Jackpine Savages by T.K. O’Neill
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CHAPTER ONE, EXCERPT SIX
Billy chuckled at my tale of woe. I felt my face warming and it wasn’t from the sun. My insides squirmed like leeches on a hot sidewalk.
“No problem, Carter,” Billy said. “My little Rose is a slippery one.”
“I don’t think she was hip to me, Billy,” I insisted. But I wasn’t so sure.
“You’ll just have to try again tomorrow, Carter,” he said dryly. “I think you should be there at ten tomorrow morning. I’m sure you’ll do better on your second day.”
The condescension iced my brain and made my temples throb.
The next day dawned like the kind of day the locals would say we’re famous for: gray and rainy skies with a wind off the lake keeping the coastal area in the low fifties. I drove up in the morning and had to put the car heater on—in August.
I sat in the wayside by Talbot’s road and listened to KUMD FM while the North Shore began to wake up. Nothing moved down the Talbot Road until after two in the afternoon. It was the same deal, the mail truck came and went and shortly thereafter the red Ford bounced down the hill and stopped at the mailbox.
This time she was dressed in a blue jeans and a blue flannel shirt with the first three buttons open. I caught her full frontal in the binocs and I thought she smiled at me, if only for a second.
I kept her in sight all the way to the municipal, where she pulled in to the same spot as the day before. I swung into my familiar space and threw the shifter in Park. I turned up the radio and the fan on the defogger. The college radio station faded and I punched the search button.
After half an hour of mind-numbing hackneyed classic rock from the likes of Styx and Rush and ELO, I was getting restless. This aspect of private eye work plain flat sucked.
I watched water droplets collect on my windshield. Again I pushed the search button on the radio. Pine trees bobbed and weaved on the hill across the road. A Canadian talk show came on the FM.
Is back bacon good for you?
I shut off the ignition and went in the bar.
It was a generic barroom, two-thirds full of guys in flannel or denim shirts and Carhartt overalls, the weather having evidently cut the day’s labors short. Rose was sitting in a high-backed chair at the brightly polished bar, a tall coke drink of some kind sweating on the counter between her and the bartender, a forty-something guy wearing an orange T-shirt with Ask Me For a Slow Screw printed across the front. He was leaning in close with his hands on the bar top.
He ignored me as I sat down.
I shuffled nervously and took a good look at Rose. She was cuter than I’d thought. Looked younger than her years, which I guessed to be mid-to-late thirties. She had a kind of athletic grace in her movements that more than compensated for her wide shoulders and hips. Old Billy must have been quite a stud back in the day to corral this sexy beast. But I was getting carried away. I was here to find out if she was having an affair, not entice her into one.
“Bartender, can I get a Budweiser please?”
The tender shot me a slightly annoyed glance, straightened up and sighed. He turned around and bent over, opened the cooler door and wearily dragged out a Bud. Without making eye contact, he twisted the top, set the bottle in front of me and continued down to the end of the bar where a wrinkled elderly couple was drinking Miller Lite and watching the wall-mounted television.
I put down a five, took a swallow of beer and snuck a look at Rose. She was smiling at me like a flower in the desert. Always a sucker for a pretty face, I felt like saying something to her. Instead I grabbed my beer and moved down to where I could catch the live poker action on the tube.
I saw Rose turn toward the front door as a blond wearing a blue denim jacket and jeans and sporting red lips and scary black fingernails sashayed in.
The pony-tailed blond sat next to Rose and the two women started talking excitedly, shutting the bartender out. I tried to listen but I had my weaker ear towards them and the TV was turned up high for the old couple. The bits and pieces of the conversation I could catch didn’t sound like much of anything. Nothing important or relevant to the case.
During a tense, quiet moment in the ESPN Texas Hold’em game, I heard Rose say: “God, I wish you could smoke in here. I can’t get used to not smoking in a bar.”
Another positive reaction to the statewide smoking ban.
The blond said, “Wanna go outside?”
Rose: “It’s shitty out.”
Blond: “Ain’t that bad.”
Rose: “All right then. You want a drink first?”
“I can wait.”
“A Bud Light for Gloria, Pete, on my tab.” Rose said. “We’re going out for a smoke.”
The two women both glanced at me at the same time. Quick, darting glances. Then they stood up and went outside. I took advantage of the opportunity and hit the men’s room. Came back out and got another Bud. Gloria’s Bud Light was still sweating on the bar top. I looked up at the TV. The poker game was in the final hand. High stakes. High tension. A bald guy wearing sunglasses eventually won. Had a full boat, queens over fives.
(To be continued)
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