The Adventures of Slim & Howdy

by Kix Brooks; Ronnie Dunn; Bill Fitzhugh

  “I’ll say this.” Slim tipped his beer toward Tammy, making sure she saw him. “That girl there is wearing the hell outta those pants.”

  It came as a surprise to no one that Slim and Howdy soon bought a pitcher of beer, carried it over to the girls, and challenged them to a little bit of eight ball. Over the next two hours they fed the jukebox, shot pool, and drank beer. Even two-stepped once when somebody played something by the Derailers.

  Crystal let Howdy get the impression that he was picking her up. Like when he offered to show her how to hold her cue stick so she could put that funny spin on the ball the way he did. She just let him reach right around her and brush his hands up against any and everything while she wiggled herself in the general direction of his belt buckle.

  Tammy, who upon closer examination looked slightly harder than a federal tax form, came up behind Slim and slipped a hand into where he had the truck keys. His eyebrows sprang up as she lingered, like she was trying to find a small bit of lint or something. She was hard to resist, despite the rough edges. Or maybe because of them, Slim wasn’t sure which. But he was thinking he ought to examine her under a brighter light before making any decisions.

  A little bit later, when the girls disappeared to the ladies’ room, Howdy pulled Slim aside and said, “Whatcha thinking there, partner? Hotel, or see if they’ve got a two-bedroom?”

  “Hotel? You crazy?” Slim shook his head. “I spent enough on beer, pork, and the jukebox already. I ain’t springing for a damn hotel.”

  Howdy leaned on his pool cue, tipping his hat back with the chalky blue tip. He said, “Well, just for the sake of conversation, where were you planning to sleep if these two honeys hadn’t showed up?”

  Slim waved his hand toward the outskirts of town. “Hell, I don’t know, I figured we’d swing by the Wal-Mart, grab a couple sleeping bags, and head out to a state park or something.”

  Howdy seemed incredulous. “You wanna go camping?” He gave Slim a sideways glance. “That’s a little broke back, don’t you think?”

  “What’d you have in mind, the Four Seasons in Houston?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I had in mind . . . before,” Howdy said. “What I have in mind now is finding out what kind of sheets Crystal’s got and how she takes her coffee in the morning.”

  Slim lowered his voice and said, “Yeah, well, if I was with Crystal I might be thinking the same thing, but—”

  It was almost too late when Howdy saw the girls approaching fast. He shoved Slim in the chest and said, “Awww, man, don’t say that.” Real loud, keeping Slim from putting his boot in his mouth.

  Tammy came up and hooked a thumb into one of Slim’s belt loops. She said, “Don’t say what?”

  Howdy acted like he hadn’t seen them coming. “Oh, Slim was saying he thought we might oughta hit the road if we’re gonna make it to where we’re going.”

  “Hit the road?” Crystal sounded genuinely disappointed about this.

  “Yeah,” Howdy said. “We got . . . uh . . . we got auditions.”

  “Auditions? Where at?”

  Slim said “Nashville” at the same time Howdy said “Austin.” They glared at one another before fumbling through some sort of story about how one of them had told the other that the Nashville audition got put off until next week and they had the thing in Austin first.

  Not that anybody was buying it.

  Tammy smiled and slipped her hand back into Slim’s pocket. She pulled out the truck keys and said, “Well, either way you go, it’s too late to be making a long drive like that. Why don’t y’all just come on over to our place and stay the night?”

  7

  WHEN THEY HIT THE PARKING LOT, HOWDY WAS GRINNING like he’d just been crowned homecoming king. Crystal had given him the keys to her car, a Twentieth Anniversary Trans Am, the one with the turbo installed on a 3.8-liter V6 with ported heads and a Champion intake. A very bad boy delivering in the neighborhood of 280 horses.

  Howdy pulled up next to the truck, leaned across Crystal’s welcoming lap, revved the engine a couple of times, and shouted to Slim, “Try to keep up!”

  Slim said, “All right, just gimme a second.”

  But it was too late. Crystal popped in a cassette of Chris LeDoux and let out a Rebel yell as Howdy fishtailed out of the rocky parking lot onto old Highway 90, spraying the truck with gravel as Slim and Tammy ducked into the cab to avoid being peppered. Howdy pulled a quarter mile in what he told himself was just over fifteen seconds but was probably closer to twenty, men having a tendency to misjudge such things in their favor.

  Half a mile later they slowed down, waiting for Slim to catch up. After a few minutes, they passed the Beaumont city limits and soon after that they were far enough out of town that the sky wasn’t washed yellow-pink from the high-pressure sodium street lights.

  The bucket seats and the console between them seemed to be the only things keeping Crystal from actually crawling into Howdy’s lap as they drove down the dark country road at sixty miles an hour. Figuring they’d have a lot more fun if they got home alive, Howdy made sure she kept her seat belt buckled while he talked up the virtues of patience and delayed gratification. She started to argue but stopped all the sudden, pointed across Howdy’s chest, and said, “Oh, take this left!”

  “Hang on!” Howdy managed to keep it out of the ditch as he made the turn, though he almost hit the big entrance monument for Lake Creek Estates, a new subdivision where none of the houses were on wheels or blocks, a fact that lifted it several demographic notches above where either Slim or Howdy had imagined they were going.

  A few minutes later they were parked in the driveway of a stately four-bedroom, three-bath Georgian Colonial-style home. Howdy found himself wondering if one of the girls had taken possession in a nasty divorce settlement or maybe they were just renting in a depressed real estate market. He wasn’t about to ask, but he was starting to think that Beaumont or, more specifically, Lake Creek Estates might be the sort of place where a guy could get comfortable for a little while. Depending on how things worked out over the short term, of course.

  Crystal was first to the front door with her keys out. She was giggling and fumbling and having a hard time seeing what she was doing, not just because she was tipsy, but also owing to the fact it was pitch black on the porch. “I told you to leave the lights on,” she said.

  “I thought I did,” Tammy responded as she rooted through her own purse like she was trying to find her keys or a flashlight or who knows what women are looking for when they do that, Slim thought. Could be a Tic Tac or lipstick, there was just no telling.

  Then, everybody heard something snap. “Oh, damn,” Crystal said. “Finally got the key in there and the stupid thing broke off. Now we’re screwed.” Just like it was an accident.

  Howdy put his hands on Crystal’s slim hips and gently moved her aside. “Not just yet, honey. I have a little experience with this sort of thing. Old girlfriend used to lock me out of my house all the time.” He pulled his pocket knife, slipped the thin blade to just the right spot, and popped that door wide open. “Viola!” He bowed slightly and made a sweeping doorman’s gesture. “After you.”

  When they stepped inside and flipped on the light, Slim and Howdy looked around in what might be described as bewilderment. They’d been expecting anything from a standard Thomasville living room set to Pier 1 hodgepodge, but what they got looked more like a cross between the showroom floor of a Circuit City and a pawn shop.

  “Just moved in,” Crystal said, looking at Tammy with a big grin and another giggle.

  “Yeah,” Tammy added. “Ain’t had time to get everything unpacked and put away just yet.”

  Crystal was already pulling Howdy down the hall toward what they both hoped was a bedroom. Tammy headed for the kitchen saying, “I’monna see if we got a coupla beers in the fridge.”

  Slim gave a nonchalant wave as he stood there taking inventory. There was enough home entertainment gear for two city blocks, let al
one two country girls. Big screens, flat screens, speaker systems, amplifiers, digital this, that, and the other. Tammy came back with two bottles, handed one to Slim, and nodded toward the hallway. “C’mon, cutie.”

  They heard lots of giggling as they passed the closed door where Crystal had led Howdy into temptation. They got to the master bedroom at the end of the hall. It featured a king-sized water bed, mirrors all over the place, and more expensive electronics still in the boxes. Tammy went to the bed and yanked off a pillowcase, then disappeared into the dressing room. Slim wasn’t sure what to make of that but he heard sounds like she was going through her dresser to put on something slinky. So, despite an ominous feeling to the contrary, he started to undress.

  Just instinctive.

  A moment later, Tammy came back to find Slim with a reluctant look on his face and his pants about halfway down. She smiled, and a tiny laugh escaped her lips before she said, “Slow down there, cowboy.”

  “What?” Like a deer in the headlights.

  She pointed at a flat-screen TV still in the box. “Grab that,” she said.

  In his heart Slim suddenly knew the house didn’t belong to either Tammy or Crystal. But he didn’t want that truth to get to his brain, let alone any other part of his body. He was still half hunched over, holding his pants, when he repeated himself. “What?”

  “I said grab that TV. Take it out to the living room.”

  He looked around. “The living room?”

  She smiled again, crossing to where Slim stood stiff as a statue, nor was he moving. She rubbed him in the right spot and said, “Don’t you worry, honey, I’ll take care of you when we get back to my place.” She winked. “Promise.” She touched his lips with her finger before she noticed a change tray full of coins on the table. She dumped the contents into the pillowcase, then looked over her shoulder at Slim. “C’mon now, get busy.”

  Slim pulled up his pants and zipped them indignantly. “You brought us here to help you rob this place?”

  “Well why not? You got that damn truck,” Tammy said gesturing toward the driveway. “I mean, I can’t get shit in the back of that Trans Am. I was thinking about rentin’ something, but then you two cowboys showed up and, well, anyway, grab that TV so we can get on out of here.”

  Slim pointed at all the boxes. “Who’s all this belong to?”

  “Technically it belongs to that Transistor Town up in Shreveport, but we’re taking it from a guy name of Black Tony.”

  “Black Tony?” Slim didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He turned and headed for the living room, empty-handed.

  Tammy followed. “Whoa now, cowboy, where you going?”

  Slim knocked on Howdy’s door as he stalked down the hall. “Let’s go,” he said without breaking stride.

  Howdy glanced over at a clock, mumbled, “Damn, that boy’s quick.”

  8

  TAMMY FOLLOWED SLIM TO THE LIVING ROOM. “WHAT’S funny,” she said, “is that he ain’t black and his name ain’t Tony.”

  “Yeah, that’s hysterical all right,” Slim said, looking past her, waiting for Howdy.

  Tammy explained that Black Tony was a guard at the East Texas Correctional Institution for Women. She wasn’t sure where he got the nickname, but she knew from personal experience that he was fond of offering privileges to the incarcerated in exchange for certain types of favors. Problem was he didn’t always come through on his end of the bargain, which is how he had earned more than a few enemies, including Tammy and Crystal.

  “So anyway,” she said, “he jacked this truck heading for the Transistor Town and, as always, had to brag about it to somebody and you know how word gets around and, well, here we are.” She gave him a wink and a sexy little smile. “Whaddya say we get one of these big screens in the back of the truck?”

  “Not interested,” Slim said. “Howdy, let’s go!”

  That’s when Tammy started rooting through her purse again.

  Slim looked at her and said, “What the hell made you think we’d go along with this?”

  She pulled a gun from her purse. “This,” she said, not showing it to him so much as pointing it at him.

  Slim held his hands up slightly as he stared at the .32. It looked familiar. “Where’d you get that?”

  “The trash can where your partner tossed it after y’all shot Brushfire Boone.”

  “We didn’t shoot him.”

  “Well, you should have,” Tammy said, a little irritated. “That creepy shit’s always coming down to the pool when we’re tannin’, hittin’ on us, like we’d even consider it.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine kissing those lips?” She shuddered again, but kept the gun on Slim. “Anyway, I figured anybody who’d just kick in a man’s door and shoot him in the middle of the afternoon would be happy to get in on a sweet little deal like this,” she said, gesturing at all the stolen goods.

  “We didn’t shoot him,” Slim repeated.

  “Well, why not?”

  “Wasn’t called for,” Slim said. “We just . . . shot his fridge.”

  This tidbit seemed to come at Tammy like a knuckle ball. She ducked her head a bit and said, “You shot his fridge?”

  “Not me. Howdy.” Gesturing down the hall, wondering where the hell he was.

  “Howdy shot his fridge?”

  “Yeah. All I had was hedge clippers.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tammy said, looking at him like he was nutty as a Stuckey’s pecan log.

  “Well, he stole my guitar.”

  “So, naturally, Howdy shot his fridge.” She gave a wise nod. “It’s all startin’ to make sense.”

  Slim turned and yelled down the hall again, “Howdy!”

  “Howdy is right.” Tammy and Slim both jumped when Black Tony’s deep voice came from behind them. He was standing in the doorway with a twelve-gauge pump. Black Tony was big enough to have played football for the University of Anywhere. The only thing that kept him off the team was his lack of speed, both in the forty and on the SAT. And, considering how much academic leeway football programs give their athletes, this didn’t speak well of Black Tony’s chances of winning the Nobel prize in anything. He spit on the floor and gestured at Tammy with the shotgun. “I mighta guessed it was you up in here.”

  Tammy turned the .32 on him. She sounded angry and betrayed when she said, “You supposed to be working tonight!”

  Black Tony smirked. “Yeah, well I meant to send you an e-mail about that but—”

  Then she shot him.

  Slim dove behind a boxed-up big-screen television as the .32 slug spun Black Tony a little sideways. But he still managed to squeeze his trigger. The shotgun boomed like a thunderstorm in the living room. Glancing up at the pattern of holes in the wall, Slim figured he was shooting triple-ought buck. Probably a riot gun from the prison.

  Howdy came tumbling out of the back bedroom. The only thing he’d managed to put on all the way was his hat. The socks he’d never bothered to take off. He had his boots in his left hand and his jeans were dangling around his right ankle as tried to hop into the other pants leg while he hollered, “What the hell are you two doing out here?”

  Tammy had taken cover behind a stack of microwave ovens. She was cussing Black Tony between each shot she fired. He was bleeding a little from his shoulder but didn’t seem too bothered by it. When Tammy started to make disparaging comments about the lineage of Black Tony’s mother’s side of the family, Slim took the opportunity to scamper down the hall where Howdy was still hopping around like the one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. “I told you to come on, didn’t I?”

  “The hell’s going on?”

  “Some guy named Black Tony,” Slim said. “It’s his house. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

  Howdy did a one-leg lean against the wall and caught a glimpse of the big man with the shotgun. “That man’s not black,” he said.

  “His name ain’t Tony either,” Slim said. “You wanna go ask him about it, I’ll be waiting in the truck somewhere
near Dallas. Now get your pants on!”

  Howdy started to hop again just as Crystal came charging out of the room, a blur of bra, panties, and chrome. What looked like a .45. She knocked Howdy over like a ten pin, without so much as a “pardon me.” She fired a blind shot toward the living room, yelling to Tammy that she was on her way and needed cover fire.

  Damndest thing either one of them had ever seen.

  Howdy managed to get his pants and boots on real quick once he was lying on his back. He popped to his feet and said, “We can’t just leave those two in there with that big sumbitch and his shotgun.”

  “We ain’t got a dog in that fight, c’mon!”

  Howdy shook his head. “Wouldn’t be right,” he said.

  Slim rolled his eyes and said, “Fine.” He ducked into the bedroom and found Crystal’s purse. “Where’re the keys to the Trans Am?”

  Howdy fished them out of his pocket. Slim snatched the keys and said, “Come on.” He opened the bedroom window and jumped out. Howdy was about to follow, but when he saw that brand new Viper RX-650 radar detector, still in the box, he paused long enough to snatch it before slipping outside while the shooting and cussing continued in the living room.

  When they got to the front yard, Slim noticed the box. “You just stole that?”

  “You kidding? From the looks of things, I’d say it’s already been stolen. I’m just gonna try to find its rightful owner.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Another round of gunshots caused Slim and Howdy to look toward the house. They could see Black Tony’s silhouette in the bay window as he stalked the girls with the shotgun poised in front of him. “Come on out, ladies,” he said. “The gig’s up.”

  Black Tony paused for a second when he saw headlights cut across the wall. He got the feeling it had something to do with him. He stood there, trying to do the math on the whole thing when, much to his surprise, that Twentieth Anniversary Trans Am came crashing through the bay window behind him, caught him on the hood, and proceeded to pin him against the brick fireplace like a big Christmas stocking.