Love Her Madly (29 page)

I intend to enjoy watchin' that little piece a dirt die. When I'm settin' there while Rona Leigh is gettin' croaked one more time, I won't take my eyes off her till she's as dead as the two hundred armadillos between Gatesville and my bar. After that, I will close my eyes for just a second and enjoy what will happen next.
[The reporter slipped in a little narrative line to point out that Gary had stopped talking long enough to slug down a bottle of Lone Star.]
That's when I'll be seein' Melody standin' and waitin' outside the Pearly Gates so's when Rona Leigh finally gets there Melody'll have an ax of her own. Right in her two sweet little hands. She will chop the livin' shit outa that two-bit whore. Whack her into a million pieces. Then Satan'll put the pieces together so's Melody can have another go. Melody will ax that whore right through till Kingdom Come.

Repeating his lines for all he could get out of them.

I looked at my watch. I read the latest fax from Delby one more time. Then I changed into jeans, put on my new boots and my armadillo belt, stuck on the Stetson, and left.

*   *   *

The Friday-night crowd had shoveled itself into all available standing room. They happily passed beers over their heads to anyone who shouted out an order and then passed bills back up to the bartender. Gary wasn't doing the bartending. Good. They wore western gear, and the bar—being in Texas—meant that no one had a problem with the gun butts poking out from between waistbands and gut.

Music blared: Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys singing one of their standards, “I'm an Asshole from El Paso.” Kind of song a crowd can't help but sing along with. Most of them were.

I saw Chuck and threaded my way toward him. When he spotted me he came over and shouted into my ear, “You back?” as in
Whatcha doin', mowin' the lawn?
Wish I could get over that.

I shouted, “I'm back.”

He shouted, “What?”

I shouted louder, “I want to talk to a few people who were here the night of the murders. Were you?”

“Hey, I been here every night for twenty years. But, honey, I don't think your budget is gonna get any of us to open up, especially me. What with Rona Leigh on the loose. We're all scared she's gonna show up and kill us all.”

“Is that why Gary's not here?”

“That's it. Figured she'da been caught in two shakes of a cow's tail but the man was wrong. You people ain't gettin' the job done, if you don't mind my sayin'.”

I shouted into his ear the contents of Delby's fax. Then I told him he was not a priority with the Houston police as far as his involvement in the beating of a certain loan shark Thanksgiving morning of last year, but that his name could be put at the top of their list with just a phone call from me.

This was the first that Chuck heard he was even a suspect in the crime. I could tell by the sudden slackness in his jaw. But he shored his face back up after a moment and he said, “That guy would shake down his own granny, rip off her fingernails if he needed a laugh.”

“First, he'd have to get out of his full body cast, wouldn't he?”

The cowboy shrugged. Then he scanned the crowd. Every head was turned our way. He looked back to me. “My stock is way, way up. They're all wonderin' where I latched onto the fox.” He picked a strand of my spiraled hair from my shoulder and gave it a little toss. Houston humidity had given it a great perm. “I think I got just the customers you're lookin' for. But they're hard up. They'll be welcome of a bribe unless you got something on them, too.”

He felt hurt. Too bad. “I always pack a little slush.”

He looked back to the crowd and crooked his finger at a couple slow-dancing, very slow-dancing. They weren't moving, just standing, hips pressed up against hips. The couple looked toward him. Chuck led me out the door and they followed.

The man's name was Stick, the woman's, Pinky.

He told them they'd all three get an early Christmas present, a damned good one, if they chose to tell me what was going down at the bar the night Melody and James were killed. All three. Chuck would have his cake and eat it too.

Pinky said, “What's the present?”

“Couple hundred for you two, couple hundred for me.”

Pinky said, “Well, hell, just tell us where you want us to start from.”

I said, “From the minute you saw something was up.”

Chuck made a noise that was akin to
hee-haw.
He said, “Somethin' was up when Melody walked in the door. Hadn't been around in the last few days, but she didn't wait long enough for the black eye to fade out all the way. So she's flirtin' around here and there, and once she comes on that dude, James, she starts to rev up.”

I asked if they knew James.

Pinky said, “Nah. I seen him a few times. He liked to stay by his-self'cept when he was yearnin' for some female company. He got a ride with someone from the motel to the bar. No car. He didn't have any notion Melody was Gary's wife. But Melody made sure to stay right in Gary's line of sight, didn't she, Stick?”

Stick: “Sure as hell did.”

Pinky: “Rubbin' up against James like a calf to a cow. James put his hand on Melody's butt and she didn't make any move to shift away. That's when we knew trouble was on its way.”

Stick: “Next thing, the two a them are goin' out the door while he's still feelin' her up. Not that this was anything all that new for Melody.”

Pinky: “'Cept this James was one real cute dude.”

Stick: “Once they was out, Gary just kept handin' out Lone Stars, same as always, drinkin' a few hisself. Then he started lookin' at his watch, lookin' at it a lot, pacin' a little bit too, ya know? Mutterin' to hisself, sloppin' beer on the customers, watchin' the door. Hour went by, they didn't come back. That's when he knew Melody'd taken off with James, sure. A quick one out in the back of a truck is one thing, but he knew she was intendin' a whole night a fun. She crossed the line. Gary threw a towel at Chuck here and told him to take over.”

Pinky took a pack of cigarettes out of her shirt pocket and offered them around. I declined. The three of them lit up.

Pinky: “Soon's he was gone, Chuck says to me, ‘Hope he don't find 'em.'”

Stick: “But he did.”

Pinky blew out a stream of smoke. “Melody drove James to his motel room, one he rented at the weekly rate. His mattress was on the floor because one corner of the bed frame collapsed. He'd throwed the frame in the Dumpster outside.”

I asked her how she'd come by that information. Chuck and Stick snickered.

Pinky pushed her chest out. “I been there one night. James was just a kid, see? Lonesome. He liked to make out is all. Fool around. He had a little fridge with bottles a beer in it. But see, his air conditioner didn't work. He didn't care. I cared. Nighttime, I got to have my AC. So I told him I'd be seein' him some other time, thank you all the same. Too bad his not havin' AC didn't bother Melody. Well, maybe it did. But she was there to get even with Gary, not to keep cool. For the black eye.”

Stick: “So Gary comes back—he's gone about a hour hisself—tells some people Melody is fuckin' that cowboy in a motel and then he starts whinin' that he only smacked her, didn't mean to give her a black eye. Said he didn't deserve that kinda shit. So then he's drinkin' heavier and heavier, gettin' madder and madder, and finally he says to a few of us, ‘Any a you seen Lloyd Bailey tonight?'”

Pinky: “Nobody seen 'im.”

Chuck: “Nobody. Too bad. Lloyd used to come around, buy drugs from Gary. But once he'd took up with that hooker Rona Leigh, he let her handle the drug supply. Lloyd rather be with her 'steada hangin' out at the bar, which was fine with us 'cause Lloyd Bailey had one dangerous temper. Meaner 'n' a rattler on a hot skillet. A brawl's one thing, but Lloyd liked to cut.”

Pinky hugged herself.

“Word came down later Rona Leigh'd struck gold that night. She got herself a stash of heroin from an old friend she used to do business with, gal who owed her. Lloyd and Rona Leigh were home shootin' up.”

I asked, “What did Gary do?”

“Pinky knows exactly what he done. And I mean exactly.”

Pinky put her nose up in the air. “Gary came into the back room of the bar where there's a phone. Where I happened to be.”

Stick: “Where she happened to be givin' the former owner a blow job.”

Pinky: “We was engaged.”

Chuck: “You was engaged, all right.”

Pinky: “Only way
you
could get a blow job, mister, is to hold a gun to a girl's head. And even then.”

Me again: “What did Gary do?”

“He called Lloyd. Couldn't make Lloyd understand him at first. Here's why. See, I got a girlfriend who was friends with Rona Leigh for a while? She heard, after they finished their heroin that night, they cooked up a little crack and then followed up with a surprise dessert Rona Leigh come by. She'd bought a twenty-four-bottle case a cough syrup from a kid for five bucks. Dimetapp. Twenty percent alcohol is my understandin'. Makes it forty proof. She did it because Lloyd had a sweet tooth. Liked to make her man happy, 'cause Lloyd surely did do right by her.”

Chuck: “'Cause a Lloyd, she was off the streets.”

Pinky asked if I wanted to know what Gary said. Chuck said to me, “Ain't this girl some kinda idiot?” Then, to Pinky, “She wants to know or she wouldn't be throwin' hundred-dollar bills at us, would she?”

Pinky stuck her tongue out at him. Then she said, “Gary told Lloyd that James Munter stole his bike. Told him where to find James. Told him James was with his own wife. Said Melody informed him earlier she was goin' to fuck James, and once she was done she was goin' after him—Lloyd—next. He told Lloyd, ‘See, my wife wants to have a ride on a good bike. Yours.'”

Chuck: “Ain't it just a sonofabitch?”

Out came Pinky's cigarettes. They all lit up anew. They were agitated.

“Then what happened?”

Chuck: “We all know what happened. Melody and James got theirselves axed to death. Lloyd did it. If he told Rona Leigh what Gary had said about Melody havin' the hots for him, Rona Leigh mighta gotten in a few licks. But I doubt he told her.”

Pinky: “I doubt it too. I don't believe Lloyd woulda told Rona Leigh about that there part.”

I asked, “Why not?”

Pinky: “He loved Rona Leigh.”

They all took deep drags on their cigarettes. Stick said, “Pinky's right. Lloyd had no interest in makin' Rona Leigh jealous. And he woulda had no interest in Melody whatsoever. It was Rona Leigh he wanted, and he had her.”

They smoked. They'd stopped looking at me. I said, “I want the rest.”

So they eyed each other.

Pinky: “Well, I'm broke so what the hell? Gary called the cops. Wanted to get his wife in as much trouble as he could. Get her busted. Knew she didn't go anywhere without a couple joints in her pocket. I didn't hear that particular conversation. But after he called 'em, 'bout an hour, the folks stayin' out at the motel all came down here. They told us they had to get out 'cause, first, there was so much shoutin' and screamin' goin down they couldn't take it, and, second, the cops came, lotsa uniforms, and then plainclothes too, and those guys with the yellow crime tape. Knew somebody was dead.”

They were taking deep drags on their cigarettes to settle their nerves. Three pairs of shifty eyes all aimed at the ground.

I asked how Gary reacted to that. To the sudden crush of new customers who told him someone at the motel was dead.

Stick and Pinky looked to Chuck. He didn't say anything.

I slid my purse up tight over my shoulder.

Chuck: “Gary? Shit. Why, he smiled ear to ear. He got such a face on him, looked like a pig what found a private lake full up with wet mud.”

Stick and Pink nodded, and then Chuck said, “I believe we have a deal.”

I loosened the grip on my bag. I unzipped. I counted out four bills and passed them over. Then I asked, “Why did Gary give Melody a black eye in the first place?”

They looked at each other. Stick shrugged.

Pinky stuffed her bill into the front pocket of her jeans. “Man, that's what
she
wanted to know.”

Chuck: “Came cryin' to me too. Told me he did it for nothin'.”

And I said to the two men, “Gary would have sacrificed any of you or your friends in there.” I nodded toward the AstroBar. “It was bad luck on James Munter's part that he happened to walk in the door when he did. Now I have one last question.”

All three gazed into my eyes. They were confused. I'd taken all the fun out of the deal.

“Where can I find Gary?”

*   *   *

Target practice is an acceptable diversion in Texas and, combined with that, Texans don't set much store in recycling aluminum cans and glass bottles. The entertainment inherent in shooting them is worth far more than a nickel apiece. And that is how Gary and a few friends were whiling away their Friday night, sitting shoulder to shoulder on beach chairs and firing away. There were six bottles standing on a sawhorse and a lot of spent casings on the ground. None of them was a good shot. They stopped shooting to follow the path of my headlights and watch my car pull into the field. I parked alongside the RV. Not only were the highway lights next to the lot bright enough to shoot by, I would have bet Gary needed black-out curtains to sleep.

Squinting did not help them to identify me. I walked up to Gary in his shooting chair and took off my hat. He jumped to his feet and looked me up and down.

“Hey, FBI, I am impressed by those boots. Got 'em off that ex-con in Gatesville, I'll bet.”

A friend said, “FBI? Where?”

Gary told him to shut up.