Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) (3 page)

     Rick lived with his dad, Mel with his aunt and Roger with his two parents and sister all in separate areas of the small town and its tiny suburbs.  Roger was the one who lived the furthest out of town, out in the woods sort-of-speak, on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.  Roger’s house was where they most often gathered and held court.  It afforded them multiple opportunities at mischief and intrigue, and they never failed to disappoint by not getting into very deep trouble doing something they were told not to do.  But it was never serious enough to worry anyone, at least, the stuff the grown-ups knew about. But, all of that changed in 1984, the year Mel went missing. 

       Rick still had no clue how it happened or even what happened.  Mel’s aunt reported him missing, from his bedroom, on Thursday morning.  The last time Rick saw him was the evening prior.  The three of them had been to the Veteran’s Park, not far from Mel’s house, playing with some firecrackers that Roger had bought the day before.  They had fun, until the sun starting going down and the street lights popped on.  Then they parted ways, Mel going home, Roger’s mother picking him up and Rick riding his bike to the other side of the small town.  They would not all be together again after that evening, but none of them knew that then.  Not until the next morning at school when the news got out that Mel was missing.  His aunt said he went to bed that night as usual, but he wasn’t there when she went to wake him up the next morning.  The searching began on the afternoon of that Thursday and continued for six months with no trace, no evidence of what happened to him.  He was simply gone, into thin air as if he had evaporated.  But, people don’t evaporate.  They don’t just disappear.  They run away or get kidnapped, but they don’t just vanish.  Mel was never heard from again.  Their childhoods together as the three compadres ended that fall.  Their innocence ended as well.   The investigations petered out by spring and Rick and Roger slowly started to drift apart until the last time he saw him was by accident during a chance meeting at a food mart just before his dad died and before Rick moved to Florida.  He hadn’t heard from him again.  He heard rumors, from other acquaintances that Roger joined the service but never knew which branch or where he was.  It’s how things go, you grow up, you move away and life just sort of sweeps you up in an uncontrollable current.

       That current had deposited Rick Carter in a Crown Vic. riding the lonely streets of greater Tampa with a vague feeling that his life hadn’t gone the way he thought it would.  The difference between now and 26 years ago was telling and he didn’t like the self-accusation that he had gone nowhere in a hurry.  He had to admit to himself how surprising it was that he could remember so much of that time, that day.  It was the clearest memories he had from his younger years.  Perhaps, the trauma had caused him to seal them indelibly in his brain.   Perhaps the trauma was the reason he sat staring out of a dirty windshield most nights wondering what his lunch was going to be. Whatever the case, it was there for good, and it wasn’t until a time like this when he allowed himself to think openly about it that he still felt the pain, the loss, and the confusion.  It wasn’t just the loss of Mel.  It was the loss of all three of them, the loss of the innocence.  It was like they all ceased to exist that fall in 1984.  Or, it all could be a load of emotional hogwash.

      Rick held the steering wheel with one outstretched arm and rubbed his forearm with the other hand.  He was staring absent-mindedly out of the windshield when the old man stepped into the road.  He would have hit the old guy had he not just begun to come out of his deep thought.  Instead, he hit the brakes hard and the big Crown Vic. came to a sudden stop just feet away from the old man who was standing there, unmoving, looking at Rick with a glazed over pleasantly blissful look on his face.  Rick was returning his stare with a look of deep shock and surprise.  It was a good thing he hadn’t been going that fast.  He powered his window down and leaned out.

      “Hey!  You okay?”  He tried to hide the shakiness in his voice.

     The old man smiled a broad smile inside a full white beard.  “Yes.  I’m okay.  Are you okay?”

     “Just scared out my shorts.  You got to be careful crossing the street, mister.” Rick implored.

    The old man waved.  He was a large man, rotund and tall.  His had long white hair.  He looked remarkably like Santa Claus without the red suit.  “Oh no, I wasn’t crossing the street.  I was looking for you.”  He said.

      Rick thought this sounded very strange but decided not to test the old man.  “Were you looking for a cab?”

     “Yes, a cab.  I was looking for a cab.”  He said happily.  “May I get in your cab then?”  He asked.  He was very pleasant and cheerful, another Santa Claus like trait.  But, he was wearing a rather strange outfit.  Underneath a long gray coat, he was wearing what appeared to be a gold suit.  It wasn’t metallic, just gold colored.  The long coat was also a little strange as the temperatures that night were in the low 70s.

        Rick decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  He didn’t usually care much for walk-ups.  They typically brought trouble with them and were the types of fares that could end in robberies or worse, murders.  But, the old man looked safe enough.  So, Rick put the car in park and got out to open the door for him.  There were no other cars around.

     The old man sat comfortably and happily in the back seat like he was stepping into an old home he had been away from for a long time.  Rick was less concerned about his state of Zen then he was about the destination.  “Okay, where to?”  He asked casually.

      The old man leaned forward a little.  “Please just drive to Howard Street.  I will tell you where when we arrive.”  He said.  His voice was remarkably clear with no hint of an accent.

     Rick put the car in drive.  “You know that’s about five blocks the other way, right?”

     “Yes, yes.  I know.  But, that is where I wish to go.”  The old man reiterated. 

      “Okay, you’re dime.”  Rick replied and he turned the big car around in a perfect U-turn and headed toward Howard Street.  “You goin’ home?”

      “No.”  The old man simply replied.

       “So, what’s on Howard Street then?”  Rick plied as much for conversation’s sake as to gain a clear idea what he was getting into.

        “Something very interesting.”  The old man replied.  He watched the scenery as it passed by, amused at the sights like a young child visiting a theme park for the first time.

       Yeah, Rick thought.  That’s how horror movies start.   Once again the awkward silence descended between him and his customer, the same awkward silence that sprouted between two sober strangers meeting for the first time.  But, this was what Rick had built his conversational skills around.  It was his little study in sociology and how to get people to talk. It also helped him to gauge people and watch for threatening movements or gestures.  The old man was quiet, and his quietness kept Rick’s eyes glued on him in the rearview mirror.   He decided to open with his first and most reliable icebreaking salvo.  “So, you from her…”  He started.  But, the old man cut him off with a sudden return fire that threw him completely off guard.

       “I bet you’re not from here.”  The old man said.  “You strike me as a man not from Tampa, Florida even though you’ve been here for a while.”  He quickly blurted out.

      Rick was too surprised to respond.

     “It’s okay.  You don’t have to be from Tampa.  I mean, how many people in Florida are actually from Florida?  Not many would be my guess.  You like to drive at night, don’t you?  I can sense that.  I have that ability you know.  I can sense things about people.  Which reminds me, you should be about ready to find out.” He said kindly and cryptically.

     “I’m sorry?”  Rick added.  I really hope this nut ball has got a wad of cash in that overcoat and not a pig sticker or a drop gun, he thought.  “What did you say?”

     “It’s time.  Time you find out.”  The old man repeated.

     “Find out what?”  Rick was keeping a good eye on him in the rearview mirror, his right foot poised over the brake.  They weren’t going that fast, but if he hit the brakes even at this speed, it would be enough to unbalance the old guy if he tried anything.  Maybe buy Rick enough time to jump out and run for it.

     “That you’re the most important man in the world.”  The old man simply replied as if he dropped that sort of remark into every small conversation he got into in his day.

     Rick looked at him now with even more caution.  Oh, boy, what have I picked up now?  “Uh, huh. That’s nice.”  His tone was condescending.  I’ll be glad to get this guy out of my cab.  Serves me right for picking him up in the first place.  And look, all the lights are red now.  He had to stop for each one.  There were four between him, and their destination and that was four too many. 

     “You shouldn’t be alarmed by what I say.  It’s not a pride thing.  Nothing egotistical about it, just a fact.  A cold, solid undeniable fact.”  The old man added.

     “I’m sure.  Look you want to give me an address, mister?”  Rick tried to change the subject. He was growing intensely uncomfortable with the conversation.

    “It’s just a few blocks up Howard Street…once you make the turn.”  The old man informed him.

     Good, Rick thought.  Not that far.  He made the last light and took the turn to the left onto Howard.  After three blocks he slowed the car down.  This wasn’t a residential area.  It was full of old factory buildings and warehouses.  His alarm bells started sounding.   He stopped beside the windowless brick wall of one of the old warehouses, covered in layers of graffiti.  Time to get out of here, he thought.  “Here?”

      “Yes, here is fine.  How much?”  The old man asked as he reached into his overcoat.  Rick was relieved to see him pull out a bulging leather bi-fold.

     “Just three bucks,” Rick said.

      The old man grunted.  “So little?  That’s ridiculous.  Here’s a fifty.”  He handed him the nice crisp new bill.  “But, I need one last thing.  I need you to wait here for ten minutes.”

      “For you?”  Rick asked.

      “You’ll see.  Just wait ten minutes.  Okay?”  He leaned forward again and waited for Rick’s acknowledgment.  “Promise me.  Ten minutes.”

      Rick nodded, looking at the nice fifty in his hand.  “Yeah, okay.  Ten minutes.” He couldn’t believe he agreed to it.  Everything about the old man screamed crazy.  And he was so tired of crazy.

       The old man opened the door and stepped out.  “Good. Don’t be worried.”  He reassured Rick.  Then he closed the door and disappeared quickly into the deep shadows of the night.  Ten minutes, Rick thought.   If you’re not back by then, I’m leaving you here old man.  Don’t think I won’t.   He looked around into as much of the dark that he could see, his headlights still on and the motor running.  He was taking in the surroundings, memorizing everything in his vicinity on the street as he waited.  It turned out he didn’t have to wait the whole ten minutes.    In fact, it was only four and a half minutes before his calm was destroyed by a completely different stranger.  This one was also disheveled, but he came running out of the darkness in front of the car, into the light of the headlights, and hit the hood of the car with a loud resounding slap of his hands.  Rick was looking in the rearview mirror at the time.  The sound made him jump in his seat.   When their eyes met, the wild man was staring at him.  They locked their stares, both in surprise and fear, both panting from fright.  Rick’s heart rate went through the roof which probably wasn’t good for a 340-pound 42-year-old man.  His hands were tightly holding the steering wheel from reflex.  For a few seconds, neither of them moved or said anything.   Then the wild and crazy looking man quickly made his way to the back door of the cab, opened it and fell inward, pulling the door shut behind him.  “Drive!”  He shouted.  “Quickly, just drive!”

      Rick fought off the impulse to tell the man to leave.  “I’m waiting for someone.” He managed to say.

      “What?  Just go, man!  I have to go!”  The urgency of his voice compelled Rick into action.  He glanced quickly around for the old man, but he was gone.  Rick pulled himself together, put the car in drive and pulled quickly away from the curb.  He made another U-turn and headed back toward the open light and relative safety of Belcher Street, hoping to gain some time to gather his thoughts.  

       “You mind telling me what this is all about?”  Rick sounded aggravated and not a little bit alarmed.

      The man righted himself in the seat and looked back the way they had just come as if he were expecting to be pursued.  Rick could see him better now in the rearview mirror.  He was a thin man, about his same age give-or-take a year.  He had a receding hairline, and he wore baggy ill-fitting clothes that included what might have been, a long time ago, a blue dress shirt covered only partly by an opened long dirty gray trench-coat.  The look of alarm was starting to fade from his lined and tanned face.  He sported about three days of salt and pepper stubble on his chin that matched the same speckling he had in his hair.  “I’m sorry,” He said.  “Not my usual entrance.”

       “Who was chasing you?’  Rick asked.

      “Oh, let’s not get into that shall we?”  The man responded, rubbing his chin and looking out the window.

      “Okay, then you got someplace you want me to drop you off?”  Rick asked.  Boy, this night just keeps getting better, he thought.  Maybe someplace nearby and quick so I can call it a night and go home?