Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade Read online

  Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Praise for Hap and Leonard

  “Seven laid-back adventures, one of them brand new, for “freelance troubleshooter” and good old boy Hap Collins and his gay black Republican partner Leonard Pine. . . . No one currently working the field demonstrates more convincingly and joyously the deep affinity between pulp fiction and the American tall tale.”

  —Kirkus

  «“Last seen in the novel Honky Tonk Samurai, Lansdale’s incomparable East Texas crime fighting duo show their chops in this remarkable story collection. Readers can also look forward to the debut of the TV show Hap and Leonard on the Sundance Channel in March.

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “An essential Hap and Leonard addition”

  —The Novel Pursuit

  “. . . it’s great to have all of these wonderful stories together in one nifty volume”

  —Horror Drive-In

  “A perfect introduction”

  —Booklist

  “East Texas charm, profane wit, and strong characterization, with enough snappy dialogue to keep a smile on your face . . . excellent entertainment, edge-of-your-seat action one minute, gut-busting humor”

  —Adventures in Genre Fiction

  “This collection is crime/pulp fiction at its best and most captivating.”

  —Risingshadow

  “If you find yourself on the wrong side of Hap and Leonard, be cautious, because they are quicker than a rattlesnake, and their bite is just as bad. If you find yourself an innocent bystander looking for a great book to read, you’ve come to the right place.”

  —Killer Nashville

  “For those new to either Lansdale or the series, this latest collection is an excellent introduction to the kind of trouble these two often find themselves in; all the while exchanging some of the funniest, lovingly antagonistic, and memorial dialogue of any crime series.”

  —Bookgasm

  Praise for Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series

  “Hap and Leonard function as a sort of Holmes and Watson—if Holmes and Watson had had more lusty appetites and less refined educations and spent their lives in East Texas. . . . Not only funny, but also slyly offers acute commentary on matters of race, friendship andlove in small-town America.”

  —New York Times

  “Lansdale reveals the human condition—our darkest secrets and our proudest moments, all within the unlikely confines of an East Texas adventure featuring the two scruffiest protagonists in modern crime fiction.”

  —Booklist

  “Hilarious. . . . Addictively scarfable. . . . Lansdale excels at dialogue, especially Hap and Leonard’s lewd insult-a-thons. . . . Two thumbs-up, and pardon the barbecue smears.”

  —Texas Monthly

  “Joe R. Lansdale is one of a kind. His Hap and Leonard novels should be read and treasured.”

  —James Swain, author of Take Down

  “As usual, the dialogue is deadpan tart and the actio extreme but convincing. . . . Lansdale once again prove he’s the East Texas master of redneck noir.”

  —Publishers Weekly (on Hyenas)

  Praise for Joe R. Lansdale

  “There’s no bullshit in a Joe Lansdale book. There’s everything a good story needs, and nothing it doesn’t.”

  —Christopher Moore, author of Secondhand Souls

  “[Joe Lansdale has] a folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace . . . a considerable literary intelligence at work.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Joe Lansdale is a born storyteller.”

  —Robert Bloch, author of Psycho

  “Joe Lansdale simply must be read.”

  —Robert Crais, author of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels

  “Read Joe Lansdale and see the true writer’s gift.”

  —Andrew Vachss, author of Shockwave

  “Among the best fiction writers in America today, Joe Lansdale turns on the juice and cuts the damn thing loose. Enjoy the ride!”

  —Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little New Yorkers

  “Hunter S. Thompson meets Stephen King.”

  —Charles de Lint, author of The Onion Girl

  “A master at taking a simple everyday event and turning reality upside down.”

  —Mystery Scene

  Also by Joe R. Lansdale

  Hap and Leonard mysteries

  Savage Season (1990)

  Mucho Mojo (1994)

  The Two-Bear Mambo (1995)

  Bad Chili (1997)

  Rumble Tumble (1998)

  Veil’s Visit: A Taste of Hap and Leonard (1999)

  Captains Outrageous (2001)

  Vanilla Ride (2009)

  Hyenas (2011)

  Devil Red (2011)

  Dead Aim (2013)

  Honky Tonk Samurai (2016)

  Hap and Leonard (2016)

  Rusty Puppy (2017)

  Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade (2017)

  The Drive-In series

  The Drive-In: A “B” Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas(1988)

  The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels (1989)

  The Drive-In: A Double-Feature Omnibus (1997)

  The Complete Drive-In (2009), omnibus)

  Ned the Seal

  Zeppelins West (2001)

  Flaming London (2005)

  Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal (2010)

  Other novels

  Act of Love (1981)

  Texas Night Riders (1983, as Ray Slater)

  Dead in the West (1986)

  The Magic Wagon (1986)

  The Nightrunners (1987)

  Cold in July (1989)

  Batman: Captured by the Engines (1991)

  Tarzan: The Lost Adventure (1995, with Edgar Rice Burroughs)

  The Boar (1998)

  Freezer Burn (1999)

  Waltz of Shadows (1999)

  Something Lumber This Way Comes (1999)

  The Big Blow (2000)

  Blood Dance (2000)

  The Bottoms (2000)

  A Fine Dark Line (2002)

  Sunset and Sawdust (2004)

  Lost Echoes (2007)

  Leather Maiden (2008)

  All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky (2011)

  The Ape Man’s Brother (2012)

  Edge of Dark Water (2012)

  Hot in December (2013)

  The Thicket (2013)

  Black Hat Jack (2014)

  Prisoner 489 (2014)

  Paradise Sky (2015)

  Fender Lizards (2015)

  Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade

  Copyright © 2017 by Joe R. Lansdale

  This is a collected work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

  Interior and cover design by Elizabeth Story

  Tachyon Publications LLC

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107 415.285.5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  [email protected]

  Series Editor: Jacob Weisman

  Editor: Richard Klaw

  ISBN: 978-1-61696-253-1; EPUB: 978-1-61696-254-8;

  Mobi: 978-1-61696-255-5; PDF: 978-1-61696-256-2

  Printed in the United States by Worzalla

  First Edition: 2017

  “Parable of the Stick” copyright © 2016 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in Miracles Ain�
��t What They Used to Be (PM Press: Oakland, California). | “Tire Fire” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “Not Our Kind” copyright © 2016 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in Hap and Leonard (Tachyon Publications: San Francisco, California). | “Down by the River Side” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “Short Night” copyright © 2016 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in Miracles Ain’t What They Used to Be (PM Press: Oakland, California). | “The Boy Who Became Invisible” copyright © 2009 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock (Cycatrix Press: Vancouver, Washington). | “Blood and Lemonade” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “In the River of the Dead” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “Stopping for Coffee” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “Apollo Red” copyright © 2016 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in Miracles Ain’t What They Used to Be (PM Press: Oakland, California). | “Coach Whip” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “The Bottom of the World” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “Squirrel Hunt” copyright © 2017 Joe R. Lansdale. First appearance. | “The Oak and the Pond” copyright © 2016 Joe R. Lansdale. First appeared in Hap and Leonard Rides Again (Tachyon Publications: San Francisco, California).

  Contents

  Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade

  1. Parable of the Stick

  2. Tire Fire

  3. Not Our Kind

  4. Down by the Riverside

  5. Short Night

  6. The Boy Who Became Invisible

  7. Blood and Lemonade

  8. In the River of the Dead

  9. Stopping for Coffee

  10. Apollo Red

  11. Coach Whip

  12. The Bottom of the World

  13. Squirrel Hunt

  14. The Oak and the Pond

  Afterword

  About the Author

  1.

  Parable of the Stick

  Leonard looked up from the newspaper he was reading, a little rag that was all that was left of our town paper, the bulk of it now being on line, and glanced at me.

  “So I’m reading in the paper here about how the high school, hell, grade school, all the grades, they got a no fighting policy, no matter who starts it. Some guy jumps you on the playground, lunch break, or some such, and you whack him in the nose so he’ll leave you alone, you both go to detention.”

  “Can’t have kids fighting. You and me, we fought too much. Maybe it’s not a good thing to learn, all that fighting. We met at a fight, remember?”

  “Horse shit,” Leonard said, and put the paper down. “Look here, I know a thing about you, and I know how it was for me at school, with integration and all, and I don’t think it works like that, and shouldn’t. This whole thing about fighting to protect yourself, and getting the same punishment as the one who picks on you, how’s that teaching common sense?”

  “How’s it work, Leonard?”

  “Think on it. There’s this thing I know about you, let’s call it the parable of the stick.”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  I said, “Okay, let’s call it that.”

  “You moved here from a smaller school, and I know you had some problems. We’ve talked about it. I wasn’t there, but I know the drill. Try being black in a formerly all-white school sometime.”

  “I could try being black,” I said, “but I’d still be white.”

  “You came to school from some little town to Marvel Creek. And there was this bully, a real asshole, bigger than you, and you were small then, right?”

  “Not that I’m a behemoth now.”

  “No, you lack my manly physique, but you’ve grown into something solid. Then, though, you were a skinny little kid with hay fever and a plan to do something with your life. Which, of course, you failed to do. What were you going to be, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. A writer I thought.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Hell, I knew that. It’s been so long since you mentioned it, I forgot. Yeah, a writer. So you move here, a poor country kid with shabby clothes and his nose in a book, and this guy, this big kid, he picks on you. He does it every day. Calls you book worm or some such, maybe pencil dick. So what do you do? You do the right thing. You go to the principal and tell him the kid’s fucking with you, and the principal says, okay, and he pulls the mean kid in and talks to him. So what’s the mean little shit do the very next day?”

  “Double beats the shit out of me.”

  “There you have it, but you’re not fighting back, right?”

  “Oh, I fought back. I just wasn’t any good at it then. Probably why I learned martial arts.”

  “Sure it is. I did the same thing. I wasn’t so little and didn’t lose too much, but, like I said, I was a black kid in a formerly all-white school, and then there was my extraordinary beauty they were jealous of.”

  “Don’t forget the massive dick.”

  “Oh yeah, the black anaconda that knows no friends. So this happens a few days in a row, this mean kid ignoring the principal, him not giving a greased dog turd what the principal said. You go home, and your dad, he sees you got a black eye and busted lip, and what does he do?”

  “He tells you if he’s bigger than me, bring him down to size.”

  “Right. He says, ‘Hap, go out there and get yourself a good stick, ’cause there’s plenty of them lying around on the edge of the playground by the woods. You get that big stick, and you lay for him, and when he don’t expect it none, you bring that stick down on him so hard it will cause you to come up off the ground. Don’t put his eye out with it, and don’t hit him in the head, unless you have to, but use that stick with all your force, and if something breaks on him, well, it breaks. You get a licking every day and you don’t do something back, taking that licking and being licked is gonna turn into a lifetime business.’ He told you that, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you got you a stick next day at playground break, laid it up by the edge of the concrete wall on one side of the steps that led out of the school, and when the bell rang for the day to end, you got out there as quick as you could, ahead of the mean kid, and you picked up that stick.”

  “I did at that.”

  “And waited.”

  “Like a fucking hawk watching for a rat.”

  “Down the stairs he came, and you—”

  “Swung that stick,” I said. “Jesus. To this day I can still hear that fucking stick whistling in the wind, and I can still hear the way it met his leg just above the knee, right as he came down the last step. I remember even better that shit-eating, asshole-sucking grin he had on his face as he came down and saw me, before he realized about the stick. And better than that, I remember the way his face changed when he saw I had that stick. But it was too late for that motherfucker.”

  “What I’m saying.”

  “I caught him as he put his weight on his left leg. Smack of that stick on his hide was like a choir of angels had let out with one clean note, and down he went, right on his face.”

  “And when he started to get up?”

  “I brought that stick down on his goddamn back with all I had in the tank, and oh my god, did that feel good. Then I couldn’t stop, Leonard. I swear I couldn’t.”

  “Tell it, brother. Tell it like it was. I never get tired of it.”

  “I started crying and swinging that stick, and I just couldn’t fucking stop. Finally a teacher, a coach I think, he came out and got me and pulled me off that bastard, and that bastard was bawling like a baby and screaming, ‘Don’t hit me no more. Please don’t hit me no more.’”

  “I actually started to feel bad about it, sorry for him— ”

  “As you always do,” Leonard said.

  “—and they carried me to the principal’s office, and they brought the asshole in with me, and they put us in chairs beside one another,
where we both sat crying, me mostly with happiness, and him because I had just beaten the living hell out of him with a stick and he had a fucking limp. He hurt so bad he could hardly walk.”

  “What did the principal do?”

  “You know what he did.”

  “Yeah, but now that you’re worked up and starting to sweat, let’s not spoil it by you not getting it all out, ’cause I can tell right now, for you, the whole thing is as raw as if it happened yesterday.”

  “It is. The principal said, ‘Hap, did you hit him with a stick?’ and I say to him, ‘Hard as I could.’ The principal looks at the mean kid, says, ‘And what did you do?’ ‘I didn’t do nothing,’ he says. ‘No,’ the principal said, ‘what did you do the day before, and the day before that, and what were you told?’ And the kid said, ‘I was told to leave Hap alone.’”

  “And what did the principal say,” Leonard said. “Keep on telling it.”

  “You’re nuts, Leonard. You know what he said.”

  “Like I said, I never tire of hearing this one.”

  “He said to the kid, ‘But you went back and did it again anyway, didn’t you? You went back and did it because you wanted to pick on someone who you thought wouldn’t fight back, or couldn’t, but today, he was waiting for you. You didn’t start it today, but you started it ever other day, and you got just what you deserve, you little bully. You picked on a nice kid that didn’t want to fight and really just wanted to get along, and I know for a fact, he asked you to quit, and he came to me, and I came to you, and still you did it. Why?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There you are,’ said the principal, ‘the mantra of the ignorant and the doomed.’”