“Say it,” Leonard said.
“I got you,” Tanedrue said.
“That’s good. And you know, this place … you ought to get some nice curtains, a little better lighting, one of those de-stinkers that plug into the ’lectric socket, a friendlier goddamn dog. This joint is fuckin’ depressin’.”
“You ought to see the dog shit in the back room,” I said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”
“Clean that up too,” Leonard said. “Goddamn dog don’t want to see that, wonder he hasn’t committed dog- acide. Better yet, set fire to this whole place and start over.”
“Your little white powder in the back,” I said. “I’m gonna have to get rid of it.”
I put Tanedrue’s automatic in my waistband without blowing my dick off, went back to the bedroom. I could hear Tanedrue calling out, “Don’t do it, man. There’s people gonna be mad and they’re so bad they make you two look like weenies. I ain’t jerkin’ you. Come on, man. We can work some kind of deal.”
I heard Leonard give Tanedrue a whack and then the guy went silent.
I got the bags one at a time and took them to the bathroom and used my pocketknife to cut them open and flush the contents down the toilet, which was a nasty little number with a dark ring inside the bowl that wasn’t some kind of design.
I could hear Tanedrue groan every time he heard the toilet flush. I kept at it until I was finished. I took a leak and washed my hands and came back and stood over him. Leonard was squatting beside him.
I said, “All down the crapper. Thousands of dollars’ worth of blow.”
“You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that,” Tanedrue said. “Them guys we work for, they ain’t got no sense of humor.”
“That may be,” Leonard said. “But a fashion tip. Them Scooby shorts, on a grown man, they aren’t that cool. Trust me.” Leonard sniffed at the air, looked at the guy on the floor without a shirt, wrinkled up his nose. “And maybe you ought to wipe that fucker’s ass.”
I looked down at Gadget. She was lying on her back, breathing deeply. She was wearing a tank top that barely kept her unfettered breasts in check and a pair of shorts that were cut so high and were so tight, if she yawned the damn things would have sucked up her ass. She was not bad to look at, though her eyes had dark circles like a raccoon’s around them. I had only hit her once, so I figured Tanedrue or one of his brethren had done the bulk of the knocking. My shot had given her a knot in the center of her forehead about the size of a turnip, so I too could be proud.
I got the .38, leaned over, and picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. She was very light, maybe a hundred and ten pounds. That’s great, Hap, you just punched out a little girl about half your weight.
I carried Gadget out to the truck and we looked around for their dog, just in case he was vengeful. But he was either on the other side of the trailer in a heap or had run off to join the circus. I hoped the latter. I liked dogs. I put Gadget in the backseat and Leonard got in the front and I drove us out of there. As we went, I saw the other dog, the yellow one, sitting beside the road. He turned his head to watch as we drove by.
Leonard turned to me, said, “Now, see. That worked out fine.”
“I hate you,” I said.
8
Leonard leaned back and looked over the seat at Gadget. He said, “She looks like some kind of angel got caught up in a fan.”
“I hit her,” I said.
“And boy did she have it coming.”
“I feel like a bully.”
“You had to do it.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“Had she been wearing a nose ring, would you have felt better?”
“Just a bit,” I said. “I really hate those things. Seriously tattooed arms would have helped too.”
Leonard grinned and shook his head. “You worry too much about things that are done, my brother. She’s taken beatings for no reason and you punched her because you wanted to keep your eyes in your head and get her away from those boneheads. Give yourself some slack.”
“Hitting women is not on my list of gentlemanly activities.”
“Well, whipping people’s asses and throwing their dog out the window might not be on the list either.”
“Yeah … well… At least I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“That’s right, point that out, put it all on me. But unlike you, I don’t feel guilty… Listen, man. You did what you had to do. And now we got to do something else. The .38 and dickhead’s automatic.”
We drove down some back trails and stopped by a little run of water that was just off the road and flowed out into the woods. The road was pretty messy and I figured if it rained harder it would be difficult to get down it, and even more difficult to get back out.
Climbing out of the truck, Leonard got some gloves from the toolbox fastened to the bed and wiped the .38 clean and threw it into the woods, into the shallow water there. He took the automatic and did the same.
We got back in the truck and I got back on the main road. “They find that stuff,” Leonard said, “it don’t mean a thing. We didn’t own the automatic. And your .38 was as cold as the cunt between a dead nun’s legs … Hey, Gadget. She’s coming to.”
Gadget sat up in the back and I watched her in the rearview mirror. She had a hand to her head. Right where I had hit her. “You hit me,” she said.
