by Nova
The waitress, a tall white woman with pale skin and red hair that was starting to gray, greeted us cheerfully enough. We weren’t strangers to her. We were money in her pocket, hopefully.
“How can I help ya’ll?” She was a local. If not a local then she had grown up within a hundred miles of here, all those miles in the opposite direction of Northern Virginia.
Max grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am. We would like to get something to eat.”
“Well, help yourself to a table or sit on up here with these no-accounts.” She laughed. “As you can see we have a few open tables.” She waved her hand in the direction of the roped-off section and turned in response to a call of “Shelli, more coffee here, please.”
We took a booth next to a window that allowed us to look out over the parking lot. I looked around. This wasn’t a real diner in the sense that it had been here for fifty years. It was a copy of a diner that someone had built in order to cash in on the feel-good, small-town vibes during the boom. The red pleather covering the booth seats had begun to crack. My rip had been patched with duct tape, which would probably outlast the pleather. The ketchup and hot sauce bottles had no caps. I had seen that before. That was to prevent anyone from pocketing them. My guess is they still lost a few bottles. We picked up our menus. Across the top was written Please Ask for Salt and Pepper!
I looked over the menu at Max. “You do take me to all the finer places, big guy.” He ignored me.
The conversations began again, this time at a lower volume and punctuated by sidelong glances at us.
Shelli came back, order pad in hand. “You decide on anything yet?” I ordered coffee and pancakes. Max went with a burger and coffee.
We sat there waiting for our order and checked out our fellow diners while making small talk. There were three men sitting at the counter, with empty stools between them. The one closest to us was wearing a blue blazer over a Polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants. He had on brown-tasseled loafers. A salesman—or, more likely, a former salesman still clinging to his uniform out of habit or wishful thinking.
I had learned to check out people’s footwear when Max and I did our stint as officers of the law. Actually, Max had pointed it out to me, and I had worked on it since. The theory was simple. Shoes, more than anything, told you what was really going on with a person. A disconnect between shoes and attitude was always a warning flag. Age was also important.
For example, here’s an obvious one. Say I stop a male, any color, who is fit and in his twenties to forties. He is dressed passably well except for tan lace-up work boots. He will usually be wearing sunglasses, probably Oakleys. If he isn’t, good. If he is, I tell him to take them off.
Why? Because nine out of ten times I am dealing with a vet who is armed and has more experience and training in violence than your average civilian. If his boots are scuffed and sun-faded, he is almost certainly a vet. I say almost, because I sometimes ran across guys—especially in urban areas—who didn’t have the experience but wanted to project the image. You could count on Homeland Security types to be wearing the same sort of boots, only in black.
Tassel Man’s shoes were shined, which told me he had either driven or walked a very short distance to get here. He had a house or decent place to live. He once held middle-class status, and in his mind he still clung to it. He would be armed—I assumed everyone was now—though he didn’t carry every day. It was too heavy and uncomfortable. Plus, at least in his worldview, things weren’t that bad, and he just knew the old days were coming back. One just had to keep a positive attitude.
The guy next to him was sloppy—sloppy body, sloppy clothes, unshaven face. His Nike running shoes had seen better days. He wore a black nylon holster with a Ruger Blackhawk in it. That was the only point in his favor. Even his hair was sloppy and greasy. He was comfortable on his stool, which indicated he was a local. His left forearm had a tattoo of an eagle.
I watched Shelli, the waitress. Her body language changed subtly around him. She didn’t like him.
The third guy was old but alert. I noticed that he was studying us while trying not to be obvious about it. He wore work pants and a clean shirt with a collar. He had on a pair of work boots: Sears brand, old. Sears was gone now, but a few of its products lived on. He wore suspenders and had a Leatherman looped onto a plain wide belt. My guess was he had some heavy iron hanging off the other side. He looked competent. He was wearing a John Deere ball cap.
In a booth in the back was a middle-aged couple. He looked like a math teacher with a bad comb-over. He was also wearing a collared shirt. This must be the rich people’s diner, I thought. I didn’t really understand then how hard some people clung to the old ways. Partly in denial, partly in the hope that if they acted and dressed as they always had, everything bad would go away. I had no idea about the woman. Her back was to me.
I noticed that the short-order cook kept an eye on us. He’d pop his head up in the window where the completed orders were stacked, look around, and disappear.
There weren’t any young people in the diner. In a town like this, the young ones usually bailed as soon as possible, with only a handful staying behind. That flow had reversed a bit in the past few years as some returned to Mom and Dad, broke and towing a couple of grandkids behind them. They didn’t have the money to eat out, and most didn’t have the skills to create anything to barter with.
When Shelli returned to find out how we were doing, Max asked, “So do you have a mayor or someone in charge here?”
Before she could answer, Sloppy barked out a laugh. “Well, the man who thought he would be king got himself baked like a Purdue roaster right next door to you.”
Shelli frowned, her expression saying, What an asshole. Over her shoulder she said, “I think he was talking to me, Gillian Rogers.” She answered Max, “No, sir. We don’t even have a sheriff, let alone a mayor.”
“Hell, we don’t even have a post office anymore or a fire department. This town ain’t much of a town. Shit, we don’t even have any good-looking women.” Gil thought this was pretty funny. He held up his hand. “Sorry, sorry. We do. I forgot about that niece of yours, Fred.”
The old guy down from him stood up like he was going to do something, or at least wanted Sloppy to think he was. “Shut your mouth about my niece, Gil.” Then again maybe he was. Firearms were just as deadly in a sixty-year-old’s hands as they were in a twenty-year-old’s.
Shelli said sharply, “Enough! Gil, you need to watch your mouth.”
The cook had appeared in the window and was watching intently. I looked at Max. He was sitting sideways in the booth now, watching it all calmly.
Damn, I thought, come in for some pancakes and we end up in the dysfunctional family diner.
Gil held up his hands, “Sorry, sorry. Just funnin’ ya’ll.” Then he smirked and spun his stool around.
“So there’s your answer, mister. Would you two want some more coffee? I’m going to have to charge you for an extra cup. Coffee is getting tough to find in quantity lately.”
“Sure, I would love another cup, ma’am.” We grinned at each other, and she turned and headed behind the counter to get the pot.
Gil spoke into his coffee cup without turning around. “See you got his equipment running just fine in front of Tom’s place. Kind of convenient, since the old shithead never would have shared.”
Okay, I thought, showtime! I reached down and slid off the leather thong that held the Ruger by the hammer and started easing out of the booth. Max caught me with a glance and a tiny shake of the head. Then he slid forward and stood up.
Very quietly he said, “Hey, Gil.”
Gil spun around, smirking again. “Just funnin’, strang—” He would have finished the —er part if Max’s open hand hadn’t connected with the side of his face. The sound of a nicely landed smack filled the air.
I slid out of the booth and moved to Max’s left, leaving him room to work. I was grinning. Gil had just been bitch-slapped. I bet it was t
he first time he had seen it done outside of cable TV, let alone felt it.
Gil sat there for a second, stunned. His face had gone white, which highlighted the imprint of Max’s hand. He touched the side of his face and almost got to his feet, but then decided it wasn’t such a good idea. Max looked at him and cocked his head.
“Damn, mister. I was just—”
“I know,” Max cut him off, “You were funnin’. You got something you want to accuse me of?”
Gil shook his head.
“Cause, being that there isn’t any law around here, I figure we can settle this ourselves”—he paused and then added—“like men.”
“No, no. I’m good. I was leaving anyway.”
Damn, I thought, bitch-slapped again.
He was off the stool, eyes down and moving past me, and out the door in under three seconds.
In the silence that followed his departure, I asked Shelli, “Ma’am? I see he didn’t pay his check. You want me to go remind him?”
She laughed; a shaky sounding laugh, but a laugh. “No, I’m sure he’ll be back. I’ll get it then. Thanks.”
Max looked around slowly, addressing no one and everyone. “We are using the equipment because we need to. We will not keep it. I asked if there were any local authorities because I wanted them to know of our equipment use, and that we plan to return it. I apologize for disturbing your meal. Thank you.”
He sat down. I wanted to applaud but decided not to. The diner slowly returned to normal. The buzz of conversation resumed. Heck, we had probably given everyone within a couple miles something new to talk about for the next week. We sat there. I was enjoying my coffee. Max was working on eye contact with Shelli when the old guy came up to our table.
“Excuse me. I just wanted to say thank you for putting Gil in his place.”
“Not a problem. Care to join us?”
He did, which meant I had to move over to give him room.
“Gil wasn’t always an asshole,” he continued. “He just hasn’t adjusted well to not having any money.” As an aside he added, “A lot of us haven’t.”
Max nodded. “Yep. It’s been rough.”
This was what Max was good at. Talking to people. He could project a strong, nonjudgmental, and caring attitude at the flick of a switch. People ate it up, especially the scared and lost ones.
Old Guy paused. Even I knew he had something he wanted to say. You could tell he was trying to control both the flow of his words and the naked need behind what he had to say. He almost did, too.
“Well, I am a pretty good operator. I learned in the Seabees way back when. And, well, I could use some work and . . .” He stopped. His hands were on top of the table. They looked old, brown, ropey, and scarred. No wedding ring either.
“Seabees, huh?” Max said pensively. “You know anything about building berms?”
The Old Guy grinned. “Some. Did a year in Kuwait in ’05 with KBR. We did some of that. Pushing sand is a lot different than pushing clay. It don’t stay put. That was some good money that year.”
“Okay, I tell you what. Find Tommy and tell him I said to start you up. We will see how you work out today, and then we can dicker about how expensive you are going to be. Sound like a winner?”
He stood up. “Yes, sir! You are going to be surprised! I’m damn good. Thank you!” He reached over the table, shook Max’s hand, nodded at me, and left.
Shelli walked up to the table “Well, you guys are good at one thing, that’s for sure. You sure can empty out a diner.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next week or so passed fairly quickly. The Old Guy was as good as he said he was. Between him and Tommy, the main part of the berm that ran in front of the farmhouse and the dogleg in the approach road were done in a week. They started working on the side berm. Old Guy said he knew where he could get some gravel. Making the dogleg had required creating a short stretch of dirt road, and we needed to lay gravel on it.
I was helping out where I could. I built the watch platforms and walkways on the interior side of the berm. I used wood salvaged from different places to frame the platforms, most of it from an old barn down the road. I found out pretty quickly that the muscles I’d developed while walking here weren’t the same ones used to run a shovel. I was sore for days.
It was a good time despite the heat and labor. We would break for lunch, made for us by Night. We ate it sitting on the porch and washed it down with sun tea. Tommy and the Old Guy would talk about heavy equipment and lie about fish they had caught at the pond over by Route 235. Night would talk about her day. I would sit and listen to her and to my body talking to me.
I was drinking a gallon of water a day working out there in the sun. Tommy and Old Guy weren’t far behind me.
The kids would come out in the late afternoon to play on the hills or just watch Tommy run the equipment. Woof would investigate and sniff-check everything ahead of them. By the second day Old Guy had started staying over to have dinner with us.
Max was around, but never for long. He would spend a few hours working with us and then head into town. I asked him what he was up to and his reply was “Politicking.” He was also making phone calls. The day after we finished the main berm, he pulled us off the side berm so we could provide security for a deal.
A couple days earlier he had explained to us after dinner that he was going to have to sell a significant part of the trade goods, especially the medicine, to raise enough gold to buy the stuff we needed. We needed ammo. You could never have enough ammo. Plus, we needed some other hardware and food.
Night was handling our logistics. She had made up a list of non-weapon-related items. She called it her “shopping list.”We spent valuable time in bed discussing how many pairs of underwear and socks we might need. Nothing was too trivial for the shopping list or for discussion. I felt like screaming, “Damn! I don’t care about an adequate supply of toothbrushes! I just want to get naked!”
The night before the deal, Max told us, “These people that we’re dealing with are somewhat iffy as far as what I know about them. They are outside-the-Zone types and have been vouched for. The person who connected us up is known to me, but I heard a bit of hesitation in his voice that I didn’t like.”
We didn’t hide the discussion from Old Guy, nor did we ask him if he wanted a piece of it. It was up to him.
He volunteered. “Hell, I can help you out. You’re going to need another body that can point a gun. Plus, it beats pushing dirt in the summertime.”
Max asked him what he had in the way of weapons. He had a bolt-action 30.06 and the .45 he wore on his belt. A lot of older guys and a fair number of the vets preferred the .45 to the 9-millimeter. I had asked Max about it once and he had told me, “If I pull the trigger on someone, that means I want him to die.” He didn’t offer any more and I knew him just well enough by then to let it slide.
“I got maybe forty rounds for the rifle. I do a bit of deer hunting now and then. Used to be I would carry it in the cab of whatever I was running. You would be out there doing site work and scare up deer all the time.”
Max asked him to bring it the next day. Before the light went bad and we broke for dinner, Max had him run ten rounds through his rifle. He was right. He was a deer shooter—competent at a hundred yards, but he wasn’t going to be a sniper.
We did a walk-through that night on how we were going to handle the deal. Old Guy would get the Barrett and a seat at the second-story window looking down on the yard. Tommy would have been a better choice, but you work with what you have. Instead, Tommy would be on the porch with a shotgun. Night and her shotgun would take the other side but at an angle; we didn’t want to shoot our own people. Max would do the talking and wear his usual weapon. I would hang back a bit and watch from the top of the berm. I was going to tote a shotgun also. The kids and Woof would head to Donna’s house for the day.
Max told us not to be surprised if they came in government vehicles or if we saw a uniform or two.
They may have been based outside the Zone, but the weapons they were trading were government bought. Local law enforcement that worked the Zone, or the area just outside of it, got a lot of free ordnance courtesy of Homeland Security. Apparently they weren’t averse to selling some of their older stock. They had also begun hiring out as mercenaries to guard conveys and for personal security. Their IDs came in handy in case of a surprise checkpoint.
This swap was to be pharmaceuticals for weapons.
I asked Max, “What happened to the part where we trade for gold?”
“Gold is in real demand now. No one wants to give up any. They want it but they won’t spend it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a supply and demand thing. Weapons are not a big deal to get now if you have the right trade goods. Decent pharmaceuticals are harder to find than weapons. Gold is the hardest to get because everyone thinks it’s going to be worth a lot more, and soon at that.”
“What do you think, Max?”
“I think they’re right. The only problem is it draws a lot of attention. Soon it will be Fed-level attention. We don’t need that.”
“Why’s that?” I was genuinely puzzled.
He didn’t say anything. Night answered for him, “Because the Feds are running on paper with nothing behind it. They have been running on bullshit and yesterday’s habits for the past few years. We accept it because we can’t conceive of not accepting it. The rest of the world doesn’t have that problem. We believe in it because to not believe in it is too freaking scary. It’s all make-believe and has been for awhile.”
“Oh, okay.” I didn’t really give a damn about the dollar. Money didn’t make me happy. Night did.
We sat on the porch the next day waiting for them. Tommy had the binoculars and was upstairs watching the road. An hour after they were due to arrive he yelled down, “They’re coming!” He came leaping down the stairs, and Old Guy passed him, going up to his post.
I went up the ramp I had built on the inside of the berm, moving to where I could look down on the cars after they cleared the dogleg. They had to slow to a crawl to navigate it. I realized while watching them approach that we should have a log or something we could drop across the entrance. Just because they slowed down didn’t mean they came to stop. The dogleg bought time, but it wouldn’t be enough time if we were attacked, especially at night.