The Wyoming sun was already high in the sky when I stepped through the double doors and into the perpetual twilight of Goliath’s lair. At first, all I could make out were some stage lights that hadn’t been turned off. Or had been turned on early. I stepped deeper into the surrounding gloom and stared hard at the darkest corner I could find. My eyes adjusted and I searched the room for the sneaky small man or Morrison.
No one was home.
I bent at the waist to check under the tables, just to make sure. But there was no sign of Goliath.
A bottle of Scotch, a bucket of ice and four glasses were sitting on the bar.
I could give any number of reasons why, but Kresge had definitely driven me to drink. I decided the least Goliath owed me was a few fingers of comfort. Besides, he was probably off with Dorothy and some flying monkeys somewhere, too busy to catch me helping myself to his stock.
“Goliath!” I called out. “Anyone here?”
The only answer was a clink from the ice as it settled in the bucket.
“Goliath! If you’re here, I’m pouring myself a drink!”
On the off chance he was hiding behind the bar towel or in the peanut bowl, lying in wait for a reason to kick my ass, shouting out my intentions seemed like a clever way to disarm the trap.
Still nothing.
I reached for the bottle and inspected it. A Talisker 25-year single-malt. I plucked a handful of cubes out of the bucket and dropped them into one of the lowballs. Then I poured the Talisker over the ice and watched as the dense liquid mingled with the water from the melting cubes. Serious Scotch drinkers would have me hoisted by the same body parts that Goliath had picked on this morning for contaminating the drink like this, but screw them. I swirled the glass around in a lazy circle before taking a sip.
I immediately felt the warm tingle of the alcohol as it spread down from my chest and belly. I breathed in deeply and let out a loud sigh.
“Don’t let Goliath catch you drinking the good stuff. He’ll mop the floor with you, man.”
This time it was Morrison who had snuck up on me. Maybe I should have taken Jun Fan’s class after all.
“Should I pour you one?” I asked.
“Goliath hasn’t started barking yet, so yeah, make it a tall one,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you, man. Where were you?”
“Had stuff to do this morning.”
“You and the bearded lady have breakfast in bed? She furry like that all over? I knew some European girls back in the day. Lots of hair,” he said with a wink.
“Elvis wouldn’t kiss and tell, so neither will I.”
Morrison put his glass down, disappointed.
“What’d you do, spend the whole night snuggling?” he asked.
“Actually no, nothing like that. I just fell asleep.”
I tried to be nonchalant about it. But Morrison let out a deep rumbling laugh.
“Yeah, well, Elvis wouldn’t leave a needy woman unsatisfied either,” he said, shaking his head and gulping down some more of his drink. He reached for the bottle.
“Happiness is a hard master,” he said. “But you’ll have plenty of time to get friendly with your bearded lady later.”
Morrison turned to me and raised his topped off glass in a toast.
“While you were, sleeping, I was looking for clues,” he said with a heavy dose of self-satisfaction. “And I found us a lead, partner!”
“That’s great, Morrison. But I came in here to tell you I’m off the case. Leaving town. I just need to pack my bags and pick up some provisions, then I’m hitting the road.”
I reached for my own drink and took a sip that was a bit too large.
“You’re kidding me,” he said. I could hear anger bubbling in his voice.
“No,” I managed to choke out, eyes watering.
“Why?”
Questions don’t come any simpler, but the answer to why is never a simple one.
“I came here looking for Jon Burrows and I found him. Case closed.”
“And you’re going to give up on finding Roman?”
I heard scraping sounds behind the bar. Goliath sliding over a step stool. He climbed up carrying a seltzer bottle. “You better not be drinking my Scotch!”
Goliath looked at our glasses, his goateed face contorted into a big O of horror.
“The ice was for the seltzer!” he yelled, slamming the bottle on the counter. “You drink Scotch neat!”
He seemed more upset about how we’d poured the drinks than the fact we’d poured them at all.
“Shut it, Goliath!” Morrison nearly shouted. “You owe me an explanation, Floyd! I put myself out there for you, man. I deserve more than ‘case closed.’”
“Look, I didn’t just give up,” I said angrily. “You were along for the ride, that’s it. But you know what, that doesn’t really matter, because Wanda took me off the case. She told me to go.”
Morrison was right. I was giving up, walking away from an unsolved case. I never do that. There had been times when I’d even finished the job for free after the client ran out of money. Elvis was a lot of things. A black belt. An actor. A soldier. A guitar player. But most importantly, and he said this himself, he was a singer. That defined him. And being a detective defined me.
“Liberace got dumped by a bearded lady circus freak!” Goliath said with delight.
I shouldn’t have hit the midget.
But I did.
I don’t know if it was because he was just so amused by himself, or if he just had such low expectations about my ability to throw a punch, but even as my knuckles were connecting with his chin, Goliath was still grinning.
Goliath may have big hands, big feet, and a hell of a kick, but he’s still a midget. And he’s light. My shot caught him just to one side of the jaw. The force of it carried him up and off the stool and sent him flying back into the well.
I didn’t see him crash into the bottom shelf of vodka, gin and rum, but I heard it. After the last bottle stopped its clattering, Goliath let out a little groan and went quiet.
My Scotch with ice was still on the bar. I picked it up and took a contented sip. Morrison leaned over to check on the belligerent pygmy.
“He still alive?”
“Yeah,” Morrison replied. “Stunned, I think, but alive.”
Morrison looked at me sideways and scrunched his eyebrows together. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Sucker punch!” Goliath croaked out from the floor.
“He might be right,” I said. “But now he’ll think twice about kicking me in the nuts.”
Morrison settled back onto his bar stool.
“So you evened the score, then. I suppose it’s time for you to go.”
I felt like an ass. Morrison had been a friend to me since the moment I set foot in Kresge, and I don’t have a lot of friends.
“Sorry, Morrison. You said you have a lead?”
“So? What? We partners again?”
“I think you’re probably more of a sidekick, but yeah.”
“What about being ordered out of town?”
“Just tell me what you found.”
“After Las Puertas finished up last night, me and a few other patrons who weren’t quite ready to dry out headed over to Whispers. I showed Midge that picture of the Colonel’s Mamma.”
“Roman and Mamma Colonel are an item, aren’t they?” I asked.
Morrison looked disappointed.
“You already knew?”
“No, I just figured it out when you told me you showed Midge the picture.”
That seemed to reassure him. Morrison looked happy again.
“I suppose that would explain this lump in my pocket.” I pulled out the wad of twenty-doll
ar bills that the Colonel had pressed on me. “On my way out the door this morning, the Colonel practically begged me to stop looking for his Mamma. He gave me this roll of cash for my time.”
Morrison looked at the wad of bills.
“How much is that?” he asked.
“A few hundred.”
“You’re buying that bottle of Talisker!” yelled Goliath from the martini puddle he was soaking in.
“So when the Colonel hired us to find his mom, he didn’t know she was bagging Roman,” Morrison said.
“Keep going,” I told him.
I could see the pieces coming together behind Morrison’s eyes and wondered if that was how I looked when I figured things out.
“Mamma and Roman are shacked up somewhere and she’s keeping him away from the vote. Colonel figures it out, knows you’re looking for Roman, and now he wants to make sure your search for Mamma doesn’t lead you to him!”
“Probably. Only hitch is that the council delayed the vote. Viking Mamma can’t keep Roman squirreled away in a love shack somewhere forever.”
“What are you talking about?” Morrison asked.
“That’s why Wanda pulled me off the Roman thing.”
“Vote’s still on track, Floyd,” he said. “The council meeting is scheduled for right after the reenactment.”
“Why would Wanda lie to me?” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“You shall know the truth and it will make you mad. She’s a woman, who knows why women do anything?” Morrison said as he picked up his glass.
I splashed another finger of the Talisker into my lowball and took a sip.
“I hate being lied to,” I said.
Morrison smacked his lips. “The Colonel and the sheriff are both going to be at the reenactment,” he said. “We could go down there, confront them both.”
“Let’s go. You want to come, dwarf?” I said, raising my voice to be sure he heard.
“Wouldn’t miss it!” he said. “Can one of you come back here and help me up?”
* * *
I went to the Butterworth lobby and picked up some Kresge tourism pamphlets while Morrison got the car seat and put the baby in the back.
According to the Historical Society brochure, the Danes who’d settled Old Oksvang were descended from celebrated raiders and pirates. The most famous of their forbearers was Gorf Kamstrad, who’d led the sacking of Dorestad, a trading center on the coast of the Netherlands, not once, not twice, but five times. The only reason Gorf stopped sacking Dorestad was because after the final raid in 863, the locals got tired of putting the place back together. It wasn’t rebuilt.
Three times a year, the Historical Society celebrates some of Gorf’s major pillagings and reenacts the battles of Dorestad, Het Bildt, and Oostende. The battles are funded by Kresge’s Danish Preservation Committee, headed by none other than the Colonel. The stated goal of the reenactments is, and I quote, to “maintain the rich and vibrant cultural contributions of Oksvang’s Danish founders in the face of an increasingly modernized society that no longer values Viking traditions.”
“That’s crap, man,” Morrison said as he scanned through the pamphlet. “I’ll tell you why they put up on these reenactments—payback. It’s an excuse for all the local Danes to get made up in their armor and maces and spears and pretend that Kresge didn’t swallow them whole. The regular people, and a lot of the circus folk, put on the other side’s armor. Then they smack each other around all day. Seems to help everybody get along.”
Today’s battle was an homage to the raid on Oostende, Belgium in 856. Gorf had received information that a monastery there was fat with riches and virtually undefended. When Gorf and his Vikings arrived, they discovered it was actually a medium-sized fortification that had been built with the express purpose of repelling Viking raids. The story goes that Gorf was faced with two choices. Abandon the raid and return home empty-handed, or attack the fort and return home none the richer, but with a much bigger reputation. Or at least die gloriously in the attempt.
On this point I suspect a bit of historical revisionism. Why didn’t Gorf just attack some other, less well-defended coastal town? My guess is he never realized Oostende wasn’t a monastery until too late. But that would make for a less interesting tale.
So Gorf and his men attacked the fort at dawn. According to legend, the battle lasted the full day, and as the sun set, Gorf’s Vikings had sacked the fort, killed or run off all the defenders, and captured several large chests of sceattas coins. A win all around for Gorf and the boys, you might say. He returned home to Denmark a made man.
* * *
Kresge Field, where the Historical Society stages the mock battles, is also the county fairgrounds and, ironically, the location of the Kresge Circus’ final performance. Nothing like a little symbolism.
On the way over, I brought Morrison and Goliath up to speed on my conversation with Wanda, omitting the part about her working with the F.B.R.M.
I pulled up next to the sheriff’s cruiser and killed the engine.
“Why is she here?” I asked.
“To keep the peace,” Goliath said. “The assholes on the field would brain each other if someone with a gun wasn’t stopping them. Some Danish jerkbag raps a Magnanini’s knuckles a little too hard, the boo-hooing starts up and then it’s a real fight. The sheriff stops ’em after they get a few blows in. Fun to watch while it lasts though. Now get me out!”
Morrison moved the passenger seat forward, crawled in back, and helped Goliath out of the toddler car seat.
“Laugh and I’ll bust your nuts again, Liberace!” he spat at me as he slid down.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said.
We walked toward the field of combat and I saw that battle hadn’t yet begun. There were about two-dozen Vikings on their side of the line. The entire group was gathered around a small blue Ford pickup with a keg in the back. A Viking kegmaster was pouring drinks into plastic horns.
The Colonel stood head and shoulders higher than most of his Nordic companions and was busy smiling, clapping his marauders on the back and pumping his fist. His helmet and shield looked like they had seen their share of real battles. Nearly all the men wore conical metal helms with brightly painted sides and carried wood and iron shields. A few were wearing hockey gloves. So much for an “authentic” recreation.
The Oostende side seemed less relaxed than their Viking opponents. The defenders were still assembling scaffolding, the kind you see at construction sites, and attaching paper-mache stone slabs to the rails. The door for the fort’s arched entry way was lying in the grass a few feet away, still wet with paint. One defender who was a bit on the smallish side looked like he had football pads under his mail. Clubs, maces and dull-edged swords were all piled up in a heap not far from the fort.
A short, dark-skinned man with a long, wiry gray beard and a red beret was standing about six feet in front of the fort, fists on his hips, legs spread wide, chomping on an unlit cigar. He was shouting commands in Spanglish at four Oostenders I recognized as the Magnanini brothers.
“The door! Donde es? Idiotas, no se puede hacer nada! Give me the wire!” he yelled, raising a fist into the air and shaking it for punctuation.
“Who’s the little guy?” I asked Morrison.
“Hey!” objected Goliath. “He ain’t so short and he could probably kick your ass, too!”
“Okay, who’s the militant guy?”
Goliath put his middle finger in his mouth, wet it, and gave me the bird. Then he did his little dwarf run over toward the defenders’ beer coolers.
“That’s the Guatemalan,” said Morrison. “Ernesto. I don’t know him well. He’s always ranting about Western imperialism, the ‘revolucion!’ and ‘the people.’ I read one of his poems once though, damn good.”
�
�Is he one of the F.B.R.M.’s alien abductees?”
“Hell if I know, man. Who can keep track of all of them?”
We were about to walk over to the Oostende side of the field when I was suddenly, and sharply, poked in the kidney from behind.
When I spun around, I was standing face to face with Wanda.
She had her nightstick in her right hand and was tapping it into the palm of her left. It was a tough-cop cliche, but Wanda sold it.
“I told you to leave!” she said.
“You lied to me!”
“I’m going to go get a beer,” Morrison said, then followed after Goliath.
Wanda and I stared at each other. She kept tapping her nightstick. I crossed my arms in implacable peaceful resistance.
“What are you doing here, Floyd?”
“The city council meeting hasn’t been moved. It’s still this afternoon. Did you find Roman?”
Wanda said nothing for a moment, then reluctantly let out a “No.”
“Was it the teasing at the diner? Too much for the sheriff to take?”
“No.”
“The Colonel paid you off?”
“No! Nothing like that!”
“I’m a good detective Wanda, but I’m not a mind reader. I suppose I could have gone and asked Madame Zora, but I’d rather hear from you why you tried to run me off.”
“I can’t talk about it. Just go, okay?”
The phrase “I can’t talk about it” always seems to go hand in hand with the boys in black in Kresge. I stood my ground.
“The F.B.R.M. told you if I didn’t leave town they’d do something terrible to me. Make me disappear? Something like that?” I asked.
“I told you, I can’t talk about it.”
“But you’re not denying it either,” I said. “And I don’t want to go. I like you. I like this town. I even like the dwarf, when he’s not assaulting me. I want to help you, Wanda.”
“Floyd, you don’t understand. When someone crosses the F.B.R.M., they do just disappear. Every person in the alien abduction relocation program is told at the very beginning, obey the rules, or, poof!” She snapped her fingers. “You disappear again, this time for good.”
Elvis Sightings (An Elvis Sightings Mystery) Page 21
