Honky Tonk Samurai (Hap and Leonard) (13 page)

I
won’t lie to you, next few days I was jumpy. I had a snub-nosed .38 revolver that I gave to Brett to keep in her purse, and I kept the same kind of gun in my glove box, and in the house I had a twelve-gauge Remington handy. I had another stashed in the attic. There were shotguns tucked into the closet at the office. Leonard was armed as well. I always felt like a hypocrite with all those guns, and I was. I hated them, but once you felt their power, they owned you to some extent. I disliked being owned by machinery.

Frank, if she had checked the car I rented as a decoy, and had a few contacts, it wouldn’t have taken her long to figure out who rented it and connect me to it, which connected Brett to it, if just peripherally. And Frank probably figured out who Leonard was, too, being as how there was no winter petunia tour, and the Internet probably revealed everything but our shoe sizes. If the car lot people were as sneaky at business as they seemed to be, as wealthy as they appeared, they could get things done, not only in finding us, but hurting us, if they were willing to go that far. When it came to bad criminal business, a few dollars and a hard piece of wood upside the head or a loaded gun works a lot better than a smile and a kind word most any day.

Few early mornings later, a weekend, I was in the kitchen reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. Our local paper was now about the size of a grocery pamphlet. It had an online presence as well, but I missed holding a heft of news sheets in my hand. I loved newspapers, and they seemed to be a near-lost business. News had become primarily a bunch of folks quarreling on TV and giving opinions about the news even before it happened. The actual news itself was hard to seek out.

I was thinking on all this because I was reading the newspaper for my entertainment, but the last few mornings Cason let me come over to his newspaper office and see the papers in the morgue—those that had been copied to their computer. Camp Rapture, where he worked, had as much news about LaBorde as LaBorde did, and I thought it might be wise to get their take on our news.

Leonard had taken the mission to look through the records at our local newspaper, telling them he was doing some research for something or other, which in a way he was. But we thought saying we were looking for clues of a prostitution-and-blackmail ring and a serial killer who cuts off balls might not be something to spread around. He did this while I was at Camp Rapture. What we were specifically looking for were articles, bits and pieces here and there about certain murders, that would substantiate what Weasel told us. Other murders of a similar nature, that sort of thing.

So far Leonard hadn’t found anything in our local papers that I hadn’t seen, and none of what I had seen seemed to matter. I had burned out looking through the Camp Rapture records and was, as I said, home that day, having my coffee and contemplating if driving over to Camp Rapture again was even worth it. Seemed to me I would have heard of those murders Weasel told us about, and if I hadn’t, there would at least be some reference to them in the newspapers five years back.

Nada.

Could something like that be kept secret?

I called Marvin and left him a message, was waiting for him to call back. I was trying to keep him and the police out of it as much as possible, at least at this point, but I figured desperate as we were, it might be time to drag him in, if only for information he might have available to him that we didn’t.

I called Cason next. He told me where Weasel lived, and after I had finished the paper and was sipping another cup of coffee, I decided not to go to Camp Rapture. I called Leonard, and he came over.

Me and him drove over to Weasel’s joint for a closer talk. He was most likely long gone, but if he wasn’t, Leonard suggested we start breaking his fingers off in his ass until we got some real answers. Leonard had the frame of mind now that Weasel wasn’t giving us rumors but was in fact shining our ass a little. Giving us some real information but holding back things we needed, things he knew but wasn’t saying. I didn’t have an opinion on the matter. Truth was, going to see where Weasel lived, hoping he might not have gone north yet, was something to do other than look futilely through old newspapers. I liked my fresh morning paper, but those made my nose itch.

Weasel’s place was a duplex. There were some standard box houses on both sides of the street. His apartment was upstairs. The bottom apartment seemed uninhabited. Windows were knocked out of that one, and there were no curtains and no sign of occupation. The duplex was the only one on the short block divided from the box houses by tall untrimmed hedges on either side, and there was a car parked out front. It was an old Ford that looked to have been bullied by other cars on the highway. There were dents, and the windshield was cracked in a spiderweb pattern, and it was plastered green and yellow with bugs that had chosen the wrong flight pattern. The tires were a little low. The trunk had been closed poorly, and a black rag dangled out of it.

We climbed to the top floor of the duplex and knocked on the door. No one answered. We gave it a good banging with our fists and worked the doorbell, which didn’t work at all. That brought us back to more door banging with the same lack of results.

As we came down the stairs a black cat came out of one of the lower duplex’s missing windows, jumped to the ground, then eyed us like we might be trespassing on his property.

Leonard said to the cat, “Get your goddamn windows fixed.”

It was late morning by then, but no one seemed around in the yards or looking out windows. The area struck me as the sort where people minded their own business in case your business might be bad business they didn’t want to know about.

Driving away, I called Cason and described the car we saw. He was the one who introduced us to Weasel, so I hoped he knew a little about him and the wreck he drove. When I described the car, he said it indeed was Weasel’s wreck, but he thought it might have been something he’d leave behind. It was about twenty years old, and besides needing an oil change, probably had a lot of miles on it.

We went back to my place. Leonard dropped me off and headed for the LaBorde newspaper. He figured he had to take advantage while they were still friendly enough to let him sit in a chair in their morgue room and read the papers on computer and microfiche.

I went straight back to the kitchen table and resumed drinking coffee, decaf now, because I had swigged so much pure black coffee over the last few days I was almost dancing everywhere I went.

Sitting there at the table, thinking on these matters again, I came up with nothing. Brett, who had been sleeping in while Leonard and I had been out, came into the kitchen. She was wearing one of my long shirts, an old paint-stained one that she sometimes slept in. It wasn’t pretty, but she made it look good, way her legs showed.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she said, “What you thinking?”

“Weasel’s full of shit.”

“Jim Bob verified some of what Weasel said.”

“I know. But still, though there may have been some truth in there, nothing he told us shakes out. Not in the papers; no word of it anywhere.”

“You may not be thinking this through,” Brett said.

“How’s that?”

“He said one body was down at the Sabine, or the Trinity, and one near a railroad track. He wasn’t specific, didn’t seem sure about any of it, not even sure which river was involved. I got the idea he knew the stories, but none of it first-or even secondhand. That could be the rumor part he was referring to.”

I let that sink in.

“Could be,” I said. “But I’d have thought something as bold as a killer taking someone’s balls and cutting their throat and leaving them out to be found would have shown up in the papers, even if it didn’t happen right around here.”

“Maybe, and maybe not,” she said. “Still, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Weasel is oily, but I don’t think even he is that good a bullshitter. He seemed legitimately scared of this guy.”

“Lying is his stock-in-trade, dear,” I said.

Brett nodded. “Yeah. I guess at this point we’re just circling the airport. So maybe we ought to get on with it, see if we can land this baby.”

Someone knocked on the door. Since what Jim Bob had told us was more than a little fresh on our minds, I was cautious about answering it. I went to the kitchen cabinet and opened the drawer and took out a little flat automatic I had put there since Jim Bob and Weasel had warned us. It was small-caliber and didn’t have that much stopping power, but it was something. I still had the revolver, but I liked to keep it in my glove box.

I eased to the window by the side of the door, edged back the curtain, and looked out. A young woman I judged to be in her twenties was standing there. She was very pretty, with black hair and dark skin, long-legged in blue-jean shorts, wearing red tennis shoes. She had on a loose shirt, black with red and blue parrots on it. She didn’t look like a Jehovah’s Witness.

I put the automatic at the base of my spine and pulled my shirt over it and walked over to the door. Buffy, who had been on the couch, got off of it and strolled over. Even she was curious.

I opened the door.

The girl stared at me. She reminded me of someone. A battered old brown Cadillac was parked at the curb.

She said, “Are you Hap Collins?”

“Yes.”

“Funny. I thought you’d be taller.”

“Okay. Do I know you?”

“Not exactly. What a pretty dog.”

“She is, yes.”

Buffy had eased out the door and was sitting now, looking up at her. The girl patted the dog, and Buffy liked it.

She looked up and studied my face. The way she looked at me, I don’t know if I can describe it. Wistful. Hopeful. Scared. Nervous. All of the above.

“Do you remember May Lynn Gomez?”

I did. We had dated awhile after the divorce from my first wife. She had been divorced, too. We pleasured each other, mostly, and it wasn’t exactly much of a relationship. She had been a fine-looking woman with a lot of problems. Other than her beauty and those problems, I didn’t really remember all that much about her.

“Yes,” I said.

“She has died,” the girl said.

“I’m sorry to hear it. Are you Chance?”

Brett came to the door, said, “Hello, dear.”

“Miss Sawyer.”

“Call me Brett. Dealing with getting older is not working out as well as I thought it would.”

We stood there in the doorway looking at Chance. Nobody spoke. Nobody barked. Buffy slowly wagged her tail.

“Mom thought I should look you up.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Mr. Collins…Hap. You’re my dad.”

Y
ou could have pushed me down with a hummingbird fart.

Almost. I actually remained on my feet, though a bit stunned and confused.

Brett said, “Come in, Chance.”

Chance came in. She looked so much like her mother, though taller, and with a different sort of movement.

When Chance was inside and Buffy had followed, I found enough of my brain to remember the door needed closing. I did that, then wandered along with her and Brett into the kitchen, where Brett asked her to sit down at the table. Buffy trotted into the kitchen with them, lay down near her food bowl by the stove.

Chance sat and folded her hands together on top of the table.

I sat down across from her.

Brett said, “Have you had breakfast, hon?”

“No, ma’am. But I’m okay.”

“No problem to fix you something,” Brett said.

“It’s all right,” Chance said.

“No, really. No problem. Right, Hap?”

“No problem.”

“Okay, then. I guess I am a little hungry.”

“Hap, fix her something,” Brett said.

I looked up at Brett and smiled at her. Then I looked at Chance.

“What would you like?” I said and gave her some offerings.

She decided on toast and coffee and scrambled eggs. While I fixed those, Brett talked to her in a general way, things like where are you staying, simple stuff. I listened as I cooked. Chance said she had been living out of her car. I liked the way she talked. She sounded East Texas, but there was a kind of smoothness to her manner and movements, and I could sense a wounded confidence, like a tiger that had survived a gunshot wound.

I put breakfast in front of her, said, “Eat first, then we’ll talk some more.”

I poured Brett and myself coffee, then sat down at the table. I glanced at Brett. She glanced at me. I felt shell-shocked. Could it be true?

I studied Chance. She was about the right age, midtwenties. And she sure looked like May Lynn. Had beautiful coffee-colored skin. I remembered May Lynn saying something about being Hispanic, and what was it? Choctaw? I didn’t remember exactly. Frankly, we hadn’t been that close, except in bed. But the question wasn’t if May Lynn was her mother. The question was, was I her dad?

Chance finished eating and sipped at her coffee. She had been polite and careful as she ate, but it was clear she was hungry.

“Me and your mom, we only dated a little while.”

“I understand when it comes to sex,” Chance said. “It only takes the one time.”

“True enough,” I said. “But it’s been years. Why now? Why didn’t she come to me earlier? What did she die of?”

“Lot of questions pretty fast,” Brett said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“She didn’t blame you for anything,” Chance said. “She had sex, she got pregnant, the two of you moved on, and she never told you. She said the two of you hadn’t been that close.”

“Except for at least one time,” Brett said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Chance said. “There was that one time.”

“It wasn’t quite that simple,” I said.

“The drinking. She said that’s what did it. You liked her, but she drank, bad.”

“She had problems with the liquor,” I said. “Nice lady. Except when she drank. We never truly became an item.”

“She always loved me and treated me well.”

“I’m glad for that,” I said.

“She quit drinking for a while. I had a passel of unofficial stepdads. Not legally, but she lived with different men. She wasn’t strong. She drank a lot, and so did the men, but they came and went. It was really just me and her, and then she drank so much it ate her up inside and she died. She left me what she had. Five hundred dollars in the bank, her lifetime of savings, and then there was the car and a bicycle. Thank goodness the Cadillac is big enough to sleep in, though it hardly runs. A 1975 model. She bought it used, and it got really used after that. I also got a box of belongings in the trunk of the car. I pawned the bicycle.”

“So May thought you were my daughter?”

“She didn’t think, she knew.”

I nodded, not really knowing what else to do. I looked at Chance even more carefully. She looked like May Lynn, but I was starting to see myself in her face—little things, like the mouth and nose. Or maybe I was just reading that into place because I thought she might in fact be my daughter.

I sipped some coffee I didn’t want, searched for words, and didn’t find any.

Brett said, “Honey, here’s the thing. If you are Hap’s daughter—and I’m not saying I doubt you; you look a little like him, but you know, to be sure—we need to take a paternity test. It’s the right thing to do, just to prove what you and your mother believe to be true. Because if it isn’t, then you need to know that, too.”

“Mother was certain,” Chance said. “She said there was only Hap, and then she was pregnant, so it was him unless it was immaculate conception.”

“Of course, but she may not have judged everything correctly,” I said. “I mean, at some point there were others, your stepdads. There could have been someone else. And besides, she said she was on the Pill.”

“She was. It was that rare, rare chance when something that shouldn’t happen does, in spite of the Pill. It’s nearly one hundred percent, but not quite. Mr. Collins, I’m not asking you to be a dad, not asking you for money. I just wanted to see you. Have some idea what you look like, how you are. I researched on you for the last year. Asking around, finding out this and that. Mom only told me about you a year ago. By the way, a lot of people don’t like you.”

“And maybe with good reason,” I said. “Understand I didn’t mean what I said to sound like, well, that—”

“That you were saying my mom was a tramp?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?”

“What he meant is this is new for all of us,” Brett said. “It’ll take a bit of time, but a paternity check would figure it out for us. I think that’s only fair, to be sure. Your mom told it the way she remembered it, but say she was off by a little, forgot a few details?”

“That’s a big detail,” Chance said, and she turned her head slightly, and when she did I could see her mother quite clearly. She had a habit of doing just that, kind of turning her head to one side, as if it gave her greater perspective on an idea. Her mouth trembled ever so slightly. “She had a number of boyfriends later, but she wasn’t a slut. She wasn’t.”

“No one is saying that,” Brett said. “Not even close. I’m not Hap’s first, nor is he mine. It’s the way life works. It’s just if your mother was mistaken. If. Then you wouldn’t want to miss out and not find your real dad, if you haven’t already found him.”

“If you’re my daughter, Chance, then I’m more than fine with that. Completely fine. It’s like Brett says, though. We need to be sure. For all our sakes. Before we invest hearts, we need to invest DNA and be sure. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Chance looked into her coffee cup. She stared at it so intently you would have thought a small shark might be circling in there.

She lifted her head, settled her eyes on me. “Sure. That makes sense. But I haven’t got money for that kind of test.”

“We do,” Brett said.

That night Brett and I lay in bed together in the dark while Chance was sleeping downstairs in what had been Leonard’s room. Buffy was in her basket near the bathroom door, asleep. She made little growling noises as she slept. I think she was thinking vengeful thoughts about her former master. Or maybe she was just being beaten up by a rabbit.

I had made a move on Brett to make love, but Brett said, “Not with Chance downstairs.”

“As you say, she’s downstairs, not under the bed.”

“It just doesn’t feel right. Your daughter…possible daughter…right under us, and us, you know…”

“You know?”

“Making love.”

“You’re the one invited her to stay. I also want her to, but…hell, I don’t know what I think. I like her, I know that, and I wouldn’t mind her being my daughter.”

“What if she’s not your daughter?”

“She still doesn’t need to sleep in a car.”

“Why I asked her to stay. I want us to help her.”

“But on the other hand, I sensed hesitation from you, a fear she could be down there putting the silverware in a pillowcase.”

“I didn’t say anything like that.”

“Didn’t you?” I said.

“No. I said I didn’t want to make love because it makes me uncomfortable that she’s down there.”

“How about taking a pee? Will that make you uncomfortable knowing she’s down there?”

“Don’t be cute,” she said.

“It wasn’t that cute.”

“No, it wasn’t. It’s just that if she is your daughter, what do we do? If she isn’t your daughter, what do we do?”

“I really just wanted to make love and go to sleep,” I said.

“We have to do something for her.”

“We fed her. We gave her a bed. And if she’s not my daughter, we’ll see what we can do to help her get started. Until then, we let her stay, have her take a paternity test, and take it from there.”

“My daughter doesn’t come visit,” Brett said.

“She hasn’t asked to come visit.”

“You don’t like her.”

“I think her nearly getting me and Leonard killed twice and her going back to being a drunk and a druggie on a regular basis is part of that.”

“She has problems, too, Hap. Is it one daughter over another?”

“I don’t even know Chance is my daughter.”

“But if she is?”

“I said already. We help her out.”

“My point. Your daughter we help, my daughter we don’t.”

“Would you consider me and Leonard, and even you, nearly getting killed one time, and then me and Leonard nearly getting killed a second time, helping her out?”

“You said that already.”

“I think it has a certain significance.”

“If my daughter had a home to come to, then it might be different. She might do better.”

“Tillie has her own house. What she does there and who she brings there is her problem. And sometimes ours. And she’s in her thirties now. This girl is young.”

“I handled myself then.”

“So did I, but that’s not the point.”

“I’m not trying to be a bitch, Hap.”

“You’re doing a pretty good imitation.”

She turned the light on.

“Are we going to go there?” Brett said.

“You’re the one that said you’re a bitch.”

“I said no such thing. I said I’m not trying to be one, and you said I was one.”

“An imitation of one.”

“Don’t start splitting hairs with me, buster. You not only aren’t getting any pussy tonight, you might prepare yourself for what certainly could be a long drought.”

“Baby, come on.”

“So now I’m your baby, not your bitch.”

I could see this was going downhill fast. I said, “Sorry, Brett. I’m as confused, surprised, and startled as anyone. I go from one end of the spectrum to the other on this. I’m happy about it in an odd way, confused in another. I hope she is my daughter, and I hope she isn’t. But she’s a person.”

Brett turned off the light.

In the dark, she said, “I know. I’m sorry. But I don’t think you’ve given Tillie a chance.”

“Well, speaking of Chance, let’s see if this girl deserves a chance. Even if she doesn’t I still want to help her. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to help your daughter, but Tillie—”

“I know. It’s different.”

“I was going to say difficult.”

“You wanted a family. And now you just may have one. But I won’t lie to you: I’m uncomfortable about it. Maybe I’m jealous of one daughter over another, or at least that’s how I’m seeing it.”

“If she is my daughter,” I said. “Seems to me we have to let this lay and see how it plays out for now.”

I could hear Brett breathing gently in the dark.

After a long while she spoke.

“I guess. And Hap?”

“What?”

“We don’t actually have any real silverware.”

By the time we quit talking things had smoothed over pretty well, but I still didn’t get any.

I finally got up and slipped out of the bed silently and went downstairs. In the living room I picked up a book on the coffee table, an old Bill Crider western, and started reading it. I had read it some years before, but now and again I have to read or reread a western.

I had just started when I heard the door to Leonard’s old room open. Turning, I saw Chance, dressed in a pair of Brett’s footy pajamas that were too long for her, come into the room.

She came to the edge of the couch where I sat, smiled at me. “Brett is tall,” she said. She lifted one foot, and I could see the footy was dangling.

“She is at that.”

“She’s so different from my mom.”

“Yes,” I said. “She is. What you doing up? You look tired.”

“I am. I thought I might have some warm milk. What are you doing up? You look tired, too.”

“Wanted to read.”

“At three in the morning?”

“I thought two was too early and four was too late.”

She chuckled slightly.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll warm us both some milk.”

We went into the kitchen, and I poured milk in cups and placed them one at a time in the microwave. When we both had our warm milk we sat at the table. We looked at each other. I think we both had a lot to say but had no idea how to say it.

“I have something special,” I said. “Well, I find it special. I hide it so Leonard doesn’t get it.”

“I know he’s your friend, but nothing else.”

I got up and opened a cabinet, and from behind a box of rice and a can of whole jalapenos I pulled out a box of animal crackers. It was one of those small boxes that has a zoo on the front and animals behind bars. Never liked zoos or circuses, really. Felt sorry for the animals. But I liked animal crackers.

“Oh, I love those,” Chance said.

“So does Leonard,” I said. “Vanilla cookies of any kind, animal crackers, Dr Peppers. Why I hide these.”

“That’s mean.”

“He’s a cookie-eating machine and kind of a bastard about it.”

She showed a lot of pretty teeth. “You two sound like kids.”

“In some ways we are. You end up staying around us, you’ll find we’re very juvenile and pretty crass.”