Free Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale

she's gonna come back and burn up with them."
    "I been trying to tell this clown that for years," Leonard said.  "I know a goddamn succubus when I see one."
    "What about you, Paco?" I asked.  "What's your story? You just dedicated to their cause, or what?"
    "Me, I'm not dedicated at all.  Except to myself.  I'm just looking to score as big as I can."
    "I hear that," Leonard said.  "But what are you doing with these bozos?"
    "I'm a bozo too.  Or have been.  I'm just not dedicated anymore.  I'm like a big truck with momentum and no brakes, the gearshift knob off in my hand, going downhill on a narrow grade.  I want to stop but can't.  I got to ride things out.  Either go over the side or make it to the bottom of the grade and coast out smooth and easy, hope I don't wreck."
    "Chub?" I asked.
    "He was born with money.  He hung around with ill-contents.  It gave him a club.  He's still eighteen or twenty in his head.  Never really gets up against the hub, just likes to think he does.  Always been a weekend rebel, but he's gone and got married to getting this money.  He wants to use it to fight some injustice.  Anyway, folks back home in Houston disowned him, but not before they gave him a bundle they thought he'd use on becoming a doctor.  Over the years, he's spent most of it on good causes, got some in the bank here to live on.  He's got degrees aplenty.  Knows medicine, even though he never became a doctor.  Wouldn't go the final business because he thought that was becoming part of the establishment.  He's got idealism like nerds got religion or Star Trek."
    "I still don't have you figured in all this," I said.
    "Maybe when I see that money I won't do what they think.  But I don't see any cause to rock the boat until we got the boat.  We work together, we might can bring that money up.  They think I got other plans, they might fade on me.  It's not like I can go to the police and complain I been welched on.  Besides, if I could, I wouldn't.  I got some problems there already."
    "Suppose you're going to tell us about it?" Leonard said.
    "We're gonna break the law together, so why not?" Paco got out a cigarette and lighter and lit up.  He looked around.  The fat blond waitress was gone from the counter—somewhere in the back, most likely.  The fella behind the cash register was leaning on it, looking out that grimy glass.  We were the only customers left in the place.
    Paco said, "I got a record.  It's the sixties' fault.  Well, my fault and the sixties with it, but it's no fun blaming yourself even if you think you're guilty.  So I'm gonna say it's the sixties' fault and you can know better if you want.
    "But when it was '68 I graduated and went off to the University of Texas, and things were heated up good, what with the war and all.  Back then I had a face.  I wasn't a Greek god or nothing, but I wasn't so bad.  Now I scare crows at a hundred yards.  But the face was all right, and I guess I was all right too.  Full of lies about life and all, like we all were then.  But I started figuring out some things.  Came to the conclusion what we been told about things, about life, is just talk.  You act a certain way to gain a certain thing, and that's all there is to it.  I know that now, but then, I was full of love and peace and end the war, civil rights and women's rights.  Thought I could make everyone look at these things and see that's the way it ought to be, that it would hit them like a thunderbolt from Zeus.
    "I got a feeling you know what I'm saying, Hap.  I know a disfranchised sixties guy when I see one."
    "You pegged him right," Leonard said.
    "Silence in the gallery," I said.
    "So, anyway, I'm off to college, and I'm Mr.  Big Shot.  I'm gonna do some things.  I know how the world works and I'm gonna rip off the lid and let everyone look inside and see the gears, and once they do, it's all gonna go smooth.  We'll put a little oil in there, but once the machinery of a