Washout

by Bill Noel

  Larry came into the restaurant after bonding with the two dogs and gazed around the room. He nodded at a couple of regulars, then came over to my table.

  “Mind if I join ya’ll?” he asked while still looking around the room.

  “Please do,” said Charles. “I can’t get a whit of information out of Mr. Landrum. What happened?”

  “Thanks, but there’s not much to tell,” he replied. “Chris, did the fuse work?”

  “Finally!” I said, “Someone does care about what’s important.”

  “Enough about your creature comforts,” said Charles. “Larry, spill it—pun intended. What’s going on?”

  I didn’t know where the conversation was going, but could see that Larry’s hands were trembling and his eyes were focused everywhere but at the two of us. He also hadn’t touched the coffee Amber had stealthily placed on the table.

  “Nothing to tell, Charles,” he said, still avoiding eye contact. “I found some blood inside the door yesterday. No big deal.”

  Before retiring, I’d worked in the human relations department at a large multinational health-care company. Larry’s actions were saying everything but no big deal. I also knew Charles, despite having no significant experience working anywhere since moving to Folly Beach from Detroit twenty something years ago, would sense Larry’s discomfort and attack like a shark after a guppy.

  “Larry, how long have you owned Pewter Hardware?” asked Charles.

  “Almost seven years—you know that.”

  “And, how many years did you work there for old Mr. Hall before you conned him into selling it to you?”

  “Five years?” Larry asked, looking quizzical.

  I began to smile. Scary, but I knew where Charles was headed.

  “So, in the last dozen years, you’ve unlocked and opened the front door to the store about, oh let’s see, a zillion times, give or take. Right?”

  “My math isn’t as good as yours, but that sounds about right,” said Larry. “So?”

  “So, how many times have you found a lake of blood—blood, not motor oil, or water, or Mountain Dew—at your feet? Let me guess … none! So, what part of ‘no big deal’ do you expect us to believe?”

  Charles sat back in his chair, pulled up the sleeves of his long-sleeved U. of Mich. Wolverine T-shirt, and stared into the sad, unfocused eyes of poor Larry. Poor, because Larry didn’t have a chance when Charles was on a quest for answers. It was just a matter of time before he broke.

  Larry turned his head toward me. “I wanted to stop by to see if your air conditioner was working,” he said in a near whisper. “Got to go—have some stocking to do. Brandon is meeting me, so we can get it done before we open tomorrow.” Brandon was Larry’s sole full-time employee.

  Charles interrupted Larry’s departure speech. “Chris is having a small party at his house tonight. Beer, wine, and pizza. Could you bring the beer?”

  Larry wasn’t nearly as surprised about the party as I. He agreed to get the beer. On Larry’s way out, we said seven o’clock—the “we” being Larry and Charles.

  “Charles, thanks for the advance notice about the party I’m having.” I tried to act more perturbed than I was. “What if I had plans? What if I had a date with Tammy? What if …”

  “Enough of the ‘ifs.’ We both know you and Tammy have been seeing less of each other. I know you try and keep Sunday evening free. And, we both know Larry wanted to tell us something. I figure he either didn’t want to talk in here where everyone listens to everything or he was too sober to spill it. Your party will eliminate those excuses—Larry doesn’t have a chance.”

  “And what makes you think Larry will tell us anything?” I asked.

  “Simple—I have to believe it. As President Dwight David Eisenhower once said, ‘I never saw a pessimistic general win a war.’”

  Some day I’m going to look up those quotes Charles was always throwing out. Fact and fiction occasionally got switched in his view of life.

  Chapter4

  I heard knuckles rapping on the front door at seven sharp. Although Charles didn’t own a watch, he always seemed to be on time for everything. Larry was as prompt—to me, a characteristic right up there with cleanliness in terms of being next to godliness. I was pleased to see both of them on the screened-in porch waiting to be asked in to “my” party.

  “Thanks for the invite, Chris,” said Charles, grinning wryly. “Larry brought the beer. Did you get the wine? Where’s the pizza?”

  “And you’ve contributed what, Charles?” asked Larry as he handed me the twelve-pack from Milwaukee.

  “I have some witty repartee in my pocket and will most generously help you with the food and drink,” Charles said. “Wouldn’t want either of you consuming too much.”

  Yet, I knew that was exactly his plan, as in: poor Larry didn’t have a chance.

  Charles’s culinary skills on a scale of one to ten would equal mine; on a good day, with peanut butter, jelly, and bread handy, I would score a minus one. So, pizza, promptly delivered by Woody’s, was one of the staples of our diet. Larry looked like he could sustain himself on parakeet food, but I knew he could wolf down pizza and an occasional burger bite for bite with any NFL wide-body. I’d tried to cut back on pizza and all things junky but had little success. As much as I tried, I hadn’t yet switched to salads and yogurt.

  Seven beers, most of a bottle of Chardonnay, one and a half pizzas, and six bathroom breaks later, the conversation got around to the blood on the floor. It would have occurred earlier, but Larry did everything in his power to stay clear of what should have been the prime topic of the evening. We’d discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Folly Beach not having a chain restaurant or store except the Holiday Inn; we bemoaned how disruptive, yet necessary, vacationers were to our quaint, unspoiled way of life; and we commiserated how difficult it was for Larry to find part-time help.

  “Guys,” began Larry after opening his fourth beer, “it didn’t mean much when it happened. To be honest, I didn’t know what it meant.” He hesitated, then took a folded envelope from the rear pocket of his cutoff jeans and put it on the kitchen table. “This was left a week ago in the screen door at the house.”

  Charles and I stared at the white, standard-sized envelope as though it were a mousetrap ready to grab a finger if we reached for it. Charles picked it up and carefully removed the single sheet of white copy paper.

  The message was simple; the meaning, clear: My turn—DeAD!

  The words My turn had been cut in one piece from a magazine. The letters DeAD and the exclamation mark had been individually removed from other publications. The font size, typeface, color, and paper were different from My turn.

  “Wow,” said Charles, “I’ve seen this stuff on television but never in person. Wow. Gosh, Larry—you’ll be famous.”

  “Any idea who sent it?” I asked Larry, avoiding his newfound status.

  “No clue,” he said. “I’ve considered everything. I thought someone must have left it at the wrong door. Then, I knew it must be a prank. Really, no clue.”

  “This would have been a simple one to pull off.” Charles was still staring at the paper. “But, to break in to your store and pour the blood took some work, some risk. You must have an idea. Could your past be catching up with you?”

  I knew what Charles meant, but said nothing. Larry stood up and walked around the room, looked out the window, sighed, and then sat back down. Charles, to his credit, said nothing.

  An early evening thunderstorm was making its fairly regular visit to Folly. The heavy rain was methodically pelting the tin roof as a clap of thunder propelled Larry from his chair. A movie director couldn’t have set a better scene.

  Larry laughed at his reaction to the thunder, but his eyes weren’t sharing in the humor. He continued to avoid eye contact.


  “There’s more,” he said. “Three days ago when I opened the store, there was a square box at the door. It was wrapped in brown paper, packing tape everywhere. My name was neatly printed in crayon on top.”

  Larry paused, and I could almost see him mentally picturing the box. Charles continued his silence—a near record length of time—and took another bite of the cold pizza and a swig of beer.

  “I took the box in the store and opened up for the day. Customers were already waiting, so I didn’t get to open it until late morning.”

  I pictured a human head, or maybe a severed hand. Apparently I watched too much television.

  “It took a box cutter to get the tape cut off,” continued Larry. “I’ll admit, I was a little scared about what I’d find.”

  He must have watched the same shows.

  “Well, get on with it,” blurted out Charles, unable to hold his silence.

  “It was a cake, man,” Larry yelled. “A stupid kid’s birthday cake with white icing and candles!” His voice had uncharacteristically risen about ten decibels.

  “Guess it wasn’t your birthday,” said Charles, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “You got that right. Some jerk had smeared off ‘Happy Birthday’ and … and wrote something else in squiggly black icing.” Larry was trembling noticeably. “It said, REVENGE—DEAD!”

  The sour feeling in my stomach wasn’t from the pizza or the wine.

  The rain and our mood continued to fall.

  Chapter5

  When I’d retired and moved to Folly Beach full time, I’d rented a dilapidated store on Center Street. It had formally housed one of Folly’s three souvenir shops, but the owner of the store had decided that the tourist trade was dead along the Atlantic coast. He’d packed his wares—lock, stock, and “I heart Folly Beach” T-shirts—and headed west to Branson, Missouri. According to a friend, vacationer attire on the island improved drastically after he left.

  My hobby and strong passion for many years was photography. Before leaving Kentucky, I’d exhibited my work in numerous art shows. Sales from these shows, from over the Internet, and from my work sold in galleries provided a modest supplemental income.

  With the assistance of Charles, my unpaid sales manager, painter, store sitter, and budding photographer, I’d remodeled the beach-worn store and reopened it under the name Landrum Gallery. The names Landrum and Fowler Gallery, Fowler and Landrum Gallery, and Fowler and That Other Guy’s Gallery had been suggested by the nonpaid help, but were rejected by the person making the lease payments.

  As a result of some fortunate real estate investments and a generous early-out retirement package from my former employer, I didn’t need to live off the profits from Landrum Gallery. On the other hand, I wasn’t wealthy and needed to come close to breaking even to stay open. At the end of the first fifteen months, I was failing.

  I looked up at the sound of the door chime and saw Charles coming in. “So,” he said, playfully jabbing his homemade cane at the walls, “are we going to sell all these photos this week?”

  Charles had used that line, or one similar, each Monday since we’d been open. I knew it was meant to bring cheer, but it was getting old.

  “You bet,” I told him. “Are you ready to put on a clown suit and go out and corral some of those gullible vacationers?” I try that tack about every other Monday. He declined—as he’d declined every other Monday.

  “Ah, no thanks.” His grin turned to a frown. “I’m worried though, Chris. How much longer will you be able to hang on here?”

  I laughed him off. “Hey, don’t worry. Just wait until the summer crowd starts rushing in here to buy something.”

  “Are you sure? As Herbert Hoover once said, ‘About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.’”

  “Charles, your alleged presidential quotes should be an inspiration to us all.”

  “Did it work?” he asked.

  “As well as usual,” I responded. I’d let him draw the conclusion.

  I directed Charles into my office behind the showroom and offered him my comfiest secondhand chair. “So,” he said after settling, “what’s the deal with Larry? Someone could be dead just so some idiot could make a statement at his door.”

  I leaned against the worktable. “Charles, you’ve known Larry longer than I have.” I looked down at my cuticles, then decided to charge ahead. “Could this have anything to do with his run-in with the law? I know he served time for burglary.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. With the exception of his using his God-given burglary talents to help us solve Mr. Palmer’s murder last year, he’s been squeaky clean since he moved here. If anything was up, or if he’d slipped, I’d have heard.”

  “Larry’s scared.” I stated the obvious for lack of more insightful words. “He has reason to be.”

  “Guess we’d better do something about it.” He tapped his cane on the table holding the computer. “Time for …”

  “Hello, hello—yo, guys,” came a voice from the gallery. It sounded familiar, but I was surprised the person behind the voice was in the photo gallery.

  “Hi, Dude,” I said as I moved to the door separating the gallery area and office. “What brings you in?”

  Dude, more accurately known as Jim “Cool Dude” Sloan, owned the surf shop. A fixture on Folly Beach, he was a “spittin’ image,” as my grandmother used to say, of Arlo Guthrie, the folk singing son of Woody Guthrie. He had long gray hair flowing over his shoulders, a puny mustache, and a beard of contrasting color. His tie-dyed shirt and cargo shorts added to the textbook look of an aging hippie.

  “Maybe here to buy photo. Maybe to say hi. Maybe just wanted to get out of the shop,” said my sentence-challenged acquaintance of undeterminable age.

  “Hey, Dude,” said Charles. “I know you’re not here to buy anything, so pull up a chair.”

  As Charles was my self-proclaimed sales manager, might that hint why sales were declining?

  “Thanks, Chuckster,” said Dude as he sat in my wooden side chair. I noticed Charles wincing at the Chuckster. “Do like the pictures, Chris. Don’t want to buy any. Don’t see no surfing photos. Why?”

  Surfing was one of the most popular activities on Folly Beach, especially for the under-forty set. I’ve never surfed, and have no interest in trying, but I’ve been told by experts that the Washout had some of the best along the East Coast. The Washout, an area about two miles east of Center Street on the way to the deserted coast guard station on the northern tip of Folly Beach, was “discovered” in the 1960s by an emerging subcategory of teens: surfers. Dude had been one who came to Folly in the 1980s. He forgot to leave, and, by some quirk of fate that I’d not yet had the privilege of hearing about, ended up buying the surf shop. He’s another example of Folly Beach being a quirk magnet.

  “Good question, Dude,” I said, catching the hang of incomplete sentence-speak. “Look around: see people in any shots here?”

  “Nope, nada.”

  “He doesn’t take photos of people,” Charles added before I could respond. “He thinks if you take a picture of a person, it steals the person’s soul, or something like that.”

  “Charles.” I emphasized his name for Dude’s enlightenment. “You know it doesn’t have anything to do with that. I prefer taking photos of landscapes and architectural details.”

  “Standin’ still stuff?” asked Dude.

  “Well worded, Dudester.” Charles swallowed back a laugh.

  I changed the subject. “So why did you pop in, Dude?”

  “Simple. Reason two: had to get out of shop. Overrun with surfers and surfer wannabes. Let hired help deal with all the crap. Questions, questions, buying stuff.”

  “That sounds like a problem Chris would like to have,” interrup
ted Charles. “Could we move some of the surfboards here so we could get as rich as you, Dude?”

  “What’s reason one, Dude?” I asked.

  “Ricky Nelson, ‘Blood from a Stone,’ 1959,” said Dude, more cryptic than ever.

  “Care to elaborate?” asked Charles. “Ricky Nelson’s been dead a long time.”

  “Blood from a stone, not likely,” said Dude. “Blood on Larry’s floor from something used to be living. Thinking about who. But, more worried about Larry—he’s good people. Knew he wouldn’t talk about it, so asking Chris.”

  I looked at Dude. “I don’t know much about it,” I fibbed. “It was pretty scary. Not a good way to start the day.”

  “I got that. How be Larry?” Dude asked.

  His concern for Larry, however poorly put, was touching. Dude rarely said much to his customers or the regulars in the Dog where he spent most of his off season. He’s liked by everyone I know, but, if cornered, most couldn’t say why. I didn’t know he even knew Larry.

  “Larry’s spooked,” I said. “He doesn’t know who put the blood there. Or why.”

  Dude stood, walked through the gallery to the front door, stopped, took another look at the photos on the wall, then turned to us and said, “Find out for him. You two good at that, or so they say.” And then he was gone.

  “We be privileged by his visit,” said Charles as we stood and looked at each other.

  Chapter6

  “There you have it,” said Charles. “We have to find out who sent Larry the love letter, the cheerful cruel cake, and the permanent stain on the floor.”

  Before Charles went farther off the deep end, our conversation was interrupted by four customers. This was my first venture into retailing, and I’d been amazed how I could sit for days without anyone gracing the entrance, then like the surf under the pier, customers arrived in waves. Charles and I stayed busy for the next hour. We sold two large framed prints: one for the buyer to take home to Cleveland, the other to hang in the bedroom of one of the McMansions that were beginning to multiply along the beach.