“I didn’t hear that Jack,” Hallworth laughed and shook his head. Jack Leland had been an unofficial member of the Long Beach Sheriff’s Bowling Team for nearly a decade, back when Paul Bradley had still been the big man. Paul had spent the last four years living out his Old Man and the Seafantasies, drifting the Gulf Stream and fighting marlin. Before that, he had recognized that Jack Leland was a guy who needed to be a part of something, anything, to keep him out of the bottle. He was also a heck of a bowler.
Over the years, he had become something of a mascot for the department, and always had a hot cup of joe ready if one of them dropped by the bookstore.
“Gimme a minute,” the Sheriff said, “I’ve got an FBI buddy who’ll run the number through the NCIC computer.”
“NCIC?”
“National Crime Information Center.”
“Great,” Jack replied, “I can wait."
Bryan Hallworth finished the last of his tasteless muffin as he waited for the results to print out on the old Oki printer. Glancing at the two pages of small, single-spaced type, he gave a low whistle, his brow gathering in concern.
“Oh lord, Jackie,” he muttered. “What have you gotten yourself into thistime?”
*
Jack reached over the seat and gave Cassie a reassuring pat on the shoulder. A minute passed, then two, before Sheriff Hallworth came back on the line.
"Yeah, I'm here," Jack said. "Yeah? Yeah, that sounds like the guy. Uh-huh. Oh great! Does it say what he drives? Got it. Hey, I’ve got to go. No, we're okay. I'll fill you in on Saturday, thanks Bry!" Jack hung up the phone and slid back into his seat with a sigh.
"Well?" Cassie asked, chewing nervously on a fingernail.
"Well," he replied, "I'm not going to lie to you, this Wexler guy is bad news. Drug charges, menacing charges, even a stint in prison for assault with a weapon. Also…" Jack sighed again and took a long drink from his water glass.
"Also?" Cassie prompted, as though that weren't enough.
"His motor vehicle file lists him driving a 1988 Toyota pickup. No color listed." Jack looked up at Cassie, whose face was pale as milk.
"Don't sweat it." He said, "the Sheriff of Long Beach is a bowling buddy of mine; he's going to fax a white paper to the police up and down the coast. They'll keep an eye out for Mark Wexler." Cassie nodded, smiling tremulously. Finally, after draining her water glass, she started the conversation on another track.
“So,” Cassie asked, taking a deep breath, “who in the world would pay six hundred dollars for a couple of books?”
Jack laughed.
“Well," he said, "that's what I'mpaying for them, I plan to get a bit more than that back on my investment. You’d be surprised what folks will fork out for first editions, or those one or two books that complete their collections.”
“What books are these?”
"Two very rare editions of Ulysses," Jack smiled, "both printed in 1935, for a private book club, and autographed by the illustrator. The gentleman who asked me to help him find them has offered $7,500 apiece. He's the great-grandson of the man who did the artwork."
"Whoa,” Cassie exclaimed, "that's fifteen grand! I think I'd sit there all-day too!"
“You said it." Jack grinned, "The rare book market is where the real money is. The woman who owned the bookstore before me dabbled in it, but she didn't have the energy or the time to do the research."
"Sounds like a lot of fun to me," Cassie said.
"It is," Jack agreed, "I can make as much selling a couple dozen hard-to-find volumes, as I do in a year’s worth of the tourist trade at the shop. The first book I tracked down was an out of print edition of Moby Dick for some friends of mine in Nahcotta. Took me six months to find the printing I was looking for," he grinned at the memory, "but it was a hoot!"
"A bookstore can get a little boring as the years roll on, and searching for rare books was something interesting to do during the winter lull. After a few years, I started getting letters from people asking if I could find them such-and-such a book and telling me how much they were willing to pay for it. Well, it didn’t take long to realize that I could do pretty well for myself, spending a couple of hours a day doing research and making phone calls. Now, with the internet, it’s even easier.”
The waiter arrived with their menus and Jack ordered another glass of ice water for himself and a diet cola for Cassie, along with six oyster shooters. The waiter smiled knowingly as Cassie’s face blanched.
“I was afraid you were going to remember that," she said.
“Be brave!” Jack replied with mock seriousness, “and keep an open mind.”
“I’m more worried about keeping my dinner down!”
Jack was still laughing at this when their appetizers arrived. Cassie studied the tiny glass in front of her, and its crimson contents, dubiously. Jack picked up one of shooters with a flourish, raised it to his lips, and slurped the contents in a single, noisy swallow.
“Ah!” he sighed with pleasure, “perfection!”
“Really?” Cassie asked, dubiously.
“Hemmingway said that eating a raw oyster was like French-kissing a mermaid.” Jack quoted, and suddenly blushed furiously, remembering his company. ”Um…I mean…”
Cassie laughed and reached for her glass before she could have second thoughts or, being too late for that, maybe third thoughts.
The contents were icy cold as they slipped from the glass to her tongue and the sweet hot flavor of the sauce made her nose tingle. As she bit into the slippery body of the oyster, her mouth was filled with a sharp briny flavor, much more powerful than she had tasted with the oyster kabobs in Pismo.
As she swallowed her first raw oyster, Jack watching her intently, Cassie couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. She didn’t dislike it, but the experience was so unlike anything she had ever eaten that she couldn’t categorize it.
“Well?” Jack asked finally.
“I…I’m not sure.” Cassie responded, “I think I like it…”
Jack laughed. “If you think you like it," he said, "then you do. There’s no middle ground here kid, you either love 'em, or you heave them back up. In my experience it’s about sixty-forty in favor of the oysters.”
“Well then, I guess I must love them!” Cassie laughed in return, reaching for a second glass.
When the waiter returned with their drinks, he was grinning. “Well?” he asked in the same tone as Jack had.
“She loves them!” Jack replied.
“Excellent!” the waiter smiled, giving Cassie a wink, “let me know when you’re ready to order. The oysters, by the way, are fresh in from the bay this morning.”
Jack ordered for both of them and, an hour later, their hunger finally abated, they lounged at the table awaiting their dessert. As Cassie studied the various watercolors adorning the restaurant’s walls, Jack reached into his pocket and took out a small, heart shaped box of chocolates, which he placed on the table next to Cassie’s plate.
“What’s this?” Cassie asked, surprised.
“Well, didn’t seem right to me that a pretty girl went without a valentine,” Jack grinned, “Just because she’s on the road with a crabby old geezer like me.”
Cassie smiled and picked up the small box of candy. “Thank you Jack, I wish I’d known. I’d have picked you up something.”
“Ah, I’m probably better-off without it." He said, "The doctors keep telling me I’m teetering on the brink of diabetes, so I try to keep the sweets few and far between.”
Cassie was about to voice her concern over this when Jack suddenly looked at his watch and slapped the table, his face returning to a scowl.
“Shoot,” he said, “I almost forgot, I need to make a phone call!” Jack stood and dug into his pocket for a handful of change. “I thought I saw a payphone out in front of the motel.”
"Why don't you--" Cassie began, meaning to ask why he didn't just use the phone on the wall behind her, and then she realized, this was a personalc
all.
Looking at the heart-shaped package in her hands, Cassie had a sudden insight and grinned at him, teasingly.
“Shame on you, Jack," she cried, "forgetting to call your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day! You better read her some love poetry or something, before she finds another boy…”
The effect of her words on Jack were sudden and distressing, his eyes widening and his face going white for a breathless moment, then blushing red and finally, collapsing into a dark, angry scowl. More than the normal downward cast, it was a grimace of real anger. He stared at Cassie for a long moment, his eyes hard and unfriendly.
“I’ll be right back,” Jack said brusquely and walked quickly to the door and out.
Cassie’s head was spinning as she sat alone at the table.
Whatever she had said obviously touched a raw nerve in Jack. Intuition filled in the blanks and she realized, to her own horror that Jack had, indeed, almost forgotten to call someone on Valentine’s Day. Someone whom he cared about very much, but who would not, or could not, be his. She felt tears sting her eyes as she slipped the box of candy into her pocket. He had tried to do something sweet for her, and she had gone and ruined it, hurting him with a single, thoughtless remark.
She would have to try to apologize when he returned, but how? How could she have known the way he would react to her teasing?
By the time the Widmer clock above the bar had slipped from 7:00 to 7:30, Cassie had began to wonder if Jack would return, or if he had gone on to the motel. Then the door opened and he walked in. One glance at his haggard face and Cassie knew that whatever had happened in the last half hour hadn’t gone far in improving his mood. Jack slumped into the chair across from her, looking tired. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes, usually aglitter with bitter humor, were dull and hooded. Cassie realized, to her shock and dismay, that for the first time since she had met him, Jack Leland looked old.
A long, silent moment passed, and Cassie fought the desperate urge to squirm in her seat.
“Jack,” she faltered, "I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean--”
Jack raised his hand to silence her, shaking his head.
“No,” he said, “you don’t have anything to be sorry for, you just caught me by surprise, and maybe you hit a little closer to home than I was ready to deal with. I have a friend; we’ve been close for, oh… a long time now. She’s a lot like me, no real family or anything, so we’ve taken to spending time together, holidays and such, instead of being alone.”
Jack looked down into his water glass, as though unable to meet her eyes. “Sometimes I think maybe she’s waiting for me to do something, but I’m just not much of a romantic, ‘fraid I’d mess up everything and then I wouldn’t even have a friend, you know?”
Cassie nodded, though she had the feeling that Jack was talking more to himself than to her. Finally, he looked up again and, catching her eye, his smile was bitter.
“Maybe I shouldhave read her poetry,” he murmured and then, draining the last of his water, he stood, "or maybe not.” Jack paid the bill in silence and, as they walked across the parking lot to the motel, he handed Cassie her key.
“Here,” he said, “you're in room eight; I’ll be right across the hall in nine. You go on ahead; I’m going to drive around for a little while and try to clear my head.”
“Jack,” Cassie tried again, “I’m really sorry…”
“Enough said,” Jack dismissed her again. “I told you it wasn’t your fault. Go get some sleep; I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned his back and walked away.
Cassie felt miserable as she climbed the sagging wooden steps that led to her room. Unlocking her door, she barely noticed the shabby furnishings and faded wallpaper. A low bed, covered with a worn rose-colored comforter, took up most of the tiny space. A battered television rested on a dark chest of drawers, its surface scratched and scarred with cigarette burns.
The room smelled of stale smoke and old paint. She washed her face and hands and, too exhausted of mind and body even to pray, she collapsed onto the bed and was asleep.
*
Jack sighed through clenched teeth as he pulled the old van out of the motel parking lot and back onto the highway, heading south. He shouldn’t have snapped at Cassie. He knew when he cooled down, that he’d be sorry and have to apologize. Right now, however, he was mad; mad at himself for being so obvious, for being too gutless to tell Beth how he really felt, maybe before she didgive up on him. Mad at life for beating him down until he was afraid to have anything for fear it would be taken away. Most of all, mad at Cassie for seeing through him so easily, for so thoughtlessly tearing the scab from the wound. As he glowered through the darkened windshield, Jack drove without considering his destination, on autopilot, his anger and frustration at the wheel.
A couple of miles further, the van seemed to pull itself into a potholed gravel parking lot in front of a low, dingy, brick building. Sickly yellow lighting washed the front of the tavern, pooling around the heavy wooden door and the single, blacked-out window with its glowing Budweisersign. Jack sat behind the wheel for a long while, long enough for the engine to stop pinging and the interior of the van to cool.
Suddenly he was tromping up the three sagging wooden steps that led to the door.
The inside of the bar was a monument to the vision that every non-drinking American must have of a truly third-class watering hole. Somewhere across the smoky, smelly gloom, Jack could hear the whirl and ping of video games over the sad warble of Garth Brooks on the jukebox.
Dank and dingy, the place was filled with men who wanted to get drunk in the darkness and maybe go a couple of rounds in the back alley if someone looked at them wrong. A couple of drink-spotted pool tables sat, untended against the back wall, and the only light came from a host of neon beer signs behind the bar.
Jack grimaced as he felt the soles of his shoes sticking to the grungy linoleum, and hoisted himself up onto a weathered barstool, its vinyl cushion crossed and re-crossed with long, peeling strips of duct tape.
The bartender meandered his direction, laconically sponging at the filthy bar with an even filthier rag. He was average height, thin, but with ropy muscles showing beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his tee-shirt.
Most of the men in the bar probably had a hundred pounds on the guy. Jack was willing to bet there was a well-used Louisville Slugger or maybe an old double-barrel smoke pole under the counter if things got out of hand. The man glanced at Jack, his face set in the cold contempt that came from long association with the bottom of the barrel.
“What’cha having?” he grunted.
Jack was no stranger to his surroundings and, tossing several bills onto the beer-puddled bar top, he looked the smaller man in the eye and sighed, feeling his anger beginning to fade already, dissipating into a clinging cloud of familiar failure.
"Let's start with a tall bourbon and water,” he muttered,”and go easy on the water, friend.”
*
When a fist pounded on the thin, motel-room door at three o’clock in the morning, Cassie had a sudden, dizzying moment of disorientation, unable to remember where she was or why. She stumbled from the bed towards the door and woke just enough to stop herself with her hand on the latch. Mark Wexler's face flashed through her mind and she was suddenly afraid.
“Who is it?”
“My name is Tom Barnhart," a deep voice replied, "I'm sorry to wake you Miss, but I have a man out here named Jack Leland who says that you know him.”
Cassie opened the door a crack and peered out. Jack stood, leaning heavily on a stocky, younger man. The man had Jack's arm over his own broad shoulder, holding him up. Jack peered blurrily through the doorway at her, his eyes blinking and unfocused. Then, a bittersweet wave of whiskey breath hit Cassie like a fist, staggering her back a step from the door. The man, Tom somebody, pushed the door open with his foot and half led, half carried his burden to the bed, where Jack flopped on his back and lie, groaning.
The man
held out his hand to Cassie. “I’m Tom,” he said with a sheepish smile, “wish we were meeting under better conditions.”
Cassie was fully awake now. “What happened?”
“I’m a member of AA here in Gold Beach." He said, "Every once in a while we’ll get a call from one of the local bars that they have a member who’s gone off the wagon and shouldn’t drive."
Cassie looked at him curiously, her eyes narrowing.
"How would the bartender in Gold Beach know that Jack's in Alcoholics Anonymous?"
The man laughed. "When we drink, we talk. First thing we do, after ordering another drink of course, is tell the barkeep how long we've been dry." He smiled again. "Don't ask me why, but we all do it."
Cassie nodded, as he went on.
"So anyway," Tom said, "we take turns finding out who they are and where they’re staying and trying to get them home before they hurt themselves or someone else." He nodded towards the bed.
"Jack here has spent the better part of the night in a real dive called Chico’s,up on 101. When the bartender announced last call, they couldn’t wake him up enough to ask if he wanted one more drink, so they called me."
Tom started moving towards the door. "I’ll give a call to the group up in Long Beach," he said, "and let them know what’s happened. Does he have his own room?”
Cassie blushed, “Yes! Across the hall.”
“No offense,” Tom offered, raising his hands in a gesture of peace, “I’m not here to judge anyone, I just want to make sure he has a place to sleep it off.”
“His room is across the hall,” Cassie repeated tightly, “You can leave him here though, and I’ll sleep over there.”
Tom handed her a room key identical to her own. “The number wasn’t clear and I didn’t want to start trying doors in the middle of the night.” Then he stepped out into the hall for a moment and returned with a white plastic bucket. “Better put this on the floor near his head.” He said.
Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One Page 11
