The Taking of Libbie, SD

by David Housewright

  Bizek continued his slow motor tour of Libbie, showing me a lot more than I had seen during my hike around the town’s perimeter that morning. There was a two-screen movie theater, a shoe store, a beauty parlor, a barbershop, an auto mechanic, a farm equipment dealer, a livestock sales barn, UPS—just about everything a small town needs except for a lumberyard.

  “That was my biggest priority,” Bizek said. “To get a lumberyard. I worked on it for years. Talked to Home Depot, Menards, just about everyone you can think of. They all said, the big chains said, they weren’t interested in a town this size. Then I found a guy, a retired contractor—he was willing to build a lumberyard here. He was going to run it with his sons.” Bizek glanced at Tracie in his rearview again. “Only the city council wouldn’t dip into the development fund to help him out. They said it wasn’t a good investment considering our limited tax base. Still, I’d like to get a lumberyard here.”

  Bizek made a couple of right turns and slowly drove past the industrial park I’d discovered that morning.

  “I’m particularly proud of this,” he said. “The middle building, that houses Frank Communications. It’s a call center that handles inbound customer service calls and outbound sales calls, mostly for Fortune 500 companies. This guy, Ira Frank, millionaire, lives in Phoenix, has call centers scattered all across the country. I heard that he was from South Dakota, so I went to see him, went on my own dime, and talked him into moving a center here. It wasn’t hard. Frank likes South Dakota, likes the work ethic we have here.” Bizek looked into his rearview mirror again. “He said the fact that I drove down to Phoenix to talk to him without even an appointment was a good example of that.”

  “We don’t need any more seven-dollar-an-hour jobs,” Tracie said.

  “Microsoft and Apple are not going to waltz into Libbie with high-paying jobs for two hundred and fifty skilled, college-educated workers,” Bizek said.

  Tracie had nothing to say to that.

  “Would you like a tour?” Bizek said. “I’m sure we can arrange a quick tour.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  Tracie rolled her eyes.

  Perry Neske liked his job. He managed the second shift at Frank Communications, the 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. shift, and his smile became broad and his eyes shiny when Tracie asked him to give us the fifty-cent tour. That threw me a little bit, Tracie asking and not Bizek. Instead, Bizek kept his distance, like a child afraid of drawing attention to himself for fear the adults would ask him to leave.

  “Business is ramping up,” Neske said. “We expect it’ll get even better as we get deeper into the political season, doing campaign surveys, opinion polls, trolling for contributions.”

  I was surprised by how open Neske was. Tracie had explained to Bizek who I was and what I was doing in Libbie. She hadn’t said a word to Neske, though. Still, he proved as forthcoming as if we were old friends picking up a conversation that had been on pause for about thirty seconds. While Neske spoke, Bizek carefully surveyed the people around him as if he were looking for someone and didn’t want to be caught at it.

  “In telemarketing, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of your success is the sound of your voice,” Neske said. “Can you read a script, can you talk well, are you outgoing, do you sound upbeat and sincere?”

  All around us was the steady hum of conversation, and for a while I thought we had caught the employees conversing with each other during a shift change.

  “Oh, no,” Neske said. “They’re working.”

  Neske led us down a corridor between soft-wall cubicles and gestured at the men and women that we found there. They were all wearing headsets and talking to customers. Some of them were sitting at desks, others were standing, and still others paced while they worked. Bizek drifted away, looking over the top of some of the cubicle walls.

  “We ask our employees to dress in what I call business casual,” Neske said. “You might think that’s odd. After all, they work on the phone. No one sees them. But I think you need to ask people to dress professionally if you expect them to act professionally. On Fridays, though—if you bring in a can of food or packaged goods for charity you can dress down on Fridays.”

  “I notice that most of your employees are pretty young,” I said.

  “They’re either young or old,” Neske said. “We have a high turnover. Partly it’s the entry-level pay that comes with the job. It’s not enough to support a family, so you get kids starting out or retirees looking to supplement pensions or Social Security. The other thing is, some people have a tough time handling rejection. You go a few days without a sale and it can get you down. Some people take it personally.”

  Bizek glanced over the top of yet another cubicle. Neske spun to face him.

  “Are you looking for someone?” he said.

  Bizek took a tentative step backward.

  “She’s not here,” Neske said.

  The hum of conversation suddenly ceased, and heads peered over the walls of the cubicles.

  Bizek’s eyes lowered until he was staring at the floor.

  I glanced at Tracie, hoping for enlightenment. She pressed an index finger to her lips and watched the scene unfold.

  “I should kill you,” Neske said.

  “Maybe you should,” Bizek said. He raised his head. “But I don’t think the lady would like that.”

  “I should kill you both.”

  Bizek took a step forward. If he had seemed repentant before, he now looked defiant. “Try it,” he said.

  Tracie grabbed my arm just above the elbow and squeezed. “McKenzie, do something,” she said.

  “Want me to go out for popcorn? Milk Duds?”

  Bizek took another step forward. Neske moved to meet him. They stood like that for a long moment, reminding me of professional wrestlers giving each other the mad-dog stare. Only nothing happened, and after about six seconds I knew nothing would. The more people think about a fight, the less likely they are to start one.

  “You should leave now,” Neske said.

  Bizek sneered as if it had been his idea all along. He spun around slowly and walked from the building, moving as if he had all the time in the world. Tracie, Neske, and I watched him go, along with all the heads peering over the cubicle walls. A moment later, the hum of conversation returned to its original volume. Neske excused himself and disappeared into his office. I turned to Tracie.

  “I think we just lost our ride,” I said.

  The air was hot and hard to breathe. If that wasn’t bad enough, Tracie’s shortcut back to my Audi was along a dirt road. Wind and passing cars roiled up the dust, and the dust forced me to cough to clear my throat.

  “So what was that all about?” I asked.

  “Perry and Ed?”

  “No, Penn and Teller.”

  Tracie tilted her head and frowned; her hair was shiny in the slant of the afternoon sun.

  “Perry Neske was born and raised in Libbie,” she said. “He left several times, but he always came back. The last time he came back, he brought a wife. Her name is Dawn. She hates everything about Libbie.”

  “Except for Ed.”

  “Except for Ed.”

  “And everyone knows it.”

  “What can I say?”

  “Where the hell is my car?”

  Tracie pointed down the street. I followed her finger, only it didn’t lead me to the government building where I had parked the Audi when we first went to visit Bizek. Instead, she was pointing at an ice cream parlor.

  “My treat,” she said.

  Back in the good ol’ days—whenever that was—I’m told that people would gather around the cracker barrel in the general store and talk it over. That’s something else I’ve never seen, a cracker barrel. In Libbie, they gathered at U Scream Ice Cream Parlor. There were about half a dozen people inside when we arrived, and another half dozen joined while we were there. I sat nursing a hot fudge sundae while the group discussed a number of subjects ranging from the economy to what’s the
matter with kids today. After a while, I said, “What about that damn mall?”

  I waited for someone to ask who I was, yet no one did.

  “Yeah, the mall,” the man called Craig said. “Ol’ Ed really screwed that one up.”

  “I hear that’s not all he’s screwing,” said another man whose name I didn’t know.

  “Now, now, now,” said Craig, who chuckled just the same.

  The owner of the ice cream joint was wearing a white smock with the name ron stitched in red over the breast pocket. “Good riddance,” he said. “A mall would have killed downtown Libbie.”

  “Nah,” said a farmer sitting in the corner. “It woulda just moved it to the intersection.”

  “A mall would have turned the city into a ghost town,” Ron said. “Instead of owning our own stores, we would have become greeters at one of theirs.”

  A woman named Joyce agreed. “Build that mall and we wouldn’t even be a town no more,” she said. “We’d be an area. The area around the mall.”

  “Woulda brought a lot of folks to town, don’t you think, from all over,” said Craig.

  “It would have brought people to the mall,” said Ron. “They’d never set foot inside Libbie.”

  “I gotta tell ya,” said the man without a name. “It would have been nice to have shopping close.”

  Ron gave him a look that could have melted his ice cream.

  “Losing the mall leaves Libbie in an awfully tough spot, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Heads turned. The expression on several faces suggested that they thought they knew who I was but couldn’t remember my name. The fact I was sitting with Tracie probably helped, although she was staring at me as if I had broken one of the more important commandments.

  “What tough spot?” Ron said.

  “Some of the downtown businesses invested in the mall,” said the farmer. “They were all set to move, leaving us flat.”

  “No,” said Ron.

  “It’s true,” Craig said. “I heard some people lost a lot of money when the deal collapsed, and maybe now they’re in trouble, too.”

  “Not me,” Ron said.

  “Gotta sting, though,” Joyce said. “So many businesses ready to abandon downtown for a mall.”

  “What businesses?” said Ron. “I don’t know of any businesses. You, Tracie, you know of any businesses?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Tracie replied.

  “But there were some,” the farmer said.

  “Some,” Tracie said.

  “See?” the farmer said.

  Another man—I called him Bob because of the way he continually nodded his head—said, “A mall never would have lasted here. After six months the novelty woulda worn off and people woulda gone back to their old ways.”

  “I don’t think so,” Joyce said.

  “Old people, they have their habits,” Bob said. “They like what’s familiar.”

  “Old folks are like everyone else,” said the man with no name. “They don’t want to pay any more for stuff than they have to, and malls, they have lower prices, don’t they?”

  “Some do,” Craig said.

  “I’m telling you,” Bob said. “Old folks can get kinda overwhelmed by the big stores. Kinda frightens them. They’d stay away.”

  From there the conversation veered to how many older people lived in Libbie, and from there to exactly how old is old. It was about then that Tracie suggested we leave. I think the ages that her neighbors were tossing about made her uncomfortable.

  The air was still hot and heavy. If the sun had moved a centimeter in the past hour, I hadn’t noticed. We were finally closing in on the Audi, and I was contemplating a dip in the Pioneer Hotel’s pool.

  “What do you think?” Tracie asked.

  “I’m surprised you’ve been able to keep your losses secret for so long,” I said. “It can’t last, you know. Libbie’s finances are public record, aren’t they? Plus, you have so many people who seem to know exactly what’s going on.”

  “We’re hoping you can help us get the money back before we have to report our losses. Oh, for the record, Ronny Radosevich, the owner of U Scream? He invested thirty-five thousand dollars in the mall. He just doesn’t want anyone to know. But that’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Do you think fifty is the new thirty, like they said?”

  The question made me laugh.

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  “Me, neither,” Tracie said. “I might change my mind when I get there, though. You know, McKenzie, I don’t have a problem with growing old. I really don’t. Not if you have someone to grow old with. This town, it’s not easy when you’re alone.”

  “No town is.”

  “If you have someone, though, someone to grow old with, it’s a fine place to live.”

  That sounded like the beginning of a conversation about relationships, probably my least favorite topic. Fortunately, Tracie didn’t pursue it. Instead, she fell into a kind of wistful silence that lasted until we reached my car and I drove her to her own car parked outside the Pioneer.

  “What are your plans for tonight?” she said.

  “I haven’t thought much about it beyond a dip in the pool.”

  “If you should get—restless, give me a call.”

  “I will,” I said. Yet we both knew I wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I don’t like to eat alone in public, especially in formal dining rooms like the one in the Pioneer Hotel. I’m convinced it makes me seem like a pathetic and friendless creature. I also tend to eat too fast when people are watching—yes, I know they’re not, but I feel like they are. I tore into my New York strip, consuming half of it in about five minutes before a woman appeared at my table. Because of her good bone structure and trim figure, she seemed taller than she was. She had brown close-cropped hair, a serious mouth, and dark eyes with little flickering lights in them that reminded me of a candle on a breezy night.

  Okay, Libbie, my inner voice said. Now you’re just showing off.

  “Are you Rushmore McKenzie?” she said.

  She was wearing dark blue slacks and a powder blue shirt that looked tailored and holding a baseball-style cap that combined both colors. The name Quik-Time Foods was stitched over one shirt pocket. Behind her, I could see Sharren Nuffer standing in the arched doorway that led from the hotel lobby to the dining room, her arms crossed over her chest. She was watching intently.

  “I am,” I said.

  “May I sit down?”

  I gestured at the chair opposite me. She took it.

  “I apologize for disturbing your meal,” she said.

  “Not a problem.” I couldn’t help glancing at the other diners. I felt better now that the woman was there, even though I had no idea who she was. It was a problem soon rectified.

  “I’m Dawn Neske.”

  “Mrs. Perry Neske?”

  She winced a little at the title of “Mrs.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s more about what I can do for you.”

  The remark made me lean back in my chair.

  “What can you do for me?” I said.

  “I like that you asked that question without smirking.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “I’m told that you’re looking for Rushmore McKenzie, the man who pretended to be you, the one who ripped off the city. I want to help you find him.”

  A couple of things hit me at once. The first, that she knew who I was and what I was doing in Libbie. The other, that she knew the Imposter had defrauded the town. She didn’t get either tidbit from her husband. Bizek must have told her, and he must have told her within the past couple of hours.

  “How?” I said.

  “I know his real name. It’s Nicholas Hendel.”

  That made me sit up. I carry a pen and a small notebook in the pocket of my sports coat—a habit left over from
my days with the cops. I took both out and started writing.

  “Do you have the correct spelling?”

  She did.

  “Do you know where he’s from?”

  “No,” she said. “Just his name.”

  “How do you know his name?”

  “I looked into his wallet. Everything he had in his wallet said Rushmore McKenzie except for a credit card that he had tucked into a secret compartment, although, when you think about it, there are no secret compartments in a wallet.”

  “The name Nicholas Hendel was on the credit card?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which credit card company?”

  She told me. I wrote it down.

  “How did you get access to his wallet?”

  “After we finished fucking he went into the bathroom. I looked then. Does that shock you?”

  Geezus, not another one, my inner voice said.

  “A big-city boy like me?” I said aloud. “Hardly.”

  “I’m not from a big city,” Dawn said. “I’m from a town where the biggest building is two stories high. When I met Perry, we both worked at the same call center in Franklin, which is another shitty little town just down the highway from where I lived. I married him, and I swear to God, I meant to stick with him. I would have, too, if only he had told me the truth. He promised he would take me away from small-town life, from the call center. Instead, he brought me here. Different name, same bullshit.”

  I gestured at the name stitched to her pocket.

  “You don’t work at the call center,” I said.

  “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back to that. Instead, I work for this company that delivers groceries to shut-ins and the terminally lazy. They call in with their lists, and we shop for them and deliver their groceries to their doors.”

  “At least the job gets you outside.”

  “That’s the only good thing about it.”

  “Why did you take up with Rush?”

  “He … We … I thought he was exciting.”

  “More exciting than Ed Bizek?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Everyone knows about that.”

  “Small fucking towns, small fucking minds.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I know what you think of me. Only I wouldn’t be this way if Perry had kept his promise.”