by Deforest Day
“You people need to be proactive this time. Time to pass this attack on the Reagan Memorial up the stovepipe to the Secretary himself. Oh, and a word to the wise, mister Second Deputy Under Secretary for Domestic Threat Assessment. The media is gonna show up any minute. Where? Shaleville, Pennsylvania. And I'm Sheriff Wallace Claxon, but known to the voters as Wally.”
—o—
The Under Secretary for Threat Assessment searched Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine in the Homeland Security Data Base, and tracked down the Secretary. He found his boss at the White House, chairing a shirt-sleeve coffee and crullers confab on re-coloring the Threat Assessment thermometer. Red didn't have the power it once had, and numbers, like DefCon One, always leave you wondering if it's the highest or the lowest.
When the Secretary heard the spotty details of what this Threat Assessor called an attack on the Reagan Memorial he asked, “Which one?”
There was at least one notable public landmark in every state, and in all three thousand and sixty seven counties with something named after the fortieth president. As well as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, in the Marshall Islands.
“This one's in Pennsylvania, sir. I locked in the GPS coordinates, and coordinated with Justice, FBI, and FEMA. I also alerted our Rapid Response Teams, and notified your Press Secretary.”
The Under Secretary wondered if he had over-stepped his mandate, and quickly added, “Just following your memo, sir, that we need to be proactive before, not after an event.”
The Secretary grinned. Hot damn! An actual, honest-to-God terrorist attack. And closer to D.C. than Lake Michigan. Plus, there was no gunfire this time. Shootings are tricky. Just when you think you have the Muslims nailed dead to rights, it turns out to be some Tenth Amendment asshole. The Secretary thanked the Lord this underling would take the heat in the event of another false alarm.
—o—
Sheriff Claxon radioed Duane, told him Homeland Security was sending their top people. “I need you to track down them two old miners, Day Late and Dollar Short, bring 'em here to get deputized, and then run 'em out to guard the breaker. Excuse me, the Reagan Memorial.”
In a few short hours the Legion baseball diamond behind the old school was at overflow capacity with official vehicles from a number of local, state, and federal agencies. The adjacent B.P.O.E. picnic grounds was rapidly filling with news trucks, their dishes pointing skyward on telescopic masts.
On-air talent, trailed by producers, camera operators, and sound technicians, plus the occasional make-up artist ready for touch-ups as needed, worked the crowd, looking for anyone willing to say anything on camera.
Several teen age boys, cell phones glued to their ears, were mugging for the cameras, mouthing ‘Hi Mom’ anytime their at-home friends told them they were on the screen.
Meanwhile, Congressman Sheldon ‘Shelly’ Varnish, (R-PA) was closeted with his current Legislative Assistant, the lovely, if somewhat naive, Debbie Melon. “Perhaps,” the congressman said, “after we finish polishing today’s One Minute Speech, we can adjourn to my suite at the Watergate for some canoodling.”
“But Shelly,” Debbie said, eyes wide in confusion, “You don’t have a canoe.”
“Let me worry about that,” he soothed as he stroked her lovely arm, so tanned, so smooth, so young. . . The harsh buzz of his intercom ruined his ruminations. “Yes?” he barked at the speaker.
“Sheriff Wally Claxon, Shaleville police department, is on line one. You better take this, Sir.”
“Good God,” the congressman said, after a long listen. “Terrorists in my district!” He covered the phone with his hand, told Debbie to get his Chief of Staff in here, PDQ.
“Who's Petey Cue? I thought his name was Allen.”
Chapter Sixteen
The limo driver dropped his final passenger at the farm. As Mags climbed out of the back he carped, “Hey, sis, how about a tip?”
She studied the fat bigot for a moment, then said, “Here's one. Don't take your wife for granted. She always has the option of switching sides.”
Mags slung her Sierra Club tote over her shoulder and headed for the front door, then detected the familiar scent of explosive. The same sharp, chemical smell, when she'd busted up rocks for the pond. Busted them up with ANFO, the weekend her parents were in Washington, meeting the Army Corps of Engineers.
It's amazing what you can learn on the internet. A good thing, because she'd assumed asking permission from Mac was a non-starter. He had this weird belief about unsupervised teenagers and dangerous substances, although he studiously looked the other way when he smelled weed.
She headed up the hill, saw her mother and the dynamite man lying beside her dozer. The guy was fumbling at the knot in Honey's shirttails. No, it was her shirttails. Honey would never in a million years sew a rainbow batch on a shirt.
“Well, well, what have we here, Mom? You're certainly look flagrantly delectable.”
Honey struggled to her feet, adjusted herself. “Don't be crude. Spider and I just blew up one of those awful old trees, and I must have momentarily lost consciousness, from the concussion of the blast.” She searched for an explanation. “He was giving me the breath of life.”
“You lost consciousness, or your conscience?” Mags shook her head, not in disbelief, but disappointment. Her mother often deployed what she called feminine wiles to bend men to her will. And justified it by telling her daughter they were the weaker sex, needed every tool God had given them.
“It's not my place to judge, Mom.” She surveyed the chunks of apple tree littering the hillside. “Does Daddy Mac know about this?”
Honey realized that kissing Spider right out in the open was a poor decision. Even if Mags hadn't suddenly appeared, there was Dr. Q and Rosetta. Either one would tell Mac about a not-so innocent kiss, just the way Spider told her about Mac and Mags.
She still didn't believe Mac's explanation. They'd given her the keys to the BMW at breakfast, and that was the time and place to give her stepfather a kiss. In front of her mother, and on the cheek. “Well, he will now, as I'm sure you'll run off and tell him.”
Honey thought about the bank box full of cash, and the key in Mags' bedroom. She should have counted it, see if there is enough to simply ride off into the sunset, and reinvent herself again. This time without a daughter in tow.
She still knew people in the business, and there's always a role for a mature, yet still attractive, woman on daytime television. She weighed this, against the possibility that Spider could simply make her a very rich widow.
—o—
Marge rattled the door to Mac's cell. “Hey, you,” she said, her neck wattles trembling with indignation. “Sheriff told me I got to let you out, so's you can make your one phone call.”
Mac was lying on the lower bunk, staring at the springs of the upper. In the movies, the prisoner uses a piece of coiled wire to pick the lock, and escapes. Later, he is shot.
He swung his legs off the thin mattress, approached the door as Marge keyed the lock. He tossed her a disingenuous smile. “About time. Where's my iPhone?”
“Oh, yeah, and then you'll call a burner phone you done wired up, and the Reagan Memorial will go out in a blaze of glory.” She planted her crepe-fleshed hands on her hips. “I don't think so, Mister Smartypants.” She unlocked the cell, pointed to the sheriff's desk. “You can use that one, but if it's a toll call, you'll be billed for it, down the line.”
“What's got the burr under your saddle, lady?” He wanted to say bug up your ass, but there was probably an obscenity ordinance in this jerkwater burg.
Marge snorted. “You're one of them big city hotshots, come sailin' through town in your fancy car like you own the place, and expect special treatment.”
“Wilkes-Barre is the big city? You need to get out more.”
“Any place with sidewalks and a blinker light is big, compared to Shaleville. And I know all about terrorist conspir
acies. I listen to Alex Jones, and he says you people are trying to destroy our freedoms. Starting without sacred sites.”
“An abandoned coal breaker is a sacred site?” Mac moved toward the cell door, fascinated by her viewpoint. He'd once listened to late night radio on a long distance drive, and was dumbfounded by the alternate realities accepted as fact.
“It is to me. I lost both my Paw and Peepaw in there. Ground to hamburger, they was. Loaded on a railcar, and burned in some distant power plant. Every time I flip a light switch I think of them.”
Marge retreated to her desk, donned her headset. “That coal breaker is a holy sepulcher, and I moved heaven and earth to get it an official Pennsylvania State Historical Marker.”
Mac settled into the old bentwood desk chair with the hemorrhoid cushion, idly wondering if the drawers were locked. Wondered if there were guns and spare keys to the cruiser in them. Shove Marge in the cell, make his escape. And then what?
Along with the BMW, money, and gun, they also took his phone, a phone that held dozens of numbers in its memory.
There was just the one number he'd committed to memory. The land line in the farmhouse kitchen. The one only Rosetta answered. He dialed, hoping she wasn't outside, butchering a goat. He hoped she could find his BlackBerry, and then find Spider’s cell number in it. Because Spider was both the cause of his misfortune, and the solution to it.
Chapter Seventeen
Dr. Q picked up Rosetta at Saint Johns, learned from Father Bill the señora's faith in the canon was bloodied, but unbowed. Apparently, Latin still retained its magical powers.
When they arrived at the farm he said he'd slaughtered and skinned the goat for her. He then walked up to the orchard, following his nose toward a smell reminiscent of Central American revolutions.
He found Mags, dressed in shorts, and a Fifty Shades of Gay T-shirt. She was frowning at a hole in the ground. “Daddy Mac said this was a Spartan. Like a McIntosh, but cross-bred with something else, about a hundred years ago. I have no idea how he knows that.”
Dr. Q said, “He told me a man from the extension service was out here, when he first bought the place. These are heirloom trees, and he wants to save them. Perhaps as penance for destroying so many landmark structures. Or maybe he just likes a challenge.” He toed a piece of applewood. “I wonder what happened to this one.”
“I think Daddy Mac's explosive man did this. Of course my mom probably talked him into it.”
“Yes, I met him, earlier. Introduced himself as Spider Tarantella, demolition expert. He assumed I was—as he put it—'boning' your mother, so perhaps you are correct. I must warn you, Magnolia, he also has taken an interest in you. I deflected him with some nonsense about your spiritual search for identity.”
“I scored some dank in DC. You want to sample a joint?”
In the kitchen Spider was at the sink, lathering his hands, arms. “Look at me, I’m dirtier than I thought. Maybe I ought to take a shower?”
“If you think you need one.”
“That’s up to you.” He tossed her his gap-toothed grin, the one that could soften certain hearts. “Some ladies like the scent of ANFO. It’s a, a, what's the word?”
“Aphrodisiac?”
“No, I’m talking about the stuff that turns on white women.” He dried his hands on a paper towel. “If I knowed what was in Mr. Mac's suitcase, back there in the desert, shit, I shoulda let them A-rabs shoot him, took the money for myself.”
Spider decided to play her a bit, use the old flattery card. ”Of course, I done that, by now the money'd be gone, and I'da never met you.” He slipped his hand, the three-fingered one, inside the denim shirt.
She shuddered, and pushed him away. “Not here, not now, lover boy. I was carried away, up by the orchard.” Then she had second thoughts on cooling his ardor, and caressed his cheek, because it always worked. “We have to be careful, Spider. Mags will tattle to her precious stepfather.” She sighed deeply, another of her wiles. Heaving bosoms were tools of the trade.
Since he was the one who brought up the subject of Mac's money, she seized the moment. “I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I'm just a figurehead. My name is on that big billboard, but I recently learned Mac has control of all the money.”
She deflected his wandering hand. “I didn't go to New York just now, I went to the bank. And I learned there's millions. But it's all in his name. Of course, if he died, it would be mine.” She wondered if she was being too obvious. Probably not, the man has male-pattern density.
The phone rang, and she ignored it, searching his eyes for some spark of understanding. Of calculation.
Instead, he asked, “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
She thought of Saylor's mules, and two-by-fours. “I don’t get calls on the house phone. It’s for Rosetta.”
“She works for you. So answer it, and I'll go find her.”
“Men are so practical. But she is in charge of my luncheon for the governor, so you may have a point.” Honey picked up the phone, covered the mouthpiece with her hand, mouthed, “It’s Mac”. She told her husband, “If you’re looking for Rosetta, she’s out in the old tractor shed, with a dead goat.”
Mac said, “Good to know someone is doing their job. Guess what, Sweetheart? I’m in jail. For stealing a car. I wonder how that happened.”
Honey reddened, recovered. “Well, it's your fault, for taking the BMW, and leaving me in the lurch.” She raised her eyebrows at Spider. “Put someone on the line, and I'll straighten them out.”
“Too late for that. A bomb-sniffing dog found traces of explosives. They think I’m some sort of terrorist.”
“Explosives?”
“Spider is my explosives handler, and he also handled the gun. The gun you said I couldn't leave at home. So, simple explanation, right? Try telling that to a government can’t find it’s ass with both hands.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it, Mac?”
“Get hold of Spider, tell him to come to Shaleville, say it’s his pistol, and explain the explosives to Sheriff Claxon.”
Honey said, “Tell him yourself,” and handed the phone to Spider.
Chapter Eighteen
After a passing fisherman with a large boat rescued the stranded extortionists from the Susquehanna, the wrestlers and the insurance peddlers parted company. Harry and George planned to seek revenge for their brief Escalade ride down the river.
Tedy and Nedy said they wanted no part of it, and opted for a safer gig on Manhattan’s Wall Street, a steel-cage tag-team death-match with a bull and a bear. The promoter swore both animals had screen experience, and belonged to SAG.
Harry Merkle told the cabbie to wait while they search the salvage yard. They found the remains of the Escalade in a row of wrecks reclaimed from the river.
“Shit,” George said, staring at what is left of his eighty-thousand dollar car.
“Not an inappropriate definition of your vehicle, in its current state,” Harry replied with a hint of sarcasm. “You had, I trust, accident insurance on it?”
“Oh, sure,” George answered, lathering on some sarcasm of his own. It wasn't Harry's pride and joy that went in the drink. “And to put in a claim, I gotta explain why it was in the river, and how come there ain’t no police report on how it got there.” George lifted the tails of his red and green hibiscus-print shirt, patted the Colt Python tucked in his waistband. “I guess I’ll just have to collect from Mr. Poy-trin.”
—o—
Duane and Bugle Boy found Day Late and Dollar Short in the Tucker Inn. They long had supplemented their United Mine Workers pensions with a little bootleg mining, and spent it in the Plugged Nickel. But today they were cadging drinks from the TV news crews awaiting anything visual, and print reporters padding expense accounts.
Bugle always felt welcome in the saloon, as the bartenders treated him as an equal member of the Shaleville Department of Public Safety, and gave him unlimited access to the beer nuts. And
then there were the restroom signs. Silhouettes of Pointers and Setters.
Duane escorted Day and Dollar across the town square, where they were duly deputized and issued badges by the sheriff. He explained he was sending them to guard the Reagan Memorial, since it was where the terrorist McClintock was apprehended. “You mean the old breaker?” Day snorted. “They oughta tear the damn thing down.”
“Damn straight,” Dollar replied. “My left foot hurts ever' time I think about that place.”
Day laughed, “You don't have a left foot, you jackass.” Day and Dollar had perfected this skit over the years, and it always earned a drink or two from new audiences.
“You're right, but I'm gettin' old, and I forget.” He paused a beat. “But then I remember, ever' time I see my closet full of brand-new left-foot shoes.”
Duane put the pair in the back of his unit, buckled Buge in his harness. He turned in his seat, spoke through the steel mesh. “Sorry you fellas have to ride back there, but my partner rides shotgun.”
“Oh, hell, we're used to it,” ain't that right, Dollar?''
“Right you are Day, only difference this time, we ain't cuffed to the D-rings on the floor.”
As they headed out of town Duane told them about the red BMW, about McClintock, and his gun, money, drugs, and explosives. “Gonna put Shaleville on the map. Sheriff Claxon says there's bound to be a TV docudrama, maybe even a movie. I'm hoping they get Jason Bourne to play me.” Duane turned, added over his shoulder, “I bet if they shoot a scene out at the old breaker, they'll even put the pair of you in it. Get a couple of character actors to play the part.”
“Hell, sonny, I can play my ownself. The sheriff says I'm always actin' up.”
Duane dropped them at the breaker, said he'd be back to relieve them, when the sheriff could find someone else to deputize.