Small Town Trouble

by Jean Erhardt

  Water sounded like a good idea. Bud buzzed his secretary, and she promptly brought in a pitcher of iced water and three glasses. Bud poured drinks all around. The water helped. My brain felt like it might actually come on duty at any time.

  “Well,” Bud said, setting the pitcher back on the tray, “here we are.” Bud Upton, The Great Facilitator.

  Larry White clapped his hands together. “May I begin?”

  “Please do,” Bud said.

  White turned in his chair and locked his smoky-blue eyes on me. They were more smoke than blue. “Ms. Claypoole, I’m the kind of guy who gets right down to the nitty gritty.” His lip curled up into a weird little smile. “I want that WFOG property. Now you tell me what it’ll take to get it.”

  He was the nitty gritty type all right, but I could get nitty gritty, too. I leaned back in my chair. “What’s the attraction, Mr. White? And it is Mr. White, isn’t it?”

  Bud squirmed in his big attorney’s chair.

  It was deadly quiet. The cowboy looked me over good. I felt a cold jolt of fear travel the length of my spine, but I tried not to let it show.

  “That’s correct,” he said. “And, although it’s really none of your business, I’d be happy to tell you my plans for the land if that might help to move things along here.”

  “It might,” I said like a real hard-ass.

  Bud Upton squirmed again. He shot me a warning glance and refilled his water glass.

  “Actually,” Larry White said, “I’m gonna raise buffalo. I’ve looked high and low for the right property, and this is the absolute perfect spot for a buffalo ranch.”

  “A buffalo ranch?” If this guy thought he could buffalo me with that one, he had another thing coming.

  “Buffalo’s good meat. Healthy, too. Demand for it’s gonna go way up.”

  “I had buffalo once,” Bud said. “Tasted pretty good.”

  It was my turn to shoot Bud an ugly glance.

  “It’s a heck of a lot tastier than most of the beef you’ll get these days,” said White, “and that’s a fact.”

  I was willing to bet that he had yet to come up with a certified fact. My hunch was that Larry White was lying about more than his name.

  “I think I’ll stick with beef,” I said.

  White stared at me like I was birdshit on his boot. Purposefully, he licked his lips. “Ms. Claypoole, I anticipated your reluctance. I’m prepared to double my offer.”

  Bud’s head shot up. “A half-million dollars?”

  “That’s right, son and I can write the check here and now.”

  Bud turned to me. He looked like he might explode. “Well, Kim?”

  It could have been the blow to the head I’d suffered. A half-million dollars was certainly nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it was far better than even what the doctor had ordered for Evelyn’s critically ill financial portfolio, but I just couldn’t do it with so much left unclear. It was clear that we were being bought off for some as of yet unknown reason and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how, but I had a sneaking suspicion that Larry White stood to gain something greater. Besides, I still wasn’t willing to totally dismiss the notion that somehow, he might be hooked into the murders.

  “Sorry, no deal.”

  Bud’s mouth dropped open a little. White’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened considerably. I could tell he was having trouble trying to decide whether to play it cool or just pull out his six-gun and shoot me dead.

  Finally he picked up his black Stetson from the chair next to him. He set if firmly on his head, staring me down in the process. “I don’t give up easily, Ms. Claypoole. We will work this out.” He stood up, all six-and–a-half feet of him. “Good day, folks.” He tipped his hat and closed the door behind him.

  “You do realize that you just turned down a half-million dollars?” Bud looked like he’d been hit by bus.

  “Don’t remind me,” I backed out of his office door, attempting to hide my war injury and amscray. “I’ll be in touch.” I left him sitting there with his mouth open.

  “Have a nice day,” I said to his secretary as I hit the front entrance. Before the door closed completely behind me, I heard her gasp, probably at the sight of the back of my bashed-in head. From the lousy way it was beginning to feel, I’ll bet it looked real nasty.

  I fired up the Toyota and hit the road. And all the way back to Tara I kept thinking of the myriad of things that one could do or, more accurately, could’ve done with a half-million dollars. My mother had trusted me to handle things. I’d handled them all right. Now I could add one very large, pissed off cowboy to my current list of enemies and Evelyn was one day closer to debtors’ prison.

  Chapter 35

  “What the hell happened to your head?” Evelyn said. A mother’s radar. She’d caught me trying to sneak in the door past her and Alonzo. They were drinking beers at the kitchen table.

  “It’s nothing, just a little bump.” I knew it was only a matter of time before the Fogerty gossip mill got the word around on the real story. No need for me to hurry things along.

  “Let me see,” my mother said, hopping up from the table and coming at me like Nurse Ratched, ready to make her examination. I flinched.

  “That’s some little bump. You should be more careful.”

  Alonzo came over to view my injury. “Ouch. It’s a wonder you didn’t knock yourself out.”

  “Yeah, a wonder.”

  “Hey,” Alonzo said, “have a beer with us. I’ll tell you about all the fun you missed at King’s Island today.”

  “Think I’ll grab a shower first.”

  “Aren’t you gonna spill the beans about the meeting with Larry White?” Evelyn said.

  “After my shower?”

  “Didn’t go too well, huh?” Evelyn said.

  “I’ll fill you in completely, right after I take a shower.” I was halfway up the stairs. “Promise.”

  “You didn’t sell the station?” Alonzo said, brightening considerably.

  “Hold that thought,” I said and boot-scooted into the bathroom at the top of the stairs.

  The warm water and soap felt like pure hell on my crusty, sore head, but I kept gingerly cleaning the wound, staying at it until I couldn’t stay at it any longer without breaking down and bawling like a baby. Whoever had clonked me had done a pretty good job. Luckily, they hadn’t done a really great job. That is, I was still among the living, at least, so far.

  I toweled off and slipped into some fresh jeans and my last clean shirt. A Hawaiian number with big, swaying fuschia-pink palm trees. Usually the shirt tended to cheer me up. It had its work cut it for this time.

  I took three Advil from the extra-large bottle in Evelyn’s medicine cabinet and eagerly swallowed them. Then I headed downstairs to face my mother and Alonzo.

  Evelyn had a Band-Aid waiting for me. It was a patch about the size of piece of toast. It was decorated with Sesame Street characters.

  “Turn around,” she said, and, with little fuss, she slapped it into place. “There.”

  Gee, I felt better.

  “It’s happy hour,” Alonzo said, handing me a beer.

  We all sat down at the table and passed around a bag of potato chips to go with the beer. Alcohol, salt and fat. Delicious.

  “Well?” Alonzo said.

  “Yeah, well?” Evelyn said.

  They leered at me like a pair of jackals.

  I proceeded to fill them in on the hairy meeting with Bud Upton and Larry White.

  “A buffalo ranch?” Evelyn said.

  “You ain’t never gonna catch me eatin’ no buffalo,” Alonzo said. He belched.

  “It’s all BS anyway,” I said. “Larry White is a major creep. He’s definitely up to something. And I’ll bet it doesn’t even rhyme with buffalo.”

  “Well,” Evelyn said. “Guess we can kiss that quarter-million good-bye.”

  “Make that a half-million.”

  “A half-million dollars?” Alonzo said, nearly
spitting out his beer. “Lord have mercy.”

  “You’re kiddin’,” Evelyn said.

  I shook my head. “I’m not.”

  “Well,” Evelyn said, and sighed, invoking the spirit of Vivien Leigh. “I hear Wal-Mart’s hiring.” Dramatically, she finished off her beer. My mother had never worked at a real job in her entire life. Wal-Mart had no idea what they’d be in for if Evelyn ever darkened their employee entrance, not that I could even visualize it myself.

  “Hey, who’s ready for another beer?” Alonzo said, pushing back his chair, headed for the fridge.

  Evelyn and I both raised our hands.

  I’d just killed my second beer when Amy called and said she’d be by shortly to pick me up.

  “Shucks,” Alonzo said. “Thought maybe Evelyn and I could talk you into doin’ some line-dancin’ with us tonight.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Shucks.”

  “I really need some new boots,” Evelyn said. “Actually I could use a whole new dancin’ getup.”

  “Maybe you’d better just wear your old one until the Wal-Mart job comes through,” I said.

  “Very unfunny,” Evelyn said.

  She was right. And things were getting more unfunny by the minute.

  Chapter 36

  I thought I’d wedge in a call to Ted before Amy showed up, mostly to see if he was still speaking to me. He was, but just barely.

  “I’ll tell you how it’s going,” he said with a rude edge to his voice. “Downhill, that’s how. The fucking stove is on the fritz, and Lefty quit last night.”

  “Who’s Lefty?”

  “Lefty’s the guy who replaced the dishwasher who quit the night before.” A good dishwasher was getting harder to find.

  “Call Little Bucky.”

  “No way, never again.”

  Little Bucky was Bucky, Jr.‘s boy. Bucky, Jr. was my cousin on my mother’s side and the son of the late Big Bucky, my mother’s mountain man, hillbilly brother. At fourteen, Little Bucky was a reform school dropout, but a sweet kid in his own way.

  “Come on, Ted. Give him another chance.”

  “Kim,” Ted said, impatiently, “He swiped a freezer full of steaks the last time he helped us out.”

  “There weren’t that many steaks in the freezer.”

  I had a soft spot for Little Bucky. Sometimes he reminded me of me at his age. I’d never actually made it to reform school, but I’d come close a time or two.

  “Forget it,” Ted said. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Hang in there, Ted.”

  “Hang in there yourself.”

  I could tell that if I didn’t haul my butt back to Gatlinburg very soon, I’d be shopping for a new business partner, possibly even a new business. With Ski Resort Katrina as hostess with the mostess and Little Bucky working the freezer, I’d be sharing a cell in debtors’ prison with Evelyn in no time at all.

  “Love ya, Ted. I mean it.”

  He hung up on me.

  While I was on a roll, I thought I’d give Nancy Merit a ring. I dialed her office and Shirley picked up.

  “Hi, Sport,” she said. “Bet you’re looking for Nancy.”

  “You’ve got ESP, Shirley.”

  “She’s in Rarotonga.”

  “Excuse me, she’s where?”

  “Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.”

  “Because?”

  “They invited her. Guess the Islanders love her book. She’s taping a special over there. Gonna cook a big tuna right on the beach.”

  Boy, was I out of the loop.

  “Did Dickhead go?” The thought of Dickhead in his Speedo lying on a white sandy beach was almost too much to take.

  “Are you kidding?” Shirley said. So apparently Nancy couldn’t take it either.

  “Why aren’t we in Rarotonga?”

  “You tell me. We could be slurping rum drinks and getting frisky right about now. Anyway, I’ll tell her you called.”

  “Swell, Shirley. Thanks.”

  I hung up, and suddenly jealousy raised its ugly pinhead. An unappealing, full-color centerfold had popped into my own pinhead, one of Nancy slurping fruit-studded rum cocktails and getting naked and frisky with some attractive islander. Ah well. If Nancy was getting frisky, could I hold it against her? It wasn’t like we were engaged to be married. As far as I knew, we weren’t even officially going steady yet.

  Maybe someday I’d get a wake-up call in the relationship department and I’d go out and find a woman who was actually available.

  Once again I saw Sigmund Freud sitting across the couch from me smoking a ten-dollar cigar, his fifteenth of the day, and he mumbled, “Hmmm. Very interesting.”

  I got up from the shrink couch and punched Sigmund in the nose.

  Chapter 37

  “Wow. A Lexus,” Alonzo said, standing at the kitchen window and watching as Amy pulled into my mother’s drive.

  “Must be nice,” said Evelyn, who was standing right behind Alonzo. Evelyn turned and eyed me suspiciously. “You sure are spending a lot time with Amy Delozier. I thought she was married. Doesn’t her husband mind her running around every night?”

  “Not at all,” I said, grabbing an apple for the road. “He’s very understanding.”

  “I wouldn’t be if I was him,” Alonzo said, his nose practically smashed against the glass. “She’s a babe.”

  “You two have a nice evening. Bye now.” I pulled the front door closed behind me.

  I hopped into the passenger’s side of Amy’s car.

  “Why do I feel like your prom date?” Amy said as she waved back to my mother and Alonzo who were still gawking out the window at us. “Are they giving me the once-over or what?”

  “They’re coveting your car, mostly.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, you’re not my prom date?”

  “You couldn’t pay me to go to another prom,” Amy said. “Even with you.” She wheeled the Lexus back down the drive.

  “I don’t know exactly how to take that.”

  “It’ll come to you,” she said, putting us on the road. “What happened to your head?”

  I’d forgotten about my Sesame Street Band-Aid. Unfortunately, I hadn’t forgotten why I was wearing it.

  I gave Amy the whole story, blow by blow.

  “This is really getting out of hand,” she said.

  She was telling me?

  “I haven’t even told you about the buffalo ranch yet.”

  “Pardon me?”

  I told her about the meeting or more accurately, my run-in with Larry White and his lame story.

  “You turned down a half-million dollars?” Amy shook her head. “That takes balls.”

  “Not really.” I said, exhibiting some modesty or underscoring my stupidity. Take your pick. “It’s just that I hate being jerked around more than about anything else I can think of.”

  “Damn,” Amy said. “If Rick Rod hadn’t needed the money so badly for a lawyer, we could’ve blown him off, too.”

  “You know, Amy, you’re not exactly exercising great judgment hanging around with me right now.”

  “Hey,” Amy said, lighting a cigarette, “we’re in this together, all the way.”

  “Yeah, we could end up dead together too.”

  “I don’t think so. Check this out,” she said, sliding a very authentic-looking gun out of her purse.

  “It looks real.”

  “It is real.”

  “Where’d you get a gun?”

  “From Rick Rod.”

  “Rick Rod?”

  “Well, from Rick Rod’s house. I know where he hides his guns.”

  “You actually know how to shoot that thing?”

  “Yeah, you pull the trigger.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Duh.” Amy showed me the bullets. “Hey, I’ve got another surprise.” She dropped the gun back into her purse and reached into the paper bag on the seat between us. “Ta da!” she said, pulling out a very nice bottle of champagn
e. “I wasn’t kidding about celebrating my new found freedom.”

  At least one of us was feeling upbeat.

  It was a good idea to be driving around in Amy’s Lexus. Not only was it cushy and the smoothest ride in town, it might not draw the kind of attention my Toyota had been getting lately. Like a couple of not-so-juvenile delinquents, we cruised the country back roads drinking straight from the bottle. It made me feel less criminal knowing that actual delinquents wouldn’t be swilling a thirty-dollar bottle of champagne. Obviously, we were a higher class of outlaw.

  I decided that it was as good a time as any to smoke my last Nat Sherman Hobart. Amy didn’t mind. She even liked it. After a few puffs and few more miles, I was starting to feel a whole lot better. I guess drinking good champagne and smoking a decent cigar on a lovely summer evening next to an outrageously beautiful woman in her Lexus could cheer up just about anybody.

  But I knew it wouldn’t last. Timing was everything, and I knew it was high time to push our luck. The aching lump under my Sesame Street Band-Aid told me that somebody had something as big as Big Bird to hide and I knew that if the water got deep enough, the rat would run.

  “Feel like kicking some ass?” I said.

  Amy had a healthy glow going from the bubbly. She downed another generous swallow and patted her purse. “Ready.”

  Chapter 38

  Charlene was sitting at the end of bar having a drink and a cigarette, apparently getting herself into the proper frame of mind to go to work. Some goober was parked on the stool next to her trying to cozy up. This guy made my departed cousin Abbott look like Mel Gibson. Jimmy’s Place wasn’t exactly dead that night, but it wasn’t hard to find a seat either.

  “Hey, Charlene,” I said, sliding into the empty chair on her left. “How’s it going?”

  “Yeah, hey, Charlene,” Amy said, taking the seat next to me. Charlene didn’t look too excited to see us again. She flicked her ashes, missing the ashtray.

  “Evening, girls.” She said it like she had a mouth full of battery acid.