46
After Cason left, we called Marvin and asked if he could set up a meeting with Jimson. The whole thing about telling Cason we didn’t want to see Jimson really meant we didn’t want Cason in on it. We had a history with Jimson. All bad. We didn’t want to put Cason on Jimson’s doo-doo list.
We sat around for about an hour, then Marvin called us back.
“What’d he say?” I said, pressing my cell phone to my ear while standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the yard, the house beyond. It had turned off clear and the sun was out, but there was ice in little spots where the water ran out of the grass and collected along the concrete walk at that side of the house. If I was married to Brett and had a child, the most I’d have to think about today was maybe going to work and coming in to read the papers and play with the kid. It was a pipe dream, but I liked it.
“He said he didn’t want to see you,” Marvin said.
“That’s not nice.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but my iddy-biddy feelers are crushed to the bone.”
“Mine too, but that’s what he said. He also said eat shit and die.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Yeah. Actually, I didn’t talk to him. But the message from his associate, one of his bodyguards, was pretty much in that ballpark.”
I turned to Leonard. “Jimson doesn’t want to see us.”
“Then we should respect his wishes,” Leonard said.
47
Within fifteen minutes we were on our way to the little burg of No Enterprise. It wasn’t much of a place, a four-way stop with a string of buildings here and there, but for some odd reason, Jimson lived over in that area and did a lot of his business in a little service station that also had sodas and liquor and snack goods, had some tables in the back with some chairs, and sold hamburgers. Good burgers, bad fries. The pie was good too.
Jimson spent a lot of time there in the afternoons with his goons. If he wasn’t there, well, we’d have chocolate pie with meringue. If he was there, we’d probably have it anyway. Maybe a hamburger. Me and Leonard, we believed in living large. It’s just how we roll.
It took us a little over half an hour to get there because there were some low spots in the highway and water ran across those, and in this weather they had frozen, making an occasional shiny ribbon of ice across the road. Mostly it took us a while because Leonard had a new country music CD and he wanted to hear all of it before we stopped. He said, “They get rowdy, and I get killed, I like to know I heard all of it.”
“You’re dead, what does it matter?”
“It’s the idea of it,” he said. “I just want to know I consumed it all, at least once.”
“You’ve heard it before.”
“But it’s a different collection of the same songs. I like that they’re in a different order.”
“Jerry Lee Lewis singing country sounds pretty much like Jerry Lee Lewis singing country in any order.”
“Oh yes, and oh so good.”
I had to agree. He told me to shut up and played the CD.
We were both armed. I had my permit pistol, and Leonard had a sawed-off shotgun without a permit fitted inside his long coat. He flared the coat back, he could pull it out of there faster than you could blink.
When we arrived the cafe part was absent of Jimson and thugs. In fact, it was absent of any patrons. There was a guy at the counter, and when we sat down back there, he said, “You got to come up here to get menus.”
I got up and got us a couple of menus. I noticed there was a large jar of pickled eggs on the counter and a small jar with a kid’s photo on it and a request for money due to burns received in a car wreck. I put a buck in the can and took the menus back to where Leonard had picked seats. There was a door back there that was an emergency door. It didn’t open from the outside. Anyone came in, they had to come in the front door and come along the path between the counter and the tables to reach us. There was a wide row of glass to our left, but we were sitting at a table where I had my back against the wall, and had a bit of wall to protect me. Leonard was point man. Anyone came up, he could see them through the glass, and if need be he could cut down on them with that shotgun, start pumping out loads.
We ordered two hamburgers from the guy when he came over. He was a little nasty-looking for a man who worked as a cook. His fingers were nicotine stained and his teeth were the same. In fact, where the stains were missing, black decay had filled in between his teeth like dirt washed down from a hill.
Leonard said, “Two hamburgers, no fries, hold the hepatitis.”
“What?” the man said.
“I mean wash your hands. I like to think that’s nicotine, but for all I know it could be from you sticking your finger up your ass.”
“You guys leave,” he said.
“We work for the health department, mister,” I said. “I wouldn’t push it.”
He looked at me, said, “Show me your credentials.”
“We don’t carry any. We’re here to surprise people, not let them know we’re coming.”
“Credentials just show who you are,” he said. “I’m already surprised.”
“True,” Leonard said, “but you’ve got on my bad side. Go wash your hands.”
The man studied Leonard for a moment, figured quite correctly we weren’t with the health department, but he wasn’t really sure about throwing us out. Especially Leonard, who had a kind of lazy look that said “I’d love to kill you very much.”
“All right,” he said. “Two hamburgers.”
“After you wash your hands,” Leonard said. “And I even think or consider you might spit in my food or mess with it, I will personally see you get some big demerits. And on top of that, I will hold your face against the stove until it cooks your nose off.”
“No need to get nasty,” the man said.
“Your fingers are nasty enough,” Leonard said.
The man went away.
I said, “Leonard, why do you always try to make friends wherever we go?”
“Our man Jimson comes here all the time, so he’s got to tip Shit Fingers something or another now and then to use the space, and I figure whatever he tips him is big enough to buy some loyalty. I figure Shit Fingers is in the back there now, punching him up on the cell phone. I figure it’s a way to pull Jimson out of the Jacuzzi and get him on the road.”
“You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.”
48
Our hamburgers arrived, and about the same time we saw Jimson and two of his goon balls push through the door, start toward us. Leonard turned so that he was facing that direction. He had his hand inside his coat. Things went south, he’d have the shotgun up and ready. I put my hand in my coat and felt for the automatic, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I could use it, way I’d been lately. I hoped I could at least talk tough.
Jimson was a fortyish guy who looked as if he was trying to smooth his image with expensive clothes. He was wearing a tan fedora, a very nice brown leather coat over a maroon sweater, and tan slacks so tight you wanted to yell “snake.”
With him were two men that couldn’t look sophisticated if they were wearing tuxes and monocles. One of
