“You’re still involved with Big Jim?” Herman asked.
“I was,” Red said. “These three may have queered me there.” Red told Herman what had happened from when he and Wilber had put the bite on Brett for money, on up to the moment. I thought his telling was accurate, if overly long, and that goddamn steak ranchero came up again.
Herman sat with his head down for a long while, thinking. We let him think. I looked out the door and saw the Mexican woman trudging down the road, dragging little clouds of dust behind her heels.
“I don’t know,” Herman finally said. “This is some kind of situation. You’ve abused and humiliated my brother, and yet you ask me for help. You ask me to violate a trust, an agreement to never step foot on Bandito Supreme property again. I’d be tossing my life away.”
“Directions will do,” Leonard said. “You can stay here and suck prairie dogs out of holes.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Herman said. “But then I’d be tossing your lives away.”
“My suggestion,” Red said, “is you let them toss their lives and just save mine. They hit me a lot, you know?”
“Yes, I see that,” Herman said.
“It hurt,” Red said. “They’re capable of anything. I saw this one,” he indicated Leonard, “shoot Moose’s foot off. You remember Moose, don’t you?”
“You do that?” Herman asked Leonard. “You shoot Moose’s foot off?”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “Thought it was kind of funny actually.”
“See,” Red said. “They have no conscience. You should have seen her pistol-whip me. I’ve never seen anyone happier.”
“And I suppose you want me to do something about it,” Herman said.
“It crossed my mind,” Red said.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Herman said, “the lady has a gun, and my guess is there are guns under the shirts of these two men, and you just finished telling me how ruthless they are.”
“That’s right,” Leonard said. “And we’re just full of whup ass too. And we got shotguns in the trunk, we need ’em.”
“Lots of ammunition,” I said.
“That don’t do it,” Leonard said, “we’ll use rude language too.”
Herman nodded, turned to Red. “We got a problem here, Red. First off, you’re my brother. I love you. But you’re a piece of shit. I used to be a piece of shit, and may still be one, but you are definitely still one.”
“A matter of opinion,” Red said. “But the words are particularly foul coming from the mouth of my own kin, and a man of God at that.”
“They are neither foul or not foul,” Herman said, “they’re the truth. And I haven’t been a man of God in some time now. There’s also the fact I’m fat and not nearly as tough as I used to be. Or maybe I don’t want to be tough anymore. Do you want me shot, Red?”
“Of course not,” Red said.
“Then relax a little.” Then to Brett: “This girl, this Tillie. She’s your daughter? I understand that right?”
“That’s right,” Brett said. “And I want her back.”
“She chose the life,” Red said.
“She didn’t choose to be taken to The Farm,” Herman said. “You know what that means.”
“I don’t see how it’s my problem,” Red said.
“You wouldn’t,” Herman said. “I did you a great disservice, Red. Bringing you into the business. If I could undo it I would. You might have been better off with the circus.”
“Don’t say that,” Red said.
“You’re saying you’ll help us?” Brett asked Herman.
“Maybe,” Herman said. “I don’t know.”
“We could make you,” Brett said.
“Maybe,” Herman said. “Maybe you couldn’t. Neither pain nor death scares me much these days.”
“I might could show you a side of pain you haven’t visited before,” Leonard said.
Herman grinned at him. Leonard grinned back. It was great to see two sweet fellows bond.
“We don’t want to make you do anything,” I said. “We want to find Brett’s daughter and bring her home. That’s the end of it.”
“For you, maybe,” Herman said. “It wouldn’t be for me.”
“You keep talkin’ like you got to really do somethin’,” Leonard said. “All you need to do is give directions. We’ll keep your brother just to make sure your memory’s good. We find what we’re looking for, we’ll let him go and he won’t even have to be involved in the ruckus.”
“It’s not that easy,” Herman said. “It’s not like I can give you highway numbers, simple landmarks.” Herman paused for a moment. “Let’s eat. Let’s stay friendly. Let me think about it some.”
“Eating’s okay,” Brett said, “but you got to think about it a lot. We can’t let it drag into tomorrow. I don’t know what kind of situation she’s in. I don’t know what’s happening to her, or for that matter, what may have happened to her already.”
Herman looked at the floor, then out the door. It wasn’t the answer Brett wanted. I saw her swallow hard. She went outside and I followed her but gave her space. I leaned against the side of the church and watched Brett walk about in the yard as if she couldn’t decide on a direction. I could see the Mexican woman too. She had really made some distance. She was down the road and to the highway. I watched her cross the highway, duck and crawl through a barbed wire fence, and walk out into a plowed field. She started across the field, dragging more dust clouds behind her. After a while I could only see the dust. It was as if the woman had disappeared into a cloud of sand.
Mexican ninjas.
Brett walked out to her car and leaned on the hood with both hands, as if trying to push it to the center of the earth. I saw her body tremble, her head shake.
I went over and put my arm around her shoulders and didn’t say anything. After a time her hand came up and went behind my waist. She held me and began to sob.
Later, we had pinto beans and slightly burned cornbread and ate it off paper plates with plastic forks. We sat outside on Brett’s car. This was much better than inside the church, except when the wind blew and picked up the smell of sewage or blew dust into our food.
I was watching Herman and Red carefully, lest Herman decide to break loose and try and shove Leonard, Brett, and me into a prairie dog hole. I was perhaps giving Herman too much attention, actually being prejudicial. Red was right. Something about him being small caused you to underestimate him. Maybe it was his way of talking. Here was a man who had strangled a woman and nailed a little girl’s hand to a boat paddle, and he consistently looked dazed and confused and about as dangerous as a wet newspaper.
I had to remember these guys weren’t just a couple of goofballs, no matter how goofy they seemed.
We sat so that Herman was on the hood between me and Leonard, and Red sat on the trunk with Brett, who sat far enough from him to use the gun she kept in her lap. She was very nervous, anxious, and I was hoping Red didn’t make a sudden dive to scratch his nuts or pick his nose, or he might end up with a .38 round in his teeth.
After a bit, Red finished his meal, slid off the trunk, and came around front. He said, “Do your facilities function, brother?”
“More or less,” Herman said. “You got to flush it twice or three times, and if it overflows there’s a plunger in there and a mop. Stinks some. It hasn’t been cleaned in, oh, two years.”
“Goodness,” Red said.
“And you got to wipe on newspapers and throw them in a cardboard box.”
“Maybe I’ll just walk out in the field some,” Red said, “do it down a prairie dog hole. I have some Kleenex in my suit pocket.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t think so. I don’t want you going that far.”
Red looked at Herman. Herman shrugged. “There wouldn’t be a gun or anything in the house, would there?” Leonard asked.
“I disposed of them all long ago,” Herman said.
“I hope so,” Leonard said. “Don’t go out the back, Red.”