Rumble Tumble

“Yeah, but I didn’t give it so good in Spanish and most of the Mexicans around here are Catholics anyway.”

“The woman?” Red said. “She a working girl?”

Herman laughed. “Girl. She hasn’t been a girl since the Mexican Revolution. She works for me. Don’t even know her name. She takes a hundred dollars a month. Comes in and cooks for me, and if she’s in the mood, sweeps the place out. She’d service me for an additional fifty dollars a month, but I’m not interested.”

“You still preach?” Red said.

“Just to myself,” Herman said. “I hope I can convince you and your friends to stay for supper. Don’t worry. She’s clean. The woman, I mean. And the food. The place could use some work.”

“Perhaps a fire,” Red said.

“Yeah, well,” Herman said, sitting down on the edge of the pew with the mattress, “I call it home. How’s about you tell me what your problem is, Red. You still doing … the work?”

“I was, up until the other day,” Red said. “I was pulled out of it by this lady and these two gentlemen. They’ve kept me company these last few days, and let me tell you, it’s been an experience.”

Herman was looking at the wad of bloody toilet tissue on Red’s head. “What happened to your noggin?” Herman asked.

“Oh, the lady here took a pistol to my skull,” Red said. “And she made quite a time of it.”

Herman stood up. Leonard said, “Sit down, Herman. You need to hear the whole story before we start hitting each other.”

Brett pulled her pistol from under her shirt, said, “Hell, who’s hittin’?”

“Everybody ease off and lighten up,” I said.

Herman turned to the Mexican woman and said something quick in Spanish. She let go of the spoon, walked past us, right out the door without so much as a change of expression.

I said, “I hope you just told her to go to the house.”

Herman nodded. “Go on, let’s hear it.”

“Red here says he’s done some bad stuff and you got him into it,” I said.

“True,” Herman said. “I’ve abandoned that kind of life myself. I wish my brother would. If you’re looking for me to give you connections, I can’t.”

“Nope,” Leonard said. “We’re looking for directions to The Farm.”

Herman looked at Red. Red said, “Well, they said they’d kill me if I didn’t show them where The Farm was, but I didn’t know where it was, so I had to tell them about you.”

“You’re still involved with Big Jim?” Herman asked.

“I was,” Red said. “These three may have queered me there.” Red told Herman what had happened from when he and Wilber had put the bite on Brett for money, on up to the moment. I thought his telling was accurate, if overly long, and that goddamn steak ranchero came up again.

Herman sat with his head down for a long while, thinking. We let him think. I looked out the door and saw the Mexican woman trudging down the road, dragging little clouds of dust behind her heels.

“I don’t know,” Herman finally said. “This is some kind of situation. You’ve abused and humiliated my brother, and yet you ask me for help. You ask me to violate a trust, an agreement to never step foot on Bandito Supreme property again. I’d be tossing my life away.”

“Directions will do,” Leonard said. “You can stay here and suck prairie dogs out of holes.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Herman said. “But then I’d be tossing your lives away.”

“My suggestion,” Red said, “is you let them toss their lives and just save mine. They hit me a lot, you know?”

“Yes, I see that,” Herman said.

“It hurt,” Red said. “They’re capable of anything. I saw this one,” he indicated Leonard, “shoot Moose’s foot off. You remember Moose, don’t you?”

“You do that?” Herman asked Leonard. “You shoot Moose’s foot off?”

“Yep,” Leonard said. “Thought it was kind of funny actually.”

“See,” Red said. “They have no conscience. You should have seen her pistol-whip me. I’ve never seen anyone happier.”

“And I suppose you want me to do something about it,” Herman said.

“It crossed my mind,” Red said.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Herman said, “the lady has a gun, and my guess is there are guns under the shirts of these two men, and you just finished telling me how ruthless they are.”

“That’s right,” Leonard said. “And we’re just full of whup ass too. And we got shotguns in the trunk, we need ’em.”

“Lots of ammunition,” I said.

“That don’t do it,” Leonard said, “we’ll use rude language too.”

Herman nodded, turned to Red. “We got a problem here, Red. First off, you’re my brother. I love you. But you’re a piece of shit. I used to be a piece of shit, and may still be one, but you are definitely still one.”

“A matter of opinion,” Red said. “But the words are particularly foul coming from the mouth of my own kin, and a man of God at that.”

“They are neither foul or not foul,” Herman said, “they’re the truth. And I haven’t been a man of God in some time now. There’s also the fact I’m fat and not nearly as tough as I used to be. Or maybe I don’t want to be tough anymore. Do you want me shot, Red?”

“Of course not,” Red said.

“Then relax a little.” Then to Brett: “This girl, this Tillie. She’s your daughter? I understand that right?”