Rusty Puppy

by Joe R. Lansdale

  We decided to go out for lunch, as none of us were in a cooking mood, and we ended up at a Mexican restaurant. We all had tortilla soup. I might add that Buffy did not have tortilla soup. She stayed home, most likely asleep on the couch. She always climbed up there when we left. When we touched the doorknob she dropped to the floor with a thud and lay on the rug in front of the couch. She thought she was sneaky.

  On the way back to the house, my phone rang. It was Marvin. He said, “You know a black girl kid with all the personality of a water moccasin?”

  “The four-hundred-year-old vampire?”

  “What?”

  “What Leonard calls her. It’s a long story.”

  “And I’d love to hear it, but do you know her real name?”

  “Reba. Don’t know her last.”

  “We picked her up under an overpass, or rather near it, in some bushes.”

  I was pulling into the driveway then, and both Brett and Chance were silent, letting me finish the call.

  “She okay?”

  “In the larger scheme of things she’s all right, just beat to hell. A cruiser come across her coming out of the woods, right on the edge of LaBorde, out where the woods get thick on the east side. She tried to run from the cops, but her leg was broke and she was using a stick to get around. She fought like a tiger, but she was in bad shape by then. Good thing. Officer Thompson, a nice lady who once beat up two male thugs using her fists, said it was a hell of a fight. Said she got hit with the stick a couple of times, but finally got Reba in the car. Had to handcuff her. Drove her to the hospital. Girl tried to leave twice since she’s been there, and she can’t actually walk. Caught her opening a window to get out, and she’s on the second floor. I got Officer Carroll outside her room. She won’t tell us what happened; not all of it, anyway. She won’t talk to anyone but you or Leonard, preferably both. Come to the hospital. I’ll call Leonard.”

  When I clicked off, Brett said, “Everything okay?”

  “Not sure yet. I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Should I go with you?” Brett asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I explained about Reba and how she was fastened to the case we were looking into, and when I finished, Brett said, “Sounds to me you boys just need to do it. Me and Chance don’t know her, and you appear to have a special relationship.”

  “Yeah, she blackmailed us into buying her a giant un–Happy Meal at McDonald’s and she talks mean to both of us and Leonard hates her. Special relationship? I don’t think so.”

  “She wants to talk to you two for a reason, and I think that reason is she trusts you,” Brett said.

  “The relationship may be more special than you think,” Chance said.

  “And maybe she just wants a lunch from McDonald’s,” I said.

  46

  I have never liked hospitals, and as of recent I have liked them less, it only being a few months ago when I was in this very one. Leonard was already there when I arrived, waiting at the front of the emergency room. He had a large sack in his hand.

  “I kind of understand the impulse to beat up the four-hundred-year-old vampire,” Leonard said as I walked up, “but I don’t like that it got done.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  Inside we asked about Reba. We got the information and rode the elevator up and started down the hall. I hadn’t mentioned to Leonard that Officer Carroll, aka Curt, aka Pookie, was the cop on duty.

  When Leonard saw Curt, his face lit up, and so did Curt’s. As we neared the room, Curt opened the door and I went through. I glanced back and saw Curt and Leonard bump fists. That must have been some night.

  In the room, Leonard closed the door and we went over to the bed. The bed seemed huge, like a white cloud, and there was a black dot at the top of it, Reba’s head. She looked so small there on that cloud. Her face was swollen and one eye was closed and the lid was a mound of inflammation and her lips were cracked and bloody. One arm was in a cast and lay outside the sheets like a large piece of plumbing pipe.

  Leonard took one side of the bed, I took the other.

  Reba had her eyes closed. We stood there, not knowing exactly what to do, but in a few moments she felt our presence and opened her eyes, looked first at Leonard.

  “Damn, that there a thing to open my eyes to,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, you ain’t looking so good neither,” Leonard said. “You try to bite an oncoming train?”

  “Two niggers beat me up,” she said.

  “Black men,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  “It’s best not to call people that,” I said.

  “He does,” she said.

  “Him, I can do nothing about, and you, most likely nothing as well, but I got to try.”

  “Quit trying,” she said.

  “But you haven’t told the cops about these two men?” Leonard said.

  “I don’t like cops.”

  “Marvin, the police chief, he’s a good man,” I said.

  “I don’t like cops. You got stopped-up ears.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You asked to see us.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you or didn’t you?” Leonard said, and placed the sack on the sliding table beside the bed.

  “What’s that?” Reba said.

  “You know what it is,” Leonard said. “It says ‘McDonald’s’ on the side of the sack. There’s two hamburgers in there, giant batch of fries, and two fried pies. I didn’t get you a drink. I can go down the hall and get one. Better yet, Hap can do it. I ain’t your slave.”

  “Ain’t nobody do much for me,” she said.

  “We’re here for you,” I said.

  “He is, anyway,” Leonard said. “Me, I’m just here on account of I ain’t got nothing else to do today.”

  “Tell us about the men who beat you up,” I said.

  “They come looking for me,” she said. “I was out in my tree, and they knew right where to look for me, and one of them picked up a rock and threw and hit me. I tried to move fast then, and I fell. That’s how I broke my arm. My leg done broke too. They did that when I fell. One of them kicked me there. Then they dragged me off and put me in their car and drove me out to the river bottoms, pulled me down in them woods. They done stuff to me then. You know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ain’t the first time. You live up there in them projects, things happen.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  “Not as much as me,” she said, and this time she shed a tear. I thought for a moment she was going to break out crying, but she got a hold of herself. She was too tough for that, and she was so tough it made me tear up.

  “I bit one of them niggers good,” she said. “I stomped one of them’s foot good, and then he got real mad and they started beating me. They beat me bad.”

  “We can see that,” Leonard said.

  “Yeah, my modeling career done out the window. They dragged me off deeper in them woods and started whaling on me. I had me some beatings before, from some of Mama’s boyfriends, but none like that. They done knocked me out a bit, but I come to. They thought I couldn’t get away, ’cause my leg was broke. I fooled them and started crawling, going like a crippled dog. I fell down a hill, onto the edge of the river, and they couldn’t get down to me on account of it was steep and there was lots of briars and such. I got a bunch of stickers in my ass. I lay there like I was dead, and they figured I was, or close enough to it, ’cause they went on. I crawled awhile, got me a stick for a crutch, and work on up to the highway. That’s where I see a cop car. I tried to get away from it, go back in the woods, but I couldn’t move fast enough, and this white lady cop got me and brought me to the hospital, then other cops come in. That big nigger, the chief, he interviewed me and here I am.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Chief Hanson what happened?” I said.

  “Yeah, your ears done stopped up for sure,” she said.
“I told you. I don’t like cops.”

  “Bet you don’t like those two thugs either,” I said. “Want to get them, you need to tell the cops.”

  “I want you two to get them,” she said.

  “Why would we do that?” Leonard said.

  “’Cause we done worked together.”

  “Have we?” Leonard said. “In some quarters, how you and us worked together is called extortion.”

  “Is that like working together?” she said.

  “Not exactly,” Leonard said.

  “Listen, I think I got a little Easter egg for you,” I said.

  “Easter egg?” she said.

  “A surprise. Describe those two grabbed you.”

  She did.

  I said, “One of them still has the limp you gave him, and the two of them are in custody.”

  “You sure?” she said.

  “Pretty sure,” I said. “They fit the description.”

  “You got to be sure,” she said.

  “Why did they want to hurt you, Reba?”

  “Hurt? They was trying to kill my ass.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I seen them around before, though. They come to see Chicken Fucker a few times. He used to thug a little, beat on anyone didn’t pay for their drugs, and they was the same.”

  “Timpson sold drugs?” Leonard said.

  “No. He was one of them collector types.”

  “Who did Timpson thug for?” Leonard said.

  “He work for the same one them two big niggers worked for, Roscoe Washington.”

  I looked at Leonard. He said, “Click.”

  47

  What upset me more than what had happened to Reba was how she took it. She had been raped and beaten, and there was a part of her that seemed to accept it, as if she had been there before and expected nothing better. By the time we went out of the room I was sick to my stomach.

  I told Leonard I needed a bathroom trip. He paused to talk with Curt while I found the men’s room. I splashed water on my face and used a paper towel to dry off with. My eyes were full of tears. I washed my face again and got it together and went out to the car with Leonard.

  “You’re upset, ain’t you?” Leonard said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too, but the way we do good for that girl is to put this right.”

  “How can we? They’re already in custody and Reba says she won’t talk to the cops.”

  “She’ll come around. But before she does, we need to go on over to the projects.”

  We left Leonard’s pickup in the lot, and I drove us over to the projects. When we got out of the car, the thug gang, about five this time, including Tuboy and Laron, were standing out by the drive leaning on a car, trying to look cool. Way they really looked was scared. They hadn’t forgotten Leonard.

  Leonard stopped near Tuboy, and when he did, Tuboy unconsciously licked his lips in a snakelike fashion. I figured they had suddenly gone dry.

  “You ain’t gonna hit us again, are you?” Tuboy asked.

  “That depends,” Leonard said, standing close to Tuboy.

  “On what?” Tuboy said. He was trying to sound like a tough guy, but his voice had gone up an octave.

  “Watch our car for us,” Leonard said, “’cause I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to it.”

  “Your car ain’t our problem,” Tuboy said.

  “Is now,” Leonard said. “I’m assigning it to you.”

  “I don’t want nothing to do with it,” Tuboy said.

  “Me neither,” Laron said.

  The others grumbled in agreement.

  “You don’t get to choose,” Leonard said. “All you got to do is make sure it ain’t touched. A bird shits on it, I hold you responsible.”

  “Man, that’s cold,” said Laron.

  “Is indeed. Let me ask all of you something. You know about Reba getting beat up?”

  “Shit, she gets beat up a lot. She’s got an uncle, Uncle Chuck, who beats her up when he gets drunk and can catch her. I think he gets an arm workout like that. Soon as he’s drunk, he’s looking for something to hit, and she’s it, he can catch her. She’s gotten faster.”

  “Last night, smartass,” Leonard said. “Any of you know anything about that shit happening last night? Good information is worth a twenty.”

  “A twenty,” Tuboy said. “You can’t get a hand job for less than fifty.”

  “Oh, I bet you’d give me one for a lot less, I insisted,” Leonard said.

  Tuboy stepped back without really thinking about it. He studied Leonard. The others looked first at Leonard, then at Tuboy, as if at any moment Leonard might hang his wang out and have Tuboy go to work on it.

  “They say she was knocked out of a tree, put in a car, and hauled off,” Tuboy said.

  “They say?” Leonard said. “What kind of shit is that?”

  “I guess I might have seen it.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “Not my business.”

  “What if it had been you,” I said.

  “Then it would have been my business,” Tuboy said.

  One of the group laughed.

  “You know how I’ve made that car your business?” Leonard said. “Now I’m making information about Reba your business, ’cause I find out you knew something and didn’t tell me, after I get through sticking your head in a hole in the ground so I can kick your ass for entertainment, I’m going to call the cops and have them come down on you so hard you’ll think the sky done fell on you.”

  “We ain’t doing nothing.” Tuboy said.

  “That’s right,” Leonard said. “You ain’t, with your life, anyway. But I know your kind.”

  “Can’t judge a book by its cover,” Laron said.

  “Yeah, but you ain’t no book, and you smell like lying shit, and if you’re giving me shit, handing me a pile of lies, I’m going to rub your noses in it. Don’t think I won’t. Now, that little girl may not mean anything to you, but she means something to Hap here, and Hap means something to me, and none of you mean a goddamn thing to me. You starting to get where I’m coming from?”

  “You don’t like us,” Tuboy said.

  “I don’t like what you want to be,” Leonard said. “I don’t like what you are now, and what you are now is pretty much what you want to be, and I call that fucking stupid. Now, why would anyone want to hurt Reba, besides her uncle, and by the way, we get through with this other question, I got one more question for you. But let’s take these quizzes one at a time.”

  Tuboy and Laron looked at one another, and then all the gang looked at one another and back to Leonard. Tuboy cleared his throat.

  “You got to understand, we could end up way Reba did, or worse,” Tuboy said.

  “And worse could start in less than a minute,” Leonard said.

  “I seen them two that was here,” Tuboy said. “They hang out at the Joint. I done been up in there a couple of times, but the bartender, he don’t like me.”

  “I don’t like you either,” Leonard said, “but I like the bartender less. Let me give you a jump start. We know those two thugs grabbed Reba, and we know the bartender, Roscoe, put them up to it. But I’m thinking there’s a bigger picture here. You give us something, hear?”

  One of the boys who had not spoken before, a thin fellow with a wool knit hat on, stepped up to the front of the group.

  “I get the twenty?” said the boy.

  “Maybe,” Leonard said. “What’s your name?”

  “David.”

  “Tell us something worth twenty,” Leonard said.

  “Everyone knows the cops run the game. Take drugs from buyers and dealers, but you don’t hear about no drug busts. They just run it back through the community.”

  “Timpson helped them sell drugs?” I said.

  “He helped, but he don’t sell,” David said. “Just collects. It’s his old lady runs the show for the cops. She gets paid for making sure things go smoot
h, and if they ain’t smooth, she makes sure things get smoothed out.”

  “You mean Tamara?” I said. “She runs things?”

  “That’s the one,” Tuboy said.

  “Hey, this is my twenty I’m trying to get,” David said.

  “Yeah, and when you do, you gonna buy us all something with it,” Tuboy said.

  “No,” I said. “He gets to keep it, but if we get the real stuff, there’s a twenty for each of you.”

  “I ain’t having shit to do with this,” said one of the boys, and then walked off.

  “Anyone else walking?” Leonard said.

  “Tamara be the one,” David said. “Everyone knows that. She tell Timpson what to do when he was around to do it. He say something, it come from her, you can bet on that.”

  “Do you know her contacts?” Leonard said.

  “Just like I done said,” David said, “the police.”

  “Cops here, they run things like they see them, like they want them,” Tuboy said. “They ain’t no more cops than we are, ’cept they got rides and shooters. Well, I got a pistol.”

  “Look in Tamara’s apartment, you’ll find enough meth and other shit to fill up a dump truck,” David said. “I know, I buy me a little taste of this and that from time to time.”

  “Good to see your life’s right on track,” Leonard said.

  “I ain’t gonna stay up in here forever,” David said. He had gotten a lot braver now, taking the head-dog position away from Tuboy, at least for a few moments.

  “Naw,” Leonard said. “You ain’t never coming out of the projects, except carried out. You’re too stupid.”

  “Does this mean I don’t get the twenty?”

  “It means you get the twenty,” Leonard said.

  “You said we all get twenties,” said Tuboy.

  “Hap, give them twenties,” Leonard said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Give them twenties.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “What you got?”

  I opened up my wallet. “Forty dollars.”

  “Give it to me.”

  I gave it to Leonard. “All right, he’s got forty and I got thirty-five,” Leonard said.

  “That ain’t twenty apiece,” said Tuboy.