Rumble Tumble

Praise for Joe R. Lansdale

“Hilarious.… Lansdale is a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country boy wit.”

—The Washington Post Book World

“Lansdale’s prose, both laconic and sarcastic, is so thick with slang and regional accent that it’s as tasty as a well-cured piece of beef jerky. Readers will want to savor each bite.”

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Lansdale has an unsettling sensibility. Be thankful he crafts such wild tall tales.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“A storyteller in the great American tradition of Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain.”

—The Boston Globe

“Funny, compulsive … enjoyably raffish.”

—Esquire

Books by Joe R. Lansdale

The Bottoms

Leather Maiden

Lost Echoes

Sunset and Sawdust

A Fine Dark Line

Freezer Burn

In the Hap and Leonard Series

Savage Season

Mucho Mojo

The Two-Bear Mambo

Bad Chili

Rumble Tumble

Captains Outrageous

Vanilla Ride

JOE R. LANSDALE

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Sunset and Sawdust, Lost Echoes, Leather Maiden, and Vanilla Ride. The Bottoms and Mucho Mojo were New York Times notable books. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Edgar Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, and seven Bram Stoker Awards. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

www.joerlansdale.com

FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, NOVEMBER 2009

Copyright © 1998 by Joe R. Lansdale

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by the Mysterious Press, a division of Warner Books, Inc., New York, in 1998.

Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lansdale, Joe R., 1951–

Rumble tumble / by Joe R. Lansdale.

—1st Vintage Crime/Black Lizard ed.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-77268-8

1. Collins, Hap (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Pine, Leonard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Southwestern states—Fiction. 5. Automobile travel—Fiction. 6. Middle-aged men—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3562.A557R8 2009

813′.54—dc22

2009027229

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

For Jimmy Vines, with mucho respect.

Many of the towns and cities mentioned are real, but Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma, though inspired by a number of oddly named Texas and Oklahoma towns, does not exist. At least I don’t think it exists. If it does, my apologies. The same goes for Echo, Texas. I’ve also made some minor changes in Texas and Mexican geography to suit my storytelling purposes.

J.R.L.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself.

Shakespeare, Henry VIII

“Remember what Nietzsche said—‘Live dangerously.’ ”

“You know what happened to Nietzsche.”

“What?”

“He’s dead.”

—Joan Crawford responds

to Jack Palance in Sudden Fear

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Books By Joe R. Lansdale

1

An easy and convincing case could be made that my life has been short on successes, both financial and romantic, but no one could say with any conviction it has been uneventful.

In fact, of late, it had been so full of events, I concluded I had outlived my allotment of outlandish moments, and now the law of averages was on my side for pursuing a relatively tame existence. At least until old age set in and I took up residence in a cardboard box beneath the overpass on Highway 59, taking a dump behind a bush and licking secret sauce off old Big Mac wrappers for sustenance.