Bad Chili (8 page)

The phone booth was next to a 7-Eleven store. I went inside and bought a Diet Coke in a plastic bottle and a bag of peanuts. I drank the Diet Coke down a bit, poured peanuts into it, and went outside. I climbed into my truck and looked in my mirror. The Pontiac was gone.

Probably just some guy waiting for someone in one of the houses along the street. Or maybe he’d stopped to check a map. Pull his dick. Anything. I had to lighten up. I was starting to be one paranoid sonofabitch.

I drove away, an eye on the mirror, watching for yellow Pontiacs or low-flying stealth aircraft with radar.

I didn’t go directly home. I was sort of afraid to. I figured Charlie would be searching my place, and if Leonard had heeded my warning, he wouldn’t be there. It might also be better if I didn’t come up on Charlie and his folks going through my underwear drawer. I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.

I drove downtown and went to the all-day dollar movie and had popcorn. The popcorn was okay, but the movie wasn’t very good. I walked out about halfway through and stopped off at the yogurt joint and had a cone.

When I finished my cone, I cruised over to the bookshop and looked around the magazine rack. I didn’t see any
Boobs and Butts
there. Where did Charlie find that stuff? I hung around long enough the clerks began to watch me suspiciously. I bought a couple comic books, a
Batman
and a
Spider-Man
, and left.

When I got home, Leonard wasn’t there. I gave the house the once-over, went out on the back porch, and saw him strolling toward me from the woods. He had the twelve-gauge in one hand, a shovel over his shoulder, and I could see his revolver in the waistband of his pants.

Leonard smiled. “Thanks for the phone tip. I watched from the woods. Charlie and a blue suit showed up with the sheriff. They worked your lock and went inside and looked around.”

“That means they have a search warrant.”

“Probably. They were inside about twenty minutes.”

“They did good. I can’t tell they’ve been here. They even locked the door on the way out.”

“They looked around outside too. Found the sheets covered in pig shit.”

“They take the sheets with them?”

“No. At this point they probably haven’t put the pig shit and my daring escape together. I was smart enough to bury my clothes in the woods. I was going to do the sheets next. Actually, I don’t think putting me and the pig shit together is going to mean anything anyway.”

“You’re probably right about that. Something new has happened. Now you’re connected to all this officially, and Charlie had to come check my place as a likely hiding spot.”

We sat down on the back porch and I told Leonard what I had found at his house. Told him about my conversation with Charlie.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“Was the stuff really wrecked? Were my books ruined?”

“They’re messed up. Some of them.”

“The TV’s screwed?”

“Looks that way. And the stereo.”

“Shit.”

“Your J. C. Penney’s suit was tossed on the floor too.”

“Now that fucker is dealing with dynamite.”

I nodded. “I knew that would get you.”

“Seems to me someone thinks I have something I don’t. If I do, I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know how I came by it or why I’d want it. And even if I did, that’s no excuse to fuck with a man’s J. C. Penney’s suit.”

“Or maybe they think Raul has something.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Leonard said.

“Or maybe they thought Horse Dick had something, and now they think Raul has it, and they thought he was hiding it at your house.”

“Or someone thinks what Horse Dick had and Raul had, I now have.”

“Or maybe it’s a disgruntled hair patron of Raul’s,” I said. “A little too much off the ears and he’s ready to flatten the kid’s head.”

“Come to think of it, he cut my hair once or twice, and I sort of avoided him after that. He tended to poke you with the scissors.”

“I’ll tell you this,” I said. “If I had something that the guy owning that shoe printed wanted, I might be inclined to give it to him. Help him carry it out to the car, give him a blow job, wipe his ass, give his car a push uphill.”

“That big, huh?”

“No. I just made all this shit up for your amusement.”

Leonard sighed. “Sorry. I’m beginning to think I was born under a bad sign. . . . Do you think Raul’s dead?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the news the cops got. Maybe to them it’s looking like you did him in too. I’m not saying he’s dead, I’m just saying if he is, it’ll compound things.”

“Jesus, I hope he’s all right. And not just for my sake.”

“We’re jumping a lot of ditches here for no reason, Leonard. We don’t know anything. Not really. Charlie gave me the impression something was up, though, but I think now it was just the fact they were going to search here and he figured you might be here. He’s trying to help. Guess it was good I called him when I did.”

“Long as we’re speculating, though, I just thought of something. What if the bikers didn’t know Horse Dick was gay?”

“Who says they care?” I said.

“I’ll stand by it for the moment. Considering most people aren’t that liberal about homosexuality, and these guys are about as open-minded as a scorpion. It’s a fuckin’ Dixie No Nigger Bar, for Christ sakes. You think it’s No Niggers But Queers Okay?”

“You never know.”

“Yeah, well, let’s place bets. So if the bikers first heard about Horse Dick being gay from me when I knocked knots on his head and uttered my classic line about his fuckin’ around with my boyfriend, could be they got rid of him themselves. They figured I’d get the blame, and that way they could kill two birds — or two fags, if you will — with one shotgun blast.”

“That’s a possibility, I guess, but that doesn’t explain your house being tossed. My guess is the incidents may not have anything to do with one another. They just unfortunately came together at the same time.”

“Maybe,” Leonard said. “Now what?”

“I think you ought to continue hiding out in the woods. I’ve got a pup tent, some camping gear, and I suggest we put it together and you use it. I’ll find you at the Robin Hood tree when I get some word, or I need you.”

The Robin Hood tree was a massive oak. It reminded Leonard and me of the great oak in the Robin Hood tales, therefore its nickname. It was near my place, on property of Leonard’s, and it was out back of the house he still owned, but had boarded up until he finished repairing and selling the house he had inherited from his uncle. A chore that had turned into one of the labors of Hercules.

“I’m going to be at the hospital tonight and tomorrow night,” I said. “I don’t know I can slip out during the day or not. I do, I’m going to wind up owing so much money I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pay, and still won’t be able to.”

We put the gear together, along with the two comic books I’d bought, and Leonard took the stuff and melted into the woods. I’d have to get him a suit of Lincoln green. For that matter, I had a green suit I had bought at J. C. Penney’s. I could loan it to him. Make him one of those little Robin Hood hats out of green construction paper, rob a tail feather from a chicken, stick it in the hat. I could call him Little Leonard.

When I had a few things packed, I took some cold medicine and drove into town on my way to the hospital. The sky was a gigantic charcoal smear backgrounded by a dying burst of red sunlight, bright and jagged as if God’s heart had exploded. Bats filtered about, radaring for bugs.

I drove over to a burger joint and had a burger, thought about everything that had been going on, then thought about nothing. By the time I arrived at the hospital God’s heart had bled out, and all that was left was a dark stain, like blood drying on a brick.

I was uncertain what I was supposed to do at the hospital, so I parked and went right up to my room. My name was still written on the paper in the slot outside the door.

I peeked inside. It was dark in there. The bed next to where I had slept was still empty. My bed, where I had had such joyous moments watching pigeons, was also empty.

I turned on the light, pulled back the closet door, and looked in there. My gown was dangling from a hanger. At least I assumed it was my gown. Same style. Same color. Plenty of room for my ass to hang out. I knew for a fact I’d had one just like it.

I looked at my watch. I was a half hour early. I sat in the visitor’s chair beside the bed and wished I’d gone home first to get something to read. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could make out the pigeon poop on the sill, the stuff I’d named Leonard.

I turned on the TV and watched a news program.

About eight-twenty Doc Sylvan came in. “Thanks for showing up. It’s nice of you. You know, I didn’t think you would. If you hadn’t, I’d have made sure the insurance didn’t cover shit.”

I clicked the TV off. “I’m sorry, Doc. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a hard time. I really did have an emergency. I just can’t talk about it.”

Doc Sylvan eyed me. “Yeah . . . Well, all right. Gown’s in the closet. Suit up.”

He went out and shut the door. I put on the gown and stuffed my clothes in the closet. Sylvan came back after a while. I had crawled into bed and had the covers around my neck.

“You stay here tonight and tomorrow night,” Sylvan said, “and we’ll be through with this insurance foolishness. You do that, I can make the insurance work. I think. You come to my office for the remaining shots.”

“We could have done that in the first place.”

“Insurance, Hap. Keep that in mind. Just keep telling yourself. Insurance. I’m tired of having to sound like a broken record.”

“Yes, Yoda.”

“You look like shit.”

“I got a cold. I picked it up here.”

“I don’t doubt that. I hate coming to the goddamn hospital to examine patients. They always give me something.”

“You could let them die.”

“Believe me, there’s some I wish would.”

“My God, Doc, isn’t that against that Hippocratic oath?”

“Hippocrates never had to deal with some of the assholes I deal with. He did, he’d have shoved that oath up their ass.”

“Are you indicating any patient in particular?”

“Could be,” Sylvan said. “Could be.”

Sylvan got his stethoscope and checked me over. He used a tongue depressor on me. He clucked and clicked. “Upper respiratory. Bit of a sore throat. I’ll have them check you out. Give you something for the symptoms.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Hey, what else can I do for my favorite patient?”

“Let me see . . .”

“Hap, get out of this bed before day after tomorrow, I’ll kill you.”

“Any news on the squirrel’s head?”

“Other than the fact there are tire marks on it, not much. It’ll be a while before we hear. They got boxes of heads at the lab in Austin. We’ve had several rabid dogs and raccoons since you came into the office. Goddamn woods are full of them this year. It’s epidemic. I’m leavin’.”

“Will you tuck me in before you go?”

Sylvan grunted and left. I closed my eyes, was surprised to discover that so early into the night I was sleepy. I suppose it was the cold, or the medicine I had taken before I left the house. Don’t take cold medicine and drive. I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was I was doing. I drifted off.

I came awake and checked my watch about eleven P.M. I was surprised. I felt as if I had been asleep for only moments. I used the bed-lift button, raised my back, turned the TV on again.

The entire television industry hadn’t revamped itself during my nap. Everything that was on the standard channels sucked the big ole donkey dick. I tried for some of the specialty channels. No luck. Didn’t have any. You’d think if you had to eat the food in the hospital, least they could do was get cable.

I turned off the television and sat in the dark. About fifteen minutes later Brett showed up pushing a metal table on wheels. She turned on the light beside my bed. She lifted a brown paper bag off the metal table. She smiled at me. God, I liked that smile.

“Well,” she said. “I heard you ran off.”

“Ssssshhhhhh,” I said. “Doc Sylvan and I like to think of it as a bit of a sabbatical.”

“Since you’re back, I figured you’d be needing this.”

She opened the brown paper bag, took out the copy of
Boobs and Butts
Charlie had given me, laid it on the nightstand beside my bed.

“One thing I like to see in a man,” she said, “is attention to culture.”

“That’s not really mine.”

“It was in the nightstand drawer here.”

“Yes, but Charlie, a friend of mine, gave it to me.”

“I see. Well, just so you’ll stay occupied, I brought you a little something.”

She reached back into the bag. She brought out a
Playboy
magazine and a
Penthouse
. “I thought you might as well move up to the classics. Though I’m afraid both of these have words in them.”

“Actually,
Boobs and Butts
is very precise. Very modern. They have words. It’s just minimalist. They choose what they have to say wisely and place the words under the photographs.”

“Yes. I read a few of those words. Did you know they misspelled
pussy?
They used one
s
.”

“No. I’ll have to drop them a line.”

“Let’s check the vital signs.”

She did the general routine, pronounced me a bit feverish.

“Doctor’s notes say you have a bit of a cold,” she said.

“I think I have more than a bit. In fact, when you’re in the room I think I gain a couple of degrees on the thermometer.”

“Is that a compliment, Hap Collins?”

“I hope so.”

She took a water pitcher from the table, poured me a plastic cup of water, gave me a couple of pills. I swallowed them. She said. “Those have plenty of saltpeter in them.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “In fact, maybe you could arrange for me to have an ongoing prescription.”

“I might be back later,” Brett said. “You’re not asleep, perhaps I can sit by the bed and read you the captions from the
Boobs and Butts
.”