Devil Red

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Cason told her why we were there. There were a series of chairs along one side of the foyer, and we went over there to sit while she pushed a button on her phone. She talked quietly for a moment over the intercom.

  “You can go in right away,” she said.

  As we passed her desk, Cason gave her a wink, and she smiled. Just before we went inside, I said to Cason, “Are there any women who don’t like you?”

  “Yes,” Cason said. “But it’s a short list.”

  40

  Kincaid’s office was about the size of an airport and there was some nice furniture there, including a large couch, and there were paintings on the walls. The paintings were mostly of birds, though there were some that looked to be nothing more than splashes of color. Maybe the splashes were birds too.

  Kincaid was sitting behind a large desk, and he looked older than sixty by no more than a hundred years. He was white-headed and his face seemed to have collapsed at some point and been blown back into shape with a water hose. He hardly had a chin and there was a clear tube running up from behind the desk that ended in a little fitting that went into his nose. He was on oxygen. The gray suit he was wearing was like a tent that folded up around him. I saw that he was in a motorized chair.

  At a smaller desk nearby was a middle-aged woman in a blue dress. She was stout of build but nice-looking. Her hair was tinted blonde and well sprayed. She looked healthy enough to wrestle a steer.

  She got up from behind her desk with a catlike grace and came out to greet us, shook our hands, told us her name was Miss Sara Clinton. She directed us to chairs in front of Kincaid’s desk the way a waitress shows you your table.

  “Which one of you is Mr. Statler?” Kincaid asked. When he spoke, the words fell out of his mouth as slow and gentle as a sweet afternoon rain. Hearing him talk made me sleepy.

  Cason said, “That’s me.”

  “I spoke with you over the phone.”

  “Yes.”

  “These are your associates, of course.”

  “Yes,” Cason said, gesturing to each of us. “Leonard Pine and Hap Collins.”

  “Hap,” he said, “that’s an unusual name. Is it short for anything?”

  “Hap,” I said.

  He smiled a little. The act of talking seemed to tire him out. “You mentioned my son. I wanted to know what you had to say, but what can be said? He’s gone, and the people who did it are, according to the police, all dead.”

  Cason nodded. “That’s true, sir. We have been asked by the mother of a boy who was killed with one of the women, Mini—”

  “I know who she is,” he said, not wanting to hear the rest of the name. “I followed the case, obviously.” His voice was less gentle now, like the rain had suddenly been disturbed by thunder. “You aren’t lawyers are you?”

  “No,” Cason said.

  “Good.”

  “Why would we be lawyers?” Leonard asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but I had this sudden feeling you might be, that maybe you were trying to tie me to the whole mess, a civil suit. Well, I thought maybe all of you were lawyers but you.”

  He nodded at me.

  I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult.

  Leonard leaned over to me, said, “I look like a lawyer.”

  I thought: Let’s get your deerstalker and have you put it on, and then we’ll see how much you look like a lawyer.

  “Why would you think that, sir?” Cason said. He was using all of his buttery personality, and it was working. I suppose it was the reporter in him, experience with others. He hadn’t been buttery when we first met him.

  “Because that Mini you mentioned. Her stepfather tried to tie me to her death. I would gladly have killed her, and all of the others, myself, but I doubt carrying an oxygen tank and having to ride around in this chair would have made me much of an assassin.”

  “How did he try to tie you to them?”

  “I’m not really sure what he was thinking, but he decided somehow we were responsible, like we had paid to have it done. Ridiculous.”

  “Well, we have nothing to do with him,” I said.

  “We represent a Mrs. Christopher,” Cason said. “We’re trying to find information concerning the death of her son, trying to figure what connection there could be to him having been killed.”

  “You’re detectives?”

  “Mostly,” Cason said.

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Kincaid said.

  “What?” Cason said.

  “The boy,” Kincaid said. “He must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Should have kept better company.”

  “Perhaps,” Cason said.

  “Those are the hard facts. My only son was killed by these animals. Anyone who would associate with them is no better than the animals they were. Vampires! Seriously, now.”

  “Animals actually have a much more polite and less devious agenda,” I said.

  “I agree,” Kincaid said.

  “It’s just that we’ve been hired to investigate,” I said, “so we’re asking some questions. It’s not meant to be personal. We’re just trying to fit some shoes, so to speak.”

  “I’m not Cinderella. Whatever you’re asking, whatever shoes you’re laying out, my feet don’t fit.”

  “Well,” I said, “long as we’re on a fairy-tale theme, you might call us Goldilocks. We have to try out different things to find out which ones are just right. It’s our job, nothing more.”

  He grinned at me. His teeth, though clean and shiny, looked loose in his mouth. “You’re thinking that I didn’t kill them, but that I have money, and I had them killed. The ones who got off, I mean. You’re thinking like the stepfather. I didn’t do anything to them. I should have. I wanted to. But I didn’t know how to go about it. Besides, the law took care of the actual killer, and fate took care of the accomplices and the young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The stepfather, Bert,” I said. “He’s dead too.”

  “How unfortunate. He came to me trying to tie me to the death of this … Mini. He was certain I had something to do with it. He wanted money. I told him where he could go, and he must have gone there. I haven’t heard from him, or of him, again, until just now.”

  “The others, way the law took care of them,” Leonard said. “That satisfy you?”

  “No. But the fat queer got what she deserved in prison. The others got theirs as well. As I said. Fate. I’m not satisfied with the law, but fate has satisfied me as much as a man can be satisfied in a situation like this.”

  “Do you have any idea how the others might have died?” I said, trying to make the question sound as casual as if asking him if he wanted a back massage.

  “No. Why would I? I was told they were all dead. My assumption is they died due to their connections, others who were as crazy as they were. If I knew who those people were, provided I didn’t think they too were somehow connected to my son’s death, I might throw them a parade. Well, gentlemen. I’m a busy man. I have a nap to take. It’s when I do my best thinking.”

  Miss Clinton, who had gone behind her desk to sit, got up and came over and directed us toward the door. She even took my arm and led me. Why the hell was I getting the bum’s rush? Why not Leonard or Cason? Was it because I didn’t look like a lawyer?

  We were hurried out into the foyer, where the receptionist waited behind her desk. As we passed she looked at Cason the way a dog looks at a pork chop. He looked back at her and smiled and then she smiled again. There was enough sexual tension in the air between them you could have sparked a candlewick to flame.

  We stopped in the jungle section with Miss Clinton. There were still no tigers. The birds were screeching loudly, making me a nervous wreck.

  Miss Clinton said, “He doesn’t mean to be rude, but questions about his son, they disturb him.”

  “He seemed awfully hostile for someone happy with how things turned out, the killers getting theirs,”
I said.

  “That was his only son. His only child. He’s dead and he isn’t coming back, and it was all because of some kind of prank, or belief, whatever you like to call it, son.”

  “Hap. Or Mr. Collins,” I said. “I don’t go by son.”

  “Don’t be cute with me. You’re not that cute.”

  I thought: And you’re not old enough to be my mother, so don’t call me son. But I didn’t say it aloud. I was kind of glad she thought I looked that young. You got to take compliments where you find them, even if the remark wasn’t actually meant as one.

  “Thing is,” she said, “any discussion of his son always upsets him.”

  “Then why did he let us come discuss it with him?” Cason asked. “We’re not here to harass him. Just to find out information that might help our client.”

  “He wanted to hear anything that might be about his son, and he wanted to hear nothing. Do you understand?”

  “We regret if we upset him, or you,” I said. “You seem very loyal.”

  “Loyal? That’s not the word. He’s my ex-husband.”

  “Your ex-husband,” Leonard said. “So, the boy was your son?”

  “No. Mr. Kincaid divorced me, married … another woman. She died of throat cancer … smoked like a chimney. I was his personal assistant when we were married, and I stayed that way.”

  “I can respect that,” I said.

  “Can you? You can? Well, I don’t need your respect.”

  “Well, you don’t get mine,” Leonard said. “I think you’re a goddamn doormat.”

  “You don’t have to be rude,” she said.

  “Duh,” Leonard said. “Of course I don’t have to be. Neither do you. We are grown-ass adults and we both decided to be rude.”

  She left then, went past the squawking birds and back through the doors that led into Mr. Kincaid’s office. She was a real fast walker.

  Leonard looked at me. “You respect that shit? I think she’s goddamn pathetic.”

  “I think it’s kind of sweet,” I said.

  “You two hash that out,” Cason said. “These damn birds are making me crazy.”

  We stood there while Cason went back to the desk and talked to the receptionist. When he came back he had her name written on the back of Kincaid’s business card.

  41

  Since Cason had a date with the Kincaid secretary, Lateesha, we thought staying at Constance’s place might be bad form, so we rented a room in the Holiday Inn Express near the airport. It had two beds and a rollaway; we left that death trap for Cason.

  Cason didn’t come back that night, so we sat around and watched television and went to bed late, like parents worried about their boy who had passed his curfew. In the morning, we went downstairs and looked at the free breakfast and understood why it was free, so we walked to a restaurant next door.

  As we walked, Leonard said, “If Cason doesn’t show soon, he’s going to have to find a ride home. I’m not taking that motherfucker in to raise.”

  “I thought you said he was loyal, and—”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  We were going inside the restaurant when Cason came up. Out in the lot, we saw Lateesha driving away in a red sports car.

  “Good to see you,” I said. “But we didn’t come here to serve as a dating service.”

  “Oh, I got that date all on my own.”

  Cason held up a disc.

  “What’s that?” Leonard said.

  “A list of all of Kincaid’s clients,” he said. “Lateesha got it for me off her computer. It occurred to me that—and I know this will be hard to believe—Kincaid might be lying.”

  “What has the world come to?” I said.

  “I’m going to send it to Mercury, have him cross-check it and see if there’s anyone on it that might be someone who would do Kincaid a favor. So to speak.”

  “The old organized crime figure on the accountant sheet trick,” I said.

  “That’s it,” Cason said.

  The greeter came over and guided us to a booth in the back, which is what we asked for. Soon as we were seated a thin waitress who looked as if it would be all right with her if everyone who ever wanted to eat in a restaurant was dead, arrived and took our coffee orders and went away.

  “Mercury can do that?” I said. “He has that kind of list available to him?”

  “He has a list of lists,” Cason said. “If there are people on this disc that cross-check as criminals, or are associated with criminals … We can check. It might lead to something, and it might lead to nothing. But it seems like this baby”—he held up the disc—“has made the trip worthwhile. It’s more than Kincaid would ever tell us just by asking.”

  “Lateesha get anything out of this?” I asked.

  “About six inches of dick and a marvelous breakfast,” Cason said.

  “Six inches and about ten feet of bullshit is what I figure,” Leonard said.

  “I’m not the world’s best person to be around women,” Cason said. “And the worse thing is, if I really get interested in them and they lose interest in me, which seems to happen as I tend to get preoccupied with things—”

  “Like more women,” I said.

  “That would be one of the preoccupations, yes,” Cason said. “But if they lose interest in me, I become a half-ass stalker if I don’t watch it. It’s hard for me to let go.”

  “So you have an inferiority complex,” Leonard said.

  “Could be,” Cason said.

  “What about Constance?” Leonard said.

  “I’m seeing her next weekend,” Cason said.

  “What about Lateesha?” I said.

  “Constance Saturday, Lateesha Sunday.”

  “Do you take vitamins?” I asked.

  “Push-ups and clean living,” Cason said.

  Driving home, Cason and Leonard talked about this and that. I tuned out and thought about Kincaid. If he had done anything to get rid of those associated with Godzilla, and her crime, I had a hard time figuring out what made him bad and us good. I had his money and resources I might have done the same thing. Hell, without his money I had done that kind of thing in the past, and Leonard was with me and he was proud of it.

  So why did his shit stink and ours smelled like perfume?

  And Bert had an idea, maybe a guess similar to ours, that Kincaid might have done the daughter in, and since he had lost all that money to the kitties, maybe he thought he could get some out of Kincaid. Only thing was, Kincaid hadn’t bit, and he may not have bit because he may not have been guilty. Or the only card Bert was holding was a guess, and Kincaid knew it. He struck me as a shrewd and intuitive man. And Miss Clinton, she didn’t seem like a slacker either. But the bottom line was, Bert was dead. Why would Kincaid bother to have him killed? Or had he. And if not, who did?

  No answers presented themselves.

  42

  By the time we got back to LaBorde, Leonard and Cason had become buddies. They both had been in the military, in different wars, but they had some similar experiences. When Cason got out of the car at his place, Leonard got out and they hugged.

  When Leonard got back in and we were tooling along, I said, “That was some hug.”

  “Don’t worry,” Leonard said. “You’re still number one.”

  We drove to Marvin’s office. The girl at the bicycle shop was standing in the open doorway. She was dressed warm today. The weather had turned cold and there was a hint of rain on the air. She had on a woolen cap and her hair cascaded out from under that. She wore a leather bomber jacket with a sheep’s wool collar, blue jeans, and some big boots with fur trim. The only thing missing was the sled dogs.

  In the office, Marvin had a small heater plugged into the wall and he was sitting by it in his rolling chair.

  “Can’t find the money for some real heat?” I said.

  “Central air is out,” Marvin said. “And I can’t afford to fix it. We get through with this case, I can. I may even get a new coffeepot and a better
water cooler.”

  We pulled the client chairs over by the heater. Leonard said, “Are you hinting that we should hurry up?”

  “No,” he said, “but a conclusion at some point in time would be nice.”

  “We’re starting to believe Kincaid was looking for vengeance for his son,” Leonard said, “and he knew someone whose accounting business he took care of was also someone who, for a fee, could take care of business for him.”

  “You think that because Brett thinks that?”

  “No,” Leonard said. “Because it’s logical.”

  “Another thing,” I said, “Bert tried to blackmail Kincaid. Kincaid admitted that. I think Bert was guessing Kincaid had Mini and Mrs. Christopher’s boy killed. He may not have seemed smart, but when it got right down to it, he could have had things figured out. Kincaid may have had him whacked. He knows the right people, and he makes millions for them on their taxes and accounts. He might be able to have them to do him a favor. Or pay them for one.

  “Actually, it’s all guesswork for right now, but it’s all we got. Frankly, I haven’t ruled out June either. She had money too, and she didn’t like Mini, and how much she liked her brother is up for debate. She struck me as a hard ass in a soft-ass body.”

  “But you have no proof that anyone did anything?” Marvin said.

  “We do have something that might give us some proof by way of our new BFF, Cason.”

  We filled Marvin in on all that had gone on. Told him about how Cason got the disc with the names on it.

  When we finished, he said, “Cason got two pieces of ass in as many days?”

  “Gets two this coming weekend as well,” I said.

  “I knew I hated that guy,” Marvin said.

  “You’re married, and I might as well be,” I said, “so it’s of no interest to us.”

  “Okay, we’re married, but damn, I’m jealous.”

  “All right,” I said. “Me too. And Leonard here, I think he was hoping him and Cason might play a little grab-ass.”