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

killed the prisoner?"
    "'Course I ain't. But I'm tellin' you this. The Knights take note of meddlers, and they don't worry much about a dead nigger, but they worry about the ones worry about a dead nigger. Understand me?"
    "I believe I do. Your hand on that gun, is that some kind of threat?"
    "Yeah," he said, taking the gun out of its holster and laying it on his knee. "It could be. And you see, sometimes, you wave one around like this ..." He waved the revolver in my direction and placed it back on his knee, "and you got your mind on something else, a gun can go off, even if you was just showin' it to a fella wanted to see it."
    "That would be murder, Chief. My friend in the car wouldn't like that."
    "And I wouldn't care. He might have an accident too. You and him both might end up in the ashes of that fire there, and them firemen might be settin' you on fire instead of puttin' you out. I'm not saying they would, but it could happen. I mean, shit, boy, you two look to me to be the type would like them plastic dicks and stuff. You might even have been with the white trash lives here, and say the white trash went out for some beer and left you two in the house, and you were fucking around with some kind of electric dick or something. Started a fire. I even like the idea of us finding them rubber dicks up your butts, you know, just for looks . . . But however it's played, we come up with a cooked nigger in a house where white trash lives, we could pin damn near anything on the trash lives there.
    "As it is, they're gonna be leaving town, just because I'm fed up with them. They don't know it yet, but when I find them, they're gonna be leaving. And right away. It ain't like they're gonna need to pack. And if they don't want to leave, I'm gonna persuade them. I'm hoping I won't have to persuade you and maybe take them down with you to make things look nice and pretty."
    "Me either," I said, and looked carefully at the gun on his knee. His fingers flexed against it, making me as nervous as a goat at a barbecue.
    "Listen here, Swiftie. There's been folks worried about dead niggers before, and some of them ain't so worried now. About nothing. Get me?"
    "You're coming across."
    "Let me add something to that. Ain't a Klan member in this town or around it ever been convicted of shit. That sort of line your ducks up, Swiftie?"
    "I believe it does."
    It had started to rain again. The water ran in such thick rivulets on the windshield I couldn't see out. The car heater was too warm.
    "One last thing," Cantuck said. "For the record. That gal. I didn't do a thing to her and have no reason to suspicion anyone I know did. Clear? But I wouldn't put anything past the Knights, and contrary to what you probably think, I found out they did something to someone didn't need it done, I'd come down on them."
    "Sure."
    "Now, you get in the car with your pet nigger, and you two go back to wherever you come from, where you and him can eat and sleep together, or whatever it is you want to do with niggers. But, fella, don't get in my way again, and don't ever let me hear you mention my balls again. It ain't polite. And lastly, I ain't never fucked a chicken in my life, but I thought it was the sort of thing you'd expect. You fuck with me, Swiftie, you better be thinking two and three moves ahead."
    "What about the pigs? Did you fuck them?"
    "Get out of the car, Swiftie."
    When I closed Leonard's car door, Leonard said, "Learn anything?"
    "Yeah, you wouldn't believe the stuff the Chief knows about the political situation in Albania."
    "Yeah, but I bet that fucker don't know their major imports and exports."
    "That cracker isn't as stupid as we thought, Leonard. Mean. Dangerous. Ignorant. But stupid he isn't. And subtle he isn't. In fact, his very non-subtle statements about our temporary position in his community were so clearly stated, I'd like you to crank the car right now, and leave."
    Leonard looked where I was looking. The firefighters were no longer