The Adventures of Slim & Howdy (8 page)

17

SUNDAY MORNING BOONE TATE’S CELL DOOR JANGLED OPEN
and they said he’d made bail. The terms were unreasonable but his options were limited. So he signed on the line. His bail bondsman told him not to even think about skipping out on him as he had a skip tracer name of Drake Dobson who would track him down and bring him back to face more hell than the devil himself could handle.

Boone got his belongings and started the long walk home, stewing over those two cowboys with every step. A couple hours later, as he turned onto his street, he still didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he intended to track down Slim and that trigger-happy pal of his and make both of them sorry they’d ever crossed paths with Boone Tate.

The first thing he saw when he dragged his blistered feet into the courtyard of the Settler’s Cove Apartments was the oily flesh of those two gals who were always sneaking in and using the pool like they lived there.

As usual, Tammy and Crystal were draped on the sagging lounge chairs, slippery with coconut oil. They had just turned over for the third time, rotating like meat on a spit.

It had been two days since they had escaped from Black Tony’s—not only with their lives but also with a dozen portable audio players, ten of which they had since sold, using the profits to buy skimpy new bathing suits and the expensive tanning lotion with which they were now slathered. The remaining two units were attached to headphones clamped over Tammy’s and Crystal’s ears, which explained why they didn’t hear Boone approaching.

The hip-hop was so loud he could hear it from ten feet away. The large tote bag between the lounge chairs was wide open, stuffed with their clothes, towels, purses, and who knows what else. Boone came around from behind, making sure not to cast a shadow across their faces. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching. No one in sight.

Crystal and Tammy remained oblivious as he slid the bag toward himself and fingered the last forty bucks from their wallets. He was about to make a smooth getaway when something shiny caught his eyes.

A moment later Tammy felt something tickling her jaw and waved a hand to brush away whatever it was. When she touched it, she got a sinking feeling. She felt the shape of the thing and the hand attached to it. She turned her head slowly, peered over the top of her sunglasses, and saw that waxy smile.

Boone licked his ruined lips and said, “You two smell like a coupla dang piña coladas.”

Crystal remained unaware of the situation until Boone reached over and yanked on the string holding her top together. Considering her usual lack of inhibition, she moved with surprising quickness to cover herself as she sat up and said, “Hey!”

“Shut up,” Boone said. “Where are they?”

“They who?”

“They who you got this gun from,” Boone said.

Crystal looked down at the .32, then suddenly began groping around in the tote bag before she said, “Hey, that’s ours!”

“Like hell it is,” Boone said.

Tammy pointed across the courtyard. “We got it outta that trash can,” she said. “Finders keepers.”

Boone found it hard to believe that Slim’s pal had just thrown the gun away, but he wasn’t going to waste time arguing the point. He said, “I’m gonna ask nice one more time.” He grabbed Tammy’s arm and gave it a mean twist. “Where are they?”

“Oww!” She tried to jerk away but he had her good. “How am I supposed to know? They said something about auditions in Austin and Nashville, but I think that was just talk.”

“You think?” He shook his head. “Don’t make me break this little twig of yours.” He twisted harder and looked at Crystal like it was going to be her fault if it happened. “You just gonna let me break your friend’s arm?”

Crystal figured it wasn’t any skin off her nose, so she said, “Howdy told me they were going to Fort Worth. Some club, looking for work.”

“What club?”

Crystal squinted her left eye and said, “Pig on a String or something like that.”

18

HOWDY WAS SITTING AT THE BAR THAT MORNING WHEN
Skeets showed up. TV was tuned to some bass fishing show, but Howdy wasn’t paying enough attention to even say what sort of lures were working. “I found where you keep the coffee,” Howdy said, raising his cup. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not if it’s still fresh.”

“Just made it.” Howdy noticed the paper sack Skeets had in his hand. “Whatcha got there?”

“Breakfast,” Skeets said. “And the latest news.” He put the sack on the bar and tore it open. Some biscuit sausage sandwiches tumbled out. “Help yourself.”

“Mighty kind,” Howdy said, taking one. “What kind of news did you bring?”

“The kind that’ll warm your heart,” Skeets said. “I ran into the sheriff a little earlier down at the café where I got these.” He held up one of the biscuit sandwiches and took a bite. “He told me they got a call first thing this morning from some woman said she’d seen a man’s body off the side of Old Agency Road.”

“Dead?”

Skeets shook his head. “No, but probably wished he was. One of his deputies drove out there to check and found a man handcuffed to a fence in what I guess you’d have to call an awkward position. Apparently one his legs had gone to sleep. Said it was too tingly to stand on. Anyway, he didn’t have any ID on him, but he told the deputy his name was Dempsey Kimble.”

“Is that right?” Howdy shook his head as a little smile danced across his face. “Handcuffed to a fence, you say?”

“Yeah,” Skeet said, casually pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Oh, did I mention that he was buck-ass-naked and covered with bug bites?”

Howdy just about shot some sausage and biscuit out of his nose. “No, you hadn’t gotten to that part yet,” he said.

“Well, I guess that part of the story’s important inasmuch as they arrested him for indecent exposure.” Skeets added some cream and sugar, gave it a stir.

“Makes sense,” Howdy said. “I mean, you can’t just go around waving your giblets in public.” He shook his head in a judgmental fashion. “Ain’t proper.”

“No, it ain’t,” Skeets agreed. “And you sure can’t do it on other people’s property. ’Cause then you also get charged with trespassing, which he did.”

“Or shot.”

“Which he didn’t. So he got lucky there, I guess.” Skeets sipped his coffee. “When they asked Mr. Kimble how he’d come to be in this unusual circumstance, he said he couldn’t remember. Said he may have had too much to drink last night.”

“Did they believe him?”

“No, they seemed to think he was lying,” Skeets said. “Like he might be afraid to start pointing fingers at anybody on the off chance that it might just mean more trouble for him. So they let him call his lawyer and post bail. Gave him a shirt and pair of county-issue pants, sent him on his way. Told him not to show his face or his bare ass in the county again except to be at the courthouse to answer for his crimes. Just goes to show justice is blind.”

“Well, if she wasn’t before,” Howdy said, “she would’ve wished she was after seeing Dempsey Kimble in the altogether.”

19

SLIM GOT BACK TO THE PIGGIN’ STRING JUST AS HOWDY WAS
set to go onstage that night. He slipped through the crowd, didn’t speak to anybody, except a waitress, then scooted into a back booth with his beer. He kicked back with the relaxed expression of a man who’d done a week’s worth of yard work and now had the night off. Sitting there in a smoke-filled club where he felt at home, he thought about that lyric Howdy had been playing with the other day, the one about having a honky-tonk for an office and a workday that started at night. Slim liked it, thought Howdy might be on to something.

Across the club, Howdy ambled up onto the stage, sporting an impish grin like a cowboy trickster with something up his sleeve. He took the guitar from the stand, slung the strap over his shoulder, and gave the crowd the once-over. He offered a friendly nod here, a wink there. He pointed generally at the crowd and said, “Some awfully pretty girls here tonight.” His eyebrows popped up. “Thanks for coming.” He couldn’t wait to see them dance, and he knew they would.

Howdy strung the crowd along for another minute, making them itch for it, as he tuned one string, then another. He’d act like he was about to play something, then he’d start the whole process all over again until finally some guy at the bar hollered, “Come on, Hank it up!”

Howdy gave him an upward nod of the hat like that wasn’t a bad idea. But he just smiled and made them wait a few more seconds before he gently strummed the guitar, then picked a few familiar, sentimental notes that got everybody’s attention as they collectively thought,
You got to be kidding.

Howdy leaned toward the mike, his eyes nearly closed, his head tilted just so. Then, with all the sensitivity of a seasoned Ramada Inn lounge singer, he crooned, “Feelings . . . nothing more than . . . feelings.” Then he stopped, as if to bask in the warm round of applause that signaled recognition. But there was nothing.

The Piggin’ String had fallen into stone silence all the way back to the kitchen. A tomblike hush bordering on the explosive. The expressions on the faces in the crowd ranged from bewildered to betrayed to you-better-not-be-doing-“Feelings”-up-in-this-place.

Slim almost spit a mouthful of beer, thinking,
What?

Standing there in the awkward silence, Howdy’s mock-soulful expression dissolved into woeful anguish, like his feelings were genuinely hurt. Like he couldn’t believe they weren’t all singing along, swaying side to side, holding hands.

The moment seemed to last forever.

Finally, Howdy broke into a broad grin and said, “I’m just messin’ with you.” He chuckled a little. “Did you really think I’d do it?” He shook his head at the reaction he’d gotten. “C’mon now, y’all ready to have some fun?”

The crowd seemed a little suspicious but, after a second, they managed to work up a hoot, two hollers, and some applause.

“Well, all right then,” Howdy said. “Let’s do this thing!” And just like that, he attacked his guitar, shouting, “Yeah!” He whirled, one leg kicked out as he spun around, and launched a missile of swinging rockabilly that would’ve knocked the doors off the hinges if a screw’d been loose. The emphasis came on the offbeat with a hand thumping the sound board, like somebody slapping a stand-up bass, and it felt like somebody had opened the door to let in Carl Perkins and the Stray Cats. The crowd leapt outta their seats.

Slim’s head snapped back.
Damn,
he thought.
This guy doesn’t mess around.
He was belting it out like a muscle car with good handling, a high-octane voice like summer lightning with sharp teeth and horsepower to burn.
Hell yeah
—Slim took a long pull on his beer—
this is gonna be some fun.

The floor was filled with dancers before Howdy was halfway through the song. Those girls sure could two-step, and most of them kept their eyes on Howdy as he rollicked from one end of the stage to the other. He owned them. They’d follow him anywhere. And he didn’t wait for applause at the end of the tune either, just lit the fuse on one skyrocket after another and
boom, boom, boom!
Pure fireworks, three songs in a row.

When he finally stopped, the crowd went berserk with applause and whistles and “Hell yeahs!” Wooooooooooooo!

“Thank you!” Howdy pulled a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Thought you might like that.” As the crowd settled down, Howdy pulled up a stool from the back of the stage and took a seat. He let everybody catch their breath and get some beer while he snapped a capo on the second fret and got his tuning right. “If y’all don’t mind, I’m going to slow it down just a little,” he said. “Just for a minute.” He strummed a few chords like a peaceful, easy feeling and started singing a story about a broken heart and a bloodshot sky.

Slim was about to take a slug off his beer when the song stopped him, his bottle hovering over the tabletop like a magic trick where you can see the strings. The way Howdy sang about the mortal sins of this wayward man rang true as a bell, with tender phrasing that was honest and steeped in real hurt. It caught Slim off guard and made him reconsider his preconceived notions.

Based on what he knew of Howdy up until a minute ago, Slim had an idea of the kind of performer the guy might be, the kind of songs he might do, and how he might do them. But now, as he found himself lost in the sound of the guitar and the world of a man searching for the memory of a woman in a mescal haze—a haze Slim had found himself in more than once—all he could do was shake his head and think,
You just never know.

20

HOWDY’S REPERTOIRE COVERED A LOT OF STYLISTIC GROUND
in a short period. In addition to a couple of originals, he kept the dance floor packed with a western swing medley, jumping all over the Spade Cooley classic “Shame on You,” followed by Bob Wills and Tiny Moore’s “Ida Red Likes the Boogie” out of which he made a smile-inducing segue into Louis Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” that sounded as close to Asleep at the Wheel as one man could get. To wrap up the set, Howdy grabbed his Louisiana roots and growled a furious and swampy version of “Diggy Liggy Lo.”

“Whew! That’s right,” Howdy called over the applause that followed the end of the set. “Steal a kiss with every chance when you do the Cajun dance,” he said. “I’m gonna take five.” He took off his guitar and held it in the air to share the applause. “Y’all get a cold one and we’ll get back at it in just a few.”

The second he stepped offstage, Howdy was set upon by a cute little blonde who told him she loved his hat and his song about the guy who got lost in tequila town. She was too shy to say anything else and was gone before Howdy could say much more than thanks. Too bad, he thought, he had plenty more to say.

He headed over to the bar where Skeets was in his usual place, talking on the phone. Howdy chugged a cold glass of water, then got a beer and sat down to catch his breath and let his sweat-soaked shirt dry out a little. A minute later, Skeets hung the phone up and pointed at Howdy. “Son, you still got it,” he said. “They love ya.”

“Can’t help it if the crowd’s got good taste,” Howdy said with a wink.

Skeets smiled and slapped his hands together. “Hadn’t heard any Spade Cooley in a coon’s age.”

“Shame on you,” Howdy said. “Fix your damn jukebox or something.”

Skeets looked around the club and said, “Jew see Slim?”

“Can’t say as I have,” Howdy said, taking a cursory glance around the room. “Why?”

“Oh, doesn’t matter. Just thought I saw him earlier is all. If he was here, I thought I’d tell you both at the same time. But I can tell you and you can tell him later.”

“Tell him what?”

“You two might just be in luck.”

“Good luck or bad?”

“Good,” Skeets said, waving a hand at the telephone. “That was Jodie Lee I was just talking to.”

“No kidding?” For the past seven years, Frank and Jodie Lee owned a honky-tonk called the Beer Thirty that was a few miles outside of Lawton, Oklahoma. They were good people. Howdy had played there a half-dozen times, though not in the past year or two.

“Jodie Lee, huh?” Howdy smiled, just hearing her name. A beauti-ful and funny woman, sassy and strong. She’d been a barrel-racing champion as a younger girl. Sat on a horse as good as anybody he’d ever seen. He’d always liked her. Thought Frank had married way above his station and had told him as much on more than one occasion. Frank was smart enough never to argue the point. He just told Howdy what an unbecoming thing jealousy was. “I haven’t seen Jodie since . . .” Howdy thought about it a second. “I can’t even remember when it was.” He picked up his hat and rubbed a hand over his head. “Probably last time I played in Lawton, whenever that was. How’s she doing?”

“Says she’s doing all right for a widder woman,” Skeet said, expecting that Howdy knew.

But he didn’t and it hit him like an unpleasant surprise. “A widow?” He looked down at the bar, then up at Skeets. “Frank died?”

Skeets looked at him like he was the slow kid in the class and said, “You think of some other way she could be widowed?”

“What happened?”

“I told you, Frank died.”

“We’ve already covered that,” Howdy said. “You got any hows or whens?” He lowered his voice and said, “She didn’t kill him, did she?” Like it wasn’t completely out of the question.

Skeets gave a wry smile and shook his head. “Not that it didn’t cross her mind a few times back when he was still drinking, but, no. It was cancer. ’Bout a year and a half ago.”

That sucked the humor out of the conversation. Quietly, Howdy said, “Damn.” His eyes closed in condolence and understanding, his head shaking slowly. “Cancer.” He knew the kind of pain and suffering that rode in on that horse. He’d seen it up close, the disease having made two unwelcome visits to his own house. His mother when he was a young boy, his father a few years ago. Their faces came to mind and he said the little prayer he always did when he thought about them.

“Frank was as tough a man as I ever knew,” Skeets said. “Hard to imagine anything slowing him down, much less stopping him.”

“Yeah,” Howdy said, thinking of his dad, his idol, bigger than life with that cigar jutting from between his teeth. “Hard to imagine, all right.”

The thing that wasn’t hard to imagine, since he’d seen it with his own eyes, was how much Jodie loved old Frank. He knew how much they’d been through together—the drinking, getting sober, all that and more. And he knew what they meant to one another. He hated to think how bad it must’ve hurt her. But there was no good way to ask that question, so he just said, “She’s running the place by herself now?”

“The Beer Thirty?” Again Skeets shook his head. “She lost it, paying the medical bills.”

Howdy rubbed a hand over his face. “Oh, man, that’s tough.”

“Not that he meant to, but Frank didn’t leave her much more than a few good memories and a lot of bad debts.”

The words echoed in Howdy’s mind. A few good memories and a lot of bad debts. He couldn’t help himself. He thought there might be a song in there. But he resisted pulling out his little pad to write it down. He just said, “What’s she doing now?”

“Well, that’s where the good luck comes in,” Skeets said, slapping the bar. “She’s got a place down in Del Rio.”

“Del Rio?” Howdy acted like he would’ve bet good money that eight wild horses couldn’t have dragged that girl out of Oklahoma. He said, “The hell’s she doin’ down there?”

“Pickin’ herself up by her bootstraps,” Skeets said. “You know Jodie. Ain’t exactly the type to rely on the kindness of strangers. She somehow managed to take over J.D. Maddox’s old club.”

“The Lost and Found?”

Skeets gave a nod. “Don’t ask me how, but she did. Anyway, she had ole J. Fred Hawkins lined up for a two-week gig, but that rascal ended up in jail somewhere south of Memphis. And it looks like he’ll be there long enough to inconvenience her, so she’s looking for somebody to fill in.” Skeets shrugged. “She called me, asked if I knew anybody available on short notice. I told her about you two stumbling in here looking for work.”

“ ’Preciate that,” Howdy said. “What’d you tell her about Slim?”

“Didn’t have to tell her anything. Turns out she knows him. Del Rio’s his neck of the woods. She said he’s worked for her a couple of times, glad to have him come back.”

“The world keeps getting smaller, don’t it?” Howdy said. He drained his beer, then looked at his watch. “I guess it’s about time for me to get back to—”

The end of his sentence got lost in the sound of a table being overturned and glass shattering. A couple of girls sitting near the ruckus screamed and scattered, causing Skeets and Howdy to look toward the back of the room where they saw a big son of a bitch wrestling with Slim.

Skeets nudged Howdy and said, “I told you that boy was in here.”