Time Games

by Rex Bolt

  Without hesitation, Arnold pulled out his wallet and started rifling through the money section. “Looks like about a c-note’s worth, total,” he said.

  Jack said, “With all due respect, the thickness alone, a c-note sounds a little light.”

  “Okay, I can come up with 2,” Arnold said. “Long as you can too.”

  “3,” Pike said.

  Arnold blew out an exhale and took all the cash out of his wallet and started counting it off and came up with the $300.

  “You can hand it over to my cousin Dani,” Pike said, “for safe-keeping.”

  Arnold did, but said, “So where’s your 3 at, though?”

  “What are you talking about?” Pike said.

  “Yeah, don’t be changing the rules,” Jack said.

  “For your information pal,” Arnold said, “double or nothing means we raise the stakes. On both sides.”

  “Right,” Pike said. “Our 75--or Jack’s actually--against your 3 . . . My left-hand’s my weaker side, so it should be a piece of cake.”

  Arnold grumbled something about have it your blanketly-blank way, and he sat back down, no dramatic entry this time, just wanting to take care of business and get out of here with his wallet--and pride--intact.

  Jack said go.

  This time Pike let Arnold have the satisfaction of gaining the edge, pushing Pike’s arm halfway down. But that was going to be it.

  Pike said, “I see what you mean. Pumping all that iron, you got both sides equal-strength, it feels like.”

  Arnold was putting everything into it and couldn’t answer even if he wanted to. Pike decided it would be fun to go a little see-saw, put him most of the way down, let him recover and put you most of the way down, and so on and so forth.

  By about the eighth one of these Dani said, “Arnold, I’m not kidding, you don’t look well. Please don’t have a heart attack, it’s not worth it.” She was correct of course, the guy was white as a sheet, and almost at that point where you stop sweating, which is dangerous.

  Pike could also detect a note of seriousness in Dani, that she was genuinely concerned about the guy who could put her back in jail. She was awfully good-hearted, she did have that side to her, though when you looked at in another way, and thought of poor Chuck, the don’t have a heart attack part was pretty hilarious.

  In any case Pike had had about enough, and it was time to put Arnold out of his misery. He reversed the see-saw one final time, and eased the guy’s arm past the normal stopping point and, he wasn’t sure if he should of not, but he figured what the heck and just for good measure slammed the guys arm into the table at the very end.

  Arnold let out a disappointingly (for a tough guy) high-pitched, teenaged-girl like, “Owwwww . . .!”

  Pike was pretty sure he didn’t break anything, not like with Foxe, or even the dishonest lab guy in Santa Monica, but it wasn’t the worst thing to give the guy something to think about.

  “Well that about settles it then,” Jack said, and if he was shocked at the second result he was putting on a good act.

  “I suppose it does, yes,” Dani said. And to Arnold, “So . . . have a good two weeks and I’ll see you next time.”

  Arnold didn’t say anything. He kind of staggered to his feet, put on his jacket, and then, like you knew he would, lunged at his 300 dollars that was sticking out of Dani’s hand.

  Dani anticipated this and deftly avoided him, and Pike grabbed his arm, and Jack, getting more bold now that’d he seen the guy go down in flames twice, bear-hugged Arnold around the back, and Dani opened the door and Pike and Jack threw the guy out it.

  Dani closed it back up and put on the little chain. She said, “Well that was interesting.”

  “Yeah man, I mean damn . . .” Jack said.

  “Not a big thing,” Pike said. “You have to believe me on that.”

  Jack said to Dani, “He’s stronger than he looks, that’s for sure . . . There was like this incident, at school . . . he hoisted up a major weight just in time for this other dude to break his hand all up on.”

  “I know exactly what you’re saying,” Dani said. “The heat of the moment can fuel all sorts of unknowns.”

  “What she’s getting at,” Pike said, “is . . . if the stars were aligned . . . the odds bucked up against you and all . . . you could’ve have handled that guy yourself. And I believe you could have.” He winked at Dani.

  Dani ignored him but said, “More importantly, what’s to preclude Arnold from following through and filing his unfavorable report with the court?”

  “I doubt it,” Jack said, “though maybe it wouldn’t hurt to call him.” Jack was tapping his phone and suddenly you heard all their voices, and Arnold loud and clear agreeing to the conditions of the arm-wrestling match as he and Pike were first getting squared away at the little table.

  “Good idea,” Pike said. “I was wondering what you were doing there, needing to get the rules straight a hundred times.”

  Jack said to Dani, “Might as well call him right now. Let him know you heard a audio record of those rules being confirmed.”

  Dani went in the bathroom and called Arnold. When she came back, she said, “He didn’t seem too into the paperwork aspect, to be honest.”

  Pike said, “Yeah, well, give him a few days, he’ll at least consider it. The good thing, the reason he’ll be inclined to forget about it, is he’ll take a look at the full picture.”

  “Yep,” Jack said. “The gambling-on-the-job part, that could be problematic.”

  Dani said, “Well, as I say, that was quite an adventure. Now we can at least get a few more hours of sleep.”

  “That . . . or, you hungry at all?” Pike said to Jack.

  “I never thought you’d ask,” Jack said. “Gillette-dog, after that little episode, I am starved up the wazoo.”

  “Me too,” Pike said, waiting on Dani.

  “Oh no,” she said. “You mean we have to go out? It’s not even light . . . And who on earth can eat a meal at this hour.”

  Pike and Jack waited. No need to answer a question like that.

  Chapter 24

  Dani insisted that three different restaurants in the vicinity of the motel were open 24 hours, and they walked to all of them--Pike thinking they were looping around in the dark like chickens with their heads cut off--and all three were closed.

  Finally they had to squeeze back in the pick up and start driving around, and even that wasn’t easy, but then there was a Denny’s, which Pike didn’t love but would work, so they parked and got out, but then on the side street they spotted Ida’s Country Kitchen and you could see the lights on in there and smoke coming out of the roof and that was the place.

  “Think our friend Arnold is hungry too?” Jack said. He was sitting in the booth next to Dani, Pike on the other side. In this particular light, with his day-old beard, Jack looked older, and if you stretched it a little he could have been the same age as Dani, or close enough, and he had his arm stretched out on the back of the booth behind her, like you do when you’re in tight quarters . . . so not necessarily meaning anything by it, but Dani didn’t seem to mind it and looked perfectly comfortable next to him sipping her coffee.

  Which pissed Pike off.

  At any rate . . . he said, “Not the main agenda I’m sitting here wondering about, to be honest.”

  “Yeah but think of it,”Jack said. “A guy like that, does he even eat breakfast? Or is it all those protein shake jobs.”

  “I must say,” Dani said, “now that we have a bit of perspective . . . and of course some breathing room thanks to Jack . . . the whole experience, surreal as it was, was quite entertaining.”

  “Hold on,” Pike said, “you say thanks to Jack . . . that’s it?”

  “Why yes,” Dani said, looking across the table at him like he just asked the dumbest question of all time. “The gumption, and wherewithal, and presence of mind to record it unfolding in the heat of the moment . . . all to preserve my interest . . . I’d say
that was brilliant.”

  And just when it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, she actually turned and raised up and gave Jack a peck on the cheek.

  “What, you’re kissing guys now?” Pike said. “How about over here then?”

  “Very funny,” Dani said, and not really smiling.

  “Well Gillette,” Jack said, “let me ask you this, are we out of here today? . . . Or what was your thought on that?”

  “That was the plan, yeah,” Pike said. “Not that it affects anything, but it just dawned on me, boom, tomorrow’s Christmas Eve already . . . Dang.”

  “Bummer,” Jack said.

  “You don’t like Christmas Eve?”

  “That’s not it. It’s that we’re taking off.”

  Dani said, “If I could interject . . . If it influences your decision, you are not an imposition . . . not in the least.”

  “Sweet then,” Jack said.

  “Getting back to Chuck for minute,” Pike said to Dani, ignoring Jack’s excitement, “where was he from?”

  “Oh boy . . .” she said. “Fine. Lawrence, Kansas.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  “In Pocatello. I think you know all this.”

  “I mean how.”

  “Okay you’re going to laugh, but it was a Karaoke night.”

  “Those can be fun, what’d you sing?” Jack said.

  Pike ignored it and continued. “It said he was a steamfitter, the news report.”

  “That’s correct,” Dani said. “He was a hard worker, I might add.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. He was a solid citizen, I suppose. He went to church most Sundays.”

  Pike was starting to think . . . you have fun singing songs with the guy, you admire his work ethic, he’s a good Christian or whatever religion . . . then why’d you have to drown the motherfucker?

  “He spend time anywhere else, in between his Kansas and Idaho gigs?” Pike said.

  “Yes. A few years in Bozeman, was my understanding.”

  “Montana?”

  “Un-huh. But that was a while back . . . Pike, you’re starting to sound like one of the police detectives. A slightly different line of questioning, but the same idea.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said.

  It was starting to feel overwhelming. He’d sort of made his decision the last day-and-a-half to try to spring Dani on the way to Arizona.

  The nonsense with Arnold, when it came down to it, that was only a band aid. Okay, so most likely they maneuvered their way out of this one, but so what, the lady was going down in the end . . . you could dance around it all you wanted, but Pike couldn’t see a simple way out of it.

  But . . . if you could go back and do something about it . . . she could go on home, at least for now, until she may or may not do the next stupid thing.

  You’d at least be clearing the slate, and you’d be heading down to see Mitch with a little lighter load. And it was Christmas, for Gosh sakes . . .

  They finished eating and went back to the motel, and the sun was coming up and it already had the feel of a clear, warm day, no doubt one reason people liked to come down here in December, and Pike took a look at some of the tourist brochures in the lobby, and when he checked the pool there was Jack in a recliner, stretched out fast asleep.

  Dani was on a little bench in one of the patio areas checking her phone. Sprinklers were watering lawns all over the place.

  Pike said, “Man, they don’t conserve water, eh?”

  “Not here,” Dani said. “Listen . . . I didn’t mean to downplay what you did last night.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Pike said. “Which Karoke place did you meet Chuck at?”

  “Well that’s quite a transition,” she said. “There’s a place in Blackfoot, since you seem so interested. So not technically Pocatello, kind of the burbs . . . Fairly well known, on Thursday nights.”

  “When was it?”

  “You mean how far along in that night’s event? . . . Or are you asking what date?”

  “Yeah. The date. Which Thursday.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going to make me re-create it are you?”

  “I’m trying to get a handle on it. It can’t hurt.”

  “Well let’s see . . . the weekend of the, you know, incident . . . that was right after Thanksgiving, which is why we came down here, we had a long weekend.”

  Pike was searching his phone. “Thanksgiving was the 24th,” he said, though he was pretty darn sure she knew the date Chuck bit the dust, since the woman was about to be on trial for her life.

  Dani said, “That would mean then . . . I’m trying to get this straight . . . two weeks before Thanksgiving we had a casino night at at school, the annual fundraiser? So I met Chuck the week before.”

  Pike said, “So . . . the 3rd then?”

  “That sounds right . . . and since you have what you need, we may as well go over to the pool. It’s early, but it’s still surprisingly refreshing.”

  “You met Chuck waiting around as fellow contestants . . . it was like that?”

  “Not really. It was--how shall I say--the usual, uninteresting pickup give-and-take that goes on. I was sitting at the bar afterward, and he offers to buy me a drink.”

  “You ever go back there again?”

  “No, just the once. My girlfriend was with me, if I didn’t mention that. Janice. It was kind of something different to try, that was all, and Blackfoot is 25 minutes away.”

  “Chuck go again? Or before?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “You think so, and? Come on, you need to work with me here.”

  “My Goodness . . . for the life of me I can’t understand what’s with all these questions, Pike? . . . But yes, for your information, he’d participated previously I believe. It never occurred to me to ask about it, but the Karaoke person knew his name, and all.”

  Pike thought, was there anything else?

  “What did the piece of scum look like?” he said.

  “What difference could that possibly make?”

  “No difference . . . But like a big-boned red-headed guy, or what?”

  “He looked like a hundred other men, honestly. Around 6 feet tall, brown hair. Medium-dark skin . . . You twist my arm, he was reasonably attractive, yes . . . He did have a small tattoo on his shoulder, a pirate. It was supposed to be from the Raiders, the football team.”

  “Ah Jeez.”

  “Can we please cut the man some slack? Since he’s no longer with us?”

  “Well that should about wrap it up,” Pike said. “I believe I’m more on board with your situation, having a feel for how it played out, which isn’t the worst thing. Thank you.” What he was wondering now, but not exactly something you’d ask Dani, was where was some place pre-1956 that would work?

  Dani said she was going back to the room and would see him at the pool. Pike found Jack, shook him awake, and said, “I gotta do a couple errands. Do me a favor.”

  Jack was rubbing his eyes and stretching. “Anything, my brother. Now that we’re back on good terms.”

  Pike wondered how he might have jumped to that conclusion.

  Anyhow, he said, “If Dani joins you out here . . . and if she happens to wear a bikini or something, which she is liable to . . . don’t oggle her.”

  “Huh?” Jack said.

  “Show a little maturity. Be polite.”

  Jack smiled, mostly awake now. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said. “Like I’m sure you do too.”

  Part of Pike wanted to smack the guy just for fun, and for the first time in a while he remembered that incident pretty clearly at the water fountain, and god dang, it seemed so long ago.

  But instead of that, he figured he better be practical, in case one thing really was going to lead to another, and he went back to the room himself for a minute, packed up his and Jack’s stuff, and threw it in the back of the truck, telling Dani don’t worry about it, he was just getting organi
zed.

  Chapter 25

  Pike asked them in the lobby if there were any schools or city buildings or historic structures nearby. The desk person wasn’t in the mood, it seemed like, and without giving it any effort said they didn’t know of any.

  So Pike got in the truck, and, no good reason other than he hadn’t been that way yet, started driving away from downtown.

  It started getting wide open and there wasn’t much, and you became real aware that you were in the desert, and when there was something it was mostly golf courses and big resorts and a couple of country clubs. But one of them, it looked like, had one of those round things set pretty deep back in there, between what if you took a wild guess would be between the 15th green and the 16th tee, the word coming to Pike now was a gazebo.

  So he parked along the side of the road and surveyed the situation. There was a plaque out front that said Crystal Hills Country Club and the way in was through a gigantic iron gate where a guy in a hut checked you in, if you happened to be a member.

  The club did have the old, stodgy look of something Pike imagined you’d see back east. The main thing, it would qualify as a launching point. If you could get inside it. And so far no other pre-1956 options were jumping out, and Pike was getting restless to take care of this, and also, less important but even so, he wasn’t crazy about leaving Hannamaker alone with Dani for any longer than necessary.

  One way would be to simply drive right past the guard-hut person and not worry about it, and by the time they tracked you down back at the gazebo you’d hopefully be gone. But the problem was, the truck would still be there, sticking out like a sore thumb.

  So Pike figured screw it, and he decided he really wasn’t in a good mood at all, which made it easier, and he locked the truck and walked onto the grounds of the country club the way the cars drove onto it, and he waved to the guy in the hut and kept right on walking.

  He heard the guy yell something, and Pike turned around and acknowledged the guy and pointed up ahead toward the main club grounds like he had some kind of business to take care of. Hopefully that might work, and Pike kept moving.

  But when he checked over his shoulder the guard-dude, a young guy unfortunately, was out of the hut now and hustling toward him, and Pike didn’t want to but now he had no choice and he threw himself into gear and sprinted toward that gazebo.