Tough Baby (Martin Fender Novel) (26 page)

“Who’s the Lieutenant’s fair-haired boy now?”

He snorted. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. I’m not brown nosing for a desk job. I just wanna catch criminals and play a little bass guitar on the side.” His grin widened as he tapped his notepad on the table. A wallet-sized photo fluttered out. He slipped it back inside without looking at it, but not before I saw whose gray-blue eyes, short black hair, and wide, rubbery mouth were on it.

“She loved the hell out of her dad,” he said. “And when she gave her confession she was just as sweet as can be. But once we told her that her mother was flying in she cussed like oil field trash and turned cold as a witch. She’s thrown a monkey wrench into this case from day one, and she’s bound and determined to make it as hard on us as she can for as long as she can. Of that I’m certain. Man, she’s one tough baby.”

“Yeah. So is Retha.”

He grinned and scratched his beard. “Oh, hell yes, that’s a fact.”

We stood up and shook hands. Lasko said that someone was there to give me a ride. It turned out to be Leo.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Leo got another Carta Blanca out of my refrigerator and opened it. He took a long pull from it and sat down, gathering courage. “It’s a shame it wasn’t the A & R guy,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “It would have made sense, wouldn’t it?” He almost smiled. “Damn right it’d make sense. Payola they probably figure they could fight, but if word got out they were making deals with perverts,
hoo-boy
, look out. Call the window-peeper brigade. But hell, record companies don’t know shit about making sense, otherwise you and me woulda been made famous a long time ago.”

He looked like he wanted to cry but had forgotten how.

“I appreciate your putting up with me,” he said.

“You and Nadine working things out?”

“I don’t know. She’s still over at her mom’s place. If we sort this thing out, she’ll come back. If not, well, I gotta look for a place to flop. So, you still wanna play with me, or you fed up, or what?”

“Leo.”

“Nadine was seeing this guy while we were on the road,” he abruptly blurted. “It didn’t have to be a big deal, cause I haven’t always been one hundred percent faithful to her. And to make matters worse, I never could seem to hide it from her. I don’t know, she can read minds or something. Anyway, what she didn’t know, the guy works with an old friend of mine, and every time they saw each other, I knew about it. I kept in touch with him on the road.”

“And those were the times you blew up?”

He nodded. “More or less. I couldn’t deal with it, Martin. Whenever I heard about it, all I could think was how much I hated her guts. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her legs wrapped around some guy, his cum going inside her, her liking it, kissing him, smoking a cigarette afterwards. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I still can’t. I think maybe I really do hate her.”

“Maybe you really do feel something else, too.”

He just shrugged.

“Who’d you call more often on the road, the guy’s friend or her?”

“Aw, come on, man. You just don’t understand.”

“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “And maybe you don’t, either. What about the thing with Vick? How did that come about?”

“Aw hell.” His voice wavered, his knees jerked. “I owed Vick some money. A lot of money.” He looked up at me with his glassy eyes.

“Go on,” I said.

He looked down at a spot on the rug and spoke slowly but deliberately, as if he was anxious to get the words out and be done with them. I listened closely. His voice was quiet and thin.

“I was drunk out of my mind and he kept the Cuervo flowing. I was so eat up with hate for Nadine that I hated myself. I wanted to hurt her, I wanted to hurt myself. But I didn’t have the kind of guts or whatever it takes to slash my wrists. I tried to run out in front of a car earlier that night, but my feet just stuck to the pavement. I went to that party, and it seemed like I was the only one there who wasn’t having a good time. Ed gave me a ride that ended up over at the store. Vick kept the Cuervo flowing, kept talking with that singsong voice of his. It was like he wasn’t really saying anything, not really, but it all made sense. In other words ... it lulled me. That and the Cuervo, and I was tired. Crazy tired. Everything was a big blur, just one low moan. Like a machine, almost, just chugging away, and I was just pasted to the side of it. They beat me up. I swear, I don’t think I felt a thing when he broke my hand. It was all in slow motion, like a dream. Afterwards, I guess Vick felt bad, and he gave me that guitar.”

He swallowed hard and inhaled shakily, as if whatever he’d just swallowed had cut his insides. “God, I’m sorry. You won’t tell anybody, will you?”

I put an arm around him and squeezed. No, I said, I wouldn’t tell anybody. We finished our beers.

“Leo,” I said finally, “I just wish you would have said something about this a long time ago. I feel like hell because you were going through hell while we were on the road and we didn’t do anything about it.”

“You did the best thing you could have done. You were there, and you didn’t cut me loose. I just wanna play the blues, man. If I didn’t get to play, I’d go all the way crazy. You’re not gonna cut me loose now, are you?”

I shook my head. “I’d like to keep the band together. I don’t want to look for another guitar player. I won’t be responsible for you going all the way crazy, but I won’t put up with any drugs, trashing motel rooms, or arson in the dressing room. Or anything else that’s incredibly stupid.”

The shadow of a grin played at the comers of his mouth like a threat. “Lay down the bottom line, bassman.” We shook hands. “By the way, Ray told me to tell you he’s available.”

“I hoped he’d come around,” I said. “When did you talk to him?”

“At the police station. He and Kate were on their way to Katz’s for steak and eggs around seven o’clock yesterday morning after one of his after-hours gigs and they saw all the patrol cars in front of Vick’s place. So he went down and told them a little story about him and Vick and apples.”

“Apples?”

He nodded. “Way it goes, back when Ray first moved here from Lubbock and didn’t have a gig and didn’t know anybody, he ran into old Vick and Vick got him off to one side and offered him two hundred dollars to throw a bushel of apples at his butt.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“I wish I could’ve seen that,” I said. “I’ll bet he lost his cool for once.”

“Well, that’s just the thing. Like I said, Ray was new in town and he didn’t know nobody and nobody knew him and he didn’t have a gig. He needed the money.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Leo almost laughed too. “Oh, man,” I said. “What a band.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ladonna and I were stretched out on a blanket, watching Michael skip stones off the glassy surface of the creek. Not many people knew about my favorite secluded spot on Barton Creek, and we had it all to ourselves that afternoon. It was peaceful enough to get some thinking done, maybe even enough to stop thinking for a while.

I knew several clerks at the Hyatt who would either know or be able to find out if Barbra had been out of her room during the time of Retha’s attack. But Lasko or Watson would get to them soon enough and put the matter to rest. It wasn’t that I was harboring any illusions about Barbra. I was just sick of the whole deal.

I rested my head in Ladonna’s lap and stared up at the big open sky, thinking about guilt and responsibility. It didn’t take a genius to see that the private vexations of Vick and Leo and all the other Leos out there had branched out and hurt Retha Thomas. The quiet conspiracy that let Vick go for all those years had to share the guilt. They were as responsible for causing her pain as the crowd below a ledge hugger taunting him to jump, as guilty as the people who walk on by, too wrapped up in themselves to give a damn.

How guilty was I? As guilty as some, I supposed, but not as guilty as others. I didn’t feel like a hero, that’s for sure. All I did was get in the way for a while, get used for a while, then fight back. I’d crippled one man for life, caused one to be shot to death, and chased another until he smashed up on a roadblock and lost his head. I didn’t feel too bad about it. Maybe I would someday, but right then I just felt lucky. Somebody loved me, I lived in Texas, and I had a working band that, although it wasn’t the most stable one in the world, sure had some depth to it.

“Martin,” said a low, smoky voice above me.

I opened my eyes. She was as beautiful as the sunny spring day.

“You’ve been talking to yourself,” she said. “Shut up and kiss me and rub some lotion on my back.”

Our lips met. We rolled off the blanket into the soft grass. Birds tweeted. Wind blew. When the sun went down, we went to her place.