The Adventures of Slim & Howdy (17 page)

42

SLIM AND HOWDY WERE QUICK TO AGREE WITH UNCLE ROY
that kidnapping and ransom seemed the most likely explanation for Jodie’s disappearance. Not only did it make more sense, given the evidence, but they found it much easier to think in those terms than to contemplate the violent alternatives.

Even as the words went unspoken, Slim and Howdy could see the dark thoughts crossing Uncle Roy’s mind. A grim look would flash across his weathered face like he’d seen the crime-scene photos or had been called to the morgue to identify the body. He wouldn’t hold the expression long, couldn’t stand to keep the images in his mind beyond the moment. The old man would defend himself by taking a hard draw on his cigarette, throwing a steely gaze at his visitors, and making tough guarantees about the hard things that were going to befall whoever had done this. “Mark my words,” he said. “I have resources, and I will use them all if necessary.”

“Yes, sir,” Howdy said, not doubting the old man for a minute.

Uncle Roy couldn’t stay seated any longer. The idea of not doing something when something needed to be done was more than he could tolerate. He saw himself as a man of action, even if the action he engaged in was pointless. He stood and made his way to a window, pain in each step, then turned and walked back. Pacing would have to suffice for now, offering the temporary illusion that he was doing something.

He stopped at a table covered with framed photos and yellowed newspaper articles. Roy Hobbs as a young cowboy in the 1930s, working a cattle drive with guys with names like Buster and Boots. Another, dated 1946, showed ten roughnecks standing in the shadow of an old wooden oil rig, the whites of their eyes standing out against the grease, mud, and grime that covered their faces and overalls.

As Slim watched Uncle Roy fuss with one frame, then another, pausing now and then to allow for a fond grunt or a smile, Slim figured the old man was going to avoid the present by telling them about his past. But, to Slim’s surprise, Uncle Roy turned around and said, “You talked to her brother yet?”

“Called him,” Slim said. “Left a message.”

“He came by the Lost and Found the other night,” Howdy added. “Said he was going to be up in Abilene all week taking depositions in some big class-action suit he’s involved in.”

“Is that what he said, a big class-action suit?” Uncle Roy turned his back on the table of memories and continued pacing.

“Yeah,” Slim said. “Suing a pharmaceutical manufacturer, I think.”

Uncle Roy let out a derisive snort and shook his head. “You could fertilize a hundred fifty acres with all the bullshit comes out of that boy’s mouth.”

“Well, he
is
a lawyer,” Howdy said, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Uncle Roy smiled and looked as if he might take another shot at Grady’s character, but he stopped and thought better of it. Whatever he felt about his nephew was immaterial to the present discussion. “I’m sure he’ll call,” Uncle Roy said. “Just don’t expect much when he does.”

Slim nodded, glanced at Howdy, who shrugged with his eyes.

Uncle Roy lit another cigarette and said, “What about Jake? You talked to him?”

“Jake?”

“Rattlesnake Jake,” Roy said. “Jodie’s ex-husband.”

Rattlesnake Jake sounded familiar, but Howdy couldn’t think why. And he didn’t think to ask because he was too surprised at the news Uncle Roy had just delivered. Howdy said, “She was married to somebody before Frank?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Uncle Roy looked at his boots and shook his head. “Don’t blame her I guess. Nobody likes talking about their mistakes. But yeah, she was a kid when she fell for Jake, maybe seventeen. He was a charmer and not much else of any use. Everybody tried to talk her out of it, but you know how that story ends. Divorced after about eight months and moved up to Oklahoma to avoid being looked at like cheap used goods. Anyway, Jake Heller, that’s his last name, shed his charm like a snake sloughing off its skin as he got older and, tell you the truth,” Uncle Roy said with a finger to his head, “I think he’s not right, mentally. I see him now and then and he’s got this look in his eyes like some hermit gone crazy living in the desert, talking to lizards and such.” Roy turned to look at Slim and Howdy. “Now that I hear myself talking about it, he’s as good a candidate for this as anybody. You oughta pay him a visit.”

“You know where he stays?”

Roy shook his head. “Not sure he’s got a fixed address ’cept for his business. You’ve probably seen it, driving through town. Rattlesnake Jake’s Exotic Pets.” He shook his head like trading in serpents and spiders was a less-than-respectable way for a man to make a living.

“Oh yeah,” Howdy said. “That green-and-orange building on the main drag. Noticed that the day we drove into town. And that’s Jodie’s ex, huh? I’ll be damned.”

Slim said, “What about the Lost and Found? I mean until Jodie gets back?” He figured it was best to keep ringing the bell of optimism.

“We’ll keep it open,” Roy said as he crossed the room to a large display case filled with sidearms. “Duke knows how to run the place. You two just keep doing whatever you agreed to at night. During the day, I’ll pay you to check on that fella you called Link, and Jake too.”

“Fair enough,” Slim said.

Uncle Roy opened one of the panels in the case and pulled a single-action army .45. It had elephant ivory grips with a buffalo head carved in the handle. He pointed the seven-inch barrel across the room at the .22 he’d set on the table earlier. “That .22 all the gun you got?”

“Yes, sir,” Howdy said.

Uncle Roy slid the .45 into its holster and tossed it to Howdy. Then he pulled an engraved Colt single-action with a smooth ivory grip and a nickel finish and tossed it to Slim along with the holster it rode in on. “There,” he said. “Now you’re properly armed.”

While Slim and Howdy admired the guns, Uncle Roy said, “Listen, I never had children of my own, so Jodie’s as close to it as I’ll ever have. Her parents are both gone and I’m what she’s got left. Well, me and Grady. But I’m her godfather and I take that seriously.”

“Yes, sir,” Howdy said. “I can see that.”

“I don’t care if I have to hare-lip every cow in Texas,” Uncle Roy said. “I will find out what happened. And somebody’s gonna pay.”

43

LINK MADE HIS HOME ON A PICKED-SCAB OF LAND A FEW
miles east of Del Rio. There, perched at a slight angle, in the middle of this dusty little piece of heaven, was a stolen FEMA trailer Link had dragged out here from Mobile, Alabama, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He’d gone there to check on family and friends after the storm and, while there, ran into a buddy who showed him how to con the taxpayers out of a trailer.

Said it was a piece of cake, and it was.

He brought it to Texas, no questions asked, and planted it in one of the less densely populated square miles of Val Verde County. A real estate broker might have said it offered exquisite solitude. Another way of saying it was the only structure as far as the eye could see.

Slim and Howdy got out there around ten that morning. Link’s truck wasn’t there, just an ATV up on blocks off to the side of the trailer. There were no signs of life as Slim parked the truck and the two of them sat there, waiting for the dust cloud to blow by.

“Doesn’t appear to be home,” Howdy said, like that was an engraved invitation to break in and look around.

Slim stroked his goatee a couple of times before turning his sunglasses toward Howdy. He said, “If you’ll recall, Black Tony didn’t appear to be at home when we first broke into his house either. Remember how that ended?”

Howdy thought of Crystal and smiled. “Yeah, that was some fun, wuddn’t it?”

“Barrel of monkeys,” Slim said as he opened the door. “Let’s take a quick look.”

“That’s all I’m sayin’.”

They got out of the truck, headed for the trailer, both wearing the sidearm Roy Hobbs had given them. Howdy’s was hidden under his long black duster. Slim’s toreador jacket left his .45 showing. And quite smartly.

No one answered the door, which was locked, so they started trying windows.

Slim reached the back door first. Also locked. He peeked through the glass and thought he saw some legs, but in a place that didn’t make sense to him. He paused, did a double take. Looked again. He cupped his hands around his eyes, pressed against the glass. A sick feeling on the horizon, approaching fast. It took a moment before his brain could accept what he was seeing. When it registered—when it really hit—Slim almost got sick.

He shouted for Howdy as he kicked the door open and rushed inside. He got too close for comfort and took a quick step back from it. It was too late to help and he knew it. He muttered, “Jesus.” He stared, not knowing what else to do.

Howdy raced in a second later, running into Slim before he looked up too. “Oh, no.”

She was hanging from a beam. Her hands and feet were bound. She was lifeless.

Always had been.

She was a mannequin.

It took a fraction of a second for them both to realize this, but that fraction was sickening. That single instant of thinking it was Jodie left them gut-punched and sick on adrenaline. Oddly, coming to the realization that it
wasn’t
her—in fact, that it wasn’t a person at all—was a secondary shock to a system that was doing all it could to come to terms with the first one.

After a moment, Howdy reached out, grabbed its leg, pulling it toward him. Kind of stunned, he said, “It’s a dummy.” He let go, sent it swaying.

The two men gazed slowly around the trailer and soon realized they’d stepped into someone else’s world. A dark place, rendered even darker by the creaking sound of the hangman’s rope swinging back and forth under the weight of the dead.

After a minute Slim reached out and stopped it. “Enough of that.”

Howdy gestured at the kitchen counter. “Check it out.” Magazines on sadism, masochism, and bondage. Howdy flipped a few pages, looked at some of the pictures, and found himself wondering what made some people tick.

Slim wandered into the living room where he found more magazines, these on extreme piercing and body modification. A disturbing gallery of split tongues, bolts, and ball bearings sewn under the skin, and necks with three-inch surgical staples inserted along the vertebrae for show. He used the eraser end of a pencil to turn the pages of a quarterly publication called
SubIncision.

Howdy, over by the stereo, perused Link’s CD collection. A library of industrial-gothic-bondage rock. Death Rattle. Carcass. Skulls of Doom. “Not a big fan of Perry Como,” he mumbled.

Slim, meanwhile, still flipping through the magazine, came to some photos that stopped him cold. He stared in disbelief for a moment before saying, “Holy mother of that’s-got-to-hurt.”

Howdy looked up from the CDs, said, “Whatcha got?”

“You ever heard of trepanation?”

“Trepidation? I’m having some right now.”

“No,” Slim said. “Trep-AN-ation.”

“Nope,” Howdy said. “Do I want to?”

“It’s the practice of opening a hole in the skull, exposing the brain.”

“Ewwww.”

“Apparently you can do it with your own drill,” Slim said. “Though they suggest having a friend do it for you.”

“Safety first,” Howdy said.

“Yeah, says here trepanation allows the brain to breathe properly and release toxins that are otherwise trapped.” Slim pointed at the page. “They got pictures.”

“I bet they do,” Howdy said. “But I’ll pass.” He looked at a few more CDs before curiosity got the better of him. He pushed the stereo’s power button without checking the volume, and a second later there was an explosion of pure, jaw-dropping sonic aggression that knocked Howdy two feet backwards. Seven hundred watts shoving the Lords of Agony through multiple subwoofers, roaring with tortured squalls, shrieking feedback, and lyrics of whiskey-black hatred.

Howdy stabbed his finger repeatedly toward the power button until he killed the thing, returning the trailer to a sudden, creepy silence. He looked over at Slim, a bit chagrined. “Sorry.”

Slim pulled his fingers from his ears, checked for blood. “Don’t do that.”

Howdy moved away from the stereo. Next to the CDs were stacks of 8mm video cassettes. “Looks like a home movie buff,” he said. The videos were labeled with dates only, no subject matter. “You see a playback deck anywhere?” He held up one of the cassettes. “This one might be worth watching.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s dated yesterday.”

Slim looked around then shook his head. “DVD player’s all I see.”

Howdy looked down at the coffee table, pointed at the cigar box. “Ten bucks says our boy’s a dope smoker.”

Slim shook his head at the sucker’s bet. “I’ll keep my money, thanks.”

Howdy opened it. There were a couple of dozen Polaroids. Different angles of a windowless room with an empty cage in it. A bare bulb dangling from a frayed wire. What might have been a black leather hood hanging on a hook. Shadows made it hard to see. In the background what looked like a rack of flogs and whips and a stool. “Looks like a . . . dungeon.”

Even though he found it hard to believe, Howdy said, “You know, there are a lot of people who do this kind of thing for . . . fun.”

“A lot?”

“Okay, some, a few, I have no idea.” He gestured around the trailer. “But look how many different magazines there are. Somebody’s keeping them in business.”

Slim seemed skeptical. “You think Jodie’s into this? With Link?”

Howdy shrugged. “Who knows? People have secrets, right? She didn’t tell us about Jake, the ex-husband. Hard to imagine she’d confide in us about her taste for humiliation and torture if she’s too private to mention a bad marriage.”

“There’s a difference between the two?”

Howdy gave an understanding nod.

They thought it over for a minute before they both shook their heads. “No way,” Slim said. “Not Jodie.”

“I agree,” said Howdy, picking up the handcuffs that were next to the cigar box. “At least not voluntarily.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“We need to find this dungeon.”

“Yeah.” They looked around some more, hoping to find a clue.

Howdy came across something familiar made of leather. He picked them up, admired the craftsmanship, and said, “Hey, these chaps are nice.” He held them to his waist. They were too long for him.

A second later, Slim found a shipping box. “Got something,” he said. The address label was for “Mr. Link” but at a different location.

“Where?” Howdy asked.

“Some box number on a farm-to-market road,” Slim replied. “No idea where, though. We can stop at the post office on the way back through town. Ask them.”

Howdy put the chaps down and said, “What’s in the box?”

“It’s empty,” Slim replied after a look. “Except for this receipt.” He unfolded the piece of paper, read it, then looked up at Howdy. “It was a five-piece hog-tie set.”