Petrified Dreams

Book 15: Hap and Leonard

by Joe R. Lansdale

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

With women going missing across the Deep South, the detective duo of Hap and Leonard zero in on a horrific, chimerical villain protected and abetted by Texas’ most powerful.

The sun never sets on justice, but it may finally be setting on the beloved crime fighting duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The two opposites—brothers from another mother—have called the detecting business quits, but when a prop plane holding the bodies of several kidnapped women crashes into their favorite watering hole, the boys know they’re in for one last effort. With the help of a victim’s sister, they learn that a network of men has stolen vulnerable young women on behalf of a horrifying, charismatic villain known as The Artist, a sculptor of living things, including his own body, and protected by the elite of the South. But the Artist refuses to be found, and every lead brings Hap and Leonard into the crosshairs of something even more dangerous. Finding The Artist is a long shot, and getting out alive is even less likely.
 
Perhaps the darkest, funniest, and most intense of the Hap & Leonard mysteries, Petrified Dreams concludes the revered series as audaciously as one would expect from the mojo master of Southern crime and wit.

Release date: October 6, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 288

Sample

I don’t believe in good or bad luck. I don’t believe that some people are destined for bad things to happen to them, but I admit, sometimes I have to question myself.

I do know this: When me and Leonard have bad luck, it isn’t just a flat tire. No, our luck can turn so bad, a flat tire seems like good luck.

This day was one of those days when bad luck found us.

Me and Leonard hadn’t retired, but we had given up our regular jobs at Brett’s investigation agency and had gone to work at a health club Leonard owned. We trained people who were interested in boxing and martial arts, but that was a small group. Most folks didn’t like the discipline. They just wanted a gun.

There were weights and hanging bags and a steam room, the usual gym stuff, and I found it was a comfortable existence. I was leaning away from anything to do with danger and bullets, sharp blades and harsh language, and, most important, injuries that required hospitalization.

But on a Sunday, the only day Leonard closed his gym, and not for religious purposes, we thought it might be nice to do what we liked to do, which today was go fishing.

We had an aluminum boat and motor that Leonard had bought, a borrowed boat trailer fastened to his pickup truck, and, with our fishing gear, a cooler with sandwiches, two canteens of water, jugs of ice tea—unsweet in my case—and a couple of thermoses of coffee. We drove out to a small, private lake a friend of Leonard’s owned. There was a gate you had to go through, and Leonard had the key.

You drove through that gate, then you were right at the boat ramp. The lake was really more of an enormous pond, but it was well stocked with fish. It was also a haven for alligators and snakes, so you had to be on your toes while launching the boat into the water.

When we got the boat in the lake, our fishing gear all set up, and the .410 snake gun laid in the bottom of the boat, we leaned back in the chairs and settled in for a long day of fishing and talking.

The alligators were in view on the shoreline farther down from the ramp. The sky was blue and the trees that grew on either side of the lake threw shadows on the water. We found a place near a fallen tree and thought we might catch something there. An alligator, a lean eight-footer, watched us from the high grass on the shore, possibly planning his menu for later.

We had our lines in the water and hadn’t really been talking much, just enjoying the bright sky and the sunlight. It wasn’t a hot day, though. A wind was blowing across the water, ruffling the trees, and where we were we had some comfortable shadows from the trees, and our own personal alligator.

We named him Albert but felt it was all right to call him Al.

We sat awhile, still not talking. We hadn’t caught any fish yet, but that was all right. We didn’t really care.

Leonard said, “This is the life, brother.”

As I was about to agree, I heard a buzzing, like someone had stuffed a big bee in my ear. The sound grew louder. I looked toward where the sound was coming from.

The airplane was far enough away, it looked like a toy. It was a small prop plane. It was buzzing, and then it made a stuttering sound, like a man choking on a frankfurter.

It began to rapidly lose altitude.

It was heading right toward us.

It farted loudly and black smoke came out of it. It dipped low quite fast, and I heard Leonard say, “Of course.”

It was now so low it clipped the tops of some trees on the far side of the lake, sending up a confetti of green leaves and pine needles, then it was almost even with the water.

It began skipping over the surface of the lake, shedding parts. The door in its side snapped open.

The plane turned sideways, spun in the water, dipped its nose. When the nose hit the water, it was as if it had struck concrete. The nose popped up, then dropped again, dipping into the lake this time.

A propeller had detached and it came whirling toward us, trimming the top of the lake, throwing up white chops of water.

It was too late to jump. We didn’t have time to do anything to avoid it.

And then the propeller went deeper in the water, and the blades, still whirling, became sluggish as the water slowed them.

The prop twirled away from us, close enough to Leonard’s side of the boat, he could have leaned forward for a haircut.

Now it was going under, lethargically hacking at the water. Then the hacking stopped and it was gone.

I turned to look at the plane. It was afloat but broken in the middle. The knocked-open door was gulping water like a thirsty mouth.

I saw a pale, nude woman, face down, float out the open door and bang up against the side of the dipping plane.

I jumped to the boat’s motor, roared it to life, guided the boat toward the woman.

A couple of alligators, one being our friend Al, the lean eight-footer, were swimming toward her as well.

I bumped the boat up against the sinking plane, leaned over, tried to pull the woman out of the water. She was small, but solidly built, so it was more weight than I expected. Now that I was close, I could see that she wasn’t a woman. She was little more than a teenager, fifteen or sixteen, perhaps.

Leonard grabbed her and helped me pull her into the boat.

I stepped out of the boat and through the open plane doorway. Most of the doorway was under water.

I glanced inside the plane. I could see into the cockpit. A fat pilot was behind the controls, leaning out of his seat. I splashed through the water and reached him. The windscreen had broken inward and hit him full in the face. His mother couldn’t have identified him.

I headed back toward the door, though by this time I was swimming. A big wooden crate floated toward me. Another was floating out the doorway.

I could hear Leonard calling over and over, “Get in the boat, dumbass.”

Metal squealed as the plane came apart.

The lake claimed the plane now. I took a deep breath as water swamped over me and took me down into darkness, washed me out of the doorway. My ears were heavy with the weight of the lake. I hit my head on something. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening for a moment, and then I was.

The crate that had gone down with me was rising from the water. I clambered on top of it as it broke the surface of the pond.

The air was so good, I thought if I lived through this ordeal, I might try and write a poem about it. Something titled “Air Is Certainly Swell When You Can’t Breathe.”

I guess that’s about it for the poem. Shakespeare, look out.

I lay on my stomach, smack-dab on top of the crate, like Ishmael clinging to Queequeg’s coffin. The crate seemed very secure. I could see the other crate bobbing in the water. A few odds and ends that had washed out of the plane, seat cushions and such, were floating nearby.

Alligators were nearby as well. I was on top of the crate, but if one of them had the urge, it could snatch me off it quicker than a hawk could grab a mouse.

And then one of them decided to do just that. It was swimming toward me fast. It was Al. I thought, Well, shit. Lot of ways I thought I might die, but none of them was at the bottom of a lake being chewed on by a gator.

There was a roar. Blood and meat snapped up from the top of Al’s head. He flexed, sending a ripple along his spine, and went beneath the surface. I didn’t think Leonard’s .410 had killed him, but it had certainly given him pause.

Leonard motored over to me, and I practically fell into the boat beside the woman. As our skin touched, I knew she was stone-cold dead.

Although I feared the crates would sink by the time I got to town, there seemed no other alternative. Leonard stayed with the body, us having pulled the boat onshore and hooked it up to the trailer. The air had turned warmer, and I thought about that poor girl eventually heating up, bloating, decaying.

I had no idea how long she had been dead or how she had died, but it wasn’t from drowning. From the plane crash, perhaps, but she didn’t have any noticeable wounds on her body.

It would have been easier to call the law, but Leonard and I were on a program to carry our phones with us less so as not to be constantly distracted like teenagers by beeps and lights.

I decided then and there to shed that idea. I would carry my phone with me henceforth but cut it off or put it on silent or whatever the best feature was not to hear it ring or beep or toot. But I would keep it closer. Modern technology has its benefits.

I led a train of police cars, one containing David Justin, the relatively new chief of police in LaBorde, back to the pond. The ME came. The sheriff’s department came out too. They had a new sheriff, Robo Ross. Interesting name. He had a whole new team of deputies. There had been corruption, and now they had retooled the place.

Robo was a razor-edge-lean black man with a tall white hat, a slight limp, and boots that looked as if they might have been made from human skin, but were certainly not.

I hoped.

When we got to the pond, I unlocked the gate, the cars stopped in a trail behind me, and everyone got out. I walked them in. Leonard was sitting under a tree and he had drawn a tarp over the boat. He came over to meet us.

At the boat, Leonard nodded at Justin, who had been both a help and a pain in the neck of late. Leonard removed the tarp. Everyone looked at the girl.

She was pretty. Solid as she was, she wasn’t very big. She didn’t seem to be bloating or losing her skin color. A cool wind swept over the pond and ruffled her hair.

The sheriff came over, stood by me. He studied the girl in the bottom of our boat.

I stared at his boots.

“Some boots,” I said. “What are they made out of?”

“Pig pussy,” he said.

“How many pig pussies does it take to make a pair of boots?” I asked.

He gave me a stony look.

Justin came over, said, “Where did the plane go down?”

I pointed. “About center of the lake from here. It dragged across the surface and shed parts.”

“Big plane?”

“Not small, but not a jetliner either. Prop plane.”

“I see the crates,” Justin said.

“That’s observant of you,” Robo said.

“Is Robo for ‘Robot’?” I asked. “Robo Sheriff?”

“Why don’t you go wait in the fucking car,” the sheriff said.

“No,” Justin said. “I want him here. Him and Leonard, major assholes that they are, have some experience and skills, and I might have questions.”

“Have it your way,” Robo said.

“I usually do,” Justin said.

It was easy to see the two of them were going to be fast friends.

“You said there was a pilot in the plane?” the sheriff asked.

“He was at the controls,” I said. “Dead from the crash. His face looked like a watermelon someone had put a foot through.”

“Anything else?”

“It was sinking fast, so I didn’t see much.”

“What about you, cool fellow,” the sheriff said to Leonard.

“I saw less than what he saw. I never got out of the boat. I did shoot an alligator in the head with that four-ten there.” Leonard nodded to the shotgun in the bottom of the boat.

“Know what’s in the crates?” the sheriff asked.

“Same story Hap told,” Leonard said. “We didn’t look. But if you want to find out for yourselves, I suggest you nab the boxes before they take on so much water they sink. And a tip: There are more alligators out there than I have pubic hairs, and I’m a hairy man.”

Sheriff Robo said to Justin, “These assholes always this snippy?”

“Always,” Justin said.

Me and Leonard ended up being banished to the shade under a small tree by the lake, where we watched for alligators. They could be stealthy and were quick. And at this point I’m sure Al had a headache and a grudge.

“I hate to say it,” Leonard said, “but I’m thinking about the food in the boat.”

“If you didn’t bring enough to share with everyone, you shouldn’t eat.”

“Fuck ’em.”

In case you’re wondering: No alligators ate us.

After a time, some folks came out with a big boat on a trailer, and on the deck of the boat was a winch, hook, and chain. Guess they thought to pull the plane up with that, drag it to shore.

Those sillies.

Me and Leonard watched them take the boat out, nab the crates, bring them ashore, and pull them onto a ramp that was fastened to a large truck. From there they ended up in the big bed of the boat that was cranked back onto the trailer.

Two deputies set about opening the crates with a crowbar.

No one invited us, but we went over for a look.

Just as we were staring into the first open crate, we heard a coughing noise. We all turned toward it. The girl in our boat sat up under the tarp. The tarp fell off her and she spat out water, then made a gurgling sound and fell back down.

“Unexpected,” Leonard said.

“Call an ambulance,” the sheriff said.

She had certainly seemed dead to me. Obviously, a career in the medical field was not in my future.

My wife, Brett, and I were in the bedroom, preparing to go to sleep. I was stretched out on the bed, and she was nude, digging in the closet, looking for the pajamas she wanted to wear.

Damn pajamas.

She looked good naked. She always looked good to me, naked or not naked, but I preferred naked. Her long red hair cascaded down her back, and when she bent over to look in Chester Drawers, which we had placed in the closet, I realized I had at least one reason to live.

Unfortunately, she found the pajamas. Bouncing on one foot, she got one leg inside the pants, then she bounced on the other and achieved the same.

“Going commando, I see,” I said.

“Complaints?”

“Not even one,” I said.

She pulled on the top and buttoned it. The pajamas were blue with black and red dogs on them, all manner of dogs. They were cute. She was cute.

Me, not so cute. I just had on a pair of old white underwear and a smile.

“Something happened today I haven’t told you about,” I said. “I been waiting until bedtime.”

“Okay,” she said. She turned off the light by the bed, slipped in under the covers, and nestled in the crook of my arm.

I told her what had happened and that they had opened the two crates. How they decided, wisely, they couldn’t pull the plane up with the winch they had. I hesitated there. I didn’t tell her about the girl being alive in the boat. I didn’t tell her what was in the two crates. I wanted to build suspense. I wanted her to ask.

Brett didn’t take the bait. She waited on me to get to it.

“And inside each crate was a dead, nude, teenage girl. One black and one white. The girl we thought was dead wasn’t. Leonard had a blanket in the truck, and he put it over her and propped her head up on a life preserver. She looked scared at first, but when he smiled at her, she reached up and touched his face, then closed her eyes and let her arm drop. She was still alive when they loaded her into the ambulance.”

“You have certainly had a big day,” Brett said.

“The EMTs looked over the other two, and they were definitely dead. I thought I’d go to the hospital in the morning to try to find out how the living girl is. I don’t have high hopes.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“I’d like that.”

“Leonard will meet us there.”

“Of course he will. He’s like one of your appendages.”

“He would say I was one of his.”

“Either way, you’d both be right.”

“How was your day?”

“After that story, my day is a little too tame to discuss. I did buy a Whataburger for lunch.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well, see, your day was actually pretty big.”

“It was a Whataburger Junior.”

“Still.”

“No fries.”

“Still.”

“I had a chocolate malt with it.”

“You had a big day indeed.”

“I had onions on the burger too.”

“I know,” I said.

We went to see the girl in the hospital the next morning, but they wouldn’t let us into her room. Justin’s orders.

Leonard was there too, as was his husband, Pookie, who was in his detective uniform, which was a two-piece brown suit with a red and blue tie. His shaved head looked shiny as a wet egg under the lights.

We attempted to get him to let us in, but no soap.

“Can’t,” he said.

“I thought you were going to work for Brett,” I said. It was just our group still in the lobby.

“I plan to,” he said, “but I must admit, right now, I’m in Justin’s good graces. He’s letting me do real detective work.”

“I told him if he could do well there, he should stay,” Brett said. “My agency won’t pay him as well or as steady.”

“I could afford a cut in pay,” Pookie said. “I got Leonard and his money from past cases. Right, Leonard?”

“Right, baby, you do,” Leonard said.

“But the respect of being a police detective is a real lure. I might do some detecting with you, Brett, but now that I’m getting some steady detective work, I’m liking it. Queer guy with a badge and a gun—I like that.”

“If you were black, like me, a lesbian, and had some kind of disability, you could cover all the bases,” Leonard said.

“Fuck you,” Pookie said. “And, Brett, I’m sorry I’m waffling.”

“No sweat,” Brett said. “Follow your heart. I’m managing just fine now that these two knuckleheads are on their own.”

We complained to Pookie about not being able to see the girl. After all, we had rescued her. Pookie was unmoved. Finally, minus Pookie, we left and went to a coffee shop. I eyed some nice-looking pastries under glass but didn’t succumb.

Leonard had a vanilla scone.

Brett had hot chocolate.

I had a small black coffee and a feel. . .