The Adventures of Slim & Howdy (15 page)

37

AS THEY RAN OUT TO THE PARKING LOT, SLIM YELLED,
“Gimme the keys.”

“I don’t think so,” Howdy replied as he fished them from his pocket.

“It’s my turn to drive.”

“We ain’t got time to take the scenic route,” Howdy said. “I’ll drive.”

“You’re the one wasting time,” Slim said. “Gimme the damn keys.”

Howdy complied since Slim had beaten him to the driver’s-side door and had the sort of grip on the handle that he didn’t look like he was going to relinquish. “All right, you can drive,” Howdy said. “But I call shotgun.”

Slim snatched the keys dangling from Howdy’s hand, then jumped in. He said, “Speaking of guns, Jodie carries that .38 with her all the time doesn’t she?” He turned the key and the engine chugged a few times but wouldn’t catch.

“I think so,” Howdy said.

“All right, good.” Slim pumped the accelerator a few times and tried again, but it still wouldn’t turn over.
Ruur-ruur-ruur.

“She’s not afraid to use it either,” Howdy said, thinking back to the day they saw her firing (and firing at) Link. He gestured at the accelerator. “Ease up on the gas.”

“Come on, you piece of crap!”
Ruur-ruur-ruur.

“It’s not the truck,” Howdy said.
Ruur-ruur-ruur.

Slim turned the key again and again as he pumped the accelerator like Buddy Rich on a kick drum. “Come on!”
Ruur-ruur-ruur.

“Excuse me, Mr. Earnhardt, but I think you flooded it.”

-Ruur-ruur-ruur.
Boom!
Howdy just about jumped through his hat when the truck backfired and roared to life. He didn’t need to look at Slim to know that he had one of those don’t-tell-
me
-how-to-start-a-truck smirks on his face. “Ha!” He popped the clutch and shot out of the parking lot.

Much to Howdy’s surprise, Slim was willing and able to drive like a bat out of hell when the occasion called for it. He ran lights, cut through lawns, and passed anybody not doing approximately sixty. “You know the limit here is twenty-five,” Howdy said as he white-knuckled the door on one particularly hairy turn.

“Now you’re going to complain that I drive too
fast
?” Slim could only shake his head. “Just shut up and hang on.”

“No, I’m impressed,” Howdy said. “Didn’t know you had these kinds of skills.”

Slim leaned into a wild left turn, jumped the curb, and clipped a couple of garbage cans, spewing wet, rancid trash over the hood, the windshield, and half the block.

“Watch those cans,” Howdy said. He leaned forward to see what had landed on the windshield and found himself staring into the rotting eye of a Guadalupe spotted bass, or what was left of it, after being pulled from Devil’s Lake and filleted. “Eww.” He reached over, hit the wipers, and launched the fish carcass over the cab.

Howdy pulled the Lost and Found phone from his pocket and tried Jodie again. A second later he flipped it shut. “Still goes to voice mail,” he said.

Slim took one hand off the wheel to point up the road. “Is that it?”

“No, the next one,” Howdy said. “Ceniza Street.”

Slim made the turn at forty with Howdy leaning out the passenger window like he was trying to keep a catamaran from capsizing.

Slim screeched to a stop in front of the house, a modest
rancheria
sitting on a half acre at the end of a cul-de-sac. The landscaping was the standard southwest mix of wild flowers, cacti, succulents, and native grasses. The prominent botanical feature was a mature century plant with its blooming rosette of spiny leaves.

The front yard was divided by a curving flagstone path. Jodie’s truck was parked in the driveway. The only light came from the front porch, nothing on inside.

Howdy went to the front door and knocked. Slim peeked into windows and checked around back before returning. “No answer,” Howdy said.

“Back door’s locked,” Slim replied. “Some windows are open but the screens are intact. I don’t think anybody’s in there.”

They stood there for a minute looking at the scene, looking for anything that seemed unusual. But nothing seemed amiss at first glance.

“Maybe the headache was a ruse,” Howdy said. “Maybe she was having a rendezvous she wanted to keep secret. Just met somebody here and went off with ’em?”

“No, she was eating aspirins like bar nuts,” Slim said. “The headache was legit.” He looked around then shook his head. “Besides, that doesn’t explain that weird phone call.” Slim shook his head again. “I don’t think she was planning to go out, at least not voluntarily.” He went back to the truck and grabbed a couple of flashlights, tossed one to Howdy.

Based on where her truck was parked, they figured Jodie would have walked past the century plant and hit the flagstone path about halfway to the house. They retraced this path using the flashlights. The ground was hard-packed so it was tough to make out any footprints. They walked around for a minute before Howdy’s flashlight caught a reflection, and he said, “Got something.”

Slim came over with his light, shined it where Howdy’s was. “Damn,” he said.

“Yeah,” Howdy said. “Damn is right.” He bent down and picked up the silver and turquoise necklace Jodie had been wearing that night. It was snapped in half.

“Now what?”

“No idea,” Howdy said as he pulled out the phone and hit redial. Somewhere in the near distance they heard something strange, a haunting and oddly familiar melody. Slowly, Slim and Howdy turned around until they were looking across the yard. In the darkness, a faint blue glow rose from within the gray-green leaves of the century plant as Jodie’s ring tone—the theme from
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
—wafted from the leaves of the agave. The phone played the opening four bars before going to voice mail.

They walked over and peered into the plant. Slim said, “Where’s Clint Eastwood when you need him?”

38

FIVE MINUTES FROM JODIE’S HOUSE THERE WAS A ONE-STORY
brick building that looked like it could have been an appliance repair shop. The front was all plate glass, perfect for the display of secondhand washers and dryers but, as this was the Del Rio Police Department, the items on display were somewhat more tragic than Maytags with broken drive belts.

Slim and Howdy pulled into the parking lot and the wash of fluorescent lights shining through the big windows. Inside, handcuffed to a bench along one wall, they could see two drunks, a smacked-up hooker, and a sullen teenage runaway, all waiting for their dose of justice or whatever else was meted out at this place. Across the room, behind a battered desk, sat an overworked cop with a bitter cup of burned coffee.

When Slim and Howdy walked in, triggering the electronic door chime, Senior Patrol Officer Joel Hernandez looked up from processing some arrest reports. His expression landed him somewhere between suspicious and surprised. They didn’t get a lot of walk-in business this time of night, and precious little that was sober.

The chime forced the hooker’s opiated eyes open and she reacted as though Slim and Howdy were the character witnesses she’d been waiting on all her life. She pointed at them with the glue-on nails of her uncuffed paw. “Ask these two,” she said. “I ain’t been anywhere near Laredo in the past three weeks.”

Officer Hernandez pointed at her. “Rosy, shut up.”

She opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out. Then she closed her eyes and rested her chin on her Dolly Partons, which were being supported by an industrial-strength bra.

Officer Hernandez pushed back from his desk, looked at the two men. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” Howdy said. “We need to report a crime.”

Officer Hernandez made a show of looking at the clock on the wall. It was two thirty in the morning. “Don’t you have a phone?”

“We were in the neighborhood,” Slim said.

Howdy nodded. “So was the crime.”

“Great,” the cop said. “Just what I need.” He yanked a new form from one of the stacks in front of him, grabbed a pen, and said, “What’re you reporting?”

“We’re not sure,” Howdy said.

Officer Hernandez stared at Howdy for a few seconds, twirling the pen. “Maybe you’d like to figure that out and come back another time.” He put the pen down. “Like when I’m not working.”

Slim shook his head, thinking about what Jodie might be going through. “You guys need to get on this now.”

“Oh, we do?” Officer Hernandez gestured at his little rogue’s gallery. “I actually got plenty to do right now, but thanks.” He turned his attention back to his paperwork and said, “Next shift comes in at eight.”

Slim leaned onto the desk, putting a hand over the paperwork. He said, “Look, Slick, this could be assault, kidnapping, rape, and/or murder.”

That last word brought Rosy back to life. Her head hit the wall behind her when she lifted it up to say, “I told Antwan, I said, I’ll kill that scumbag he ever try that again. Ain’t nobody gonna pull that shit on Rosy. Noooo.” She paused for a moment then nudged the drunk sitting next to her. “Hey, honey, you want a date? Rosy’s the best in town.”

“Rosy, shut up!” Officer Hernandez looked at Slim, reluctantly asking for more details on the crime. When they finished telling the story and all the evidence was sitting on the desk, the cop said, “That’s it?” He poked at the broken necklace. “You found some jewelry on the ground.”

“And the cell phone,” Slim said, pointing.

“In the century plant.”

“Right.”

“Plus the weird phone call,” Howdy said.

“Right,” Officer Hernandez said. “But no witnesses to anything.”

“Nope.”

“No blood?”

“It’s dark over there.”

“I thought you said you had flashlights.”

“We do, but . . .”

“All right, and you say there’s no body.”

“If we had a body,” Howdy said, “we could rule out kidnapping, now couldn’t we?”

Officer Hernandez glared at the sarcastic cowboy with the black hat and said, “I tell you what, Sherlock, you’re so damn smart, you can solve your own crime.” He put the form back in the pile whence it came, looked up, and said, “I can’t help ya.”

“What?”

“Why?”

“You mean other than the fact that there’s no evidence of a crime?”

Rosy turned to the teenage runaway and said, “That’s what I keep saying. Where’s the crime? Ain’t no eva-dence against me, ’cause I wasn’t nowhere near there when it happened.”

Along with a whiff of Rosy’s breath, the sullen teenager caught a glimpse of his future and the kind of people he’d be rubbing shoulders with if he didn’t get his act together. Years from now he would look back at this moment as the turning point in his life. But that’s another story.

Howdy gestured roundly at the desktop as if it were covered with fingerprints, shell casings, and a half pound of DNA. He said, “Whaddya mean, no evidence?”

“What you have here is some jewelry and a cell phone,” Hernandez said. “What you don’t have is a compelling reason for us to act.”

Slim held his hands out in disbelief. “What part of this don’t you understand?”

“Look,
Slick,
” Officer Hernandez said, throwing it back at Slim. “In our experience, very few missing adults are the victims of foul play. They mostly disappear on purpose. Besides—and this is something you need to know—being missing ain’t a crime. For all I know she’s trying to get away from you two for good reason.”

After having given it some thought, one of the drunks looked over at Rosy and said, “Tell you what, how about a free sample? It’s good as you say, you get all my business.”

Rosy’s head popped back again, hitting the wall. “I’ll give you the business, all right,” she said. “But not for free. You just wait till Antwan gets here. He’ll show you what’s free.”

“Oh, c’mon, how ’bout just a Dirty Sanchez?”

“No!”

Officer Hernandez ignored the negotiations and pointed at Slim. “This woman who’s missing, she your girlfriend?”

“No,” Slim said. “I work for her.”

“I’ll be your girlfriend,” Rosy said with a nod. “Do whatever you want. Best in town.”

This time Howdy turned around and said, “Hey, Rosy? Shut up.”

The drunk lowered his voice, nudged Rosy, and said, “What about uh Alabama Tight Spot?”

She just shook her head.

“A Toothless Tiger?”

As the drunk continued down the menu, Officer Hernandez sat back in his chair, scratched the side of his neck, then pointed at Slim and said, “Yeah, I’m thinking you’re the boyfriend, gave her the necklace, y’all had a fight, she tore off the jewelry, threw it at you along with the phone. Now you’re all pissed off and you and your buddy want us to help you find her. Something like that.”

This bit of deductive reasoning took Howdy past the end of his rope. He looked at Slim and said, “What’s the penalty for assaulting a police officer in Texas?”

Before anybody could address the question, the electronic door chime sounded again and everybody turned to see who it was. He was a mean-looking mutt in a shiny suit, closer to purple than anything else, with a wide-brimmed fedora that actually matched. No surprise, the man seemed completely unconcerned that he might be perpetuating stereotypes.

Rosy rattled her handcuffs and tried to stand as she called out, “Antwan! It’s about damn time you got here.”

“Shut up, bitch!” Antwan glared at Officer Hernandez. “Lemme ask you,” he said. “How’s a man supposed to make a living, you keep draggin’ his hos in here for no reason? Huh? Hard enough out there for a pimp as it is. I pay you people good money to let these girls be. Now unlock those cuffs,” he said, pointing at Rosy, “so I can put this thing back to work.” He sucked on the toothpick stuck off to the side and pulled his jacket back so they could all see his gun. “I ain’t messin’ around, now. ”

Howdy, who was having a hard time believing a man would be seen wearing a suit like that, said, “Yo, Huggy Bear, we got here first. Wait your turn.”

Antwan turned his attention to the cat in the cowboy hat. “Yo, Cisco Kid, you best keep yo’ punk-ass mouth shut till I get my business done.”

Slim stopped Howdy from bull-rushing the pimp, then he pulled the .22. “Like my friend said, wait your turn.”

Antwan didn’t hesitate. He went for his gun in a flourish of purple.

The sudden shot surprised everybody in the room, but none more than Antwan, who hit the floor with his gun still in his waistband. “Sonofamutharatbastardshiteatingoddaaaaam that hurts like a muthasonofaawwww.” He stopped cursing eventually and lay on the floor moaning, blood pooling around his foot.

Howdy stepped over to where Antwan was squirming around on the linoleum clutching at his leg. “You shot yourself, you dumb bastard.” Howdy pulled the gun from the pimp’s waistband and glanced at the man’s bloody boot. “Looks like you took off a toe.”

“Shoot him again,” Rosy said. “Higher.”

Officer Hernandez slapped his desktop. “Goddammit, Rosy, shut up!” He got on the radio and called for an ambulance. “It’s gonna take me all night to do the paperwork on this.”

The pool of blood gathering around Antwan’s foot was more than one of the drunks could take. He leaned forward and heaved a quart or so of fortified wine and what might have been a couple of tacos. It was hard to say for sure.

Howdy stepped back, wincing, and put Antwan’s gun on Hernandez’s desk. He nudged Slim and said, “Let’s go.”

Hernandez, who couldn’t believe how his night had gone so quickly from bad to worse, said, “Where you two think you’re going? You’re witnesses.”

“I didn’t see shit,” Howdy said. “And my buddy here is blind.”

“That’s right,” Slim said, putting his sunglasses on. “Besides, we gotta go solve a crime.”