The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

fir trees that all grow to look exactly alike. Not native trees, Yankee trees. They've been rebred, or whatever trees do to make more trees, and they can stand the Texas heat and the clay soil better than a native pine. He ships those dudes from here to Kansas City in air-conditioned trucks. And you want to work here in Grovetown, you want him to be happy with you. Because not only does he own the lumber mill and run the Christmas tree farm, he owns a lot of other things, as well as a lot of people. Black and white. Only things in this town he don't own are the cafe and the Chief, and maybe with the Chief it don't matter much. Like I said, he's honest and fair, but he and my old man share a lot of the same views."
    "I notice you have an aluminum Christmas tree," Leonard said.
    "Sort of speaks volumes, don't it?" Tim said.
    "What about your station here?" I asked. "He own that?"
    "Goddamn him, he owns that too. Loaned me the money for it—key word here is loaned, not gave, and he expects the payments, or I'll be back at the Christmas tree farm. I hate the bustard, and he knows it, and likes it. What I want most in the world is to get the money to pay him off, be a free man. Fact is, what I want most in the world is money. I admit it. Here I was, son of the richest man in town, and I was always wearing worn-out clothes with patches and carried my lunch in a fucking paper bag. Wouldn't even let me buy a lunch box like the rest of the kids. Thought it built character. What it did was it embarrassed me. I said I got older and got a chance to get money, I'd get it. The whole idea of going around poor, even owning this shitty filling station when I ought to have a good life, all the money he's got, I get itchy. Mad even.
    "But I got my edge on him. See, I'm kind of an embarrassment. I actually had a couple years college in something besides business. Anthropology. Though it didn't take. I can tell you a little about North American Indians, you want, but when it comes down to it, what I know is about as useless as tits on a boar hog. Still, I'm his son, and he's insurance for me. I wanted to, I could go over there and set fire to the cafe, and he'd make it
    so it was understood I was merely tryin' to warm up the place. But he wouldn't drop what I owe him on this station, and I don't pay it, he'll own the station. More coffee, fellas?"
    Leonard and I declined. Tim offered us the pig's feet again, at a slightly reduced price, but we declined those as well.
    "Let me ask you something," I said. "There anyplace we could rent a room for a few nights in this town?"
    "I doubt it," Tim said. "I mean, I don't know."
    "You don't know?" Leonard said. "Then let me ask you this. Where did Florida stay?"
    Tim smiled, but the smile looked silly this time, not infectious. "Why, out at my mother's place."
    Chapter 10
    About noon, we bought some sandwich makings, and Tim called his mother, tried to get us a place to stay. Turned out his mother owned a few trailers she rented out, and one was available.
    "I like you fellas and all,” Tim said after the phone call,” but way it works, needing money like I do, you pay Mom, and you pay me a little finder's fee.”
    "What's a little?" Leonard asked.
    "Fifty dollars.”
    "That's a little!" I said.
    "It's how much it's gonna be you stay at Mom's trailer park.”
    Leonard grumbled, paid the fifty in two twenties and a ten.
    "Florida pay you a finder's fee?" Leonard asked.
    "You betcha,” Tim said, folding his money into his wallet. ”I never claimed I was a philanthropist."
    Tim decided to close up and guide us out to his mom's place. He told us he had planned to stay open Christmas Day, partly out of boredom, and out of the fact he could snag a few extra dollars by being the only place available in town to pick up gas and goods, but the weather being the way it was, that turned out to be a pipe dream.
    Still, bad as it was, it had slacked some, and we took the moment to get started. Tim drove an old