Chapter 29
Inside, the Pleshette’s trailer home was dark and cool. Connie had showered that morning, but inside the home, the sweat solidified like an extraneous layer of skin and he felt like he could use another. The closest he came to bathing the abundance of licks the little dog, ‘the terror’ so described by Norm, supplied.
Once Tiffany gave Norm the details, Hope’s situation and how Connie could help, Norm supplied Connie the key to the house. Told Connie he trusted Tiffany. Plus, there wasn’t much to steal from the little house anyways. Wheels on the oxygen tank had clicked over gravel, Norm conducting Connie towards the post office to go over the fine details, and keep his employee out of the loop. The chubby man like a cat constipated at a window when all the action was taking place just on the other side.
“I’ll just tell Sutton you’re a Fed,” said Norm. “That’ll keep him chasing his tail.”
True to her word, Tiffany did indeed own a lot of comic books. Her instructions were spot on. The most hunting around Connie did was for a bag to stow Sipe’s gun and wallet. The whole search he was accompanied by Pluto. The dog thought Connie might supply him with treats or pets, something.
On his way out, Connie was overwhelmed by the dog’s wiggling and whining and started petting Pluto, then before he knew it, he was sitting on the living room floor, lavishing the dog in affections, careful to keep the bag with the gun out of Pluto’s reach, muzzle, paws, any furry bit.
Boneless in a warm lap, the dog’s bliss caught like a flu and Connie was restful, like he’d slipped into a new dimension, and Millie and Sipe and the house on Lake Washington and the Old Man’s certain demise and the handing over of the reins were issues facing some other version of Connie. For this Connie, the cool dark living room could be forever.
The little dog yapped through the shut front door Connie’s entire walk towards the gate to the street.
On his lope back to Pleshette’s, Connie took Sipe’s call and agreed to meet Zeke. After he returned Norm’s key, Connie walked to The Outpost. Rustic, that’s the word Connie happened on. No driving, no bus. Little Creek allowed you to walk everywhere. It did present a certain charm.
Zeke already occupied a booth with a window view out onto Main Street. Across from the restaurant the lime-colored church, some decrepit building, then the tavern. The little freckled waitress seemed so happy to see Connie he thought she might embrace him. She led him to Zeke, Connie on her tail, doing his best to not look obvious, checking out the carved faces on the multi-use magazine stand and hat rack. The obvious place to plant a weapon.
Supplied with a menu and water, promised the waitress’ return in just a couple, Connie braced himself for a full dressing down from a member of the Old Man’s honor guard, Zeke higher up in the organization than even Sipe.
“Got you something,” said Zeke. “Well, Sipe got it for you.” Zeke waggled his hand, the item wrapped in a clean white handkerchief. He slid it across the table. Taking it, Connie could feel the outline of something small and vaguely gun shaped. He put it in his lap.
“Oh,” said Connie. “And I got something for you. Just picked it up in fact.”
He slid the bag with Sipe’s gun and wallet. Zeke didn’t even look in the bag. Received it and set it on the booth seat.
“Didn’t know you had a thing for athletes,” said Zeke. “About a million years ago I was engaged to a tennis player. This is before I even knew your father.”
Zeke had removed his suit jacket. The suspenders a constant since he’d dropped weight, a good 50 pounds, in between the time the Old Man sent him off to Alaska and his return some 3 years ago.
“Where is she?” asked Connie.
“Who? The tennis player?” Zeke grinned. Exercised his index finger up and down along the length of the wet water glass. “Oh, some where out there. Woman as fine as that doesn’t have to give a young fool a second chance.”
When the freckled waitress returned for their order, she said, “Ok. Now. What can I get you boys this afternoon?” Something crossed her face, right as it was out of the gate, but Zeke handled it with a deft touch. Just waited for the girl to lock on his mature negro face and he winked and smiled at her. A little don’t worry about it, the ‘boy’. Zeke asked her what she’d recommend. And he asked questions, specifics, how to make stuffed potatoes tasty without turning them into sodium death traps, and by the time it was Connie’s turn to order her blush had dissipated.
After she left their table, Connie asked, “What does my dad say about all of this?”
“Hold on.” Zeke moved the bag off his jacket and dug a pill bottle out of his jacket. An amber colored prescription bottle. Humming, he extracted a pill, replaced the bottle in his jacket, and washed the pill down his throat with water. “Helps with the digestion. Everything burns once it’s in my guts anymore. Now. About this. All of this, what would you say about it?”
“What would I say?”
“What would you say. It’s relevant. You’re going to have to deal with things like this, Connie.”
Connie laughed. Zeke showed neither encouragement or discouragement for the laugh.
“It’s his mistake,” said Connie. “All that fear. He doesn’t want me to fly. His precious little baby boy, but if I flew, then there’s no room for side trips and meetings at night. No time for Sipe to get sideswiped.”
“So someone comes to you,” said Zeke, “you, the boss, and they tell you, ‘Hey, this is all on you, you big dummy’, how would you take it?”
“I’d admit my mistake.”
“Even if you’re the king?”
“Maybe especially because I am the king.”
“How long does a king who admits wrong doing rule? Is a king a king if someone he rules comes to him and tells him in no uncertain terms he’s made a mistake of gross proportion?”
“Calls him an asshole?”
Zeke smiled. A dark tooth prominent in the low-key grin.
“You’re supposed to listen,” said Connie. “Even to things you don’t want to hear. You can’t rule blindly. Or deaf. Or dumb. It can’t be an echo chamber.”
“And yet he has. And for a very long time. I mean, it’s a big pie, with all kinds of profit generating interests, and there’s a lot of slices to go around, and your father rules one slice the same way the Russians do and then those guys over in Billings and that woman down in Boise, they all have their slices, and on and on and on. But the reason he’s still in charge is he shows no weakness. What he says is law. If I was with him, outside, any time of day, and he told me how beautiful the moon was, even if it’s 10 a.m., and cloudy, and raining, and there’s not even the chalky residue of a moon anywhere in sight in the sky above, I’m going to agree, yes, it is a very beautiful moon.”
“Because he’s king,” said Connie.
“The king sees a moon, you see a moon.”
“So what does he say about all of this?”
Water pitcher in hand, the red headed waitress zipped past their table, hit the brakes, replenished Zeke’s water glass and promised them their food was on the way.
Still smiling after thanking her, Zeke looked at Connie. Then out the window. Drained half his water glass.
Connie waited, and once he had them, he held Zeke’s eyes. Connie almost started counting all the freckles on the older man’s cheeks.
“You didn’t tell him,” said Connie.
“Do you remember Midler?” asked Zeke. “Tall. Good looking cat. He drank a little too much, started going a little hunchbacked? Susan called him ‘Tiny’.”
“Vaguely.”
“Midler the one with you and your mom the day she got hit by the car, you got hit by the car. The Old Man directly blames your mom, ‘cause she’s talking on her phone, not paying attention, dragging you through the crosswalk. You’d think Midler would get his head handed to him. He’s there. Present. Right behin
d the two of you. But Rydell is the one shown the door. Why? Rydell is Midler’s boss. Midler screws up, it’s Rydell’s fault. You in the hospital. Your mom in the hospital. The Old Man for some reason blames just two people. Your mom and Rydell. Midler, he’s with us another five years or so. Those other two,” Zeke shook his head. Claimed more water for his throat, for his guts and the anticipated burning.
“You think he’d blame you for me taking off on Sipe,” said Connie.
“I don’t keep him in the dark. I told him,” said Zeke. “I told him the car had difficulty. Something went wrong. A Johnson rod, you know? some contraption on the engine only a mechanic would know. Somewhere in Oregon, the damn Lexus threw a Johnson rod. And I told him ‘hey, I called the dealership’ and told them about it. We just had it in for a tune up. And they’re very apologetic about all of it. And they’ll make it up. Fix it for free. And more importantly, I’m out here to make sure you get back. Sipe can stick around and wait for the car to get fixed.”
Connie said, “Sipe thought the Wub was coming.”
Zeke nodded. Then he laughed. Covered his mouth, his shoulders jacking up and down, the clamped down laugh a half cough, a wheeze like someone needing to go on a ventilator.
Settled down, surviving the scattering of diners interest in his health, and even having waived off the waitress, Zeke swamped his throat with ice water and then told Connie the Wub was never coming. Never in the picture. At any time.
“I told Susan a fib. She forwarded the fib to Sipe.”
“Why?”
“He put his foot in it.”
“So you get back at him by scaring him?”
“No. I gave him a reason to get the problem taken care of even before I’m in his midst, looking at him, demanding an explanation.”
“Sipe thought the Wub would just show up,” said Connie, “start, you know, doing his thing.”
“Our friend Mikhail is like the cartoons, the Tasmanian Devil? You know, all grunting and spinning, tearing through steel and concrete? No one needs to unleash that with you in spitting distance of it.”
Connie didn’t expect to learn the Wub’s actual real first name. Zeke not even noticing he’d let it slip said, “Soon as I got the call, I was out the door. By the time I’m at my car, I’m calling the airline, getting the next flight to Walla Walla, Pendleton, the next best thing to parachuting and landing down right here in this town. You know, I know where to go, exactly, Boog got the number for that little house off caller I.D. I didn’t even have time to peruse wine country. Not even the winery your father owns. They just had a car waiting for me out at the airport and soon as I landed in Walla Walla some kid told me how to get to Pendleton from there and I was in the wind.”
“You’re pissed off at me.”
Zeke smiled.
“Connie, you’re going to be my boss sooner rather than later. I can’t afford to take it out on you. I think we could agree that’d be exquisitely poor planning on my part. I can take it out on Sipe. He expects that. I mean, to tell you the truth, I think he’s disappointed it’s me and not the Wub shown up. He expected to perform the self-flagellation, with a whip? Maybe some spikes on the ends of the whip strands? And instead it’s like he’s getting a stern dressing down from the assistant principal.”
“You saw his face?”
“Bruise?”
Zeke shrugged.
“He’s looked worse. Frankly, given how bad all of this has shaken out, the love of your life, the running amuck, the poh-lice, he should look worse.”
“Are you going to help him?”
“With what?”
“The thing. The girl. Butcher’s Camp. Those people.”
“He doesn’t need help. He needed help he’d have asked.”
“He’s stubborn.”
“No. He’s reliable. In some certain ways and in certain situations. You have a place just inside your door you put your keys, every time? That’s him. Most the time.”
“Unless the boss’ son decides to fuck him over.”
“Yes. Unless.”
Outside, Sutton marched westward along the edge of the parking lot down Main Street, his phone up to his head. Connie suppressed a fear the man might look into the window, right at Connie, like he had the Sheriff on the horn, vomiting all suspicions.
The food arrived. The waitress bee-lined back to the serving counter and just left the ice water pitcher with them and asked them to let her know if they needed anything else. Connie looked around The Outpost. No one at the counter to his left. Behind Zeke, one man in a booth against the far wall. A few tables in the main dining area were occupied. He told Zeke he’d be right back, Zeke nodding, much more interested in preparing his baked potato than anything Connie had to share. Connie paused at the combination totem pole, hat rack, magazine stand, and took out a magazine, looked at it, and putting it back, palmed the stun gun with it, into the deep slot.
Business completed in the men’s room, he paused at the totem pole and eyed the magazine, a crimped three month out of date women’s health periodical.
“Sorry we don’t have anything more current,” said the waitress. “People have their phones, you know? No one looks at magazines anyways. It’s a shame.”
She waggled down the corridor towards the kitchen. Connie waited for his heartbeat to slow down back to something semi-regular before taking a step towards the booth, and Zeke, potato eating and smiling, having seen Connie nearly leap up to the ceiling in fright.
“Oh, young man.”
A woman in a polo shirt approached from the dining room. The rest of her party watched her grip Connie’s right arm.
“I saw you, young man,” she said. “I saw you run after that woman after she was shooting all over. You were very brave. I thought, ‘That man is very brave’.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you related to the Bradley’s? Over in John Day? You look an awful lot like one of their boys.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, I just thought you should know, what you did, that didn’t go unappreciated. This is such a quiet town. So peaceful. And then, I don’t know, out of nowhere it turns into New York or Los Angeles. One of those places. I don’t live here for that, no, I don’t. I like it boring. I hope you don’t tell people where you come from that Little Creek is like that all the time.”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t.”
Her hold on his forearm tightened and relaxed.
“Bless you.”
“Ma’am.”
Once she released him and continued heading for the restrooms, Connie nodded at the appreciative faces taking him in from the dining area.
Zeke was doing his best to slice a single near transparent section off the butter square onto his potatoes. Steam rose off Connie’s freshly arrived plate.
Not even looking at Connie, Zeke said, “Fan club?”
“I guess so.”
The butter hit the potatoes and immediately began melting. Zeke stirred it up into the chives and the cheese.
“Quite the honor for me,” he said. “Eating with the hero of the day and all.”