by Deforest Day
Chapter 15
Sgt. Cortez unlocked the office with the dupe he'd made, filled the machine with some of the French roast he'd swapped for a pair of three hundred dollar ballistic Oakley sunglasses. They'd been in Sgt. Ellen Taggert's desk, and she no longer needed them, since she was currently heading home in a Graves Registration steel container.
Someone had swiped his damn cigarettes. Marlboro soft pack, book of matches tucked into the cellophane. What was the world coming to, couldn’t even trust the people Bringing Order to Chaos. “Tunisia!”
Sgt. Cortez had the papers from his IN-basket spread out on the desk. ID for three stateside clowns, Return to CONUS for a MAERSK twenty-foot dry, and compassionate leave orders for Major Baer.
“Say what?”
“Sweetheart, what do you know about these?”
“I don’t know nothin’. I just got in. What’s that sweater on my desk?”
“Pierre Cardin. 100% cashmere. I figure you for a size twelve.”
“Sixteen.”
“Yeah? Fine looking girl like you, I bet you look good in something tight. I got one for Sergeant Jackie, she shows up. Scoot down the hallway to the Colonel’s office, see what you can find out about this compassionate leave shit.”
Later, after Sergeant Cortez learned Mrs. Major Baer was dead, he put an international call through to the NOK, Next Of Kin, a telephone number in Cleveland. It was the middle of the night there, but if the Major's old lady was dead, then relatives, neighbors would be awake, having a weep fest.
“Hello. I'm lookin' for Curtis Baer.”
A sleepy voice said, “Curtis? He's not here. He's in Iraq, with his National Guard unit.”
“Are you sure? Who are you?”
“Of course I'm sure. I'm his wife; I ought to know where he is.”
He sat behind the big desk in the Major’s office, drank his Glenlivet, smoked a Romeo Y Julieta, and speculated.
He remembered there were some dumb-ass assholes he scammed with K-pots and body armor. Their garage burned down last night; one of the motor pool drivers had taken the assholes and their shipping container out to the airport at the crack of dawn.
Then come bitching to him, because the Major hadn’t signed the form. That was when he found the paperwork in his IN-basket. He’d made the driver happy with a scrawled signature, and the driver told him about the vault under the garage, full of money. Money that was now all burned up.
Oh, yeah?
Chapter 16
Baer left the police station and crossed to the hotel. That went well. Chief Schmidt was a big fish in a small pond. He'd just showed he could be bought, and wouldn't ask questions if a trio of losers suddenly left town.
He checked his Oyster, a birthday gift from The Bitch. He was tired, and hungry, but feeling strong, optimistic. Regaining some of the sense of power he’d had, before the unit was deployed to Iraq. Sitting on a secure perch on a high rung. Or so it had seemed at the time. After that e-mail, the one that made his ears burn and his pulse pound with rage, he now realized he had been a poster child for the Peter Principal.
He played football and she played college. When he learned Daphne’s father was a senior executive in one of the Big Five accounting firms, he began devoting more time to her than the gridiron.
Daddy was disappointed by his only daughter’s infatuation with this blue-collar leviathan, but he knew his child well enough to see it was better to tame the river than fight the current. And there would be a prenup.
After the wedding there was a reception at the country club. He caught the boy chatting with the bartender and working on a bottle of Heineken. “Beer’s what the pool boy drinks, Curtis. Have I gotten a pool boy for a son-in-law?” The question was rhetorical. “We drink scotch in this family, sonny boy. Try to remember that.”
Sonny boy put the green bottle down and asked the bartender for whatever his father-in-law was drinking. Then asked his father-in-law if he should call him Dad or Bill.
“Call me what my men in ‘nam did.”
“What was that?”
“Sir.”
—o—
Baer locked the two large pistols in the the Lincoln, left it in front of the police station, and stuck the little Taurus in his trouser pocket. Walking across the village green, he paused a moment to glance at the cannon and granite monument flanked by a pair of geezer benches, then headed for the neon beer signs that beckoned down the side street.
It sloped toward the river, and he followed the uneven brick sidewalk to the entrance. It turned out to be a separate door to the Hotel's saloon. Baer paused inside, taking the measure of the space. It was a bit more lively than the musty lobby.
The floor was white tile, crazed and cracked from a hundred years of hobnail boots and countless brawls. The stamped tin ceiling, sepia coal mining photographs, and smell of stale beer offered an ambiance the natives didn't notice, and weekend visitors found charming. A full-size pool table with leather pockets was occupied by a couple of relics playing nine ball. A marginally younger man watched from a wheelchair.
To his right there was a vintage bar that could comfortably accommodate twenty patrons. And bring fifty grand at Christie’s auction house. On his left were a dozen scattered tables and chairs worth a hundred dollars for the lot.
Two of his new employees sat in the corner, hunched over plates. Long Hair said something to Four Eyes, who turned, saluted with his mug of beer. Baer ignored them, noticed a twenty-something girl behind the bar, checking him out in.
Pudge was at her usual spot behind the taps. Today she was wearing the black Alice Cooper T shirt, her breasts making the spider skull look bug-eyed. Two of the Greatest Generation were at the pool table, Pops had the 5 o’clock news on too loud, and Cheech and Chong were working on Specials at a corner table.
A big dude in a suit and tie came in the street door, gave the room a quick check. Howie waved at him; must be this Mr. Baer that Alice told her about. He strode to the bar, put his palms on the rail, thick fingers spread, claiming space. Unlike most guys, he didn’t give her chest the once over.
She gave him a smile, threw her shoulders back just a tad, showing her good posture. Talk was the man was spending big.
“You serve food in here?”
“Yessir. Burgers, fries. This week’s soup is corn chowder, the fries are hand cut. Burgers are regular, California, and our Special. That’s double patties with cheddar melt and thousand island dressing on a kaiser roll.”
“Two regular burgers.” He looked past her, to the dusty bottles on the back bar. “What’s you scotch selection?”
Pudge turned, surveyed the bottles. Shaleville was not a scotch town; except for the weekend white water crowd, nobody drank the stuff. “Grant’s, Old Smuggler, Vat 69. Bushmill’s.”
“Bushmill’s is Irish.”
She turned back, gave her shaggy mane a toss. “Yeah? How ‘bout that.” She had the feeling he was deciding how to act with her. Get friendly, flirt, for down the road, or let her know he was a somebody. Shaleville had two kinds of people. Boys and men. The women didn't count.
“I wouldn’t use any of those to start my charcoal grill. Beer; whatever you have on tap.”
So much for friendly. “Got Yuengling lager, Coors, Bud.”
He finally gave her his attention. “Surprise me.” The girl was on the plump side, but not bad looking; had a pair of smother-me-momma pillows under the big T shirt. Farrah Fawcett’s hair, a seventies style that reminded him of The Bitch. Before the twins, before she went to fat. Did she flirt with all the customers, or had the blue-haired elf filed a report?
He glanced at the television, a big flatscreen on a swivel mount. Marines in full battle rattle, running, firing at a building; sharing a split screen with a man holding a microphone. The marines were on a ten second loop, started to assault the same building again, then dissolved into a burning car and the usual crowd of pissed off young men throwing things. You almost never saw women on the street over there. Smart pe
ople.
The girl with the blue hair and face full of hardware brought his burgers out, put them on the bar beside his beer. He handed her one of the bills, then carried the plate and his glass to a table. One where he could keep an eye on the door and the two assholes.
The burgers were surprisingly good; made with fresh ground beef instead of the usual frozen patty that had started its journey to his plate six months earlier, and a thousand miles away.
The barmaid crossed the cracked tiles, dropped the Franklin in front of him. “I can’t cash this.” She tilted her head toward Howie and Chick. “The Bozo Brothers over there drained my small bills. Don’t they have nothing but hundreds over at that Eye-rack?”
Baer chewed, swallowed, drank. Let the girl wait for an answer. “From now on, you tell those big shots they want to break a bill, go to a bank. As for me, hold on to that, run a tab.” He looked around the room. “Can I get upstairs from here?”
Pudge pointed at swinging half-doors past the far end of the bar. “Down the hallway. Goes to the lobby. By the way, your room key unlocks the front door, you come back after I close up.”
Baer wolfed down his second burger, wiped his mouth on a paper napkin, finished the beer. He was eleven time zones ahead of these people, and hadn't slept for twenty-seven hours. He pushed away from the table, said, “Good to know,” and went to bed.
She used a Guest Receipt to write up Mr. Baer’s two burgers and a draft, did the math, then paper-clipped the C-note to the receipt, put both under the cash tray in the register.
Before she did it she compared the serial number with the bills in the till. Same series. The number itself was in between the other two. All three had been printed more than twenty years ago, yet they were crisp, brand new. Weird.
Five minutes later a motorcycle engine rattled the windows, died, and Bumpsy walked in, trailed by a busty girl in tight jeans and a Harley tank top under a denim jacket. “Get us a couple of brews,” he ordered, and headed for Howie and Chick’s table. “Dudes,” he said, bumping fists. He dropped a red metal flake helmet in the middle of the table, and shucked his gloves.
“Since when you start wearing a skid lid?”
Bumpsy finger combed his beard, examined something, then dropped it on the floor. “Came with the bike. Besides, now that I’m a rich dude, I got to look out for my health. I miss anything?”
“Not hardly. Me and Howie been puttin’ in long hours, but there’s still a few stray beers left in town.”
“Baer was just here, eatin’. Chick says he’s got a room.”
“Yeah? Maybe we need to go upstairs, get the RoachMobile keys off him. All that money sittin’ in the garage makes me nervous.”
“Frikko! Baer’s what makes me nervous.”
Chick watched the girl at the bar. Dirty blond, thick pigtail braid down to her ass, a nice one. About his age, but showing mileage. If she was with Bumpsy she was most likely a raspberry. He didn’t like speed freaks; they could go weird on you in a flash. Draw attention.
Like Howie and Bumpsy were doing, with their new wheels. What was it Baer said? Don’t get crazy. He was keeping his cash hid away. There would be plenty of time to start spending, later.
She came back with a glass in each hand. Stood, waiting for instructions, introductions. “Put them on the table, woman. And then bring me a chair; I ain’t drinking standing up. Jesus.” He spun the chair, straddled it. The chair’s joints protested.
“This here’s Murphy, my new back-warmer. Got her the same place I got the bike. River Harley, down Harrisburg.”
“What’d you get?”
“Fat Boy Softail Twenty thou and change.” He grinned at Howie and Chick. “Murphy here was an option, dealer threw her in at no extra cost.”
“You wish,” she said, and stuck her hands in her hip pockets.
“Show ‘em your tats.”
She was pretty obviously blazed, and looked around the bar, confused, said, “In here?” but pulled up the hem of the tank top, displaying breasts overflowing a black bra.
“I said tats, not tits, you ignoramus!”
“Oh, my ink,” she said, laughing, and took off the jacket. Fresh tattoos adorned both arms; a red and black strand of bloody barbed wire circled her left biceps, a green and blue celtic chain adorned the right.
“Got her done not two hours ago. There’s also a red devil with a pitchfork and a real long tail, but you ain’t seein’ that one.”
Chapter 17
Cortez studied the photograph of Major Baer's wife and twin daughters, and fitted puzzle pieces into a picture.
“Tunisia!”
The sergeant stuck her head in the door. “Say what?”
“Cut me a set of travel orders. Major Baer is the one should be doing this, but since he ain’t here, it’s up to me to take care of this mess. I got to go to the Pentagon for a day or two.”
“What mess?”
“Just cut the orders, sweetheart. And see if you can find out where Shaleville, Pennsylvania is at.”
Chapter 18
The next morning Baer wandered around the empty lobby, waiting for the real estate woman. It spoke of past grandeur, back when coal fueled the industrial revolution. He rubbed dust from the etched glass of tall double doors, peered at an abandoned dining room. Tables, their chairs upended on top, lined windows overlooking the town square.
He could picture women in bustles and men in top hats, waiters in black with long white aprons, pouring champagne by the bucketful. Oysters Rockefeller and Delmonico steak.
He recalled a family vacation, taking the twins out west. They’d gone to Tombstone, Deadwood, visited Boot Hill, watched a shootout reenactment. Hokey shit, crafted for tourists. Who came in droves, and spent with abandon.
He could make Shaleville that kind of attraction; just create a Disney version of King Coal. Mine tours, a narrow-gauge railroad, with a steam locomotive. Something to bring the tourists to town.
Then it would be time to unpack the crystal and the silver plate, shake out the snowy linen table cloths, and restock the cellar. It was working for those resurrected Western towns. With a little imagination and some fresh capital it could work here. He saw himself. . .
A horn broke his reverie and he looked out the front door, saw the real estate broad, Cindy, Cathy, smiling, waving from a car with a Century 21 magnetic sign on the door.
He slid into the front seat, threw a glance past her at the hotel. “You can see why I’m looking for a place.”
“Yes, the old gal has fallen on hard times. Too bad. She has good bones. Did you have any hotel interests in the Middle East?” Evidently she’d done some research.
The first rental she showed him, the one to set the parameter, was two doors up from Tomczak’s house. A widower, recently deceased, had followed his wife into side-by-side plots a block away. “Shaleville’s a bit like Vegas,” she said, shoving her sunglasses up, so the tortoiseshell frames nestled among auburn locks. “What happens here, stays here.” The woman had a wry sense of humor, and he laughed.
The furnishings would be sold at auction, after a buyer was found for the real estate. “Empty houses don’t show well in this area,” she explained, then added, with sly condescension, “The natives need to see a chrome and avocado dinette set, and the in-laws hand-me-down bedroom suite that was ‘too good to throw out’.”
“I take it you’re not one of those natives.”
“Me? Not hardly. I was the distaff side of a husband and wife team, opening up the franchise.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes while she checked her memory banks. Tattletale lines formed around those eyes and lips, peeking through her makeup. “Lord! It’s been almost ten years. Same dreary story; he got the bimbo and I got the business. Which isn’t worth enough to attract a buyer, so here I sit. How’s the song go? Stuck in Lodi.” She laughed.
“The town’s only growth industry is song writers, mining for inspiration. Billy Joel’s Allentown, Springsteen’s My Home Town, could
have been about Shaleville. He had to have seen our main street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores.”
“Why do you stay?”
“Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I guess I’m too proud to admit failure, and too lazy to do anything about it.” She winked at him, flashed the smile. “Maybe I’m just waiting for the right man to rescue me.” Then laughed, letting him know she didn’t mean it, and pulled her shades back down. “You have enough interest to go inside?”
“I’d prefer more privacy. I can feel the old ladies watching us right now.”
She shifted from Park to Drive. Always start by showing a throwaway listing. “Drawback of small towns. I think you’ll find the other property a bit more secluded.” She pulled away from the curb and headed North on First Street, which became River Road at the edge of town.
The water tumbled over dark rocks twenty feet below the roadway. “Weekends we get white water kayakers. Day trippers from Philly, New York. There’s several miles of good river, starting here at the old iron bridge.” She slowed to a stop where the road turned left, onto a single lane bridge. A dirt track dropped to a launching spot at the edge of the water. A historical marker was bolted to the pale green structure.
North Fork Bridge
Erected in 1871 by the Penn Iron Works.
Originally a single track rail bridge,
it carried anthracite coal to the steel
mills in Pittsburgh, until 1912,
when a double track bridge was
constructed at Harrisburg.
It is a two span, double-intersection
Whipple Through Truss, with a later pair
of external Baltimore trusses added.
In 1947 the rails were removed and the
bridge was paved.
The bridge, supported by massive granite foundations, was two hundred feet long, and narrow, with less than two feet of clearance between a modern vehicle and the girders on each side.
