by C. L. Bevill
Well, that would let Bam Bam off the hook, Bubba thought, but that would also mean that someone was getting away with murder. That isn’t done.
“Do you think that his death had something to do with your business?” Bubba asked cautiously.
Peterson was careful to wait a moment before he answered, “I’m beginning to think it did not.”
“That’s what I reckon, too. What happens to this whole mess ifin you complete what you need done, and there’s a person running about who done kilt your man?”
Peterson did not answer. Bubba took that to mean that they weren’t going to take responsibility because their “business” was more important than a man getting murdered. Bubba didn’t overly care for the implication.
“I expect we’ll see you at Bazooka Bob’s, then,” Bubba said.
“Tell your friend that those boots make him look like a pimp and the other one that that dress is too over the top. Also the tall one is definitely eating meat no matter what the waitress said.”
Bubba didn’t say anything as he grasped that Peterson was watching them in some fashion. He wasn’t surprised to hear the phone line disconnect before he could pull the phone away from his face.
“He didn’t apologize,” David complained. “And I want my mani. And those stockings.”
“I’ll remind him when I see him tonight,” Bubba said.
“What’s goin’ to happen at my club?” Bam Bam asked. “That don’t sound good. Sounds like some serious shizz that I don’t want no part of. I’m thinkin’ of goin’ to see my mama in Las Vegas. Them slots at the Bellagio have my name on them. You want to go, Snuggles?”
“I love Las Vegas!” David proclaimed.
“You kin go when this is over,” Bubba said. “You got me into this, you can stick it out.”
Bam Bam’s shoulders slumped.
David shrugged.
“Hey,” Dan called from the truck stop restaurant’s door, “I got us a table and ordered four of the meatloaf specials. The waitress tole me there ain’t really any meat in the meatloaf, so I’m good!”
* * *
As it turned out, Miz Demetrice would not be easily located, as was frequently the case when the Snoddy matriarch did not wish to be found. Bubba felt like a man who couldn’t find his tushy with both hands, a roadmap, and a GPS with recently replaced batteries. Bam Bam finally drove him to Lake Plooey, but not before Bubba made Bam Bam swear on his mother’s grave (“She ain’t dead, Bubba!” the other man was heard to protest loudly and was overheard by two retirees, a park ranger, and a bird enthusiast.) that he would open Bazooka Bob’s that evening like it was business as usual.
“Anyway, them dancers are having a union meeting,” Bam Bam said sullenly. “Your mother organized it. Even the dishwashers are wanting in on it.”
“Another free buffet?”
“Oh sure, I’ve got loads of money for that,” Bam Bam said sarcastically as he sat in the driver’s seat of the AMC Gremlin. It was parked behind the Chevy truck, and Bam Bam’s hands nervously twisted and bopped as he waited for Bubba to finish with him.
“I could go for a buffet,” Dan said. “I hear the new chef is good at Bazooka Bob’s, and Trixiebelle won’t be back before Friday, so I kin go.”
“Bam Bam, you should just go whole hog,” David said from the back seat. “You might as well go out with a bang.”
“I don’t think that’s meant as a literal one,” Bam Bam snarled over his shoulder. “Whatever’s happening is goin’ to be wicked bad messed up serious. I cain’t knock on enough wood or throw enough salt over my shoulder or get enough rabbit’s feet to make it through the rest of this week without getting some kind of severe blowback. I should have just left when I first found you-know-what in my you-know-where.”
“Ifin a rabbit loses one foot because it becomes a keychain, then do they git little rabbit prostheses?” Dan mused. “Them little hooked ones so they kin bounce?”
“Swing by my house,” Bubba said. “Willodean’s got three extra bulletproof vests.”
“Why the aitch-eee-double ell does she—” Bam Bam started and stopped. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I’ll call Leslie now and have the sign changed so folks kin see it.”
“I’ll post it on Facebook,” David said helpfully. “I’ll do my fan dance if none of the other girls will dance. You know, people have a hard time looking away from my fan dance.”
“Oh, they’ll dance,” Bam Bam said. “They’ll think it’s funny to dance while the rest are having a union meeting. There’ll be customers there, too, so they don’t really want to sabotage the business.”
“I want to join the union,” David said. “Unions are good for the little person.”
“Go back to Russia, you commie,” Bam Bam said, “and don’t forget to Tweet it, too.” Then he drove off, taking both Dan Gollihugh and David Beathard with him. The purple –metallic paint of the Gremlin twinkled in the sun as it rounded a corner and vanished.
Bubba was left in the Lake Plooey parking lot with his hound, wondering if one of Willodean’s bulletproof vests was large enough for him. He turned to look at Ol’ Green and found that it was pretty much as he’d left it. The wood was still in the back and everything appeared to be secure. The keys had been in the baggie that he’d been given when he’d been expelled from the tractor-trailer, so he pulled the set out of a pocket and looked toward the marina.
In the bright daylight the In Decent Seas was docked in its same location, and despite what Willodean had told him about Ralph Cedarbloom trying to sink it with an axe, it looked fairly normal. (That would be normal for how an illegal floating pot patch would look.) There was crime scene tape around its entire perimeter indicating that it was off limits for the time being. Ralph was likely still in the hospital recovering from eating an unknown quantity of psychedelic mushrooms.
Bubba didn’t think that further investigation of the houseboat was going to get him anywhere because it wasn’t connected to John J. Johnson the Third. However, Bubba was mildly concerned with Charlene Cedarbloom’s supply of medicinal marijuana being cut off, but there were other sources besides Ralph. If Ralph didn’t relay those to Miz Adelia, then there were about a dozen other people who would.
Bubba turned toward his truck before he immediately turned back because something something had caught his eye. In the parking lot, half hidden behind a full-sized, Kelly-green Hummer was a certain Cadillac that belonged to a certain mother. He didn’t have to be Humphrey Bogart to figure out that the Maltese falcon was very, very close.
“Precious,” Bubba said to his hound, “find Ma.”
Precious’s prodigious nose wrinkled in evident distaste. She knew what that meant. She also knew that she wouldn’t like the result. Furthermore, Bubba’s mother was apt to give her a bath and spray a little perfume on her, which Precious did not like considering that it ruined all the goodness of smelling dead roadkill and such for simply hours. However, her master appeared grimly determined, and since Milk-Bones had been specifically mentioned earlier in the day, she lifted her head and sniffed about. It only took her about twenty seconds to catch the scent that was uniquely Miz Demetrice Snoddy’s. (One part gin to two parts Oil of Olay to three parts lavender bath oils to ten parts Miz Demetrice herself plus a dash of peppermints.)
Trotting toward the Caddy, Precious made a trail. Bubba followed with a brief stop at his truck, squaring his shoulders, ready to do business with his mother.
Bubba discovered her deep in conversation with Ranger Forest Ranger. (Truthfully, Miz Demetrice was on transmit while Ranger Ranger listened with an intensity that reflected his ability to deal with people on the job and not because he was actually a people person.) Bubba came up from behind them but knew his mother was aware of him because Precious sniffed her trousers and leaned in for a pet, a demand to which his mother acquiesced. After the petting, the hound trotted off to inspect the nearest brush for more interesting scents, since she had found the prize. Precious looke
d at Bubba and Bubba said, “Good hound,” and tossed her a Milk-Bone which he’d acquired from a bag in the glove box of the truck. She deftly snatched it out of the air and scouted the area for a suitable spot in which to properly appreciate and consume her dogly bounty.
Bubba crossed his massive arms over his chest and waited while Miz Demetrice finished with Ranger Ranger.
“…knew your mother from the sixth grade. Her name was Eloise Gardener then, of course. That was a long time before she married your father and became a Ranger.” Miz Demetrice didn’t pause for breath but started inching around so that Ranger Ranger was between herself and Bubba. That also meant that Ranger Ranger’s back was to the marina. Bubba didn’t say anything, but watched a group of younger Cedarblooms tiptapping their way down the dock to the In Decent Seas. It was as if they were a dance troupe, and their movements were expertly synchronized. Plainly, they had been waiting for Ranger Ranger to have his back to the houseboat.
“Oh, those were the days when being a Ranger meant that you were part of the crowd that did the good works with the Methodist church, you know the one on 2nd Avenue, not the one on Park Street…” his mother went on blithely, not even allowing Ranger Ranger to open his mouth.
Bubba looked at his mother and then at the Cedarblooms. It didn’t take them much time. They formed a line from the inside of the cabin and started dumping items overboard, careful not to make loud splashes. As they worked, it occurred to Bubba that they were systematically disabling Ralph’s operation. (It wasn’t like Sheriff John and Willodean to leave evidence lying about higgledy-piggledy, but this was unmistakably one of those times where they wanted to do the right thing, if not the unlawful thing.)
“…remember the time that my late husband, Elgin Snoddy, got together with Aloysius Ranger and tried to burn down the court house. Seriously, they thought they could light bricks on fire, but that was before I murdered him by dumping a load of bricks on his head…”
One of the Cedarblooms, Bubba identified that one as Jasmine, the would-be veterinarian, clasped a bag of something to her chest and jumped the gap between boat and dock. She kept an eye on Miz Demetrice and Ranger Ranger as she dashed for her car. She quickly stashed the bag in the trunk of the car and returned to help the others with methodical obliteration of the evidence against Ralph. She only paused to wave happily at Bubba.
Bubba wondered if all the marijuana growing materials that were now sinking to the bottom of Lake Plooey would be bad for the flora and the fauna. What that really meant was that he didn’t dare keep any fish from this lake that he might catch in the future because someone would be poisoned if they ate them.
“…which was before Elgin talked Aloysius into taking a drive to Austin to talk to the governor about the blue laws. Of course, they loaded up the Cadillac with Coors. I mean, they had the entire back seat filled right up to the roof with six packs of beer so that they could be supplied on their drive. The tires on the Caddy looked like they were about to burst. Who would have thought that beer weighed so much? In any case, they did get into see the governor, who also liked Coors, and they had a long chat about the blue laws, which were not constitutional in my opinion. That was probably the only time Elgin did something that I remotely respected him for, even if it was to promote his incipient alcoholism…”
It took about five minutes of Miz Demetrice’s ambling conversation before the Cedarblooms amscrayed from the dock and piled back into three vehicles. Jasmine paused to wave energetically at Bubba’s mother, and Miz Demetrice wound things up with, “…won’t keep you,” she finished. She turned her head to look at her son and said, “Oh, Bubba dearest, was there something you needed?”
Chapter 23
Bubba and the Ladies in
His Life and Then Some
Wednesday, August 23rd
Bubba watched as Ranger Ranger ambled back toward the marina and took a left at the building that housed his office. Whenever the law returned to process the houseboat, In Decent Seas, the state employee would be questioned about what he’d seen or hadn’t seen, and he might remember that Miz Demetrice was in the area at one point in time, but he hadn’t seen her anywhere near the houseboat. (Bubba didn’t need to be Hercule Poirot to deduce that she hadn’t gone anywhere near the floating pot patch.) Consequently, the Snoddy matriarch certainly hadn’t had time to pry all the evidence up and discard it before everything was sorted out and recorded.
“Did you tell that fella why you’re down here at the marina?” Bubba asked politely as if he was making conversation about the local high school football team or whether she preferred the color green or yellow for the baby’s room.
“Why, yes of course, dearest,” Miz Demetrice said. She smoothed her white hair into place and tucked a few errant hairs into her chignon. “I was checking on your truck.”
“And how is my truck?”
“Looked good to me,” she said, “and I thought that to myself as I drove past it.”
“Do we need to do anything else here?”
Miz Demetrice appeared thoughtful. She looked at the In Decent Seas and then at the marina office. “I think that Forest doesn’t want to listen to any more of my blathering,” she said. “I think the Cedarblooms cleaned everything up. Ralph might get a slap on the hand, but all will be well in a matter of time. Sheriff John won’t be too put out.”
“Jasmine took enough pot home to get Charlene through the wintertime and then some,” Bubba said. He was certain about that; Jasmine had carried enough marijuana to her car to take care of her grandmother. “They don’t have security cameras about, do they?”
“They do, as a matter of fact,” Miz Demetrice said. “The wire got cut, however. Imagine that.”
“Imagine,” Bubba repeated. “So did Sheriff John and my wife look at the footage?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” his mother said sagely. “It was cut before the aliens done took you off in their SUV spacecraft.”
“Heard about that, huh?” The wires being cut suggested that the Department of Homeland Security and its incipient agents didn’t want the arrest of Bubba and David to be on YouTube anytime soon. That was also very interesting.
“I did.” Miz Demetrice shifted uncomfortably. It was clear to Bubba that she didn’t want to talk about what he wanted to talk about, and she was trying to think of the easiest way to extract herself from the situation, however, incoming meteors were absent, so she was stuck. (Bubba was standing strategically between his mother and her Caddy. In fact, he had moved twice to prevent her from inching around him.)
Bubba crossed his arms over his chest and waited expectantly. One eyebrow lifted in what was likely an exact approximation of her own infamous eyebrow lift.
“I was bored,” his mother finally said.
“You were bored,” Bubba repeated. “Bored and you had to consort with the Department of Homeland Security?” He couldn’t help himself, but when the words came out, it sounded as if he was implying that she was doing something appalling like keeping company with the devil or with a Kardashian.
“It didn’t start out that way,” Miz Demetrice said.
Bubba was loath to ask but he did. “Then how did it start out?”
“After the wedding, your wedding that is, Bubba dearest,” she started. Bubba nodded encouragingly, although he didn’t exactly feel encouraging. “Well, things slowed right down,” she added.
Bubba remembered. He’d kind of liked it when it slowed down. There weren’t any dead bodies about. There weren’t people running hither and yon trying to get revenge. There weren’t escaped criminals prancing down the garden lane. There wasn’t anyone around who was trying to kill him by convoluted and ridiculous means. It was a good time. It was his sincerest wish that all would return to that state soonest.
“I tried some protests,” she said. Bubba also remembered that. There had been a sit-in at the manure factory because they weren’t being supplied with enough soap with which to clean up after their daily shifts
. But Bubba remembered that it wasn’t because there wasn’t enough soap, it was because it was a soap of which none of them liked the smell. (The sit-in comprised of sitting in front of the manure factory’s gates and yelling, “Dial! Dove! Lifebuoy! Zest! We deserve the best!” Extensive raspberries had been included.) That one hadn’t lasted long because the manure company had caved in three hours. (Two hours and fifty-two minutes to be precise.)
The soap protest had been followed by two particularly memorable poker games with the Pegramville Women’s Club. Those had involved the governor’s wife and a talk show host from Hollywood. (Instragram had been heavily utilized.) Then, there had been some brief work on the baby’s room that had petered out because Bubba and Willodean were on top of it. (Miz Demetrice was interested in hanging her lucky pair of dueling pistols on the baby’s wall, but both parents had pooh-poohed that notion. His mother had briefly argued with, “They haven’t been fired for nearly two decades, darlings, and I have no idea where the gun powder is located,” but had ultimately capitulated.) Finally, there had been another brief protest of a tax increase on imported wool. (Who knew those local knitting circles could be so fanatical or so deadly with knitting needles? The head of the commission for importation selection wouldn’t be returning to Pegram County anytime soon.)
“It’ll be busy enough when the baby comes,” Bubba said.
“But that’s three months away and things need doing,” his mother protested, clearly meaning that she was still bored.
“And someone knocked on your door and asked, ‘Kin you do a little somethin’ somethin’ for the U.S. Gov’ment?’”
“It was a friend of a friend,” Miz Demetrice said carefully. Then she went on the offensive. “Cain’t a lady have a little something interesting to do? Do I have to stand for all this interrogation? I have half a mind to flounce away and not speak to you in a month of Sundays, boy.” She tossed her head and looked off into the lake.