Read Online Bad Chili by Joe R. Lansdale - Free Book Online Page A

from home. Things had changed. On the street. In the neighborhood. In the house. In our lives.
    Perhaps I missed Leonard having a new crack house to burn down next door. He had burned two of them. Well, three of them, if you count the time I helped him do one.
    Who knew? Maybe they’d move a new one in any day now. Hope springs eternal.
    I took a moment to think about the sex life I didn’t have. Damn. I was getting as bad as Charlie. This kept up, me and him would be fucking.
    I thought about Lt. Marvin Hanson, lying in bed in a deep coma. I assumed if I thought about how bad he had it, I could feel a hell of a lot better about being me.
    It didn’t work. I still felt like shit.
    I watched a couple of blue jays fighting in Leonard’s oak tree. Listened for a while to a small dog bark savagely at something somewhere off to the south. The dog didn’t want to stop barking. A car drove by, an old black man at the wheel, one arm out the window. He was wearing a blue baseball cap with the brim pushed up. He looked hot and tired and satisfied. I looked at my watch. Three-forty-five. Guy was probably just off work from the early shift at one of the plants around town. Must be nice to have a shift. A regular check. Probably had a wife to go home to. A dog. Some kids. A TV with cable instead of foil-covered rabbit ears. I used to have an antenna, but the wind blew it away. I wondered where my antenna was. I wondered where my youth was. I wondered if that fucker who drove by got the American Movie Classics channel.
    The wind died down and I began to feel uncomfortably warm. I unbuttoned my top shirt button.
    I watched the blue jays fight some more. The dog had stopped barking. I still felt warm. I checked out the pink house with chocolate trim again. The colors hadn’t changed and the lawn butts were still in place.
    I looked at my watch once more.
    Three-forty-six. Time was certainly shooting by.
    I scratched my balls, got in my truck, and drove away from there.
8
    I stopped at a pay phone and called Charlie. Before I could tell him the state of Leonard’s house, he said, “I hope you got something good.”
    “It’s not that good. It’s about Leonard’s house. I just went by there. It’s been ransacked.”
    “Maybe Leonard did it himself. Came back, grabbed some stuff he needed, made a mess.”
    “I didn’t say it was messy. I said it was ransacked.”
    I described the place to him. He was silent. If he had an opinion he didn’t voice it. Just before I started collecting Social Security, he said, “You need to come up with Leonard.”
    “I’m working on it. Am I to think you no longer think he got nailed by bikers?”
    “I think all kinds of ways. It keeps me from getting bored. And if you know where Leonard is, you ought to tell me.”
    “So far, nothing.”
    “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Hap?”
    “Gracious, no.”
    “I’m not fuckin’ around here. This is some serious business.”
    “I know that.”
    “You put him up, hide him out, that’s a crime. You know that. Right?”
    “Of course.”
    “Are you talkin’ through a cardboard tube?”
    “It’s my cold. It’s getting worse.”
    “My cousin, he had a cold like that, neglected it. Fucker died. You takin’ medicine?”
    “I’ve bought some, but no, I haven’t taken it yet. And I don’t believe you had a cousin who died of a cold.”
    “Maybe it was my mother’s cousin.”
    “You really aren’t that concerned about my cold, are you?”
    “Hey, you’re sick, I’m sick.”
    “You think you’ll soften me up, then I’ll confide something to you, don’t you?”
    “You said it, I didn’t.”
    “Let me ask you something. Raul. Is he a suspect in this case?”
    “Everybody is a suspect. I’m thinking of running my wife in.”
    “Come on, Charlie. You got Raul in custody? Know where he is?”
    “No, and if you know where he is, you’d best tell me.”
    “I just called ’cause I thought you should know about the house. You