couldn’t look us in the eye, and her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother made us feel as though we were only begrudgingly welcome. We didn’t stay long. Brett, who had been there, was glad to leave; her ass whipping of Gadget hung over the household like a little dark cloud. We were given a rental the family owned that was empty. It was a condo with a little backyard next to other little backyards. There was limited furniture in the joint, just a bed, a couch, a table, and some chairs, and Leonard slept on the couch. On this day we were all sitting outside and the weather was cool but not too cold. We were wearing coats and sitting at a table, Brett and I close together holding hands. On the table were some empty plates that had recently held tuna fish sandwiches with apple cut up in them, heavy on mayonnaise, and there had been potato chips and coffee. I was sitting there enjoying the thought of what I had eaten, simple but good, and thinking about some of the vanilla wafers we had in the house.
“So, this hit person, she thinks you’re dead?” Brett said.
“For now. But before word gets out, we thought we might go see her in person.”
“You think you could hurt a woman, Hap … on purpose?”
“Hey, he punched Gadget,” Leonard said.
“You’re talking about killing her, though,” Brett said.
“Woman, man, shemale, they come after me with a gun, a knife, a pointed stick, I don’t like it. And I don’t want her coming around again. Thing is, she’s the best they’ve sent after us, and it’s only luck I’m here to hold your lovely hand.”
“And you didn’t get your dick blown off,” Brett said.
“That too,” I said.
“I consider that an important part of our relationship,” she said.
“As do I,” I said.
“You got it blown off,” Leonard said, “you’d be holding hands with a plastic love doll. Brett would be out of here.”
“Not true,” Brett said. “He’s still got a tongue.”
“That’s a little too much from the instructional manual,” Leonard said.
“Yeah, since when are you grossed out by anything?” I said.
“Since I’ve had a tragic near-death experience. Did you know, when I was knocked out on the ground out there, shrapnel in my shapely loins and lower stomach, I saw a white light, and I wanted to go to it, because when I got there, and if God was there, I was gonna whip his ass for what he’d let happen to us.”
Me and Leonard touched fists.
Brett leaned over and kissed me. Her eyes were misty. I said, “I’m fine.”
“We could stay here,” she said. “I could get a nurse job, you could find work. Arizona is nice.”
“Need those East Texas trees,” I said. “And besides, I couldn’t live with myself I didn’t find that bitch and put a bullet in her head. And yeah, I can do it, woman or no woman. I don’t want to live under the umbrella of her coming back. She thinks she’s safe and we’re dead, but I’m going to find her.”
“Ditto to that,” Leonard said.
“Can I go back with you?” Brett said.
“You do whatever you want to do, as always, but I’d rather you not. I think it’ll be easier you don’t. Leonard and I have been in this kind of thing before.”
“Maybe not just like this,” Leonard said.
“All right,” I said. “Not just like this, but we can handle ourselves, now that we know what we’re up against.”
“That didn’t sound all that convincing,” Brett said.
“Well,” I said, “I guess I’m not all that convinced. But I’d prefer you stay here, let us go after her.”
“What was she like?” Brett asked.
“We don’t know. All we know is what we told you, but when it comes to getting the job done, she’s something. The whole thing with Tonto, that probably happened so quick he was still getting his hard-on. And the way she wired that bomb up, she’s experienced.”
“Didn’t look that old, either,” Leonard said.
“No, she didn’t.”
“You have some idea how to find her?” Brett said.
“Yep,” I said, “I do. Let me ask you something—how’s Gadget?”
“You could feel the cold air back at their place, couldn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Marvin, he tried to make me feel welcome, but it got so I expected the women of the household to jump me. Except for Gadget. She had had her butt whipped soundly. I tell you, I was ready to take them all on, do a little head knocking.”
“You’re just the woman to do it,” I said.
“Damn right,” she said.
“You can stay here, alone?”
