Vanilla Ride (11 page)

Drake knew Leonard too. Who didn’t? Brett he also knew of. I could understand that. A lot of men knew of her and wished they knew more of her.

I had no idea where Gadget was, or the two who had been in the front seat of the Caddy. I wondered if my cell mate was still napping. I wondered if the weenie dog was somewhere hidden, nibbling on his prize.

Drake had another cop with him. A pink-skinned, redheaded guy with freckles and fat lips. Kelso was his name. He was leaning in the corner of the room acting like he couldn’t believe what the human condition had come to.

Drake sat on one side of the table and we sat on the other. Brett in the middle. The chairs were shorter on our side of the table. It’s an old trick the cops use to make you feel less significant than the interrogator. We didn’t give a damn, though. We were tough enough to tear doughnuts in half.

Kelso kept his corner, turning his head to take us in with those disappointed eyes. Drake lit a cigarette and asked if we wanted cigarettes or coffee.

“Have you got those little flavored creamers?” Leonard asked.

“No,” Drake said.

“Any cookies?”

“Nothing like that,” Drake said. “Some coffee. Standard shitty creamer with some sugar packs. Or Sweet’N Low. But maybe we can bring in some caviar and nice crackers.”

“Could you?” Leonard said. “That would be damn nice.”

Drake made a point of ignoring Leonard. He looked at me and Brett. We asked for coffee. Drake nodded, turned to Kelso, said, “Is the camera on?”

He knew we knew how it worked, so he wasn’t trying to be cagey.

“Nope,” Kelso said.

“Good,” Drake said. “Leonard, you can go fuck yourself.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Leonard said.

“Go on, man,” Drake said to Kelso. “Get the coffee.”

Kelso left. I guess it was his day to be fetch bitch.

Drake looked us over. “So, you people have had quite a day. Enough dead to put a dent in the population. If only you could have set fire to downtown and shot a busload of orphans, it would have been perfect.”

“Hap ran over a yard gnome,” Brett said. “That damn sure ought to count for something.”

“Yep,” Leonard said. “It was a big day, and frankly, I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m a little tuckered, and this pink outfit makes me feel like I’m in my jammies. But, just to let you know, I really feel humiliated. This suit, it’s got to be the right cure for evil. Wearing this, no one would ever stray again from the straight and narrow. You wouldn’t even catch me jackin’ off in the men’s room if I thought I’d have to wear this fucker again.”

“That’s a relief,” Drake said.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Leonard said.

Drake tapped his fingers on the desk, said, “You’re going to call it self-defense?”

“Our lawyer will,” I said. Of course, we didn’t have a lawyer yet, but I wanted to sound like a big-time experienced criminal.

I turned to Leonard, said, “I met a guy in my cell who wanted to fuck me. I knocked him out. Was that anti-gay?”

“Did you write any anti-gay graffiti on him or the wall?”

I shook my head.

“I think it’ll be all right,” he said.

“No talking amongst yourselves,” Drake said. “You know you did a bad thing, you three?”

“Yep,” Leonard said.

“What about those guys in the Caddy?” Brett asked.

“They’ll live,” Drake said.

“Gadget?” I asked.

“She’s under arrest.”

Kelso came back in, but he didn’t have our coffee. He leaned over and whispered in Drake’s ear.

“What?” Drake said.

Kelso nodded.

“Goddamn it,” Drake said.

Drake got up and went out. Leonard said, “What about that coffee?”

“Fuck the coffee,” Kelso said.

“That’s some kind of goddamn way for a public servant to talk,” Leonard said. “And you with the camera running.”

I kicked Leonard gently under the table.

“I saw that,” Kelso said. “And that’s good policy. You should shut the hell up. And the camera is still off, dick cheese. That way, I wanted to kick your ass it wouldn’t get recorded.”

Leonard just smiled. Even with handcuffs on, Leonard would be a load and he knew it, and I could tell Kelso knew it too.

Kelso glared at me, said, “The jailer said you hit your cell mate.”

“He didn’t buy the mouse story?”

“Drake said you two think you’re funny.”

“There’s that insult again,” Leonard said. “It could take the edge off our comic timing.”

“I think you’re funny,” Brett said, reached her handcuffs over and patted Leonard’s hand.

“Thank you, dear,” Leonard said.

“Laugh it up,” Kelso said. “We’ll see what the jury says.”

We were the sort that when we were nervous we couldn’t help but run our mouths to show we weren’t nervous. It’s not a good habit, but it’s ours. That comment shut us up, though. We sat there in silence, brooding in our pink jumpsuits, until the door opened and Drake came in and looked at us and sighed. He stood there for a long moment, just studying us, like we were a species formerly thought extinct. I thought any moment the rubber hose would appear, maybe a blowtorch and some pliers and a couple of angry German shepherds. He turned to Kelso. “Take their handcuffs off.”

After our handcuffs were off, Drake and Kelso went out, leaving us alone. We sat and waited, looking in the mirror that most likely had someone on the other side. At first I counted smears on the glass, boogers on the wall, anything to keep me busy. But that grew boring.

We turned and looked at one another, as if one of us might offer some sort of solution. No great answers unfolded. The nature of the universe was still safe. Stephen Hawking still had the inside track.

We sat there for a long time, then finally began to talk. Brett said, “What’s the point of this?”

“They want whoever is on the other side of the glass to take a good look at us,” Leonard said.

“Why?” Brett asked.

I patted her knee. “Because you are so pretty.”

“Oh. Well, of course,” she said, “duh, there
is
that.”

“I got a joke,” I said.

“Not now,” Leonard said.

“It’s pretty good.”

“Not now,” Brett said, and I knew that was the end of that.

“I don’t know about you two,” I said, “but I miss Kelso already. He had such sweet, if electrified, eyes.”

“You’d think they’d wipe these boogers down,” Brett said. “I don’t know who they think that intimidates. It’s just nasty.”

“I hear that,” Leonard said.

“And that piss smell,” she said. “It could hold your coat.”

“It could wear it,” Leonard said.

The door opened and Drake came in, and there was a guy with him that had a head like a concrete block. His haircut had something to do with that, gold as an Aryan dream, waxed up in front, flared out on the sides. He had a big hooked nose and thin lips and seemed to have more teeth than a human ought to, something a crocodile might envy, only straighter. His eyes were big and dark brown, like two unwiped butt holes. He reminded me of a villain out of those old
Dick Tracy
comics.

Drake went over and leaned against the wall, got a whiff of the piss, moved to another corner. The guy with the square head leaned back against the mirror. He said, “There’s nobody on the other side.”

“You say,” Leonard said.

Drake said, “No. He’s right.”

“Damn, glad we got your word on that,” Leonard said. “That makes it all right, then.”

“I locked the door leads into the investigation room,” Drake said.

“You got the only key?” I asked.

“No.”

“Ah,” I said. “No one else would of course use their key and go in there and look at us. … But frankly, we don’t care. Ask what you want. It was self-defense.”

“I know,” Drake said.

That sort of stunned us, but lawmen are tricky.

The door opened and two guys came in. One of them was the guy who had been in Tanedrue’s trailer, the one who wasn’t with the batch we shot up today, the guy whose profile was gone, whose nose was splinted now and taped over good with tape so thick he looked like the Mummy. His forehead looked as if someone had broken in his ball bat on it. A shock of thick hair poked up from the top of the bandages like a rooster’s comb. He went over and leaned against the wall and looked at Leonard. It wasn’t a look of adoration.

I thought, What the hell?

The other guy was a short fat guy in a black suit with a black tie and some black shoes that needed a shine. He looked like an undertaker in a pet cemetery. He blew some breath out between his fat lips, went over and leaned on the wall next to our friend with the tape and the bruises.

The room was starting to get tight. If one more person came in
we’d all be wearing the same suit of clothes, and I was sure I needed to change my underwear.

Brett looked at the two leaning on the mirror, said, “There’s boogers on the wall and there’s something on the mirror I don’t think will pass for mayonnaise. Just a word to the wise.”

They stopped leaning.

Leonard glared at the taped-up man, said, “What the hell is the Phantom of the Opera doing here?”

Drake said, “We’ll come to that. But first, we got a little deal for you guys.”

“A deal?” I said. “Think we’re going to rat each other out? There’s people saw what happened. We didn’t go looking to be shot at. I might run over that yard gnome again I got the chance, but getting shot at like that, trust me, I’d rather pass. And you said it yourself, self-defense.”

“You’re going to get the charges dropped, or rather they’re going to definitely turn into self-defense,” Drake said. “No court. No problem.”

“No shirt. No shoes. No problem,” Leonard said. “What kind of bull is this? There’s always court. What’s the catch?”

Drake didn’t say anything. He crossed his arms.

I said, “There is a catch, isn’t there?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Square Head said. “It’s more like we got your dick in the zipper and we’re pulling it up tight. In your case, ma’am, I guess it’s your tit we got caught up.”

“Then you better have a lot of zipper,” Brett said, “’cause I’m serious in the tit department.”

No one opposed this opinion.

“Agent Tenson here,” Drake said, nodding at the
Dick Tracy
villain, “he’s with the FBI, and he and his buddy here, Captain Bandage—”

“Man, that’s some funny shit,” Captain Bandage, aka the Mummy aka the Phantom, said.

“They want to talk to you,” Drake said. “Me, I’m just a lowly fucking public servant who’s always got the raw ass from these fed guys sticking their dicks in it, and I hate them.”

“Come on,” Tenson said. “There’s no need to turn this ugly. You and me, I’m sure we got things in common, Drake.”

“Yeah,” Drake said. “These guys, that’s what we got in common.
May have been self-defense, but it didn’t just come out of nowhere, these folks wanting to kill them. There has to be a backstory. I don’t like lettin’ them off. They shot a lot of people. They ought to at least have a paddling, a night in jail, noses in the corner. This isn’t right, man.”

“What I want to know,” Leonard said, “is why is the fucking Mummy in on this?”

The Mummy’s voice sounded snotty, which isn’t unusual when your snout is packed with cotton. “It’s Milhouse. I was working undercover. Thanks a lot, asshole, you fucked up a real sting operation just to take some whore home.”

“Her granddaddy doesn’t see her that way,” Leonard said.

“Yeah, but me, I’ve had surgery, and I got to have some more. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Leonard said, and the Mummy came off the wall and Drake stepped over and put a hand against the Mummy’s chest.

“After what he done to you,” Drake said, “I wouldn’t push it. I think he can do it again. And we took the handcuffs off.”

“Yeah,” Leonard said, still sitting, holding his hands up. “They took the handcuffs off.”

“We ought to all just beat him down,” the Mummy, aka the Phantom of the Opera, aka Captain Bandage, said.

“We ought to,” Drake said, “but we won’t.”

“You were undercover,” Leonard said. “Might have been nice had you warned us Tanedrue and his mutts were going to take a run at us.”

“I didn’t know,” Milhouse said. “Had no idea. I told them I had some family concerns, got out. My figuring was some higher-ups were gonna come down on them, and I didn’t want to be there when it happened.”

The fat guy said, “Way it was gonna work was we was gonna let Tanedrue and his dopes take care of you guys, then we were gonna come down on them, spread their asses all over Kingdom Come. Guys like them are too stupid to deal dope, and let me tell you from experience, that’s putting them in a real stupid place. We got guys working for us that are damn near retards and they do better. One guy in Dallas hasn’t got any legs and goes around in the streets on a wheeled board selling dope and peddling ass for us, and he does a better job than those fucks.”

“And who are you?” I asked. “My first guess is since you got people selling dope and ass for you, you’re not a cop, though these days, hard to say. And though you could be a priest on vacation, I’m doubtful.”

“I’m the guy that wanted you two killed,” the fat man said.

Leonard shifted in his chair. Drake said, “I got a gun, Leonard.”

“I don’t like people want to kill me or Hap,” Leonard said. “Fact is, it seriously chaps my ass. I don’t like you bringing him, whoever he is, in here to lord over us like he’s somethin’. What the hell is going on here? Tell us or arrest us or shoot us or do some goddamn thing or another. I’m fed up.”

“Hold it a minute,” I said. “Didn’t someone say something about a deal? I mean, there’s some kind of deal, I want to hear it.”

“Oh yeah,” Drake said. “These guys got deals out the ass.”

A day after they let us go, after they offered us the deal, Marvin gave us a short-lived holiday. He owned a boat and he took me and Leonard and Brett out to a lake near LaBorde to go fishing. It was a nice lake with a big dam. Marvin had some kind of membership there, and you could only get in with a key to a gate that had a sign on it that said
BEWARE OF ALLIGATORS
. It was an open boat and had plenty of seats and a lot of room, a place to lay your rods and clamp them down. There was a container in the floor of the boat and we had some cold drinks in there, but it was too cold to want them. We also had a couple thermoses of coffee, some bologna-and-mayonnaise sandwiches, some bags of potato chips that were more inviting.