Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year's Eve

I'm not much for new year resolutions. Hell, I've never been able to follow through on one...not a single solitary one.  Maybe this year will break the curse.

I solemnly resolve to log every book I read this year on this blog. I further solemnly resolve to to give each book a review, though I reserve the right to limit reviews to a one word minimum. I shall also rate each book I read this year on a scale of 0 to 100--0 being unreadable--100 being the best book I've ever read.

I shall now go forth, grill a couple of filet mignons (in spite of the fact that it's freaking cold outside and sleeting) and will most likely doze off well before midnight...

Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

New Year's Eve Eve

I'll be happy to say goodbye to 2010.

It wasn't a shitty year, but it wasn't one of the great ones.

And it's going out with the sound of water dripping into pails from where the 2 feet of melting snow on the roof and the ice dams have converged on a spot RIGHT BEHIND MY WRITING DESK ON THE PORCH!!! to sneak between the walls and a window frame.

And a thundertorm just blew through--yes a thunderstorm.

The thermometer hovers right at the freezing mark, and it's barely evening.

I'll be happy to see 2010 go away.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

A little help from my friends

I've mentioned before that I'm meeting with Chuck Logan (author of South of Shiloh, Vapor Trail, and a number of thrillers featuring Phil Broker) sometime in January.  He's graciously agreed to look over one of my manuscripts and if he thinks its got a chance he's going to pitch it to his former editor, who is now very successful literary agent in NYC.

But...I've got FIVE finished books under the bed. He's only got the time and energy to look into ONE.

I've narrowed it down to two selections. It's between Ferris' Bluff and The Storm Glass.

I'm pasting the opening chapters of each below in hopes that you will read them and let me know which one you think might have a better shot.

The Storm Glass

Chapter One

A muffled bump from the stern roused Wilson from a light sleep to wary alertness late in the middle of a breathless summer night. The Thief of Hearts, his forty-two foot Chris Craft Commander, swung at anchor in a quiet backwater north of Stillwater on the St. Croix River. 
What the hell?
He felt the boat shift slightly, down by the port quarter. Fully awake now, he thought he felt another bump and heard quiet fierce whispers. The rearward pitch steepened ever so slightly.
            “Mmmph.”  Iris, startled awake and wide-eyed in the dark, struggled briefly with the strong hand covering her mouth. Wilson leaned close.
            “It’s just me. Quiet now. Someone’s on the boat.” He moved his hand away and took a second to brush his fingers through her short gray-blond hair. Iris turned her head. Her ice-blue eyes reflected pale light from the three quarter moon, low now in the sky, streaming through the stateroom window. The eyes asked a question.
            Wilson sat up in the bed. “Damn funny time for visitors,” he said, his gravelly voice barely audible. He rubbed a hand over his face and squinted at the door, then shifted feet to floor, away from Iris, and snatched his discarded cargo shorts from the floor. Jim felt her hand on his back as he leaned toward the headboard and groped for the pistol in the hideout holster taped behind it.             
            He flipped the cylinder open, checked that all six chambers of the stubby .32 caliber Colt were loaded and carefully snapped it back in place. The boat sagged further down by the port quarter.
            “I’m gonna see what’s up.”  Wilson moved to the foot of the bed and pointed to the floor.  “Get down here. Get under the bed if you can.” He turned the center dial of the big silver ring on his left hand. 
Iris blinked.  It never ceased to amaze her when he disappeared.
            She watched the stateroom door open, heard the click of the lock being engaged, and tracked it as it closed. Maybe it’s just one of Jim’s friends playing a prank, she thought. It wouldn’t be his friend, Streak. Alain Landrieu knew better than to play night games with Jim Wilson. Maybe it was someone else, one of his drinking pals about to get a scare of his own. Then the word ‘pirate’ came to mind. Iris slid under the bed.
            The gangway, a hall running the length of the cabin, was darker than the stateroom.  Wilson sensed whispers and motion as several people moved about the aft deck. Instead of heading toward the stern to confront them he made his way forward, past the head and the front stateroom, to the bow hatch. Moonlight guided him to the domed Plexiglas skylight, the access to the front deck. It opened with a whisper.
            Wilson drifted up and over the fly bridge, thankful again that the ring allowed him to levitate as well as make him invisible. Peering down on the aft deck he could make out shapes—several men, all black haired and Asian looking. Their whispers seemed to be in Vietnamese or Hmong or something.
            He caught a glint of steel in the moon light. One of them held a large chrome handgun at his side. The others looked to be armed too. Amateurs, he sneered to himself, shaking his head.  What kind of stupid son-of-a-bitch brings a shiny gun on a night op?
            There was enough light from the three quarter moon that Wilson could tell there were four of them. Their faces were lined, sharp and hard looking—definitely not kids, but not old men either. Three of them were rail thin. All of them were dressed in black. All of them looked dangerous.
The fourth one looked to be the oldest. He was short like the others, but heftier. A ragged scar creased one cheek and his face fell away abruptly from his lower lip. No Chin. Obviously the leader. 
No Chin whispered directions, pointing into the darkened salon beyond the locked sliding doors. They looked like they’d done this before.
            Wilson’s raspy baritone boomed through the darkness. “GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY BOAT!  RIGHT NOW!”  
            Four heads snapped up, wide-eyed, probing the empty fly bridge in unison—deer in the headlights—all searching for where the shout came from. Four oriental faces and the shiny handgun pointed to where he should have been. Wilson drifted up another ten feet and out past the boat behind them. No Chin shoved one of them toward the ladder, barked an order at him that Wilson thought sounded like ordering Chinese take-out or maybe a ricochet in a TV cartoon.  Bing din pow gong pew ding.        
            The raider reached the fly bridge, turned, and started barking back to the others.  Có là

không có ai ở đây. There’s nobody up here! 

            No Chin dispatched the other two to either side of the beamy yacht. They shimmied along the narrow walkway to the sloping front deck, one on each side. Jim silently drifted toward the starboard rail.
            The first one he knocked in the water couldn’t swim—at all. The Asian pirate kicked and splashed, floundered, cursing and spitting in his tinkly language. The second one he booted overboard could swim…sort of. The raider surrendered his shiny pistol to the river and got both hands paddling. The splashing and noise from the starboard side subsided. Wilson drifted back over. The man was gone. A trickle of bubbles surfaced and drifted downstream, winking in the low moonlight.
            Wilson sighed and shook his head.
            No Chin clutched at the clothes of the paddler and dragged him onto the swim platform next to an old fiberglass runabout tied there. The one on the fly bridge whipped his head left to right and back again still searching for the unseen voice, frantic, looking over the side, calling out to his drowned companion.
 Next up.
The butt of Wilson’s stubby Colt smacked into the Asian’s face—dead center—straight on—nose high. He’d learned long ago not to hit someone in the head with a bare fist if he could help it.
The pirate’s pistol clattered to the deck, his hands now clutching his bloody broken-nosed face. Wilson booted him hard in the ass, sent him flying, and winced when the flailing body landed squarely on the drink cart on the aft deck. He didn’t give a damn about the thief, but the cart was a present from Iris…and well stocked.
The Asian didn’t move. Defeated and bleeding, he lay twisted amid the broken glass and
expensive liquor puddles. A pained moan escaped his blood frothed lips.
            Two down.
            No Chin roughly dragged the dog-paddler along to help him. Jim sensed the pirate’s mission had changed in the last couple of minutes. He guessed it might have morphed from robbery to, what…survival maybe? While No Chin and the sopping wet paddler dragged their bloody friend toward the back of the boat Wilson took a moment to catch his breath and think about the situation.
            He’d had some run-ins with Asian gangs over the years, but not nearly as many as he’d had with the Mexicans on the west side and the black bangers in Minneapolis. It was unlikely that they were after him specifically—hell, it was impossible. No one knew that he had preyed on the drug dealers for years, a sneak thief with a taste for dope dollars.
            No one but Iris.
No, these mutts were pirates. No Chin, guessing that a lonely yacht anchored out of the main channel of the St. Croix over a mile from town would be easy pickings, had rounded up some toughs to help him pick it clean of expensive electronics and whatever else they could find—an easy score—right?
Wrong. You picked the wrong boat, dumbass.
            The bloodied pirate gave a loud sad groan when his partners dumped him in the runabout.  Wilson watched No Chin look back toward the sliding doors to the salon and up again to the fly
bridge. He said something to the dog paddler. Jim caught a glimpse of savage grin on No Chin’s face and frowned.  
            When No Chin started moving toward the engine hatch Wilson knew what he had in mind. He moved in fast to stop the Asian raider from destroying his beautiful boat.
            No Chin had to use both hands to raise the heavy hatch cover to get at the exposed gas lines feeding the big twin Volvo engines. He had his legs spread against the weight. Wilson launched a field-goal kick into the Asian’s crotch from behind.
            No Chin’s scream echoed across the glass like river, pitiful and pain shrill. He curled in a ball on the aft deck, knees welded defensively to his chest, rocking slightly. Wilson shot a quick glance toward the runabout when the engine coughed and caught. The dog paddler, fearful now and near panic, looked back toward No Chin. Wilson kicked No Chin’s pistol away, leaned over, and grabbed the man’s coarse black hair. With a savage yank he hissed into his ear, “I told you to get off my boat.”
            The sharp bark of the .32 drifted over the river, lost in No Chin’s new pain-wail, his kneecap shattered by the bullet. Jim glanced toward the cabin, saw Iris silhouetted in the salon behind the sliding doors, hugging herself. 
            Damn it, he thought. Wish she hadn’t seen that.
            Wilson twisted the inner band of the ring and popped into view, visible now for the first time. The dog paddler was round eyed and open mouthed.
            “Come get this asshole,” Wilson growled, giving No Chin a vicious kick in the ribs. He turned his back and headed for the sliding doors. His face was set and grim, looking at Iris through the glass. Her arm came up fast, pointing in the direction of the speedboat, her warning cry muffled by the glass door.
            Jim whirled and saw the pirate’s pistol—brought his own up before the raider could take aim and fired rapidly three times. At least one shot was on target. The Asian flipped over the speedboat’s gunwale. Wilson walked over to the yacht’s transom and looked out over the river. There was a slash of black-red and pink in the water by the man’s head. The body drifted downstream in the current, arms and legs splayed. In a short minute it rolled, then slid below the surface trailing bubbles.
            Iris whisked the door open, ready to rush out. Wilson held up his hand, shouted, “NO!”, and went back over to No Chin, still curled in a ball and leaking blood from his ruined knee on the Thief’s aft deck.
            “Get off my boat.” Wilson pointed the revolver at the squat ugly face. No Chin nodded once.
Wilson watched from the doorway to the cabin, arms across his bristly graying chest, the little Colt still in hand and ready. No Chin dragged himself across the aft deck, across the swim platform, and into the old runabout.
            As it struggled onto plane No Chin turned and raised a defiant finger toward Wilson and the Thief of Hearts. Jim leveled the Colt and fired the last two rounds.
            “Jim!” Iris shouted, scolding.
            He held the gun up and shrugged.  “It’s only got a two-inch barrel. No way I hit him. I just wanted to make a point.” 
Iris looked out over the aft deck at the smashed bar cart and the blood stains there and by the engine housing. She sighed and shook her head. “What a mess.”
            In the distance they both heard the outboard revving, screaming in a full power whine.  Jim climbed to the fly bridge, wondering if he could see where it would put in. Iris followed.    The quaint old river town was still asleep, all of the windows dark. White hulls gently bobbed in the Yacht Club’s marina. A red light flashed over the lift bridge sign. The old runabout weaved in a sweeping left arc, then a right as if No Chin was having trouble steering.
            “Maybe I did hit something,” Jim said and reached for the binoculars stowed nearby.
            He watched in stunned silence when the old fiberglass boat hit the bridge pier straight on at full speed—close to thirty knots. A fireball erupted—a round blossom of yellow and orange gasoline fed inferno engulfed the small bridge tender’s shack. The wooden lift schedule sign
ignited. Sparks drained from the tin shack as the drawbridge’s controls burned. Iris looked up into Jim’s face. Scrunched in a tight wince, eyes nearly closed, his head was turned to one side as if he didn’t want to watch.
            “Hoo boy.” Jim let out a deep breath, still adrenalin pumped and tense.

                                                                          *****
    
            The quiet river town of Stillwater woke early that morning. Jim and Iris filled trash bags and mopped, scrubbed, and hosed. They heard the sirens; saw the flashing blue and red lights in the darkness converging on the dying flames. They watched boats launching from the downtown ramp, guessed it was the Sheriff or the DNR rescue boat, maybe even the Coast Guard.
             The sun finally peeked over the trees. Iris, a nurse, knew how to get rid of the blood stains on the fiberglass deck. The swim platform’s teak was a bit troublesome but there wasn’t as much on it. Jim hated to do it, but he wrapped the bloody broken glass and the wreckage of the bar cart in an old sheet, tossed in a pair of barbells for extra weight, and slipped the debris from the pirate’s failed attack over the side in thirty feet of water.
            His last chore was to empty the spent cartridges from the little Colt and toss them over the side, followed by the pistol. Best not to leave any evidence lying around. Just in case.
            Jim built a pair of Bloody Marys before joining Iris on the aft deck. He knew it was just a matter of time before the Sheriff’s patrol boat stopped by.
            “Had to be done,” he said, looking downriver, not ready to meet her gaze. They had done the cleanup work in silence, save for chore talk.
            “Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked. Iris and Jim, together since she’d nursed him after he was wounded in a gang battle that was still being talked about in the Twin Cities, were still learning about each other. She loved him, but she didn’t understand him yet. And then there was that damn ring.
Jim thought for a minute before answering. Was she asking about the killing? Was she asking about covering up the…what, the scene of the crime? It wasn’t his crime. He was just protecting Iris and the boat. Self defense. Plain and simple. It wasn’t his fault the one guy couldn’t swim. And he was pissed about the little brass bar cart…and the pistol. 
And who would ever have thought that a little .32 caliber pop-gun with a two inch barrel would shoot true enough to hit the mark on a fast moving target in the dark? Still, he knew what she needed to hear.
            “It bothers me a lot, hon. A lot.” He turned to her, settling deeper in the chair and sipping on the spicy drink before continuing. “At least this time I wasn’t looking for trouble. I mean, it’s not like one of my deals gone sour.”
            “One of your deals?” Iris said. The familiar bite was there. Iris wanted Jim to get out of the business. She wanted him to quit using the damned ring and exploiting the invisibility and levitation to steal drug money to feed the kitty.
            “You know, I don’t think you need to look for trouble. I think it looks for you. Maybe that damned ring just attracts it.”
            “It’s cursed.” He waggled his left hand and tried a chuckle.
            “Don’t make a joke about it, Jim.”
            Chastised for the remark but not ready to cave, he said, “We’d have been in a world of hurt without it. You have to admit...”
            “You had a gun. Hell, there’re guns hidden all over this boat, and I’m not too happy with that either.”
            “It was four to one.”
            “You know what I mean.”
            Jim put his drink down and stood. Looking down-river he saw the patrol boat cruising toward them.  “If we get involved it could wreck the trip. I mean, there’s no doubt it was self defense, and those were some really nasty guys. I don’t want anything to wreck the trip.” 
            “Me either, but…”
            “But nothing.  If we get involved it will mean testifying and debriefing. It’ll be hours and days and weeks of bullshit and interrogation—that’s what we’d be sucked into. And they might not see it for what it was.”
            “Sometimes you’re a hard man, Jim.”
            “Sometimes I have to be,” he said as the patrol boat edged alongside.
            Wilson shifted a couple of bumpers and tied off a line to a cleat before tossing it to the deputy. He preferred they stay along-side rather than come aboard. The Thief of Hearts was cleaned up but he didn’t want to invite any more trouble than he had to.
            “Mornin’,” Wilson said, smiling. “Hey what’s goin’ on at the bridge?”
            “You folks been out here all night?” There were two deputies in the Boston Whaler. One was in the bow with the line, tending the boat. The other leaned against the light bar that ran over the center console.
            “Yup. All night.”
            The two deputies shared a look. “Did you folks hear a boat come past about three hours ago, about four?”
            “We were asleep.” Wilson hooked a thumb toward the cabin. “Had the generator running and the air on. What happened? Somebody wreck?”
            The one in the bow answered, “Someone plowed into the lift bridge. Older boat. Must have hit it wide open.”
            “Ouch.”
            “You didn’t hear the explosion?”
             Jim looked over toward Iris. “Is that what that was?”
            “I told you I heard something, honey.” She smiled at the deputies. “I told him I heard something.”
            “Uh huh.” The deputy by the light bar looked downstream. “It was pretty loud, ma’am.”
            Iris rolled her eyes. “So is he.” 
            Jim put a hurt look on his face, thinking atta girl. “Hey, I’m not that bad.” 
            Iris snorted. The deputies smiled.
            “Hit it full blast, huh?” Wilson wanted to keep them going, just for a bit, to see what they would let slip.
            “We’ve got boats working all the way up from Bayport picking up wreckage. It fire-balled when it exploded. The tender’s shack is totaled and the electronics for the lift are fried.”
            “Any bodies?”
            “Just one. Looks like an Asian guy. Well…what’s left of him.” The deputy in the bow got a shut up look from his partner.
            “Sorry we can’t help you guys. Wish I’d have seen it.” Wilson forced a grimace, playing for the Academy Award. “Ah jeez, I mean…ah jeez. A guy died, huh? Guess I’m glad I didn’t see anything. Know what I mean?”
            The deputy in the bow tossed the line to Jim and pushed off.  “Thanks for your time folks. Stay safe now.” The deputy in the cockpit cracked the throttle and they headed off.
“You think they bought it?” Jim asked. 
Iris nodded.

  

Ferris' Bluff   

Chapter One

            The drive through the Ouachita Mountains, scenic as all hell, had been a brutal thing. 
            It was a two lane twisty no-shoulder road. Sweeping vistas, regiments of towering deep green pines slashed through with scarred gray-white granite wounds, and a near mystical fog shrouding the mountainsides begged for his attention. Dark shadowed valley views beckoned. It was like a siren’s song; beautiful…haunting…and damn near deadly.  
            He’d barely survived the life-or-death battle between the lure of the views and the sudden switchbacks of cliff-side curves. Shaggy big eared deer played chicken with him. That was exciting, in an adrenaline spiked, holy-shit, gravel slinging kind of way. The race-car mommies hauling ass in mini-vans full of kids, hell-bent for somewhere, weren’t scared a bit by the cliffs or the deer or anything.  
            He pulled up to a pair of gas pumps in front of a ramshackle building. Leets Store sat out on the highway about a quarter mile from the small, tidy downtown all by itself. It looked deserted but a half-curled plastic Open sign dangled inside the glass front door. Ace shut down his pickup and looked over his shoulder at the mountain he’d just come down.
            Not a car in sight. Nobody following him. Good.
            While he fiddled with the old lever pump handles he tried to recall the last time anyone had been following him for sure. Except for the gray car in St. Louis a while back, and he wasn’t all that certain about that one, it had been almost a year. Still, he checked constantly. It had become habit, and he was still alive.
             He twisted the lever on the side of the pump and watched the numbers twirl to zero, savoring a sound he hadn’t heard since he was a kid, the click-whirl of a mechanical gas pump, the sturdy clanks as the numbers stopped at zero. The nozzle was dead in his hand, though, and he hung it back up before heading toward the store.   
            Ace looked over at two rickety wooden rocking chairs sitting out front and imagined a couple of old guys sitting out there spending afternoons watching cars go by, waving to neighbors and friends, jawing about the war or the price of soybeans. Ferris’ Bluff, Arkansas…small town America.
            Quiet. Familiar. Anonymous. 
            A rare smile on his face, Ace pulled the squeaky door open.
            Raack!  Shraack! 
            He jerked at the sound of a pump shotgun’s slide, gaped dumbly at the twelve bore muzzle aimed at his face for a split second, then dove left, right hand yanking the .45 Hi-Power from the back of his jeans mid-air. His thumb found the safety and flicked it off. Ace landed
no-roll hard and slid on the linoleum behind a row of shelves. Crinkly bags of pork rinds and cracklins exploded. The mangled metal skeleton of a display rack clattered beside him.
            Ace heard voices, hollering and cussing, but not footsteps approaching.
            “Oh shit, mister!”
            “You damn fool.”
            “I didn’t see him coming.”
            “You okay fella?”
            “Hey mister, you okay?  Aw shit-fer-sure.”
            Ace crawled through the burst bags, crunching his way through the cellophane and chips for a quick peek.  He held the pistol held back out of sight. They didn’t sound like killers.
            Two old guys, sixties maybe--seventies maybe, both looked shocked and flustered. They were behind a long counter facing the door. One was big and red cheeked with wild wispy white hair. He had on faded denim coveralls and a once red tee shirt. The other one looked kind of like a ferret. Pointy-faced, his brownish gray hair was plastered down in a sparse greasy comb over and his bony shoulders hangered a wrinkled plaid shirt. Neither one looked like much of a threat. An old Remington 870 shotgun lay sideways on the counter.
            “You okay, bud?” The big white haired man wrestled past the ferret faced one. Ace tucked the Hi-Power back in his jeans under his shirt and sat back, listening.
            “I sure didn’t mean to scare ya’ like that. We was just messin’ with this old gun Dicky brought in.”
            Ace stretched, testing his joints. The two old guys danced behind the counter, apologizing over and over. His shoulder hurt like hell and he had a small cut on his left arm. Pork rinds and corn chips were ground into the knees of his jeans, his backside, the elbows of his shirt, and the heels of his hands.
            “I’m okay,” Ace finally said from behind the shelves when he caught a break in the old guys’ chattering. He got to his feet slowly, sure there would be a bruise on his left knee in a few minutes, and limped around the shelves about the time the big man cleared the end of the counter.
            “I am so sorry, mister,” the white haired man said and held his hand out. “Del Leets.”  They shook. Leets gestured over his shoulder. “And that there’s Dicky Stover. Man-oh-man, you sure you’re all right? Way you throwed yourself over like that?”
            “Yeah, I’m fine. Andy Evans, but everyone calls me Ace.”
            Leets looked down at the debris. He toed at the pork rind dust and ruined bags, frowning. “What a dang mess.” 
            Dicky shuffled over with a broom and a waste basket. “The Frito lady gonna be right pleased, Leets. That’s more chips ‘n you sold in the last six months,” he cackled.
            “Look, I guess I can pay for the damage,” Ace said, mentally checking his wallet.
            “Naw,” Leets grumbled. “This one’s on me an’ Dicky.”
            “Me?” Dicky waltzed his broom around. “Me?”
            “Wull you brought the durn gun in here.”
            “Wull you was the one pointin’ the durn thing at the fella here.”
            Ace was pretty sure the argument would have gone on for the rest of the afternoon but a car pulled up to the pump. The woman behind the wheel honked the horn twice and the door of an immaculate burnt-orange ‘72 Olds Cutlass convertible swung open. She waved at the front door. Leets and Dicky went stone silent.
            Ace could see where the woman might get this pair of geezers to shut up.  Bottle-blonde hair peeked out from a headscarf and a pretty--pouty face was half hidden behind over-sized white framed sunglasses. The woman challenged a tight low-cut striped top and amply filled a pair of yellow Capri pants that she had to have used pliers to zip up. She wasn’t Dolly Parton busty but Ace figured she wasn’t too far from it.
            “Reena,” Dicky whispered, leering with a gap toothed grin.
            “Yeah, that’s our Reena all right,” Leets echoed. He was frowning.
            “You gonna turn on the pump?” Dicky asked.
            “Yeah,” Leets grumbled, shuffling off.
            “That’s Reena,” Dicky said, nudging his elbow into Ace’s side. “Lawyer Tre-mont’s wife.”
            Leets trundled back over to watch her fill the car. Ace noticed she had an impressive backside too. 
            “Ever-thing wiggles but her toes,” Dicky snickered.
            Ace stepped back and rubbed his face with one hand. Big mistake. There were still greasy crumbs of corn chips and cracklins stuck on them. He smelled like pork rinds. Leets and Dicky scurried back behind the counter and ditched the pump gun when Reena hung up the hose. Ace stepped over to the end of the counter and watched her walk across the store. Dicky wasn’t far from right…pretty much ever-thing wiggled.
            “Miss Reena.”
            “Delmon. Richard.” She nodded at the two old men. Ace could tell she enjoyed the power she had over them…well, Dicky at least. Leets didn’t seem impressed.
            She turned and gave him the once-over. Her furrowed brow hinted at curiosity and maybe a tinge of worry. She frowned and looked back to Leets. “Any problem gettin’ a couple to go, Delmon?” She jinked her head towards Ace.
            Leets pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow, like he was pondering something important.  “No. No problem, Reena.” He stepped through a door behind the counter and came back with two Budweiser tall-boys and slipped them in a bag. Reena settled up. The bag clutched firmly to her chest, she gave Ace a flirty, knowing smile, and all three men watched her jiggle out of the store, her high-heeled sandals clacking on the linoleum.
            “Afraid you’d check her ID?” Ace joked. Reena looked to him to be on the downhill side of her thirties despite some truly valiant efforts with makeup.
            “Dry county,” Leets said.
            “No problem,” Ace assured him. “So you boys always play with shotguns?”
            “Naw,” Dicky grumbled. “I took the thing in the other day over t’ my place and it don’t work.”
            “Dicky runs the Book-N-Pawn when he ain’t over here botherin’ me,” Leets explained.  “Durn thing won’t e-ject the shells.”
            “Mind if I have a look?” Ace asked. 
            Both of the old guys watched Ace fiddle and poke at the gun. He took out a Leatherman tool, dug around inside the shell port and asked Leets for some oil or WD-40. After a couple of minutes he fed three shells into the loading port and said to Leets, “Catch.”
            Ace racked the slide three times fast. All three shells eluded Leets’ grasp.
            “Sumbitch!”
            “Thanks, Ace.” Dicky clapped him on the back. 
            Leets found a rag for him. While Ace was wiping his hands he told him he guessed he should get back to gassing up and get going.
            “Just passin’ through?” Leets asked and waved off the twenty Ace held out. “You go on and fill ‘er up. I’ll put it on Dicky’s tab.” 
            Dicky sputtered and cussed until Leets asked Ace what he was gonna charge for fixing up that old 870.
            “Actually, I’m here to see someone. An old friend,” Ace said. The look Leets and Dicky gave him made it clear he wasn’t getting out of there without telling them who. “Granville Tubbs.  Know him?”
            Leets winced and Dicky looked down at the floor.
            “Yeah, we know ‘im,” Leets muttered. 
            “He’s over ‘t the Shady Oaks death house.” Dicky jerked a thumb toward the highway.
            Death house? Ace knew he’d heard him right.
            “Don’t mind dick head here. Shady Oaks is the old folk’s home.”
            “Don’t no-one come out alive, though. It’s a death house.” Dicky argued. “And don’t be callin’ me dick head.”
            “How long’s he been in there?”
            Ace hadn’t talked or written to Tubbs in over three years.  He hadn’t talked or written to anyone from the old days in that time. He’d been leaving as faint a footprint as he could. Had to. It was the best way he could figure to stay alive, but he was tired of the road and lonesome for a familiar voice. He just hoped it had been long enough--that they’d forgotten about him. He was counting on it.
            “Near a month.” Leets voice yanked Ace out of his thoughts and back into the store. “Had some spells ‘a some kind and ain’t been the same since.” 
            “He’s in a purty bad way.”
            So much for crashing in Tubbs’ spare room, Ace thought. “I might be around a day or two. You got a decent motel in town? Decent meaning cheap.”
            “There’s just the Travel-Aire other side ‘a town out on 84 but it ain’t what anyone ’ud call decent.” Dicky rolled his eyes. “That’s about it.”
            “Annie Travers is rentin’ out rooms,” Leets chimed in. “She’s got this big ol’ house over on Pecan Street. Been rentin’ out since her husband died. I hear she’s a durn good cook too.  Meals go with the rooms is what I hear.”
            “Well, thanks for the tips, boys.” Ace shook hands with both of the old men. “I’ll probably be seein’ you around.”
            “Sorry agin’ for that mis-understandin’ with the pump gun,” Leets shouted as Ace headed out the door to gas up the truck and go look for the Travel-Aire Motel out on 84, wherever the hell that was. The last thing he needed was a room in some widow woman’s house that probably smelled of lilac sachets and boiled cabbage and old lady.

            Ace found the motel. The Travel-Aire looked to be right out of central casting, circa 1952, with its flat roof, turquoise stucco, and rounded white trim. The office guarded a central court surrounded by ten or so tiny bungalows hidden from the highway. He paid for three nights.  The old biddy behind the counter gave him a deal. Some deal. Ninety-five bucks.
            When he pulled into the courtyard the first thing he saw was Reena’s orange Cutlass parked half behind an overgrown shrub on the end. Ace shook his head and pulled up to unit number three.
            There was a screen door, the old galvanized mesh torn and rusty in half a dozen places, and no window air conditioner that Ace could see. June in Arkansas is damn hot. Well, maybe the walls are thick, he thought. Maybe there would a breeze.
            When Ace pushed the door open the first thing that hit him was the smell. Ace didn’t mind smokers. He’d enjoy a stogie himself now and then, but forty years of used cigarettes slept in the carpets and threadbare upholstery, clinging to the peeling paint of unit number three. When he flicked on the light a platoon of roaches skittered away.
            He took one look at the bed, a sway backed double with a trough so deep he knew if he lay down in there he’d never get out. Ace closed the door and drove back to the office. He tossed the key on the counter and told the biddy he wanted his money back. She put up a pretty good fight but when Ace growled at her she grabbed the cash from the till and threw it on the counter. Well, ninety bucks, anyway.
            Ace fired up the truck and went in search of Pecan Street and old lady Travers’ place.

            The house on Pecan Street didn’t look like a spinster’s white elephant or a tumbledown rooming house. No sir. Three stories tall with a screened front porch flanked by blazing red flowering shrubs, it looked like something out of a Rockwell painting. Witch-hat roofed turrets soared two stories and there was a railed open porch between them. It was painted white with green and blue accents highlighting intricate scrollwork under the eaves.
            He approached the house at a loss, wondering about the proper etiquette for knocking on the front door when there was a porch. Should he knock on the screen door? He looked for a bell or a buzzer. Should he just barge onto the porch and knock?  He had his hand on the screen knob when the front door opened. A trim, pretty, blonde woman in her late thirties or so stepped out.
            “Mr. Evans?” she said, opening the screen door and extending a slender hand. “I’m Annie Travers. Del called and said you might be stopping by.”
            Hello Ferris’ Bluff, Ace thought, taking her cool hand in his. “Andy Evans. Most folks call me Ace.”
            “Ace it is. Come in. Come in.” Annie held the door wide. Ace stepped into the house and a hundred years back in time. To his right he saw a large living room filled with old expensive looking furniture.  Gleaming wood smelled of lemon oil. The lampshades had dangly things at the bottom. There were doilies everywhere. The sofa arms were snarling lion’s heads. To the left a stately dining room was filled with a polished walnut table that would easily seat twelve surrounded by buffets and sideboard tables covered with silver bowls and tea services.
            “Wow,” Ace said, afraid his meager funds weren’t going to be enough to stay more than a night or two.
            “I dust, therefore I am,” Annie laughed easily. Ace smiled for the second time that day.  “Del said you were in town to see Granny Tubbs. He’s such a sweet old guy.”
            Ace kept the smile on but inside he was churning worries. These people, strangers, already knew more about him than he had let out in years. And calling Tubbs a sweet old guy?  They didn’t know much about Master Chief Granville Tubbs. Something bumped behind him. Ace turned toward the noise.
            “This is my daughter, Valerie…Val.” 
            A serious looking twelve year old looked up at Ace from her wheelchair. She had long straight blonde hair and piercing green eyes that looked too old on her, too wise for her innocent unlined face. “Hello.”
            “I’m Ace.” He offered his hand, which she took lightly in hers. “Nice to meet you, Val.”
            “Why do they call you Ace?” She asked, tilting her head to the side, still not smiling.
            “My initials. Andrew Christopher Evans,” he explained. What he didn’t tell her was that the name, Ace, was his own creation. His father had saddled him with the name Arleigh Chester, after two of the old man’s heroes, and his real last name was Evenson.  ‘Ace’ had been created in about the third grade and it was the last thing he really had from his old life. He always crafted his alias around those initials. Val was looking at him so intently he wondered if she had just read his thoughts.
            “You kind of look like an Ace,” she said, then wheeled her chair around and disappeared into the back of the house.
            “I’m sorry,” Annie apologized. “Val’s a little, um, outspoken sometimes…when she says anything at all.”
            “It’s no problem.” Ace shrugged.
            “Since the accident, since the chair, she’s a little abrupt with people.”
            “Not to worry.”
            “Well, let me show you the rest of the place and your room.” Annie started to turn toward the back of the house.
            “Ah…”  Ace felt embarrassed but he had to ask. He’d be more embarrassed if he couldn’t afford it. “How much, exactly, is the room?”
            When Annie turned to look at him he studied her face. Her green eyes had laugh lines at the corners, and a sprinkle of faint freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Val had gotten her blonde hair from her mom, it seemed, but Annie’s was cut short. She wasn’t wearing any makeup as far as Ace could tell, a far cry from Miss Reena earlier, and didn’t need to.
            “Thirty dollars?” She said it like a question, like she was embarrassed too. “And that includes breakfast if you’re around and dinner too, if you don’t mind eating with all of us.”
            “Thirty sounds really fair. This is a great house.” Ace could afford to stay in the great house for about five nights if he needed to, he calculated. It would depend on Tubbs’ circumstances. A door banged in the back followed by a voice echoing down the hall, “Mom, I’m home.”
            “My son.” 
            A rangy brown haired kid in baggy cargo shorts and a Tony Hawk t-shirt came striding down the hall with a Mountain Dew can in his hand. “Who’s this?” The kid asked, hooking a thumb in Ace’s direction.
            Before Annie could answer Ace stuck out his hand. “Ace Evans.  The ugly roomer.”
            The kid screwed up his face, not getting the joke his mother was laughing at. He eyed Ace’s hand and finally gave a limp shake.
            “Chaz.”
            “Charles.” Annie corrected him. The kid rolled his eyes.
            “Is it okay if I go with Chaz?” Ace asked. He knew what it was like to have a dorky name and he didn’t want to alienate the kid.
            “Okay. Sure.”
            Chaz squeezed past them in the hall and bounded up the steps. When Ace and Annie turned to head for the kitchen a voice drifted down the stairwell. “Ugly roomer. I get it now. Ha Ha.”
            “He’s fifteen,” she explained.
            “Hey, at least he got it,” Ace said. 
            When he followed her toward the kitchen Ace couldn’t help but notice that Annie Travers had a very nice figure and a nearly perfect…and then quickly stuffed the thought away, deep into the can’t-go-there locker in his mind. Can’t go there. He’d check on Tubbs, visit a bit if the old guy was up to it and then head back out on the blue highways.
            It was what he had to do.

             
So which one do you think I should take to the party?

And MANY THANKS in advance for taking the time to read and comment.