Washout

by Bill Noel

  “‘He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met,’ prematurely dead, Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln can compress words?” I said to throw Charles off his beat.

  “Mr. Photo Man, Mr. Photo Man, get with the program.” Charles shook his head from side to side and then took his cane to the office and set it on the chair. “I’m talking turkey—or Tony. It took me ten seconds to see why Larry fired him. He should have done it sooner.”

  “Well, is he the one?” I asked.

  Charles had plopped down in one of the old wooden chairs, and I sat opposite him.

  “Who’s telling the story? Patience, my friend.”

  I took a deep breath and waited. To Charles, silence was filled with evil spirits, so I didn’t have to wait long.

  “I took my classic 1988 Saab 900 to the station where Tony works,” Charles began. I’d heard the age, make, and model of his car a thousand times. “Told the guy out front I needed an oil change. He pointed at Tony.”

  “And then he confessed?” I asked.

  “Cute. Nope, more detecting to do. Tony said he was busy, but he’d try to work me in; told me to have a seat and stay out of his way—real customer-friendly like. I sat there for thirty-seven minutes watching him do nothing. He arranged his tools, ate a pack of peanut butter crackers, and then yelled for the keys. How did Larry put up with it?”

  “And then he confessed?”

  “Chris, it sounds like you had way too much fun with Amber last night. Let me tell the story and then we can talk about your sex life.”

  “Okay. But be sure to let me know when he confessed.”

  “You’ll be the first to know.” Charles walked over to the refrigerator, pulled out a soft drink, and came back and sat down. “So,” he said between gulps, “I gave him the keys, and he asked me why some damn foreigner would name a car company after a SOB?”

  I flashed back to my human relations’ days and reminded myself that silence was the best way to speed up a conversation.

  “When you mess with my Saab, you’re messing with me, so I told him it had nothing to do with parentage, and he was stupid for even thinking that as it was the well-respected name of a wonderful company in Sweden.”

  “So, see if I have this right,” I said, enjoying every minute, “you insulted him and then let him put the car on a lift, change the oil, and probably cut the brake line so you’d drive the wonderful company’s product into the ocean.”

  “If you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so smart, but, yeah. Moving right along. Well, the car was parked by the front door. He walked in that direction, and I waited. I thought he’d never bring it in the shop. For a second, I thought he’d stolen it and driven off into the sunset.”

  “But since it was still morning,” I said, “no sunset to be found, and since your car couldn’t make it to Charleston, much less into the sunset, you rejected that idea. Right?”

  Charles sniffed as he ignored my remark and continued: “So, I walked outside to see where he was.” He hesitated, then shook his head. “Idiot Tony was sitting in the driver’s seat trying to find the key slot on the steering column, and then on the dash, and then back on the steering column.” He shook his head again. “And here I am, trusting my priceless vehicle to an idiot who didn’t even know you put the key in the slot on the console. Everyone knows that. Idiot Tony didn’t.”

  I didn’t want to debate whether everyone knew about Saab’s quirky habit of putting the key slot on the console—I simply wanted to live long enough to hear the rest of Charles’s so far worthless story. Therefore, I sat in silence.

  “When I pointed my cane at where the key should go, he mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I don’t think it was ‘what a clever idea’ in Swedish. I didn’t ask him to repeat it. He navigated my baby into the garage and up on the rack. They had all those signs around the garage about customers must stay in waiting area, something about insurance, but I knew they didn’t apply to me. I stayed close to the car while Idiot Tony did his thing.”

  “Charles, if you could find it somewhere in you, could you possibly get to the point?”

  “Gosh,” he said, “I forgot how busy you are this morning. Wouldn’t want to keep you from what, waiting on all those customers in the gallery. But wait—there aren’t any.”

  When I glared at him, he paused as if waiting for a drumroll. “Bottom line, Tony hates Larry. Said Larry didn’t know anything about running a store. Tony could do it much better, could do most anything better than anyone, to hear him talk. He said Larry fired him because he knew that Tony should be running the hardware. Larry was jealous, so Tony had to go.” Charles stopped and then got another drink from the refrigerator.

  “How did you get him to tell you all this?” I asked, surprised by Tony’s candor.

  “Easy—when he saw I was going to stay with the car, he said he knew who I was, and who you were, and didn’t understand why we were so stupid to hang around with Larry. He didn’t say the name that kindly, I might add. But, from the way he was talking, I suspect he would tell anyone who’d listen his opinion of Larry. He hates Larry too much to resent him.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded profound.

  “So he could be the one?” I prompted.

  “There’s more,” said Charles. “It gets gooder and gooder. He spent eight years in the military police, like Brian Newman. He told me he was assigned to a highly secret division. Made it sound like he could single-handedly save the world, but never got the chance. The boy is seriously stuck on himself. Oh yeah, one more thing you’ll find interesting: he has a stack of true crime magazines on his workbench. He hates Larry, has a questionable background in the military, could have done everything.” Charles hesitated again and leaned back in his chair. “Yep, it could be him.”

  “Motive?” I asked.

  “He hates Larry—he hates the world—he loves himself.”

  “But what would he have to gain?”

  “Chris, I did all the detecting work. Now you want me to figure all that out? Isn’t it time you did something?”

  Chapter32

  The doorbell interrupted before I could ask Charles how we could beat a confession out of Tony. When I emerged from my windowless office, I saw that the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the dissipating cloud cover. Adding to the allure of the sun, Mr. Charm, Personality, and Warmth entered the gallery.

  “So, where in the hell are your customers?” blurted out Bob as he looked around the empty room.

  The Four Seasons’ “Walk Like a Man” had reached high notes I could only dream about in the background. Bob stopped and tilted his head as though he were listening for the faint sounds of bird cooing. “Damn, no wonder nobody’s here. All that damn hard rock music blaring everyone senseless. Where’s good old country, God’s music?”

  I laughed because Bob was being so Bob—The Four Seasons, “hard rock”!

  “And a happy morning to you, Mr. Howard,” I said. “Not all my customers appreciate the beauty of country music.”

  “Whiny, sad, kick the dog, stuck in the slammer, steel guitar, cheatin’, drinkin’, tear jerk music. How could anyone not appreciate that?” interrupted Charles.

  Bob and I stared at Charles. Before Bob could attack the culturally illiterate Charles for not understanding good music, Larry scampered through the door. Unaware of the musical battle brewing, he cheerfully said hello. The evil rocking Four Seasons concluded their lesson on how to become a man and were replaced by George Jones and Tammy Wynette singing—in a sad, whiny, kick-the-dog, tear jerk way—about an elusive dream. Bob nodded approval.

  “Anyone for pizza?” Larry asked.

  We all answered with a resounding yes, then moved chairs around so we’d fit for the next couple of hours
around the wobbly wooden table in the office. Charles had already called Woody’s for a delivery.

  “Before you start talking about stuff I couldn’t give a damn about,” Bob started in, “here’s what I’ve learned about Larry’s buddy, Ben.”

  He had our attention, especially Larry’s.

  “First, he’s mighty damn stupid. He hired a Realtor from Charleston’s Best Realty.”

  That was one of Bob’s fiercest competitors.

  “Stupid, but not all bad,” Bob continued. “I know the guy he used, and he owes me a couple of favors. Don’t ask. I’ll never tell why—let’s just say it goes back to our college days. Anyway, my friend told me Ben told him that he was going to take the old auto parts store area of his building and turn it into a hardware store. He’ll keep his engine repair business so he can ‘stomp the shit out of Pewter Hardware.’ He told my buddy he’d end up owning Pewter someday—someday soon.” Bob hesitated with a how about them apples look spreading from ear to ear. “Didn’t you say fat, jolly Ben was your friend?”

  “I thought so,” said Larry.

  “You went to college?” asked Charles. He stared at Bob as if it were the first time he’d ever seen him.

  I had no idea what Charles thought, but I’d learned not to throw anything into a conversation that I didn’t want him to hear, remember, or throw in my face later.

  “Yeah,” said Bob. “Did you think I was born brilliant?”

  “Where’d you go?” said Charles. “I may have a shirt from there.”

  “Up in Durham,” Bob replied, then turned back to Larry. “Let me tell you something else about your good buddy Ben. He had a hard time financing the deal on the building. Know how many lawn mower engines you need to fix to buy a million dollar building?”

  “How many?” asked Charles. I kept my mouth shut.

  “Hell if I know,” said Bob, a grin forming in the corner of his mouth. “Damn more than Ben could fix. Anyway, he finagled a bank to lend him the money; don’t know how. That’s why I hate commercial real estate—it’s way too complicated. But I’ll tell you something I learned years ago: never trust a fat, jolly person. He’s usually evil, insecure, and angry. He does a good job of hiding it under layers of fat and a jolly laugh. Wait and see.”

  “Like Santa?” asked Charles.

  I was anxious to hear the answer.

  “I thought he was my friend,” said Larry. He hadn’t said much since we’d adjourned to the office—not hard to do with Bob blustering on.

  It finally struck me: Larry was scared. That’s why he showed up for lunch, and why he was so distraught that someone he considered to be a friend had turned against him.

  The pizza couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Even Bob would have difficulty talking with a mouth full of dough, cheese, pepperoni, and olives. They all stared at me when the delivery man produced the check. I paid.

  In the image of his creator, Charles worked in strange and mysterious ways. Between bites and conversation about who might have killed two people for no apparent reason and was trying to scare Larry, he asked Bob, “Where in Durham?”

  “Duke,” said Bob, spitting a piece of stringy cheese from his mouth.

  Charles almost choked on a pepperoni. I was shocked. Actually, shocked was an understatement. I’d known Bob for two years, seen him in many situations, and been the victim of his profanity, political incorrectness, bluster, and iconoclastic behavior. I’d been convinced he knew every four-letter word in the book (and some you couldn’t put in a book), but I never would have guessed that Duke was one of them.

  “The Duke? Like one of the best colleges in the world?” said Charles.

  “No, Charles—Freddy Duke’s kindergarten in Durham, Montana,” said Bob. “Yes, the real Duke—snob central.”

  “Did you graduate?” asked Charles. There was no turning back now.

  Bob laughed and then took another bite of pizza. “Yeah. Took five damn years, but they finally let me out. Said their reputation couldn’t stand keeping me around longer.”

  “What major?” I had to ask.

  “Economics,” he said. “I wanted to major in underwater basket weaving, but the snooty damn advisor said they didn’t have it. Figured economics would be about as useless. I was right. I learned there was only one head of the Federal Reserve System, and if I had that job, I’d have to work too hard, so I went into real estate.”

  It was often hard to get a straight answer out of my Realtor friend, and this was no exception. I did know he was much deeper than most people and had more layers than an onion—and smelled as bad at times.

  Roger Miller’s “When Two Worlds Collide” was playing in the background.

  Could one of those worlds be the reason for Larry’s problems?

  Chapter33

  It was only a short way from the gallery to Amber’s apartment, but I took my time as I passed her building and walked around the block. My mind drifted. The pizza party in the gallery had ended with no major conclusions. I tried to fool myself into thinking we would have figured it out if several customers hadn’t decided to look at photographs.

  Bob had agreed to see if he could find out more about Ben, Charles was going to continue “investigating” Tony, and Larry seemed less fearful knowing we were taking his situation seriously. I’d heard more than I could assimilate. Parker had been added to the list of suspects, Ben had become more than a serious “person of interest,” Tony had sprinted to the top of the list, and Bob had graduated from Duke with a degree in economics, no less.

  To top all that, I was headed for my second date with Amber.

  Vacationers were out in full force. As Center Street was in proximity to the beach, visitors didn’t hesitate to walk the main street in bathing suits of varying quantities of cloth and Spandex. See-through linen cover-ups on the young ladies often failed to accomplish their task, and men wore shorts they wouldn’t be caught dead in while cutting grass in Peoria. Sundays brought a new wave of pale visitors; by Friday, their china-tinted skin was replaced by epidermis slightly redder than a stoplight. The locals were identified by their hats, skin-protecting clothing, and leashes in hand.

  The outdoor bars were filling even though it was a couple of hours before sunset. Residents from nearby Charleston headed to the beach after work on Friday, and that combined with peak vacation season to oversaturate the small island. To paraphrase something Bob must have learned in economic theory, Folly suffered from inflation—too many cars chased too few parking places; too many visitors chased too few seats in the local restaurants and bars.

  I was far less nervous when I bounded up the stairs to her apartment than I had been the previous evening. But like then, she opened the door before I could knock. She told me how much she appreciated promptness and kissed me on the cheek. If possible, she looked even better.

  When we had agreed on supper, she said she would call a friend who worked at Planet Follywood and make sure a table would be waiting for us—professional courtesy at its best. The place was in a long, narrow concrete block building on Center Street, only two blocks from Amber’s apartment. In many ways, it epitomized Folly Beach. The side of the restaurant was covered with a huge mural featuring Elvis Presley in his skinnier days, Frank Sinatra and other members of his Rat Pack, and cowboy hero, John Wayne.

  I laughed when I looked at the image of “Duke” Wayne.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Amber.

  I told her the image of John Wayne reminded me of Bob Howard.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “You bet you will,” she said.

  I doubted she was ready to hear about Bob’s college career.

  Amber’s friend, Noelle, led us past twenty waiting patrons to a table near the front window—a prime spot. She took the handw
ritten Reserved sign off it and motioned for us to sit. We were the subject of stares from more than one table of diners. I would have liked to think it was because I was a handsome, distinguished-looking fellow; more likely, it was because of Amber’s natural unpretentious beauty and our being seated at the only reserved table in the Planet. The surrounding tables were frequented by vacationers, but a couple of groups recognized Amber and waved. She focused on her menu and tried not to maintain eye contact with the customers.

  “It feels funny being in a restaurant without taking orders,” she said as she alternated her gaze from the menu and me. “I haven’t had supper here in years.”

  Planet Follywood’s menu featured items familiar to most beach restaurants. The American Heart Association would picket if it had enough members. Fried foods were the mainstay, supplemented by an occasional grilled tilapia and veggie burger.

  I ordered a bottle of white wine and, in deference to Amber, an appetizer of artichoke dip and baked pita chips. I felt proud that I’d refrained from ordering fried mozzarella sticks as well. She had barely taken a sip before asking what I had meant about John Wayne reminding me of Bob Howard. I gave her an abbreviated account of his college experience, and she nearly dropped her wine glass.

  “You don’t mean rude, tactless Bob Howard, the Realtor, do you?”

  “The one and same,” I said before she started laughing. For the first time, she apparently didn’t care what those around the table thought.

  “Make him show you his diploma,” she said.

  An insightful comment, I thought. It was my turn to laugh. “Have you heard from Jason?”

  “Nah, he’s trying to be grown up; Mom’s beginning to crimp his style,” she said. “I’m glad that Samuel went with him. He’s a good kid, and Jason likes him.”

  “Samuel was one of the first people I met when I came to Folly,” I said as I thought back on that pleasant memory. “He’s a bright kid. Speaking of kids, let me tell you about Bob’s friend Al—he owns Al’s Bar and Grill near the hospital.” I described Al, his restaurant, his war record and the passel of kids he and his wife had adopted. I also told her about the way Bob had swelled up with pride and admiration for Al. “Bob’s really a big pussy cat.”