Crappy car guy said, “You gonna call the coyote?”
“No,” Denny answered. “He’ll respect it more if I go to his motel and talk there. I’ll tell him I heard about today’s arrest from Facebook. I’ll show him the story. Then I’ll tell him that you went up there looking for our friend, and instead you found out about the money from the DEA guy. The coyote hates DEA. He’ll be glad to kill the guy for us. And after he does, he won’t expect us to try to kill him. It’s a perfect plan.”
Crappy said, “Okay. But do we hit the coyote up there, or closer to here?”
“Up there for sure,” Denny said. “Less people up there. That means less witnesses. Cows won’t tattle to the cops. Plus, the coyote don’t know the area. He won’t be at his best. You know how he hates the cold. That alone will bother him.”
Crappy said, “Good. But there’s one problem.”
Denny looked at him.
“I’m low on gas. It’s a long drive up there and back.”
Everyone sighed and grumbled. One of the quiet guys, who had no car at all, was thinking how irresponsible the guy with the crappy car was for letting his tank get so low.
Sad.
Denny said, “Fine, I’ll handle it. You guys are a sad lot. You know that? I gotta do everything for you, I swear.”
The guy with the crappy car that was low on gas said, “Sorry, I’ve had a bad week. Little kids out playing after school just don’t carry as much change as they used to. Half of them have debit cards now. Little shits never tell you the right PIN code. And some of the mothers are carrying those little stun guns. They hurt like hell.”
“This whole state’s going to hell,” Denny said. “That much I know.”
They all agreed. People who defended themselves certainly made it harder on the people who were trying to rob them. It didn’t seem fair.
“Don’t worry,” Denny said. “I got a plan. My mom’s been seeing some new retired guy lately. He’s loaded. He cares way more about his boat than his car. I’ll just borrow the car a little later. He’ll have enough gas in the tank, and some spare change for the toll booth. I’ll pay him back out of the cash score, and we’ll all be golden. What the hell would you guys do without me?”
Crappy’s mom suddenly rapped on the window by the porch and told them to quiet down. She was trying to watch General Hospital and they were annoying the living hell out of her.
Crappy said, “Sorry, Mom. Can we bum a few cigs? Please?”
“Get your own. I’m sick of this shit. You goddamned parasites.”
“I said please, Mom.”
“That’s it,” she shouted. “Get off my porch. All of you freeloaders can go find jobs. At least a paper route. Something.”
They all ran, fearing she’d come outside with the broom next and beat them with it.
Chapter 10
Ryan dozed off in his recliner after the huge serving of spaghetti and woke up again later, around seven, frustrated. He was glad to be full of spaghetti, but frustrated because he still hadn’t seen the entire Alexander show. Everything seemed to be working against it. It had been a weird day and the weirdness seemed to be continuing into the night, derailing his comfortable routines.
“What the hell?” he muttered to himself.
He got up and took Sharky outside and had a cigarette. It was cooling off. Down well below freezing. It might get down to the teens by morning. Plenty of frost on the leftover Halloween pumpkins. Winter was just around the corner, and unlike many, he was perfectly happy about that. Like Superman, he was completely at home in the frozen north with all its sparkling snow.
He was standing there smoking when he noticed some flashing lights start playing faintly on the trees. Red and blue. He went around the front of the brown-sided building and saw Chuck’s cruiser over at Hometown Market. Something was going down that required lights but not the sirens. He put the shark in the apartment and walked over to the market.
By the time he reached the road he had identified the problem. There was a Dodge pickup at the far left-hand side of the market’s lot. Its nose was pressed up to the trunk of a big maple tree bordering the lot and the antique shop next door. The nose of the Dodge was pushing against the same spot it had pushed against many times before. Which could only mean one thing.
Gary Lampson had fallen off the wagon again, after a month or two of good behavior. It was his truck, idling in drive, sitting there vibrating and pressing on the big maple trunk.
“You want to help me out?” Chuck said when he saw Ryan approaching. “Gary’s drunk again, complaining about his taxes. Drive his truck home for me, willya?”
“Sure,” Ryan said and went around and got into the Dodge’s driver’s seat. He could see Gary glaring at him from the back of the cruiser. First they taxed him too much. Then they stole his truck.
***
They drove in a little procession north on Main, up toward the church and the town hall, the small police building and the fire station and the post office, all clustered at the north end of town, a mile or so from the town line. Then they hung a left and went up Rabbit Road a short distance to Gary’s place. Ryan parked the truck before the garage and got out with the keys and watched Chuck helping Gary from the cruiser.
“It’s all bullshit,” Gary said. “They’re all a bunch of thieves.”
“Of course,” Chuck said.
“Why don’t you arrest them?”
“I will, just as soon as we get you inside.”
“This town doesn’t need new snow plows.”
“Of course not,” Chuck agreed. “We can keep the roads clear with shovels.”
Gary was wobbling and needed some stability to get into his house. Ryan watched them, walking carefully up the steps. Chuck in his navy blue uniform, Gary in his hooded sweatshirt, striped tube socks, and faded underwear.
The guy was around forty, a little older than them and aging much faster. He sometimes fell into the habit of believing that he was the only one in town burdened with paying property taxes. He’d dwell on it, getting himself all worked up. Then to cheer himself up he’d chug a few beers. The cheer usually turned to anger again fairly quickly, and then he’d jump in his truck and go around town trying to drum up sympathy from anyone willing to entertain him.
When all else failed Gary often ended up parked on the narrow side road that ran along Joe Frost’s farm, where he would share his woes with the sheep. “Bah,” was all they ever said in reply. Which made their conversations very limited. But at least they didn’t try to talk him out of being angry.
Chuck stepped out of the house, muttering and shaking his head. He went over to Gary’s open garage and got the keys out of the riding lawnmower, a lesson gleaned from experience. Then he came back out, the tension obvious in his posture.
“All set?” Ryan asked.
“Friggin’ guy drives me nuts. I’d like to dunk to him in an ice bath.”
“We could.”
“No.”
“Want to hold him down, make him drink some coffee?” Ryan asked.
“I haven’t got the patience,” Chuck said. “It’s already been an annoying night. And it’s still early.”
“He okay in there?”
“He’s out of beer, watching a show about dolphins.”
“Everyone likes dolphins.”
Chuck took a long breath that didn’t seem to calm him much.
Ryan said, “You’re thinking about the money, eh?”
“Not really. Get in.”
They got in the cruiser and Ryan put Gary’s truck keys with the lawnmower key. Chuck backed out of the driveway and headed back for the middle of town.
Ryan asked, “What’s going on at the town hall?”
“That’s half my problem,” Chuck answered. “Mrs. Butterworth rented the hall for the night. Another one of her pep rallies.”
He meant Pat Butterfield, the resident militant feminist. Years back she had suffered two failed bids for town office and ever si
nce had been on a crusade against the men who hadn’t voted for her. Her total votes had been very low, five to be exact. Meaning very few women had voted for her, along with all those terrible men.
Among her most unpopular ideas, she wished to add two sets of traffic lights to Main Street, stifling traffic in a town with no real traffic issues. And she was very much in favor of modifying the elementary school’s structure. Everything from the classrooms to the playground. Cordoning off one section for boys, one section for girls. The girls would have a petting zoo and live music, while the boys played with hammers and rusty nails.
“Not much of a crowd,” Ryan remarked as they passed the town hall.
“It’s supposed to be a spaghetti dinner,” Chuck said.
“Bad turnout.”
“Yeah. Which isn’t making her any friendlier.”
Ryan laughed.
Chuck said, “She knows she’s hit the wall around here. So she’s trying to raise money so she can rent bigger places in other towns and gain more followers. She bought all this spaghetti and sauce, thinking two hundred people would show up for dinner. Now hardly anyone is showing up. Not nearly enough to cover the costs. So she’s losing money, and the ten or fifteen people that did show up are only there for the spaghetti, not to hear her opinions. So they’re all in there arguing. All kinds of extra spaghetti around. Huge kettles of it.”
“I already ate,” Ryan said.
“Here’s my surprised look.”
“Enzo’s spaghetti is better than anything they could make.”
“She’s learning that the hard way. Next time she might try cookies or something.”
“She could donate the spaghetti to hungry people down in the cities,” Ryan suggested. “They would eat it gladly. That might be a good cause she could take up and gain some support for.”
“You tell her,” Chuck said.
“No thanks.”
“Whatever. She won’t buy the sauce in glass jars again. I know that much.”
Ryan waited.
Chuck said, “They had some trouble opening a few of the spaghetti sauce jars. Couldn’t find one of those rubbery grippy things to open bottles and jars with. So now they’re saying the local patriarchy is to blame for not appropriating funds for useful implements in the town hall’s kitchen.”
Ryan nodded. He could picture the older men who ran the town’s budget, all huddled together in a dark room. Rubbing greedy hands together. Whispering. Purposely making sure Pat Butterfield’s life was miserable.
He said, “If the town did spend more on kitchen supplies, the feminists would see it as a ploy to keep women trapped in the kitchen.”
“Can’t win with some people,” Chuck said. Then he resumed his story. “So I’m supposed to be checking in on them now and then, making sure the event stays peaceful, right? So she calls me into the kitchen to open the last few jars. One of them she’d already broken, tapping it too hard with a butter knife. The lids were practically cemented on. So I walk into what looks like a murder scene, sauce and broken glass all over the place. Ended up beating the hell out of my hand getting those last few lids loose. And she’s standing there with her friends the whole time, all of them glaring at me for being a male with big hands. I’m just trying to help out.”
“Did she thank you?”
“Hell no. But I did get to hear her gun speech all over again. I’ve never drawn a weapon, but somehow I’m inspiring kids to shoot people. The cops in London don’t need guns, she said. Sure, people are getting stabbed and run over by jihadi touchholes, but at least the cops aren’t scaring any terrorists with their guns.”
Ryan said nothing, letting Chuck vent.
“And then, after all that, I had to stand there listening to her tell me how unfair everything is for her. No one supports her work. That Potter girl was too busy to come be a guest speaker. Taylor Swift hasn’t donated to her online fundraiser. Therefore everyone is holding her down.”
“You have some spaghetti?”
“No.”
“We should’ve dropped drunk Gary off with her. They could’ve been miserable together over a nice dinner, since the world is so against them.”
They slowed a little passing Enzo’s. Chuck stared over at the parking lot.
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Nothing.”
“Hungry?”
“Just keeping my eye on someone. Trying to figure out how to handle it.”
Ryan noted the cars in the lot around Enzo’s. Barely a handful. None of them really stood out to him, apart from the owner’s red Ferrari.
He said, “What about?”
“Nothing,” Chuck said. He drove on by the storage unit driveway, headed for Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Tell me.”
“If I do, you have to keep it between us.”
Ryan said, “Shoot.”
“I’m serious.”
“I heard you.”
“It has to do with Kerry.”
“Don’t tell me she was at the feminist rally.”
Chuck said, “No, she called me a week or so back. Told me the Murphy kid was bullying Clay. Online and in person. I talked to Clay and he’s not saying much. Just wants to let it slide. Naturally Kerry’s worried. Wants me to watch and make sure it doesn’t escalate.”
“Clay quit Enzo’s.”
“I guess so.”
“So that’s why.”
“Probably. The Murphy kid and his buddies are there a lot.”
They turned into DD and went through the drive-thru window. Ryan got a medium regular and Chuck got a large. Ryan couldn’t convince him that medium was the perfect size, as far as staying hot for the length of its life. Large coffees usually ended up sitting too long.
“Don’t say anything,” Chuck said as they turned back out onto Main with their coffees. “Not to Kerry, not to Clay.”
“The athlete Murphy, right?”
“Yeah, Carl Murphy. Up on Pumpkin Hill Road. He’s seventeen, going through a real cocky phase.”
“I’ve seen him hit home runs. He was cranking them out of the park in little league.”
“He’s pretty good. Baseball and football.”
Ryan said, “So Clay’s getting pushed around by a high school kid.”
“He hasn’t touched him. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“You’re running out of eyes.”
Chuck said nothing.
“Drop me at the end of the driveway.”
“I mean it, Matt. Don’t say anything and don’t get involved. I told Kerry I’d keep it quiet. She doesn’t want trouble.”
“I heard you.”
“Hopefully it’ll blow over.”
“It will.”
“I hope so. Thanks for the help, bud.”
“No problem. Enjoy the evening.”
“Oh, it’ll be one delight after another, I’m sure.”
The cruiser stopped and Ryan got out. Chuck Reynolds pulled away, heading north. Back to the town hall for more punishment. Ryan stood there sipping his coffee, thinking.
Clay wanted to let it slide.
Kerry wanted to keep it hushed up.
Chuck was looking for an angle to handle it, without making it worse and without embarrassing Clay. He didn’t want Ryan getting involved. He specifically told him not to.
Ryan stood there, thinking about going home and getting comfortable and watching some TV.
Then he walked over to Enzo’s to get involved.
Chapter 11
Ryan sipped his coffee as he stood looking into Enzo’s through the big front windows. He noted the cars in the parking lot. Not many. A Ferrari, a Kia, and a Prius. A Subaru had just backed out after its driver walked out with two pizzas.
He watched the Murphy kid, at a table with a blonde girl. He had seen them both around. They were at the center of the room, center of attention. No food on the table yet. Still waiting for their order, sitting there drinking soda.
The kid had his left foot
kicked out to the side, sticking out in the aisle between tables. The foot seemed to be in a big inflatable boot, likely for a serious sprain or a fracture that didn’t quite require a heavy cast. It probably hurt. Two crutches were propped against a neighboring table.
He was a big kid. Loud, confident, even when hobbled. Sprawled out in his chair, legs stretched, one arm resting on the back of the neighboring chair. Ryan recognized the posture. On one level the posture was about comfort. On another level it was a signal.
I’m the size of Lou Ferrigno. No measly pizzeria chair can contain me.
The girl sitting opposite of him seemed mousy, didn’t say much. The most she did was nod now and then, as if in total or disinterested agreement. Most of her attention seemed to be devoted to her reflection.
It was bright inside and dark outside and Ryan could tell that she was watching her reflection in the various front and side windows, taking herself in from several angles, constantly tending to her hair. Striking little poses, holding her chin at the perfect angle. Sometimes she looked into a little folding mirror, just to change things up a bit.
Matt Ryan stepped in out of the brisk air, into the warmth and the pleasant aroma of Italian food. He saw Leo behind the counter, probably amazed that he was back for another big helping of food. But instead of going to the counter as usual, he turned left after the second row of tables, as if heading for the arcade.
And made sure to bump his left Timberland into Murphy’s sore foot.
“Hey,” the kid snapped, retracting the foot and looking instantly pissed off. “Watch it.”
“Sorry,” Ryan said, and he stepped way to the side, as if startled and embarrassed, and purposely knocked the kid’s crutches over. They went clattering to the floor and then lay there silently after the moment of racket.
The girl lowered her folding mirror and looked back and forth, her mouth open. She didn’t make a sound.
“I know you,” the Murphy kid said, a little calmer after the initial snappy tone. “Ryan.”
I Warned You_Welcome to Fall River Page 8