“That costs serious money,” Marvin said.
“Maybe so,” I said, “but unless you’re going to lock her in a room and feed her soup through a straw while she’s tied down to a bed wearing a strait jacket, you got to find a way, man.”
“I know,” he said. “And I will. But I am worried about you guys. When I asked for help I was thinking about Gadget, and not much else. I should have known better. I did know better. All I could think about was her, and the only people I knew to ask were you. I knew it could have consequences for you, for all of us. But I had to get her out of there. Listen, I know two, three guys we could get for protection. There’s Jim Bob, and maybe that friend of yours, Veil.”
“I hope Veil doesn’t hear you address us as friends,” Leonard said. “He might shoot us all. As for Jim Bob, no need to stir him up.”
“And there’s another guy that owes me. He could help.”
We shook our heads.
“You fellas sure?”
“We been over this,” Leonard said. “We don’t need anyone, and you don’t owe us a thing. Besides, those guys today, they don’t want to mess with me and Hap again because we are two badass motherfuckers. Didn’t I tell you Hap threw a dog out a window?”
As I drove us away, I said, “Two badass motherfuckers?”
“Sound convincing?”
“It sounds like you have been watching too much
“Marvin has enough to worry about. We knew what we were getting into when we took the job.”
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
We chatted a bit about how we actually thought things would be okay. About how they were small-time goobers and they wouldn’t mess with Marvin either, ’cause there was no mileage in that.
By the time we got back to LaBorde, we had almost convinced ourselves that we were in fact badass motherfuckers. Had we felt any tougher, we’d have stopped by the side of the road to shit in plain sight and wipe our asses on dried grass with sticker burs in it.
12
By the next day things seemed to have gone back to normal. You know, the basics: killing another perfectly good day and knowing you weren’t going to get it back.
Brett was working at her nurse job, and I at a typically shabby day job at a construction site. Actually, it was a crummy two-day job picking up lumber and nails and all the stuff the major workers dropped. When I was hired, my boss, a black guy, told me, “You’re just one of the niggers, or wetbacks. Used to be they did what you’re doin’. I did what you’re doin’. Now you got to do it. That’s the job, take it or leave it. You’re late, I hire a beaner at half your price.”
I took it. I got paid by the day, and that was good. I still had a little money from another job I’d done that had to do with the sort of stuff Leonard and I excelled at. Intellectual work, like kicking someone’s ass up under their ears and convincing ourselves it was for the greater good. It was rough on the knuckles, bad on the shoes, and tough on the conscience, or at least it was on mine.
Anyway, in the money department, Brett and I weren’t rich, but we had most everything paid off and weren’t hurting. And, as always, another job would pop up. Also, Marvin was starting a private investigations company and Leonard and I had been promised work from him once he got that up and running. I couldn’t wait to peep in windows and take pictures of the wrong couples coming out of cheap motels.
I got off work and went home and showered the sweat off and read a little from a book by an author who didn’t use quotation marks and was scared to death his work might be entertaining. I gave up on the book and put it in the to-be-swapped pile for the used bookstore, went upstairs, and watched TV
There was some good History Channel stuff, and some Discovery Channel stuff on, but I watched a show about some dumb blondes who had access to a lot of money and didn’t do much of anything all day but plan ways to spend that money. I couldn’t take my eyes off the program. I told myself down deep they couldn’t be as dumb as they seemed and that there was something spiritual about them. I think their most spiritual aspect was their lack of clothing. Their benefactor was an eighty-year-old gray guy who walked around in a house robe and took Viagra so he could bang all three and sleep in the bed with them all at the same time. He was my hero.
When I heard the front door slam, I switched the channel. Brett was home. I found a history program about Genghis Khan. I had seen the program before and had enjoyed it. Seen it twice even, but by this go-round I knew Genghis was dead and he wasn’t coming back.
Brett came upstairs. She looked cute in her nurse’s uniform. Her flame-red hair had slipped out from under her cap and was hanging over one eye. She took off the cap and sighed and threw the cap on a chair. She came over and turned her back to me. I sat up on the bed and unzipped her dress. She wiggled out of it.
“I want to order pizza,” she said, “and then fuck like a couple of greased weasels.”
“My lucky day.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone and called the pizza place. I unsnapped her bra and played with her breasts while she called.
When she hung up, I said, “Bet we could do it before the pizza delivery gets here.”
“He’s ten minutes away,” she said. “What fun is there in that?”
“About ten minutes’ worth.”
“You are correct, sir,” she said. She rolled onto the bed and I took her in my arms and we kissed. “Will you wear the bunny slippers, baby?”
