Her eyes sparkled when she asked, “I presume this is not a formal occasion.”
“Formality is in the eyes of the beholder,” Jack replied. “And my eyes tell me you are perfectly dressed for this occasion. What can I get you to drink?
“My usual, of course,” Colby said as she walked over to check out the barbecue pit. “I don’t think I ever noticed this until now.”
The pit was made of brick to match the house. It had a gas grill for most cooking but had a smoker on one end. Jack had filled the smoker with mesquite earlier in the day and had been carefully tending ribs and reading Steve Berry’s latest novel as the sun moved across the horizon and was now creating a rainbow-hued sunset.
“Oh,” Colby said, as she inhaled the smell of sizzling pork being cooked over mesquite. “Are you cooking ribs? I hope not. I’m a vegetarian.”
Jack stepped back from the outdoor bar where he was mixing two Tito’s martinis on the rocks and turned, about to apologize when he saw her face break into a laugh.
“Just kidding. You’re not allowed to live in Cowtown if you’re a vegetarian. I just hope you cooked enough ribs.”
Jack noticed she wrinkled her nose when she laughed as he handed her a drink and threw open the pit to reveal what appeared to be ribs from half a pig. “That enough?”
“That’s about right for me. What are you having?”
Jack shrugged his shoulders and said, “Suppose I’ll just have to eat your leftovers. Here, come sit in one of these recliners and we can watch the sun finish painting the clouds.” They each took a seat and watched the sun dance from cloud to cloud, each of them content to sip their drinks and watch the Great Artist at work. Jack broke the quietness of the evening.
“I’ve been sitting out here a lot in the past couple of weeks. I look at the old bomber plant off in the distance beyond the Trinity and think back to when I was a kid. Once a year they had a family day, complete with a picnic and games. They’d haul a few planes out from the hangers, and we kids got to climb around on them. I even got to sit in the cockpit of an old B-36, the one with the propellers facing the rear. I know it’s closed, but I still see fighters taking off, particularly on weekends.”
“That’s the Air National Guard,” Colby interrupted. “Ever since the plant and Carswell Air Force Base closed, they fly out of there.”
“Most folks would say I’ve come a long way from Byers Street to here. I certainly accomplished my goal of making money. Now, I suppose I’m looking for a little more happiness,” Jack mused.
“Weren’t you happy in Beaumont?”
“Sure, by almost any way you would measure happiness the answer would be yes. And it’s a little strange to talk about it. My dad and mother probably never even contemplated the word. My dad just worked across the river over there and brought home a weekly paycheck. My mother took care of the house and me. That’s what people did back in those days.”
“Don’t kid yourself. That’s how most people live today, at least once you get out of Rivercrest and Shady Oaks.”
Jack nodded his agreement as the day whispered into evening. Lights on the patio began to glow as the sun faded. Jack checked the ribs once more and went to the house to retrieve potato salad, baked beans and freshly baked bread. He insisted that Colby keep her seat as he prepared the table. When it was ready, he took a giant platter from under the barbecue pit and loaded it with ribs. He invited Colby to the table while he made one last run to the kitchen, returning with a basket of napkins and a bottle of red wine.
“I think we’re ready. There are five napkins for each of us. Hope that’s enough.”
Colby replied by picking up a rib and gnawing the meat from it before she even reached for anything else. “Wow. Absolutely fantastic. You use a special sauce?”
“Yep,” Jack replied. “Family secret, handed down from my granddad to my dad and then to me. I spent most of yesterday making it, and while you’re a friend, you’re not special enough for me to divulge the recipe, not yet anyway.”
“I understand about Texas men and their recipes. I dated a man once that had a chili recipe he wouldn’t reveal to anyone. He even won the chili cook-off at Terlingua one year.”
Jack turned to Colby. “Now, that’s really impressive. People come from all over the world every year for that cook-off. I might be willing to trade him my barbecue recipe for his chili.”
“No chance of that. He’s long gone. Moved to Arizona, I hear. On the other hand, I’ve got my own chili recipe that might be worth a trade.”
They ate and made small talk. Jack wanted to talk about J.D. When they finished, Colby insisted on clearing the table and suggested that Jack take a seat on the next level down by the pool. When she came out, Jack rose from his seat and said, “Let’s try out the hot tub.”
Colby turned to face Jack, their faces no more than a few inches from each other. Jack could smell her perfume again. “Look, Jack. I like you, and I’m really attracted to you. Only, I told you that I’m seeing someone. I won’t have a relationship with anyone else. I’m good for lunch and Starbuck’s and maybe an occasional dinner; but we’re just going to be friends.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Is that okay?”
Jack stepped back and shook his head. “I guess I don’t have any choice; so, yeah, it’s okay, but don’t expect me to give up. What does this guy do, anyway?”
Colby turned away. “Let’s don’t talk about him. I’m going to be one of your best friends. Talking about him won’t accomplish anything.”
Jack nodded his understanding as he concealed his frustration.
16
Jacob Yates had risen to sales manager of a Buick dealership in Oklahoma City. Yates took an early retirement some twenty years ago when his wife developed ovarian cancer. As did most women with ovarian cancer at that time, she fought and lost. Jacob had few ties left to Oklahoma City; so he moved to Muskogee to be near his daughter, her husband and grandkids. He was a great babysitter, sang baritone in the church choir and volunteered at the community hospital. He lived in an older brick house on a tree-lined street where he managed to win “Yard of the Month” at least every year or two. He was so comfortable with the quiet life of Muskogee that he rarely locked his doors at night.
Hawk checked into a Ramada Inn. He spent a week following Yates to learn his routine. He parked down the street from Yates’s house early in the morning and watched him tend his flowers before it got too hot. He followed Yates to the hospital three afternoons and parked in the front while Yates manned the volunteer desk just inside the entrance. He attended the First Baptist Church on Sunday. Even sitting on the back row he could see the joy in Yates’s face as he sang What a Friend We Have in Jesus. He watched as Yates took his grandkids to the park and felt a pang of regret that they soon would no longer have their grandfather.
Jacob had returned from babysitting, warmed up some pot roast for a sandwich and popped open a Coke while he watched the ten o’clock news. He had no way of knowing that Hawk was watching from behind his garage.
Hawk waited thirty minutes after the last light was out and approached the back door. As expected, he found it unlocked. He blew the pilot out on the gas stove and turned the four burners to high. Next he walked around the stove to a closet that housed the gas water heater. After confirming that the pilot light was on, he left the closet door open and crept out the way he came, silently closing the door behind him. Hawk circled the garage and walked three blocks up the street to his pickup. He lighted a cigarette, lowered a window and waited. Before he finished his cigarette, he saw and heard the explosion as the house erupted in flames. Satisfied that no one could live through that inferno, he started his pickup and slowly drove away. As he did so he said a silent prayer for Yates’s family.
17
Colby greeted Ruth at the reception desk and hurried back to the room. She had an appointment to show a house in an hour but had not stopped by the nursing home in a week. When she entered the room, she f
ound the same sterile, antiseptic environment. The smell told her that someone had scrubbed down the room that morning, something that was very important to prevent infections from attacking Rob’s weakened immune system. As usual, she kissed Rob on the cheek and received no response.
“Hi Rob. It’s me. You doing okay?” She didn’t expect a response but continued to try to treat him as a human being. “You know that big house I sold in Rivercrest, I got hired by the new owner to decorate it. He’s a nice guy. Maybe one of these days you can meet him. I’m occasionally seeing him for coffee or lunch or something like that. Nothing serious you understand, but I don’t have a lot of friends these days. I can’t stay long. Let me check you over before I go. It’s been a couple of weeks, and I want to make sure they are doing their job.”
Colby pulled back the cover and evaluated his body. Next, she unfastened his diaper. “Okay, I’m going to turn you over on your side just to check your buttocks. The last thing we want is another ulcer forming on your butt.”
Colby gently turned Rob to his right. When she looked at his buttock, she gasped in horror. A decubitus ulcer was forming, at least a stage two. She mentally kicked herself since she hadn’t checked in a couple of weeks. Dammit, she thought, I got too comfortable with this facility. She stormed out of the room to the nurses’ station.
“Dammit all, Irene,” she yelled. “Rob’s got an ulcer forming on his butt. You guys haven’t been doing your job.”
Irene was taken aback, but quickly recovered. “Ms. Stripling, you know that we turn him every two hours. Sometimes these things can’t be avoided. Please try to calm down.”
“I’m not about to calm down. Let me see his chart.”
Irene reluctantly turned to retrieve Rob’s chart and handed it to an irate Colby.
Colby flipped through the pages until she found the page she was looking for. The staff was required to turn Rob every two hours and document that it had been done. If they didn’t do their job, ulcers could form that mushroomed into ugly open sores that were breeding grounds for multiple infections, including MRSA, one that was immune to nearly every known antibiotic.
“Shit,” Colby said. “He’s only been turned three times in the past forty-eight hours.”
“Ms. Stripling, please calm down,” Irene said. “I’m sure that he was turned and someone just forgot to chart it. We’ve got a lot of patients and care is more important than charting.” Irene failed to add that all too often charting was done at the end of a shift even when patient care had been ignored.
Colby pitched the chart on the desk. “You know that’s bullshit! You’ve been here since seven and you’ve done so little for Rob that I had to be the one to find the ulcer. And, I bet you pulled a twelve hour shift yesterday and never spotted it then. I’ve been dealing with Rob’s care for ten years. This is the fourth nursing home I’ve moved him to. I thought you guys were the best. If this is all I can expect, he’s better off dead. Now, you get his doctor over here this afternoon. I want cultures done and I want Dr. Winston to figure out what kinds of antibiotics we need to fight this. Mark my words, if this happens again, I know a damn good lawyer.”
Colby stormed from the nurse’s station, not even going back to Rob’s room.
Irene watched her go. This woman is going to be trouble, she thought. Damned if I’ll get fired because of some pissed off relative.
When Colby got to her car, she remembered that she had not told Rob goodbye. She started to go back in and then thought better. Telling him goodbye was for her benefit, not his. She started her car and drove slowly away, trying to get her temper under control before her appointment.
18
Jack joined Rivercrest and found golf with old men boring, even though he always won a couple of hundred bucks. Poker in the men’s grill was the same. He got no kick out of taking five hundred or a thousand dollars from the same old men. His life as a trial lawyer had been a high stakes poker game. Winning in the men’s grill didn’t compare with winning in front of a jury. And the first home game was still two weeks away.
He called on Colby to fill the void. Having established that their relationship was nothing more than platonic, Colby accepted his invitation to be his tour guide of the new Fort Worth.
Colby called him early one morning. “Jack, you awake? Here’s what I propose. You and I are going to the museums today. When I’m not working, we’re going to start visiting all the tourist attractions in this town, museums, zoo, stockyards, botanical gardens, nature trails. There’s a lot to see. In case you didn’t know it, Fort Worth has some of the most famous art in the world. The Kimbell Museum and Amon Carter Museum are world class. There’s a ton of money among the rich in Fort Worth and they constantly try to one-up each other as civic benefactors.”
One of the great things about Fort Worth was that nearly everything was within fifteen minutes. He walked out to the garage and started the Bentley, Colby’s choice. He drove the five minutes to Colby’s house, and ten minutes later they were parked across the street from the Kimbell. Jack was not about to tell Colby that he’d rather take a swim in the Arctic Ocean than pretend to be interested in the works of the old masters. On this day he got lucky. The museum had a traveling exhibition of Mayan art, something that Jack found fascinating. He explained to Colby that he had visited Mayan ruins several times over the years. If he had another life to live, it would be as Indiana Jones.
After lunch at a small café in the museum district, they drove a few blocks to the Amon Carter Museum, formerly known as the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, but changed a couple of years ago when they expanded the museum and chose not to be limited to Western paintings and statuary. Still, the museum was filled with original Remington and Russell paintings and statutes of cowboys, Indians, western landscapes and buffalo herds. Colby noticed the smile on Jack’s face as they walked slowly through the halls, stopping to admire nearly every work of art. When they got to the museum store, Jack filled a large bag with books about the displays.
Over the next two weeks Colby took Jack to every place of interest in the Fort Worth area and to even a couple in Dallas. Still, even after her working hard to play local docent, Jack was bored. Fortunately, the first home game was in three days.
19
Boss stopped at the entrance to the Fort Worth Zoo at eight o’clock in the morning. He wondered why Hawk couldn’t have found a more convenient place at a more convenient hour. The attendant was just opening up when he paid his admission and entered. He stopped and studied a sign before turning to his right in the direction of the tiger exhibit. As he approached the tigers, he saw a lone man on a bench, feeding peanuts to pigeons. It was Hawk.
Hawk didn’t look up as Boss took a seat on the bench beside him. “You ever spent much time here at the zoo, Boss? It’s one of my favorite places. I don’t like seeing animals behind fences, but if that’s how it’s gonna be, this is one of the best. They take really good care of their animals. Look at those tigers. See that male, walking up and down along the back fence. Magnificent specimen. He’s waiting for his keeper and breakfast. If I didn’t like the kids in the stockyards so well, I might get a day job out here. And, by the way, thanks for that last wire transfer.”
Boss interrupted. “Look, I’m pleased that you like our zoo. I’ve even contributed to it myself. Only, that’s not why we’re here. I’ve got another job for you.”
Boss looked around to make sure that no one was in sight as he reached into his pocket and handed Hawk a folded piece of paper. The target this time was in Brownwood, a hundred miles or so southwest of Fort Worth.
“I know the area. Used to go to church camp on Lake Brownwood when I was a kid. What’s my bonus on this one?”
“Sixty thousand.”
Hawk stood to face Boss. “Let me understand something here. My fee varies from victim to victim. What’s the deal?”
Boss stood to face Hawk, not wanting to give up the position of control and dominance. He had a good four inche
s on Hawk and wanted to take advantage of it. “Let’s just say I have a financial interest in each of our projects. I made the very generous decision to reward you with ten percent of what I recover. In hindsight, I probably should have made it a flat fee, but I figure I’ll keep your attention with that ten percent.”
“I get it,” Hawk said. “There’s some life insurance involved somehow, right?”
“I’ve said enough. I want this one done in ten days. Once you’ve accomplished your mission, it’s still about four to six weeks before I get the money.” Boss lowered his voice. “I may appear to be successful, but the swamp is rising and I’ve got alligators snapping at my ass.”
“Understood. Okay, you just get up and mosey on out of here. I’m going to wander around among the animals for a while. Mornings the best time to see them frisky and acting up.”
Boss nodded and walked back toward the gate. Hawk resumed feeding the pigeons until he saw the tiger handler starting to toss meat over the back fence. He laughed as one tiger ripped into the beef, tearing off large chunks and then having to fight off the other tigers as he devoured his breakfast. Damn tough world, he thought, whether you’re behind bars or not. The fittest survive to eat another day.
20
Dead Peasants Page 5