Vanilla Ride by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

Drake said to Kelso. “Get the coffee.”
    Kelso left. I guess it was his day to be fetch bitch.
    Drake looked us over. “So, you people have had quite a day. Enough dead to put a dent in the population. If only you could have set fire to downtown and shot a busload of orphans, it would have been perfect.”
    “Hap ran over a yard gnome,” Brett said. “That damn sure ought to count for something.”
    “Yep,” Leonard said. “It was a big day, and frankly, I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m a little tuckered, and this pink outfit makes me feel like I’m in my jammies. But, just to let you know, I really feel humiliated. This suit, it’s got to be the right cure for evil. Wearing this, no one would ever stray again from the straight and narrow. You wouldn’t even catch me jackin’ off in the men’s room if I thought I’d have to wear this fucker again.”
    “That’s a relief,” Drake said.
    “Thought you’d want to know,” Leonard said.
    Drake tapped his fingers on the desk, said, “You’re going to call it self-defense?”
    “Our lawyer will,” I said. Of course, we didn’t have a lawyer yet, but I wanted to sound like a big-time experienced criminal.
    I turned to Leonard, said, “I met a guy in my cell who wanted to fuck me. I knocked him out. Was that anti-gay?”
    “Did you write any anti-gay graffiti on him or the wall?”
    I shook my head.
    “I think it’ll be all right,” he said.
    “No talking amongst yourselves,” Drake said. “You know you did a bad thing, you three?”
    “Yep,” Leonard said.
    “What about those guys in the Caddy?” Brett asked.
    “They’ll live,” Drake said.
    “Gadget?” I asked.
    “She’s under arrest.”
    Kelso came back in, but he didn’t have our coffee. He leaned over and whispered in Drake’s ear.
    “What?” Drake said.
    Kelso nodded.
    “Goddamn it,” Drake said.
    Drake got up and went out. Leonard said, “What about that coffee?”
    “Fuck the coffee,” Kelso said.
    “That’s some kind of goddamn way for a public servant to talk,” Leonard said. “And you with the camera running.”
    I kicked Leonard gently under the table.
    “I saw that,” Kelso said. “And that’s good policy. You should shut the hell up. And the camera is still off, dick cheese. That way, I wanted to kick your ass it wouldn’t get recorded.”
    Leonard just smiled. Even with handcuffs on, Leonard would be a load and he knew it, and I could tell Kelso knew it too.
    Kelso glared at me, said, “The jailer said you hit your cell mate.”
    “He didn’t buy the mouse story?”
    “Drake said you two think you’re funny.”
    “There’s that insult again,” Leonard said. “It could take the edge off our comic timing.”
    “I think you’re funny,” Brett said, reached her handcuffs over and patted Leonard’s hand.
    “Thank you, dear,” Leonard said.
    “Laugh it up,” Kelso said. “We’ll see what the jury says.”
    We were the sort that when we were nervous we couldn’t help but run our mouths to show we weren’t nervous. It’s not a good habit, but it’s ours. That comment shut us up, though. We sat there in silence, brooding in our pink jumpsuits, until the door opened and Drake came in and looked at us and sighed. He stood there for a long moment, just studying us, like we were a species formerly thought extinct. I thought any moment the rubber hose would appear, maybe a blowtorch and some pliers and a couple of angry German shepherds. He turned to Kelso. “Take their handcuffs off.”

21
    After our handcuffs were off, Drake and Kelso went out, leaving us alone. We sat and waited, looking in the mirror that most likely had someone on the other side. At first I counted smears on the glass, boogers on the wall, anything to keep me busy. But that grew boring.
    We turned and looked at one another, as if one of us might offer some sort of solution. No great answers unfolded. The nature of the universe was still safe. Stephen Hawking still had