“Let me start the coffee, then let’s go upstairs and see if you can make a hole in one before he shows.”
I let go of her. She turned off the coffee. She took my hand. We went upstairs.
Fore!
45
The case didn’t exactly die on us after that, but it went a little south for a while while we waited on Mercury to cross check things. Me and Leonard spent time at the little gym where we had a membership, and it was a cold place to be, as the heating wasn’t enough to warm up a mouse.
We were often the only people there. The owner was a big fat man whose only exercise was sitting in a chair near the door and taking money or, as in our case, checking memberships. The gym wasn’t pretty, but it served our needs. It had a heavy bag, which I hate, and a speed bag, which I love, and it had a good mat we could spar on and throw each other down on. I noticed that when I was thrown it hurt more than it had just a couple years back. Time seemed to have made the ground harder, even if it had a mat over it.
The cold made us train briskly, skipping rope, pounding the heavy bag, punching the speed. After that we sparred a little.
It was good and fun to work out with the weather going wonky, dropping uncharacteristically down to seventeen at night, and in the high twenties during the day. Weather like that, you had to keep moving. Even as we sparred our breath puffed little white clouds. It was odd weather for East Texas, the sort that came once in a blue moon.
We finished up by going over self-defense drills, doing them pretty rough, to make sure we weren’t slacking, then we did our groundwork, so we would be ready if we had to end up there, then we went into the cold shower room with our feet freezing on the tile, took hot showers not only to clean up, but to warm up, got dressed, and drove home.
When we got there, Cason’s car was parked out front with the engine running, the exhaust pumping into the cold air. After we parked, he climbed out, dressed in a bomber jacket and slacks and a shirt and tie. He held up a folder. “Mercury,” he said.
I invited him inside, sat him at the kitchen table with Leonard, and made some hot tea.
“How British,” Cason said, as he took his cup of tea.
“I see that dress code has kicked in,” I said.
“Yeah,” Cason said, “it has.”
“About the file,” Leonard said.
The file lay in the center of the table. Cason tapped it with a finger.
“Mercury cross-checked names, and there are people on the list that are kind of scary, including a nasty guy named Cletus Jimson.”
“Oh yeah,” Leonard said. “He’s a sweetheart.”
“You know him?” Cason said.
“We’ve crossed paths,” I said. “He doesn’t like us.”
“We’re often misunderstood,” Leonard said.
“Do you think Kincaid could have hired him to do it?” Cason asked. “Kill those folks?”
“Cletus doesn’t do that sort of work, he has it done,” I said. “I suppose Kincaid could have contacted him about a little help, though.”
“Jesus Christ,” Leonard said. “I hope it isn’t Vanilla Ride.”
“Who?” Cason said.
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Those other devil head murders. Ones up in Oregon and so on. When were they?”
Cason told us.
I said, “Those are too long ago for Vanilla. She’d have been in the womb. She’s not that old. And even if I add five or six years to what I think her age is, she’s still too young. I hope.”
“That’s a relief,” Leonard said. “I keep thinking we’ll see her again, and may not like it when we do.”
“I don’t think she and Jimson are on that good of terms,” I said. “Not the way I remember it. So, taking that fact and adding her youth to it, I think we can safely say, no Vanilla Ride.”
“Money and need make strange bedfellows,” Leonard said. “And I don’t think Cletus has forgotten us. He had these others killed for Kincaid… hell, maybe even June, and it all leads to us sticking our noses into his business, he might decide to put us on the list, and considering our past history, perhaps he’d do it with a certain amount of enthusiasm. But that’s private. You don’t need to know any more than that. He doesn’t like us.”
I nodded.
Cason had been watching us in a tennis-match fashion. Head first to one, then the other. “So, I’m sort of out of this part of the conversation,” he said.
“Yep,” I said. “We don’t want to explain that part of our past. But it’s possible Jimson did Kincaid a favor, if he got something big in return.”
“Should we talk to him?” Cason said.
“That could be tricky,” I said. “It’s like stirring up a snake. He’s sleeping all quiet like, hibernating maybe, and we go in there with a stick and twist him around with it, piss him off, and we are in for some shit when he may not have anything to do with this. So, we could get bit for nothing.”
“I got the impression you boys get bit a lot,” Cason said.
“That’s why we don’t want to get bit again,” I said.
Leonard looked at me, then looked away. He said to Cason: “I don’t mind talkin’ to him. We need to, we will. But is he the only one on your list? I think before we stir him up, we got to decide if these murders connect somehow with the murders in Oregon and the like. I think Jimson would kill his mother if he thought he could get a nickel for her bloody Tampax, but I don’t think he’d go out of the South. He’s sort of regional.”
“Yeah,” I said, “his territory is East Texas and western Louisiana mostly. I reckon he could do some business outside of this area, but I don’t know the business he’d do would be that sort of thing. He’s got his niche here. He’s got contacts and has the right people paid off, but up north, not so much would be my guess. What I think Jimson likes is being a big frog in a small pond. It’s his comfort zone.”
“Anyone else on that list suspect?” Leonard asked.
Cason nodded. “Couple others, but the thing is they aren’t that big-time. They’re little operations, and I got a feeling our killer, our Devil Red, is well trained and works for big money. That’s why I thought of Jimson. He’s much bigger time than the other two jokers.”
“Where are they from?” I asked.
“Midwest,” Cason said.
“Kincaid isn’t afraid to do business with bad people,” Leonard said. “Keep their taxes clean and fresh. So that makes it even more likely he would have been willing to make some kind of deal to get even for his son.”
“Maybe he just does their taxes and tells them how to save on weather stripping their homes,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” Leonard said.
“If Kincaid did arrange it, I’m not sure I blame him for wanting to get even,” I said. “Losing first a daughter to drugs, then a son to murder is bound to weigh on and mess up the mind-”
“Wait a minute,” Leonard said. “I just had a flash. Detectives like to call it inspiration.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What do you call it?”
“The drug-dead daughter,” Leonard said. “What do we know about her?”
“I think the whole she’s dead part about covers it,” Cason said. “Let’s look into it,” Leonard said.
“May I ask why?” I said.
“Yes,” Leonard said. “You can ask, but I got nothing to say about it yet. I may be full of shit.”
“All right,” Cason said. “We can check on her. I’ll get Mercury on it.”
