Blockbuster

by Richard H. Smith

  He still kept silent.

  “Does Milton have any rashes?” I asked, risking that he might bristle at this kind of question.

  Riggs eyed me in that no-nonsense way I was now used to.

  “No, I will tell you he does not.” He was about to say more but paused again.

  “Ah, do you have any rashes?” I asked, hoping this wouldn’t irritate him.

  “No—but I had the gloves—and my jacket protected me.” He seemed to be okay with the question.

  “How about Detective Dupree?”

  He didn’t answer, pretending that he didn’t know, it seemed. I didn’t push it.

  “But guess who does?” I said.

  “Hicks, Samantha Hicks, right?” Riggs said, as if he had good reason to suppose it.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  Again, he ignored my question and said, “When did you notice it?”

  I said, “Last night, while she was working. It sent chills through me.”

  “Chills?”

  I told Riggs what had happened, and when I’d finished, he said, “Interesting. All very interesting.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I didn’t want to keep asking Riggs questions I had no business asking. He seemed to be deciding what more he could disclose. After pulling on his chin for a moment, he said,

  “I can tell you we’ve been giving Samantha Hicks a closer look. Don’t know what we can do with this poison ivy detail. Let’s just say it fits. She’s the main reason I contacted you.”

  The door opened at the bottom of the stairs, and we heard,

  “Nate. You up there?” It was Spence.

  “Come on up,” I said so Spence could hear.

  I turned to Riggs. “I’m assuming you’ll tell Spence about Milton?”

  “I suspect he already knows. And I want to ask him the same questions I have for you.”

  Spence’s tall frame filled the office doorway. He had on his Stetson, but when he saw Riggs, he removed it and gave a small bow of his head.

  “Detective Riggs.”

  “Mr. Reeves.”

  Riggs stood up and offered Spence his chair. Spence settled into it, while I moved around to my desk chair, Riggs taking the seat I’d been sitting in.

  “Mr. Reeves, I want to mention a few confidential facts about this case that I’ve discussed with Mr. Burton. And I have questions for you both.”

  “Honored, Detective Riggs.”

  “I told Detective Riggs about what happened last night with Samantha. And about the poison ivy idea.”

  Spence’s eyes appeared to sparkle.

  “You chewed that stuff?” Riggs said, narrowing his eyes.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re a brave man.”

  “Naw.”

  “It’s got me thinking,” Riggs said. “I’ll grant you that. I suppose you know about Milton Spicer’s release?”

  Spence paused for a moment, a sly smile announcing that yes indeed this was something he knew. “Know Hector and Lilly Spicer well. From way back. Hector tells me his son panicked. On account of his pulling the knife on Mr. Bullock. Of course that little blade wouldn’t have made the cut Mr. Bullock died from.”

  “Ah, right,” Riggs said.

  “And he had an alibi, his girlfriend, who he wasn’t supposed to be with.

  “Correct.”

  “He didn’t want her to get in no trouble, so he kept it secret—till he couldn’t keep it secret.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “And Milton’s clean of rashes.”

  “Correct, again, now that you mention it,” Riggs said. He spread his hands outward in defeat.

  Spence continued, “Milton is in hot water with Mr. and Mrs. Spicer, however.”

  “That’s a fact,” Riggs said. Then he shifted directions. “Okay, let me ask. Is there anything about how Mr. Bullock treated Samantha that would have given her reason to do him harm, to kill him?”

  Spence and I exchanged glances. I volunteered first and said, “Well, during that evening Horace was killed, I saw him brush up against her breasts with his arm—when he reached over to check the cash drawer. She could tell he did it on purpose, and she didn’t like it. I could see that.”

  “Naturally,” Riggs said. “But is that all?”

  “Horace probably took liberties with her at other times, like he did with some other female employees. This is what I’ve been hearing from Mindy Hawkins, one of our concession workers.”

  Riggs nodded like this wasn’t new information.

  Spence said, “Don’t know Samantha like Nate here does. But is she what we see? Not in my estimating.”

  Riggs said, “Did she ever tell you why she moved to Durham?”

  “Never asked. Not that she would have told me anything.”

  “How about the guy who gives her rides? Jesse Hooker.”

  I said, “He’s never once come inside. He stands out by his pickup and smokes.”

  “Camels, right?” Riggs said.

  “They Camels,” Spence said. “I’ve picked up a mess of them.”

  I said, “There’s something Carrie Jenkins told me. He’s a drug dealer.”

  Riggs seemed unsurprised by this information too, as if he already knew it, and moved on to another question.

  “How close are Jesse and Samantha? Boyfriend, girlfriend?”

  “No one knows. He’s half her size. He reminds me of those guys at the end of Easy Rider,” I added.

  “Rednecks who killed Wyatt and Billy?” Riggs said.

  “Exactly,” I said. This surprised me. Not only had he seen the movie, but he had also remembered the names of characters played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.

  “Know the type,” Spence said.

  Riggs seemed to relax as if he might consider telling us more of his thinking. I felt almost like this was a meeting of friends. He started a sentence and stopped, as if he needed to remind himself that he had professional obligations. We sat, expectantly. He must have sensed our keen interest in knowing more.

  “I can tell you that most of our leads are turning up dead ends. The situation is not what it might have appeared. That’s all I can say. We’ll keep pulling the threads until we figure it out.”

  He stood up and added, “Gentlemen, thanks for your time.”

  Spence said, “Reminds me of when I went through basic training with the 10th.”

  “Basic training? When was this?” Riggs asked, looking puzzled.

  Spence ignored the question as if he wanted to avoid weakening the memory.

  “Remember that first day, when we were lined up, the sergeant yelled at us real good.”

  For the next eight weeks, I am your mama, I’m your daddy, I’m your uncle, and I’m your aunt. Any questions?

  Spence had changed to a harsh Southern accent, recreating the voice of the sergeant. He glanced at us, shifting out of his state of reverie.

  “Detective Riggs, to answer your question. Nineteen fourteen it was, and, yes, it was basic training for a Buffalo regiment. The tenth, the famous tenth.

  Riggs glanced at me. He seemed to need my corroboration.

  I said. “Just listen.”

  Riggs sat back, still doubtful.

  Spence continued, clearing his throat and retrieving his far-off look,

  “See, we were tough hombres. We wanted to serve, but we weren’t fond of taking no orders. I figure that the sergeant—whose name was Quantrell by the way, a strange name, which is why I remember it—needed to show us who was boss. Well, one of our guys made a snicker. Quantrell heard it, whipped his head toward the fool fellah who snickered and said, Oh, so you think it’s funny, uh? Come here, boy.”

  Spence again seemed real proud of his Southern accent. He examined us like he wanted to see how impressed we were. Our smiles confirmed it.

  “The guy, he was from De-troit, swaggered up right in front of Quantrell, who then hauled off and knocked the guy to the ground with one
surprise haymaker. A bunch of other officers, who had been watching, gathered around this guy and stomped on him. They stomped him and stomped him some more. And then they backed off while the guy just moaned and groaned, curled up in the dirt. All right, get rid of that piece of garbage, Quantrell said.

  “They picked him up, pitched him into the back of a wagon, and carted him away. And Quantrell, he aimed his badass eyes at us, like he was starting afresh, and said, Are there any more snickerers out there? We stood there, straight as posts—and quiet.”

  Spence paused, and Riggs thought he was finished because he said, “That’s some story, Mr. Reeves. But—”

  But Spence just started talking again, but losing his far-off look, “This is what I mean. I found out a long time later—because we never again saw the guy they beat up—when I was helping with training myself, that this guy, well, had been in cahoots with Quantrell. He wasn’t being stomped on. They just made it look like it. They was just blowing smoke, wanting us new guys to know they wouldn’t take no mess.”

  “Ahh, of course,” Riggs and I both said, shaking our heads as we digested the end of the story.

  Riggs continued, “That’s an amazing bit of personal history, Mr. Reeves. Truly. Another time I’d like to hear more.” He checked his watch. “Right now, I need to get going.”

  Someone opened the stairway door, and we heard, “Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.”

  It was Hogan imitating the theme of one of the recent commercials for Jaws as he came up the stairs.

  Hogan shouted, “Showtime.”

  “Kenny’s not here yet,” I called out.

  “Screw Kenny’s lazy ass,” Hogan said, as he stuck his head past the office doorway. “Oh, shoot, Detective Riggs. Didn’t realize you were here.”

  “Mr. Hogan,” Riggs said.

  After a moment of embarrassed silence, Hogan said, “Anyway, it’s ready to roll, and I’m not waiting for Kenny.”

  “Roll over Beethoven,” I said.

  “My hearts beating a rhythm,” Hogan added.

  “My temperature’s rising,” Spence said.

  We looked at Riggs, who said,

  “Tell Tchaikovsky the news.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Kenny’s Fairlane lurched into the parking lot and skidded to a halt in the parking place. Kenny leaped out, slammed the door in the same motion, and hotfooted it to the lobby. He looked like he’d just woken up and thrown on the clothes from the previous day. Perspiration swelled under each arm.

  “Kenny, you look like crap,” Hogan said, holding the door open for him.

  “Up yours, Phil.”

  “Gotta run,” Riggs said, checking his watch again.

  “How about catching the first few minutes?” I said.

  “Thanks, but—”

  “You won’t regret it,” I insisted, scooping ice for a Coke that I knew Kenny would want. Fizz from carbonation showering my hand as I filled a cup with Coke.

  Riggs hesitated.

  “I’ll take that to be a yes? Great,” I said. “You’ll be one of the first to see any part of the movie.”

  “You win,” he said. “But just a few minutes.”

  I called out to Hogan, “Phil, let me pop us some fresh corn. Never watched a movie without popcorn, and I’m not going to start now.” Sometimes, I thought it was all about the popcorn.

  Riggs once again checked his watch.

  “Don’t worry, Detective Riggs. It will take three minutes, tops,” I said. “Gotta have popcorn.”

  I gave Kenny the Coke and raced to the popcorn machine. I turned on the heat and measured out the kernels and seasoning. As it heated, I moved back to the counter.

  “Now let me guess what you all want. Kenny, I know.” I snatched up a box of Goobers and tossed it his way.

  “Peanuts and Coke, like my daddy liked it,” Kenny said, giving the box a rattle.

  “Phil—that’ll be Snickers and Dr Pepper? Am I right?”

  “Always.”

  I sent a Snickers through the air, filled a cup with ice, and topped it with foaming Dr Pepper.

  “Phil, complete the orders while I finish up the popcorn?”

  Hogan came around the counter and said,

  “Spence, you’re older than dirt. You’re next. Snickers and a grape drink?”

  Spence grinned. “Co-rrect.”

  The oil steamed, hissed, and the kernels began popping.

  “Detective Riggs. Easy. Kit Kat, and, let’s see, Sprite,” Hogan said and slapped the counter.

  Riggs had a beaten look. He said, “Give ’em to me.”

  “How about me?” I called out over the now rapid-fire clatter of the corn popping.

  “Junior Mints and a Coke,” Hogan said.

  “Nailed me.”

  “Nate,” said Kenny. “Can you deep-fry that Snickers for Phil?”

  The popped corn overflowed from the kettle onto the warming deck. The familiar, steamy aroma saturated the air. Never got tired of that smell. I could eat popcorn until I almost died from it, until I resembled Templeton, the gluttonous rat in the Disney version of Charlotte’s Web.

  Soon we were heading toward the theater, with drinks, popcorn, and candy at the ready. Hogan rested his popcorn and drink on a lobby bench. He ripped open the wrapper to his Snickers and headed toward the projection booth to start the movie.

  We found seats and got comfortable. Riggs took an aisle seat because he wouldn’t stay long.

  All of us were keyed up. I certainly was. There had been so much buildup for the movie. And so much had happened—Bullock’s murder, the tension over the investigation, Milton’s arrest, Samantha’s behavior. For me, my becoming manager, Mrs. Roe’s passing, the frequent daydreams about Carrie, all mingling together as I anticipated this movie. It seemed like I had been traveling down a wild river on a ramshackle canoe. Having made it through one section of rapids after another, I now found myself in a patch of calm water where I could enjoy the scenery for a while. I was ready for some plain old entertainment, a good harmless scare.

  The Universal Studios logo appeared on the screen as Hogan slipped into a seat, and then it went black as if a lid had closed shut on us. A low, vibrating sound began as bold white letters announced:

  A ZANUCK/BROWN

  Production

  which faded to,

  ROY SCHEIDER ROBERT SHAW

  RICHARD DREYFUSS

  The music increased tempo, became louder, and shifted to the spine-chilling theme we had heard in so many commercials.

  I realized that the calm water was hardly what we were to experience. Instead, I revisited a different feeling when, on the Swamp Fox roller coaster at Myrtle Beach, the cars had swung free at the top of the first rise, now a short second away from free fall.

  Then the title,

  JAWS

  Chapter Forty

  Whatever Riggs’s other plans were, they didn’t happen. He left his seat a few times during the first hour and stood by the exit, but he sat back down each time and stayed to the end. As soon as the final credits began their roll, he turned to me and said,

  “Scared the hell out of me.”

  He bolted out the nearest exit.

  Kenny rose and clapped in a slow, measured way, his hands raised high, staring at the screen as if in homage. Spence also came to his feet, stretched, and gave a nod of approval. Hogan brushed popcorn off his shirt and headed out toward the booth to stop the projector. He said, “A storm’s gonna hit. That fool thing made me spill my Dr Pepper.”

  About a third of the way into the movie, we all had jumped, even Spence. I mean, out of our seats jumped. It happened when the shark expert Hooper was surprised by a severed head. Hooper was in scuba gear, examining a hole in the underside of a sunken boat. He was directing his flashlight at the hole made by the shark. The head rolled into view. I yelled, and everyone else did too. Spence, maybe not.

  I yelled one other time, when we actually saw the shark for the first time, about halfway in
to the movie. This when a group of three men were in a fishing boat hunting the shark. One of the men, Brodie, the police chief of the town that was being terrorized by the shark, was shoveling bloody fish bait over the side. He had his guard down because the hunt had been going for some time without luck. The shark, jaws open, rose out of the ocean, a few feet away from Brodie’s hand—that was when we yelled—and then sunk back out of view. He saw it and jerked backward, stunned. Then he back-stepped his way into the cabin where Quint, the boat captain, was and said, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” What a great line. We had burst out laughing, releasing the tension. Robert Shaw was the actor who played Quint. He was perfect for the role, as was Roy Scheider, who played Brodie.

  Kenny stopped clapping but continued to stare at the screen. Whenever he saw a movie, he studied the credits. I’d got into the habit too, although they had much less meaning for me. Spence left for the lobby.

  The movie wasn’t what I had expected. I figured the scares would be ordinary and predictable. The shark might be fake-looking, because of the photo I’d seen in Time magazine. Well, not like Godzilla or King Kong, but the effects wouldn’t last past the credits. This was different. I guess there were some tricks simply designed to make you jump. But even they were clever—no simple wondering whether something was around a corner. The scares penetrated, sometimes cold and deep, sometimes a whiplash, jolting. More like Psycho. And, as I’d heard early reviewers predict, it changed the way I thought about the ocean.

  The credits ended.

  “Come on, Kenny,” I said. “Let’s talk in the lobby. What did you think?”

  Kenny turned and followed me.

  “I’m in awe, Nate.”

  “It scared me, but it was funny too,” I said.

  “It gripped me by the throat from start to finish,” Kenny said. “Got into my bloodstream. It was—physical.”

  “I’m worried,” I said, Phil’s warning from a moment ago echoing in my head. “We’re not ready for what’s going to happen, Kenny. I mean we’ll run out of ice by five on Saturday.”

  We had a lot of scrambling to do.

  Kenny was focused on the movie. He continued, “I need to see it again. Remember, early on, Brodie is sitting on the beach chair scanning the water, anxious. For everyone else, it’s ordinary life at the beach. Remember, people walking by in both directions, blocking Brodie’s view? Each time, he moves his head to look past them, the only one worried. That makes it more tense, right? And we feel it too.”