by Don Quine
Leah wore a yellow kitchen apron over a blue polyester dress with pink polka stars, white heels, and a red wig of curls. The back of the blue dress was a miniskirt that flaunted silk stockings swirled with yellow, blue, and pink.
Leah confided to Elfri that her dumbbell acts were well thought out. Anyone could buy an I Love Lucy outfit; the trick was a provocative spin.
“One thing’s sure, strutting your stuff in a new outfit is cheeky fun.”
Elfri didn’t feel comfortable about Leah pulling a pair of scissors from her apron and cutting off Elfri’s jeans by the bottom of her ass.
“A nice tush is the first part of the female body males are attracted to next to boobs.” Elfri felt naked as Leah stashed her Astros cap, gave Elfri’s pigtail a pink blink-light, then turned her around and told her to take a quick look in the mirror.
Elfri looked, backed away and blushed.
“You get the feeling Hunter’s a bit anal?”
“He’s a trip.”
It was a few minutes past 10 p.m. when Elfri and Leah got to the Welcome Center, the last Nest shuttle gone.
“Now what?” said Elfri.
They could catch a cab back to Leon’s which wasn’t that far and Will could drop Leah back off at the Nest. If they wanted to stay out a while, Elfri would have to give Will a call.
Leah flirted with a cute tourist Guide in green gloves, part of the town’s Eco-police force. She and Elfri watched a bunch of trendsetters fall and laugh as they tried to jump neon ropes. A strolling flash mob pranced toward the Strikes to Spare bowling alley, peeled off their clothes and sang Tip Toe Through the Tulips, nude except for fig leaf thongs.
Elfri and Leah weighed their options.
Neither of them was into checking out drugs or sex toys, so they didn’t continue down the last block of Main where the pot shop and the adult store were located and the other Nestlings were big on checking out.
Then Akizu and Marc came cruising down Main in one of Annie’s four-seater solar carts and spotted Elfri and Leah who were standing near one of the Welcome Center’s ATMs.
Leah stepped onto Main, stuck her thumb out; got Elfri to play along.
Akizu was dressed like a naughty Ninja and Marc looked mellow in shorts, work boots, and a Shark Tank top. Marc said, “Akizu, do you think these bad girls might be looking for a good time in the hot town tonight?”
CHAPTER 19
“You crazy fucks wanna free your freak!?”
The wild crowd in the bowling alley roared, back “Whack it, Jack!”
It was standing room only, S2S jammed with locals and tourists who were whipped into a frenzy by the Nature Calls band.
Oliver stood near Jack, both with guitars.
“Okay, okay, so let us give it up for the great Robbie Revlon’s gutter glitz classic, Teenage Creepazoid!”
A raunchy response from the crowd as Jack sang the song he rehearsed at home about the Hollywood girl from Fairfax High who traded blowjobs for drugs and pastrami and rye.
Elfri thought it was a pitiful song, but found herself laughing.
She tugged down her short jeans that Leah had cut off too much and kept creeping up her ass. Right after Elfri was wrist-banded to show she was underage to drink booze, she got hit on.
Over and over and over. And it was pissing Elfri off.
Drunks and dopers and assholes figured she was hot to trot so they offered drinks and drugs and dumb come-ons.
“Hey, foxy lady, where’d you get the freaky lenses?”
“Check out these killer meds.”
“Wanna step outside for a quickie?”
Leah told Elfri to talk trashy and tell them that Boomer booked all her tricks, then point to the badass biker standing near the bar.
Elfri passed on Boomer, but made grossed-out faces if she was hit on, like she was going to barf or have a seizure, which seemed to keep the assholes moving along.
Teenage Creepazoid finished with howls and laughter and Jack thumped the mic.
“Well, I’m tickled pink, all black and blue you enjoyed that bruising classic. And we sure hope you got your gala off on Wonder Way. Jack paused for Oliver to lean in, say something, then turned back to the mic.
“Oh, yeah.”
Looks likely this year’s Crazy Idea Bash is going to have some additional Labor Day weekend parking options. Check it out online.”
Jack unstrapped his guitar.
“Gonna take a break, back in a shake with a few of our tunes.”
Immediately the crowd threw out, “Hey, give us a taste!” “C’mon, Jack! “ “Just give us one to wait on!” The requests were flung up on stage along with names of specific songs.
Jack pondered, let the requests build and when they were really loud and demanding, raised his hand.
“Okay, okay. We’ll do one that some of you maybe might know.”
Jack turned to Oliver who Elfri didn’t think belonged up on stage with a bunch of guys who looked like they were on parole.
Oliver walked up to the mic, strummed a chord and said simply, “Hang in, Momma.”
A hush broke over a core of the crowd and spread quickly, a respectful silence as Oliver strummed another chord and began to sing a song to Mother Earth, Jack and the band backing him with an organic keyboard, strange instruments and voices creating the sounds of nature—frogs, lions, waterfalls, birds, wolves, thunder, bees, rivers, wind, raindrops—all blending in harmony with Oliver’s wistful words to a dying planet.
“. . . Momma, we know we’re late to loving you, hard to learn how precious you are, your skies and seas and stars, jungles, deserts and mountain majesty . . .”
When Oliver got to the chorus, most of the bowling alley was singing along with him, “So hang in, hang in, hang in, Momma, we’re bringing good to where we did wrong, and we’re begging you to hang in, hang in, hang in, Momma.”
When the song was over the band held their hands to their hearts.
“Luvya, Momma,” they all said together.
It took a moment for the audience to gather their luvyas and return them to Oliver and the band and to each other with promises and pledges to care for the planet.
On the break, Elfri called Will to tell him where she was and that she and Leah were with some others from the Nest and would catch a ride home, be there around midnight. Leah was having fun and it was Friday night with the Gala opening and all.
The Nature Calls band was something special.
Oliver was a really great singer.
Will told Elfri he’d pick her up at 11 p.m. outside the bowling alley.
Not to keep him waiting.
CHAPTER 20
On the way home Will didn’t say a word about the way Elfri looked in her cut-off jeans. Will was driving the solar-powered cart Leon had offered him to use during their stay. The cart had a voice-controlled radio you could speak to and ask it to play your favorite music. Will had asked for George Strait who was singing about setting suns and things you wished you’d done.
Elfri loved her grandfather. Will could read her like no one, knew when she needed space and he let her have it. Didn’t judge her. After a minute, Elfri shared with Will some of what went down at the bowling alley.
She told him that just before he picked her up, she took off Leah’s makeup in the S2S bathroom so she didn’t look as trampy as she did when the wasted lumberjack said he’d like to eat her sweet pussy pie.
Will turned down the music.
Elfri said she and Leah were waiting with Akizu near the left side of the stage, Marc had gone backstage at the break, and it was just the two of them telling this big ugly prick to fuck off when he tried to grope Elfri.
And that did it. Elfri had enough.
Even though he was skunk drunk the sonofabitch looked capable of being dangerous, so Elfri took a br
ief moment to consider leading with a knee to the groin or an ankle-stomp. During the moment of consideration, Oliver moved in front of Elfri, which made the lumberjack pause.
“You may be some tree-huggin songbird, but you ain’t no pussy cop, so move the fuck out the way!”
The lumberjack reached into his overalls.
Oliver smiled and said, “No problem,” then stepped a little closer to him, “but first, can I buy you and your buddies some burgers and fries?”
The lumberjack scoffed at the offer, looked back at his pals who laughed snidely as he pulled brass knuckles from his pocket.
“Fuck your fries!”
Oliver raised his hands, no problem, just as Jack moved in front of him out of nowhere, like Oliver had done with Elfri.
Marc and the band right behind him.
Jack said to Oliver, but stared at the lumberjack, “What’s up, Twist?”
The lumberjack slipped the brass knuckles on his hand, made a big thing of it by giving them a kiss.
“What’s up is your band buddy needs to get taken down a notch.”
Jack moved up closer and sniffed the lumberjack, then backed away quick like he smelled something stinky.
“Whoa! You need to start wearing diapers, dude.”
The lumberjack frowned, thrown by what Jack said.
Jack patted the lumberjack on the chest.
“No worries. People shit their pants for all kinds of wimpy reasons.”
The lumberjack’s face went rage red and he raised his fist.
Jack slapped him.
“Important thing is to know what kind of shit it is.”
Jack’s slaps were stunners. Hard and super fast.
“Is it horseshit? Or just chickenshit?”
The lumberjack tried to focus, tried to hit Jack back, then Jack kicked the lumberjack in the kneecap, dropped the logger, made him stumble and land on his brass knuckles with the side of his face.
The lumberjack looked up, turned behind him for back up, blood dripping from the gash. His buddies backed away, wanting nothing to do with Jack or his band standing behind him.
Elfri told Will that the fight ended with the lumberjacks escorted out of S2S. Will asked Elfri if the lumberjacks wore plaid shirts and suspenders and beards, that if so, those guys were most likely pretending to be lumberjacks, because other than the TV shows where they roll on logs in the water and chop wood, there weren’t many lumberjacks anymore. The timber business was not at all what it used to be.
Elfri told Will it felt good having someone besides him step in to defend her and it made her see how close Oliver and Jack were. How different. Jack with his badass charm. Oliver with his good.
Pulling into Leon’s long driveway, Elfri told Will she had a problem that she didn’t think he could help her with, but she wanted him to know what was going on in case she started acting weirder than normal.
Elfri told Will she had the hots for Oliver. Shared how it gave her cramps that would come and go and then get replaced by the butterflies. It was like menstrual cramps, only different.
Will listened and agreed he wasn’t the right person to get feedback from. He suggested she talk with Leah.
Then Will parked the cart by the side of the house. Before they got out, he said, “I know this has been a big day, Elf, but Leon had something come up and Chip’s having a bad night.”
CHAPTER 21
Rahim and George were seated in the motel office at the table with a Scrabble board on it, the tiles turned upside down to hide the letters. The table had room for a file folder of documents and two notebooks, one next to each of the two men.
“I need another recount, guys.”
Rahim and George turned to Leon seated on the hammock, like usual, cool in his suspendered beachwear outfit.
Rahim said, “Shit kabob, boss! That’d be the third recount in an hour.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t focused, Rahim.”
“It happens,” George said.
“Where’s the devil like to hide, George?” Leon asked.
George looked like he knew, but couldn’t quite remember. He glanced at Rahim for a hint, found nothing there but a smug smile, and then, flash!
He turned to Leon like he knew all along.
“In the details, boss. Devil’s in the details. Right?”
Leon held up a thumb.
George flipped Rahim the finger, low, so Leon couldn’t see it.
Rahim knew Leon was making George pay for losing Reimer in the church, and because Leon was a stickler for details even though he knew every goddamn detail in the file because it was, except for a few updates, the same file he gave him when Rahim was hired by Leon eight years ago after talking with Jafar right after Sheriff Riverbottom died. Then Leon gave the file to George to look at a few months later when he brought him onboard for added security.
For the third time then, George and Rahim went over with Leon what they knew about Reimer to see if a missing detail or two might appear for them to explore.
Leon closed his eyes.
Once again, they started with the first record on Reimer’s sheet that came up on 08-14-87, a rape charge in Gallup, New Mexico.
Reimer carried an Elko, Nevada, driver’s license that said he was Henry Hannibal, born 03-06-73. It would make him fourteen years old, which the arresting officer said seemed at least five years less than he looked. Big kid for his age.
“The girl was seventeen, badly beaten, Reimer bit the nipple off her left breast,” George said. Then Rahim said, “The reason the law figured he was Reimer, not Henry Hannibal, was the old postcard found in his boot.”
The postcard was sent in time for Christmas the year before from a Federal Heights, Colorado, postal office with no return address to a Mr. Al Fish at P.O. Box 2621 in Tucson, Arizona 85719. Had a picture on the front of the card with five words that were on fire: Never Pet a Burning Dog.
The back of the postcard said, Ho! Ho! Reim. xo Fred.
“Figure Fred could be his brother,” said George.
Rahim said with confidence, “Jail cell bunk punk.”
Leon nodded and opened his eyes, which made George and Rahim get with it, and stay on it.
Let’s see.
Booked as a juvenile delinquent and sent to a sheep ranch in Tampico Springs on a JD work program, Reimer escaped on the second day. Yanked a guard off his horse, beat him half dead and rode off.
Using phony I.D.s for two dozen years, Reimer’s life of crime bumbled throughout the Western U.S. and got him busted for indecent exposure, pimping, manufacturing and dealing controlled substances, assault and battery, and armed robbery.
Three years after an Arizona rape charge, he was booked as Charlie Chikatilo and served two years at the Camp Verde Center outside Flagstaff for human trafficking out of a Yavapai County motel room.
“He stayed low for five years doing who the fuck knows, then got busted for a broken tail light in Rancho Cucamonga, California,” Rahim said, “the big douchebag assaulted the arresting officer, had a suitcase full of prescription drugs in the trunk of a stolen Mazda.”
Reimer was working his ways North with a few zigzags to the East and West.
“Fucked up a Bunny Ranch hooker in Carson City, Nevada,” Rahim said. “Beat her near to death, walked out with a smile. Left the madam a big tip. She had no idea. Said he looked like a regular guy.”
Reimer maimed a biker in Elko in the parking lot of a bar called Good Time Charlee’s. Cut off the man’s earlobes for the diamond studs in them.
Acts of brutality bore Reimer’s marks in the seamier spots of numerous western cities: Provo, Utah; Casper, Wyoming; Twin Falls, Idaho. By the time he got to Lake Meadows in 2008, Reimer was thirty-seven and had a rap sheet that made him a felon worth watching.
He stopped using his serial killer names
on his phony I.D.s that were made in China, laser engraved with microprint.
Using Carl Manson or Todd Bundy or Jeff Dahmer was fun for a while, but Reimer decided to start using his real first name and made up last ones like Skinner and Hacker and Grim. And finally, Gore.
His fake Oregon driver’s license had Reimer as Reimer Gore when Sheriff Riverbottom arrested him with Chip.
“He moved into the RV a few weeks after Perry died, worked a deal with Raedeane, after she and Chip took over Perry’s house,” Rahim said, fingers tapping.
“Did you know Perry very well, Leon?”
“No. He was shy. Kept to himself.”
“Did you know he was a Peeping Tom?” George asked.
Rahim closed his notebook.
“Can we wrap this up?”
George said, “We know from Perry’s note, before the pancreatic cancer got him—”
“Read the note, George,” Leon pointing at it.
George picked up a sheet from the file on the table, cleared his throat, felt the natural-born actor in him rising to the occasion, read:
Dear Rae—
We haven’t known each other long, less than a year, but after renting you my RV and fixing the broken water heater and pump and getting to know Chip and finding out you’ve had some tough times and believe in an afterlife where all things are forgiven, I need to ask you a favor. After my cancer kills me, soon now, I’m getting cremated at the Rainbow’s Bridge Funeral Home in Enterprise. I picked out a casket and told them I want you to put some of my personal belongings in there with me before they burn me. They’re all in the box that this note’s on top of. If you’d do that for me, Rae, I’d appreciate it. You know what’s inside like I told you. Nothing I’m proud of, so I want it burned with me. I got nobody, so I told the bank manager, Cecil Peoples, at the Eastern Oregon Bank branch on Hogan Street that he’s to give you a cashier’s check for everything in my savings account, just show him your license. $17,653. Also, the deed to my house in town and the RV, which you can rent out after you move into the house. Should help you get a head start. Please take care of Shadow who’s taken a real liking to you and Chip.