High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale Read online

  Standers’s father had seen all this as spoils of war, not theft. When he returned home, much of the treasure was split up between relatives or sold. After the war the Germans had raised a stink and the U.S. government ended up making Standers’s dad return what was left. The Germans offered to pay his father a price for it to keep things mellow. A flat million, a fraction of what it was worth.

  Divided among family members, that million was long gone.

  But there was something else. Standers’s Dad hadn’t given up all the treasure. There were still a few unreturned items: gold bars and the so-called hair of the Virgin Mary.

  Early last year the Germans raised yet another stink about items still missing. It had been in the papers and Standers’s family had been named, and since he was the last of his family line, it was assumed he might know where this treasure was. Reporters came out. He told them he didn’t know anything about any treasure. He laughed about how if he had treasure he wouldn’t be living in a trailer in a cow pasture. The reporters believed him, or so it seemed from the way it read in the papers.

  A month later he met Babe, in a store parking lot. She was changing a tire and just couldn’t handle it, and would he help her. He had, and while he did the work he got to look up the line of her leg and find out she wore nothing underneath the short dresses she preferred. And she knew how to talk him up and lead him on. She was a silver-tongued, long-legged slut with heaven between her legs. He should have known better.

  One night, after making love, Babe mentioned the stuff in the papers, and Standers, still high on flesh friction, feeling like a big man, admitted he had a large share of the money socked away in a foreign bank, and the rest, some gold bars, and the box containing the hair from the Virgin Mary, hidden away here in East Texas.

  The relationship continued, but Standers began to worry when Babe kept coming back to the booty. She wanted to know where it was. She didn’t ask straight out; she danced around matters; he didn’t talk. He’d been stupid enough, no use compounding the matter. She was after the money, and not him, and he felt like a jackass. He doubled up on the sex for a while, then sent her away.

  This morning, posing as a Bible salesman, Mulroy had shown up, clocked him, tied him up, introduced himself and tried to get him to tell the whereabouts of the loot. When Babe came through the door, it all clicked in place.

  “I got a question,” Standers said.

  “So do we,” Mulroy said. “Where’s the spoils? We don’t even want the money you got in a foreign bank…Well, we want it, but that might be too much trouble. We’ll settle for the other. What did you tell Babe it was? Gold bars and a cunt hair off the Virgin Mary?”

  “I just want to know,” Standers continued, “were you and Babe working together from the start?”

  Mulroy laughed. ”She was on her own, but when she couldn’t get what she wanted from you, she needed someone to provide some muscle.”

  “So you’re just another one she’s conned,” Standers said.

  “No,” Mulroy said, “you were conned. I’m a business partner. I’m not up for being conned. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you, Babe?”

  Babe smiled.

  “Yeah, well, I guess you would,” Mulroy said. “But I ain’t gonna let you. You see, I know she’s on the con. Knew it from the start. You didn’t. Conning the marks is what I do for a living.”

  “It was all bullshit,” Standers said. “I just told her that to sound big. She gets you in bed, she makes your dick think it’s the president. I was tryin’ to keep that pussy comin’, is all. I had money, you think I’d be living like this?”

  “If you were smart, you would,” Mulroy said.

  “I’m not smart,” Standers said. “I sell cars. And that’s it.”

  “Man,” Mulroy said, “you tell that so good I almost believe it. Almost. Shit, I bet you could sell me an old Ford with a flat tire and missing transmission. Almost…hey, let’s do it like this. You give the location of the stuff, and we let you go, and we even send you a little of the money. You know, ten thousand dollars. Isn’t much, but it beats what you might get. I think that’s a pretty good deal, all things considered.”

  “Yeah, I’ll wait at the mail box for the ten thousand,” Standers said.

  “That’s a pretty hard one to believe, isn’t it?” Mulroy said. “But you can’t blame me for tryin’. Hell, I got to go to the can. Watch him, Babe.”

  When Mulroy left the room, Standers said, “Nice, deal, huh? You and him get the loot, split it fifty-fifty.”

  Babe didn’t say anything. She went over and sat on the couch. “I can do you a better deal than he can,” Standers said. “Get rid of him, and I’ll show you the loot and split it fifty-fifty.”

  “What’s better about that?” Babe said.

  “I know where it is,” Standers said. “It’d go real easy.”

  “I got time to go less easy, I want to take it,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Standers said. “But why take it? Sooner you get it, sooner we spend it.”

  Mulroy came back into the room. Babe picked the plastic bear off the couch arm and went over to the refrigerator and opened it. She put the bear inside and got out a soft drink and pulled the tab on the can. “Man, I’m hungry,” she said, then swigged the drink.

  “What?” Mulroy said.

  “Hungry,” Babe said. “You know. I’d like to eat. You hungry?”

  “Yeah,” Mulroy said. “I was thinking about pancakes, but I kinda got other things on my mind here. We finish this, we’ll eat. Besides, there’s food here.”

  “Yeah, you want to eat this slop?” Babe said. “Go get us a pizza.”

  “A pizza?” Mulroy said. “You want I should get a pizza? We’re fixin’ to torture a guy with fire ants, maybe cut him up a little, set him on fire, whatever comes to mind that’s fun, and you want me to drive out and get a fuckin’ pizza? Honey, you need to stop lettin’ men dick you in the ear. It’s startin’ to mess up your brain. Drink your soda pop.”

  “Canadian bacon, and none of those little fishies,” Babe said. “Lots of cheese, and get the thick chewy crust.”

  “You got to be out of your beautiful red head.”

  “It’ll take a while anyway,” Babe said. “I don’t think a couple of ant bites’ll make him cave. And I’d rather not get tacky with cuttin’ and burnin’, we can avoid it. Whatever we do, it’ll take some time, and I don’t want to do it on an empty stomach. I’m tellin’ you, I’m seriously and grown-up hungry here.”

  “You don’t know fire ants, Baby,” Mulroy said. “It ain’t gonna take long at all.”

  “It’s like, what, fifteen minutes into town?” Babe said, sipping her drink. “I could use a pizza. That’s what I want. What’s the big deal?”

  Mulroy scratched the back of his neck, looked out the doorway. The ants were at the steps, following the trail of syrup.

  “They’ll be on him before I get back,” he said.

  “So,” Babe said, “I’ve heard a grown man scream before. He tells me somethin’, you get back, we’ll go, eat the pizza on the way.”

  Mulroy used a finger to clear the tobacco out of his cheek. He flipped it into the yard. He said, “All right. I guess I could eat.” Mulroy put on his coat and hat and smiled at Babe and went out.

  When Mulroy’s car was way out on the drive, near the highway, Babe opened her purse and took out a small .38 and pointed it at Standers. “I figure this will make you a more balanced kind of partner. You remember that. You mess with me, I’ll shoot your dick off.”

  “All right,” Standers said.

  Babe put the revolver in her other hand, got a flick blade knife out of her purse, used it to cut the sheets around Standers’s ankles. She cut the lamp cord off his wrist.

  Standers stood, and without pulling his pants up, hopped to the sink. He got the hand towel off the rack and wet it and used it to clean the syrup off his privates, his feet and head. He pulled up his pants, got his socks, sat on the couc
h and put his boots back on.

  “We got to hurry,” Babe said. “Mulroy, he’s got a temper. I seen him shoot a dog once for peeing on one of his hub caps.”

  “Let me get my car keys,” Standers said.

  “We’ll take my car,” she said. “You’ll drive.”

  They went outside and she gave him the keys and they drove off.

  · · ·

  As they drove onto the highway, Mulroy, who was parked behind a swathe of trees, poked a new wad of tobacco into his mouth and massaged it with his teeth.

  Babe had sold out immediately, like he thought she would. Doing it this way, having them lead him to the treasure was a hell of a lot better than sitting around in a hot trailer watching fire ants crawl on a man’s balls. And this way he didn’t have to watch his back all the time. That Babe, what a kidder. She was so greedy, she thought he’d fall for that lame pizza gag. She’d been winning too long; she wasn’t thinking enough moves ahead anymore.

  Mulroy rode well back of them, putting his car behind other cars when he could. He figured his other advantage was they weren’t expecting him. He thought about the treasure and what he could do with it while he drove.

  Until Babe came along, he had been a private detective, doing nickel and dime divorces out of Tyler; taking pictures of people doing the naked horizontal mambo. It wasn’t a lot of fun. And the little cons he pulled on the side, clever as they were, were bullshit money, hand to mouth.

  He made the score he wanted from all this, he’d go down to Mexico, buy him a place with a pool, rent some women. One for each day of the week, and each one with a different sexual skill, and maybe a couple who could cook. He was damn sure tired of his own cooking. He wanted to eat a lot and get fat and lay around and poke the señoritas. This all fell through, he thought he might try and be an evangelist or some kind of politician or a lawman with a regular check.

  · · ·

  Standers drove for a couple of hours, through three or four towns, and Mulroy followed. Eventually, Standers pulled off the highway, onto a blacktop. Mulroy gave him time to get ahead, then took the road too. With no cars to put between them and himself, Mulroy cruised along careful like. Finally he saw Standers way up ahead on a straight stretch. Standers veered off the road and into the woods.

  Mulroy pulled to the side of the road and waited a minute, then followed. The road in the woods was a narrow dirt one, and Mulroy had only gone a little ways when he stopped his car and got out and started walking. He had a hunch the road was a short one, and he didn’t want to surprise them too early.

  · · ·

  Standers drove down the road until it deadended at some woods and a load of trash someone had dumped. He got out and Babe got out. Babe was still holding her gun.

  “You’re tellin’ me it’s hidden under the trash?” she said. “You better not be jackin’ with me, honey.”

  “It’s not under the trash. Come on.”

  They went into the woods and walked along awhile, came to an old white house with a bad roof. It was surrounded by vines and trees and the porch was falling down.

  “You keep a treasure here?” she said.

  Standers went up on the porch, got a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Inside, pigeons fluttered and went out holes in the windows and the roof. A snake darted into a hole in the floor. There were spiders and spider webs everywhere. The floor was dotted with rat turds.

  Standers went carefully across the floor and into a bedroom. Babe followed, holding her revolver at the ready. The room was better kept than the rest of the house. She could see where boards had been replaced in the floor. The ceiling was good here. There were no windows, just plyboard over the spots where they ought to be.There was a dust covered desk, a bed with ratty covers, and an armchair covered in a faded flower print.

  Standers got down on his hands and knees, reached under the bed and tugged diligently at a large suitcase.

  “It’s under the bed?” Babe said.

  Standers opened the suitcase. There was a crowbar in it. He got the crowbar out. Babe said, “Watch yourself. I don’t want you should try and hit me. It could mess up my makeup.”

  Standers carried the crowbar to the closet, opened it. The closet was sound. There was a groove in the floor. Standers fitted the end of the crowbar into the groove and lifted. The flooring came up. Standers pulled the trap door out of the closet and put it on the floor.

  Babe came over for a look, careful to keep an eye on Standers and a tight grip on the gun. Where the floor had been was a large metal-lined box. Standers opened the box so she could see what was inside.

  What she saw inside made her breath snap out. Gold bars and a shiny wooden box about the size of a box of cigars.

  “That’s what’s got the hair in it?” she asked.

  “That’s what they say. Inside is another box with some glass in it. You can look through the glass and see the hair. Box was made by the Catholic Church to hold the hair. For all I know it’s an armpit hair off one of the Popes. Who’s to say? But it’s worth money.”

  “How much money?”

  “It depends on who you’re dealing with. A million. Two to three million. Twenty-five million.”

  “Let’s deal with that last guy.”

  “The fence won’t give money like that. We could sell the gold bars, use that to finance a trip to Germany. There’re people there would pay plenty for the box.”

  “A goddamn hair,” Babe said. “Can you picture that?”

  “Yeah, I can picture that.” Babe and Standers turned as Mulroy spoke, stepped into the room cocking his revolver with one hand, pushing his hat back with the other.

  Mulroy said, “Put the gun down, Babe, or I part your hair about two inches above your nose.”

  Babe smiled at him, lowered her gun. “See,” she said. “I got him to take me here, no trouble. Now we can take the treasure.”

  Mulroy smiled. “You are some kind of kidder. I never thought you’d let me have fifty percent anyway. I was gonna do you in from the start. Same as you were with me. Drop the gun, Babe.”

  Babe dropped the revolver. “You got me all wrong,” she said.

  “No I don’t,” Mulroy said.

  “I guess you didn’t go for pizza,” Standers said.

  “No, but I tell you what,” Mulroy said. “I’m pretty hungry right now, so let’s get this over with. I’ll make it short and sweet. A bullet through the head for you, Standers. A couple more just to make sure you aren’t gonna be some kind of living cabbage. As for you, Babe. There’s a bed here, and I figure I might as well get all the treasure I can get. Look at it this way. It’s the last nice thing you can do for anybody, so you might as well make it nice. If nothing else, be selfish and enjoy it.”

  “Well,” Standers said, looking down at Babe’s revolver on the floor. “You might as well take the gun.”

  Standers stepped out from behind Babe and kicked her gun toward Mulroy, and no sooner had he done that, than he threw the crowbar.

  Mulroy looked down at the revolver sliding his way, then looked up. As he did, the crowbar hit him directly on the bridge of the nose and dropped him. He fell unconscious with his back against the wall.

  Soon as Mulroy fell, Babe reached for her revolver. Standers kicked her legs out from under her, but she scuttled like a crab and got hold of it and shot in Standers’s direction. The shot missed, but it stopped Standers.

  Babe got up, pulled her dress down and smiled. “Looks like I’m ahead.”

  She turned suddenly and shot the unconscious Mulroy behind the ear. Mulroy’s hat, which had maintained its position on his head, came off as he nodded forward. A wad of tobacco rolled over his lip and landed in his lap. Blood ran down his cheek and onto his nice Western coat.

  Babe smiled again, spoke to Standers. “Now I just got you. And I need you to carry those bars out of here.”

  Standers said. “Why should I help?”

  “Cause I’ll let you go.”

 
Standers snorted.

  “All right then, because I’ll shoot you in the knees and leave you here if you don’t. That way, you go slow. Help me, I’ll make it quick.”

  “Damn, that’s a tough choice.”

  “Let’s you and me finish up in a way you don’t have to suffer, Babycakes.”

  Standers nodded, said, “You promise to make it quick?”

  “Honey, it’ll happen so fast you won’t know it happened.”

  “I can’t take the strain,” Standers said. He pointed to the room adjacent to the bedroom. “There’s a wheelbarrow in there. It’s the way I haul stuff out. I get that, we can make a few trips, get it over with. I don’t like to think about dying for a long time. Let’s just get it done.”

  “Fine with me,” Babe said.

  Standers started toward the other room. Babe said, “Hold on.” She bent down and got Mulroy’s gun. Now she had one in either hand. She waved Standers back against the wall and peeked in the room he had indicated. There was a wheelbarrow in there.

  “All right, let’s do it,” she said.

  Standers stepped quickly inside, and as Babe started to enter the room, he said sharply, “Don’t step there!”

  Babe held her foot in mid-air, and Standers slapped her closest gun arm down and grabbed it, slid behind her and pinned her other arm. He slid his hands down and took the guns from her.

  He used his knee to shove her forward. She stumbled and the floor cracked and she went through and spun and there was another crack, but it wasn’t the floor. She screamed and moaned something awful. After a moment, she stopped bellowing and turned to Standers, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  Standers said, “What’s the matter? Kind of run out of lies? There ain’t nothing you can say would interest me. It’s just a shame to have to kill a good-lookin’ piece like you.”

  “Please,” she said, but Standers shot her in the face with Mulroy’s gun and she fell backwards, her broken leg still in the gap in the floor. Her other leg flew up and came down and her heel hit the floor with a slap. Her dress hiked up and exposed her privates.