“One thing,” I said. “Do you really have a .357?”
She reached under the couch cushions and pulled it out. “I decided I didn’t really need it.”
“That’s good. You don’t have kids here anymore, do you?”
“No,” she said, replacing the gun. “I decided after Caroline, and what happened to poor Albert, and now sweet Ronnie, that I had had enough. There’s only so much do-gooding a do-gooder can do.”
34
The rain had slowed considerably and the wind was no longer blowing when we went out on the front porch. I captured Mrs. Soledad’s chairs before we left, and she took them inside and then came back with something in her hand.
“I have a few of these, so you can have this one.”
I took it. It was a photograph of Ronnie, for reference. I didn’t mention that I had a DVD for reference. I thanked her, and Belinda and I went out to the car. Mrs. Soledad waved at us from her porch as we sat in the car, the motor running and the heater on.
We drove away from there, and after about fifteen minutes on the road, the sky turned clear. I shut off my wipers and we drove along until the sun came out and it turned hot. I turned off the heater. We stopped at a hamburger joint in a little town and ate lunch. Sitting there, eating our burgers and sipping sodas, I said, “What did you think about what Mrs. Soledad said?”
“I don’t think she told us the half of it,” Belinda said. “Caroline was probably worse than Mrs. Soledad could express. I actually think she was holding back.”
“I got the same feeling,” I said. “I think it was hard for her to come down on someone that way.”
“Yeah, that’s how I feel,” Belinda said. “But what I can’t figure is, where is Ronnie?”
“Think it could be like Ms. Soledad said—that whoever got Caroline may have gotten her too?”
“And what about the girl who’s missing now, the one whose boyfriend was hacked up?”
“Tabitha. Yeah. I thought about her too. No doubt in my mind, it’s all connected, and I think it may have to do with the Geek.”
I had told Belinda all about the Geek, and she took a moment to consider. She said, “It’s all like an ugly game. With puzzle pieces and clues, and blind alleys.”
“And red herrings,” I said. “Thing is, we don’t know it’s a game anyone’s playing. In the long run we may not learn a damn thing more than we know now.”
“That’s true,” Belinda said, “but we will have had an interesting road trip.”
35
When we got back into Camp Rapture, I took Belinda home. We enjoyed each other’s company, but I sensed that a little alone time for the two of us wouldn’t be a bad idea. Too much togetherness had begun to tug at us.
I went by the newspaper, which was closed, and used my key to get in and sat down at my desk and banged out a column that my mind was halfway invested in. When I was finished I e-mailed it to Timpson’s computer so that she’d have my column for next week.
When I went out to the car to go home, I thought I’d call Belinda, realized I had turned my phone off at some point and had not turned it back on. I brought it to life, and when I did, messages popped up.
One was from Jimmy.
I listened. He and Trixie were out of town, doing what he had told me he wanted to do. Mom and Dad had gone with them. They were going to be gone for several days. The message was simple and general and I assumed Trixie or Mom and Dad were nearby when he gave it.
The last message was from Booger. It just asked me to call.
I sat in the car for a moment, wondering if I should bother. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. I called.
“Hey,” a voice said. I knew it wasn’t Booger. He has a unique voice. But then again, so does Runt.
“Runt?” I said.
“Hey, punkin, how you doing down there in the wilds of East Texas?”
“Mixed report,” I said. “Thought I was calling Booger’s cell.”
“You are calling Booger’s cell. Well, one of them. I have another number for him, but he’s not answering it. He left yesterday, and left this phone with me. He sold me the bar for a dollar.”
“A dollar?”
“He does that now and again, so something happens to him, he says, it’ll be in good hands. I got a contract and everything. When he comes back, we tear up the contract and he gives me the dollar back. He thinks every time he goes out for a while, it might be his last time.”
“What if you didn’t want to give the bar back?”
“I always want to give it back,” Runt said. “He’s my compadre.”
“But if you didn’t?”
“Fireworks.”
I laughed. “I don’t doubt that. Where is he?”
“When he gives me the contract and I give him the dollar, it means he could be anywhere. He’s probably running whores in Oklahoma City, or Tulsa. That would be my guess. He might even be doing a cage match. He does that shit, you know?”
“No. I didn’t know.”
“Did do it, I mean. He got disqualified last time. Booger thought they really meant no rules. He poked a guy in the eyes and twisted the guy’s nut sack and bit off part of the fellow’s cheek. I think he got banned for life from cage matches, or some such shit. He said they had put him up in a hotel and given him a fruit basket, but after that little incident they locked him out of his room. He kicked the door down and got his clothes and the fruit basket. He’s nuts about oranges. I think he owes some kind of fine, which, of course, he’s unlikely to pay.”
“Booger is a man of mystery, for damn sure.”
“In your case, might be best you didn’t find out some of that mystery.”
“Well enough. You say you got another number for him?”
Runt gave me the number and I wrote it down.
“He misses you, boy,” Runt said. “For him, you’re the man.”
“I’ll buy him some flowers next time I see him, take him on a date.”
“You know what he really likes?”
“What would that be? Slow walks in the rain, puppy dogs and kitties?”
“Malted eggs. He likes oranges, but malted eggs, that’s his thing.”
“Malted eggs?”
“Like they sell for Easter. He’s like a nut for that stuff. One Easter weekend he put on five pounds eating that shit.”
“And I thought I knew a lot about Booger.”
“Nobody knows a lot about Booger,” Runt said.
I drove on home. I sat in the car out front of my place and flipped open my phone and dialed the number Runt had given me for Booger, let it ring as I got out of the car and went to the door. I had no sooner put the key in the door and turned the lock than I heard a phone ringing inside my house.
It was ringing in conjunction with the number I dialed, same timing.
I listened to it ring another time or two, went back to my car and got the .38 out of the glove box and went back to the door. I turned off my phone. The ringing stopped.
I pushed the door open and eased around the motorcycle there.
Sitting on my couch in his underwear with the open phone lying on his knee, a beer in one hand, a .45 in the other, grinning like he had just found a fifty-dollar gold piece, sporting a chest tattoo that said TIGHT NOOKIE IS
