The American Café

by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe

  Sadie placed her elbow on the table and rested her fingers against the side of her chin as she looked at Rosalee's face. “Okay, I can't pay you much. Minimum wage plus tips and two meals a day—breakfast and lunch.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Rosalee's eyes lit up.

  “You'll have to go into Tahlequah to the County Health Department and get a food handler's permit. You have to watch a video and pay two dollars. Do you have two bucks?”

  Rosalee nodded.

  “If you have a problem, be up front with me, and I'll give you the same courtesy.” Sadie walked behind the counter, opened a drawer, and pulled out some forms she had seen earlier. She sat back down, pushed the breakfast plates to one side, and placed a blank application in front of Rosalee. “I'll need you to fill this out for my records and sign this W-4 for Uncle Sam. When can you start?”

  Rosalee looked at her watch. “As soon as I get back from my meeting. I'll go by and get the permit while I'm in Tahlequah.”

  “Good.”

  Emma emerged from the kitchen, delivered plates to the men at the counter, and refilled her coffee cup. She walked back to the table where Sadie and Rosalee were talking and sat down. She noticed the papers in front of Rosalee and frowned. “What's this?”

  Sadie spoke before Rosalee had a chance. “I asked Rosalee if she could work for me. Since you've agreed to handle the kitchen, she can help me in the front. That way if I need to be gone, you won't be here by yourself.”

  “Oh, really?” Emma looked surprised. “Why, Sadie, you can't depend on her. Besides, I didn't realize you were going to be staying that long, Rosalee.”

  “Don't worry, Mother. It won't be for very long…unless you don't want me to stay at all.”

  “No, that's fine. But if you're going to live under my roof, you'll have to keep your nose clean. No more running around with wild hooligans. Just because you think you're grown doesn't mean you won't have to follow the rules in my house. If you think you can handle that, then you can stay with me.”

  “Hooligans! If you're talking about—”

  “It's settled then.” Sadie spoke quickly in an effort to defuse a volatile twist in the conversation. “Rosalee, when you've finished filling out those forms, you can put them in that top drawer over there.” She turned her attention to Emma. “I'll get another W-4 for you, Emma. In the meantime, how's everything coming back there for lunch?”

  Emma's voice returned to its usual docile tone. “I'll have everything under control, honey, as long as the meat man shows up some time this morning.”

  As if on cue, they heard the sound of a delivery truck at the back door. “I'll get it,” said Sadie. “You all watch the front.”

  Sadie disappeared through the back door to accept the food delivery, and Emma retreated to her sanctuary in the kitchen.

  Rosalee gritted her teeth and watched her mother walk away. She would continue with her plan regardless of her mother's sour response. She checked her watch again and hurriedly filled out the forms. She opened the drawer and placed them inside as Sadie had instructed, but before she closed the drawer something caught her eye. A copy of an old newspaper article had spilled from Sadie's open purse. She looked around before carefully sliding it into better view. She began to read to herself under her breath:

  “An unidentified woman was found Friday morning behind The Liberty Diner in Liberty, Oklahoma. Preliminary reports say the woman had been raped and beaten. Goldie Ray, a nineteen-year-old café worker found the woman in the alley near the back door of the restaurant when she arrived to open the café around six a.m. Authorities stated that the woman displayed signs of confusion and became violent when emergency workers arrived. The name of the victim has not been released, but an anonymous source at the scene identified her as Pearl Elizabeth Mobley, of Liberty.”

  Rosalee looked around, pushed the paper back toward the open purse, and headed out the door.

  19

  “Why would you trust me to work for you?” Red leaned over Sadie's shoulder as she counted change into a small cash drawer.

  “Why would you volunteer?” Sadie unzipped a bank bag and showed it to him. “There are extra coins in here, but I don't think you'll need them. Besides, you're not really working, you're just taking money from customers if Rosalee gets too busy. And, as far as the matter of trust, if you're willing to put your life on the line to save me from being shot by Pearl Mobley and you have possession of the key to the front door, then I think you're trustworthy enough to handle a couple of bucks.” She placed the bank bag under the counter and slid the drawer shut. “If you need anything, call me at the bank.” She pulled out a paper napkin, scribbled a phone number on it, and handed it to him. “Thanks, Red. I'll be back in the morning about six o'clock.”

  She walked toward the door, then stopped and turned. “Oh, yeah, Hector will be here today to paint the window. Didn't break his arm after all. Just a sprain. Call me.” The door rattled as it closed behind her.

  Sadie jumped into her vehicle and drove the short distance to the bank, got out, and stared at the First Liberty Bank building, an archaic structure resting on the northeast corner of Third Street and Washington Avenue. An empty laundromat shouldered it on Third, and the adjacent building on Washington looked as if it had been vacant for at least a decade. She cupped her hand above her eyes to protect them from the sun. It was going to be another scorcher.

  Tom had told her the story of how First Liberty, a family-owned bank, had struggled during the oil bust of the eighties. It pulled ahead during the nineties but couldn't compete with the large conglomerates of the twenty-first century. The family had finally given in and decided to sell.

  That's when Merc State Bank, the former Mercury Savings Bank, stepped in. They bought First Liberty for pennies on the dollar and turned it into a branch office. Sadie had seen it happen repeatedly and hated to see the small banks with their homespun atmosphere fall victim to the giant companies. But the same thing had happened to the mom-and-pop grocery stores and hardware stores that were forced to close when Wal-Mart and Lowe's marched into communities across Oklahoma. Opening side-by-side, the big-box stores monopolized business and pierced the small towns with a two-edged sword: low prices and low wages.

  As she assessed the situation on this warm August morning, she wished she hadn't agreed to take the job. She walked up to the front door, turned her key in the deadbolt, entered, and relocked the door. Memories of a past bank robbery crawled up the back of her spinal column like an army of ants and she involuntarily shivered. She couldn't believe she was entering another bank alone after what she had gone through two years earlier. This time, at least, motion detectors protected the building.

  Harsh, staccato sounds sliced the air, and she hurried to the alarm keypad to punch in the code Tom had given her. The sharp beeping stopped. She walked to each corner of the lobby, making sure she was alone before she walked to the front window and opened the blinds, signaling the other employee now waiting in the parking lot that it was safe to enter.

  The mingled smells of new paint and carpet glue still hung in the air. The furniture, while new, was flimsy and cheap, giving Sadie the impression that this was a low-budget branch. They had made the lobby smaller by putting up a freestanding partition that divided the old tellers' cages from the newly built counter.

  The vault stood in full sight in a corner behind the single teller station. It looked out of place, too big for its small surroundings.

  The clock on the wall chimed and Sadie jumped. All of a sudden she hated herself for taking on this task. She walked to the front door and unlocked it for the teller. After relocking it, she introduced herself to the woman. “Hi, I'm Sadie Walela. You must be Polly Gibson.”

  The middle-aged woman wore a lime-green cotton-knit outfit that hugged her pudgy body in all the wrong places. She scrunched her forehead and looked at Sadie. “I thought you worked in that old café downtown.”

  “I do,” said Sadie. “But I'll be fi
lling in for Tom for a couple of days.”

  Polly balanced two donuts on top of her flat purse and licked the sticky icing from her fingers. “You know, Tom doesn't make me wait in the car like a kid. He lets me come in the same time he does. I've been working for this bank for more than three months, and I know the code to turn off the motion detectors.”

  Sadie sized up the woman's round face before she spoke. “You don't have to worry, Polly, I don't want your job. I'm just trying to help out a friend.”

  Polly blinked several times as if her eyes burned as she walked behind the teller counter. She stacked the donuts next to the calculator, wiped her purse on her thigh and stowed it in the cabinet below before speaking again. “I hope you know how to open this vault.”

  “I make no guarantees,” said Sadie, “but we'll give it a shot. Do you have the key?”

  Polly nodded and handed Sadie a ring with several small keys attached.

  Sadie retrieved the small piece of paper with the combination on it from her purse, picked the key with the name Mosler inscribed on it, and inserted it in the middle of the dial. She reeled the circular device back and forth, careful to match the marks on the dial with the correct numbers on her note, counting the number of spins each time. After the last turn, she held her breath and stopped on zero. The internal mechanism clanked as she turned the handle. She tugged at the door and pulled it open.

  “Okay.” Sadie let out a sigh of relief. “We're in.” She flipped the light switch on the outside wall to illuminate the inside of the vault and waited for Polly to get her cash.

  Polly entered the vault, unlocked her cash drawer, carried it to her teller station, and carefully slipped it into the empty drawer.

  Sadie followed. “Tom asked me to conduct a surprise audit,” she said. “Can you get me the audit form?”

  “Oh.” Polly's pink face turned pale. “Tom usually does the audit on the first Monday of the month.”

  “Well, it wouldn't be a surprise audit if it was on a schedule, would it?” Sadie's attempt at humor fell flat. “Come on,” she continued in a friendly voice, “it will only take a minute. You can count and I'll watch.”

  Polly retrieved the audit form and handed Sadie the calculator tape out of the cash drawer that reflected the previous day's ending cash. Sadie watched Polly count and marked off each denomination as Polly counted the loose bills out loud. The drawer included a strapped bundle each of ones, fives, tens, and twenties. Polly held each bundle in the air, called off the amount, and returned them to the drawer.

  “We'll need to break the straps for the audit, Polly.”

  “Why? They're dated and stamped,” Polly contested. “Tom says never to break a strap unless you have to.”

  “Strapped money can be wrong, too, Polly. Tom asked me to do this, and I have to sign off on it.”

  “I can't count money fast like the others can,” she whined.

  Realizing that Polly was beginning to feel uncomfortable, Sadie offered, “Do you want me to count it while you watch?”

  Polly nodded.

  Sadie slipped the paper strap off the ones and quickly shuffled the money from one hand to the other. Then repeated the procedure again.

  “Polly, I count this bundle to be one bill short. Go ahead and count it slowly onto the counter and I'll watch.”

  Polly counted one bill at a time from hand to counter. It was indeed one bill short. Sadie made a note on her form and looked at her watch. This was taking longer than she had anticipated. She moved onto the other bundles in the drawer. Once again, each bundle was one bill short.

  “Polly, I show the drawer to be short thirty-six dollars, do you agree?”

  “I guess so, but Tom's the one that straps money, not me.”

  “No problem. Just sign the audit form and I'll leave it for Tom to sort out.”

  Polly frowned and reluctantly signed the bottom of the paper. She dropped the pen on the counter, stuck her nose in the air, and went for the coffeepot that sat on a stand next to a large water dispenser. “I'm going to make some coffee. My donuts are probably cold by now.”

  The clock chimed again and Sadie unlocked the front door. As she retreated to Tom's desk in the corner of the small branch, she longed for the easy-going conversation in the café. Tom was going to owe her big-time for this favor.

  She tried the temporary password Tom had given her to log onto his computer. Amazed that it actually worked, she stared at the menu on the screen trying to remember the reports he had asked her to review. After a few minutes, she became absorbed in the world of banking.

  The phone rang twice and she realized Polly was busy talking on another line, so Sadie grabbed her phone and answered. It was Thelma from the main office in Sycamore Springs making sure everything was moving along smoothly.

  “Sadie, it's good to hear your voice,” said Thelma. “How in the world have you been? I was so glad to hear that Tom talked you into working for him.”

  Sadie gulped. “As long as you realize it is only for two days, Thelma. I have a café to run now.”

  “That's what Tom said. I thought maybe he was exaggerating. After working at Mercury for all those years, well, I would think it would be hard to get banking out of your blood.”

  “No, he's not exaggerating.” Sadie laughed. “In fact, I hate to tell you this, Thelma, but I would rather be at the café than here.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot what I called for. Be sure and download the first three reports for Tom so he can work on them as soon as he gets back. He's got some transactions he needs to look at.”

  “No problem, Thelma.”

  “I've got to get to a meeting. You keep in touch, you hear?”

  Sadie smiled. “I will.”

  As she hung up the phone she heard the front door open. It was George Stump. He ignored Sadie and walked straight to where Polly stood nibbling on her pastries behind the teller counter. Polly walked over to the coffeepot, poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup, and handed it to the police chief. They spoke in whispers for a moment before George turned on his heels and approached Sadie's desk.

  “Is there a problem here this morning?” he asked.

  Sadie sat straight in her chair. “Excuse me, Chief?”

  “Mrs. Gibson said you were accusing her of stealing some of the bank's money.”

  Sadie looked past George's shoulder at Polly who was now busy placing paper in the copy machine. “No, sir.” She returned her eyes to the police chief. “We do not have a problem here that cannot be handled internally. But I'll be glad to tell the manager to give you a call when he returns if he thinks it's necessary.” It was hard for Sadie to hide her amusement. From the look on George's face, one would have thought she had accused Polly of robbing the bank at gunpoint.

  The phone rang again and Polly hurried to answer it. George nodded, turned and looked at Polly, then left.

  “It's Tom,” said Polly as she climbed back on her stool behind the teller window and sipped coffee.

  Sadie turned her back to Polly and picked up the phone.

  “I just landed in Seattle,” said Tom, “and wanted to thank you again for filling in for me. Is everything going okay?”

  “Everything's under control. Only next time,…No, let me rephrase that, because there's not going to be a next time.”

  “Oh, Sadie, don't talk like that.”

  “No, I mean it. Next time you can do your own teller audit.”

  “She was short, wasn't she?”

  “Tom, I'm going to kill you.”

  “Forgive me Sadie, but I needed another witness. It was in her bundles, wasn't it?”

  “You already knew? You scum. So tell me,” she continued, “what's the deal with the police chief?”

  “Oh, I bet she called George, didn't she?” It was a remark more than a question. “I think they've got a fling going. I've seen him bring her to work every now and then.”

  “Ohh.” Everything began to make sense to Sadie.

  “Don't
worry. I'll take care of everything on Monday. Sure you wouldn't want to come back to work for the bank? I think I'm going to need a new teller.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “Wait, did Thelma call yet about a report?”

  “Yes, she asked me to download something for you.”

  “Look in my top drawer,” he said. “I've been working on the dormant accounts. If you're bored, give it a whirl. I'm sure you remember how it works.”

  “My memory is failing more with every passing moment, Tom. But I think you said something like, Sit around and make managerial decisions. No wait, you said minor managerial decisions.”

  “Okay, you win. See you next week.”

  “Good-bye, Tom.” She didn't wait for an answer before she hung up. She walked across the lobby and poured herself a cup of coffee. Polly, totally absorbed in a crossword puzzle, didn't notice as Sadie stirred both sugar and cream into the cup and returned to her desk.

  Sadie downloaded and printed the reports Thelma had requested. Before she placed them in Tom's tray, she thumbed through the pages looking for familiar names. She recognized several, then Goldie Ray's name jumped at her from the page that listed the recently closed accounts. Sadie instinctively went to Tom's computer and pulled up the account. There were very few transactions. Mostly cashier's checks. Sadie clicked on each one to view images of the cleared items. Every check had been issued to the Northeastern Oklahoma Heart Center. Even the final check that closed Goldie's account the day before she was murdered had been made to the same medical facility. Sadie thought about it for a moment. Goldie's health problems must have had to do with her heart. That's why she wanted to get out of the restaurant business. And, Sadie surmised, since she closed her account in Liberty, she must not have planned on returning. Sadie looked at the transactions again, then dismissed them from her mind.

  The morning moved at a snail's pace before Polly volunteered to pick up lunch. As a peace offering, Sadie offered to treat and sent Polly to the café to pick up a couple of cheeseburgers. When she returned, they had a quiet lunch. After eating, Polly picked up her puzzle again, and Sadie went back to her corner desk.