I looked around as we went down the hall, nervous as hell, half expecting Big Man to come out of a sickroom with a battery and generator under one arm, a ball bat under the other.
At the end of the corridor I saw Brett come out of a room, look in my direction, double-take, smile, then walk toward us.
“That her?” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Looks your type,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But there wasn’t time for him to answer. Brett was in front of us. I could tell she was looking over my shoulder, back at the nurses’ station.
She said, “Hap. Good to see you. But I’m working right now.”
“I know,” I said. “This is Leonard Pine.”
She smiled at Leonard. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Leonard said.
“Really,” Brett said. “I can’t visit. Old Lady Elmore runs a tight ship.”
“That the fat lady looks like her feet hurt?” Leonard said.
Brett grinned. “That’s her. And her feet probably do hurt. Mine do.”
“Brett,” I said. “I don’t mean to bother you. This is kind of an emergency.”
“Emergency?” she said.
“No one’s hurt,” I said. “Well, not much. But inadvertently I may have got you into some deep shit.”
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “Can you get off?”
“I… I don’t know,” she said. “If I can get Patsy to take over for me. But she won’t like it. I was just on vacation.”
“What about Ella?” I said.
“I wouldn’t ask her right now,” Brett said. “I’m just glad she and I have started talkin’ again. She’s finally thinkin’ about leavin’ that shit Kevin.”
“Good,” I said. “But you got to get off. Really. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important.”
“Okay,” Brett said. “Okay. But will you go down to the lobby and wait?”
We sat in Brett’s living room, Brett and I on the couch, Leonard in a chair across the way. I explained all that had happened, told her about Jim Bob and our conclusions.
“My God,” she said. “I certainly know how to pick my men.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never thought it would come to something like this.”
“This wrestler?” Brett said. “He threatened me?”
“He knew about you,” I said. “He may have been talking out of the side of his mouth, but after what happened to Raul, and me, I got to be worried about you.”
Brett sat for a moment. She looked at me. She looked at Leonard. She went into the bedroom and shut the door.
Leonard said, “Sorry, Hap.”
“Yeah.”
The bedroom door opened. Brett came out with a holster containing a. 38 -. 38s were certainly popular in my circles.
“Let him come,” Brett said. “I like you, Hap. You got your warts, but so do I. You didn’t bring this on yourself. Let the fucker come. I’ll shoot him so full of holes he’ll think he’s a tennis net. I done burned one fucker’s head, guess I can put a bullet in another one’s.”
I thought, goddamn, if this ain’t true love, I don’t know what is.
23
“They’re a little slow,” I said, “and I’d keep my conversation down to stuff like, ‘Bathroom’s over there,’ ‘Coca-Cola’s in the fridge,’ and ‘Do you want that bucket of chicken crispy or original recipe?’”
We were in Brett’s living room, me and her, and we were looking out the window at Leonard, who had just arrived in my truck with Leon and Clinton. You could see them clearly beneath the bright streetlight.
Leon and Clinton were two black twins in their thirties with heads like bowling balls and bodies like the columns that hold up the British Museum of Natural History.
They were friends of Leonard’s. He met them after whipping their asses. They had given Raul a hard time at a convenience store, and Leonard, who was considerably smaller, heard about it, hunted them down, and wiped the floor with them. Him beating them like that had nothing to do with their toughness; they were tough. But Leonard was tougher. Better trained. And smarter. ’Course, bless their hearts, a snapshot of a human brain was smarter than they were.
Since that time, they had been there for Leonard when he needed them. He needed them now, for me.
They got out of the truck and stood around in Brett’s yard. Leon, also known as Scum Eye because he had some kind of condition that’d made his eye mat over, picked up a rock in the yard and threw it and hit Clinton in the back. Clinton, pissed, looked around for a rock, found one, and threw it at Leon.
Leon, quicker than he looked, ducked and the rock struck something out of our sight that made Leonard, Clinton and Leon wince.
“Shit,” I said.
“Christ,” Brett said. “Are them fellas housebroken?”
“Barely, but they’re all right,” I said. “Anybody fucks with you, they’ll take them apart and reassemble them so that they don’t match up.”
“They getting paid for this?” Brett asked.
“We’re slippin’ ’em some bills,” I said. “They’d do it for nothing, but they haven’t got jobs. Got laid off at the aluminum-chair factory sometime back, and they haven’t worked since. All the brain surgeon jobs are taken. But they’re all right.”
“They look a little scary?”
“You ought to see Big Man Mountain.”
Brett gave me a grim look.
“Sorry,” I said. “But that’s the reality. These guys, they can take care of themselves, and they’ll take care of you.”
“I can’t go to work with these fellas hanging on my neck,” Brett said.
“I know. What we’re gonna do, we’re gonna put Clinton here. He’s gonna stay in the house while you’re at work. That way, no one’s comin’ in to wait for you. You get home, need something, he goes with you if Leonard and I aren’t around. Okay?”
“Okay. What about work?”
“Leon will be there. I don’t know he needs to follow you around. He’ll just be around. Sittin’ in the waiting room, the parkin’ lot, kinda watchin’ out. I don’t know we can do better than that if you’re going to insist on workin’.”
“Like I said, landlord won’t fuck me for the rent.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a fool. You got your pistol?”
“Pistol-packin’ mama,” she said, reached down, and pulled up her nurse’s uniform. The gun was strapped to a holster around her thigh.
“Would you like me to check and see that garter holster is too tight?”
“That’s all right,” she said, lowering her hem.
“You know how to use that?” I said. “Having it is one thing, using it is another.”
“Hell, I’m certified to carry it. I took the course.”
The course was for the new law passed in Texas where you could legally carry a concealed handgun after taking instruction in laws and marksmanship.
“My guess,” she said, “is I’m the only one of us legal. And I could shoot before I was legal. And you can take that in any manner you want. I got a buck knife in my purse too. It isn’t legal. But I’ll tell you, that little honey, legal or not, will cut your fuckin’ nuts off with a wisp of a blade.”
“I’d rather not talk about nut injury right now,” I said.
“Sorry… That business gonna cut down on our activity?”
“Not even if I have to tie them in a sling.”
Leonard and the twins came inside. Leonard introduced them. Clinton, who did most of the talking, said, “How’re ya doin’?”
“Fine,” Brett said. “Well, not really. There’s someone might want to hurt me.”
“He ain’t gonna hurt nothin’,” Clinton said. “We tie that motherfucka in some fuckin’ knots is what we do.”
“And he don’t like knots, we shoot him some,” Leon said, reaching under his sweatshirt, producing a large, greasy. 45 automatic.
“Yeah,” Clinton said, “like till our guns run out of bullets.”
“Then we gonna reload,” Leon said.
“Good,” Brett said. “That’s what I want to hear.”