by Joan Hess
“Are you suggesting I engage in dereliction of duty? Oh, Roy, I am wounded to the bottom of my heart. Rest assured I am personally going to beat every bush in town for the man, since I suspect foul play.” I didn’t, but it sounded like television cop show dialogue, which is where I pick up my better lines.
“Your funeral, Arly. Heard anything about Carl Withers?”
I shook my head.
“What about Raz’s bitch?” When I again shook my head, he told me that I made real fine coffee and left me to write out a laborious description of all the things I hadn’t discovered about the Dallas dude’s brief encounter in Maggody. It wasn’t exactly purple prose, but I made sure I spelled everything right before I ran it over to the state police headquarters in Farberville. I thought I might hand it over in person to Sergeant Plover, but I was informed rather officiously that said officer was unavailable at the moment and to leave the report in the box.
That delighted me so much that I hung around the edge of Farberville for most of an hour, watching tractor trailers refuel at a truck stop, and when the excitement got to be too much for me, had lunch at Suzie’s Sunnyburgers. On the outside, it had a promising look, as if it were some little jewel of a culinary discovery that I could write home about. The Sunnyburger proved to be made of government-inspected, grade-A cow patty. Despite the ensuing grumbles from my stomach, I stopped at a classy bookstore in an old train station for a couple of paperback thrillers, window-shopped like a giggly teenaged girl, and generally wasted as much time as possible in the dereliction of duty.
When I got back to Maggody, I stopped at my apartment for a slug of milk of magnesia, then checked in with Officer Buchanon at the PD. He was sitting in my chair, but he looked so damn miserable I didn’t have the heart to order him up. Duck or no duck, I still had a soul.
“Read this.” He shoved a letter across the desk.
I already knew what it was going to say. I raised an eyebrow at the top line (“Buck Buchanon”) but didn’t say anything until I reached the bottom line, which wished him luck in future endeavors. It did not suggest he reapply to the state police academy.
It called for commiseration. “Officer Buchanon, I’m really sorry. Come on, I’ll buy you a beer at Ruby Bee’s and let you cry on my shoulder. Come hell or high water, you still have a job here and you can always try the regular police academy in Camden.”
He did not appreciate my words of wisdom. After letting the black cloud above him settle more firmly on his head, he managed a grim smile. “I’m not interested in the regular police academy in Camden or a beer at Ruby Bee’s. You know I’m on duty, Chief. I’m not allowed to drink.”
“I won’t tattletale on you, and one beer won’t hurt.”
“You go ahead. I’m going to go run a speed trap the rest of the night, until I get so tired I can’t read the numbers on the radar gun anymore. No one is going to make it through Maggody tonight at more than thirty miles per hour. Thirty-one and I’m going to bust the shit out of them.”
I felt real bad for Paulie, but I could see he was going to vent his anger on motorists, which seemed constructive—and might pad the payroll. The idea of a beer sounded good, even alone, so I wished him luck with the unwary and went down the road to Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill.
Somebody with a peculiar sense of humor had replaced all the lightbulbs in the joint with pink ones. Pink crepe paper streamers were looped all over the ceiling, and clusters of balloons were taped on every available surface. The jukebox was blaring some happy honkytonk about sex in the afternoon. Lots of folks were clumped in the middle of the room, whooping it up like it was New Year’s Eve.
Naturally, I hadn’t been invited, so I slipped in a booth and prepared to starve to death or to fall on the floor with ptomaine poisoning from Suzie’s Sunnyburgers (if you need to know, it had a strip of Velveeta cheese on it). Long about morning someone might find my body. Maybe the custodian, in a drunken daze, would sweep me out with the crepe paper and busted balloons. My mother would find me in a garbage can, deader than a squashed cootie.
I ducked at a loud pop, which I finally realized came from a champagne bottle rather than from an invisible sniper. Jaylee came prancing out of the mob, a glass held above her head like a trophy.
“Arly, honey!” she gushed when she spotted me. Old Faithful couldn’t do it any better. “I’m enchanted that you came to celebrate with me, and real flattered. Get yourself a glass of bubbly!”
“Thanks, Jaylee, but my stomach can’t face champagne at the moment. What are we celebrating?”
“You are looking at the next graduate of the Purley Institute of Hair Design and Beauty. I passed the GED; I’m on my way to Little Rock and even bigger places, Arly. Why, I could end up in Dallas or Los Angeles or some place like that, working for Vidal Sassoon hisself!”
Vidal was no doubt swooning in his Manhattan penthouse. “That’s great news,” I said, forcing a smile. “Did you hear that Paulie received a letter from the state police admissions office?”
“Oh, my God.” She sank down across from me and tossed off the champagne. “You don’t sound like he heard good news. Aw, pee in the bathtub, Arly, he was so sure he’d get in. I sort of promised we could spend some time together down in Little Rock, especially since I won’t know anybody myself and at least I’d recognize his ugly mug. We was even talking about having dinner in a real high-class place for his birthday next month. How’s he taking it?”
“He’s upset. I suggested he apply to the regular academy, and he almost bit my head off. I don’t know what to do about him, except maybe stay out of his sight for the next few months.”
“And I’m leaving just when he’s down in the dumps!” She twisted her hands and chewed off a few centimeters of lipstick, trying to pretend she was seriously considering not making a beeline for the Purley Institute and Vidal hisself. “I feel terrible. What’d you think I ought to do, Arly?”
“Do what you think you have to do,” I said, refusing to be helpful in her hour of crisis. “Good luck and all that, Jaylee. You did real fine to pass the GED, and you deserve to celebrate. When are you leaving town?”
“After the party. I plan to run back to my mobile home and pack, then throw everything in the car and make tracks faster than a coon in heat. You—ah, you heard any word on Carl?”
“He was seen in Arkadelphia, but the report hadn’t been confirmed last time I checked. Is Carl the reason you’re so eager to leave town so quickly?”
“He’s not as bad as everybody thinks, you know.” She let out a bubbly sigh and stared at the table. “When he got arrested for DWI, auto theft, and leaving-the-scene, I was just floored. He’d been sick to his stomach for a couple days and had been on the couch watching television all that evening with not more than one six-pack of Bud. He all of a sudden got a bug up his ass and drove off with some excuse about needing another six-pack. There wasn’t any reason for him to steal that Eldorado and go joyriding, not on one six-pack. He didn’t even sweat over a case. It must have been on account of the tart that called right before he decided he needed more beer.”
“But he was alone when they finally chased him down, wasn’t he?”
“Nobody ever said otherwise, so I guess he was.”
“Did you find out the name of the woman involved?”
“I wasn’t all that fired up about the idea of him screwing someone else, but I didn’t much care. It usually held down the wear and tear on yours truly, if you get what I mean. Anyway, an hour later I got the call from the sheriff’s office, telling me what bad-ass trouble Carl was in. I offered the next morning to tell the sheriff that he couldn’t have been drunk, but he got mad and started cussing at me, so I decided he could rot in prison for all I cared.”
“He confessed, didn’t he?”
She nodded, her eyes still aimed at the table. “It was real puzzling, but I don’t reckon it matters now. T
hey’re going to be pretty pissed about him escaping.”
As I shrugged, Ruby Bee and Estelle came out of the kitchen with a big, drippy banner made out of white muslin and poster paint. The red letters wished Jaylee Best of Luck in the Big City. The crowd oohed appreciatively while the two paraded around the room and finally stopped at the jukebox to tape their artwork on the wall. I’d seen better stuff on refrigerators, but the sentiment was kind of sweet.
Jaylee burst into tears and rushed around the room to hug everyone, swearing she’d just die without them but they’d better come see her in Little Rock if they didn’t want their asses whomped. Everybody assured her they would see her real soon, and it wasn’t like she was moving to Alaska or something. She was headed for me, puckered up and teary, when she saw Paulie in the doorway. After the briefest flicker of hesitation, she veered straight for him.
“Oh, Paulie, honey,” she said, swooping down like a barn owl, “I heard about your bad news! I just cried—I really did! I feel worse about it than I would if I’d failed the test again.”
Paulie gave her a big smack and told her several times how happy he was for her. It was so touching we all got misty and had to bury our noses in our beers and slurp around for a few minutes. The only flaw in all this emotionalism was that Ruby Bee and Estelle stayed across the room, as far away from me as possible, and stared as if I had recently arisen from a grave. Whispers, dark looks, the whole welcome wagon bit I’d gotten used to in the last few days. To top it off, Jim Bob showed up with Mrs. Jim Bob, kissed Jaylee right on the lips, and announced he was buying. He then joined Ruby Bee and Estelle, making a total of six cold eyes aimed in my direction. Or five, anyway. One of Estelle’s wanders.
The idea of a free round set everybody off with the whoops and kisses. A couple of quarters in the jukebox, bottles of beer, pink lights, and Maggody was practically some New York disco. I sat and grinned for most of an hour, pretending I was having a great time in the back booth by myself. Whoop-de-do.
At one point, nature being what it is, I shoved through the crowd for a visit to the ladies’ room. As I waited by the door, I heard voices from the hall beside the kitchen— Jaylee in conversation with my favorite person, His Honor the Moron. I couldn’t get much of it over the blare from the jukebox, but it sounded angry. Trouble appears to the cop in me, so I stuck my head around the corner and waved. “Hey, y’all smooching behind Mrs. Jim Bob’s back?”
Jim Bob jumped higher than a bobwhite. “You’re fired, Ariel Hanks! Turn in your badge before I rip it off your—your uniform! I have just about had it with you and I want you to—”
Jaylee put her hand over his mouth. “You leave Arly alone, honeybunch … unless you want to explain to your wife why we’re back here having our little talk. Now I’ll see you later like we said.”
He was still bulging his eyeballs at me, so I returned to the business at hand. While I was on the pot, I tried to decide what any of it meant. Jim Bob having an affair with Jaylee— possible; him mad she was leaving—possible; totally uninteresting—definitely. I spent the last few minutes reading a sign Ruby Bee had taped on the inside of the stall door: Please don’t sprinkle when you tinkle. I’d never realized my mother was a closet poetess with a real feel for delicate sentiment. Jim Bob and Jaylee were gone when I came out.
I whooped it up for a while, then my whooper got tired so I decided to go home. I doubted that my departure was going to break up the party, but you never knew.
Robert listened to the din in the distance, hating it more with each passing second. The stupid bitch was in there, he figured, letting everybody know she was the newest Einstein now that she had her crummy little high-school diploma. He was ready to split as soon as she could drag herself away and get her ass packed. His clothes had been packed since his dinner tray had been delivered by some weird broad with red hair. Beans and cornbread—and he was supposed to be grateful.
He looked at the curtain closed tightly across the window. There was maybe just a hairline crack, but he figured only some Cyclops could see through it. Carl was reputed to have two eyes, if one hadn’t been poked out in some prison brawl. Carl, who’d seen them in bed and was likely to rip out a few eyes himself.
He really wanted her to come, quickly. Hell, it was dark now, and it was time to get out of the dump and back to civilization. Even back to Dawn Alice, if he had to, and her yuppie tennis pro with the molded calves and pearly white teeth glinting against a bottled tan.
Robert paced for a while, sat down on the bed to drink for a while, and finally lay back against the pillow to listen to the thumpety-thump of his heart. It seemed to match the rhythm of the music streaming out of Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill into the cold night air.
Carl Withers moved along the creek bank, doing his damnedest not to slip and fall into the water, which he knew was mighty cold in October. His ankle had swelled bigger than a baseball bat and was burning like it was on fire. Raz’s house was dark; his dog pen silent. Lucky, but shit—he figured he deserved a little luck after four days in the woods. Redskins might like to eat roots and berries, but he’d decided the day before that they weren’t worth the trouble of finding and picking. Something had done bad service to his stomach already, and he was still a touch queasy when he remembered.
He crossed Finger Lane and headed for the pay telephone in the shadows next to the laundromat. His last dime, but just as good as one of those fancy blue chips. The thought warmed him like a tiny match. First the payoff, then a surprise visit with Jaylee. He’d have a thousand bucks in his pocket by then, and he could head south as soon as he was finished beating on her. But it was, he reckoned after a long halt to count on his fingers, pretty damn close to deer season. It’d be a damn shame to leave without killing something.
Jim Bob excused himself from the ladies and went to telephone Roy. After a growl of identification, he told Roy to call the other council members quick and have everybody meet him outside Ruby Bee’s. He was on his second cigar when they finally arrived, and his mood had not improved.
“Arly’s on to something,” he muttered. “Ruby Bee and Estelle say she keeps hanging around, asking funny questions and pretending she’s not suspicious.”
Larry Joe and Roy nodded as Ho took the floor. “This was all your idea, Jim Bob. You said this was the only way to save the creek, and all we had to do was keep the fellow entertained until Fiff got back from Las Vegas. I don’t have no problem with a brief delay, but I ain’t about to get myself involved in a kidnap charge.” He ran his fingers through his hair, not even caring what damage he did. A nerve jumped along his eyelid like a flea in the upholstery. “I got to think about my reputation in the county, as well—”
“Shut up.” Jim Bob threw his cigar into the darkness. “I think we’re still safe, but you just remember we’re all in this together, like the goddamn musketeers. Arly isn’t going to arrest her mother, for Christ’s sake.”
Larry Joe began to bobble. “I don’t know, Jim Bob; she was real crusty today at school.”
“She told me she was going to get to the bottom of this,” Roy contributed in an unhappy voice, his face lost in the shadows. “She’s likely to arrest all of us, her mother and Estelle included, and throw us to the state boys. They won’t feel so kindly about this so-called delay.”
“What the fuck do you want me to do about it?” Jim Bob snarled. “You three boys are acting like the preacher caught you with a toad in your pocket on Communion Sunday. We’ve gone too far to let the fellow waltz out of here and head for the state police. We got to think of a way to keep him happy a little longer, and we can’t keep him at the Flamingo. If we don’t get support from Fiff, your asses are going to be on the line right next to mine.”
Roy stared at the light streaming through the window. “I got an idea, Jim Bob. Let’s take Drake up to the deer camp. Arly’ll never think to look for him there, and he sure isn’t going to walk away and make
a phone call from some pine tree.”
There was a long silence while the others considered it. At last Jim Bob spat out a flake of cigar skin and slapped Roy on the shoulder. “That’ll work—at least for a day or two. I’ll tell the little woman we decided to go up early to scout and have her pack a box of food. Meet you all here in an hour.” He started to leave, then stopped and spun around. “Let’s go ahead and get him now, before something happens and the shit hits the fan. I can think of the perfect place to put Mr. Drake so we won’t have to worry.”
Jaylee hummed as she folded her clothes into tidy packages and put them in the suitcase. The party had been almost as good as her sixteenth birthday party, and a lot more fun at the end. For a while, she’d thought it would go on all night, with everyone just kissing and hugging her and wishing her luck in the future. She realized she was humming “Happy Birthday,” but why not? It was kinda like a birthday, all shimmery and full of hope.
She slammed the lid shut, glanced around one final time to make sure the mobile home was in apple-pie order, and grabbed her suitcase. After a peek out the door in case Carl was around (she’d thought she heard him earlier—and damn near wet her pants), she hurried to her car and put the suitcase in the backseat. Robbie was going to be mad ’cause she was late, but she’d make it up to him when they stopped at a hotel. Maybe they could drive all the way to Little Rock and stay in some grand place with twenty stories and a restaurant on the tippy top. They could eat those skinny French pancakes with sauce all over them, and a sprig of parsley right on the plate for color. Why not—she could afford it now, couldn’t she? She patted her purse on the seat beside her and allowed a flicker of satisfaction. It had looked bad for a moment, like she was going to have to call their bluff, but then she’d been saved by the second visitor. Saved and paid.
“Bye-bye, Pot O’Gold,” she trilled as she drove through the gate for the last time. It had lived up to its name, for her anyway, even if she’d worked hard for the money. She called farewells to each house, barn, and building she passed along the highway, and even waved at Paulie in his cruiser by the signal light, although he seemed to be reading one of his eternal police books and didn’t even see her. It really was a shame about him, she thought, allowing a brief sigh before returning to her more cheerful frame of mind. She turned in at the faded sign that promised blue-plate specials at Ruby Bee’s. Well, she wouldn’t miss Maggody, but she’d sort of miss Ruby Bee and Estelle; they’d been loyal friends for a long time and real encouraging every time she’d failed the GED and sat at the bar and cried her eyes out like some damn fool kid. She’d miss Arly, too; it’d been right tough having to snub her to keep her away from the bar—and the motel.