“Now, wait a minute, Kate; it involves both of us now. At least I thought we walked in here together.”
With that, Zack led Kate by the hand to the dance floor. At first they were both a little uncomfortable, feeling the heat of Tommy and his goons’ eyes on their backs. But they slowly got caught up in the rhythm of the music and forgot about Tommy for a while. Occasionally, Zack noticed Tommy and his group’s hooting and hollering, which was increasing mathematically as the mountain of empty beer cans grew taller on their table.
Finally, Kate leaned over to Zack. “It’s eleven o’clock. I’d better get you home. Remember, you have to go to work early tomorrow.”
“Okay, let’s go.” He checked Tommy and found his group occupied. They might be able to slip away, unnoticed. Arm-in-arm, they made their way to the front door and stepped outside. The warm night was lit by a crescent moon.
“I don’t think they saw us leave,” said Kate. “Let’s get out of here.” She tugged on his arm. “Come on, let’s go!”
“Boy, he seems to have you scared.”
“Not scared, exactly.” Actually she had been very afraid the other night, but she wasn’t going to tell Zack. “I just don’t want any trouble tonight. When you’re talking about Tommy, you’re automatically talking about trouble.” They weaved in and out between the rows of parked cars, heading toward Zack’s Camaro.
“If you feel that way, why did you date him for so long?”
“I was young and stupid. You know, it was that bad boy thing that women tend to fall for. I guess I thought it was cute, for a while. I grew up, but he never did. That’s all.”
When they reached the car, all four tires were slashed. “Damn it,” Zack said, leaning against the car. When did anyone have time to sneak out here and do this, he thought? “That son of a…”
Headlights came on across the parking lot and shone directly in their eyes. Zack raised a hand out in front of his face to shield his eyes from the blinding light.
When an engine started, Kate said, “It’s Tommy. I’d know that engine sound anywhere.”
Tommy’s truck pulled out from a row of parked cars and came slowly toward them. Two men sat in the front seat with Tommy, and two others stood in the truck bed, looking over the cab.
Kate stepped in close to Zack and slid her arm around his waist. Zack stood his ground, ready to go down fighting, if that’s what it came to.
Tommy turned and passed them slowly. “Have a nice night, ya’ll,” he called out mockingly, while driving toward the parking lot exit. His guys laughed uproariously at his supposedly nice farewell.
Zack listened to their laughter fade as the truck disappeared down the road and into the darkness.
They hitched a ride into town with one of the friends Kate had seen in the bar. She asked her friend to drive them directly to the police station, and she insisted on going into the station with Zack. They found an overweight deputy, his feet propped on a desk, watching Johnny Carson on a portable television.
When he noticed them, he quickly swung his legs down and stood. “Uh, yes, can I help you? Hi there, Kate,” he said, when he noticed her.
They explained what had happened at the bar. He picked up the telephone receiver and said, “I’ll call Fred and have him bring his tow truck out. He’ll probably charge extra at this hour. What size tires do you need?”
They worked out the details and started for the door. “Could we drop off Kate at her house first?” asked Zack.
“But --”
“Wait.” Zack cut off her protest. “There’s nothing else you can do tonight, Kate. Go home, and stay safe, please.”
She let out a loud breath through her nose. “Sure?”
“I’m sure.”
They dropped a reluctant Kate off at her house and drove out to Zeb’s. Along the way, Zack explained who he thought had slashed the tires and why, but the deputy only shrugged his shoulders, seeming unconcerned.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, since you are so new in town, Mr. Taylor. The sheriff will still need proof. I’d sure like to help you, but you said yourself that you didn’t see the crime being committed. Without witnesses, what do you expect me to do? I can’t go arresting people just because you think they did it.”
Zack finally climbed wearily into bed at about 3:30 am, less than three hours before he had to get back up for work.
---
For the rest of the week, Zack avoided Tommy and his friends at work as much as possible. He ignored their comments, as he delivered material to their machines and as he ate lunch. In fact, he and Max decided to eat their sandwiches outside on the grass behind the building on most nice days.
Kate reported that Tommy had not bothered her at the diner all week. She thought that he might have finally gotten the message, but Zack wasn’t so sure. What was he up to? He wasn’t the type to just give up.
Chapter 19
The following Thursday, Zack found a group of men gathered around in a circle in the parking lot after work. The men seemed to be cheering at what looked like another fight. Then Zack heard Tommy’s voice. “Come on you retarded dummy. Come on, hit me.”
Zack, figuring that Max had taking his advice and was standing up to Tommy, hurried over and pushed his way to the front to get a better view of what was happening. This time, Max didn’t cower before Tommy. He stood tall, his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. “You leave Max alone!” he shouted.
“You stupid bastard, come on, fight like a man.” Tommy continued to try to provoke him to swing. Max was larger, but Tommy knew he didn’t know how to fight.
Zack stood back. He wasn’t going to interfere this time unless Max really needed him. So far Max was doing fine.
Max showed no fear. He stood ready, but he wasn’t going to make a move unless it was in self-defense. If Tommy struck first, like in an old Western gunfight, he would appear to be the guilty one. At least five minutes passed, with nothing but Tommy’s insults being thrown. Spectators began to lose interest and drift away, piling into their cars. The standoff was no longer exciting enough to hold them.
Finally, Tommy gave up. “I’m not wasting any more time on this stupid asshole.” He turned away and pushed out through the thin remaining crowd with a deep scowl on his face.
As Tommy walked off to his truck, men came up and patted Max on the shoulder to show their approval. He’d been the first to stand up to Tommy, and he had done it without even throwing a punch!
After the men had all gone, Max turned to Zack. “Max stand up,” he said, smiling with pride. “Max do good?”
“Max did good.” Zack put his arm around his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
---
Zack set down his empty beer can as the sun started setting in the treetops behind the modest cabin. A beer after work at Max’s had become an almost daily routine. Also, tonight they had to celebrate Max’s victory over Tommy Ray. Max lifted his lemonade--he didn’t drink beer--and he grinned and swallowed.
“Well, Max. I’d better get going. See you at work tomorrow.”
“You stop here after work?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m taking Kate to her first Cincinnati Reds game tomorrow night. The Dodgers are in town.” Zack stood and walked to the door. “I can give you a ride home, but I can’t stay.” Outside, he got into his car and waved as he drove off. “Take it easy, buddy.”
---
When the deep, throaty sound of Zack’s Camaro faded and was replaced by the chirping of crickets, Max lit his lantern and pulled out his favorite book to relax and look at the pictures. He couldn’t seem to concentrate, and he kept going back over the lesson Zack had taught him earlier.
He paused when he heard the chugging of another engine. Had Zack forgotten something? He jumped up and moved to the window. “Zack?” He cut his sentence short. Not Zack’s car, but a blue pickup truck approached the house. Five men climbed out.
Tommy? What did he want? Max did g
ood that day, standing up to Tommy. Zack was proud.
Max moved the makeshift drape and peered out of the window as he heard the men gathering at the front of the truck. Tommy stepped to the front, keeping his hands behind his back. Was he hiding something? Max wasn’t sure. Then he saw the look on Tommy’s face; Tommy looked sad. No, not sad. He was mad.
Max remembered that look. His mother had that same look whenever Max had broken a plate, a window, or had done something else wrong. Back then, Max would sit silently until his mother stopped yelling at him. After a while, the look would go away, and she would be nice again.
Max lowered his hand, letting the curtain drop as Tommy and the others approached the door.
He walked over and sat on one of the two dining chairs, folding his large hands on the wooden table. Max sat and waited.
The doorknob turned slowly. Then the door flew open and hit the wall. Max was startled by the huge bang. He could see Tommy standing there and he seemed to be holding something long down along his right leg. In the darkness beyond Tommy, Max knew four others waited.
Tommy stepped inside, and the others followed, filling the tiny cabin with their bulk.
Max looked down at the tabletop.
“Max,” said Tommy, his voice low and menacing, as he walked over and stood above him. “You fucked up today.”
Max didn’t like that “f” word. His mother had always said that was a bad word and he should never use it. Whatever it meant, Max knew he hadn’t done it. It was bad.
“I was just going to have a little fun,” continued Tommy. “But, no, you wouldn’t play. You got all hard-ass on me. And people laughed, Max. Nobody laughs at me. Do you understand, Max?”
Max looked up briefly, then back down. The other men stood silent, waiting, and listening.
“Now we’re going to have to teach you a lesson. You’ve been a bad boy, Max,” he said with a sneer.
Max saw motion and looked up. Tommy’s hands were now out in front of him, and he held a baseball bat. Max thought of Kate and Zack going to a baseball game the next night. But it was dark out now, and they couldn’t play baseball. Then Max somehow realized that Tommy wasn’t going to play baseball after all. He quickly climbed to his feet as the men came at him like a pack of wolves.
The one called Bull dove at Max first, throwing his shoulder into his chest, knocking over the table, and breaking off two of the table legs. Max couldn’t breathe. He landed on the floor hard on his rear end. When he looked up, Tommy stood above him, thumping the bat on his hand.
The bat swung down. It crunched into Max’s left side and he felt something crack. Pain streaked through his body. One of the other men slugged Max in the face, but he couldn’t tell which one hit him. Blood ran from his nose into his mouth.
Max was just beginning to catch his breath when Tommy called out, “Remember this next time you try to stand up to me.”
Max gathered his feet under him and stood anyway.
Tommy dropped the bat and motioned the others back. “Stay down!” He cocked his leg and kicked toward the side of Max’s head. The point of his cowboy boot gouged into Max’s right ear and through to the side of his head. Max fell back. The room went bright with a white light of intense pain. Then the brightness faded before Max’s eyes, and there was almost no light at all. Max heard voices, but they were muffled, like they were far away in the distance. Tommy’s boot came down again. This time it slammed into his arm. Tommy kicked him again and again and again. By this time, the beating had stopped hurting. He was numb and oh so tired. Maybe he would sleep.
Then all the lights went out.
Chapter 20
Tommy dropped off the last of his friends. He then drove to his house, which was a mile or so outside of town. He pulled into the gravel and dirt driveway and stopped in front of the single-wide mobile home.
They were into some shit now. Maybe it had been a mistake to go after Max. It had happened again. That out-of-body experience of rage had come over him. Things had gone too far this time, and now he had a mess to deal with. Why did this always happen? He went inside, took a beer from the refrigerator, and sat back on the couch. He felt so tired.
Tommy was scared. His mother and father were in the other room talking about him. He heard his dad say, “The boy is a little pussy. He needs to learn how to defend himself.”
He had gotten beaten up again at school. Some of the bigger boys always picked on him because he was small. What could he do? He tried to avoid them as much as he could, but they were in the same school all day long, and they were sure to find him sooner or later.
“Come out here, boy,” came from the other room. His dad was a truck driver. He was big, tattooed, and tough. Not like Tommy.
Tommy opened his bedroom door and went to the dining room where his parents sat at the table.
“What happened?” asked his father.
“I tried to get away, but there were four of them. They kept pushing me, and I fell.” He reached up and covered the bruise on the right side of his face. His mom had put a Band-Aid over the scrape.
“Boy, you gotta toughen up, or they’re going to keep messing with you. Who’s their leader?”
“Ralf Thompson. He’s the biggest kid in the seventh grade. The others will do anything he tells them to do.”
“Okay,” said his dad. “He’s the one you’ve gotta get.”
“Wait a minute, Don,” said Tommy’s mother. “I don’t want my son fighting.”
His dad turned to her. “What the hell you think he should do then? Just get the shit beat out of him every day and take it like a little puss?”
He turned back to Tommy. “You get this Ralf kid alone,” he continued. “If you can put some fear into him, then the others will follow his lead and leave you alone.”
Tommy nodded his head in agreement. He desperately wanted to do something to stop them from hassling him. This was the first time his dad had paid this much attention to him, and he was teaching him how to defend himself. He liked the feeling.
“You’re smaller than him, so you have to look for a weakness that you can take advantage of.” He spoke like a man who had gotten into many fights. “Kick him here.” He pointed to the side of his knee. “Like this.” He motioned with his foot.
“Donald!” called his mother. “That could cripple the boy.”
“Okay, okay.” He turned back to Tommy. “Then kick him in the balls. That will take him down for sure. But you need to practice. If you miss, you’re in a world of shit once he gets on you. Then he’s got the weight advantage.”
For the next few days, his dad would be home between runs. He was a long distance trucker who’d be gone for weeks at a time. He’d come home for a week, sometimes more, and then he’d be gone again. Tommy had learned to fight that week from his dad. He had taught him how to punch and kick. They practiced on a burlap bag filled with rags hanging from a tree limb. Tommy learned how to kick and hit hard, and how to concentrate his blows at a precise spot. His mother wasn’t too thrilled, but his dad kept telling her he was “just teaching the boy to defend himself.”
A few weeks later Tommy confronted Ralf. But he didn’t get him alone. He challenged him to a fight in the parking lot a half hour after school let out. He wanted everyone to see him humiliate the larger boy. The crowd gathered in a semicircle around them. It looked like half the school had turned out. As usual, Ralf was backed up by his gang of three friends. Tommy called out, “Just you and me, Thompson. They stay out of this.”
“I don’t need them to kick your skinny little ass, Tommy.” He motioned for his friends to step back. “Boys, I’ll take care of this.”
The crowd buzzed, and the circle tightened around them, giving them an area of about ten feet across, to maneuver in. Tommy took the fighting stance his dad had taught him. Ralf stood there, his weight on his heels, overconfident that defeating the smaller opponent would be a simple task. He took a slow, awkward swing at Tommy.
Tommy ducked
and placed a targeted kick into Ralf’s groin area. He followed with a right cross to his jaw.
Ralf went down hard, his hands clasped on his crotch, his eyes closed with pain. He moaned.
It was over. The crowd cheered for Tommy. Ralf’s friends bent to help him, with confused expressions. Tommy moved away, and the crowd followed, patting his back and congratulating him.
From that day forward, Tommy was respected and looked up to by his peers. Groups of girls looked at him and giggled with adoration. Other boys longed to be his friend. That summer, he talked his mom into buying him a set of weights, and he began working out. By the time he was a freshman in high school, his body was becoming muscular and his confidence was peaking. When he made the varsity football team his sophomore year as starting quarterback, his legacy was solidified, and his formula for success was proven.
Thanks to his father, he now knew that when people feared you, they respected you. He would use that principle to guide the rest of his life.
Chapter 21
When Zack punched in at the factory the next morning, he had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Why was Max’s time card still sitting in the “out” side of the rack? Max usually sat outside, waiting for the doors to be unlocked. He was always proud to be the first to punch in. Zack shrugged. There must be a simple explanation. He walked off to check out his forklift. He had ten minutes to pick up his first load. He didn’t have time to worry about Max.
The morning zipped by uneventfully. Zack had been so busy, he’d forgotten about Max. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember seeing him anywhere. When the ten o’clock morning break horn sounded, he climbed down off his machine and went looking for Frank. He found him sitting at a table with a few other men in the lunchroom drinking coffee. “Frank,” he called, as he came up behind him.
The foreman turned. “Yeah, Zack?”
Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery Page 8