* * *
Ursula’s Diner was the kind of greasy, rundown armpit of a restaurant where you could order just about anything edible—as long as you didn’t mind having it deep fried in hog fat. Ursula’s didn’t do the healthy thing, unless you considered the lettuce in your hamburger or the onions in your onion rings as healthy—and let’s be honest, if that is your definition of healthy, then you are either in need of a dictionary or a rope to pull your fat ass out of the denial pit you ate yourself into. You went to Ursie’s when you were strapped for cash. The service was slow and lousy, but it was free. Old Ursula did all of the waitressing herself. And she never accepted tips.
Located off the I-65 exit ramp, the diner sat at the corner of the access road and the road that led to Riley, the nearest town two miles into the woods. The fact that her pride and joy was all but invisible within the assorted jumble of McDonald’s, Dairy Queen’s, and other fast food dumps pissed Ursula off to no end. She had good reason to be mad, too. She had set up shop first, damn it, and the competition was driving her out of business. She did have her regulars, though—thank God—and their loyalty was immutable.
"Hey there, gorgeous!" one such regular called out as he strolled into the gloomy diner. Trailing close behind came Ernie, who, looking around the dive, couldn’t help but wonder how many health codes were being violated that very second.
"Ronny!" Ursula shouted, rushing around the counter. "Come give me a hug, baby." She wrapped her arms around the policeman and squeezed his bear-like bulk with a strength most people didn’t know she had. "My favorite customer!" Then, glancing at Ernie, who still eyeballed the room, she said, "You brought a friend. Don’t tell me…" She paused, thinking, then snapped her fingers. "Little Ernie Richardson!" she cackled, flashing her pitted, yellow teeth. "I knew it was yew! Look how skinny he is, Ron."
Ernie smiled nervously while trying to hide his revulsion. She’d recognized him because he had eaten there a few times as a kid. (He hadn’t stepped foot inside the establishment since the summer of his twelfth year, the day he bit into his cheeseburger and discovered it was biting him back—clawing probably being the more accurate word. After spitting a human fingernail onto the checkered tablecloth, he’d immediately covered his plate with a tsunami of beige-colored puke.)
But he was back on the wagon, so to speak, albeit temporarily. He was just too hungry to sit in a restaurant and not eat. To be on the safe side, though, he planned on sticking with the onion rings. Fewer places for the nasties to hide.
At first glance, the interior was exactly how Ernie remembered it. Done up in the style of a 1950s diner, the room was replete with all the furnishings one might expect from that era: blue and white Naugahyde-fitted booths, chrome tube accents, even an old-fashioned jukebox far off in a corner. The only problem was that it had all turned to ruin. It had been falling apart in Ernie’s day, but now the booths had slits that spewed foam, and the chrome was dull and dented—the result of too many years and not enough care. Several of the black and white tiles on the floor were chipped, the brown glue beneath exposed.
A trio of high school kids ate in one of the disintegrating booths. They were the only other customers, and Ernie noticed that that hadn’t changed about the place either. He looked them over and saw that one of them—some hippie-looking kid—was eating a cheeseburger. He shot him a telepathic message: Don’t forget to check for fingernails, dude.
Then someone was poking his arm.
"…I said, whatchu having, sugar?"
When he turned, Ursula locked her witch’s grin on him. He almost shrieked, but inhaled sharply through his nose instead. "Uh…onion rings, please."
"That all?" She sounded deflated, but Ernie wasn’t about to get lulled into ordering something large enough to conceal discarded body parts.
"Yeah, that’s all." Feeling he had to explain himself, he added, "I’m not that hungry."
"But you said—" Ronny chimed in.
Ernie opened his eyes wide and bobbed his head toward Ursula, who had since turned and was walking into the kitchen, hoping Ronny would pick up on what he was trying not to say aloud.
Fortunately Ronny did, saving Ernie from at least some embarrassment.
A four foot high wall crowned with wilted plants divided the dining area in half. Flanks of decaying booths lined both sides of the wall. Ronny and Ernie sat on the side closest to the kitchen and waited for their food to be prepared—or, more accurately, fried.
In the kitchen, Ursula screamed at the cook (a Mexican named José) to turn his radio down. Brief phrases of accordion and trumpet-tinged music faded in and out through the still-flapping kitchen doors. José ignored her request (or, more likely, didn’t understand a word she said), and the music carried on unabated. Then the diner’s overhead speakers kicked on, and a country song overpowered the radio in the kitchen. One of the kids on the other side of the partition groaned. Ronny, however, began tapping his fingers on the sticky table.
"Hey, I like this one," he said.
"You would, wouldn’t you?" Ernie replied.
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"It means what it means."
"Ahh…" Ronny began. Not knowing how to finish, he tacked on, "…you Texans."
Ernie let it slide. There was no point in reminding him that he had already used that one today. "All I’m getting at is that if we’re going to be sitting here, eating her crappy food—"
"You said you were hungry," Ronny interrupted.
"No, what I said was: ‘I could go for something.’"
"And then you said Ursula’s was fine."
"No, I didn’t. You brought up Ursula’s." Ernie sighed. Leaning forward, he extended the first two fingers on both hands and curled them. "What I said was: ‘Sure, I guess.’"
"So why are you complaining?"
Ernie felt his cheeks flush. The fat guy was goading him. But Ernie wasn’t ready to let it drop. "If you’d let me finish, Ronny-Boy, what I was saying is that if we’re going to be sitting in this dump, eating her shitty food," (Ernie lowered his voice for the expletive) "the least she could do is put on some decent music."
"And what do you consider decent music, boy?"
Ronny was mocking him, but Ernie didn’t care. "Skynryd, Allman Brothers, ZZ Top.…The list goes on and on."
Somewhere in the kitchen, José dropped a large metal object—most likely a pan—and cursed a gibberish of Spanish at it. On the other side of the partition, one of the kids chuckled. Ronny nearly did the same. When Ernie looked up at his partner with utter disdain, guilt flooded Ronny’s body. But along with guilt came anger, anger directed more toward himself than to Ernie. Why do I let him make me feel this way, like I’m below him? I’ve got twenty years on this guy. I was on the force before could scribble his name.
"You know what I was thinking on the way over here?" Ronny asked, letting his animosity diffuse through his voice. Before Ernie could respond, he went on. "Well, besides all of those dead bunnies, that is. I was thinking about the future. Mainly the future of Riley, but also the future of being a cop in this town. Now, you’ve only been with us a couple of years, so you probably haven’t noticed the change, but it used to be a lot better—no, easier—before you came along."
"What are you saying?"
Ronny noticed the spark of contention in Ernie’s eyes. "No—I’m not saying you had anything to do with it. I guess what I’m getting at is…it’s that asshole, Bob Wendt. Who the hell does he think he is anyway?"
Ernie recalled thinking the same thing about Wendt after he’d shooed him away with that prissy hand flick of his. "I hear ya, Ron. The guy doesn’t even outrank us."
"Exactly! He’s a grunt like everybody else. If the captain, or even Lieutenant Jacobs, got wind of how he’s been acting lately, Wendt would be in some deep you-know-what."
"Up the creek."
"Without a paddle. So, here’s what I was thinking. We should tell the captain. Walk right into his office t
omorrow morning and lay it down on him. I’m sure he’d see things our way."
Ernie squirmed at the idea. "That sounds like tattle telling, Ron. I could never do that. Besides, I think the captain’s gonna be kinda busy tomorrow, seeing how his precinct has been ambushed by some sort of animal-killing monster."
"Oh, that?"
"Yeah, that. Don’t you remember? That is the reason we sweated through our uniforms working crowd control this morning." Ernie rolled his eyes. "Crowd control in Riley…"
Now it was Ronny’s turn to roll his eyes, but when he did it was toward the kitchen door, where Ursula came bustling through with two steaming plates and a basket of onion rings tucked in the crooks of her arms.
She approached the booth and laid the plates in front of Ronny. One was a pool of brown gravy. Ernie knew that a huge slab of chicken fried steak (called country fried steak in this part of the country for some reason) lurked somewhere under that calm ocean. The other plate held golden corn niblets and mashed potatoes drowned in the same thick gravy.
"Here ya go, sugar." Ursula said delicately to Ronny. Then to Ernie: "And one order of onion rings." She dropped the red basket without even looking at him. "You two eat up now. Especially you, Sticks."
For a while, Ernie sat quietly in disbelief. When he spoke, he said, "When the hell did Ursie start making meals like that?”
Ronny haphazardly shook salt onto both his meal and the table. Cutting into the steak, he said, "She’s been making this kind of stuff for years. It’s just not on the menu; you gotta ask for it."
There was guile in his voice—Ernie heard it. He decided to press for the truth. "Come on, what’s really going on here?"
"Okay," Ronny whispered. "Don’t tell anybody I told you this, but I’ve been paying the health inspectors off. I pay Ursula, too—just enough for her to get by on. Don’t look so shocked. Why else you think this dump is still in business? Ursula’s my mamma’s cousin. Didn’t you know that?"
"No, I didn’t."
"Well, now you do. And you better keep your trap shut about it. You may be from Texas, Ernie, but what you don’t know about the South—the real South—is that everybody’s kin to everybody. Especially in small towns like this. It ain’t inbreeding, mind you, but kin in a different way. Long friendships, partnerships, that sort of thing."
"Okay…"
"That’s how things get done around here. I can’t let my mamma’s cousin lose her business. What would my mamma—God rest her soul—say? ‘You just go on an’ let those health spector’s do their job, Ronny. It’s Ursie’s problem, not yours.’ But it is my problem! We gotta look out for each other."
"At the risk of the public’s health?"
"Ya just don’t get it, do ya?
"I guess not." Trying to avoid an argument, Ernie changed subjects. "Next time, though, let me choose the restaurant. I know a good place in Greenville that makes the kind of food you’re eating, but they actually put it on the menu so anybody who walks in can order it."
Sweat dripped down Ronny’s hairline. The deep creases in his forehead trapped the liquid and dispersed it around his graying temples. He used a paper napkin to dab at the moisture, and also, Ernie thought, to temporarily hide his face.
As Ernie squeezed ketchup onto his onion rings, one of the teenagers belted out a wallop of laughter. Immediately, one of the crowns of hair dipped below the wall. A whispered voice then shushed the laughing one. Ernie barely heard it over the country music.
Ronny jerked a thumb in their direction. "Kids…" he said, shoveling a piece of steak into his food hole. He chewed and swallowed. "Ahhh…" he went on, "to be young again." He leaned back in the booth and unfastened the clasp on his pants. "I’d give anything to be their age. Lucky bastards. Everything’s pie in the sky. No problems, no mortgage. No wife." He chuckled at the last part. "No shitheads like Wendt in their lives. At least not yet."
Ernie raised a ketchup-dipped onion ring in the air, as if to make a toast, and said, "Here’s to old Bob. Fuck him!"