“Bobo,” Bobo said.
“No need to prove anything,” I said and tried to look calm and in my happy place.
“Go ahead, Banjo,” Leonard said. “Hit him. We’ll be sure you get a nice burial, and then when you’re down deep, I’ll pack what’s left of your partner in the hole with you, take a big shit on top of both of you.”
Damn you, Leonard. I thought Bobo looked pretty sturdy, and I would rather not start my morning with my nose broke and a tooth missing.
“I ain’t gonna let you hurt my friend,” Bobo said.
“That’s sweet,” Leonard said. “But Hap will sort your shit for you, and I’ll sort your friend’s.”
Bobo stepped forward, dropped his chin. Sheerfault reached out and took him by the shoulder. “Not today, Bobo. The boy is just blowing.”
“Not as much as you might think,” Leonard said.
Bobo stopped, relaxed. He looked at me with his blank eyes. His face hung like an empty sack. Inside his head, a brain cell used a stepladder to find a high-shelved thought.
“Yeah,” Bobo said. “That’s all right. Another time.”
“You cracker motherfuckers just out for a little sun?” Leonard said.
“All we come up here for is two things. First, Pine, I wanted to remind you how bad I beat your ass, and second, we wanted to tell you that you ought to stay away from Manny. She’s kind of a liar. She’s claiming cops wanted her body, and the thing was, no one did. It disappointed her to not be desired.”
“So, a beautiful and smart woman like that wanted to hump you ugly bastards, but no, you turned her down because you are so fine and noble and stalwart,” Leonard said.
“We ain’t queers like you, Pine,” Sheerfault said, “but sometimes, some nooky, well, it stinks, and you just don’t want it. Manny, she stinks.”
“Metaphorically, I assume.”
“Maybe both ways,” he said. “Never got the chance to get down there and sniff.”
“She turned you down is what you’re saying?” Leonard said. “Sounds like a woman with taste.”
“Stay away from her,” Sheerfault said. “It would be best for her and you.”
“Or what?” Leonard said.
“I don’t know,” Sheerfault said. “Something might happen. I mean, I wouldn’t want you breaking the law in Camp Rapture, on account of you could get arrested, and even in a sterling jail system like we have, sometimes folks get hurt. You know, by other prisoners. We got fellows there, they don’t like being thrown in with a person of color. Isn’t that what you people say? Persons of color? See how I’m avoiding the word nigger. I am, if nothing else, progressive.”
“What about you, Sheerfault?” Leonard said. “You want to hurt me your own self, not leave it to some prisoners?”
“Already have.”
“You only made me a little tired.”
“I won. I got the money.”
“Hope you invested that seventy-five dollars in some extra health insurance,” Leonard said. “’Cause you want to kick my ass, which you have yet to do, you’ll need it.”
Sheerfault smiled. “Still a sore loser.”
“Oh, I lost the match, but I didn’t lose a fight,” Leonard said. “I lost some bullshit dance contest.”
“You keep thinking that, Shiny,” Sheerfault said, went around to the side of the car, opened his car door, smiled, and slid in behind the steering wheel.
As Bobo started to climb in on the passenger side, I said, “You a cop too, Bobo?”
He paused at the open car door and put his arms on top of it, collected a couple of thoughts, said, “I ain’t no cop.”
“Good. I was afraid you carried a gun, you might shoot yourself in the foot.”
Bobo thought that over, said, “Thank you.”
He climbed into the car without closing the door, and then he climbed out. He had found another brain cell with that stepladder.
“Was that some kind of crack?” he said.
“Sleep on it,” I said.
He studied me, slipped back into the car, and closed the door.
When they drove away, Leonard said, “I really hate that guy.”
“I can see that.”
“Don’t think I care for Bobo either, fucking animated fireplug.”
“Bet Bobo’s mother wishes she had smothered him with his teddy bear when he was a child,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll do it for her.”
“Oh, and thanks for trying to have him start a fight with me, brother. I owe you for that one.”
“You’d have fucked him over. Way you move.”
“You’re a troublemaker.”
“A little,” Leonard said.
“Thing is, guys that want us not to think anything is going on are certainly doing stuff that makes me think some bad shit is in fact going on.”
“Perhaps they really are stupid,” Leonard said.
“Or nervous.”
“We’re good at making people nervous.”
“Ain’t we?” I said. “Hell, I make myself nervous.”
19
On the way back to LaBorde, Leonard said, “That story Timpson Weed told. It still bothers me.”
“You keep coming back to that.”
“Because it still bothers me.”
“Shall we pay him a visit?”
“I think we should,” Leonard said.
We drove over to the projects, and, with Leonard wearing his fedora, we made our way across the wilted grass toward where Weed lived. The group of guys that were there before were there again. The one who had worn the red shower cap was now wearing a blue one. The big one, Laron, had on sagging pants with his underwear hanging out.
“Goddamn,” Leonard said as we walked along, “what’s this shit with the fucking shower cap?”
“Protecting the do, I guess.”
“Last time he had that red cap and no do. I bet he ain’t got one under there now. What the fuck he need to have a do for anyway?”
“Some folks are cosmopolitan, Leonard. Some are not. You are not.”
“Yeah, and a punk in a shower cap is?”
“Depends on how you define cosmopolitan.”
“Yeah, sure. And the guy with the sagging pants, don’t he know that little fashion statement comes from prison, showing you’re ready to take some thug’s dick, that you’re a jailhouse bitch?”
“I’m betting he doesn’t know. And frankly, Leonard, who gives a shit?”
“It’s just stupid,” Leonard said.
The guys stared at us, trying to look tough. Leonard shot them the finger. They didn’t shoot it back. No razors or pistols were produced, just sour faces. So good so far.
“Pull up your fucking pants,” Leonard yelled at Laron.
Laron didn’t pull up his pants, just continued to glare.
Since we weren’t there to give out freelance fashion tips, we went up the stairs and onto the landing and stood in front of Timpson Weed’s door and knocked.
The sweet lady from before answered, bringing with the opening of the door a smell of fried fish and onions. She was wearing a large muumuu and shoes with her heels breaking them down in the backs. “What the fuck you want?”
“You talking to me?” Leonard said.
“I was talking to this peckerwood, but you can take a little of that if you want it.”
“Can I now?” Leonard said.
“We just want to see Timpson for a minute,” I said.
She came out then and closed the door.
“You want to see Timpson?”
“That’s what he said,” Leonard said.
“Yeah. ’Cause you such close friends?” she said.
“Because we have a bit of business with him,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you want to see that nigger, you gonna have to go down to the fucking funeral home and see him.”
“He works at a funeral home?” I said.
“Fuck no, he don’t work at no funeral home, unless he gonna ge
t up dead tonight and sweep out the goddamn place.”
She was starting to cry a little now, tears running down her face. I had a little pack of tissues in my coat pocket. I took it out and pulled a tissue from it and handed it to her. She snatched it like a hawk grabbing a mouse, patted her eyes, then blew her nose on it, handed it back to me.
“You keep it,” I said.
“Come up in here and me grieving and Timpson dead as a bag of nails, act like you all kinds of friends with him.”
“We said we have business with him,” Leonard said.
“That business gonna have to wait until you get to the Pearly Gates, I can tell that to you. He over at J. Greely’s funeral parlor cooling out.”
“What happened to him?” I said.
“What happened?” she said. “What didn’t happen? They beat him, then run over him with something a whole lot bigger than a bicycle, and then he got his black ass thrown in a fucking ditch beside the road, or some such.”
An East Texas classic. Killed and thrown in a ditch.
“Who did it?” I asked.
“How the fuck do I know? You care? Bullshit. You just the same as the cops, just another dead nigger.”
“I happen to be of the black persuasion myself,” Leonard said. “So it concerns me. It concerns my friend here. Shit, this motherfucker, Hap, he wears a shower cap around the house, and he once wrote a letter in Ebonics.”
“I do not wear a shower cap in the house,” I said. “And the letter was well meant.”
The woman looked at Leonard and smiled a little.
“You got a woman?”
“I got a man,” Leonard said. “Sort of.”
“What?”
“I’m queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“Naw you ain’t.”
“Am.”
“Naw.”
“Am.”
“Damn, man. That’s a fucking waste. Come over here some night and let me make dinner for you, and I can turn you.”
“That’s a sweet proposition, but you sure have moved on fast,” Leonard said. “Snot in a tissue, and you’re ready to bring in fresh meat.”
“Timpson just stayed here when he wanted. He had him other women on the side. I think it was one of them he got the clap from. I come down with that shit, and let me tell you, that is some whole ’nother kind of experience. Had to get shots. He come home with crabs one time. Have to near set fire to yourself to get rid of them.”
“That is a delicate situation, for sure,” Leonard said.
“Telling you,” she said.
“Any idea who killed Timpson, and why?” I asked.
“I ain’t got no idea,” she said. “He might have got hit crossing the road, for all I know. Somedays I’d have run over him. Hit me once, but I caught his ass a good one upside the head with a stool. One of them little wooden ones got four legs. They solid, I’m telling you, and it’s like they was made for swinging. I knocked him plumb out. Nigger was sprawled on the floor like a throw rug. He woke up and got his shit and got out, but he come back around after a time. He done had a sniff and a taste of the good stuff I got, so he come back. He made me keep the stool in the closet from then on, though.”
“I see,” I said. “When was Timpson killed?”
“Other night. Said he was going to see someone at the Joint, which usually meant he was gonna get stagger-ass drunk and come home and puke in the sink. The fucking sink. Got a toilet, and he pukes in the sink. That shit don’t wash down so easy in the sink, and he wasn’t gonna clean it up. No, sir. He left that mess for me. He had it good here. Good cooking, cleaning up after him, and then he had this fine ass.”
She slapped herself on the ass.
“Pleasant companionship,” Leonard said.
“Damn right.”
We thanked her and she went back inside with the fish and onions. We went downstairs.
I said, “Damn.”
“Probably run over himself so he wouldn’t have to fuck that bitch,” Leonard said.
Walking across the lot, we saw the project boys were leaning on Leonard’s truck. The four-hundred-year-old vampire girl, Reba, was with them.
Leonard picked up his pace.
We came to his ride, and he said, “Your nasty asses scratch my truck, I’m gonna rub out the scratches with your faces.”
They moved off the truck immediately. Except the four-hundred-year-old vampire.
“You done come back asking about that boy, ain’t you?” Reba said.
“That’s right,” I said.
“That’s just a rumor run up through here. That boy wasn’t killed here. We all know that.”
“Ain’t no rumor,” Tuboy said. “It’s a goddamn lie.”
“Back that truck up,” I said. I sort of liked that phrase and was just waiting to use it again.
“How come that’s the story gets told, then?” Leonard said.
“That Weed telling that,” Tuboy said. “Now his ass stretched out at the funeral home. Or in a box or some such. Put in a sack. Whatever they do.”
“Why would Weed tell a lie like that?” I said. “Who asked him?”
“Ain’t got no idea who asked him,” Tuboy said, “but we know it’s a lie. There was people all over the place that night. And he’s the only one seen it. Bullshit.”
“He said others saw it,” I said.
“Figure he say that, you don’t think to ask around, see if it’s true,” Tuboy said. “You ask around?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t find the relationships here all that fascinating.”
“That Egg Breaker Timpson was a motherfucker.”
“Egg Breaker?” I said.
“Uh-huh,” said Tuboy. “You know he go to jail once for fucking chickens?”
“I hope the chickens got compensation,” I said.
“Naw. They was dead. He fucked them to death. Got drunk as a rat in a beer barrel, went out and found someone had some chickens, and fucked them.”
“He fucked the chickens or the owners or both?” I said.
“I done told you who fucked what,” Tuboy said. “Oh, you being funny, huh?”
“He tries,” Leonard said.
“They brought him in on it,” Tuboy said, “and he told the cops it was good for the eggs or some such. Tell you one thing, didn’t do them chickens’ asses no good.”
“Guess not,” Leonard said.
“Everyone round here call him Egg Breaker, not Weed.”
“When did this chicken event take place?” I said.
“When he a teenager, before we was born. But it done followed him around like a dog.”
“Shit,” Leonard said. “Fuck a few chickens, and no one gets over it, but lie about a dead man, and everyone moves on. Why the fuck didn’t someone around here say something?”
“We ain’t got no reason to say,” Reba the four-hundred-year-old vampire said. “We talk to the po-po, it never work out. Next thing we know we pulling time. Besides, he wasn’t one of our niggers. That Egg Breaker, he been up in jail a lot for this and that. Last time he was up in there he come out with a head looked like a fucking pumpkin.”
“They beat him, you mean?” I said.
“Yeah, they beat him. He didn’t want no more pulling time, ’cause he thought he might not come out next time. I can feel his worries on that.”
“You’re a child, what the hell do you know about pulling time?” Leonard said.
“My daddy done up in that Huntsville,” she said. “He got another twenty years to go, then they start another thirty on him. Consecutive bullshit, they call it. He ain’t gonna finish that last one out. Which is good. He ought to be up in there. He killed a whole mess of people while he was fucked up on some shit.”
“Who do you live with?” I asked.
“My uncle Chuck,” Reba said. “Sometimes my grandma.”
“I bet that is a treat for them,” Leonard said. “I figure your daddy’s doing time just for making you.”
“Le
onard,” I said. “Shit, man. Cut it out.”
“All right, all right.”
“You are one shitty motherfucker,” the little girl said.
“I just don’t like you,” Leonard said.
“Like you some kind of peach,” she said.
“Let me pull this back to where we were,” I said. “So there was no body found here? How did it get around there was?”
“Egg Breaker,” Tuboy said. “We done told you. What the fuck, white man. You deaf?”
“I just like to be certain,” I said. “Cops said he was found here, wasn’t just Weed…Egg Breaker, Chicken Fucker, whatever.”
“Uh-huh, and we ain’t got nothing for that,” Tuboy said. “Them cops probably took him out and killed him and said he was found here, on account of everyone knows we ain’t nothing but a bunch of losers.”
“I second that,” Leonard said.
That comment didn’t bring a smart remark from the project kids, just a momentary silence.
“Yeah, you right,” Laron said. “Kill someone here, ain’t like you losing a future Nobel Prize winner.”
“Damn, boy,” Leonard said. “I didn’t know you could speak.”
“When I got something to say.”
I was more confused than ever. Why would Weed, aka Egg Breaker, tell that lie? Who would ask him? And worse yet, would it be smart to pin it on the cops if he didn’t see them do it? Egg Breaker said the cops were the ones told him to shut up. What seemed like a simple truth had turned into a complex lie.
“So, no idea who killed Jamar?” Leonard said. “Jamar’s the boy Weed said was killed here, by the way.”
They shook their heads.
“He got a cool name, though,” Tuboy said.
“Any idea who gave Weed his trip to the funeral home?”
“Coulda been anybody. Wasn’t nobody but Tamara like him.”
“Tamara?”
“Lady he lived with,” said Reba. “One you just talking to. Tell you one thing, don’t never eat nothing she cooks. It all tastes like onions. That woman can’t boil a cup of coffee without putting an onion in it. She ain’t no smart one neither. Can’t sort socks right, even if they all the same color, but she know how to survive.”
“Look here,” I said. “I’m going to give you one of our cards. You hear anything, want to tell us anything, call us. Might be some money in it.”
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