Honky Tonk Samurai (Hap and Leonard) (15 page)

J
im Bob parked near a big tree and got out. I could see someone else was in the Caddy, but couldn’t make them out. Just a shadowy shape. Jim Bob came strolling up with a big revolver dangling from one hand and a flashlight in the other.

“Y’all having a yard party?” he said.

“You could call it that,” Leonard said. “Though I think me and Hap had the party and they mostly just rolled around on the yard.”

“You got you quite a few little souvenirs there, don’t you?” Jim Bob said, looking at the guns in my hands.

“They weren’t offering T-shirts,” I said.

Jim Bob walked around, looked at all three on the ground, one completely out, two others moaning. He put his flashlight on them. One of them, the unconscious one, wore leather pants and a jean vest, was bare-chested under it. He had a belly like a hairy boulder. The other two wore jeans and dark T-shirts. White guys, all three. All with shaved heads and scraggly beards, faces that looked to have been boiled before they were arranged over the skull.

“Man, they are indeed the warehouse for ugly,” Jim Bob said. “Might want to drag these fuckers inside or somewhere before the neighbors wonder what you’re doing.”

We didn’t ask who was in Jim Bob’s car. We knew he would tell us in good time, and we didn’t want to share any knowledge with whoever it was lying on our lawn.

Leonard turned off the flashlights in the yard except the one that I took to use. He tossed the crowbar and the blackjack in the grass by the driveway and dragged the unconscious man into the carport, the man’s boot heels scraped along the concrete.

I put two pistols away in my waistband and one in my front pocket. Me and Jim Bob took hold of the other two guys. I clutched the one with the injured leg under the shoulders and slid him along on his ass, managing to stick the flashlight under my arm and clutch it there while I did. Jim Bob pulled the other one to his feet, and we got them inside the carport.

They were too weak to fight. We got them in there easy. It was dark inside the carport, and we didn’t turn on the light. What light there was came from Jim Bob’s flashlight and the light I had. There were steps leading from inside the carport into the house. We sat our catch on the top steps, except for the unconscious guy. Leonard left him lying in front of the steps.

I said, “Who the hell sent you and why?”

“Fuck you,” said the one with the broken arm.

Jim Bob strolled over and slapped the man twice, grabbed his injured arm, and cranked it. The man squealed, and I winced.

Jim Bob slapped him again. “That’s for yelling.”

“This is brutality,” said the man.

“I know,” said Jim Bob.

“Easy, man,” I said.

Jim Bob looked at me. “You talking to me?”

“Yeah.”

Jim Bob waved the revolver at the thugs, said, “All my life, doing what I do, I have dealt with the scum of the earth, the shit on the bottom of my boots, boots into which I stick my highly attractive feet, and tonight I’m fed up with it. Got no pity left for creeps. I don’t know why they’re here, who they are, if God or genetics made them ugly, but I know you guys are not the problem without even knowing how this got started. They are the problem. I know a place when we’re done here we can bury them. Only way they’ll be found is if the earth cracks open on the Day of Judgment.”

“There’s a shovel in the storage shed,” Leonard said. “I don’t believe in God, so I’m not expecting that big Day of Judgment other than what we dole out. So I reckon they’ll stay hidden for good.”

“Guys,” I said. “Let’s don’t let this get out of hand.”

I couldn’t clearly see the expressions of the two that were sitting on the steps, but their body language told me they were scared. The man lying on the floor of the carport I was starting to wonder about. He hadn’t so much as groaned. Leonard can hit pretty damn hard when he wants to.

“Who are you?” I said. “And understand that in this carport, I’m as close as you got to a friend, and I don’t like you at all.”

“That don’t give me any confidence,” said the man with the broken arm.

“Nor should it,” Leonard said. “Come to my brother’s house carrying guns and badly shaved heads, you got to understand how much I’d like to just blow a hole in your meat and dump you in a ditch and piss on you.”

“I wasn’t even here when it came down,” Jim Bob said to the man, “and I don’t like you.”

“You’ve made that clear,” said the man with the broken arm.

“I can make it clearer,” Jim Bob said.

“It’s now or never,” I said to the men, hoping Leonard and Jim Bob were just playing roles, but with those two, you could never be sure. I knew Leonard better than anyone in the world, but there was a place he could go I couldn’t. Jim Bob was even more unpredictable. We could be standing there one moment, next moment all three of those men could be dead and in the trunk of a car on their way to someplace dark and wet.

The man with the broken arm looked so much like the other two, the only way I could tell the difference was in tattoos. He had a tattoo at the center of his throat, like a wishbone. It was not attractive. It looked to be made with a ballpoint pen. Jailhouse tattoo was my guess. I thought of him as Wishbone. I moved the light off of him and pooled it at the base of the steps.

“We was sent by the boss,” said Wishbone.

“Narrows it right down,” Jim Bob said. “Shall I come over and yank on your arm some more?”

“The Big Dog.”

“Who’s the Big Dog?” Leonard said.

“Boss we don’t never see. We just been told Big Dog has money to pay for certain things being done, and one of those things was you guys, and the ones was told to do it was us. Big Dog ain’t really our boss all the time, but he hires us from time to time. You might call us freelance.”

“I might call you stupid,” Jim Bob said.

“I think you ought to consider a career in macramé if your arm heals,” Leonard said. “You damn sure aren’t any good at this business.”

“So you guys are some kind of crew?” I said.

“Bike club,” he said. “Apocalypse on Wheels.”

“I heard of them,” Jim Bob said. “I think they ride tricycles.”

“You ought not talk too mean,” said the man with the banged knee. “You might write a check with your mouth your ass can’t cash.”

“You boys are any example of the badass Apocalypse on Wheels,” I said, “then you ain’t so much. We can write as many checks as we want.”

“We got taken by surprise,” Wishbone said.

“Yes,” I said. “You did.”

Wishbone wanted to say something mean, but instead he was wise enough to sit and smolder. There was an air about him like the school bully who had been beaten up by the ninety-eight-pound math nerd.

Apocalypse on Wheels were known to be dangerous. Drug dealers, primarily meth. They were also known for dog-fighting rings, which in my view should have been punishable by a death sentence.

“Where’s your bikes?” Leonard said. “You boys come by stick horse instead?”

“I said tricycles,” Jim Bob said.

“Yes,” Leonard said, “you did. But I just graded them down another notch. Next Hap can say roller skates.”

“Oh, I got you,” Jim Bob said. “But wouldn’t skates be better than a stick horse?”

“You have a point there,” Leonard said.

“Car,” said Wishbone. “We parked on a backstreet and walked over.”

“Car?” Leonard said. “What kind of self-respecting biker gang comes by car?”

“Easier,” Wishbone said.

“Yeah, well, let’s get back to what you were saying,” I said. “Hired by Big Dog, who you claim you don’t know, to come over here and do what? Sort my shit?”

Wishbone held his arm, winced a little, said, “Pretty much. Supposed to be a warning. Give you a good ass-whipping.”

“You know where I live,” I said, “so you know who lives here with me, don’t you?”

“A woman.”

“You come here in the middle of the night with guns and flashlights, and you were just going to sort me out? What about her?”

“I guess we would have put some smoke on her, too.”

“All right,” I said. “Officially, I’m no longer even a faint resemblance to a friend.”

“Nothing happened,” he said. “We got hurt. You didn’t.”

“And man, that saddens us,” Leonard said.

“You were going to whip my ass for what?” I said.

“You know,” he said.

“Why don’t you define it for me?” I said.

“Well, we don’t get no details much, just the job and some street cred. We was told you was meddling where you shouldn’t be meddling, and that we was to whack you around a little, say stay out of business where you don’t belong.”

“But they didn’t tell you the business?” Jim Bob asked.

“No. Didn’t matter. It was a job.”

“What were you getting paid?” I asked.

“It was to kind of go on our credit.”

“Credit.”

“We’re acolytes,” he said.

“Goddamn, that’s a strange word to come out of your mouth,” Jim Bob said. “I think you even pronounced it right. What you mean is you’re trying to get into the gang as a full member and not just a wannabe. Right?”

“I suppose you could say that,” Wishbone said. “I like acolyte better.”

“So who came to you and said Big Dog wanted me worked over a bit?” I asked.

“They wanted the nigger popped around, too,” Wishbone said, avoiding my question. “We thought we’d catch him at his place. He, like you, was easy to find. They gave us your names, and we went straight to the Internet. Wonderful thing that is.”

“Ain’t it?” Jim Bob said.

“Who is this cowboy fuck?” Wishbone said, nodding at Jim Bob.

“Hell in a cowboy hat,” I said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“No,” Jim Bob said. “I want you to know who I am, so you can maybe take a run at me if you survive, and I can fuck you up. I’m Jim Bob Luke. I live in Houston. I love a good enchilada and a medium-rare steak, a good-looking woman with a free spirit, and you couldn’t hurt me if you was three people apiece and had three friends just like you. Fuck, you couldn’t roll me over with a pry bar if I was dead.”

“You just fucked up,” said the one with the injured leg. “We’ll damn sure remember you.”

Jim Bob said, “Most people do.” He stepped forward and popped the man with the bad leg in the nose with a sharp left jab. “That’s for talking out of turn.” Then Jim Bob hit him again. “That’s for flinching.” Jim Bob slapped him once across the cheek. “And that’s for calling Midnight a nigger.”

“Oh, thanks,” Leonard said.

“My pleasure,” Jim Bob said.

“Midnight?” Leonard said.

“I thought it made me seem less politically correct,” Jim Bob said. “I got to keep up an image to work with the people I work with.”

Bad Leg held his hand to his nose. In the beam of my flashlight I could see blood running between his fingers and down his face.

I said, “You haven’t given us a lot of information.”

“It’s all we got,” said Bad Leg.

I thought it might well be.

“You said you were hired by Big Dog and someone else,” I said. “Who is this someone else?”

“Our club chairman. Samson House.”

“Ah, hell,” Jim Bob said. “I know that son of a bitch.”

“You do?” I said.

“Nice guy, ain’t he?” said Wishbone.

“A peach,” Jim Bob said. “Same as his brother, Moses.”

“Moses is dead,” Wishbone said.

“I know,” Jim Bob said. “Why don’t you boys take us to Samson? I’d love to see him. I’m only pretending to ask, by the way.”

“You know,” said Bad Leg. “My leg ain’t broke like I thought. I think it’s going to be okay.”

“You’ll never know how that has made our day,” Jim Bob said.

“Still hurts, though,” Bad Leg said.

I
soon found out who was in Jim Bob’s car. To say I was baffled is to put it mildly.

It was Frank. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and red running shoes. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and wasn’t wearing makeup. She looked good. That she had once been a man was hard to figure on my end. I guess it shouldn’t matter, but the idea of her being male before she was female didn’t exactly evaporate from my mind.

I walked out to the car with Jim Bob to see her while Leonard kept the three in the garage occupied by pointing one of the guns at them. Sleeping Beauty had finally stirred and was sitting on the steps with the other two.

Frank nodded at me as she got out of the car, but nothing was said. Jim Bob guided her into the house, and when he came back out, we got the bad guys out of the carport. None of them had seen Frank. Jim Bob made it clear we didn’t want her seen and took Leonard aside to explain that she was in the house.

We tied up and gagged all but Wishbone, put the gagged ones in the trunk of Jim Bob’s Caddy. Bad Leg was right. His leg wasn’t broken. He managed to limp out to the car without assistance, moving the way you might if someone had taped your dick to one leg.

After they were tucked nicely inside the trunk, I noted there was plenty of room for them and the spare and maybe we could stuff Wishbone in there, too, if we needed to. But he was our pathfinder, so we placed him in the front passenger seat. Leonard sat behind him with a pistol. I stayed at the house.

Jim Bob drove away slowly. I drove Frank to our office, arriving well ahead of him. He was taking the long way around so Wishbone wouldn’t get a chance to see her.

I put Frank inside the office, made the bed for her, showed her where the bottled water was, the coffee and such. We didn’t discuss anything, nor did she offer any explanation for why she was with Jim Bob. I got three twelve-gauge pump shotguns out of the closet and a box of shells, told her to make herself comfortable, that I wasn’t sure when we’d be back, and to stay inside and not answer the desk phone, then I left out of there.

In the parking lot Jim Bob was standing outside the Red Bitch, as his Cadillac was known, and Leonard was sitting in the backseat with the revolver. Wishbone was in the front seat, being very cooperative. Jim Bob walked over and helped me with the shotguns, taking two of them off my hands, leaving me holding one in one hand, the box of shells in the other.

Jim Bob said, “Got her set?”

“Yep. But I don’t get it.”

“You will.”

“What if she runs away?”

“She won’t.”

“She might.”

“She’ll stay until we get back.”

I looked at the biker dude in the Red Bitch.

“Considering where I think we’re going, what happens if we don’t make it back?” I asked.

“I always come back.”

“But if we don’t?”

Jim Bob shrugged. “Eventually she’ll get bored and leave.”

I could tell Jim Bob wasn’t going to explain shit, least not right then.

“Was it like we thought?” I asked him.

“You mean the cars and the women and the blackmail?”

“No. I wanted to know if without her original elongated wee-wee can she piss up a rope. Of course I’m asking about the cars and such.”

Jim Bob was unfazed.

“More to it than we thought. Not exactly like you figured. Think you and your buddy have opened up one big-ass can of worms, and these worms have some serious teeth. But we’ll start with these assholes. We finish that, I’ll explain about Frank. She can help explain. We don’t get these honky tonk samurai sorted out, we might not need an explanation. What we’re going to do is nip them in the bud.”

“Frankly, I don’t see how three of us can sort out a biker gang.”

“No doubt it will be precarious,” Jim Bob said and raised an eyebrow at me. “You scared?”

“Yeah.”

“Not me.”

“Liar.”

“Okay,” Jim Bob said. “I’m slightly nervous. I’ll own up to that much. But I got a plan. I’m not sure it’s a plan makes any sense until we get where we’re going. It doesn’t, well, we change plans. We shoot these three in the head and leave them in the woods.”

“I don’t like that plan,” I said.

“Then you better hope plan A works,” Jim Bob said. “Look. I know something about these bike-club sucks. They are part of the Dixie Mafia. You might even say they are actually a wing of it. They are connected to just about everything that smells bad in Texas except a little roadkill. Not just East Texas but the whole goddamn state. These biker fucks are mostly muscle for people with more brains and bigger plans then these guys got. Guys in your yard tonight, they are the lowest of the low. They were probably going to get their bones for putting you and Leonard and Brett out of the way. They were there to kill all three of you, not sort you out, but it didn’t work out for them. Their boss figured you guys weren’t much, so he sent some hitters who weren’t much, but don’t think there isn’t some serious trouble with these boys, and you want to nip it in the bud, and quick, or they will keep on coming until one of them gets lucky. Bottom line is, instead of talking to these three lame-ass soldiers, I say we talk to their main man. That doesn’t work out, then we shoot everybody.”

“How many is everybody?”

“How would I know? More than ten, twelve? Enough to make a biblical epic? I don’t know.”

“Not comforting.”

“True, but I think it’s best to confront them. You want them to at least think they got to consider twice they throw down on you. You can’t show weakness with them. Some of the Dixie Mafia head guys, you might even reason with them they see a profit in it. But these biker goobers, not so much.”

“And I’m saying you don’t crawl down a hole full of rattlers and expect to come out unbit.”

Jim Bob nodded slightly. “I hear you. Like I said, I’ve dealt with them before. They kind of lump up together like dog turds out Etoile way. We were in Houston, thereabouts, I’d know exactly where they are. Here, I just know the general location.”

“You know a lot of shit, Jim Bob.”

“That’s because I walk through it every day. Someday soon I’m thinking I’m going to throw in the rope and take up pig farming again full-time.”

“I didn’t even know there was a biker gang around here.”

“Did you know there are some Amish here in East Texas, north of town? The men use power tools and have cell phones and drive cars, but the women live on the farm, wear bonnets pulled down around their faces, and, unlike the men, only use hand tools.”

“I don’t know from Amish,” I said. “How did we get on the Amish?”

“It seemed like a natural segue. Bottom line is we need someone knows more than the bikers’ general whereabouts.”

“Meaning the young gentleman with the fucked-up tattoo in your front seat is going to be our guide?”

“Bingo.”

“You know, one thing we ought to take into serious fucking consideration is we got shotguns and revolvers and everyone else has automatics and rifles that can spray bullets faster than we can.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jim Bob said. “But I do so hate change. I haven’t got over that whole business about Pluto. I think Pluto got fucked, you know. One day it’s a planet, and the next day it’s not. I hate change, Hap. I’m the same with guns. Like to keep it old-school.”

“Well, when we get back, if we get back, we’ll draft a stiff note to Congress about that business with Pluto.”