by Chacon, Iris
Pietro slapped the tabletop. “I told you! I told you, you mother told you, you uncle told you, and now you gotta bad, bad people telling you. Stay outta politics! You got a show dat’s number one with all the insomniacs and hillbillies and conspiracy loonies. You got friends and relatives who love you. You got a good life—even got a house in Minokee, and almost nobody got dat. You riska too much, talkin’ about the governor. And you gotta no proof. You gonna get sued and lose all you money. Or worse, some bad guy gonna be waitin’ for you some mornin’ and you gonna lose you life! You gotta stop it now. Dis da last turkey in the straw, you gotta stop!”
“Yeah, I thought that’s what you’d say,” said Shep, munching the last bites of his lasagna. “The turkey part was a surprise, though. That’s new.”
Pietro put his elbows on the table and dropped his forehead into his hands. “You not gonna stop.”
“Nope.”
“You know, the ravings of one demented old lady ain’t important enough to risk you life!”
“Phyllis was the least demented person I ever met, and she never raved. Ranted plenty, ranted like a street preacher sometimes, but she never raved. Phyllis was no lunatic. I know that as well as I know my own name.”
“I tell you what I know,” said Pietro. “I know Phyllis Ogilvy is dead. You thinka dat?”
“I think of that a lot. I wonder if Fearless Phyllis had a visitor in her house, on her couch, who wanted her to stop. Stop calling the talk shows. Stop writing letters to the editor. I wonder if someone stopped Phyllis.”
“Iffa you think dat, you calla da police. You don’ta get involved and get stopped you own self.”
Shepard rose, picked up his empty plate and dirty flatware, and carried them to the sink. “Long drive ahead of us. Don’t wanna be late. Would you let Dave out in the back yard while I brush my teeth, please? Then we’ll hit the road.” Shep left the kitchen and headed to his bedroom and en suite bathroom.
Dave stood at the back door and looked over his shoulder at Pietro, who was placing the last dirty dishes in the sink.
“I’ma come, I’ma come, Dave. Gimme one minute.” Then he shook his head and murmured, “He ain’t gonna stop, you know. He talk to so many crazies, he gone crazy his own self.”
“Whupff,” said Dave.
7 THE DEEJAY
Several hours later, inside Studio B of Live Oak’s all-talk radio station, Shepard, wearing headphones, sat at the mixing board with a telephone on his right and a digital sound effects console on his left. A microphone in an anti-vibration mount hung before his face, protected by a pop filter that looked like an embroidery hoop inside a scrap of pantyhose.
The mixing board had “pots,” or sound level controls, for dozens of inputs—everything from the telephone to the computer playing music and commercials to the live mic that would carry Shepard’s basso profundo over the airwaves.
The program lineup appeared on a computer screen mounted level with and in front of Shepard’s right shoulder, when Shep was seated. A second control room boasted equipment from which he could broadcast standing, if he chose to do so.
Dave dozed on the floor near Shepard’s rolling chair. Outside the soundproof control room, Pietro was answering phones and taking information from callers. Pietro could watch Shep through the control room’s picture window—which was angled to prevent unwanted sound bouncing back into the mic. Shep, in his ever-present sunglasses, never turned his face toward the window.
Shep listened on his headphones, both hands poised on the mixing board, as the final seconds of a pre-recorded commercial ticked by. In his headphones, over the muted sound of the commercial, an appealing digital female voice intoned, “four...three...two.”
Shepard pushed up the pot for his mic and pulled down the pot for the commercial, smoothly taking back the helm of his sheep-counting ship.
“Well, there’s a full moon tonight, sheep counters, and you know what that means. That’s right, the crazies are out. Give me a call at 877-555-S-H-E-P and tell me what the loons in your neck of the woods are up to tonight. This is Shepard Krausse, and you’re listening to Sheep Counters with Shep and Dave on eighty-three point nine, WLOK-FM in Live Oak.”
While his voice rolled on, smooth as dark chocolate, he could hear Pietro’s voice in his headphones, advising Shep of a waiting caller.
Shep raised the telephone pot on his mixing board as he spoke into the mic. “Good evening, fellow sheep counter. You’re on the air. Do you have a full moon story for us?”
“Boy howdy! I shore do,” a man replied.
“Am I correct that we’re talking with Earl from Uhumpka?” said Shep.
“ ‘At’s me.”
“And what’s your story, Earl?”
“Well, me and my cousin Walter was coon huntin’ out in the Little Cypress during a full moon about two years ago, and we definitely saw a Chupacabra. I kid you not, we was no more’n fifty yards from it. It ‘uz moving east to west through the swamp, an’ our coon dogs like ta went nutso....”
And on he went, occasionally prompted with a question from Shep, who encouraged and reinforced the caller at every opportunity. The Chupacabra—sometimes called the Sasquatch of South America—was standard fare for superstitious, sleep-deprived, liquor-swilling sheep counters.
The night progressed through callers’ stories of UFO sightings and alien abductions, ghosts of murder victims, black helicopters, spy satellites, government monitoring of telephone communications, and more. Full moon. No caller too wacky, no story too improbable for Sheep Counters.
Shep was everyone’s buddy, approving and affectionate and ready to back ‘em up when they faced detractors. From time to time, callers asked for Dave’s opinion. Shep relayed each question, Dave whuffed a response, and Shep translated Dave’s answer for the members of the audience who might not speak canine.
Shep was commenting on a caller’s theory that cable television providers were looking into the living rooms of their subscribers. “They could do it, sure. No question they could be watching us while we’re watching them. But why would they want to? I mean, what are they going to see? The bottoms of our feet propped up in our recliners? Uncle Ned drinking beer in his undershorts? Aunt Myrtle asleep in her chair with her mouth open and her teeth in her lap?”
“So, you’re sayin’ ‘Don’t worry about it’?” asked the caller.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Shep replied. “If you come home and your wife is gyrating naked in front of the television set—without benefit of an exercise video—that would be the time to worry whether the guys at the cable company are watching you. Until then, I wouldn’t sweat it. Have a great night. Thanks for calling.”
Shep punched the next button on the incoming phone lines. “Welcome, sheep counter, you’re on the air.”
“Hello, Shep and Dave. This is Robert calling from High Springs.”
“Welcome, Robert. What do you have for us?”
“Well, I been following the papers and the TV news, and I’m getting some confused messages about this construction bidding thing in Tallahassee. Don’t seem like anybody’s got a straight answer for anything. I was just wonderin’ if you could sort of boil it down into simple language for me. What exactly is goin’ on, and is it really important or it is a smoke screen to keep us from findin’ out about somethin’ worse?”
“Wow, Robert, that’s a fantastic question. You hit the nail right on the head. Nobody is going to give us a straight answer on this thing because if they do, we will see clearly that nearly everybody involved is guilty of something. Some have broken the law—and profited by it at the expense of us, the taxpayers—and some have hidden the crimes of others.”
“I don’t doubt it,” agreed Robert. “Just exactly what crimes are we talkin’ about this time, Shep?”
“Robert, the law says that before the State of Florida hires a company to build a school or a police station or a road, the State must publish a description of the project and allow qualified con
struction companies to send in a sealed bid.
“The company that meets all the requirements of the bid and quotes the lowest price gets the job. In theory, the building gets built for the least possible cost to the taxpayers.”
“What does it mean ‘sealed’ bids?” asked Robert.
“Just like you would seal an envelope so nobody knows what’s inside, the bids are ‘sealed’ so that no construction company knows what any other construction company is bidding. Theoretically, if you knew what your competitor was bidding, you could just bid a dollar lower than his quote, and you’d get the job.”
Pietro spoke into Shepard’s ear via the headphones. “Don’t-a say too much! You haven’t gone too far yet! Don’t-a say—”
Shep cut off the feed to the headphones.
Outside the slanted window Pietro threw papers into the air in frustration.
“Is that what’s happenin’?” Robert was asking. “Somebody’s leaking the bids so their cronies can bid lower?”
“You got it,” Shep said. “Some people think it’s strange that over the past five years, more than half of the construction bids have been won—by a narrow margin, I might add—by three companies. Some people are saying that if you check the corporate records, you’ll find all three companies owned by the same person. Some people believe the owner of the three companies has been given inside information by someone in Tallahassee, so that he could win the bids.”
Robert argued that if the bids were lower as a result of the leaks, the State was actually getting a better deal. Projects were being built for even less than the lowest sealed bid would have been.
“Not a bad philosophy,” said Shep, “except that the three winning companies ended up billing the State for much, much more than they quoted as the cost of the project. They’ve got all kinds of excuses, of course. But some people think those low bids were not worth the paper they were written on. The construction company had no intention of building the project for the low price they put in their bid. That’s fraud. That’s stealing from us taxpayers. That’s unfair to the competing, honest construction companies. That’s the crime, Robert.”
“Dang!” Robert sighed. “Who’s leaking the information? There can’t be that many people in the bureaucracy who would have access to the sealed bid information. And the one person who controls all three questionable construction companies – well, heck we don’t have to name names here, but everybody knows who we’re talkin’ about. How can they get away with it? We know they’re doing it! Why hasn’t somebody been arrested? Why isn’t somebody in prison?”
Pietro was now pounding on the control room door and giving Shepard threatening looks through the control room window.
“Robert, the man who owns these companies is making someone in state government very wealthy. And that someone is high enough up the food chain that nobody will ever be convicted of this particular crime while that government official remains in office.
“If you find out who that government official is, Robert, please don’t tell anybody. People who have tried to identify that person and put a stop to this thing, well, those people have disappeared.
“And that’s all our time for tonight, sheep counters. Thanks for calling. Have a great night.”
Shep potted down the telephone input and cued up his theme music as he spoke into his mic. “You’ve been listening to Sheep Counters with Shep and Dave on eighty-three point nine, WLOK-FM in Live Oak. Join us again tomorrow night at eleven. Until then, sweet dreams.”
He potted the mic down and the theme music up. He rolled backward across the control room in his chair. Pietro practically fell through the door when Shep swung it open.
“Are you happy now?” asked Pietro, straightening to his full height. “You probably killed all of us.” He said it in the same way he might have said, “We’ll probably have to stop for gas.”
Shepard ignored him. “C’mon, Dave. Let’s go home.”
The three of them walked out of the station, got into the car Pietro drove, and rode in silence for fifteen minutes.
“I’m going to the store tomorrow,” Pietro said at last. No point in discussing the angry criminals who were probably at this very moment planning Shepard’s assassination.
“We need shower gel,” said Shep. No point in assuring Pietro they were in no danger. They both knew better.
“Again! That stuff’s expensive!”
“Dave likes it.”
“Dave! What’s he do, drink it?!”
“We have to take a shower every day. My aroma gets awfully manly after a run in this heat, y’know.”
“Fine, you have to shower every day. It’sa not good for Dave, though. Dogs can get dry skin if they get a bath too often. Especially wit’ espensive shower gel.”
“Oh, that reminds me: we need another bottle of that moisturizing conditioner,” inserted Shep.
“Whuff!” said Dave from the back seat.
“Jiminy Christmas,” said Pietro.
8 THE LIBRARY
Annabelle Sherwood tossed her voluminous red curls back over her shoulder with practiced grace and batted her false eyelashes at the man who had greeted her. Sure, old Mr. Brazleton could not see well enough to appreciate the stunning cleavage Annabelle displayed in her low-cut silk blouse, but he was still male and capable of making out her hourglass silhouette. He could smell her costly designer perfume with heavy musk undertones (Annabelle would slather herself with undiluted pheromones if it were possible).
But Annabelle knew her only reward from Mr. Brazleton would be his toothless, admiring grin. He had neither the money nor the working plumbing to take Annabelle out for lunch, much less for an evening—or night—on the town.
Good thing about a small town like Live Oak: Annabelle knew the financial and marital status of every man who entered her library. She knew how to get the most from every one, and she wasted no time on the poor, the puny, the perverted, or the Happily Married.
Miranda Ogilvy, the new librarian, had observed Annabelle in action for only a day and a half, and already Miranda was in awe of (and a little disgusted by) her curvy coworker.
When the marvelous Annabelle crooned greetings at old Mr. Brazleton in her most seductive siren’s voice, Miranda was surprised at first. Brazleton was not the type Annabelle usually targeted. Then Annabelle winked at Miranda and returned Brazleton’s smile with apparent sincerity. Annabelle was being kind to the lonely octogenarian, in Annabelle’s way.
“That was sweet,” Miranda told Annabelle when Brazleton doddered out the front door.
“Yeah,” Annabelle sighed. Then she shrugged it off. “He’s harmless, y’know? Besides, it’s been a slow day and I can always benefit from a bit of practice.”
“You are a really good person, Annabelle,” Miranda said.
“Okay, don’t ever let anybody hear you say that. You could ruin my reputation. Shelve these for me?” Annabelle hefted a stack of returned books onto a rolling cart and nudged the cart toward Miranda.
“Of course.” Miranda expected nothing else. Why should the swan do grunt work when the ugly duckling was at hand? Besides, even if Miranda stood alongside Annabelle at the check-in counter, patrons would form a line in front of Annabelle and never notice Miranda’s existence. Thus, Annabelle spent most of the day on display at the front desk, while Miranda disappeared into the stacks.
….
Outside the library, Pietro wheeled into the parking space closest to the front door. He let the motor and air conditioner run while he turned toward Shepard, who was unbuckling his seat belt.
“I can go in alone,” Pietro insisted. “Why deal with the man-eater if you don’ta got to? I can return dese and pick up the ones from the Hold shelf. Gimme you card.” Pietro reached for a bulging floral tote bag resting by Shep’s feet.
Shep snatched the bag from Pietro’s reach. “I’ll check in while you check out. We’ll finish in half the time, and we won’t be late for work.”
“Nnnnooo,
” Pietro whined. “I don’ta like doin’ this. Is not honest. Is denigrate my manhood. Is spoil my image witha da ladies.”
“Oh, hush,” said Shep and opened the passenger door. “Leave the AC on for Dave. We’ll be just a minute, Dave.”
From the back seat Dave whuffed and lay down to wait.
Pietro sighed dramatically, then opened the car door. “Show time,” he said to himself as he left the driver’s seat.
He rounded the hood of the car and joined Shep, who was standing beside the passenger door, holding the conspicuous, flowery tote bag. Pietro held out his left elbow, Shep placed his right hand on his friend’s arm, and they walked toward the library steps together.
Miranda returned to the front desk to collect more books for shelving. Annabelle touched her shoulder and pointed outside the building’s glass facade. Two attractive men climbed the steps, arm in arm, dressed like fashion models, wearing sunglasses. The bearded one had long platinum hair spreading across his wide shoulders and down his back. The other was dark, clean-shaven, small-boned, and wore Euro-style half boots with his silk slacks. The big, hairy one could have been mistaken for a Viking warrior if he hadn’t been carrying a huge purse with pink flowers on it. Something familiar niggled just beyond Miranda’s conscious memory.
“It’s them,” Annabelle whispered.
“It’s whom?”
“The local queer contingent.” Annabelle’s shoulders rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh. “Such a tragic waste.”
The two women watched the men climb the steps and enter the glass doors. Inside the doors, the dark one pointed the golden one toward the women, and the dark one paced toward the Hold shelves across the lobby. The Viking queen approached the counter.
Miranda heard, “Goin’ on break,” and Annabelle disappeared.