More Better Deals

by Joe R. Lansdale

Genres: Westerns; Private Investigators

Synopsis

Edgar award-winning author Joe Lansdale returns with the hard-boiled story of a no-nonsense used car salesman ready to turn his life around Ed Edwards is in the used car business, a business built on adjusted odometers, extra-fine print, and the belief that "buyers better beware." Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game.When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss at the eponymous dealership Smiling Dave's sends him to repossess a Cadillac, Ed finally gets the chance to escape his miserable life.The Cadillac in question was purchased by Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Fed up with her deadbeat husband and with unfulfilled desires of her own, Nancy suggests to Ed- in the throes of their salacious affair- that they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer: the girl, the car, and not one, but two businesses. Ed could finally say goodbye to Smiling Dave's, and maybe even send his sister to college. But does he have what it takes to see the plan through? Told with Joe Lansdale's trademark grit, wit, and dark humor, More Better Deals is a gripping tale of the strange characters and odd dealings that define 1960s East Texas.

Release date: July 21, 2020

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 272

Sample

(1)

I folded the check and put it in my shirt pocket and tried not to grin. The husband, a Mr. Diedre, had just bought a used Buick that had been on the lot awhile, and his wife, a cute little thing in pink chiffon and goofy white ruffles, looked like she was happy enough to keep the hubby busy all night long and not be sad about it.

The Buick they bought wasn’t but a couple years old, a ’62 model, but it had been driven hard and an insane number of miles were racked up on it. The owner, a seventeen-year-old, had a heavy foot. His parents took the car from him and made him get a sacking job at the Piggly Wiggly.

I knew how hard and how much the car had been driven because I had rolled back the odometer, bringing it down to a number so low I could say the car had belonged to a little old lady who bought it to drive to church on Sundays and the grocery store on Mondays; and died suddenly and her son traded it in because he didn’t know what else to do with it. Simple story. Simple lie.

I had the car’s transmission worked on a little, but within a few days, if the couple made a hard hill more than once or decided to get in any kind of hurry, that transmission would drop like a turd, if the radiator didn’t go first. It had a small hole in it that I had plugged, but that plug was like chewing gum stuck in a hole in Hoover Dam. It wasn’t going to hold. It was mostly there on its honor, and it wasn’t a vow it could maintain. But to make up for all that, the car was overpriced and the tires weren’t as good as they looked.

By the time they figured out they owned a turnip that would cost more to fix than what they’d paid for it, it would be too late. Way Smiling Dave worked, him being the fellow owned the business, was any car paid for, once you drove it off the lot, was all yours, and so were any problems that came with it.

We cashed checks pretty quick.

Diedre might come back angry, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The rule was on our little black-and-white signs. We had them all over the place and they said all deals were final. The signs were many, but small, and the lettering was even smaller. That way we didn’t make people nervous right off. It was also in our contracts, but few people actually read them, and even if they did, they wanted a car and had the money, they bought it. A bought car was purchased and made it onto the street, you were done, and so were we.

On top of that I had been known to knock a disgruntled head or two, and Smiling Dave, about two hundred and fifty pounds of lard on a five-foot-five frame mounted on tiny feet, had a cheap pistol in the desk drawer in his office, which was also my office.

I had a smaller desk and a less comfortable chair. I could look at him and see him coughing over his cigar, hear him wheezing wind, squeaking around in his swivel chair. Place always smelled like someone had set fire to a tobacco barn. I don’t smoke myself. Nasty habit. Winds you and burns holes in your clothes, makes you smell the way the office smells. I can’t handle a woman that smokes. I like to kiss one that doesn’t taste like an ashtray or yesterday’s chewing tobacco.

I came into the office and gave the Diedre check to Smiling Dave and told him he might want to take it to the bank.

He pursed his lips, studied the contract and the check. “Got yourself a nice commission there, Ed. You done all right. What is that, three cars this week?”

“Yeah. And one of them might even last out the year. I got to get home a little early today. Got a dog to kick and an old lady to push down the stairs.”

“Don’t grow a conscience, Ed. It’s bad for your bank account. You know what they say. Buyer beware, and better you fucked than me.”

I went over and sat in my little chair behind my little desk and squinted against the cigar smoke.

Smiling Dave squeaked his chair in my direction, put his cigar in a big clay ashtray his kid made for him at camp. It looked like a hunk of mud someone had beat an indention into with their fist. DAD was scratched into the side of it as if by an arthritic hand.

“I got something I need you to do. Repossess that red Caddy I sold a while back to a couple named Craig.”

“That one was damn near a new car.”

“Yep, and in good shape. Not our usual bucket of nuts and bolts and our best wishes. I didn’t try and have them buy it outright, too expensive, and worth it for a change. I let them pay on it, couple that bought it. Only way I could sell that one for what it was worth. Not many folks going to walk in here with the kind of money to buy a barely used Caddy.”

“So what did the woman look like?”

“You know me, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers.”

“Figured as much, you making a deal like that.”

“Hey, I got to look at her legs, got the down payment and two months of payments, then they stopped paying. Tried calling them, sent a letter. No response.”

“You try carrier pigeon?”

“That would be you, Ed. You’re my carrier pigeon. Might want to take that blackjack you got, maybe some brass knuckles. Her husband is a pretty big guy. Doesn’t look like he could flip over a truck with his bare hands every day, but he looks like he could hit a guy in the eye and loosen some teeth.”

“All right, I’ll get over there after work.”

“No need to do that. Go during work hours, you want. Hell, I’m not paying you enough for after-hours work.”

“You’re not paying much for regular hours either. A few dollars and commission.”

“Shit, Ed. You sell a lot of cars. You get a good commission. You aren’t having to punch the clock and wear a tie. You got those sports coats and tassels on your shoes. Which look silly, by the way.”

“This from a fat man with cigar ash on his shirt.”

Smiling Dave chuckled. “Yeah, but I got my personality to fall back on.”

(2)

It was late afternoon after work, and I had a cup of coffee and listened to the radio at the apartment, then I got the papers together I might need and decided to drive out to repossess the Cadillac.

First, I called my sister and told her I would pick her up, and she could drive my car back for me.

“Because I’m at your beck and call,” Melinda said.

“No. Because I’ll pay you ten dollars.”

“Now we’re talking.”

When I got to the trailer park lot where Melinda lived, she was sitting on the steps reading a magazine. It was hard for me to imagine she was nineteen now. She had turned into a smart and pretty woman, and the idea of her spending her time working at the aluminum-chair factory irked me, but then again, I wasn’t exactly a role model. She saw me drive up, left the magazine on the steps, and got in the car, her long black hair bouncing on her shoulders.

“Hello, brother dear.”

“What the hell is that you’re wearing?”

“They call them shorts in a lot of places.”

“Well, they’re short.”

“You like women who show their legs.”

“Yeah, but they aren’t my little sister.”

“Before we go, want to come in and see Mother?”

“Not just now,” I said.

The address on the contract put the Craigs outside of town. They had a large chunk of property with a drive-in theater on it, THE HIGH-TONE DRIVE-IN, and next to it was a fenced-in slice of land, maybe five acres or more, that had a metal sign above the entrance that said PET HEAVEN. All around it was a classy split-rail fence. That seemed like an odd choice for a cemetery of any kind, but that’s how it was done. There were a lot of graves out there, and nearby a couple of buildings, both pretty large, and one of them was larger than the other and looked like it might be a garage.

There were a lot of trees at the edge of the cemetery, and there was a little road that wound down behind them. The house sat close to the road and there was a gravel drive that led up to it. The house was a little white job that needed a new roof and someone to cut the grass. It had a white picket fence around it, and a white slat-board gate, and a flagstone walkway.

I didn’t see the Caddy, hoped it was in the garage.

I parked in front of the gate.

Melinda said, “Not a bad house, and you say they got the graveyard and the picture show?”

“Yeah.”

“You’d think two businesses, they could make a car payment.”

“You got to have a pet to bury before they get any cemetery money, but the drive-in, maybe. Lot of teenagers go.”

“Yeah, me and Jody go sometimes so we can fool around.”

“Don’t tell me anymore about it, sis. Leaving the keys in the car, just in case you need to go quick. Sometimes people get rowdy. Slide over behind the wheel when I get out.”

I leaned across Melinda and got the blackjack out of the glove box and dropped it in my coat pocket.

“Damn, Ed. You going to beat a payment out of them?”

“Just making sure the conversation stays on an even keel.”

I got out, unlatched the gate and walked up the rock-slab walk to the front door.

I knocked and tried to not look threatening. A woman answered the door, pushed the screen wide, making me step back. I stepped slightly forward when the screen was pressed open, let my body hold it that way. The woman blocked the doorway by leaning on the door frame.

Mrs. Craig, I presumed. She looked about twenty-five or so. She was holding a tall drinking glass with flower designs on it, and the glass was nearly full of a pink liquid that made me think of blood in the water. She was blond in a cheap out-of-the-bottle way, had arched eyebrows and lips that could talk a man into anything, maybe some women. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. She didn’t need it. She was barefoot with long, brown legs in snow-white short-shorts so tight you couldn’t have slipped a shoe spoon into them, and there was more nice business in a tight blue blouse that had a kind of pull tie across her belly. I could see her navel. It was a nice navel. I’d have licked champagne or chocolate out of that navel. Fact was, I might have licked pond water out of it if that’s what she had in it.

Her eyes were kind of narrow, and I’d say that was her only flaw, way those black eyes looked at me standing there, like an alligator that was about to bite my head and roll with me down into deep water from which there would be no coming up.

I found my hand drifting into my coat for the blackjack. I can’t rightly explain that, but I remember that and thinking, It’s just a woman, a fine-looking one, and a blackjack probably won’t be necessary.

“Mrs. Craig,” I said.

“That’s me.”

“Is your husband home?”

“Nope. You figure I can’t do business unless he’s here?”

“I’m here on a matter that might require both of you present.”

“Nice save, big guy.”

“May I come in?”

“You come here, smile at me, and you think that’s going to move me to let you in?”

“I certainly hoped it would.”

“You through looking at my legs?”

“Not as long as they’re there to look at.”

She smirked and sipped her drink. She studied me the way a shopper studies fish at the fish market. “You look like someone mixed you up with the right ingredients, handsome.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think maybe there’s too much salt.”

She smiled then. She had movie-star teeth. “Who’s that in the car, your girlfriend or your getaway driver?”

I looked back and saw Melinda had slid behind the wheel as I’d asked. She gave me a little wave.

“My sister. She’s waiting on me, but no rush.”

“Come in,” she said.

She walked back into the house, and I slipped in after her, careful not to let the screen door slam.

There was a big swamp cooler in the living-room window. We went past the living room, that cooler ruffling our hair, and into the kitchen. The back door was open, but the screen was shut. It was growing dusky outside, but I could see the cemetery from there, and the two buildings out back, and between them a clearing full of tall grass and the woods beyond.

There was a big pitcher on the table full of a reddish liquid and ice cubes were floating in it. Around the table were cheap chairs with blue plastic backs. There were rubber place mats, and one of them had a water ring that I knew would fit the bottom of her glass.

She sat down and didn’t offer me a chair. I pulled one out and sat down, pulled the folded papers I had with me, the ones concerning the Cadillac, out of my sports-coat pocket and placed them in front of me and smoothed them out on the table.

She said, “Something to drink?”

I didn’t know what was in the pitcher, but it looked cold, and though the swamp cooler was straining, about the only thing it was doing was making the air feel damp. It wasn’t any better than rubbing your face with a warm, wet towel.

“Sure,” I said. I knew I should have just gotten it over with, but something about her kept me stalling. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to find anything out, so what was my rush?

She got up and pulled a glass out of the cabinet and brought it back to me. Way she moved was like a sex ballet. She placed the glass on the table, poured some of the liquid from the pitcher into it, and sat it in front of me on the rubber mat and partly on the contract.

I moved the glass as she sat down. I took a sip from the glass. It was some kind of strawberry drink, and it had enough whiskey in it to pickle an eel.

“Well, that’s certainly an evening bracer,” I said.

“Yeah, I thought I’d have a glass or two of it before dinner, then skip dinner.”

“I suppose I should get right down to business.”

“Suit yourself.”

“It’s about the Cadillac.”

“You mean the one that hasn’t been paid on?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah. Well, I got a beat-up old jalopy in the outbuilding out there, but no Cadillac.”

“Well, you bought a Cadillac.”

“My husband did, and he’s not here. He’s in it, or maybe he’s out of it and drinking somewhere, might be fucking or fighting. Maybe both at the same time. I don’t even know where he is. He hasn’t been around in two months or so. He took the Caddy and quit payments. Another couple of weeks, more bills are coming due. I might have to get a job if I don’t start hooking first. That’s a joke, by the way.”

“I see. So he’s got the car?”

“I’m pretty sure I said that.”

“Suppose you did. Being as the payments are due, we need either the money or the car. You can pay me today.”

“No, I can’t. I haven’t got the money.”

“When’s your husband coming back?”

“Can’t say. Don’t know. But if he comes back, he likes a Monday. Rarely comes back on a Tuesday, but the rest of the days are a toss-up.”

“Where’s he work?”

“Traveling salesman.”

“Selling what?”

“Encyclopedias.”

“Come on.”

“Seriously. Listen…what’s your name?”

“Edwards.”

“What Edwards?”

“Ed Edwards.”

“Damn. Is your middle name Ed too?”

“Thing is, Mrs. Craig—”

“Nancy.”

“The bill is overdue and we have to either get our money or repossess it. I’m sorry, that’s just how it works. You buy something, you have to pay for it.”

“Let me put it like this. What I said before about money, not having any, nothing has changed since I mentioned that unless a rich uncle died somewhere and left me something. Maybe later I’ll get a telegram. As for the car, you can take it for all I care, but the thing is I don’t have it. You find my husband, Frank, you take it from him. Which, by the way, might require some strenuous effort. He’s what you might call rambunctious.”

“All right, then,” I said. “I guess I’ll go.”

“Drink your drink.”

I took another sip of it, felt my liver try to hide behind a lung, and put the glass down. “That’ll do me,” I said.

I got up and made a production of pushing my chair under the table and picking up the contract. I shook it a little. “You signed a contract.”

“Nope. Frank did.”

“I’ll be back.”

“Lose the sports coat. Dress up next time. Maybe we’ll go dancing. Frank’s home, we can drive somewhere in the Cadillac. But I get the feeling you’re more of a Dairy Queen guy and you like to drink at home with a TV dinner.”

“Sometimes I have my beer and TV dinner with someone,” I said.

“So you have a dog?”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Craig. Until next time, when I take the car.”

“Frank’s home, you might want to bring a tire iron.”

I thought about the blackjack in my coat pocket. I figured that would be enough.

(3)

I had Melinda slide over and I slipped in behind the wheel. It had grown solid dark by that time.

“Well?” Melinda said.

“She says she doesn’t know where the car is. That her husband has it, and he hasn’t been around in a couple months, sells encyclopedias on the road.”. . .