by I.B. Holder
Chapter 58 Road Work
Wagner looked around her surroundings and wondered what brand of hick human experience led someone to fit into this place. The stout bartender spit shined silverware that looked like it was civil war era, and peered over the taps at his only customer that afternoon.
Little did he or she know that business was about to pick up.
Wagner had tracked Darci to a mini mart twenty miles north, where she’d switched onto a two-lane freeway leading into the high valley towns of Blake and Hammet. The trail dead-ended there. She hadn’t made it to either town; Wagner had spent the better part of the afternoon canvassing both areas. It took approximately twenty minutes for each – there wasn’t much to see. Four gas stations, a Taco Bell and a series of convenience stores that sold “live” bait later, and Wagner had decided to retrace her steps. Still wondering why people in two different stores put quotes around the word live in their advertising of “live”, she’d come across a small service road with a sign for Burly’s Logger Lodge and an arrow. Did they want to emphasize the fact that their bait wasn’t really alive? A bumpy ride down the road did not make the logic any more clear. It might have been a more philosophical look at what life really is, questioning if bait, a metaphor for the condemned is ever really sold to into its destiny alive.
The highway she’d pulled off of, connected with Interstate 70 fifty miles farther up the road. If Darci’s destination hadn’t been along the old two-lane highway it would have been much smarter to stay on the larger road then cut over into the mountains. Six lanes gave much better odds on getting a ride, and Wagner was willing to bet that Darci knew the practical math of hitchhiking much better than any story problem she might have come across in a math class. She’d come a long way. BUMP, Wagner came back to reality in time to dodge a branch that swept across the single lane. The lodge pole pines were soldiers lining the road encroaching right up to the sides of the car with their branches. She pulled into a clearing that stood adjacent to Burley’s.
The dark cabin was deserted and Wagner bypassed the bartender and decided to sit at a table and collect her thoughts before ordering. She stared at the barman, waiting for him to look up and come over. He did neither. She became inexplicably anxious taking out some of her frustration on the mountain man. “Can I get some service?”
“Waitress quit, orders at the bar.”
If he’d looked up during his disposal of the law of the land, Wagner missed it. She couldn’t believe it. She’d been so close to catching up with Darci and now she was taking shit from some backwater buffoon who didn’t properly maintain his service road. The temperature around her face rose suddenly and she abandoned the idea of being rational. She just wanted a win, “I’ll wait.”
“For what?”
“For you to hire a new waitress.”
He looked up, and after a pause the room filled with a rumbling laugh that rolled in his throat like a bowling ball looking for pins. He said nothing, but with a good-natured wink he picked up a pad and waddled toward the end of the bar. “I haven’t been on this floor to serve a customer in fifteen years, lady, but I’ve been told I have bad habits, so I might as well break one of them with you.”
He swung his frame around the corner of the bar and found quite an astonishing thing. He didn’t fit through the narrow gap. He shrugged. Wagner approached the bar.
“Give me a diet coke.”
“Hell of a thing.” The bartender said still looking at the gap. His eyes swung across to Wagner’s face. “I’ll get you a light beer.” He popped the top and continued before she could complain. “See if you pass the cigarette test.” He offered her one from an open pack. “People who stumble into this place looking like you do are either artists looking for solitude or cops looking for trouble. Take the cigarette and you’re an artist, leave it and you’re a cop.”
Wagner smiled and pulled one out, the bartender’s skull emblazoned lighter quickly flicked into action. “Why can’t I be a smoking cop?” The smoke filled her lungs, draining the bright ember tip quickly down the paper wrapping.
“You are. An artist rarely has a weapon slung in a shoulder belt, saw that when you reached for the pack.” The fat man had his charm, and also a perspicacious bent certainly a product of years of rowdy crowds, knowing when a fight was about to break out on the floor. His eyes gleamed, then flitted to the entrance. “I think I just spotted the trouble you’re looking for.”
Wagner followed the bartender’s eyes to the door, where a visibly grungy, worn out girl entered the bar. It was immediate, unmistakable, Wagner had been looking at that face for the past week, it was Darci.
“Burly Bear!” Darci lit up seeing the bartender. The combined weight of the road, her trip and the pack on her back dissolved into the shadows of the dreary room and it was like the sun shone just under a gleaming layer of her skin. She leaned over the bar and let her cheek sink into the upper roll of fat below the bartender’s rib cage, pressed close to his heart.
“I thought you were gone for good.” He grumbled.
“How’s Mac?”
Burly looked at Wagner. “The police are looking for you.” Wagner coughed, sputtering.
Darci chided him “Why would you say a silly thing like that?”
Before Burly could answer Wagner cut in razor sharp “Because I’m a federal agent, and I think you have answers to my questions.” She looked her steadily in the eyes as defiance welled up. Wagner didn’t have time for games; she needed to cut through the role-playing before it started.
What would Legacy say about now to cut the legs out from under her? She went through a mental checklist that Legacy said he used as an unconscious algorithm whenever he was put in front of an interrogatee.
Since she herself wasn’t a freak of nature, Wagner would have to go a more deliberate route, checking off the list best as she could remember.
Was there a weakness that presented itself in the appearance of the person being questioned, some affectation of behavior or style of dress?
In this case, Wagner could see the piercings like pockmarks all contained fake gems as decoration. Her rebellion included the need to be noticed.
Her clothes were tight; the outline of her demi bra drew attention to her chest, the same with her panty lines. She was afraid of being lost in a crowd, and would go to extreme lengths to get the eyes on her.
Next question: did the person exhibit strength or weakness before the interrogator identified himself?
She had run into the bartender’s arms dismissing Wagner as a woman, a trivial part of the scene. That spoke volumes about her view of her own importance, and her need to feel protected, and secure. Ignoring something is always the weakest reaction, but that is not to say that confronting it is always the strongest. There are many parts of the mind that become engaged the minute a problem is taken on. The fear of engaging the parts that solve a problem is the embodiment of weakness.
Last question before a word is spoken: does the person want to be treated with respect? It was a simple yes no question, based on all of the intangibles collected and analyzed from answering the first two questions. Wagner answered with authority. No.
Her cigarette had burned down a quarter inch; Burly and Darci were looking at her in reluctant anticipation of what was coming next. By the looks of them she hadn’t said anything in about a minute. Her disconnect had put them on the defensive, without saying a word and the advantage was clearly hers before she opened her mouth. Oh, God, was this how Legacy operated? She felt fresh blood rush to her cheeks. No time for her own weaknesses. She jumped in with the urgency of pursuing an advantage could be lost any moment.
“You could save an important life, be remembered for something other than being a slut.” Wagner layered her voice with the kind of cruelty that she could tell Darci had come to expect. Darci’s eyes registered nothing.
Burly rose to her defense “Hey now,” He slapped his hand down on the bar, Darci t
urned to him like a savior. “Let’s not make this – OWWW”
Wagner planted her thumb in-between the knuckles of Burly’s middle and ring finger pressing through the flesh and feeling the wooden bar below. Burly’s arm went numb an instant after the pain shot through the muscular flab that looked like it was held together by a patchwork of connected tattoos. He pulled his hand back and was rewarded by pins and needles that stung his fingertips and enveloped his arm. “Damn, damn!” Wagner’s face softened into a heartfelt look of concern, turning back to Darci. Wagner slipped a hand around the teen’s waist and led her away from the bar.
The confrontation could have gone either way, it could have been a disaster, but in the aftermath Darci was more isolated than ever. Wagner lead her over to her table without a word and pulled out a chair. Darci sat like one condemned, she felt her power slip away, helpless as she was in the past.
Wagner tried to reassure her with a smile. It would have worked coming from most people, however, in Darci’s life, evil always presented itself in her life with a smile.
