“I hope this is Tonto,” I said. “Otherwise, I’m heading out the back door at a run.”
“That must be him,” Marvin said, “’cause that’s the usual response. Keep in mind he’s a little shy.”
When we opened the door, I said, “Hello,” and Tonto nodded, stood where he was for a moment, wiped his feet in a slow, methodical manner, like a trained horse trying to count for its master.
When he came in, he ducked a little to go through the door and stood in the center of the room, saw Brett, held that view for a while, then looked over at Marvin.
“You needed me?” he said to Marvin, and it was as if this big man’s voice was on vacation and he had borrowed a voice from a child, soft and musical, almost feminine.
“Yeah,” Marvin said.
“I pay my debts.”
“I know,” Marvin said.
“I never thought you’d ask.”
“Never planned to.”
“Then it’s important.”
“That’s right,” Marvin said. “It’s important. To me.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s have some coffee and talk about things. I don’t think it’s been completely explained.”
“I came because Marvin asked,” Tonto said. “I don’t know anything. There’s nothing been explained to me.”
“And me,” Jim Bob said. “I’m here ’cause my plastic fuck doll ran out of air. Wasn’t nothing else to do.”
“My guess,” Brett said, “is the doll pinpricked herself and committed suicide.”
“Now, honey,” Jim Bob said, “that’s just an ugly thing to say.”
25
We pulled some kitchen chairs up and got some folding chairs out of the closet and congregated at the kitchen table with coffee and Leonard’s cookies, which from the look on his face I could tell he didn’t appreciate. Through the kitchen window I could see the rain had cleared and the almost pink sky with the bone-white clouds above it looked like some kind of strawberry brew topped by foam.
“Curious? We got to kill somebody?” Tonto said. “Not that I mind, but I like to know. Well, sometimes I mind. I got scruples, they’re just flexible.”
I thought, man, how did I arrive at this place, with a man with flexible scruples? It was bad enough I was suspicious of my own.
He took off his jacket and he had a twin pearl-handled .45 in a shoulder holster under each armpit. He was wearing a crucifix on a chain, and he pulled it out from under his shirt and let it lie on the front of the cloth in line with the buttons. Nothing says I love Jesus like a crucifix and twin .45s. He was sitting in one of the folding chairs and I feared at any moment it would wrap around his big ass and drop him to the floor.
“That’s something we want to avoid,” I said. “But one never knows. We’re not dealing with priests here.”
“So,” Jim Bob said, “instead of an ass fucking from one of God’s finest, we’re talking about bullets.”
“That would be yes,” Leonard said.
I explained, mostly for Tonto, about the kids who had run off, about Hirem, how we were patsies, and how we could expect zip help from anyone outside of our little group. I told him we had no real idea where the kids were, but that we were supposed to talk to the FBI and Hirem one more time, and then the only time we were to see them or talk to them again was when the mission was over, provided we survived. All nonsurvivors could pretty much count on being buried beside the road in a shallow grave with nothing to mark their passing except a wild-flower or the droppings of the random dog or armadillo.
“And what do we get out of this?” Jim Bob said.
“Well,” I said, “me and Leonard get to not go to jail, or maybe just avoid some long, inconvenient court time. You get the pleasure of our company.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a deal,” Jim Bob said.
“It’s not,” I said.
“Well,” Jim Bob said, “considering that we get nothing out of this, and I’m doing this just because I know you guys and sort of like you better than guys I don’t, count me in.”
I looked at Tonto.
He nodded, said in his almost sweet little voice, “I owe Marvin one.” He glanced at Marvin. “And after this, we’re through. Right?”
“Right,” Marvin said. “We’re even.”
“Everyone in?” I said, and held my hand out over the table.
“So we’re supposed to put our hand on top of yours?” Jim Bob said. “All for one, and one for all?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Too silly,” he said.
Leonard put his hand on top of mine. “I’m in.”
Brett put her hand on top of his. “Actually, I’m not going to be here, but hey, in spirit, okay?”
Marvin got up carefully from his chair with his cane and edged over and put his hand on top. “I will do what I can, all things considered. Hell, I got all of you into this, so I got to show solidarity, right?”
“Damn right,” Leonard said.
“Oh, hell,” Jim Bob said, and put his hand on top. “I always was a sucker for that musketeer jive.”
Tonto grinned. He even had big teeth. “Hell, why not.”
He put his hand on top of Jim Bob’s.
“Maybe we could have some kind of saying,” Leonard said. “You know, something that’s just for us. A slogan. A motto.”
“No,” Tonto said, removing his hand. “Maybe we won’t have that.”
“Yeah, that idea sucks,” Jim Bob said, pulling his hand back.
“Even I don’t like that,” Brett said, and picked up her coffee cup.
“Got to vote no,” Marvin said.
“Yeah, I’m out on that one too,” I said.
Leonard looked hurt. “Spoilsports.”
26
After finishing up the coffee and cookies, we had a real breakfast of eggs and toast and bacon, and Brett did the cooking; then I left with her and drove to the bus depot. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done, and I knew then—well, I had known before, but I knew all over again, down deep and tight to the bone, that I loved this woman dearly and that she was a part of me, like a heart or a liver. I had loved my first wife and she had been a shit and I had loved her anyway. Then she betrayed me, got herself killed, and nearly got me and my buddy Leonard killed. I still loved her for a year after that. But not the way I loved Brett. It’s only right that when you find the one you care about that you keep that part that’s you and not give it all away, but by the same token I’m old-fashioned in that I feel when you do find the right person you are part of a whole, and when the other leaves, a bit of you is no longer there. And when they leave and you think you might never see them again, it’s like more than a part of you is gone. It’s like being ripped in half and your half has been cast to the wind.
She was dressed in jeans and sneakers and had on a big sweater and a sweater cap that her hair stuck out from under like a flaming waterfall. The bus depot had very few people in it, and we sat down on a bench. A bus depot is one of the loneliest places in the world, and it doesn’t help when the bench you’re perched on is near the restrooms and they stink of recent trips, and when people walk out, the tile, dampened by urine and bad flushes, makes a sound like someone pulling duct tape off a hairy dog’s ass.
We sat for a while, the sun rising higher and eating away at what was left of the darkness, and then we heard a bus come and they called it over the speaker. It was Brett’s ride. I walked her out. There were others getting on, and we stepped back and let them. She had a small bag with her. It had a few clothes and her toiletries in it, a book and some magazines. She set it down by her feet like a trained pet.
“Well,” she said, “don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise? For me?”