Bad Chili

25

We went to Leonard’s house, called the cop shop and asked for Charlie. He was out, but the dispatcher promised to shoot a message to him. Five minutes later, he called back and I answered.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“We need to see you,” I said. “Me, Leonard, and Jim Bob.”

“All right. I’ll be there pretty pronto-like.”

“You don’t sound as cheery as you’re tryin’ to sound,” I said.

“Actually, I’m having a bittersweet day. But for the moment, I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll tell you the sweet part when I get over there, though.”

“What about the bitter?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “See you.”

We were sitting on Leonard’s front porch in the swing seat when Charlie drove up. It was a sticky day with the sun bright as God’s eyes and the sky a milky blue. The air smelled of mowed yards and perspiration. The scent of gun oil was still on my hands.

Charlie got out of his car and lumbered up the walk toward the porch. He didn’t look good. Tired. Hair uncombed. No porkpie hat. His clothes were wrinkled and shiny-looking, as if he hadn’t changed them in days. He smiled weakly, shook hands with all of us. He and Jim Bob exchanged some greetings.

Charlie sat down on the edge of the porch, got out a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag that turned about a quarter of the cigarette to ash. He held the smoke, and then let it out slowly through his nose and sighed as if he had just laid down for a good long nap.

“What you boys got?” he asked.

“We ain’t sure,” Jim Bob said. Then he told Charlie what had gone on, including running King off the road and us pulling guns on him. He left out Big Man Mountain and the two thugs he’d shot to death. He ended with: “King call in any charges?”

“Not that I know of,” Charlie said. “But this running people off the road, it ain’t good, pardner.”

“I didn’t think he’d call in,” Jim Bob said.

“King could still be innocent,” I said.

“I think we got our man,” Jim Bob said. “What’s the odds of two tapes and a notebook with King Arthur Chili on it being unrelated?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “King seemed pretty confident to me. He wasn’t worried about the grease business, and he actually looked surprised when we brought up the other video, the notebook.”

“I’ve seen some good liars,” Leonard said.

“I damn near don’t see nothing but liars,” Charlie said. “Got so I think everyone’s a liar. I find someone who isn’t, I stick to them. I wasn’t that way, all three of you goons would be under the jailhouse already.”

“Any thoughts on any of this?” I asked Charlie.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “King has been in some shit, though most of it slides off of him, but murder… I wouldn’t put it past him, but so far he’s avoided that little bugaboo. He’s got him a bunch of little rackets, but he gets caught, he usually squirms out of it. And he’s got money. And lawyers. And he’s got the chief, who I’m sure gets a pretty good chunk of pocket change from King himself.” Charlie paused and smiled. “Thinking of the chief makes me think of Hanson. And my good news.”

“You ain’t gonna say what I think you are, are you?” Leonard said.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah. He came out of the coma.”

“I’ll be goddamn,” I said.

“I talked to his wife,” Charlie said. “She said the doctors think he’s okay, just addled. He’ll be down awhile, have to have some physical therapy later, but they say he seems all right. Confused some.”

“I would be,” I said. “Last thing he remembers is sliding into a tree, then he wakes up at his ex-wife’s house with tubes in him. That would be disconcerting. You seen him yet?”

“Not yet,” Charlie said. “I got to give it some time. They’re holding back visitin’, ’cept for the immediate family.”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Leonard said, “you are part of the immediate family.”

“Well,” Charlie said, “the immediate family doesn’t see it that way. I don’t think they like cops much. That’s the whole beef between him and his wife. ’Course, now that I think about it, I don’t like cops much either.”

“I don’t know Hanson well,” Jim Bob said. “Met him a couple of times on business-related affairs here, mostly heard about his reputation. He used to be on the cop force in Houston a few years back. He busted a big case or two there. That’s all I know, but what I do know of him, he seems like a good man.”

“Good as they get,” Charlie said.

“He’s going to be all right?” I said. “I mean, really all right?”

“You mean in the head?” Charlie said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“They think so.”

“Well, I’ll be goddamn,” I said. “I figured he was ruined for life.”

“You can’t underestimate that fella,” Charlie said. “He always comes back. And tougher than he was before. Now, what is it you want from me?”

“I think we got our answer when King didn’t call in,” Jim Bob said.

“King doesn’t want trouble for the grease racket, doesn’t want to direct attention to himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s in on this gay-bashin’ video business,” I said. “He could be tellin’ the truth.”

“King Arthur don’t know from truth,” Charlie said. “He used to be a used-car salesman.”

“Well,” Leonard said, “there’s a strike against him.”

“Amen,” Jim Bob said.

“And he did some bible-thumpin’ too,” Charlie said.

“Way I remember it,” Jim Bob said, “bible-thumpin’ is like an automatic two strikes.”

“With an extra penalty,” Leonard said.

“Looks to me like there isn’t anything I can add here,” Charlie said. “I can harass King if you want to give me the videotape on the grease stealin’. He might readily cop to that part. We could maybe nail him on that.”

“I like the idea of puttin’ him in for the worst of it,” Leonard said.

Jim Bob nodded. “Me too.”

I nodded as well. “Can you give us a little more space?”

“Hell,” Charlie said. “I haven’t give you dudes anything but space. But, yeah. A little. Y’all got a beer?”

“Aren’t you on duty?” I said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, “but I’ll take my badge off and close my eyes while I drink.”

“That’ll work,” Leonard said. “Let’s go inside.”

Charlie actually had three beers and kept going out on the front porch to smoke cigarettes. On his last trip to the porch I joined him, said, “Tell me the bitter.”

He looked off at the heavens, which had changed. The sun had fallen behind some darkening clouds and the sky itself had lost its milky blue look and had clabbered. Everything was still.

“Tornado weather,” Charlie said.

“The bitter?” I said.

Charlie took a deep drag on his smoke, said, “All right. You know, all this stuff ’tween me and Amy about cigarettes? The sex?”

“Sure.”

“It ain’t the cigarettes.”

“What is it?”

“She just don’t want to make love to me. She’s foolin’ around.”

“You got proof, or you feeling paranoid?”

“Proof.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yep.”

“What you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. Somethin’.”

“Nothing stupid, I hope?”

“You mean like shoot them?”

“Like that, yeah.”

“Naw, that ain’t my speed, bud. I might even could forgive her, you know.”

“You confronted her?”

“Not yet… Hap, I got to tell you, this whole cop business – I’ve about had it.”

“That’s the beer talkin’,” I said.

“Naw, it ain’t the beer,” Charlie said. “It’s me. Listen, you guys told me about King Arthur, but there’s stuff you haven’t told me. I’d do that now.”

I gave him the short version of Big Man Mountain and the ball-stimulator incident.

“You tellin’ me Jim Bob killed those two bastards right out?” Charlie said.

“Looked dead to me.”

“Guess I gotta find some reason to check that cabin out.”

“He was just tryin’ to protect me, Charlie. He burst in there like he did to keep me from going the way Raul went. He didn’t have a choice but to shoot them.”

“He came there to shoot ’em, Hap, you know that. That ’lectricity, it make your pecker stand out?”

“I tell you about how my life was threatened, I nearly died, and you want to know that?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I think it made it curl up,” I said. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking about which direction it was going. It hurt too bad. What do you know about Big Man?”

“He’s had him some arrests,” Charlie said. “Quit wrestlin’ – rather, they threw him out – a while ago. He’s been in some shitty business. He worked for King a while. Word is they split early. Big Man didn’t like takin’ orders way King gave ’em. It wasn’t a conflict in morals, it was two assholes bumpin’ together and not likin’ it. Story on Big Man is he starts a job, he finishes it. But when he finished for King last time, he didn’t sign on again. Who knows, maybe he’s had a change of heart. Or a need for money.”

“So you really don’t know if he’s working for King?”

“Not last time I heard,” Charlie said, lighting a cigarette. “But things change, man. Look at Hanson. Christ, my marriage.”

“You know the guy?”

“Yeah, and I hate to say it. It’s so goddamn insultin’. It’s our goddamn insurance agent. Anybody would fuck an insurance agent, they got to be low. Sonofabitch don’t buy at Kmart or Wal-Mart. Them suits he wears, they’re tailor-made. Got him a razor cut. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Motherfucker smokes. And he’s gettin’ her pussy, and he smokes. Fuckin’ cigars, no less. Now ain’t that some shit?”

I smiled, and Charlie tried to smile, but it wasn’t working.

“Tornado weather,” Charlie said.

“You said that.”

“Warnings are out. Been out all day. Things scare me to death. Can’t stand the thought of them. You think I ought to let Amy go?”

“You’re asking me about women?” I said. “You got to be desperate.”

“You’re right,” Charlie said. “I forgot, you’re like a number-one fuck-up in that department.”

“Things are kind of better, now,” I said. I told him about Brett, and about how Big Man had threatened her, what we were doin’ about it.

“You could be fixin’ yourself up for worse business,” Charlie said.

“You going to put a twenty-four-hour guard on her house for me?” I asked.

“You know I can’t,” Charlie said. “More I pay attention to you guys, even tryin’ to help, just makes it worse. Past business has made it so the chief would just as soon throw you boys to the dogs.”

“Brett isn’t part of that.”

“I know. But the chief isn’t going to let me put a twenty-four-hour guard on anybody. I do, I got to tell him why. Then I got to tell him Jim Bob blew two guys away, and that connects to you and Leonard. Fact is, I ought to do something about Jim Bob zeroin’ them guys, but it just ain’t in me, man. I don’t give a shit. The one with the pock face, I know who he is. He’s done everything from robbery to murder to fuckin’ little girls. One of them his own eleven-year-old daughter. If you can call givin’ sperm to an egg makin’ you a father. Hard for me to lose much sleep on that sonofabitch it’s him. It ain’t him, it’s one just like him. I don’t know the black guy, but I figure he’s a member of the same platoon. I got some off-duty time comin’ up, though. I can help you watch your girlfriend then. Next week, all week.”

“Charlie, I was you, I’d use that time to talk to my wife. I don’t know much, but could be she’s not getting what she wants at home, and I’m not talkin’ about sex.”

“Could be lots of things, Hap. And I don’t know what any of them are. I think maybe I got to confront her. She’s in love with this guy, not me, then she ought to go on. I want her to go on. But it has to do with me, I ain’t doin’ somethin’ just right and can start doin’ it way she needs, we might can work stuff out.”

“I certainly hope so,” I said.

“’Course, she could just be an asshole.”

“There is that.”

Leonard came out on the porch. “What you guys doin’? Come back in. Have a beer.”

“No, thanks,” Charlie said. “Got to go. Good luck to both you fellas. And be careful, I’d hate to have to arrest you.”

When Charlie was gone, Jim Bob came out on the porch to join us. He sat down on the swing and started moving it with his foot. He said, “Way I see it, boys, we’re kind of at an impasse.”

“How’s that?” Leonard said.

“I think this chili fuck is responsible for the beating my client took. This connects with them other two gettin’ killed, Horse and Raul, but that isn’t strictly my business, though I’m willin’ to make it my business. But, Hap, you don’t feel confident chili dude’s the man. Leonard, you think it’s him, but I can see you fadin’ a bit.”

“Fadin’?” Leonard said.

“You got your doubts,” Jim Bob said, “or rather you know Hap’s got his and you’re runnin’ on his track.”

“I think for myself,” Leonard said.

“I never doubted that,” Jim Bob said, “but you think a way fits in with how Hap feels. He’s the same with you. I can respect that. It’s stupid. But I can respect it.”

“This leading up to something?” Leonard asked.

“Yeah, it’s leading up to me goin’ back to the hotel, takin’ a bath, jerkin’ off, watchin’ a little TV, a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow I’m back down to business. I’m gonna stay on chili man’s ass until I get what I’m lookin’ for.”

“And if it isn’t him?” I asked.

“It’s him, all right,” Jim Bob said. He stood up, set the beer bottle on the porch railing, went down to his car and drove away.