Planet Willie Read Online Free Page B

He tells me they’ve got nothing on Fernanda Shore. No arrests, no credit problems, no address, which isn’t a big surprise. I
get the impression from her father that Fernanda’s a rolling stone. Gathers no
moss, a woman like that. In any case, I thank Jimbo and tell him Felicity’s got
a bottle for him. “Any leads on the Willie Lee shooting?” I ask before hanging
up.
    “Like I told
you before, Willie,” he says, “we’re taking that investigation real serious, but
given the victim’s prior history, our list of suspects now has more names on it
than the phonebook.”
    “So does that
list include you?” I ask, but of course he hangs up, so after a leisurely
digestif, I cruise back over to Fabien’s to see Junie for finishing touches.
She and the tailor get me up on this podium like a museum piece and ease me
into seven hundred dollars. The pants come up, tight enough to remind you what
you got down there and brother not a thread more. The jacket slips on. I mean
your arms just click right into place. You are compact and delicious. What a
pleasure. Clothes don’t make the man, but I sure can’t understand people who
buy cheap threads. I mean you spend your whole life in them. Me, I make it a
habit of buying several notches above my station. They last you twice as long,
and more importantly, they keep you optimistic. Makes Junie and the tailor
optimistic too, which is the way you want it to be. He shakes my hand twice,
and Junie even throws in a pair of silk underwear. Wants me to try those on
too, but I tell her I’m more interested in looking at some highly fashionable
shirts, like one of your better pink paisleys. They sell anything like that at
Fabien’s?
    “Maybe in 1980! ”
she cries, charmed by my ignorance and whatnot. “Hell, you’d have to dig around
in Jimbo’s closet for something like that. Paisley’s like some
endangered species.”
    “And how is
Jimbo?” I ask real sweet. She looks down at the wall-to-wall carpet and swats
at my chest like I’ve got a mosquito there.
    “What I want to know,” she says, twisting a finger into my ribs like she’s mashing that
bug real good, “is if you’ve seen Caroline.”
    “Caroline
who?” I say, so she proceeds to tell me about the new and improved Caroline
Susan, who’s apparently using her husband’s money to finance a long abiding
passion for competitive high diving, yet another passion of Caroline’s that’s
news to me. Been training for a year and a half and placed third in the
over-forty division at last July’s Texas Amateur Aquat-athon, second in doubles
with a fella named Rock Lightford, who apparently once placed in the U.S.
nationals and, according to Junie, sticks his landings with perfect verticals. Rumor
has it that Caroline is also getting him horizontal, which is the one piece of
information here that comes as no surprise.
    “She still with
that Susan?” I ask.
    “Oh she wouldn’t leave him for the world,” Junie says real sarcastic, and then
she wants to know whether I want that suit on a hanger. I tell her I’ll just
wear that suit right out of there. Keep the coat hanger, save the trees.
    From there I
head for Houston, which takes me through midnight, and where I find a hotel
room by the airport with all the modern amenities. In the morning I’m up for
the breakfast buffet, feeling more than a little nervous about air travel, so I
take a brief moment to imagine myself dying at the hands of ruthless
highjackers. I’ve been doing this kind of thing ever since I was a kid. I like
to think of it as a little prayer in reverse. If you can imagine the worst, I always
think, then things can only be better.
    I picture it
all in my mind – the ski masks, the screams, the feel of the blade as it moves
through my throat. The more vivid you can make it, the more effective I’ve
found it is. The philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote somewhere that no man
should be called happy until after his death. He was an idiot, of