“Good point,” Lester admitted. “ I didn’t think that through. ”
Billy Ray said, “Way too much assumin’ going on around here.”
Lester grinned. He gave it another ten minutes, shrugged, and eased out of the driveway.
Chapter 15
Earl Redman had a bucket of dirty water and a mop, swabbing up the sticky from the spilled beer the night before. He had been at the Pirate’s Den since ten-forty five after silently slipping out of the house and away from Marilyn’s strident blather. Earl was hoping to have the Den cleaned up, or as clean as he could get it, before the first football game of the day came on TV at eleven, Notre Dame at Pitt if he remembered right. Saturday was almost always Earl’s busiest day and this was especially true during football season. A lot of Cimarron County’s good-old-boys, mostly the younger ones, liked to drop by the bar for a few brewskies with their buddies and watch the games on Earl’s big Hi-Def TV. If OU or Oklahoma State happened to playing, beer sales would double and sometimes triple. The TV had been a good investment, paying for itself in one season. For a while, Earl had subscribed to the Playboy Channel for the enjoyment of his late night customers (not that he didn’t watch it himself) but when Jim Barnum’s wife came stomping in, looking for her husband, and threatened to report him for showing porn in a public place, the subscription was abruptly cancelled. In view of the previous trouble from serving a few teenagers, Earl had decided not to press it. Damn shame too, he’d thought, I was just starting to build a late night crowd.
Both the front and back doors of the bar were propped open in a hopeless attempt to air out the stench, when a shadow blocked the light. J.O. Mecham shuffled in and took his customary stool.
“Getting your usual early start today J.O.?” Earl called out.
“Don’t give me any shit barkeep. Just get me a beer.”
“My, my, aren’t we the cheery one today? What’s the matter, did that sheriff hurt your feelings last night?”
“One of these days, that son of a bitch is gonna push me too far. I don’t give a good goddamn if he does have a star on his chest. I’m only gonna take so much of that bullshit of his. Dragging me out of here right in front of those Mexicans; that was embarrassing.”
Earl didn’t understand what the Mexicans had to do with anything, but made no comment on J.O.’s perceived social stigmas, and popped the top on a Bud for his first customer of the day. Returning to the cleaning chores, Earl took a 32 gallon trashcan from beneath the bar and went around to the booths and tables collecting cigarette butts and empty beer bottles. He made a half-hearted pass over the tables with a bar rag to knock the ashes off and called it good. Back from the dumpster, he saw that J.O.’s bottle was empty. Earl didn’t ask if he wanted another, didn’t need to. With J.O. you just kept them coming until he slid off his stool and went home. The man had an unbelievable capacity for the suds. If he weren’t such a profitable customer, Earl would have barred him from the Pirate’s Den long ago.
It wasn’t that J.O. went looking for trouble, but he didn’t avoid it either. J.O. Mecham let nothing pass, no matter how slight. Where most patrons would excuse an inadvertent bump from a man on his way to the bathroom and a little wobbly on his feet, J.O. took it as a personal affront. Derogatory words would follow, usually something that referred to the man’s ancestry or certain parts of his anatomy such as “Hey Asshole, watch where you’re goin’ you son of a bitch!” The conversation usually went downhill from there. Either the offending party shrugged it off—easy to do considering J.O.’s bulk and menacing scowl—or some liquid courage entered into the proceedings with blows following soon after. The regulars knew of J.O.’s personality, or lack thereof, and cut a wide path around J.O.’s stool at the end of the bar. But newcomers passed at their own risk. Of course, anyone with the slightest bit of fighting experience or who knew how to move, could have taken J.O. with some well placed jabs and left the fat man with a bloody nose and gasping for air, but to date, that hadn’t happened.
Earl opened another Bud and walked it to the end of the bar. J.O.’s empty bottle hit the bottom of the metal trashcan with a resounding bang. Earl glanced at the front door and put his elbows on the bar in front of J.O.
In a low voice, he asked, “J.O. did you see a young girl, long hair, pretty, in here Thursday night? Now I’m not saying you did or you didn’t, I’m just curious.”
J.O. gave the bartender an evil squint with one eye and said, “Maybe. Why you askin’?”
Earl checked the door again. “Here’s the thing. This kid came in, must have been around eleven o’clock, and used that phone back there by the pool table. She talked for a few minutes and then went right back out the door. She was a fine looking little thing, long tan legs and a short skirt. Hell, every eye in here followed her, including yours J.O. if I remember right. And for all I know, she could have easily been 21, legal age, didn’t matter though cause she didn’t order anything from the bar. I didn’t think much of it till later when I heard some female laughing out front. I took a look and it was the same girl. She was standing around talking to some young people, looked like she was having a good time. Yeah, I should’ve asked for her I.D., I give you that, but it was a busy night. Granted, I don’t check everybody that walks through the door, but I don’t make a habit of serving kids either.
“Course not,” J.O. mumbled, and took another swig of beer.
“What I’m trying to say J.O., is if that sheriff comes around here again, I would appreciate it if you could let that little incident slip from your memory. The last thing I need is more trouble from the Law about serving minors. That sheriff promised me he’d shut my door if it happened again and I believe him. This is my only livelihood J.O., without this bar, me and wife would be on welfare. Can you help me out here?”
Never one to pass up an opportunity, J.O. asked, “What’s in for me?”
Earl, knowing J.O. as he did, anticipated this and was ready. “How about some free beer, say ‘til two o’clock?”
“How ‘bout all day?”
Earl hesitated on that one but caved. “All right, deal.” Earl turned to walk away but J.O. called him back.
“What about the rest of them, the other guys that were in here that night? How you gonna buy them off?”
Earl shook his head. “The problem is, I didn’t know some of them and truth be told, I can’t remember exactly who was here. One night around here’s about like any other, with mostly the same faces going and coming, ‘cept for that girl.”
J.O. almost smiled. “You got a problem, barkeep.”
*****
As near as Melissa could tell, it was close to midday, her only indicators of time being daylight and dark and the shadows cast by the long stemmed weeds that she could see from the narrow slit beneath the cellar door. It was the only time of day that she could get comfortably warm, the sun heating up the metal of the door and making her little cave almost balmy. Several times, despite the dirt and grime and cobwebs, she had pushed her face and hands to the metal, absorbing the warmth of the sun she couldn’t see. The heat felt so, so good after another night of shivering on the cot.
From the feel of it, the swelling around her eye had gone down. She hated to think how it would look in a mirror, black and blue no doubt. Her shoulder and ribs were feeling a little better too and as for her other sore place, the one down there, she didn’t want to think about that and was not going to think about it. She made a promise to herself to put those thoughts out of her head, at least for the time being, until she could get out of the fraidy hole and get her life back. There was nothing she could do about it anyway, locked up like this. That horrible night was over, done with and besides, she had other things to worry about, like gettin’ outta here. There was no sense getting worked up and have crying fits over something in the past even if it was only two nights ago. No Melissa, she told herself, you need to concentrate all your energy, all your emotion, and all your wits on one thing, finding a way out. That oth
er stuff can wait; no need to deal with it right now. Focus on staying alive girl, that’s priority number one.
Melissa had never been overly religious even though her mother, a hard core Baptist if there ever was one, insisted that she go to church each and every Sunday, come hell or high water. It wasn’t that the girl disliked church, a few of her friends were usually there, it was the getting up early that she hated.
Pretending to be sick on the Holy Day didn’t work very well either. Even when her mother gave her the benefit of a doubt, Melissa was going to hear the Word one way or another, and if it had to come from one of those TV preachers, so be it. Once, she had seen her mother’s checkbook where she had written a check to Pat Robertson and the 700 Club for twenty dollars. Had he known, Albert would have had a cow, or worse.
The concept of heaven and hell, and for that matter, God himself, was still quite vague in her young mind, never having spent a lot of time thinking about it, boys and friends and the latest teen fashions being much more interesting. The way she looked at it, she had the rest of her life to think about evolution and creation, Adam and Eve, and all that stuff. Besides, it was all sooo boring. But now, sitting here in the hole, scared, thirsty, and growing hungrier by the minute, Melissa wondered if another prayer might be just the thing to help her through the day and to hold back the panic that was creeping ever so surely back into her head. It’s what her mama would do, that was for sure. Melissa didn’t get on her knees or put her palms together, but she did close her eyes.
“Jesus, I’m sorry if I haven’t always done the right thing in my life, but if you could help me out a little here, I would surely appreciate it and try to do better, okay? Now, I don’t expect you to grant this prayer and do something totally rad, like make that heavy door disappear, but if can think of something to get me through this, well, I promise to go to church and not pretend sick on Sundays ever again. And I’ll treat my mama better too. I wish I could promise that about my dad, but if you know how he is, and I guess you do, then you’ll understand why I can’t forgive him for some of the things he’s done.”
Melissa paused and thought about it, trying to come up with something appropriate and churchy, but nothing came to mind.
“I guess that’s it, for now. Thanks for listening. Amen.”
Just as Melissa opened her eyes, Lulu the mouse made another appearance, running the base of the wall, hesitating every few inches, sniffing the air.
“Hey girlfriend, where you been? Haven’t seen you all morning. How ‘bout it, you got any ideas for blowing this joint? Of course, it’s no problem for you is it? You got in here even with the door shut, didn’t ya’? How you guys can squeeze through those tight places is a mystery to me. Why don’t you show me that trick?”
By now, the mouse was showing less fear of the human and no longer ran and hid at the sound of Melissa’s voice. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to keep its distance which it did. Apparently, it was the display of bravery by Lulu that prompted the emergence of yet another rodent.
“Oh, what have we here? Lulu, you didn’t tell me you have a sister, or is it a brother?”
Melissa watched with growing curiosity as the two mice began to investigate the leaves piled near the stairs, probing for any sort of morsel to sustain their tiny lives. Their activity, bordering on frantic, had an effect.
“All right, I get it guys. There you are working your little butts off to stay alive and here I sit, feeling sorry for myself and not doing a damn thing.” Melissa found that the freedom to say things like hell and damn out loud was strangely uplifting, a new personal independence of sorts. But the d-word was no sooner out of her mouth than she wondered if Jesus heard it. She shook that thought out of head, stood up, and once again examined what was left of the lawn chair. There was the another piece that matched the one she had broken, it was still intact, and then there was the back section, a similar U shaped tube. Melissa decided she would give her earlier idea another try, bending the tube at just the right angle where she might possibly have a chance at dislodging whatever was holding the door shut. Now, with a better idea of just had fragile the old aluminum was and what angle was needed, she once again used her weight to make the bend: gently, gently, one inch at a time.
“There, that looks about right.”
Again, she slipped the bent tube beneath the door, rotated it, and blindly felt for the hasp. She could tell where the main part of the fastener was positioned as she could see a part of it through the crack, but how far back over the door did it go, a couple inches at the most? She tried to visualize it, see it with her mind. Some of the sheds on the farm had hasps, just a simple flat piece of metal with a slot big enough for an eye of some sort to slip though. But what was in the eye to keep the flap of the hasp from opening, a hook, a bolt maybe, or worst-case scenario, a padlock? Whenever she felt the tubing make contact, she rotated her wrists, back and forth, slapping the tube against the unseen keeper, urging her makeshift tool to dislodge whatever damnable thing was keeping her in this god-awful place. Another thought. What if the eye was one of those rotating thingies? The one where you twisted it ninety degrees to hold the latch shut? There’s one like that on our barn. If that’s the case, a well-placed tap could turn it.
But no matter how many times she twisted her wrists or how many times she made contact or how hard she struck it (whatever it was), the latch didn’t budge, didn’t change, didn’t loosen. She couldn’t help it; despite the call to Jesus, it was time for another cry, a good one, a sobbing, chest heaving, heart wrenching, why-is-this-happening-to-me boo-hoo. She let it all out, the anguish, the fear, the frustration, the pain, in a wail so loud that anyone within a quarter mile could have heard it. But no one did.
Chapter 16
It was mid-afternoon when Lester pulled up to the rear of the courthouse and parked in the reserved spot marked SHERIFF. Harley was the first one out of the truck, using Billy Ray’s lap for a springboard, catching the deputy in the groin with one trailing foot as he did so.
“Damn it dog, that hurt,” he grunted.
Harley went straight for the center of the well-kept courthouse lawn, did a couple preliminary sniffs for a proper spot, hunched his back, and squatted.
“Dog needed to go,” Lester said. “That’s why he couldn’t wait for you to drag yourself out of the seat.”
“You are gonna clean that up, right? Billy Ray asked.
The Sheriff gave him a look. “No harm done. People shouldn’t be walkin’ on the grass here anyway, serves ‘em right if they step in it. It’ll dry up soon enough. Besides, the grass could use a little fertilizin’.”
Billy Ray shook his head. “What time should I pick you up at the house?”
Lester thought about it.
“Needs to be good and dark. We can park the Camaro in the far corner where it’s not likely we’d be recognized, especially if there’s a good number of cars in the lot. Let’s make it around nine o’clock. We’ll stay to closing time unless something comes up.”
“Am I still working for fame and glory or do I get paid this time?”
“Boy, all you ever do is think about money. Where’s your sense of pride in a job well done?”
“Pride doesn’t pay my bills Sheriff. My pay doesn’t come of your pocket does it? Why are you so darn tight-fisted with the county’s money anyway?”
“Thrifty is the proper term, Billy Ray. I am thrifty with my employer’s wealth as any good servant of the fine state of Oklahoma should be.”
“You are so full of it I’m surprised you don’t smell like that pile of brown out there on the grass.”
“Tell you what,” Lester said. “Take the rest of the afternoon off, get a little sleep, and be ready for duty tonight, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Would that make you happy?”
“Don’t know ‘bout happy but it might improve my attitude.”
Lester smiled, “Off with you then. Be gone. I’ll see you later.”
Having finished his busine
ss, Harley watched the Camaro rumble down Cimarron Avenue then caught an interesting aroma coming from the base of a nearby telephone pole where another dog had recently passed and left mail. But when Lester called out, there was great indecision, stay with the pole for a few more whiffs or…
“Dog, get your butt in the truck or walk home.”
The lab ran for the open door of the Ford.
“Harley my boy, I feel a hunger comin’ on. How about we stop by the Dairy Queen for a burger?
The dog didn’t understand “Dairy Queen” but the word hunger sounded like hungry. He knew what that meant and answered with an energetic tail wag.
Lester left the courthouse and headed east down Main Street in the direction of the DQ. Boise City was typical of many small towns on a warm Saturday afternoon. Housewives were getting their hair done at the beauty parlor and catching up on the gossip. A steady flow of customers filled the grocery store, buying supplies for the coming week. Men stood in clusters of three or four outside the diner, chewing on toothpicks, their bellies full of chicken-fried steak and gravy, talking about weather, the economy, and that guy in the White House. A few of the citizens were strolling through the Kingston Ford car lot, looking in the windows, perhaps in search of a more dependable vehicle for the oncoming winter, one that was projected to be severe. A pair of boys with skateboards clattered down the sidewalks, expertly jumping the board at every curb despite the handicap of pants hanging so low as to drag the concrete. Two inches or more of colorful boxer shorts poked out from the top of the jeans.
The female voice from the drive-in speaker had plenty of volume but was garbled with distortion.
“Take your order please” is what she said but it sounded like “ak ord peas.”
Lester already knew what he wanted without looking at any menu. “I’d like two large burgers. Hold the onions on one of them and hold everything but the meat on the other one.”
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