Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

  “No, no, she wanted to have a surprise wedding with me, not you,” screamed Tubby. “At least I thought it was a surprise. Shit, I was surprised. I’ve been jumping through fucking hoops for that girl this whole trip. And, and, and why in the hell is my sister out there on that damn boat?”

  “Tubby, I found some stuff in your motel room. Did Waynelle give you that computer printout about the company doing the weddings on the boat here?” asked Dwayne.

  “Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. I found ‘em in her trailer,” said Tubby, sheepishly. “I figured that with them printouts and the text she done sent, she wanted me here. You know how hard it is to sell a car on Craigslist in San Francisco when you live in Jackson fucking Kentucky? Had to pay for all of this wedding shit somehow. Trip’s been eatin’ me alive.”

  Dwayne lowered his head and smiled to no one. “You know that Waynelle probably has Tommy and Tubby right next to each other on her cell phones contact list, right,” said Dwayne. “It’d be real easy to text the wrong man.”

  Tubby’s eyes wandered as he tried to understand.

  Deaton understood immediately.

  Dwayne said, “Which one does she call T?”

  “That’d be me,” said Tubby, without hesitation, eyes locking on Dwayne. Proud.

  “You dumb ass, Tubby. I’m T, god damn it,” said Deaton. “You just started that T shit a few weeks ago. And if you must know, I had your sister Ollie working for me. She was supposed to be the bridesmaid.”

  “So hold on now. Wait just a damn minute! That text and printout was for you?” asked Tubby, finally gaining some clarity. “Who sent me texts about Dwayne’s whereabouts? I never seen that phone number before.”

  Deaton lowered his head, shook it slowly side to side, and said, “When I told you not to kill Dwayne, I figured you’d do it out of spite. I was supposed to have Waynelle all for myself.” He smiled at Dwayne and said, “Oh, buddy, she’s got a real thing for you, man. There’s no denying that. True love, I’d say.”

  “Why didn’t she ever tell me that?” asked Dwayne. “I couldn’t find her in Jackson. It was like she was hiding, or something.”

  “She’s a complicated woman. And I do make a shit-load of money now, so…” said Deaton, trailing off, smiling. “Sorry, man. Them’s the facts. She likes nice things.” Deaton leaned back on his elbows and continued, “A thousand bucks here and there buys a lot of information these days, bub. I got a couple of old Marine buddies in Homeland Security. Gettin’ so much easier to track folks.”

  Tubby’s eyes widened, “So it was you leaving them text messages?”

  “I just said that, numb nuts. Dwayne, didn’t I just explain all of that to the both of you?” asked Deaton, rhetorically.

  Dwayne wasn’t in the mood for any more talk, though. He fell silent and watched as the boat neared the open waters of the Pacific.

  All three men observed silently as the handsome boat captain, wearing a jaunty gold-braided white hat that matched his impeccable white uniform, stepped from the wheel house of the luxury boat, said something to Ollie to shut her up, and grabbed Waynelle around the waist. He pulled the beautiful woman in for a sloppy and passionate kiss. Ollie Turner threw her hands up in exacerbation.

  The dejected and stunned men on the picnic table watched for a moment - and then Dwayne started laughing. Soon Deaton and Tubby followed suit.

  “The heart wants what the heart wants,” said Tubby.

  In unison, Dwayne and Deaton said, “Shut up, Tubby.”

  “Dwayne, the day you shot me...” said Deaton.

  “I’m truly sorry about that,” said Dwayne, sincerely.

  Deaton continued, “Well, I wasn’t there to arrest you. I was there to take your crop and kill you.

  After a moment of stunned hesitation - All three men laughed even louder.

  ***

  Patrolman Adcock Timmins could not believe his eyes when Dwayne pulled right up to him on the Harley. Was the man he had tussled with returning to kill him? Pat probably deserved it anyway, he thought, being overpowered by the alleged car-jacker, and leaving his gun back in the safety locker at the district headquarters – yet again. If the returning criminal didn’t kill him he’d lose his job and have to continue to live with his mother.

  Maybe he was better off dead.

  Dwayne parked the Harley, got off, and searched for the handcuff keys that lay twenty-feet from Pat.

  “Do it, you son of a bitch,” screamed Pat, terrified, as he waited his final moments of breath.

  Dwayne grabbed the keys out of the gravel and stepped to where Pat was cuffed to the sign. He just stood there and stared down at the frightened highway patrolman.

  Pat locked eyes with Dwayne and said, “Just make it quick.”

  Dwayne leaned over and un-cuffed Pat, gently pushed him away, snapped the cuffs on his own wrists, and said, “You got me fair and square, officer.”

  Pat stood and stumbled backwards to where his BMW R1200RT motorcycle was parked. He popped open a side storage unit, and came out with another Glock .40 caliber sidearm. “Third strike, my ass,” he said. With shaking hands, he spun and aimed the replacement weapon squarely at Dwayne’s chest.

  Dwayne smiled with relief and said, “I heard the chow in California prisons is pretty good.”

  ###

  Runaway

  Four months after Bad Reputation

  Sharon kept her Manolo Blahnik-covered feet in contact with the zipped Prada shoulder bag that was tucked under the seat in front of her. Except for when she watched it roll down the conveyor belt at the security checkpoint area back at O’Hare, there was no way the bag and its valuable contents would ever leave her immediate area.

  She felt the plane gently tilt, and then fully turn to the right. “Okay, folks, for those lucky passengers on the right side of the cabin, you’ll see Yosemite National Park and Half Dome just ahead. It’s 72 degrees under a cloudless sky in the Bay area today. Please relax, and enjoy the remainder of your flight. And thanks for flying with us,” said the captain’s smooth baritone voice over the jet’s sound system.

  Sharon pushed her forehead against the window and watched the massive hunk of granite known as Half Dome come into view as the plane leveled out from the turn. She was thankful that the captain didn’t utter any annoying “ahs” between statements like most pilots did when they spoke on the PA system. Those usually drawn out “ahs” grated on her nerves, and she just couldn’t put up with that in her current fragile mental state.

  She’d taken this exact same flight several times over the past few years. Most times she headed directly to San Mateo after she landed so that she could check on the family home she still owned and rented out on a regular basis. She had received the home as her inheritance after both of her parents passed away within a year of one another. That was nearly a decade ago.

  The captain had to be the same person who operated the plane on the last four flights she had taken. Sharon was sure of it. He literally said the exact same words each and every time they passed over Half Dome.

  She had greeted the captain after all of the previous flights -- him standing in the doorway of the flight deck, saying pleasant goodbyes -– she not too conspicuous to make direct eye contact with his sexy, and piercing blues. He was a handsome man, physically fit, tall, with a touch of gray peppering his well-groomed hair. Not her usual ‘type,’ which was a bit more disheveled and boyish. Her attraction to the captain surprised even her.

  At a slim 5’8” and with the toned body of an 800-meter runner, it wasn’t that Sharon didn’t match up in the looks department; it was just that she was a married woman. Well, for the time being, anyway.

  “Get a grip,” she said softly to herself, as she swiped the image of the handsome captain from her imagination. She would see the captain in person
within the hour, but for now, she had important life decisions that needed to be reflected upon and examined a bit more closely before the plane landed.

  She savored the view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from above, but she couldn’t shake the dreadful thoughts that ceaselessly looped in her head. She had to admit to herself that her life was circling the base of the bowl of late.

  Then the last comment her husband, Donald, lobbed at her the night before began to ping around in her mind. “There’s nothing going on. I’m trying to follow a healthier diet and the lady is helping me to do that. It’s her job!” he said.

  Deep down, Sharon knew that she had as much to do with her marriage breaking up as her husband. They simply drifted apart over the past few years. It all started before they even moved from the beautiful San Francisco peninsula area to the pretty, white fence, paddock-laden ‘horse country’ in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago. The events that led up to the split really weren’t all that complicated, or even uncommon.

  They both wanted other things from life.

  She wanted to move back to northern California where she was raised, and still considered her home. He wanted to keep having an illicit affair with his ‘other thing,’ a voluptuous 35-year old Balmoral dietitian named Jennifer. Donald wasn’t brave enough to admit that he, indeed, did begin another relationship. Although she knew her marriage had actually ended a while back, Donald’s quick romantic turnaround wounded her to the core.

  Sharon wasn’t a saint. She acknowledged that to herself on a daily basis. She had a few chances at adulterous affairs, but the one she really wanted to explore, with John Caul of Balmoral, never panned out. John was a quiet loner-type, but mysterious, and sexy enough in the athletic, slightly disheveled, carefree way she adored. She couldn’t help but to investigate him more deeply. John Caul had also taken a keen interest in helping her troubled teenage son, Danny, to improve his lot in life. No one else, not even Danny’s own father, had done that. Sharon found that trait in John very alluring.

  One day, a few months back, she went way out on limb and dressed provocatively so that she could playfully seduce John Caul. But he was just not interested in anything she had to offer. It was for the best, too, because John Caul and her son Danny were actually planning armed robberies together.

  As the plane soared over the central California valley, her mind continued to drift, and her thoughts meandered at a high rate. She attempted to conjure solutions for two of the more troubled patients from her psychologist practice.

  These two patients seemed to take up most of her professional mental space. One, a 24-year old man, had the awful dietary habit of consuming paperclips. She knew that the source of his troubles were due to him being raised by an extremely overbearing father -- who just happened to own an office supply discount store. The patient’s numerous hospital visits should’ve been enough to stop his decline. Still, Sharon couldn’t quite get a handle on how to help the young man put an end to his destructive habits.

  The other patient, a 46-year old married woman, couldn’t control her urge to have sex with water softener repair personnel, both male and female, while they were on duty -– preferably in the back of their official work vehicles. The patient would drive around in her minivan, and troll the entire Chicago area, in search of prospective and willing partners to satisfy her desires.

  So far, Sharon hadn’t been able to structure a satisfactory action plan for either of the two patients to help quell their destructive behavior, and that, coupled with her own marital problems, allowed for her mind to be fractured and her disparate thoughts to mingle.

  As long as she was dredging up all her troubles in one fell swoop, she made sure to paw her way into one of her biggest personal problems of all. And that was the fact that Sharon, when confronted by any sort of personal problem, way too easily, just gave up. At the first sight of trouble, she’d throw in the towel. Competition was her Achilles’ heel. In short, instead of fighting through a personal problem she would rather run, figuratively mostly, but in the case of this California trip, quite literally, as well.

  “What are you doing?” she said softly, as she berated herself for allowing other people’s troubles –- namely, her two patients in the most need of care –- to seep into her consciousness. She desperately needed repair of her own, rather than to worry about someone else’s troubles. She would be of no use to anyone, anyway, until she stood on more solid psychological ground.

  Sharon was a giver. She was a fantastic listener. She was a fixer of other people’s troubles, just not her own. If, just for a few days, she could have some ‘me’ time, maybe she could begin the slow uphill climb from the depressive psychological depths she currently floundered in. She had some self-fixing to get underway in her beautiful native area of northern California. That was the plan, anyway. Hopefully it would work.

  She felt the Airbus slow and begin its descent, so she squeezed her feet together a bit tighter and made sure her purse didn’t slide away.

  Her mind coasted to the other reason she made this trip, the one she used as the excuse to get out of Balmoral. Her high school friend, Susie, was getting married to her long-time love, a trust-fund baby named Allen. Sharon hoped the wedding ceremony, and reception at an exclusive Burlingame country club, would be just the tonic needed to get her head cleared of any marital problems. There would be some wonderful people there to interact with, excellent food, and great wine. But as soon as that thought came to her, another trailed right behind.

  Why would attending a joyous wedding celebration take her mind off her own marital problems? Wouldn’t it just be a 4-hour-long reminder of her failed relationship? “That’s just stupid,” she said, but this time her seatmate, a pimply-faced teenage boy, turned and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry,” she said with a wan smile. She shook the thoughts away and watched out the window as the multi-colored and neatly organized, rectangular salt flats that lined the southern portion of San Francisco Bay, came into view. “Flight attendants, please cross-check and prepare for landing,” said the captain.

  Just last week Sharon signed a 2-month lease, and surreptitiously set up her own temporary living space four blocks away from her large home in Balmoral. The space was on Trussel Avenue in a furnished, two-bedroom, townhome. It was the first step toward the completion of her ultimate plan. She needed those extra weeks in Illinois so that she could properly set things up in California before moving there permanently.

  Her husband Donald was an excellent father, and the kids needed the extra room and stability that their large home provided for them. She would be just a short three-minute walk away. But there was much more involved in regard to the temporary move.

  The large home was a manifestation of her myriad failures: her perceived disappointments in properly raising her troubled teenage son, Danny; her failure to remain in the place she truly loved living, California; and, of course, her failed marriage. Lately, every time her key slid into the door-lock of the spacious Cook Avenue home, she was reminded of all the setbacks. The townhome was the interim step that gave her the physical separation she needed so badly. Sharon needed space. It was really as simple as that.

  She peered across the aisle, out the plane’s left side windows, and took in the sight of the San Mateo Mountains to the west. She turned and pressed her forehead against her own window as the jet crossed over the Highway 92 Bridge. Only 600 feet in the air, she could easily look straight down and see the boats that bobbed in the San Francisco Bay.

  If the pilot were true to previous form, he would speak again very shortly.

  “Folks, if you’ve never flown into San Francisco before, please don’t be alarmed. It’ll appear as if we’ll be landing on the water. We won’t be, I assure you,” said the captain.

  Some of the other passengers nervously chuckled and looked out their windows as the plane
descended at a more rapid pace. Sharon observed as the water rose up toward the underside of the jet’s wing. Just as it appeared they’d crash into the bay -– the rocky shore/grassy land/and runway lights zipped under her window. The plane’s tires safely touched down on the runway with a gentle bump.

  As Sharon left the airplane, the handsome captain stood in the doorway of the flight deck and said, “Thanks for flying with us.” Sharon hugged her purse closely and could only muster a smile and tiny wave as she made her way off the jet.

  ***

  She felt like a fool as she operated the sporty white Dodge Charger that was assigned to her at the car rental place. She was more of a sedate SUV driver than a muscle car person. But she learned to appreciate the extra power when she effortlessly merged into traffic from southbound 101 to westbound Highway 92 and uphill towards her exit.

  Sharon smiled with familiarity as she glided up the ramp to Alameda De Las Pulgas, and before continuing on, she rolled down her window so she could smell the ocean air that was cascading over the hills from the west, picking up bits and pieces of lilac scent as it wafted along. She finally turned right and headed toward her family home in the lovely Baywood Knolls area of San Mateo.

  Spanish stucco and barrel-tiled roofs wonderfully ruled the area. Sharon’s blood pressure seemed to drop several points as she headed north towards what she deemed her true home.

  She drove past Aragon High School, her alma mater, and slowed to take a left on Nevada Avenue. There, she headed up hill, through the terraced-style neighborhood, with one street stacked up higher than the next, to Iowa Drive. As she neared the intersection of Nevada and Iowa, she had to quickly pull to the curb and stop.