve got Veil in the other room talking,” he said.
“No shit,” I said.
“No shit,” he said.
Veil had helped Leonard once after he burned down a crack house. His defense was basically Leonard thought he was exterminating rats by destroying it. It worked. Leonard got away with a warning. If there was anyone who could legally get us out of this thing, it was Veil.
Veil wasn’t a big guy, average height, black hair gone gray, a slightly Mediterranean look, one good eye, the other covered with a black pirate patch. He had the demeanor of someone who could roll strikes in a bowling alley with his nuts.
“What’s Jim Bob doing here?” Leonard asked. “I mean, I’m glad you might have brought him along to hold my dick while I pee, but what else is he good for?”
“My hogs speak highly of me,” Jim Bob said. “Except for the ones I take to the packin’ plant. I reckon their opinion of me lowers dramatically about then.”
“We thought there might be trouble getting you out,” Charlie said, “so I brought Jim Bob. He kind of likes trouble.”
“Don’t say that,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t like trouble. I just know how to deal with it… All right, I sort of like it.”
“Well, I don’t,” I said. “Get us out of here.”
“What about him?” Charlie said, pointing at Billy.
“He’s on his own.”
“Friends he had with him seem to have bailed,” Leonard said.
“He guilty of anything?” Charlie asked.
“Birth,” Leonard said.
Jim Bob, Charlie, and Veil took a room at the hotel, and Veil did his thing. Arguing with the law via translator. I thought with Veil on the case we’d be out that afternoon, but we weren’t.
Billy, who was free to take his nose out of the wall, said, “You know, I didn’t mean to start it off so bad with you guys.”
“Sure you did,” I said.
“All right, but I’m sorry now.”
“I’m sorry I ever met you,” Leonard said.
“Likewise,” Billy said. “I’m sorry I ever came to Mexico.”
Leonard said, “I’m sorry my best friend, my brother, talked me into a fucked-up cruise, got me left in Mexico, stabbed, and then into this shit. That’s what I’m sorry of.”
“Maybe if we’d taken another cruise line,” I said.
“Look,” Billy said. “I just want to get straight with you guys. I didn’t do this to Beatrice. I wanted to fuck her, not kill her.”
“You have such a way with words,” I said.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m not silver-tongued, but I got a few dollars. I’ll get out of this.”
“You’re so rich, how come your lawyers aren’t all over this?” I said. “I got my lawyer on it, and I’m not rich.”
“Hey, you’re a hero,” Leonard said. “Remember? You got money in the bank.”
“It’s dwindling,” I said.
“It’s my father,” Billy said. “He’s making me suffer a little. He thinks I need to learn a lesson. I know him. I know that’s what he’s doing. I called him, had to leave a message. He could maybe be out of the country, though. So, would you please call him for me if you get out first?”
“Say you’re a chickenshit cocksucker,” Leonard said. “You hear me?”
“All right. I’m a chickenshit-”
“That’s enough,” Leonard said. “I just wanted to know you’d do it. Give me the number.”
“Can we bury the hatchet?” Billy asked. “Well, maybe that’s not what I should have said, considering
