Bad Chili cap-4 Read online

  I clicked the TV off. “I’m sorry, Doc. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a hard time. I really did have an emergency. I just can’t talk about it.”

  Doc Sylvan eyed me. “Yeah… Well, all right. Gown’s in the closet. Suit up.”

  He went out and shut the door. I put on the gown and stuffed my clothes in the closet. Sylvan came back after a while. I had crawled into bed and had the covers around my neck.

  “You stay here tonight and tomorrow night,” Sylvan said, “and we’ll be through with this insurance foolishness. You do that, I can make the insurance work. I think. You come to my office for the remaining shots.”

  “We could have done that in the first place.”

  “Insurance, Hap. Keep that in mind. Just keep telling yourself. Insurance. I’m tired of having to sound like a broken record.”

  “Yes, Yoda.”

  “You look like shit.”

  “I got a cold. I picked it up here.”

  “I don’t doubt that. I hate coming to the goddamn hospital to examine patients. They always give me something.”

  “You could let them die.”

  “Believe me, there’s some I wish would.”

  “My God, Doc, isn’t that against that Hippocratic oath?”

  “Hippocrates never had to deal with some of the assholes I deal with. He did, he’d have shoved that oath up their ass.”

  “Are you indicating any patient in particular?”

  “Could be,” Sylvan said. “Could be.”

  Sylvan got his stethoscope and checked me over. He used a tongue depressor on me. He clucked and clicked. “Upper respiratory. Bit of a sore throat. I’ll have them check you out. Give you something for the symptoms.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Hey, what else can I do for my favorite patient?”

  “Let me see…”

  “Hap, get out of this bed before day after tomorrow, I’ll kill you.”

  “Any news on the squirrel’s head?”

  “Other than the fact there are tire marks on it, not much. It’ll be a while before we hear. They got boxes of heads at the lab in Austin. We’ve had several rabid dogs and raccoons since you came into the office. Goddamn woods are full of them this year. It’s epidemic. I’m leavin’.”

  “Will you tuck me in before you go?”

  Sylvan grunted and left. I closed my eyes, was surprised to discover that so early into the night I was sleepy. I suppose it was the cold, or the medicine I had taken before I left the house. Don’t take cold medicine and drive. I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was I was doing. I drifted off.

  I came awake and checked my watch about eleven P.M. I was surprised. I felt as if I had been asleep for only moments. I used the bed-lift button, raised my back, turned the TV on again.

  The entire television industry hadn’t revamped itself during my nap. Everything that was on the standard channels sucked the big ole donkey dick. I tried for some of the specialty channels. No luck. Didn’t have any. You’d think if you had to eat the food in the hospital, least they could do was get cable.

  I turned off the television and sat in the dark. About fifteen minutes later Brett showed up pushing a metal table on wheels. She turned on the light beside my bed. She lifted a brown paper bag off the metal table. She smiled at me. God, I liked that smile.

  “Well,” she said. “I heard you ran off.”

  “Ssssshhhhhh,” I said. “Doc Sylvan and I like to think of it as a bit of a sabbatical.”

  “Since you’re back, I figured you’d be needing this.”

  She opened the brown paper bag, took out the copy of Boobs and Butts Charlie had given me, laid it on the nightstand beside my bed.

  “One thing I like to see in a man,” she said, “is attention to culture.”

  “That’s not really mine.”

  “It was in the nightstand drawer here.”

  “Yes, but Charlie, a friend of mine, gave it to me.”

  “I see. Well, just so you’ll stay occupied, I brought you a little something.”

  She reached back into the bag. She brought out a Playboy magazine and a Penthouse. “I thought you might as well move up to the classics. Though I’m afraid both of these have words in them.”

  “Actually, Boobs and Butts is very precise. Very modern. They have words. It’s just minimalist. They choose what they have to say wisely and place the words under the photographs.”

  “Yes. I read a few of those words. Did you know they misspelled pussy? They used one s.”

  “No. I’ll have to drop them a line.”

  “Let’s check the vital signs.”

  She did the general routine, pronounced me a bit feverish.

  “Doctor’s notes say you have a bit of a cold,” she said.

  “I think I have more than a bit. In fact, when you’re in the room I think I gain a couple of degrees on the thermometer.”

  “Is that a compliment, Hap Collins?”

  “I hope so.”

  She took a water pitcher from the table, poured me a plastic cup of water, gave me a couple of pills. I swallowed them. She said. “Those have plenty of saltpeter in them.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “In fact, maybe you could arrange for me to have an ongoing prescription.”

  “I might be back later,” Brett said. “You’re not asleep, perhaps I can sit by the bed and read you the captions from the Boobs and Butts .”

  “I wouldn’t sit too close.”

  “Sleep tight, Hap Collins.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Wait. What’s your last name? I never caught it.”

  “I never gave it. It’s Sawyer. Brett Sawyer. I’m in the phone book. I don’t have an answering machine. I don’t fuck on the first date, and some men find me forward.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “That I don’t fuck on the first date?”

  “That some men find you forward. Hey, I’m gonna be busy some when I get out of here, but you think after that I could give you a call?”

  “I’ve done everything but stick my butt in your face,” she said, “so I’ll leave some of the work to you. I’m in the phone book.”

  She gave me that dazzling smile and went away. I lay for a while hoping the cold medicine she had given me would put me to sleep quickly and that it really did have saltpeter in it.

  It didn’t. I turned off the light and lay there in the dark and looked at my dick making a pup tent of the blanket. I experienced all sorts of unclean thoughts. I certainly hoped Jesus wasn’t in the room with me right then. In fact, I might even have shocked the devil.

  After a while the pup tent folded, and I fell asleep. If Brett came back, I never knew it. For the first time in a long time, the hospital let me sleep through the night.

  10

  After lunch the next day, Charlie came by. He was wearing a poorly cut brown suit with a light brown shirt and a dark brown tie. He had on tennis shoes, white socks, and his porkpie hat.

  “When do you get out of this pit?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Then maybe I ought not get you too excited before then.”

  “My God, are you fixing to strip?”

  “Be the best thing you’ve ever seen, but no. You got to tell Leonard to come in.”

  “We been over that,” I said.

  “No. You got to have him come in. Way it looks now, he’s in the clear.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Bikers at the bar. They all called Leonard a mean nigger and numerous names so foul that if I was to air them politically correct liberals would start to fall out the sky clutchin’ their hearts, and the fuckin’ super-conservatives would like it too much.”

  “Get on with the meat.”

  “They all agree he was too busy running from them, tryin’ to hide, to have killed McNee, who they call Horse.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “That they call him Horse?”

&
nbsp; “That he’s called Horse and that his real name is McNee. But what about Leonard?”

  “Leonard wouldn’t have had time to whack anybody. It’s not like they’re tryin’ to give him an alibi, it’s just their stories give him one anyway.”

  “You wouldn’t pull me, would you? This isn’t some kind of trick?”

  “You tell Leonard to come in. He’ll end up owin’ a fine for shootin’ up the place, assault charges, maybe. Might have to buy the Blazing Wheel a new sign. He’ll have to answer a lot of questions, but in the end he won’t have to hide out. We can say he was hiding from the bikers for fear of his life. Say he’s been in the woods all the time… Has he?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “All right, have it your way,” Charlie said. “But, way it looks, his head is off the chopping block.”

  “I’ll be goddamn.”

  “Yeah, me too. You have him at the station no later than tomorrow morning after you get out of here.”

  “It’ll be more like after lunch. Hospital has to process me out.”

  “So you knew where he was all along?”

  “Let’s just say I think I can get in touch with him.”

  “Yeah. Right. After lunch tomorrow. No later. Hear?”

  It went pretty smooth, all things considered. Leonard didn’t get off scot-free. A court date was set, and it was certain he’d be paying a fine, and he wasn’t entirely out of the woods on being a suspect in the death of Horse Dick, but no one was really trying to push him hard in that direction. Not with the bikers actually giving him an alibi. He got processed and out of the cop shop almost quicker than I got out of the hospital, and he didn’t have to ride in a wheelchair out to the curb like I did.

  I’ve never really figured that. You go to the hospital, they check you out, no matter if you’re skipping rope and climbing the walls, they got to take you out in a wheelchair. It’s one of life’s little mysteries, like UFOs and the Loch Ness monster.

  The morning after Leonard was set free it was hot and bright, but there was a cool wind with it. We met at his house to clean up the mess there, but finally said to hell with it.

  I drove out to my house and he followed in the rented Chevy he was driving. We got cane poles and some fishing goods, walked through the woods to where the creek widened, sat there fishing for perch.

  “I just couldn’t face that mess today,” Leonard said. “Besides, it makes me think about Raul.”

  “The mess?”

  “No. The house, stupid.”

  “Any idea about the mess?” I asked.

  “I figure it was the bikers. They found out where I lived, went looking for me, didn’t find me, trashed the place. That fits in with you finding the motorcycle tire prints.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know,” I said. “The bikers have been pretty candid about stuff. They didn’t admit to that.”

  “They’ve only been candid when they could say what an asshole I was. And you know what, they’re right.”

  “I never doubted that. Thing is, that mess bothers me. I think you ought to seriously watch your ass for a while. Those footprints out there don’t belong to the tooth fairy.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Leonard said, but he didn’t sound too sincere. “You think Raul’s alive?”

  “I don’t know. Haven’t a clue. I got to say this. Seems to me he’d have shown up by now. I’m sure you’re aware with you in the clear he’s considered the prime suspect in the murder of Horse.”

  “I figured as much. They’re just replacing me with him. You know I can’t let that stand. Raul couldn’t murder anyone… Shit, Hap. I love that kid. He’s a dip, but I love him.”

  We caught a couple of perch, put them in a can of water, sat and talked. Leonard told me about Raul, and how things had gone sour, and how the kid was wilder than he’d realized. It was a pretty standard story. I’d heard it before, but it had been men talking about their women. Love was love, however, and the problems didn’t seem to change much, even if the lover was of the same sex, except there was a lot more fucking. Gay or not, men are men, and men seriously love to fuck, and you can write that down in your little black book, tear out the page, crumple it up, and smoke it.

  When Leonard finished telling me his woes, I told him about Brett. Then we talked about Hanson, and how we had to go see him and watch him do his coma.

  Next Leonard told me how he had gotten a tick on his balls while staying in the woods. He said he still had it. He couldn’t get it off.

  “It’s in a hard-for-me-to-reach place,” he said. “Maybe you could pull it off for me.”

  “Not on your life. I’m a pretty good shot, though. I could shoot it off.”

  “I’m serious here. This is a problem.”

  “Use a match. You light it, blow it out, then stick the hot end against the tick’s butt, and he’ll back out.”

  “You’ve done this?”

  “No, but I’ve heard about it.”

  “You’ve had ticks on your nuts?”

  “Yep.”

  “But you didn’t try this method?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why didn’t you?

  “Afraid I’d burn my balls.”

  “Some help you are. I think you just don’t want to be handlin’ no queer’s balls.”

  “I don’t want to be handling anybody’s balls but my own.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll be sorry, I get that tick disease. You’ll wish you’d pinched that tick off.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Way this sonofabitch is swellin’ up, I’m gonna have to put a camp chair beside the bed so my balls and the tick got a place to sleep.”

  “Hey, you want, I’ll get your balls and the tick a blanket and a fluffy pillow, but I’m not pulling nothing off your balls.”

  As usual, the conversation degenerated from there, finally drifted, and we just sat there silently and fished. The wind stopped and turned hard and hot and the air was difficult to breathe, but still we sat, and finally the heat began to fade, and it was cool again, without the wind, and the air was fresh and the brightness of the day fell down amongst the trees, and the sky turned purple, then black, and the stars came out, big and bright and splendid.

  We walked home through the dark with our gear, a can of perch and a flashlight, arrived at my house in time to clean the fish by porch light, fry them up, and have a good supper.

  After supper we watched a little TV. Then Leonard left early. I promised to come over the next morning and help him clean. He drove off and I watched something on TV I wasn’t really paying attention to for about an hour, then cut it off, went to bed, and read a science fiction novel for a while.

  Next morning, early, I got up and drove to town and bought some sausage and biscuits at the drive-through of a fast-food joint, went over to Leonard’s place.

  When he let me in, the house smelled of coffee, and most of the living room had been picked up, and the kitchen porcelain was shiny and the kitchen floor in front of the refrigerator was bright and damp from a recent mopping.

  “You’ve been busy,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said. “Couldn’t sleep last night. Stayed up cleaning. Come in the kitchen, just step careful. Floor’s still damp.”

  I did that. Put the sack on the table, pulled up a chair. I said, “You pour us some coffee, and I’ll give you a sausage and biscuit.”

  “That’s a good-enough deal,” Leonard said. “You know what’s odd? I discovered something missing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Videotapes. The blank ones, and the ones with movies on them. They’re all gone.”

  “You mean someone broke into the house and stole movies?”

  “Looks that way,” Leonard said. “I got to figuring, and thought, well, the Gilligan tapes are gone, so it could have been Raul. Maybe he’s the one wrecked the house. You know, pissed at me. Maybe thinks I did Horse Dick in. So he comes here, throws stuff around, and takes his Gilligan tapes. But the thi
ng is, why would he take The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and a bunch of others?”

  “They’re good movies?”

  “He didn’t think so. Anything that had gunfire in it he was against. I’m not sayin’ my tastes run to Battleship Potemkin, but all of Raul’s taste was in his mouth, and besides for my dick, which spent a goodly amount of time in his mouth, I don’t think he knew good taste.”

  “Maybe he stole them because you liked them? A kind of revenge.”

  “I thought of that,” Leonard said. “But why did he steal the blank videotapes?”

  “So he could tape stuff on them.”

  “All right. All that works, but why just the videotapes? There’s music CDs here he liked, and he didn’t take those. He didn’t take anything else I think would have interested him. And this mess doesn’t strike me as vandalism. There’s a lot of things could have been broken for fun, but weren’t. Most of the stuff is just tossed around. What’s broken seems to have been the result of a search. It wasn’t a vandal. I think someone was looking for something, and that doesn’t fit in with Raul. He knew where everything was, so why would he throw stuff around?”

  “He was mad at you.”

  “Could be. But, I don’t think he took the videos at all.”

  “Someone else took the Gilligan tapes?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Man, a crime like that, it shows you what the world is coming to. Fucking crooks are like bottom feeders now. Who the fuck in their right mind would want a tape of Gilligan’s Island, let alone the whole series?”

  “Bob Denver?”

  “Shit. Don’t you know he gets tired of wearing that stupid sailor hat and trying to look perky?”

  “You think the series waddled in shit, you got to see the reunion movie,” Leonard said. “Raul made me watch it. And man, that one is really deadly. It sort of numbs you, you know, like a kind of nerve gas. I was weak for two days.”

  “You just hit on the secret,” I said. “It was stolen by the State Department to use as a means of covert warfare.”

  “Way I figure it,” Leonard said, “them folks already got a complete set of Gilligan. It goes with their Three’s Company collection. It’s what they watch when they’re supposed to be solving the nation’s problems.”