Kenny focused on the sound of the gravel grinding together beneath his feet as he walked. The parking lot for Jerry Tate’s Boots ’n’ Boogey Dance Club was filled with a variety of American-made vehicles from the ’80s all the way up to 1992. Most of them were trucks held together by exposed patches of Bondo, and every bed was filled with empty beer cans, broken fishing gear, and the remains of fast food paper bags.
Kenny removed his dress cap and pinched the bill into shape. He had bought the hat after dropping Bones off at the doctor’s. The lady at the store said it made him look as handsome as a man like him could expect. He’d blushed because he’d never been called handsome before, expectantly or otherwise. He’d paid twenty-five dollars for the hat that was decorated with a beer keg and the slogan I’D tap that. He hoped to God above the lady cop would find the hat as alluring as the saleslady had.
Step stood at the edge of the parking lot puffing away on a cigarette and nervously staring at his watch.
“Don’t know why you had to come,” Kenny said, standing next to his partner.
“ ’Cause we ain’t got time to finesse this thing. We got to get down to what this lady cop was doing at Laura Farrow’s quick as shit.” Kenny raised his chin up and watched the neon sign flicker as it simulated a pair of boots moving across a dance floor.
“Well that don’t come down to nothing but asking a question or two. I can do that my own self.”
Step shifted his eyes toward Kenny without moving his head. “You’d think a thing like that wouldn’t be hard, but someone with your challenges is liable to make a mess of it.”
“Challenges? What challenges?”
“You’re just too dumb to get out of your own way, Kenny. I love you like a brother, but you don’t seem to get what’s going on here.”
“I do so. I called up that pretty lady cop with the double-D’s to chat her up and get her off our trail concerning the shooting in Baptist Flats. She’s taken a shine to me, and you want me to get her extra sweet toward me.”
Step slapped Kenny on the back and said, “Challenges, old buddy. Challenges.”
Kenny sulked. “You’re better looking than me, Step. You’re skinny as a greyhound, but I’ve seen enough pornographic movies to know that makes your pecker look big. This lady cop gets enough time looking at us together, she’s liable to put that fact together in her mind. She’ll start seeing me as the fella with the tinier hammer and end up running off with you.”
Step groaned. “First off, beyond getting some answers from her, I ain’t got no interest in your lady cop. Second off, you ain’t got the first clue what a lady thinks is important. Don’t no woman look at a man and think to herself, I sure hope he’s swinging heavy down there. No, sir. They look at a man and think, I sure hope this fella knows what he wants and how to get it.”
Kenny’s face twisted into a frown. “That’s a tough riddle to work out, because about all I want is her naked and enjoying the hell out of me in the same state of undress…Well, near same state. I’d more than likely keep my T-shirt on to hide my belly. That’s a bit much for a gal to see on a first date.”
“Challenges,” Step said, shaking his head.
“I’m beginning to get the idea that’s an insult, Step.”
Step saw a set of headlights appear at the other end of the parking lot.
“At least give me fifteen minutes alone with her before you show yourself. That way I can get a jump start on your looks over mine.”
The car pulled into a spot and idled.
“I’ll do what you said. I’ll let her know that I know what I want and how to get it.”
The engine to the vehicle turned off.
“Only I don’t want to get into the sex desires right off. I’ll make like I want to succeed in some kind of work, something respectable like crossing the kids to school or running a bingo hall or something like that. If I make like I’m good with kids and old people, she’s liable to get the idea I’m a nice guy. That will work out double good for us. A guy who runs bingo for old people ain’t likely to shoot a fella outside a bar, and it might be something that gets her stripped down to her birthday suit.”
Step was thrown to see his cousin Terry climb out of the driver’s side. The off-duty Baptist Flats cop spotted the pair of closeout kings and nodded. He walked toward them with his hands in his pockets and his head down. When he got within earshot of them, he spoke without breaking his stride or looking in their direction. “Follow me, Step.”
“What about me?” Kenny asked.
“Dani is five or ten minutes behind me. Wait here,” Terry said.
Step hesitated before he turned to Kenny. “Fifteen minutes. She starts asking you about the shooting, you clam up. You don’t know nothing, you ain’t heard nothing. Just do what you do and play dumb.”
Kenny grinned and nodded. “Ima go with that bingo hall story. Crossing school kids might make me look creepy. I always think those guys are creepy. Don’t they seem creepy? I best go with bingo.”
Step gently tapped Kenny’s cheek and followed his cousin into the dance club. As soon as he entered the building, he spotted Terry standing at the end of the bar. Step quickly joined him.
“Don’t look at me,” Terry said. “Order a beer and stare straight ahead.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m Dani’s backup.”
Step motioned for the bartender and shouted, “PBR. Draft.”
“I ain’t a fan of this.”
“This?”
“This meet-up with one of my fellow police officers, a police officer who suspects you and chubs out there of gunning down two fellas outside a bar.”
“We’ll be in and out in thirty minutes.”
The bartender placed a plastic cup filled with PBR in front of Step. “Tab?”
Step shook his head and threw a five dollar bill on the bar.
“Change?”
“It’s two dollar draft ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” the bartender said.
“You think Ima give you a fucking three dollar tip on a two dollar beer?”
The bartender grimaced, counted out three dollar bills from his apron pocket, and slapped them on the bar.
When he walked away, Terry chuckled softly. “A man in your occupation needs to learn how to go through life wearing soft-soled shoes, Cousin.”
“I’m supposed to tip him out three dollars?”
“You’re supposed to be less memorable. You never know when you’ll need to be invisible.”
Step growled and gulped his beer. He hunched forward and watched the bubbles in the beer rise to the top. “You ever get the feeling everything’s shit?”
“What the hell you talking about?”
“The world is shit, Terry. You’re shit. I’m shit…”
“Goddamn, son. Who pissed in your boots?”
The front door opened, and Terry jerked his head around to see who was entering. A fat cowboy and fatter cowgirl appeared. “We best part ways. Just make sure nothing happens that requires me stepping in, and keep your partner on a short leash. He’s liable to salivate himself into an offense or two that requires legal solutions.”
“You don’t worry about Kenny. He’s ninety percent teddy bear.”
“It ain’t that ninety percent I’m worried about,” Terry said as he headed for the far corner of the bar.