Praise for Joe R. Lansdale
“Hilarious.… Lansdale is a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country boy wit.”
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“Lansdale’s prose, both laconic and sarcastic, is so thick with slang and regional accent that it’s as tasty as a well-cured piece of beef jerky. Readers will want to savor each bite.”
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“Lansdale has an unsettling sensibility. Be thankful he crafts such wild tall tales.”
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“A storyteller in the great American tradition of Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain.”
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“Funny, compulsive … enjoyably raffish.”
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Books by Joe R. Lansdale
In the Hap and Leonard Series
JOE R. LANSDALE
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels, including
www.joerlansdale.com
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, NOVEMBER 2009
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by the Mysterious Press, a division of Warner Books, Inc., New York, in 1998.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lansdale, Joe R., 1951–
Rumble tumble / by Joe R. Lansdale.
—1st Vintage Crime/Black Lizard ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-77268-8
1. Collins, Hap (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Pine, Leonard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Southwestern states—Fiction. 5. Automobile travel—Fiction. 6. Middle-aged men—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3562.A557R8 2009
813′.54—dc22
2009027229
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
For Jimmy Vines, with mucho respect.
Many of the towns and cities mentioned are real, but Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma, though inspired by a number of oddly named Texas and Oklahoma towns, does not exist. At least I don’t think it exists. If it does, my apologies. The same goes for Echo, Texas. I’ve also made some minor changes in Texas and Mexican geography to suit my storytelling purposes.
J.R.L.
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.
Shakespeare,
“Remember what Nietzsche said—‘Live dangerously.’ ”
“You know what happened to Nietzsche.”
“What?”
“He’s dead.”
—Joan Crawford responds
to Jack Palance in
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
1
An easy and convincing case could be made that my life has been short on successes, both financial and romantic, but no one could say with any conviction it has been uneventful.
In fact, of late, it had been so full of events, I concluded I had outlived my allotment of outlandish moments, and now the law of averages was on my side for pursuing a relatively tame existence. At least until old age set in and I took up residence in a cardboard box beneath the overpass on Highway 59, taking a dump behind a bush and licking secret sauce off old Big Mac wrappers for sustenance.
