“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Say you could figure out all the ills of the world, it wouldn’t stop them from happening. Humans suck.”
“When you’re right, you’re right. How was it in Arizona with Marvin and his family?”
“It blew. I like Marvin, hate his family. Gadget is a little bitch who not only needs rehab, she needs a daily beating and someone to cuss her for an hour every Thursday.”
“You’re open for that, aren’t you?”
“If it was a paying gig. What about Leonard and John?”
“You talk to him all the time. Why are you asking me?”
“I didn’t want to ask him about that. I thought it might make him sad.”
“But I can ask him?”
“You two talk about stuff like that, and you know it. What’s the skinny?”
“Not working out. Not yet anyway. They talk now and again. Leonard has his own place, not a motel room but an apartment. Just got it. Me, I’m not that hopeful they’ll work it out, but then again, tonight I’m not exactly full of cheer.”
“You have half of eighty thousand dollars,” she said. “A gift.”
“A little more, actually. Leonard split it right down to the penny.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“I keep thinking about where it came from. Women flat-backing and dumb asses mainlining, or whatever.”
“So it’s bad money you can put to the good for eating and renting this house and you also don’t have to work out in the weather for a while.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. A lot.”
Brett snuggled up close to me and rubbed my stomach. “You want to try again?”
“Not just now. I think he’s sleeping.”
“It’s okay. I love you even if you are a failure sexually.”
“Thanks. I needed that.”
“You know I’m joking.”
“Sure.”
“Now don’t brood. There’s always tomorrow morning. And afterward, I’m going to make waffles.”
We snuggled awhile, and then Brett fell asleep. I thought about Vanilla Ride and the way she had looked, the way she had marched around with that bandage across her stomach, and wondered if she had been hit worse than she let on. I had wanted to kill her badly, and now I wondered where she was and why she was what she was, and if Brett was right about me and Vanilla Ride being all that different. Down deep it seemed to me that at some point, me and her, we were exactly the same.
I lay there trying to sleep, my head turned, looking first at the dim outline of the photograph Brett had framed of me and Leonard and Cindy the Bear. It was on the nightstand. I rolled over and looked out the window. The moon had turned nearly full and it was very bright out and the light came through and fell onto the carpet and onto the end of the bed. I felt funny about that light, like if I stretched my foot out, it would move away. It was as if something inside of me had shifted and gone deep inside of myself, into the shadows, and no matter where I sat, stood, or lay, no light would, or ever could, shine on me.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe R. Lansdale has written more than a dozen novels in the suspense, horror, and Western genres. He has also edited several anthologies. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, seven Bram Stoker Awards, and the 2001 Edgar Award for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America. In 2007 he won the Grand Master Award at the World Horror Convention. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his family.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lansdale, Joe R., [date]
Vanilla Ride : a Hap and Leonard novel / by Joe R. Lansdale. —1st ed.
p. cm.
“This is a Borzoi book.”
eISBN: 978-0-307-27229-4
1. Collins, Hap (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Pine, Leonard
(Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. African American men—Fiction.
4. Drug dealers—Fiction. 5. Mafia—Fiction. 6. Texas—Fiction.
7. Adventure fiction. I. Title.
PS3562.A557V36 2009
813?.54—dc22 2009008821
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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