by John Oakes
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by John Oakes
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Cover design by S.A. Hunt
For the misfits.
Part One: Late Expectations
Chapter One
The Long Road Ahead
Bruce Latour always said there were only two ways people die. One, expire. Two, retire. Ricky wasn't sure which was which anymore. But it looked like Bruce had found a third way to die.
It wasn't even 8am yet, but the sky over West Texas was laboring. The overcast clouds insulated the sun's heat and cast a muggy pall over trailer parks, chain-link fencing and stray dogs, just like the crusty mutt sniffing around the dumpster outside Jessup County Animal Control.
Ricky eased Bruce's old, white and rust colored pickup into the empty parking lot. The stray spooked and bolted away. The truck stopped and the driver's door creaked open. Ricky, a slight, raven-haired man, stepped out and took a pack of Pall Malls from the breast pocket of his sleeveless denim shirt. He slammed the door shut with a bony elbow, lit up and leaned back against the truck. He inhaled deeply and dropped his cigarette hand to one side.
A number of thoughts ran through his mind, not the least of which was the long road ahead. He wrinkled his Fu Man Chu from side to side. It sat like a fine, dark soccer goal over thin, dry lips. He stroked at it, and again.
Yup. Had to be done.
When he exhaled, he brought his free hand up to remove his powder blue trucker hat and run his other fingers through long, straight, unwashed hair. He put the cap back on, took another drag and adjusted his mirrored aviators.
An old, brown tuna boat rolled off the road into the parking lot, which was half paved, half eaten away by time and replaced by dust and pebbles. Ricky stepped forward on his flip-flops and pale, skinny legs. They were bare right up to the spot high on his thighs where his denim cutoffs began. He stood by the glass door that read "Jessup County Animal Control." The door to the left of it, the other of the pair, read, "Jessup County Morgue."
The tuna boat driver turned off the engine. It clattered and knocked well after he got out and began tucking in his brown uniform shirt. He had bushy brown hair, thick eyebrows and all the haggard appearances of a hangover that made him look older than his 29 years. His untied bootlaces danced along the asphalt all the way up to the door.
"Hey, Ricky." The unkempt man in the brown shirt said. "I'm not late am I?"
They shook hands.
"Nah, Jeez. Yer fine," Ricky said, cigarette bouncing between his lips. Jeez's name tag read Jesus Jimenez, a name Ricky hadn't heard anyone call him in twenty years.
Jeez unlocked the doors and motioned to let Ricky in. Ricky held up his cigarette and stayed outside. A minute later he stubbed out the butt and tossed it in the makeshift ashtray, a bucket of sand by the door.
The air in the building was cool, not just cooler than the outside, but unnaturally cool for room temperature. Jeez sat behind a long counter at a computer to Ricky's left. Off to the right and out of sight, Ricky could hear a dog barking. There were a few mouse clicks behind the counter, and then Jeez rose with a clipboard.
"Okay, you can come this way."
Ricky followed Jeez around the left side of the wall behind the counter. Jeez donned a white coat he took from a peg on the wall, like a doctor's or a mad scientist's. He unlocked another door with an old plastic plaque on it that read, "Morgue Officials Only Beyond This Point."
They passed through a small antechamber with two metal slabs off to one side. They stayed straight and stopped at a large metal door. Jeez threw up a hasp and pulled back on a long metal lever handle.
The door came open with a soft whoosh.
Ricky stepped inside. A white mist danced in the air and the deep freeze prickled his bare skin like cactus needles. His breath fogged up in great clouds before him. Each wall of the frozen room was lined with what looked like giant stainless steel file cabinets. Jeez closed the door with a kuh-klick and came around him. He ran a finger down the clipboard. "12A..." he muttered. His breath too shot out in a cloud of white. Jeez looked up and found 12A. He pulled hard on the handle and the drawer came sliding slowly out at waist height.
"Normally," Jeez said, "we do this in the room we just passed through, but..."
Ricky watched the figure cloaked in white linen emerge headfirst. Jeez stopped the drawer around three feet out so that only the figure's top half protruded.
Jeez made a check and a notation on his clipboard and recited, "The notified parties, blah, blah, blah...Please make sure this is the right dead person." Then he grabbed the sheet and pulled it back to reveal the face of an elderly man. White tufts of hair stood out on either side of a bald head. Grey hairs stuck out the nostrils of the long, humped nose. Lips sunk back where dentures had replaced the man's teeth later in life.
"Do you hereby declare that this deceased individual is Bruce Jefferson Latour?"
Ricky, still wearing his sunglasses, looked up from the body in the drawer and gave a curt nod.
Jeez held the clipboard over the dead man's face and handed Ricky a pen. As Ricky signed the bottom of the form, Jeez hit the drawer with his hip and it slid shut. Thud.
Ricky's teeth were chattering by the time they exited the freezer. They came back around front, and Jeez sat back down at the terminal and began typing. Ricky put his elbows on the counter and asked, "So's that it?"
"That's it." Jeez looked up. "Except that other thing."
Ricky nodded and produced from his other denim breast pocket a small, plastic sack of tiny, white pills. He set it on the counter just as a woman crashed through the door in a tie-dye tank top that exposed a large amount of gelatinous midriff.
"I know y'all got my dog!" her gruff voice sounded.
Jeez snatched the pills off the counter and stuck them in his pants.
She yelled out, louder, "Playboy! Momma's here, sweetie. Playboy!" She whistled loudly in three short bursts.
"I'll leave you to it then," Ricky said.
Jeez nodded his chin up in farewell. Ricky made for the door, and once more heard the large woman bellow,
"Playboy! Momma's here now and she's gonna slap these fools what took ya!"
************
A phone in San Antonio rang inside a cavernous, white mansion. Anita, a housekeeper in her fifties, answered. She automatically grabbed a pen to take a message, as Mr. Leroy, the owner of the mansion, was rarely ever there. After she listened to the voice on the other end, the pen and phone both clattered to the floor. Anita cried out, "Aye!" Her ample hips worked quickly in the pink, rhinestone-encrusted tracksuit given to her by the young man of the house for her most recent birthday. She yelled his name, "Aye Cody! Meester Cody!" She pushed open the servant's door and stepped out of the back of the kitchen onto the immaculate green lawn. Anita dodged a sculpture of a cherub urinating into a cistern being held by another cherub. "Aye Dios mio. Meester Cody!" Anita walked as quickly as her unathletic build would allow. She saw an unconscious figure floating in the dazzling blue waters of the pool twenty yards away. When she neared the pool, she grabbed the cleaning net and extended it as far as her reach would allow.
Cody Latour lay reclined and motionless in a floating armchair.
Music played from the open doors of the pool house forty feet away. A beer bottle floated in the pool next to him. Empty beer bottles occupied all four of the cup holders in the chair. One hand rested on
his stomach, the other dangled in chlorinated water along with his long legs. He wore only a pair of blue swim trunks and a straw hat that obscured most of his head, save for a small bit of his short, brown hair.
"Aye, no, Meester Cody, wake up! Is morning." Anita reached out again with the long cleaning net, and this time the net cracked down onto Cody's head and knocked the hat onto his lap. He awoke with a start. "No! Sponge Bob's in the forest!"
Cody came to slowly and winced up at the bright autumn morning.
"The heck...Anita? Wha...?"
"Aye Meester Cody. Is terrible news."
Cody inhaled heavily through his nose and attempted to right himself in the floating seat. "What's the matter? Did I piss the pool again? Dammit Cody," he chastised himself. He looked around for a telltale yellow stain but found none.
"No!" Anita cried, arms clutching at the rhinestones across her breast that read, "Saucy."
"Meester Ricky call. He say Grampa is dead."
Cody sat up stock straight and looked at Anita.
"Meester Ricky," Anita said again. "He say Grampa Bruce is dead!"
Chapter Two
The Will
Cody Latour gazed up at the young woman standing at the head of the conference room. She was blond, with a sweet face and hair that seemed to reflect light that the room lacked. The woman did a quick head count and made a note on a yellow legal pad.
"Thank you all for coming today," she said. The woman tucked a lock of golden hair behind an ear. "I'd like to offer the firm's sincerest condolences on the passing of Bruce Latour."
She folded her hands, bowed her head and led the room in a moment of silence.
Cody looked around for a nearby exit, or even a window to throw a chair through if it came to that, but all he observed was the one far off door and the usual, half-assed, southwestern office décor. While eyes closed and heads bowed around him, Cody studied the little pumpkin pin on the lapel of her silvery pantsuit. It seemed out of place, like she had ripped it off a retired schoolteacher's turtleneck on her way to work. Either way, he hoped the woman was sticking around for the proceedings, not just encouraging awkward silences.
His family could do that just fine on their own.
Cody was scraping at a mustard stain on his cargo shorts when the pretty gal spoke again.
"Before we get started, let me make sure everyone is here. Mr. Leroy Latour?"
Cody's father pocketed his phone and nodded to the blond woman. He sat on the other side of the table from Cody, up near the head. He wore a dark suit and a mouth set in a firm line. Two other suited men sat to his left.
"And your representation?"
"My name is Wayne Thompson," said the lawyer closest to Cody's father. "I represent Mr. Latour on behalf of Latour Mining and Oil."
"Ditmer McElroy," began the larger, blonder lawyer next to him. "Representing Mr. Latour personally on behalf of the firm of Bowles, Castro, Middleton, French."
The blond woman nodded as she made notes on the legal pad in front of her. Her blouse dropped slightly, opening the modest collar to reveal a hint of cleavage. Cody stared a half-second too long before averting his eyes.
"Mrs. Irene Callaway?"
"I'm here," Gran said.
"And you do not have representation with you today?"
"That didn't seem necessary," she responded with a sweet smile.
"Mrs. Monica Van Zyl-Latour?"
Monica sat two seats down from his father's lawyers with a lawyer of her own.
"Present," she said in a practiced, silky drawl.
She turned and gave Cody the satisfied smile of a woman who'd be living in Aruba next week. The thought of Monica spending Grampa's money on clothes and houses and tennis lessons from some tanned hunk – probably named Armando – made him sick. But at least he'd never have to see or speak to her again.
Monica's lawyer unloaded his nose into a handkerchief that he then crammed back into his breast pocket.
"And you've brought representation?" the young woman asked.
"Andrew Selnak from Bader, Owens, Selnak."
The man's comb-over shifted forward when he leaned over to give his card to the blonde. He couldn't reach far enough, but instead of standing up, he sent it spinning across the table where it stuck under her yellow legal pad. The informality surprised Cody. It almost seemed rude.
Was Cody supposed to bring a lawyer? Gran didn't, but Cody didn't even know what she was doing there, since she'd divorced Grampa decades ago. Had Dad brought an extra lawyer for him?
No, that would suggest he gave a shit.
The blond gal up front was writing something on her legal pad. Her shoulder length blonde hair fell from her collar to hang prettily on either side of her face. Cody looked back to the door expecting to see some pack of high-powered lawyers tromping down the hall like armored horses in a medieval battle.
But he saw and heard nothing.
"And you must be the other Mr. Latour. Cody?" she asked, laying her eyes on him for the first time. "You don't have representation either?"
Blue...blue eyes...big blue eyes.
"I...no. Sorry."
The blond woman finished making her notes and stood tall again, as much as her petite frame would allow.
"My name is Kelly Carson. I'll be guiding you through the last will and testament of Bruce Latour. This is a sealed testament. I'm to read a short letter from Mr. Latour, and then I'll meet with you individually to discuss your involvement."
She unfolded a sheet of paper and read aloud.
"Dear family,
I've invested my trust in the firm of Cafferty, Church and Espinoza to finalize my affairs once I've passed. Please, let there be no bickering. I went to the trouble of paying lawyers beforehand to prevent them sucking me dry for eternity. This is my final request. Please honor it.
Yours,
Bruce
Signed the 27th of August, 2011.
Witnessed by Cole Church, Robert Cafferty."
August? That wasn't even two months ago. But his passing had been sudden and without warning. Did Grampa know he was on his way out? Cody had gone fishing with him just three weeks ago, and he'd been as strong and robust as ever.
Kelly Carson called first on his father and his two lawyers to follow her, off to some partner's swanky corner office probably. Cody passed twenty long, awkward minutes playing a game on his phone. Then Monica was called back. Cody felt much of his tension melt away with her departure.
"Gran, did you know Grampa was sick? Ricky said he had a stroke or something."
"Well honey, strokes can happen to people who are seemingly healthy. But if he was sick, well, your Grampa, he hid lots of things he thought might be distressing. It was his way of protecting people."
"But Grampa wouldn't lie." It was half a plea, half a question.
Gran shook her head with a sad smile. "Oh Cody, never could a man talk so much without telling you what you needed to hear. Sometimes he entertained people best when he needed to hide hisself."
"I wish he woulda told us Gran."
"He was 73, Cody. That's getting up there. He was a bull of a man, but still, these things happen. Why do you think I make Tom eat that disgusting turkey bacon?"
Cody stared at his hands. The blond assistant was back asking for Gran. She leaned forward and placed a hand on his. "It will get easier, Hun. I promise."
Cody nodded. "I love you, Gran."
She leaned over to kiss him on the head. "Love you too, kiddo. Now when we're done here why don't I take you to lunch, and you can drive me to the airport. I don't get nearly enough time with you."
He nodded again and she left.
Gran would have received plenty in the divorce settlement, long ago. Then again, that was back when Grampa was just beginning to make money from reopening those wells. And it was not until later when Cody's dad took over the company that all the stock really went through the roof. Cody was not exactly sure when his grandfather had become rich. Either w
ay, Gran was well taken care of now with Papa Tom, a very likable guy who she had married before Cody was born. Grampa had been known to get a bit sentimental though, and he'd never stopped loving Gran.
Her meeting took the shortest amount of time, and it was already Cody's turn now. He followed the blond woman out of the room and down the hall.
Cody bent the brim of his cap as he walked. God he was nervous. Why?
"You're quite tall." The blond gal was looking up at him.
"It's one of my only qualities. That and my sense of smell."
"Your sense of smell?"
"Yeah, I can always tell what I'm smelling. Don't know why. You got a shampoo with coconut in it, huh?"
She pulled a lock of hair to her nose and sniffed. "Huh. I couldn't even smell it before you just said that." Then she laughed.
"There you go then," he said.
"You should be a sommelier!"
"A smelly what?"
"A sommelier...a wine expert. They have to have a great sense of smell."
"Sounds nice, but that would not last long. They'd find me passed out by lunchtime somewhere, probably half naked in a grocery cart."
She led him into a spacious office lined with leather-bound books and headed by an ornately carved desk. The desk was topped with all the sorts of things you expect from TV and movies to see on a high-powered lawyer's desk, right down to that set of little swinging steel balls.
"Maybe you can get on your tip toes and see if the janitors have been dusting on top of the bookshelves."
"If I were them, I know I'd be cutting corners. Best not."
"Pandora's box," the pretty blonde said with a laugh. "True. True."
Cody wasn't sure what internet radio had to do with dusting bookshelves, but when a cute girl told a joke, he usually laughed at it.
She smiled and gestured to a leather-padded, wooden chair near the desk. Cody was surprised when, instead of leaving the room, or asking him if he wanted coffee, she sat down in the big chair on the other side. Cody looked around to the door again.