Blabbermouth (A Brit Moran Mystery)

by Joel Travis

  “Is he going to be ready for the East Carolina game?” I asked.

  “Groins are hard to heal in one week.”

  “That’s too bad. Do you think Myers will try to play this week with the faulty groin?”

  “Says he will. Steve told me to tell the coaches he’s fit as a fiddle. I told him a fiddle with broken strings doesn’t make good music. He didn’t get it.”

  “Well, he’s only a freshman,” I said. “So you’re going to tell the coaches he’s ready to go. That’s what I’d do, too. Michael Jordon scored thirty-eight points in an NBA Finals game when he had the flu.”

  Rudy agreed that it usually works that way.

  I spoke with Rudy Blerm for another half hour while he picked up towels. He gave me a detailed injury report and a scouting report on the backup quarterback, offense, defense, and special teams. I even listened to a game-by-game recap of the season.

  After thanking Rudy for his insights, I logged onto the Internet. An hour later I knew all I needed to know about East Carolina and NLTU. As fast as my fingers could dial, I called my client to confirm the biggest bet I’d ever taken. Then I called Cesar and reported the weekend’s wagers. All but one. The Northwestern Louisiana Tech-East Carolina wager I kept for myself.

  #

  I was a nervous wreck on the Saturday morning of the big game. In addition to normal game day jitters, I was starting to feel anxious about leaving Cesar in the dark. Never before had I tried to rook him out of his share—the lion’s share. I rationalized that I’d had no choice, since Cesar would never have extended the betting limit as the situation clearly demanded.

  I tried to relax on the living room couch and think positive thoughts. Sheila was clanging pots and pans in the kitchen. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

  “Sheila, could you come out here for a minute?”

  She took her sweet time about it. When she saw me stretched out comfortably on the couch she gave me a dirty look, which always made her appear less attractive to me.

  “Why did I have to come out here?” she asked. “Are your legs broken, Brit?”

  “What’s broken is my concentration. How ’bout you do your housework later, dear.”

  “How ’bout you get off your ass and help me.”

  I ignored her rude request. “Sheila, why can’t you go out in the garden and pull weeds this morning while it’s cool outside? You might want to start on row three of the tomato patch, where just yesterday I noticed a weed sprouting. I got down on all fours and took a close look at it. It definitely needs to be pulled ASAP.”

  Sheila sighed. “I’m busy in the kitchen.”

  “So I heard. You can resume whatever it is you’re up to in the kitchen after I’m finished concentrating. I’m quite sure your pots and pans will be right where you left them when you’re done with the weeding.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that,” she said as she turned to depart.

  I was hoping she would turn to her left, because that’s how you got out to our garden. Instead, she stalked off to the kitchen. Several seconds later she was banging the expensive cookware around again. I decided it would be easier for me to go lie down in the bedroom than it would be for my wife to change her stubborn nature. On the way to the bedroom I had a brainstorm. Besides the Texas State Highway Patrol, what was to stop me from driving like a demon to Louisiana to witness East Carolina’s victory in person, rather than sweating out the outcome for another eight hours?

  Four hours later I was seated in Spartan Stadium on a brisk autumn afternoon, anticipating the opening kickoff. Because the mere memory makes me sick to my stomach, I won’t be providing a detailed account of the game. I have only to describe the third play from scrimmage for you to understand why there’s no such bet as a “sure thing” in a sport played with a ball that’s pointed on both ends. A football sometimes takes funny bounces, which are not as humorous when you have a hundred thousand dollars riding on the bouncing ball.

  Steve Myers was at quarterback for the Spartans, as I had hoped, facing a third-down-and-eight situation. He dropped back in the pocket and fired a bullet downfield. I have no idea who he was throwing to, but I doubt he meant to hit the East Carolina middle linebacker in the back of the head. The ball careened crazily off the linebacker’s helmet and landed in the outstretched arms of a Spartan receiver, who easily raced the remaining fifty yards to the end zone.

  NLTU eked out a one-point victory on a fifty-two yard field goal that cleared the crossbar by no more than six inches. Might as well have been six miles. While the rest of the partisan crowd leaped in celebration, my legs took on the strength of noodles, causing me to collapse back into my seat. I sat there experiencing the same sickening, surreal sensation you have when you suddenly see your best girl kissing your worst enemy.

  #

  On the drive back to Dallas, I began to mull over my options. I came up with a grand total of three.

  Option 1 was to go to my client and simply explain the truth. In an effort to go the extra mile for him by extending the betting limit, I had to leave Cesar out of the equation. Lacking Cesar’s financial support, I’d have to pay his winnings out over a period of time. If my client was receptive to my pitch, I’d propose an acceptable payment schedule, including interest, and sign a contract.

  Option 1 was plagued with problems. First, my client would expect me to pay promptly and fully, just as he had always been required to pay me in the past. Second, he would realize that I’d never had the capability of paying if I lost, which meant that I had made an unethical wager. Being an old-timer, he was proper enough to resent such conduct, so he would probably demand harsh terms for any payment arrangements. Third, even if my client would accept payments over time instead of the lump, I would still be at his mercy until the debt was paid. If I was late on a payment, he might go over my head and contact Cesar. Or he might start spreading the word that I was a deadbeat, effectively ruining my business. At best, Option 1 would allow me to live a miserable pauper’s life, struggling to meet each payment. If Option 1 sounds to you like such a poor choice that only a fool would have considered it, that’s only because you haven’t caught wind of Option 2.

  Option 2 was to approach Cesar Hernandez directly. I knew that Cesar preferred to concentrate on the bottom line—how much we took in on a particular weekend once the dust had settled on playing fields across the country—rather than keeping a close watch on the individual game scores. I planned to use this to my advantage.

  Under Option 2, I’d march into Cesar’s office, all smiles, to give my usual Monday morning report. He’d be seated behind his huge desk, hiding his huge gut. I’d start out by making small talk, then maybe talk big for a while to appeal to his macho mentality. When he seemed to be enjoying the conversation, I’d explain how my codger client had wanted to bet straight-up on Northwestern Louisiana Tech, even though they were fifteen-point underdogs. I would expect Cesar to say something like, “That guy’s always been a loser.”

  If he said anything of the sort, it would prove that he hadn’t seen the score to know that the loser’s team had won. Still smiling, I’d tell him he hadn’t heard the funniest part—the loser wanted to bet a hundred thousand dollars!

  Upon hearing that, I would expect Cesar to laugh and say, “Hell, we should have let him do it. Call me the next time someone’s so eager to part with a hundred grand.” Of course, that would be nothing but bravado. Cesar never approves a bet over ten thousand dollars.

  “You’re saying you would have taken that bet for a hundred grand?” I’d ask.

  At that point I would hope for Cesar’s macho ego to kick in. Time for him to play the role of the big shot who throws money around like confetti. In his mind, since he’d never received a call from me to extend the limit, we’d be talking about a hypothetical situation and imaginary money. He’d stroke his thick mustache for a moment, like he was seriously considering the idea. “Hell, why not?” he might say.

  Once I’d finessed him int
o admitting that it was a good bet that we should have taken, he’d be less inclined to pull a gun out of his top desk drawer and blow me away when I informed him that we had, in fact, taken the bet.

  “Did I do the right thing?” I’d ask if I was still living.

  Because I’d be smiling the whole time and because he hadn’t seen the score of the game, he’d naturally assume we had won the bet.

  “Hell yeah, you did the right thing!” he’d say, thinking of the prodigious profit we’d made. “But make damn sure you call me next time, Brit.”

  “Sorry about that, Cesar. It was one of those last minute bets. I told him it was too late because I had already reported the weekend wagers, but he said if I let him bet the full hundred thousand, he’d surrender the fifteen points. I knew you’d want me to do it, like you just said.”

  Then I’d turn in my written report and sweat while Cesar scanned down to the bottom line. When he read the bottom line, he’d take the gun out of his top desk drawer and blow my smiling face into smithereens.

  Or would he? Is Cesar the kind of man who would kill or permanently disfigure another man for doing something that Cesar himself admitted he would have approved? Sounds like him anyway. You know an option is lame when the best scenario you can imagine results in you getting your head blown off.

  Out of all my lousy options, Option 3 offered the most practical solution. Who ever said I had to stick around to face the music just because I composed the tune? I had an extremely fast car and an ATM card. The only debatable issue was whether I had an obligation to swing by the house and pick up Sheila.

  #

  “Pack your things.”

  Sheila said, “Pack what things? Where are we going?”

  “Pack everything you can pack in fifteen minutes,” I said, not even lifting my head from my own frantic packing.

  “Brit, where have you been all day and where are we going?”

  “Louisiana and Mexico. How well do you remember your high school Spanish?”

  “I remember what loco means. Brit, you’re acting crazy! Tell me what happened. I can see you’re upset, but we need to communicate like partners. Two heads are better than one.”

  “And one head is better than nothing. I’ve got to get my head out of town before I lose it.” She looked confused, so I added, “I’ll explain on the way to the border.”

  I learned two useful lessons as we drove down that southbound highway to Mexico. The first is that it’s actually a tremendous relief when you confide in your spouse by telling her about the dilemma that has drastically altered your lives. The second is that it’s nearly impossible to stay in your lane while you’re being pummeled by your passenger. Once again my wife had let her irrational temper get the best of her. No matter how many times it happened, it was always sad to see a person lose control of herself like that. I don’t know what causes her to fly off the handle like she does, though I’ve always suspected a chemical imbalance or vitamin deficiency.

  When she cooled down to a simmer, Sheila spoke in a somber tone. “You’ve really gotten yourself into a mess. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “We’re in a jam all right,” I said. “Other than what we’re doing—fleeing the country—I don’t know what we can do, either.”

  Sheila took a moment to think. “I know one thing we’re going to do.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, not looking forward to the answer.

  “We’re going to seek counseling.”

  “Financial counseling? Not a bad idea,” I said in the spirit of cooperation. “We’ll have to find out if the Mexican government offers that service for free to new arrivals.”

  “Marriage counseling,” she said. “With Reverend Means. Turn the car around. We’re going back.”

  She spoke with a confidence usually reserved for the one behind the wheel. Not counting Reverend Means, I could easily think of a hundred thousand reasons not to point the car in the direction of all the trouble.

  “We’re making good time, so if we just keep—”

  “Don’t even dream of missing the next exit, Brit.”

  #

  I’m not convinced you can make a decent living selling sombreros in a Mexican village. The sombrero is a sturdy hat which can provide years of shade, and some people don’t seem to care how they look, so even an outdated or frayed sombrero may not be replaced. I suspect to make a real go of it you’d have to branch out into the sombrero-snatching business—forcing villagers to buy replacements—which could lead to hard time in a Mexican prison when you were apprehended by the Mexican police, who I’m sure are experts when it comes to tracking down suspicious gringo sombrero salesmen.

  So maybe it’s just as well that I took that next exit and headed back to Dallas. I didn’t think so at the time, however. Sheila was purposely putting my life at risk, so I told her in no uncertain terms that I intended to cancel all insurance policies on my life that named her as a beneficiary. She took some of the sting out of my threat by informing me that we carried no such coverage.

  “Well, don’t expect me to purchase a policy when we get back,” I said. “Even if I could afford the premiums, it’s common knowledge in medical circles that dead men don’t pass physicals.”

  “Quit being so melodramatic. No one’s going to kill you.”

  Under similar circumstances, some husbands might have contemplated one of those murder-suicides you sometimes read about in the morning paper. Yet even in the most trying of times, I possessed the maturity and graciousness to accept my wife for who she was—a naive, stubborn, short-tempered, self-centered troublemaker.

  We didn’t get home until three in the morning. Even in the dim light our carport bulb put out, I could see that my wife was weary and drained from all the emotional turmoil. Although it was a laborious task for one person to unload and unpack six heavy suitcases, I hoped Sheila wouldn’t take longer than necessary. My pajamas were in there somewhere.

  Meanwhile, I darted into the house and locked myself in my study. I needed some time alone. I didn’t want to see Sheila and there was no point in her seeing me cry enough crocodile tears to fill a swamp. I was disgusted with my wife for ruining Option 3, angry at Cesar for having control over my life, resentful toward my client for being far luckier than he had any right to be, and most of all, sorry for myself. I dragged my sorry self over to the telephone and called my answering service. I was certain there would be a message from my client. There was no word from him. Not that night, not even that next week.

  I was befuddled. Here was a man who had only to dial ten digits to collect one hundred thousand dollars—that’s ten thousand dollars a digit—and he doesn’t? No one is that lazy!

  Because the stress and curiosity were killing me, I called the Codger the following Saturday. His telephone had been disconnected without a forwarding number. A week later I visited the topless club where I had always met him to see if anyone had seen him hanging around. No one had. He was like a party magician who’d made himself disappear for his final trick of the evening before the host could pay him for the performance.

  I remembered something he’d said—“Win or lose, this will be my final bet.” I ran that mysterious statement through the old noodle a few times. I concluded that the most logical explanation was that the Codger had known he was terminally ill. He had placed one last, wild wager for the thrill of it. Then he died.

  I felt sad that my client had died and I was equally glad that he wasn’t living. As the weeks gave way to months, I thought less and less of the whole affair. Regardless of what had become of him, my client was no longer the most prominent person affecting my future.

  That distinction passed to the Reverend Means.

  Chapter 3

  Some people shouldn’t ever marry. I began to think Sheila might be one of those people. Knowing full well it would cause a rift in our relationship, she had banished me from our bedroom, requiring me to take refuge in the guest room each night. I was a guest in my own
home. And all because I hadn’t agreed to attend marriage counseling with Reverend Means.

  One night I consumed enough wine and became horny enough to promise my wife I would attend the sessions. Reverend Means was a highly-respected, fair man who would see things as they were, so I was confident that Sheila would emerge from the sessions feeling rather foolish.

  We had celebrated another Christmas two weeks earlier. In a last-ditch effort to avoid the counseling sessions and regain entry to my bedroom, I had gone all out in the gift-giving department. I could have bought my wife just the one big gift—the insurance policy we had discussed on our drive home from our aborted trip to Mexico—but I didn’t stop there. I also bought her a pair of comfortable weeding gloves and a specialized weeding tool which was ideal for getting under the roots. In a final flourish, I presented her with a gift certificate good for ten workouts at Joe’s Gym under the supervision of Helga, a personal trainer who always got more out of you than you thought you had in you. In case you’re not counting, that’s four gifts.

  And how did my wife react to my generosity? You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you, but Sheila was disdainful of each and every gift! She regarded the beautifully wrapped insurance policy almost as a gag gift. Now I ask you, have you ever seen a gag gift that’s potentially worth a half-million? She scoffed at both gardening gifts, which robbed me of the joy of giving and made me wish I had bought her only the weeding gloves (she really needed those). And the personal trainer I had personally picked out for her was never utilized, despite numerous reminders of the certificate’s expiration date.

  In return, Sheila gave me an expensive set of gleaming golf clubs nestled inside a colorful leather golf bag. It was exactly what any golfer would have loved. Personally, I hate golf and wouldn’t mind at all if all the golfers in the world were simultaneously struck by lightning. So let’s be fair about this—who outgifted whom? Four gifts to one by my count.