by Dan Taylor
When I’ve paid, the clerk says, “You enjoy your date now.”
“Thanks. I will.”
Now on to the jeweler.
I head up to the second level after consulting the mall map, and go inside and up to the cash register. It’s manned by a guy who I assume is the owner. He looks a little long in the tooth to be working here just at the weekends. He looks over a silly pair of glasses at me.
I present my hand for shaking, but he just looks at it, says, “Size Twelve. Thirteen if you’re thinking it might end up in divorce.” He laughs.
I do too, though I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.
He hears it in my laugh, and points at my hand. “Your ring finger. I figured you for a guy who was coming in buying wedding bands and needed to find out his size first.”
I think a second. “I still don’t get it.”
He explains slowly, as though I’m a small child. “Just in case you wanted it to be easy to take off.”
“Oh. That was quite funny…”
“Geoffrey.”
I was going to finish with “…for a jeweler.” But whatever.
“Jake Hancock,” I say.
He shakes my hand.
“What can I do you for, Jake?”
“Not business, your business, at any rate. Unless you have a piece of jewelry that says ‘tourism specialist nerd’?”
He looks at me strangely, but then he probably realizes he has retirement to think about, and says, “I can see what I’ve got in the back.”
I stop him. “No, there’s no need. I’m not here to buy jewelry, Geoffrey. I’m here on business.”
“What kind of business?”
“I’m a private investigator from out of town, just ticking some boxes.”
“What boxes do you need ticking, Jake?”
“Guy came in here last weekend. Bought some jewelry. I just wanted to know if you remember him. You work here last Saturday?”
“I own the place, so yeah, I was here. And I’ll help you out. You have a picture for me to see?”
I take out the one Megan gave me. I wonder what this guy will make of Julius’s waxed chest. Should I phone an ambulance as a precaution?
He takes it from me, looks at it long and hard, as though he might recognize the face but isn’t sure. Then says, “Let me just swap glasses. This is my reading pair.”
As he searches the counter for his regular pair, I have a dumb smile on my face.
He finds them and puts them on and looks at it again.
Here we go: “No, never seen the guy. Sure it was this jeweler? There’s another one in town. They might remember him. I’d remember a guy like this if he’d been in here.”
But after looking at the photo for a good five seconds, during which his busy eyebrows dance up and down above his eyes like a pair of performing ferrets, he doesn’t say any of those things.
What he says instead blows my mind.
21.
“I REMEMBER HIM. Came in here with another fellow. Laughing and giggling like little girls the whole time they were in the store.”
Yowza!
I compose myself, then point at Julius in the picture. “This guy? In here with another guy?”
“That’s what I said.”
I take a second to think about how to proceed with my questioning delicately. “And would you say, based on how they were interacting with each other, that they were…that they…were more enthusiastic about their friendship than maybe you and I are about our friendships, for example?”
He frowns. “Like they were best friends?”
“No, that’s not really what I meant, Geoffrey. Let me take a second to reword the question.” I think a second. “Do you think that these guys, maybe instead of parking in the blue zone, or the black—I meant red zone—for example, parked in the pink parking zone?”
“In our lot?”
“Yeah.”
“There isn’t a pink zone.”
I sigh. Being politically correct is hard work. “Okay, the purple zone, then. Do you think they maybe would’ve parked there?”
“I don’t have a clue which zone they parked in, Jake.”
“I don’t mean literally. It’s a metaphor.” I take a second to think of a better one. Guy looks like he might like sports. “Do you think these guys, instead of preferring…the straight fast ball, were more inclined to throw curve balls?”
“Are you talking about baseball?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Then I don’t have a clue. I don’t much like baseball. And they didn’t talk about sports when they were here.”
I’m conscious of the time now. That tight schedule I was keeping is going to shit. Time to take the direct method. Well, the more direct method. “Did you get the impression that the guy in the photograph was maybe buying the jewelry for the other guy? Like a gift?”
“Well, he bought a woman’s piece, so no.”
“What about if he had bought a man’s piece? This guy.” I lean over and point at the photo again, but instead of targeting Julius’s face, I land on his waxed chest.
He cocks his head to the side, looks at the photo again. Then looks up and says, “Are you trying to ask if I thought they were a pair of homosexuals?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
He scratches his forehead. “I don’t really make those sorts of judgments about my customers, so I couldn’t say. Everyone’s welcome here.” He points behind me at the storefront. I turn around to see that he’s pointing at a sign that reads, “Blind Dogs Are Welcome On A Leash.”
I glance at my watch. It’s time to go. “I can see that, Geoffrey. One quick question before I rush off. Did they hold hands or kiss? Maybe cheekily pinch each other’s asses while they were here?”
He holds out the photo for me. “I think you better leave now, Jake. Before I call security.”
I take it from him and then apologize for using the word asses. He says, “Well, that’s all right then. You’re welcome any time. As long as you don’t ask fruity questions about my customers.”
Before I rush out, I tell him that if I ever get married again, I’ll be back. Might need that size thirteen ring he joked about.
He doesn’t laugh. I think I ruined his sense of humor for the day.
22.
DURING THE DRIVE to town I try to think of a way this ends well for Megan. It could be that they’re just friends. Pals. Shooting the breeze. Watching grown men throw balls around together…sports balls. Six-packs…of beer they crack open on a Friday night. High-fives that don’t result in them interlocking fingers and gazing into each other’s eyes as though they contain all the galaxies’ constellations. But there’s one question that’s inconsistent with that reasoning: If Julius and this other guy are just buddies, then why the hell would he lie to Megan about visiting him?
It’s a problem. And whichever way I think about what might’ve happened last weekend, I end up coming to the same conclusion: Megan’s boyfriend’s not interested in her newly augmented rack as much as I was last night.
He might not be interested in racks in general.
Which is fine by me. More than fine. In fact, good for him. But Megan’s my friend, and while I’ve got a soft spot for her rack, I’ve got an even softer spot for what’s beneath those kinda-natural-feeling lumps of flesh: her heart. Megan doesn’t deserve to be crushed by this guy. And this is the worst kind of breakup. Megan might come to the conclusion that she turned the guy gay. She might lose the God-given vanity that comes with being as ridiculously good-looking as she is, which in Hollywood, in her line of work, is like a Vegas stripper who can’t afford to have her burst saline implants replaced.
If Jake Hancock’s my ridiculously super-cool name, I won’t let that happen.
First things first: I’ve got to make sure that I’m right. That this guy was visiting his boyfriend last weekend when he should’ve been in Vegas with his regular buddies.
How w
ill I confirm it?
Someone will have seen them together. Hopefully I can assume correctly that Julius’s boyfriend or pal—it’s important to keep an open mind—is a Hickston town resident. If not, the investigation’s doomed, and Megan may never know she’s developing feelings for a dude who throws curve balls—whatever the fuck that means.
Maybe Hickston has a gay bar I can check out. Or maybe they stayed in the same motel Annabelle’s staying in. If my impression of Hickston is correct, then a trendy-looking city boy and his boyfriend would stick out like an erection in a sauna.
As soon as I’m done with the sheriff, I’ll find someone who’s seen them. Then I can break the bad news to Megan. Maybe offer her a cleverly disguised sympathy lay to ease her pain afterwards, and restore her vanity.
Old Hancock’s got it all worked out. Apart from this Annabelle situation.
Now it’s time to change into Giles Baker’s attire.
But as is usually the case when it comes to my life, even something as simple as parking at the side of a deserted road and changing into geeky clothing—which I forgot to do at the clothing store—isn’t as simple as it should be.
23.
FOR ONE, I picked the one box of shoes that has two different sizes in it. I’ve ended up with a nine and a ten. The upside is at least one of those sizes is correct. But it’s not much of an upside when you consider I can’t wear just one shoe. They may as well be stiletto heels for all the good they’ll do me. I’ll just have to wear my shoes, and hope that the sheriff doesn’t notice them. They’re Barker Blacks. For those of you not familiar with men’s high fashion, they’re the Rolls Royce of brogues. Do they go well with boot-cut mom jeans? Picture Andy Dufresne on his last night at Shawshank, wearing the warden’s mirror-finish beauties with those God-awful prison pants. Will the sheriff automatically assume I’m meeting him under false pretenses, because I have on super expensive shoes, which my pitiful disposable income as a tourism discovery agent couldn’t afford in a million years? No. But he might get suspicious.
My second issue when getting changed, is that I can’t get the rental’s driver-side seat to go back. I had hoped to keep low, so that any passersby—even though I didn’t see any when I checked a couple minutes ago—wouldn’t be able to catch me with just my drawers on. I get out and get in the back. This might not seem like an issue, but wait until you’ve heard the third.
It eclipses the previous two. When I’m down to said drawers, one of the back passenger seat window’s explodes without warning. I rush my pants on and look through the shattered window.
A short distance away, standing in a field, wearing loose-fitting army fatigues, and holding a hunting rifle, is what looks to be a local.
I’m not sure if he can see me, because his eyes are wonkier than Tori Spelling’s cleavage, but the busted window’s a good indication that his eyes function better than they appear to.
He confirms he can, when I’ve ducked down after spotting him. He also confirms what I suspected above. “I’m a local. I just seen you run around the back and what looked like you straining to take off your pants. Now you and the other fellow come on out, and slowly.”
“There’s only me in here. And I was just getting changed.” I think a second, and remember the clerk at the clothing store. “I’ve got a date, with a woman.”
“Which one’s talking? The one that was driving and ran around the back? Or the fellow that was sitting in the back?”
“It can’t be the fellow who was sitting in the back, because there’s only me.”
“And which ones that?”
Oh, so that’s what “going around in circles” means.
“Again, sir, it can only be me, the driver, who ran around to the back. As I said, I was just getting changed.”
“Then why’d you run around and get in the backseat to take your pants off?”
“I can see how it might look, but you’ve got it totally wrong. And you’re probably going to have to pay for that window.”
He fires another shot, taking out what sounds like a taillight.
“Or not,” I say. “I’m going to come out, now, with my hands up. Slowly. Don’t shoot. There are at least two people who know I’m in Hickston. You won’t get away with murdering me.”
“That’s good. And who said anything about murdering?”
“You kind of implied that, sir, with firing your rifle at my vehicle. And I figured you were angry about my possibly being a homosexual.”
I start getting out. As I am, he says, “I’m not some kinda murdering maniac, and gay guys is welcome in Hickston as much as the next man. I just want both y’all’s wallets, is all.”
I roll my eyes. A politically correct robber. And I hate it when people say y’all.
I’m out now. My hands up. And my fly low.
He says, “You move to the right now. Make some room.” I do, a couple feet from the car. He then raises his voice. “And you, sir, you come on out, too.”
I go to tell him again that there’s no one in there. But I stop myself, thinking of an idea.
“Okay, I admit it. There’s another guy in there. But he’s deaf and mute. You’re going to have to go up to the car to instruct him to get out.”
The local shoots me a look. “You were gonna be fornicating with a man who’s deaf and mute?”
“Yep.”
He starts to approach the car, taking careful steps, holding his rifle in a manner that suggests if the made-up, deaf-mute boy toy I have lying in the back makes a move, he’ll be ready to shoot. Still with my hands up, I move to give him space. I talk to distract him. “Go easy on him now. This was all my idea. He’s lying in the footwell, so you’re going to have to lean right in to see him.”
Without looking at me, he says, “Any weapons in the back?”
“Nope. A couple empty beer bottles is all.”
When the robber’s a foot away from the car, I move a couple feet to my right, positioning myself behind him, at a slight angle. I look down, seeing if there are any rocks I can hit him with. I find only pebbles.
So, as he’s leaning forward, ready to put his head through the hole he made with his rifle, and instruct my deaf-mute boyfriend to come out of the car—really, he should’ve asked me to do it—I ball my hand into a fist and throw the best punch I can at the back of his head.
This wallet was a gift from my sister for my thirty-eighth birthday—not the most significant birthday, admittedly, and not the best present—but I’m not about to give it up to a man with a mullet.
Now I said my best punch, but I’m not much of a puncher.
Which is why, after it’s landed, probably hurting my fist more than the mullet-covered back of his head, he’s able to turn around, and in a normal tone of voice, say, “What the fuck? Why’d you hit me?”
“It seemed appropriate.”
The pain must have a delayed effect, because a second later he doubles over and rubs the back of his head, and starts moaning.
After a moment’s hesitation, I rush forward and take the rifle from him.
Tables are fully turned.
I aim it at his balls.
The throbbing pain behind his curly locks is the last thing on his mind now.
He says, “Are you going to shoot me, Mr.?”
“I’m thinking about it. Raise your hands above your head.”
He does. Out of curiosity, or maybe because he fears getting surprised from behind, he looks back, into the car. He gets on his tiptoes so he can look at the footwell. Then he turns back around to look at me. “There ain’t no deaf-mute gay guy in there, is there?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He frowns. “Then why’d you say there was?”
“I thought that was obvious.”
He takes five or six seconds to think. I wait patiently. The he says, “Aww damn, you tricked me. That’s a pretty rotten trick to play on a man who’s just tryin’ to earn a livin’.”
“If it makes you feel an
y better, there’s a pair of shoes in the back you can take—for your trouble. They’re not my style.”
“This isn’t another trick, is it?”
“No. Go ahead and open the door and take them.”
With his hands raised, glancing at me every second or so, he opens the door and takes the box, putting it under his arm.
“What about those pants in the back? Can I have those too?”
“You’re not taking my pants. Now, I want you to start walking down the road—in the direction of the mall, with your hands up, or at least the one hand up, the one not holding the box. I’m going to drive the opposite direction.”
He starts walking, but turns around after walking a few feet. “Can I at least get my rifle back?”
“I think I’ll keep your rifle.”
“Aww damn.”
With that said, my would-be hick mugger begins walking away, with a box of mismatched shoes under his arm, and goes in the direction of the mall.
I watch him for fifty yards or so, thinking about the look on his face when he opens that box. Then I look down at his rifle, thinking it’s a pretty fair trade for the ordeal I went through.
24.
GOOGLE MAPS WAS able to predict the amount of time it would take me to drive one of their routes this time. It only took getting nearly robbed by a mullet-wearing hick in army fatigues to make it happen. I make it to the corner of Hooper and West with less time than I’d hoped for, and with a busted window and taillight to boot, plus a rifle I’ll probably have no use for.
Still, I had enough time to put my plan into place, with five minutes to spare.
I’m sitting with a beer by a table with a view of the door, waiting for the sheriff to come through the door. It’s early, so there aren’t many people here. There’s just a drunk man of retirement age sitting at the bar, and a family in the corner that are all hunched over their plates of food. The father glancing around warily every so often, like he’s the leader of a pack of raccoons, who are huddled around a discarded cheese pizza.
It’s time to get my head in the game. All the excitement of nearly getting robbed and finding out Megan’s boyfriend lied to her in order to visit a man in Hickston has me all distracted. The way I see it, this meeting with the sheriff is a formality. Annabelle’s most likely lying about being raped, and all I’m doing is satisfying my curiosity. I’ll just make sure he has no recollection of a meeting with her earlier on today, and is genuine when saying so. Once that’s done, I can confront Annabelle about what she’s told me, help her through whatever issues she has, maybe warn her about tricking kind-hearted strangers into helping her, and then I can wrap up this Megan’s boyfriend situation. Then I can get the hell out of Dodge, pay Greg, and get back to living my life in Hollywood, pretending all of this is just a weird but mildly entertaining dream.
