In this collection of nineteen unforgettable crime tales, Joe R. Lansdale brings his legendary mojo and witty grit to harrowing heists, revenge, homicide, and mayhem. No matter how they begin, things are bound to get ugly—and fast.

“A terrifically gifted storyteller.” -– Washington Post Book Review

“One of the best crime writers in the business.” — Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Revelators

“While Lansdale’s work is as varied as the regions of Texas, there is one common link through it all: his brilliant storytelling.” –- Grimdark Magazine

SIX-FINGER JACK

An Excerpt

by

Joe R. Lansdale

            Jack had six fingers. That’s how Big O, that big, fat, white, straw-hatted son-of-a-bitch, was supposed to know he was dead. Maybe, by some real weird luck a man could kill some other black man with six fingers, cut off his hand and bring it in and claim it belonged to Jack, but not likely. So he put the word out: whoever killed Jack and cut off his paw and brought it back was gonna get one hundred thousand dollars and a lot of goodwill.

I went out there after Jack just like a lot of other fellas, and one woman I knew of, Lean Mama Tootin’, who was known for shotgun shootin’ and ice-pick work. She went out there too.

But the thing I had on them was I was screwing Jack’s old lady. Jack didn’t know it of course. Jack was a bad dude, and it wouldn’t have been smart to let him know my bucket was in his well. Nope. Wouldn’t have been smart for me or for Jack’s old lady. He’d known that before he had to make a run for it, might have been good to not sleep, ’cause he might show up and be most unpleasant. I can be unpleasant too, but I prefer when I’m on the stalk, not when I’m being stalked. It sets the dynamics all different.

You see, I’m a philosophical kind of guy.

Thing was, though, I’d been laying the pipeline to his lady for about six weeks, because Jack had been on the run ever since he’d tried to muscle in on Big O’s whores and take over that business, found out he couldn’t. That wasn’t enough, he took up with Big O’s old lady like it didn’t matter none, but it did. Rumor was, Big O put the old lady under about three feet of concrete out by his lake boat stalls, put her in the hole while she was alive, hands tied behind her back, lookin’ up at that concrete mixer truck dripping out the goo, right on top of her naked self.

Jack hears this little tidbit of information, he quit foolin’ around and made with the jack rabbit, took off lickity-split, so fast he almost left a vapor trail. It’s one thing to fight one man, or two, but to fight a whole organization, not so easy. Especially if that organization belonged to Big O.

Loodie, Jack’s personal woman, was a hot-flash number who liked to have her ashes hauled, and me, I’m a tall, lean fellow with good smile and a willing attitude. Loodie was ready to lose Jack because he had a bad temper and a bit of a smell. He was short on baths and long on cologne. Smell-good juice on top of his stinky smell, she said, made a kind of funk that would make a skunk roll over dead and cause a wild hyena to leave the body where it lay.

She, on the other hand, was like sweet wet sin dipped in coffee and sugar with a dash of cinnamon; God’s own mistress with a surly attitude, which goes to show even God likes a little bit of the devil now and then.

She’d been asked about Jack by them who wanted to know. Bad folks with guns, and a need for dough. But she lied, said she didn’t know where he was. Everyone believed her because she talked so bad about Jack. Said stuff about his habits, about how he beat her, how bad he was in bed, and how he stunk. It was convincin’ stuff to everyone.

But me.

I knew that woman was a liar, because I knew her whole family, and they was the sort like my daddy used to say would rather climb a tree and lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth and be given free flowers. Lies flowed through their veins as surely as blood.

She told me about Jack one night while we were in bed, right after we had toted the water to the mountain. We’re laying there lookin’ at the ceilin’, like there’s gonna be manna from heaven, watchin’ the defective light from the church across the way flash in and out and bounce along the wall, and she says in that burnt toast voice of hers, “You split that money, I’ll tell you where he is?”

“You wanna split it?”

“Naw, I’m thinkin’ maybe you could keep half and I could give the other half to the cat.”

“You don’t got a cat.”

“Well, I got another kind of cat, and that cat is one you like to pet.”

“You’re right there,” I said. “Tellin’ me where he is, that’s okay, but I still got to do the ground work. Hasslin’ with that dude ain’t no easy matter, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. So, me doin’ what I’m gonna have to do, that’s gonna be dangerous as trying to play with a daddy lion’s balls. So, that makes me worth more than half, and you less than half.”

“You’re gonna shoot him when he ain’t lookin’, and you know it.”

“I still got to take the chance.”

She reached over to the nightstand, nabbed up a pack, shook out a cigarette, lit it with a cheap lighter, took a deep drag, coughed out a puff, said, “Split, or nothin’.”

“Hell, honey, you know I’m funnin’,” I said. “I’ll split it right in half with you.”

I was lyin’ through my teeth. She may have figured such, but she figured with me she at least had a possibility, even if it was as thin as the edge of playin’ card.

She said, “He’s done gone deep East Texas. He’s over in Marvel Creek. Drove over there in his big black Cadillac that he had a chop shop turn blue.”

“So he drove over in a blue Caddy, not a black,” I said. “I mean, if it was black, and he had it painted blue, it ain’t black no more. It’s blue.”

“Aren’t you one for the details, and at a time like this,” she said, and used her foot to rub my leg. “But, technically, baby, you are so correct.”