Rumble Tumble (11 page)

“I think I’m tracking,” I said. “Except that part about the rats.”

“Pretend I said chickens, or some kind of small furry animal other than a rat.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can visualize that.”

We lay there for a while, looking at the ceiling. And finally Brett said, “Will you hold me, baby?”

I said, “Would you really kill Red he didn’t show us to your daughter?”

“I’d like to. The urge would be there. But I guess not. Not just for that. But he doesn’t need to know that.”

“I guess I did. Does that make you feel bad toward me?”

“Nah,” Brett said, rolling up close. “Sometimes I can be so mean I scare myself. And I got to tell you, he got me crooked enough, I could punch his ticket.”

I took her in my arms. She kissed my ear. I turned and kissed her lips, our tongues explored. A moment later we were making love, and for a while I wasn’t all that concerned about Red and his bloody head, his circus past, or even his torturous time in front of
America’s Funniest Home Videos
.

16

Next morning we were tooling down Highway 87 on our way into Lubbock, traveling some of the bleakest ugliest goddamn terrain this side of the moon. It’s the kind of landscape you think you’ll fall off of. Every time we passed a scrubby tree—more of a bush really—I wanted to jump out of the car, hold on to the tree for dear life, lest I be sucked away into some sort of Lovecraftian cosmic vacuum.

Red, who Leonard had just quizzed for directions, was sitting in the back seat next to me eating his Hostess Twinkie breakfast. He said, with white filling on his lips, “I never claimed I knew exactly where The Farm was. I worked other locations when I was with the Bandito Supremes.”

“This gets richer by the mile,” I said.

Leonard said, “I suggest we kill him and just ask randomly at houses along the way where The Farm is. I think we got just as good a chance finding the place doing that as fuckin’ around with this ding-a-ling.”

“I think the three of you feel I ought to help you if I did know,” said Red, “and I got to ask. Why should I?”

“Because we will kill you if you don’t,” Leonard said.

Red licked his fingers. “Well, that is some kind of incentive, I admit.”

“We’re gonna drive to the Mexican border,” Leonard said, “and then, if you can’t tell us where The Farm is, I’m going to shoot you. First in one foot, then the other. Then your hands and shoulders. I’m going to make it painful, squatty.”

“There you go with the short slurs,” Red said. “How would you like it if I called you a nigger, a jungle bunny, or a coon?”

“I wouldn’t like it you called me honey, or even to a four-course dinner,” Leonard said. “I just don’t care for your sorry little ass.”

“There’s that little stuff again,” Red said. He took off his hat and put it on the seat between us and shook his head sadly. The wad of bloody toilet paper was still stuck to the top of his head. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, sadly, as if we were co-conspirators.

“Red,” I said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Really. But you got to cooperate. I’m not going to try and stop anyone from doing what they got to do to find this place. We want to find Tillie, and we mean to do just that, even if we have to try and read heavenly signs and directions in your steaming guts.”

“Well,” Red said, “I suppose if I don’t do something to help myself I’ll continue to spend my nights in chairs and eating Twinkies for breakfast.”

“Absolutely,” Brett said.

Red nodded. “Well, we need to see my brother.”

“Your brother?” I said.

“Yep,” Red said. “Herman. He knows where The Farm is.”

“You said you knew,” Leonard said.

“Sometimes I lie a little,” Red said.

“What’s with your brother?” I asked.

“He used to be a Bandito Supreme.”

“If he used to be a Bandito Supreme,” I said, “he may not cotton to telling us where they hole up. He might also con us a little, get us dead. You might con us a little yourself, Red. You just said you lied.”

“I might lie now and then,” Red said, “but I’m not lying right now. Herman is not only no longer with the Bandito Supremes, he’s a preacher.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Leonard said, “lest this story turn out to be as laborious as the Book of Mormon without the good parts, but how did your brother Herman go from being a Bandito Supreme to being a preacher?”

“I’m not sure that’s such a big jump, from Nazi to preacher,” Brett said.

“Very funny, lady,” Red said. “You’re one of those who has no respect for anything. Not even religion.”

“Pardon me,” Brett said, “I didn’t know we were keeping you from prayer meetings.”

“I don’t claim to be a churchgoer, though I ought to be,” Red said. “But I believe in the church, and I respect my brother for what he’s doing. Witnessing to the lost souls of West Texas.”

“I got a feeling anyone lives out here is lost,” Brett said.

“It is ugly, isn’t it?” Red said.

“I don’t know why I’m persisting,” Leonard said. “But I want to know about this brother of yours, long as it doesn’t somehow lead back to that goddamn steak ranchero.”

“Herman, unlike myself, is normal-sized. Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. He’s large. Six four, weighs about two-forty, and can bench-press almost four hundred. Quite a bit of weight, I assure you, but as I explained last night, considering my size and weight and the fact I can bench-press two hundred pounds, he’s not as strong as me, least not in a relative sense.”

“Yeah,” Brett said, “but how long is his dong?”

“I happily admit I have no idea,” Red said. “We had very little boyhood together, and we spent none of it measuring each other’s equipment. Are you interested in hearing about Herman, or not?”

“I said I was curious,” Leonard said.

Red, feeling important, leaned back in his seat. “Any chance I might smoke my last cigar? I’ve been saving it, and since my incarceration by you three, I haven’t had the privilege. From previous inspection I find that it’s broken in two, so it’ll be a short smoke.”

“It’ll be shorter than that,” Brett said. “You aren’t going to smoke it in this car. It’ll make us all sick.”

Red assumed a hangdog demeanor, but he was feeling too self-important not to continue his story. “Very well. As I was saying, Herman was normal, and I was not, and our parents deferred to him entirely. He could do all manner of sports activities well, while I, on the other hand, had a good mind. I could read and quote great passages of Shakespeare at a tender age. I hoped to impress my parents, but, alas, they weren’t interested in a short Hamlet who they found embarrassing at public functions.

“At eleven years of age I ended up sold to a circus, apprenticed is the word they used, but undoubtedly, if you look at it clearly, it can only be determined that I was sold in the same manner you might sell a pup from a litter. It was purely a legality, this apprenticeship business. I was to be the circus owner’s ward. The owner was a Mr. Gonzolos. A nastier, fouler-mouthed, meaner-tempered man did not exist. He’s long dead now. I heard from old cronies that after I left the circus an elephant—undoubtedly brutalized and mistreated like myself—mauled, stomped, and rolled on him. I say with only the smallest bit of shame, because he did keep me clothed and fed, I feel absolutely no remorse over his death. What I remember most about Gonzolos was that he constantly complained of hemorrhoids and lack of money.”

“Unless the elephant is your brother Herman,” Brett said, “I believe you’ve veered yet again.”

“It’s important that you understand my position in life to understand about my brother. He and my parents, in spite of their indulgence of him, had a falling out. It was about me, sad to say. Herman disliked the idea they sold his only sibling to a traveling-circus-cum-carnival-cumsideshow, and they became estranged. Fact is, I have no idea what happened to either of my parents, and like with Mr. Gonzolos, I can’t say I’ve pined over them much, and I’m sure there’s no inheritance awaiting me. They never liked me, and they never had any money either.

“Herman fell in with some hooligans, spent time in jail, a bit of youth detention, and finally graduated to the big time. He got in with the Bandito Supremes, selling drugs. All of this he told me about, as I was not there to witness it. I was riding dogs and making a fool of myself in the circus at that time, but Herman went from being a football star in high school to selling heroin to twelve-year-olds. He did say that the bulk of his sales were to colored people, and at the time he felt that made everything all right. I can honestly say he doesn’t feel that way now. He figures a colored person has just as much right to live and prosper as anyone. Herman has become quite progressive, actually.”

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Speaking as one of those colored persons, I’d have to say Herman certainly sounds like a fuckin’ peach.”

“Would it be all right I merely suck on the cigar and not smoke it?” Red said.

“Go ahead,” Brett said.

Red plucked the cigar from inside his coat. It was broken, but still together, held there by strands of tobacco. He pulled the cigar apart, returned one piece to his coat pocket, licked the end of the other, stuck it in his mouth and rolled it about as if tasting a Tootsie Roll Pop.

“I said Herman had a change of heart, became a preacher, and he did, but before that change of heart he put me on the road to commerce. An act he now regrets and that I’m most thankful for. Without Herman, at my age, I might no longer be riding a dog in the circus, but cleaning up dog droppings instead. At the time Herman removed me from the circus, my career was already in the toilet and I was heading in the direction of a flush. I had become surly, and perhaps it was my own fault that my career was eroding, but be that as it may, I was soon to be either working the dog pens or walking the street, giving blow jobs under the guise of a child prostitute, when Herman tracked me down by assistance of a private detective. When Herman arrived, I was more than willing to go in with him and start a new life and enter into his business.”

“Selling drugs?” I asked.

“Herman started there, but he had graduated into a considerably broader program. Drugs. Women. Some money laundering. Getting rid of certain people. You name it and Herman was directing it or performing it. He located me at the circus, came and got me. There was a disturbance, a demand of money from Gonzolos. Herman refused. ‘Hey Rube’ was yelled, and Herman was forced to kick some butt.

“I had never seen anything like it. He was a human buzz-saw. I did my best, but being small, and having had little experience fighting, and being accustomed to losing all my fights, I doubt my contribution was of any significance other than to find myself tangled in Herman’s feet. But he maintained his balance and survived the encounter by giving an astounding account of himself. Of course Herman was carrying a tire iron at the time, and this proved considerably to his advantage.

“Eventually everyone wore down and those with broken bones gave up gratefully. Even Bilbo the Strong Man, who I’m sure must have suffered a hernia after taking a full kick to the groin, not to mention a thumb in the eye, gave in and even cried a little. Size and strength certainly didn’t intimidate Herman. As he told me later, no matter how big they grow, balls and eyes stay soft and a tire tool has no friends.”

“Sounds like a motto to live by,” I said.

Red nodded. “Herman took me with him, bought me my first tailored suit and got me laid. Also a first. There I was in my late twenties and I had never had the delights of a woman. She wasn’t the best-looking whore. A fat lady with bad skin and an ill sense of fashion, but she was fairly quick-witted for a heavy drinker. She was a native of El Paso and for forty-five dollars she serviced me from head to foot. That is still one of my fondest life experiences, even if it did take place in El Paso and in the end she vomited on my knees.”

“Spare the details,” Brett said.

“It isn’t my style to discuss sexual escapades, even if they were paid for. I was merely giving a general view. Herman put me to work for him. Oh, there were problems at first. My size caused some snickers among the Bandito Supremes, and Herman had to mess up a few people, but eventually I was accepted, and became good at the work. It was certainly better than riding a dog in the circus, and far better than shoveling droppings. It got so I could take care of myself quite well. Herman gave me some tips, see. And besides, as the old story goes, all men are created equal, but Samuel Colt makes some more equal. If one wants to be accurate, in my case it was Smith and Wesson that made me equal. I never cottoned to a Colt. Perhaps it’s all that cowboy legacy. I hate that business. Can’t even watch a Western on television.”

“I think you protest too much about the cowboy stuff, shorty,” Brett said. “Way you dress, you look like a regular Stick Horse Harry to me.”

“There you go again, that demeaning manner. Television cowboys and fashion are quite different, lady, and I use that word loosely in your case. I’ll have you know this is quite the fashion in some places.”

“Yeah, some ranch on Mars,” Brett said.

“So,” Leonard prompted, “your brother took you in and trained you and …”

Red rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “That’s correct. Then, one day, after a long and particularly tedious job involving the nailing of a little girl’s hand to a boat oar to show her father that business was meant involving some money he owed the Bandito Supremes for nose candy, Herman just cracked. I’m not sure why. He didn’t do the actual nailing. He held her hand and I did that, but it did him in. He ceased to look at his work as business. He saw it as something personal. Always a mistake. You have to keep the two separate.

“He wandered off the job and disappeared for a year. No one could find him at first, but by the second year his trail was picked up and certain Bandito Supremes were assigned to talk to Herman. It wasn’t so much they were worried about his welfare, but he had taken money up front for the job, and though the mission had been completed, Herman had kept all the money to wander on. None of it went to headquarters so to speak, and not even I had been paid my share. It wasn’t the money bothered them so much, it was fear of a trend. You know, Bandito Supremes bailing out on them and going on their own. Ignoring protocol.

“I was, of course, as you would suspect, willing to pass on my fee, but the big bosses were most unpleasant about it. I was able to slide out of working for the Bandito Supremes, and kept only a loose connection with them when I went to work for Big Jim. They were understanding. Herman having been my brother, they could understand why I might not want to continue with them, and honestly, they didn’t care that much for midgets anyway. Eventually, I lost all track of them and their work except for when it crossed Big Jim’s path.

“In Herman’s case, they were less understanding. After he refused to pay them, they began to send hit men after him. Only problem for the Bandito Supremes was Herman was better than they were. He killed them all. I heard all of this through the grapevine, you understand. It got so it was a pride thing with the Bandito Supremes. They kept sending out these men to do Herman in, and he kept killing them, leaving a mark on them that could be identified as his signature.”