“Well, I don’t know what you got on underneath,” Jim Bob said.
“You’re startin’ to fuck with me,” Leonard said. “I don’t like it.”
“Like it or don’t like it,” Jim Bob said. “There’s a way most of them fellas dress. I ain’t puttin’ ’em down for it, but they dress a certain way, ’specially if they’re tryin’ to get their cable up a butt. I dressed way I seen them dress. And it worked. So there.”
Leonard leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. He looked as if he could eat ground glass and chew nails.
Jim Bob said, “I’m tryin’ to connect with these fucks beat up Custer Stevens, so I’m roamin’ the park day and night, and one night this fella, a good-sized fella, comes up to me and makes with the come-on.
“I’m thinkin’, now, if this guy just wants to play and I lead him on, I’m gonna feel kinda silly when it gets to the part where I’m supposed to swing my rope, but I play along, and this guy leads me to a spot, and these guys come out of the bushes on me. I had to give a couple of them an attitude adjustment with my blackjack.”
Jim Bob suddenly produced the blackjack from his back pocket and slapped it into his palm. “Couple of shots from this and it’s lights out and a headache in the mornin’. Them fuckers bolted. When they did, I seen there was someone else runnin’, some fuck in the bushes. I chased after him. He had a video camera. I was closin’ on him when this guy – one led me into ambush in the first place – caught up with me and jumped me. It was the fella I shot to hell last night. White guy with the moon craters. I wrestled that fuck all over the park, got him in a step-over-toe hold, and cranked on that baby a while.”
Jim Bob replaced his blackjack, sucked more beer, continued.
“By this time his buddies, ones weren’t unconscious, got their shit together, and one of them had a gun, and I hadn’t brought mine, and I knew that was my cue to go to the house. So I darted, and they let me dart. I made it to my car, and what do I see as I’m jettin’ away from the park? The guy with the video camera, and he’s gettin’ on the back of this Harley, and ole Horse is drivin’, and you got one guess who this video man was.”
“Raul,” Leonard said.
“On the nosey,” Jim Bob said. “They were videotapin’ this shit for their pleasure. Or, to be more precise, for money.”
“Raul was the cameraman?” I said.
“You betcha,” Jim Bob said.
I watched Leonard’s face do a series of moves, then settle.
I turned back to Jim Bob. “Did you know these tapes were going underground to video stores?”
“Having encountered similar things before,” Jim Bob said, “I sort of put it together. And it didn’t take a genius to figure the folks I had my little tadoo with in the park were the ones beat the Stevens kid up and that Horse and Raul were connected. I followed them. And later I followed them some more. Sometimes one, sometimes both.”
“I guess all that watchin’ got you connected to me and Hap,” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” Jim Bob said. “And I found out Raul went out to King Arthur’s place to cut hair, and later to his plant. And then all this shit starts comin’ down, and I get to puttin’ it all together, tryin’ to make a case I can give the cops, and guess what. I lose track a bit, next thing I know Horse gets his head blown off and Raul disappears.”
“And what did our intrepid investigator deduce from all this?” I asked.
“I figured Leonard done ’em both in. I figured I had to follow that part of the story too, you know, construct the whole picture. So I come here and I see you come out of the house, Hap. I been spot-checkin’ you two ever since. You got good taste in nurses, Hap.”
“Leave her out of this,” I said.
“Nothing raw meant,” Jim Bob said.
“Charlie knew all this?” Leonard asked.
“Nope,” Jim Bob said. “I didn’t keep Charlie informed. I got the original info from him, then I was on my own. I didn’t even know he knew you two until after Horse bought his ticket. I seen him talkin’ to you then. And I talked to him yesterday some.”
“When did you decide I wasn’t the killer?” Leonard asked.
“When the cops decided you weren’t,” Jim Bob said.
“But still you followed?” I said.
“That’s right,” Jim Bob said. “I didn’t know exactly what I was followin’, but I was followin’. I was checkin’ other leads too. You guys weren’t the only ones. You’re lucky I was followin’ last night.”
“And why were you?” I asked.
“I thought it was time you and me met, talked,” Jim Bob said. “I realized we were after the same thing – folks behind all this shit. I thought I’d talk to you, then Leonard. I was on my way to your place when Big Man Mountain passed me in the Impala and I seen you in the back. And you didn’t look like you were on your way to the skatin’ rink. I turned around, followed, and you know the rest.”
“Bottom line,” Leonard said. “What’s this all about?”
“What do you figure?” Jim Bob said. “I’ve showed you mine, now show me yours.”
Leonard looked at me. I nodded. Leonard said, “We figure King Arthur has some thugs who are stealin’ grease, and Horse gets in with these thugs as an undercover cop. He takes some secret video of King Arthur’s men stealing grease and they want it back. Then there’s this other video of the stuff like happened to your client in the park. I guess Horse and Raul found out about that business by accident, then dealt themselves in. Even started helping make the videos. Christ! I thought I knew Raul.”
“Shit,” I said, “that’s the whole story right there, isn’t it? Horse started out investigating, then got in on a better end of the business. Grease-napping was the sort of thing he’d turn in, but this other thing, the video business, he could make some real money there. He dove in and went to work for the bad guys. They said anything, he could turn them in and just say he was workin’ undercover, playin’ them along. He had them over a barrel.”
“In summation,” Leonard said, “we ended up with a couple videotapes and a notebook full of coded stuff.”
“All right,” Jim Bob said. “That’s interesting. It may not mean what you think, though.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Look here,” Jim Bob said. “You got to see things through. You take flyin’ saucers, for instance.”
“Flyin’ saucers?” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” Jim Bob said, “for instance. Guy goes out at night, sees somethin’ in the sky he don’t recognize, he starts talkin’ about UFOs. And he’s right. He did see an Unidentified Flying Object, but that’s all he saw. UFO doesn’t mean flyin’ saucer, spacecraft. It means somethin’ unidentified. But way most people think is they see something they don’t know, next thing is they’re sayin’ they saw a flyin’ saucer, when in fact they don’t know what they saw. Might be a flyin’ saucer, might be God moon’n’ us, but they don’t know. It’s a jump they’ve made.”
“You’re sayin’ we’re jumpin’ conclusions?” I said.
“I’m sayin’ you could be,” Jim Bob said. “Or rather I’m sayin’ you could just have part of the story. Know what else it could be?”
Leonard sounded solemn as a reverend preaching his mother’s funeral. “Could be Raul and Horse Dick decided to blackmail King Arthur about the videos he was makin’. Ones they helped make.”
“Bingo,” Jim Bob said.
“No shit!” I said.
“No shit,” Jim Bob said. “Horse still has the undercover connection, King can’t say anything to the cops ’cause he’ll get nailed, and he can’t really do anything legal to Horse, ’cause Horse can do what you said, claim it was all part of his undercover sting.”
Leonard said, “I figure Raul and Horse decided to mail that package to my mailbox. Thought they were safe long as they had that. But they were wrong. Whoever they were blackmailing decided to eliminate the blackmailers, take the pressure off, then all they had to do was find the blackmail items.”
“That’s right,” Jim Bob said. “They snooped around. Didn’t come up with the business, decided you guys had a connection, took a flyer and toted Hap out to the woods for a few bouts with a battery and a ball bat.”