Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 20

Duke’s Diner had a horseshoe over the door and a COOK WANTED sign in the window, along with a poster for Surprise Endings: Tales of O. Henry, the play he and Dad and that lady were supposed to see tonight. Bradley guessed he’d miss it.

Inside the diner, red-checkered cloths covered the tables, an A&M football game mural covered one wall, and the smell of bacon on a griddle reminded Bradley how much he liked bacon cheeseburgers. He swung a leg over a stool at the counter. Two waitresses older than his mother rushed around taking orders and serving food. Dishes clattered in the kitchen. When one of the waitresses passed by, Bradley ordered a bacon-Swiss, diet Dr. Pepper, and the hugest basket of fries on the menu. Maximum indulgence. Mom wouldn’t cook fries at home since she’d started squeezing into last year’s bathing suit.

Studying the COOK WANTED sign, Bradley wondered about finding a job. Leaving Houston on the Harley had been more an explosion than a planned escape, and right now he liked the idea of staying away from his whole flaming-lecture family for the rest of the summer. He could max out his “emergency” credit card, or he could earn some bucks of his own.

When the waitress brought his food, he asked about the job. She looked him over, using the back of one hand to push her drooping, curly red-brown hair away from her forehead. One of her teeth had a large white cap.

“You look young to be a fry cook,” she said.

“I’ve never cooked in a restaurant, but I cook at home. Fry, bake, boil, whatever.”

“It’s not the same, sugar. I cook at home, too, but you wouldn’t catch me in this kitchen. Come suppertime, it gets crazy.”

“What about a dishwasher? Or a busboy?”

“A machine washes the dishes, and you’re looking at the busboy. This place isn’t big enough to carry extra freight.” She wrote out his ticket and laid it on the counter. “You must be new in town, otherwise you’d know. College kids outnumber the rest of us working stiffs, and jobs get scarce in the summer.”

Bradley felt like a real flounder head. Should’ve known the Aggies would grab any summer work.

“Thanks, anyway.” He popped his straw from its paper sleeve and shoved it into the icy brown liquid. While he wolfed down his burger, he studied the tab wondering how much to leave as a tip. The waitress giving him job information, was that considered extra service?

Hunching over the counter, he fanned the bills in his wallet. These last four years, Dad had deposited money into a college savings account, and Mom insisted Bradley carry the account number in case he was ever in trouble. He guessed this qualified. Tomorrow, the banks would open.

Thinking about how fast his mom and dad had come down on him, Bradley felt himself tighten up again. What did they know about the crap you were up against in school these days? What was it, twenty years since they’d been inside a classroom?

Finishing the last of his fries, he counted out enough for the tab, added a dollar tip, and slouched past the crowded tables. The thing was, he still wanted to talk. To somebody.

Before reaching the door, he saw a cork bulletin board posted with business cards and fliers and little bits of handwriting, mostly selling stuff. There was another flier for O. Henry.

Next to the flier, a three-by-five card announced auditions for Seascape, an Edward Albee play Bradley had worked on in school. He’d understudied for the part of Leslie, one of the sea lizards, had also built sets and handled the lighting. Should he try out? He wondered what it would pay, if anything.

Then he saw the run dates. No way he’d still be in town for Seascape, but the O. Henry play opened tonight. The theater might need a techie. Couldn’t hurt to ask.

He yanked the card off the bulletin board and carried it to the waitress for directions.

CHAPTER 21

“SURE, BOOKER, SURE YOU CAN USE MY TRUCK,” Littlehawk said. “A small fee, of course.”

Booker helped himself to a tumbler of ice water from a waiter’s station at the side of the dining room. The long walk from his stalled LaCrosse had been a killer. As the liquid chilled his mouth and throat, he considered Littlehawk’s offer. With a thirty-minute head start, Bradley was likely halfway to Dallas.

In the restaurant’s entry, a new aquarium occupied a prominent position. Littlehawk opened a plastic bag and gently poured an angelfish into the tank.

“You should think about buying a truck, Booker. Your Buick is a fine car for city driving. It’s not tough enough for our gravel roads.” The angel darted among a number of tiny blue fish with neon red stripes along their sides. “I could negotiate an exceptional deal for you on a new truck.”

“Would that be from one of your cousins? And you get a cut?”

“Booker, you insult me. You are my friend. Your picture remains the center attraction on my photograph wall. Would I take advantage of a fellow bow-hunter?”

“How’d you find out about that? I just bought the gear last night.”

Littlehawk leaned close and lowered his voice. “Was this a secret?”

“No, it’s…never mind. May I use your phone?” Booker wanted to let his parents know Bradley might be headed their way. His cell phone still had no service.

“The lobby pay phone will work much better. A relic, but handy in emergencies. My land line has a terrible buzzing. While you use the pay phone, I will call my friend and yours,

Aaron Fowler, to tow the Buick away and give you a fine deal on a new truck.”

Booker fingered his sore face. “You expect me to buy a vehicle from the man who punched me out two days ago?”

“Business is business, Booker.”

And hadn’t he considered taking the Buick there for repair? “Why is he working? His father just died.”

“Aaron not working won’t make his father alive again.”

No, but it didn’t seem right. “Anyway, I don’t need a truck.”

“The Chevrolet dealership has a fine repair service.”

Going there when the LaCrosse was merely making odd sounds seemed different from having it towed there, giving Aaron the upper hand, so to speak. “There must be a mechanic nearer. In Masonville, maybe?”

“That mechanic is bad news. I would not be a friend if I let you take your car to him.”

Booker squinted at Littlehawk, knowing he was working an angle, but he needed the tow, regardless, so why not give the business to Fowler? He found the pay phone and dialed his parents’ number first, hoping his mother would answer.

“Booker!” His father exclaimed into the phone. “Been a month a Sundays since I saw you, boy. Right after you got winged. How in the world are you?”

“Right as rain, Dad. You know me, always land on my feet.” Oh, Lord. Aphorism Fever again. It happened every time he talked to his father. “Are you and Mother all right?”

“Finer’n frog’s hair. Wake up ever morning thanking our lucky stars we’re in Texas. You doing all right out there in the w-i-ld?” His father gave the word three full syllables.

“Fine, Dad. I’m calling about Bradley.”

“Ain’t that boy sprouting up like a weed? Told him we’re gonna have to buy his shoes a pair and a half at a time, now that he’s grown another foot.”

His father cackled heartily at the weak joke. Booker waited until the laughter diminished then told him about the scene with Bradley.

“Crack cocaine? Whew! That’s serious business.”

“You can see why his mother and I are concerned.”

“Drugs are a sorry damn pastime, you ask me. Saw too many friends on the downhill slide before I heard my own wake-up call. Don’t you worry, I’ll set him down eyeball to eyeball. Put him on the straight and narrow right damn quick.”

“Thanks. He doesn’t talk to his mother or me anymore. If anyone can get through to him, you can.” Brad Senior had no trouble getting eyeball to eyeball with anybody. And Bradley trusted his grandfather. That counted for a lot. Booker felt as low as a slug’s belly knowing he couldn’t communicate with his own son, but there it was.

“The boy tell you about the rally this summer?” Brad Senior asked.

“Yes. He did.”

“You oughta come with us, son. Three Brads riding together. We’d have more fun than a barrel of drunk monkeys.”

“You know I’ve never been comfortable on a motorcycle.”

“My fault, for taking you out too young. But that was then, this is now. Time to grow into the leather.”

Before Booker could think of a reasonable response, his father continued. “At least think about it. Nothing’s going to bring you closer to your son than being on the road together, asphalt under you tires, bugs in your teeth, the roar of a good engine under your butt.”

“Bugs in your teeth?”

His father chuckled. “It can happen.”

“I’ll think about it, Dad. Right now, let’s concentrate on setting Bradley back on track.”

“Good enough. Now, talk to your mother. She’s standing here looking as nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of cedar rocking chairs.”

“Junior?” His mother’s refined voice held none of the Texas twang.

“How are the strawberries, Mom?”

“They are as sweet as nectar this year, and enormous! I picked one last week as big as my palm. For days I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, just set it on a crystal dish and enjoyed the beauty. Junior, what about this murder? I thought you had moved to a nice, safe country place.”

“If you’re speaking of the man we pulled from the lake, the sheriff ruled the death as accidental.”

“Then you have a fool for a sheriff. A bow and arrow does not shoot off accidentally.”

“It was the man’s own arrow, Mother. Sheriff says he fell on it.”

“Then your sheriff’s not only a fool, he’s a silly fool. I am no stranger to the bow, son. As a girl, I took lessons, and if this man was the excellent bowman asserted by our newspaper, then he wasn’t foolish enough to walk around with an arrow pointing at his heart.”

Booker thought she might have a point…so to speak. He still questioned Ringhoffer’s judgment.

“Junior, if there’s a murderer sneaking around in those woods, you should pack a bag and return to Houston until he’s caught. We almost lost you once. I couldn’t face that again.”

“If you believe newspapers, Mother, then Houston has more than one murderer running loose. Dallas, too, I imagine.”

“One murder in Lakeside Estates is as frightening as one on every street corner in a big city. Now, if you don’t want to go home, you can stay with us until this maniac is caught.”

Booker closed his eyes and shook his head. “All right. I’ll consider driving up for a visit.”

As he cradled the phone, Booker couldn’t help thinking that his mother and Sheriff Ringhoffer should talk. Maybe the sheriff had been too quick to chalk up Fowler’s death as an accident.

“The tow truck is on its way,” Littlehawk said, when Booker returned to the dining room.

Another angel fish had been released into the tank. The pair swam in tandem, strikingly graceful among the smaller fish.

“Thanks, Pete.” Booker strolled outside to wait.

The club owner followed. “I told Aaron you wanted to trade for a pickup, and he is knocking fifty percent off your towing fee.”

For an instant, Booker wanted to wring Littlehawk’s neck. Then he reminded himself that the man was likely telling the truth about the dealer’s repair service being the best, and he wouldn’t be Littlehawk if he didn’t try to promote a sale, skimming a bird-dog off the top. The prospect of dealing with a hothead like Aaron Fowler didn’t thrill Booker, but this might be an opportunity to ask a few questions. About bow hunting.

A tepid breeze ruffled hibiscus flowers planted around a stone fountain. Littlehawk busied himself trimming dead blossoms and scooping leaves off the water while Booker squatted on the stone steps and waited. After an amazingly short time, he spied a tow truck zipping down Highway 3 toward Lakeside. Instead of turning in at the gate, it zipped right past.

“Why isn’t he stopping?”

“I was outside when you drove away. When I saw you returning on foot, I calculated how far you must have traveled before breaking down.” Littlehawk pointed toward the distant horizon. “I told the driver approximately where to find your burgundy Buick.”

Booker turned to stare. The club owner had sat here in the shade and watched him walking down that long, hot road?

“Don’t thank me, Booker.” Littlehawk’s perfect teeth gleamed in his bronze face. “This is what friends are for.”

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