The Fraud

by H. Claire Taylor

  “It’s hidden from view, Quiche’awn. Like I said, give it up.”

  They each stared out the window for a while as Melono drove down the dusty road.

  “Hey Mel, how far is it to Lynchton?” Notmie asked from the backseat. “I thought we were just outside of it, but we’ve been driving for about ten minutes, and everything still looks the same.”

  Melono chuckled.

  “This is Texas, Notmie. It’s a big, spread-out place. We’re going to be driving for a little while longer.”

  Three hours later, Quiche’awn broke the silence.

  “I can’t help but think,” Quiche’awn said, looking out of the car windows, “that God must have created Texas last out of everything and must have run out of every color except for brown by the time he got to it.”

  “Or maybe not,” Notmie replied, “it looks like he had a drop of red left, too.”

  He pointed to the horizon where a large red barn was just coming into view through the dust.

  “Okay, boys, we’re now entering Lynchton. Prepare yourselves. Oh, and remember, we need to call Quiche’awn ‘Brodie’ from here on out. You think you can do that, Notmie?”

  “Probably not,” he answered honestly.

  “Well you should at least try, for all of our safety.”

  A half a mile on the other side of the red barn, the car pulled into a small town. Most of the buildings looked like barns as well, though they had different dust-covered signs that indicated whether or not they were barber shops, auction houses, or bars. That’s basically what the whole town consisted of: barber shops, auction houses, and bars. Some places even had signs indicating that they were all three.

  Though they couldn’t see a person for miles, there were signs of life everywhere. Horses tied to posts (“They actually ride horses?” Notmie asked in disbelief), dust clouds swirling into the buildings and swinging doors, which swung slightly on their hinges with each gust of wind.

  “Is it just me, or did we drive into a ghost town from the eighteen hundreds?” Quiche’awn asked.

  Notmie and Melono nodded.

  “So I guess it only seems appropriate to pop open this bottle of wine from the eighteen hundreds then, right?” He slipped a sideways glance at Melono, who shook her head.

  They spent the next few minutes looking everywhere for an actual person.

  “I think the fact that we’re driving a cop car scared them off,” Melono said, looking through the window for a place to stop.

  “There’s no way they could have seen that we were a cop car from that far away.” Notmie said.

  Melono agreed.

  “Well, maybe they could have known if they had seen the lights flashing on the top of the car,” said Quiche’awn, avoiding eye contact with the others.

  Notmie took the opportunity to try to make Quiche’awn feel like an idiot. “Only if the lights were on, genius.”

  After Notmie said this, Melono looked hesitantly toward Quiche’awn, who was still staring fixedly at the road, avoiding eye contact. She groaned then looked down at the dashboard. The button for the lights was pushed in.

  She groaned and turned it off. “How long have these been on?”

  “About two hours,” Quiche’awn replied, slinking down in his seat like a scolded child.

  Melono glared at him before rounding on Notmie.

  “I know you had something to do with this too, Notmie. Why’d you tell him to do that?”

  “I–I–I didn’t know. Um, can you repeat the question?”

  “Never mind, what’s done is done. We just need to find somewhere to start. I guess one auction house is as good as another.” She parked the car in front of Titian’s Auction Parlor and they all got out of the car.

  “What a strange name,” Notmie mused. “What kind of a name is Titty-an?”

  “I’m sure that’s not how it’s pronounced, Notmie,” Melono said. “I think it’s pronounced ‘tee-shin,’ not ‘titty-ann’… but I could be wrong.” She felt confident she wasn’t wrong.

  They stood in front of the auction house’s door for quite some time, unsure whether or not knocking would be the polite thing to do in this situation. Finally, Melono tentatively knocked one of her knuckles against the door, so tentatively, in fact, that it was barely audible.

  “Maybe you should knock again,” Quiche’awn suggested.

  “Aw, forget it.” Melono said, grabbing the door handle and giving it a twist and push.

  Notmie shoved Melono through the door first then shoved Quiche’awn in right behind her, giving him the luxury of entering last, and therefore, the least noticed.

  They found themselves in a waiting room. It was dimly lit and covered in a thin layer of dust from the road. Off to their left was a small desk where a man in overalls sat, leaning back in his chair with his heals kicked up in front of him. He nearly fell back in his chair (which would have been disastrous since there was a set bear trap on the floor behind him) when Melono stepped through the doors. He actually had to grab on to the desk to save himself from topping over when he saw Notmie enter, last but certainly not least.

  “Heav’n a’mighty! I dern near tumped m’self over what with you two beauts comin’ ’bout un’spected like that.”

  Quiche’awn leaned back toward Notmie. “Is he speaking English?”

  Notmie didn’t reply, finding himself too flabbergasted by the man’s apparent attempt to communicate with them.

  “But ain’t I a right dern fool, goin’ off like a unmilked cow in spring ’fore I even get ta tellin’ y’alls what I go on callin’ m’self? The name’s Titian, an’ I own this here parlor an’ have been ownin’ it since, hell, since I started it up m’self.”

  “Ha!” Melono said, turning to Notmie. “It’s pronounced ‘tee-shin,’ not ‘titty-ann.’”

  Titian’s eyes lit up when he heard her. “You ther say Titi Ann? So, ya know my girly, then?”

  “Say what?”

  “Yer tha one sayin’ things! Ya said ‘Titty Ann.’ That’s my wife’s name. Our names’re almost tha same. Funny ain’t it?”

  Melono forced a weak laugh.

  “But looky here! I been a-chatterin’ away this whole time and y’alls ain’t gots no words in yerself. What’s yer names, where’s ya from, why’s ya here in small, quiet little Lynchton?”

  Melono took it upon herself to answer, assuming the others were still too baffled by the situation to speak coherently and with enough presence of mind to keep from mentioning anything that might get them into trouble.

  “Well, we hear you have a fair number of auction hou—”

  “Yer a mighty fine lookin’ lady, if I do say so m’self.”

  Melono paused and forced a smile. She’d already had to run off Lawrence the Lobster today and she was in no mood to deal with this hillbilly. Unfortunately this was just something she was obligated to deal with, but it never made it less maddening when she was trying to accomplish things.

  “D’ya mind if I innerduce ya ta tha boys?”

  Before Melono had a chance to ask who the boys were, Titian began yelling.

  “Hey boys! There’s a might perdy lady out her’ that y’all might wanna come get yerselves a peep at!”

  Melono barely had a chance to flash a violated look to Notmie and Quiche’awn before she began to hear footsteps charging toward the room where they stood. A door on Titian’s left burst open as three young men—twenty teeth—fought to be first in the foyer. As soon as the first one set eyes on Melono, he stopped dead in his tracks, causing the other two to plow into him, leaving them all face down in a heap on the floor.

  “What the hell…” Melono mumbled.

  They quickly jumped up, set their eyes on her again, and began to hoop and holler.

  “OOOOO doggie! That ther’s one mighty fine lookin’ female.”

  “Gosh dern, Titian, Titty Ann wouldn’ like it not one bit if she caught ya eyein’ some’un like this here pretty gal!”

  “Come on guys,�
� Melono whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Notmie and Quiche’awn, “help me out here!”

  Quiche’awn tried desperately to think of some way of helping, but it was Notmie who was the first to act.

  “ Halt! I said halt, you defilers of respectable women!” Notmie leapt in front of Melono, cutting her from view.

  Melono wasn’t quite sure what had made Notmie spit out those exact words, but neither was he. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if he had used the words correctly, but he figured this was one of the only situations in his life when his vocabulary wouldn’t be the most limited in the room, and he ought to take advantage of that.

  It seemed to be effective, anyhow. The bubba brothers immediately turned their attention to Notmie’s unearthly beauty, rather than Melono’s.

  Upon recognizing such beauty in a man, the boys began punching themselves and gagging out garbled words like, “Nancy boy” and “queer” before exiting the waiting room through the door where they’d entered.

  Titian watched them leave. “Yer gonna have to excuse those boys, they ain’t quite right in tha head, if ya get my sayin’.”

  Quiche’awn was finally tired of the dilly-dallying and decided to get the ball rolling. He stepped in front of Notmie and Melono, shielding them from view so that Titian could focus on what was being said.

  “Titian, my name’s Qui—um, I mean, my name is,”—he sucked in his pride— “Brodie.”

  He could hear Notmie’s stifled giggles just behind him, but decided to ignore it and continue. “We’re here to make use of your auction houses. You see, we’re a bit short on cash at the moment, and we have these jewel-studded shirts—well, they have the jewel-studded shirts—so we figured we might auction them off for a bit of money. Do you—could you, by any chance, tell us how we might go about doing that?”

  Titian seemed to put quite a bit of thought into his answer—more than anyone in the room would have believed he was capable of doing—before he came up with a response.

  “Well, there’s this here auction parlor y’all could use, but that might not be tha best way for y’all here strangers ta get tha most fer yer money. Y’all achully came ta this here town at one o’ tha best days ya coulda picked. We jus’ so happens to be havin’ our yearly town-wide auction. Yep, that’s where tha real money’s at. Get yer stuff in the town auction and ya should come out lookin’ mighty fine, money-wise.”

  “How does one go about getting their stuff in the town-wide auction?” Brodie asked.

  “Simple. Ya gotta stop by City Hall an’ see if they’ll let ya put it in. They’s gotta approve it first, ya see. They only take tha best of tha best for tha town auction. Yea-sirs!”

  Brodie looked back at Notmie and Melono. “You think they’ll take those shirts?”

  “Pshhh,” Notmie said, “don’t be an idiot, Quiche’awn. Of course they’ll take these shirts.”

  As soon as he’d finished, Notmie knew he had made a mistake.

  Melono and Brodie were both staring at him while trying to disguise their horror—not surprise, just horror—and hoping that he’d find some way to backtrack. Titian was still processing what had just been said, his head twitching on his neck ever so slightly as new thoughts seemed to form.

  “What’d ya call him? Keyshawn? What kinda a name is that?” Titian’s eyes scanned Quiche’awn. “Is that yer real name? Keyshawn? I thought ya told me it was Brodie. Interstin’, interstin’…”

  “Wha—what are you talking about? Of course my name’s Brodie. He didn’t say Keyshawn, he said… er… he said… push on! Yes, what he meant was we should push on to City Hall to see if they’ll take the shirts. Heh, well, we better be going.”

  Quiche’awn… er, Brodie turned on his heals and began shoving Notmie and Melono toward the door, calling over his shoulder, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Titian. Thanks for the advice.” And out the door they went.

  As soon as they were sure the door to Titian’s Auction Parlor was closed behind them, Brodie and Melono both hit Notmie hard on the back of the head.

  “Ouch! Jeez!” He threw up his arms to try to deflect the blows that followed. “I’m sorry! It was a mistake! A mistake! It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not,” Melono said. “You nearly got Brodie in big trouble! For all we know, we could have been in trouble for associating with him. You better not let it happen again.”

  Notmie opened the backdoor of the cop car and Brodie helped him in with a rough shove on the back. He fell forward, sprawling onto the back seat, and Brodie slammed the door shut.

  As Melono started the car, she paused. “I just realized that I don’t know where City Hall is.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Brodie shrugged. “It’s not that big of a town.”

  “Yeah,” Notmie added from the back seat, “and on the way in town, I saw that the population was only six-hundred and sixty-s—”

  “Shut up Notmie. You’ve lost your talking privileges.”

  Notmie was surprised that it was Melono who spoke those harsh words rather than Brodie.

  Brodie seemed surprised as well, grinning at Melono and nodding his head in approval.

  That’s my girl, he thought, turning his gaze outward to the rest of the dusty old town.

  Part 20

  A Fifty-Five Thousand Dollar Bill

  They had driven up and down Main Street for twenty minutes, and tempers were getting heated in the squad car. So far they couldn’t find a single place that could possibly be City Hall.

  “Maybe it’s that place,” Brodie suggested, pointing to a small brick building with boarded up windows and a sign over the door that said Jimbo’s Auction Parlor.

  Melono was at the end of her rope. “That’s obviously not City Hall. That one even has a sign saying it’s not. At least the last twenty-two you pointed to didn’t have signs, or at least they didn’t have them in bold orange lettering!”

  “Maybe we should just pull over,” Notmie suggested.

  “No! I know it has to be around here somewhere.” Melono’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead of her.

  Twenty-seven minutes later, they pulled into a small filling station called McGyntee’s Gas. Melono was nowhere near thrilled by her eventual concession that they were never going to find City Hall and had, in fact, gone up and down the entirety of Main Street twelve times.

  “What a gas station,” Notmie commented, looking at the crumbling building.

  “Only in Texas,” Brodie added.

  He was right. It was the sort of gas station you could only find in Texas. Its old-fashioned pumps were covered in dust so thick you could barely read the non-digital numbers. The building was depressing, made of wood rather than cement, and had cigarette posters of the Marlboro Man covering most of the windows.

  “Too bad the gas prices aren’t from ages ago too,” Melono commented. “Brodie, will you fill up the car? I’ll go pay inside and ask for directions.”

  Notmie and Brodie got out of the car. As Brodie attempted to work the pump, Notmie leaned against the car and took a look around the town.

  “Notmie, stop modeling and come help me figure out this stupid thing.”

  After three minutes of struggling as Notmie nearly blew up the car multiple times, Brodie reconsidered.

  “Just—just go, Notmie, please. Get in the car before you kill me.”

  Melono left the store looking befuddled and walked over to Brodie.

  “You get directions?” he asked.

  “Yes. You figure out how to work the pump?”

  “No.”

  Melono took the pump from him and had it working fine in a matter of seconds. They stood there as the car filled up, staring at the pump, watching the dollars fly by.

  Brodie was the first to initiate the conversation. “So, did we pass it?”

  “No, apparently it’s about three miles out of the town.”

  “What a strange place to put City Hall.”

  “Well, from the w
ay he described it, it’s not your ordinary city hall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure… from the way he described it, it sounded like he was describing something completely different.”

  “Like what?”

  She shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, nothing. I’m probably just being stupid. I don’t get out of Texas enough, so of course it would sound like that to me.”

  “Sound like what?”

  Melono looked like she was about to answer, then stopped herself, saying instead, “I don’t want to tell you, because it’ll make me sound really stupid if I’m wrong.”

  “Well, write it down, then,” Brodie suggested. “When we see the building, you can show the paper to me or not.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll just do that.”

  Melono put the pump back in its cradle and screwed on the gas cap before getting back into the car.

  After Brodie got in the passenger’s side, Melono asked him to get a pen and piece of paper out of the glove compartment. He did and handed it to her.

  “I can decide not to show you this, right?” she asked.

  “Correct. You only have to show it to me if you’re right.”

  “All right.” Melono finished writing and folded up the slip of paper.

  “What are you writing?” Notmie asked.

  “Nothing,” Brodie replied, still irritated at Notmie for almost killing him more than four times in the past hour.

  They’d only been driving for two minutes before a sign that Brodie wasn’t paying attention to flew by to the left of the car. But Melono saw it, and a smile crept across her face.

  “You can unfold the paper if you want,” she said, looking at Brodie out of the corner of her eye.

  “Seriously? What made you change your mind?”

  “That sign we just passed.”

  “Man! I missed it. But okay, let’s see what you wrote.”

  Brodie unfolded the paper and read what it said. It took a few seconds for him to process the information.

  Written on the paper were two words: football stadium.

  “What? You mean City Hall is a—” He looked up from the paper and saw a huge structure looming ahead of them.