The Yellowstone Event: Book 1: Fire in the Sky

by Darrell Maloney

  “It’s dumb moves like that one that keep me in business and make my mortgage payments, young fella. You see, if you’d pled guilty and paid your fine, you’d have no need for my services. So no, I’m not upset with you at all.”

  Bud was nice about it, but Tony still felt chastised.

  “Okay, Tony. What’s the damage? How much is your bail?”

  “Four thousand dollars.”

  ‘Okay. I’ll have some paperwork to do. I’ll have to verify your personal information. And you’ll have to pay ten percent of that up front. That’s four hundred dollars, before the processing fee, in case you’re as adept in math as you are the legal system.”

  He chuckled again. Tony had the sense it was to convey that he was just ribbing him, as opposed to insinuating Tony was a moron.

  “Do you have that much?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now the easiest thing to do is to have your wife or a friend bring it by my office. But it’ll have to be cash, credit or money order. Nobody in the bail business accepts checks anymore. Do you know where I’m located?”

  “Sorry, Bud. I don’t have anybody locally. My wife went missing, and I was out looking for her when I was arrested. She hasn’t been here to see me, so I assume she’s still missing.”

  “And there’s nobody else who can come by and do the paperwork for you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay, you said you could pay. Do you have the cash on you, or in the bank?”

  “I don’t have anything on me. They took it all away when I was booked.”

  “I know that, son. I meant do you have four hundred dollars in your wallet, or a credit card with four hundred dollars on it?”

  “Yes to the latter. I have a credit card with four hundred dollars on it.”

  “Okay. Here’s the tricky part. You can go back to booking and sign a property release form. That will give me permission to pick up the credit card from your wallet. You can specify that’s the only thing I have access to, so they won’t give me anything else. Do you trust me with your credit card?”

  “I don’t see where I have much choice, do I?”

  “Well, not if you want to get out of jail today.”

  “Then yes. I trust you.”

  “Okay. I need for you to hang up the phone and go over to the booking sergeant. Tell him you need to fill out a property release form for Bud Avery. He’ll know how to spell my name. Tell him it’s only for your credit card, and nothing else. If you have more than one credit card you’ll have to describe which one.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “I’ll be down there in about an hour or so. I’ll pick up your card and bring it back to my office. I’ll charge the card four hundred dollars, and I’ll hold it here until you come back to the office. You with me so far?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. Assuming your bank doesn’t laugh at me and tell me you don’t really have four hundred dollars, I’ll process it, call the jail and give them the bond number, and they’ll release you.

  “Cab fare from the jail to my office is either six or seven dollars, depending on which cab company you use. Do you have that much cash in your wallet?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay. Here’s the most important part… are you listening?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You must come directly here after your release so you can sign the bond paperwork. You have to do it right away to validate it. If you don’t show within four hours of release, I’m required by law to revoke it. That means that not only do you forfeit your four hundred dollars, but the same judge who set the bond will issue a warrant for your arrest.

  “Now, usually when that happens… when somebody never reports to validate their bond paperwork, it’s because they’ve missed their girlfriend and want to head straight home for some hanky panky. Or they visit their drug dealer because they’re hurting for a fix.

  “In your case, you’ll probably be tempted to go find your wife. But don’t give into that temptation. You have to come and see me first.

  “Trust me, this is something you don’t want to forget. If you thought your bail was high this time, imagine how high it will be if they have to find you and arrest you a second time.”

  “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll come and see you as soon as I get out.”

  “Good boy. The jail will notify me once you’re released, and I’ll be waiting for you when you get here. Now then, do you want to get out of there?”

  “Yes, sir. More than anything.”

  “Then hang up the phone and get your happy little ass over to the booking sergeant. The sooner you sign that property release the sooner you can get out of there.”

  “Yes sir. Goodbye.”

  Tony placed the receiver back on its cradle and executed an about-face a Marine Corps drill sergeant would have been proud of.

  He walked twenty paces or so to the booking sergeant’s desk.

  It was a new face. A friendly one.

  Two friendly people in a row. Maybe his luck was changing.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I just talked to Bud Avery, with Avery Bail Bonds. He says I need to sign a property release form so he can come down here and pick up my credit card.”

  The sergeant reached into a drawer and withdrew a form, then helped Tony fill it out.

  After he signed it she said, “Okay. Things will move pretty quickly from here on out. Report back to your cell and say your goodbyes to any friends you made during your stay. We’ll call you back up to outprocess as soon as Bud calls to give us the bond number.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He turned to walk away and she said, “Hey, Tony?”

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “You seem like a nice guy. Don’t come back here again, okay?”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Chapter 42

  It had been less than four days since his arrest. But as Tony stood on the sidewalk in front of the detention center awaiting a cab, he could have sworn the air smelled different.

  It somehow seemed crisper. Cleaner.

  It smelled like freedom.

  The cab took a full twenty minutes to arrive. Tony almost went back inside to call again, when he saw a yellow Chevy Impala round a turn a turn a block away.

  “Avery Bail Bonds,” he said as he climbed in.

  “Okie dokie, chief. But before we leave, I gotta ask, are you a serial killer?”

  Tony got the joke and smiled. It wasn’t lost on him it was the first time he’d smiled in four days.

  “Yeah, but they were all cab drivers so the judge said I did a service to the community and let me go.”

  “Oh, we’re gonna get along great.”

  As they pulled away Tony inspected the building. It was odd, the way it looked. It looked nothing like it did the night he was brought in. He tried to find the tiny window at the top of his cell, trying to imagine Mike there, lying on his bunk, almost certainly sound asleep.

  “Boy, I hope I never see this place again.”

  The driver chuckled and looked at his watch.

  “Twenty two seconds.”

  “What? Do you hear that a lot?”

  “Almost everybody says that at some point. Even the regulars. The ones who get popped with a little bit of weed every couple of months. Or the ones who get drunk and stupid and start fights every time they have an argument with their girlfriends. They come in acting all tough and then cry all the way home again.”

  “So how’d I rank with all the others?”

  “Twenty two seconds? That’s about average. At least you didn’t cry when you got out. A lot of guys do.”

  “How long to get to Avery?”

  “Ten minutes. More or less. You missed the heavy traffic, so we’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  “This little rinky dink town has heavy traffic?”

  “Hey, hey! Don’t you be talking bad about my home town.”

  “Sorry.”
>
  “I’m kidding. It is a rinky dink little town. And the traffic isn’t heavy but it’s slow. Between eight and nine in the morning and between five and six in the afternoon. That’s when everybody’s on their way to or from work and the local cops set up all their speed traps.

  “Of course, all the locals know they’re out there and slow down. They drive below the speed limit. So they very seldom get caught, unless they’re just not paying attention or lose track of the time. The people passing through town, on their way to and from other places… they’re generally the ones who get caught up in the traps.”

  “The cops like to write tickets, don’t they?”

  “Oh, yeah. They have to. You see, they used to only have two officers. They were lazy as heck, so they kept bugging the mayor to hire them some help.

  “The mayor told them there was no money in the budget to expand their police department. Not without raising the residents’ taxes, and the residents wouldn’t stand for it.

  “So they made a deal. Supposedly under the table, but it didn’t take long for everybody to find out about it. That’s the way it is in small towns.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “The two original cops, they wanted three more officers. So the mayor told them he’d hire them, provided they made enough money writing tickets to pay for them.

  “That’s why they write so many. If they didn’t, the extra three officers would go away and there would just be the two of them again.”

  “That’s kind of dirty, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Small towns all over the country do exactly the same thing. And anyone who complains to the cops or the judge gets the same lecture… they’re keeping the streets safe for the townsfolk and shut up about it.”

  He turned a corner in the downtown area and came to a stop in front of a tired storefront.

  “Here you go, my friend. Avery Bonding Agency. Seven bucks.”

  Tony handed him a ten and said, “Keep it.”

  “Thank you sir. And I hope you won’t take it wrong when I say I hope I don’t see you again.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

  Chapter 43

  The door was locked. That struck Tony was odd; especially in light of the fact Bud had been so adamant about coming to see him directly from the jail.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  The office’s phone number was painted on the plate glass window in letters three feet high.

  AVERY BONDS

  373-4545

  24 HOUR SERVICE SUNDAY-SATURDAY

  The number didn’t do him any good. He’d tried to call Hannah while he was waiting for the cab, only to discover his cell phone was dead.

  If he’d have thought of it, he’d have shoved the charging cord into his pocket on the night of his arrest.

  But then again, on the night of his arrest he had no way of knowing he was going to be arrested.

  He stuck his head into the law office next door and asked the secretary if he could use her phone.

  “Sorry, no. It’s against our policy. People were using it to make long distance phone calls.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  The girl looked sympathetic, but not enough to get herself in trouble for bending the rules.

  “Sorry, no. But if it helps, He’s never gone for more than a few minutes.”

  “Who?”

  “Bud. You’re waiting for him to come back, right? I saw you through the window standing in front of his office.”

  “I… yes. I’m waiting for Bud.”

  “He leaves several times a day. Usually just running back and forth to the bank or to the courthouse. He almost always returns within half an hour or so. If you want, you can wait in our lobby.”

  It was obvious that was all he was going to get, so he took her up on it.

  “Thank you,” he said as he got comfortable in an ugly green vinyl chair.

  “Sure. No problem.”

  The girl was right. Only a few minutes passed when a beat up Ford Focus pulled to the curb. A rather shabbily dressed man got out and unlocked the door to the bonding agency as Tony thanked the girl again and walked back out onto the sidewalk.

  “I’m guessing you’re Tony,” Bud said as the younger man approached him.

  “Yes, sir. And that would make you Bud.”

  “Damn, son. You’re not only a good looking young feller. You’re pretty smart too.”

  Tony liked Bud immediately. His first impression when they’d talked on the phone was spot on. He reminded Tony of his grandfather in so many ways.

  Bud opened the door and turned on the lights, then led Tony to a desk in the back recesses of the office.

  He noticed his guest staring at the floor, where letters in the tiles spelled out “Bingham’s Grocers.”

  “Used to be a grocery store back in the day,” he said, heading off the question he was sure was coming. “Of course, that was damn close to fifty years ago. I used to shop here with my mama when I was a snot-nose. Didn’t have the heart to replace the tiles. Too much changin’ going on in the world today. Unnecessary changes. I don’t believe in changing things unless it’s called for.”

  Tony sat in a chair which was forty years old if it was a day, looking at a desk which was much older.

  “Yeah. I can see that.”

  “This was my daddy’s desk. He sold insurance right up until the day he died. He died at this desk. I found him here when I came to pick him up for lunch one day. We were gonna celebrate his 90th birthday. Found him sitting at the desk with his head resting on his arms, thought he was taking a nap.

  “Turned out he had passed, and was sitting there for hours as one friend after another came into his office to wish him a happy birthday, thought he was napping, then left again.

  “The desk is something else I couldn’t bear to get rid of.”

  “Wow! Isn’t that kind of…”

  “Macabre? I don’t know, maybe. But we have a bad habit of throwing things away that belonged to our departed loved ones. Then one day we realize we have nothing left they touched. And then it’s like they were never there. The desk has a very bad memory, sure. But it’s got many more good ones.

  “And besides, there’s that whole death and spirit thing to consider.”

  “Death and spirit thing?”

  “None of us know for sure what’s gonna happen to us when we die. There’s a lot of people who claim to know. Many of them are preachers who like to keep their hands in your pockets and your head in the clouds so you’ll fill that collection plate come Sunday morning and keep them gainfully employed.”

  “You don’t believe in God and heaven?”

  “I don’t disbelieve in him.”

  “Now, sir, you’re just talking in circles.”

  “No, son. Not at all. You see, men who are employed by the big religion industry are naturally gonna tell you there’s a God and heaven, because that’s how they pay their bills. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an honorable profession, just as honorable as being a doctor or a lawyer or a bail bondsman.”

  He smiled at the last part of his statement.

  “Of course they’ll state their opinion and try to sway you that way.

  “But a lot of scientists believe there is no God, there is no heaven and there is no hell. That when we die we just cease to exist. Just like we didn’t exist before we were conceived, we’ll stop existing when we die. In other words we’ll go back where we came from.”

  “And what, exactly, do you believe?”

  “I’m somewhere in the middle.”

  Chapter 44

  “Somewhere in the middle? What in heck does that mean?”

  “It means I honestly don’t know what to believe. Part of me wants to believe in heaven so I can see my dad and mom again. But to be honest, part of me questions the whole concept of God being a super being who created everything.”

  “Why would you question that?”

  “W
ell, first of all, if God created the earth and the heavens and everything in it, then who created God? I’ve asked a lot of theologians over the years and it’s stumped them all. They ‘um’ and ‘aw’ about it and then don’t even try to answer it. Instead they turn to trying to coerce me into believing in whatever religion they happen to follow.

  “The other thing is, if God created the earth and the heavens and everything in it, then why? Was God just sitting around one day bored and thought, I’ll just create some stuff so I can have some people to worship me? And tell them if they don’t worship me I’ll burn them alive for all eternity? That certainly doesn’t sound very god-like to me.”

  Tony felt his blood pressure start to rise.

  Still, he couldn’t help but like the old guy before him. He looked and sounded like his grandfather. And truth be known his grandfather once had the same bad habit of speaking frankly and out of turn. Tony remembered his grandmother telling his grandfather more than once to shut up.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Bud continued. “I consider myself a Christian, and try to live my life according to Christian values.

  “I’m just a Christian with a lot of unanswered questions. That’s why I say I’m somewhere in the middle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tony said. “We’ve gotten way off track. Or maybe I just don’t remember what all this has to do with your father dying at his desk and you not being able to get rid of it.”

  “I’ve read that some religions believe the spirit, or soul if you’d rather use that term, is trapped forever in the spot where they died. My dad died with his head and forearms resting on this desk.

  “Now, there are a thousand different religions, each with a lot of beliefs. Many are shared with other religions and many are unique.

  “The believers of every single one of those religions swear that theirs is the only true religion. And who knows which one is right?

  “I think there’s just as much chance the religion about the spirit remaining at the place of death is right, as is every other religion. Granted, it’s not likely. But there’s a slight chance.

  “And it’s because of that slight chance I can’t bring myself to get rid of the desk. Say I took it to the landfill and they buried it. And it rotted beneath the ground. Then my father’s spirit would no longer have a place to rest his head. Do you see where I’m going with this?”