Small Town Trouble (5 page)

“Excellent tracking.”

We both giggled awkwardly. I felt about thirteen years old. Then, more grown up, say maybe fourteen, I said, “I’m really glad you called, Amy.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

“You wanna get together?” she said.

“Love to.” Very casual, very cool. “When and where?”

“Do you remember Sparkie’s Lounge?”

Hell, it had only been three hours. “Sure I do, fine.”

“Tomorrow night, seven?”

“Absolutely perfect.”

Bunky would just have to watch TV without me.

Before we hung up Amy told me something I didn’t need to be told. “Kim,” she said, sounding a bit morose, “Sparkie’s buffalo head is gone.”

We shared a rather intimate silent moment of respect.

“Thanks for telling me, Amy.”

“Good night,” she said gently, and hung up.

The phone rang right in my hand. Ah, could this be the beautiful, but overbooked Nancy Merit at long last? I was feeling a little smug having just gotten off the phone with an old flame, even if Amy didn’t remember being one.

But again, it wasn’t Nancy. It was Bud Upton.

“Hope I’m not calling too late,” Bud Upton said, “but I’d like to meet with you and your mother first thing tomorrow. There’s something we need to, well, bat around.”

The tone of Bud’s voice bordered on ugly. Hell, I didn’t want to bat anything around with him. I simply wanted Evelyn to get her big, fat check so we could all get back to whatever we’d been doing. Although I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know, I asked anyway.

“Is there a problem, Bud?”

He hesitated. “Why don’t we just talk in the morning? My office, nine o’clock?”

I had a feeling this get-together with Bud Upton wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as the one later with Amy Delozier.

There was no use worrying about what hadn’t monsooned on my parade yet, so I put Bud Upton and our morning meeting on my mind’s back burner and trudged downstairs to A.C.‘s bar and poured a nightcap. Then I picked up the horn and called Mad Ted.

Ted confirmed what Shirley had already told me about the Nancy Merit party of four. And, as always, he gave me much, much more.

I listened to a long and not very interesting story about Ted’s latest lust interest, Katrina, a cocktail waitress at the Gatlinburg ski resort who aspired to be a cocktail waitress at the Hilton.

When I couldn’t take it another second I said, “Ted, did you do the Jell-O trick for Dan and Patsy Dandrich?”

Mad Ted laughed his nasty laugh. “Hey, I don’t waste the Jell-O trick on pukes.” I heard him light a cigar. I could also hear the clacking of dishes and the familiar sound of general end of the night cleanup in progress.

Ted pontificated onward. “Dandrich is pond scum and he’s got White House or Bust written all over him. Why didn’t they all just go to McDonald’s for Quarter Pounders?”

“Dandrich sounds perfect for the job.” I hated politicians. I hated politics. In fact, I hated almost everything that started with P.

“Dandrich spent the evening sneaking free shots down the front of Nancy’s blouse. And Dickhead couldn’t stop ogling Patsy who looks like an anorexic chicken.”

“Those lascivious slimeballs.”

“Reptilian dirtbags.”

“Pukewads.”

“Yeah,” Ted said, sounding a little winded. I let him catch his breath.

“So how did Nancy look tonight?” I wanted to know.

“Like she always looks.”

“Wanna expound upon that a bit?”

“What can I say? She’s not my type.”

“Ted, pardon my French, but fuck your type. Now, what was she wearing? What’d she have for dinner, et cetera?”

“God, you’re pathetic.”

“Please.”

“Okay. She was wearing something blue. She had the Tennessee quail. Dickhead brought in a couple of predictable wines. They all had the blackberry cake for dessert and went home. Jesus.”

“Now was that so hard?”

“How do you sleep with a Republican anyway, and a married one at that?”

“When did you get detail-oriented? And by the way, Nancy is my first married Republican.”

“Bullshit.”

He was right. It was bullshit, but that was hardly the point.

“Ted, be honest. This isn’t about politics. What’s really going on here is that you’re still pissed about Casey at Camp Shawnee.”

There was a long, long pause.

“Do you always have to bring her up? That was only a million fucking years ago. And, for your information,
Ms. Studwad,
I never thought she was all that hot.”

“Just as well. She didn’t think you were all that hot either.”

“Thanks for putting it all in crystalline perspective.”

“You’re very welcome.”

We went on like this for a while. Then we talked some restaurant business and I promised Ted I’d be back in Gatlinburg as soon as things were squared away with Evelyn, at least as squared away as things could ever get with my mother.

“Hurry home,” Ted said, relighting his cigar. “You’re so much better with fascists than I am.”

“Guess you could say I’ve got the touch.”

“Shit,” Ted said, and hung up.

Chapter 9

That night I dreamed that Nancy was in her TV studio kitchen processing tart dough in her shiny Cuisinart. The
Nancy Merit’s House
camera crew was rolling. And just like in real TV life, between the noisy whirrs of the machine, she made very personal eye contact with the camera as she explained and demonstrated each recipe step in her confident, altogether affable Nancy Merit TV persona.

At this point in my dream, unlike in
real
life, I come onstage. I tell the crew to pack it up, get lost. Although Nancy is protesting, I see a twinkle in her eye. She knows what I’m up to.

When everyone is gone, we shut off the studio lights and then it’s just Nancy, the Cuisinart and me. For several long, sensual moments there is only the sound of our breathing and the refrigerator humming.

Finally, I say, “C’mere, beautiful.”

At this point Nancy and I proceed to make hot and nasty love all over the set of
Nancy Merit’s House
. After finding ourselves in a few less than optimal lovemaking locations (beware of a preheated oven), we slide onto the kitchen’s floating island which is fine by me. But Nancy, ever practical when it counts, communicates to me via primal sounds and gestures, indicating that she’s pushing for the floor. Without much fuss I give in. I aim us toward the fluffy rag rug (a gift from a viewer) in front of the kitchen sink which, all in all, turns out to be a very good idea.

After a much needed breather and not of the capital B variety, Nancy turns to me and sighs the satisfied sigh of a sated, Southern woman. Playfully, she kisses my nose, then smiles, baring her rows of lovely white teeth. Despite my protests, she hops up, throws on her robe and goes back to her dough in the Cuisinart. Resigned, I pull part of the rug over me and settle in to watch a professional at work.

After some scraping with a spatula and a few more whirrs, Nancy glances over in a sexy way and says, “Get up, Lazybones. Make us two perfect capuccinos.”

I do and, hips touching, Nancy’s bare foot resting on mine, we lean back against the counter and sip our cappuccinos while a beautiful peach tart bubbles in the oven.

At that point, in
actual
real life, my blissful reverie was interrupted by a retching sound. I opened an eye and noted that Bunky had barfed up a grass ball on the pillow next to me. Maneuvering with caution, I gingerly hopped out of bed and performed a nearly surgical removal of the offending green wad which I promptly flushed down the toilet.

Then I showered for the meeting with Bud Upton.

Chapter 10

Clearly, Bud Upton had spent some money on his office décor, but it was not terribly tasteful. It looked like he’d hired the same decorator who’d done all the McDonalds.

Bud showed us into his inner sanctum and pulled out plush chairs for Evelyn and me, then took a seat in the big leather chair behind his desk. I was relieved to note that the furniture wasn’t made of molded yellow plastic.

Bud was aging well and was about the same as I’d remembered him—tall, dark and humorless. Maybe that’s how he remembered me too, if he remembered me at all.

He slid on a pair of half-glasses, straightened his notes and hopped right to it.

“As standard practice I make it a habit to find out what I can about anyone who offers one of my clients a large sum of money,” Bud said. “I’ve done some checking on our Mr. Larry White and what I’ve discovered is that, well, he doesn’t actually exist.”

“Huh?” I said, sounding a lot like the waitress at Sparkie’s Lounge.

Bud took off his glasses. “Ladies, there
is
no Larry White.”

Evelyn said, “But that can’t be. I talked to him myself on the phone.”

Bud offered a small, professional smile. “My source tells me that as one follows the identity trail of Mr. Larry White, it eventually disappears into thin air. However,” he said, raising a finger, “on the brighter side, the money really does exist. And it’s right in the account, just where he says it is.”

“Huh?” I said again. I felt as if I’d somehow been dropped into an Alfred Hitchcock film, one in which I was having trouble following the plot. It could have been any number of them. In the words of my cousin Abbott, I said, “So what’s the deal?”

Bud Upton shrugged. “Can’t say for sure, but whoever’s behind this deal wants to remain anonymous. Maybe it’s fishy, maybe it’s not. Either way, it’s a lot of money.”

“There must be lots of
honest
reasons why someone would choose to remain anonymous.” There had to be a least a few.

Bud Upton grinned, the sly dog in him showing its face.

“There are some.” He pushed back his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can do more snooping around, but it may be, shall we say, less complicated to leave a few rocks unturned. One does have the option to simply take the money and say thank you.”

Evelyn looked worried. “There’s no way I could I do prison time over this, is there?”

Bud and I chuckled. “Absolutely not,” we said in unison. Maybe I should have been an attorney.

“Think it over. Let me know,” Bud said.

The meeting with Bud Upton left me feeling like the rug had been pulled from under me and not the fluffy kitchen rug where Nancy and I had mamboed the night before in my dream.

Maybe it was just my typically obsessive nature kicking in, but I kept wondering who was this guy who called himself Larry White? And why all the secrecy? Why would anyone spend that much money and go to all of the trouble to cover their tracks for the procurement of a failing country radio station in the middle of nowhere? The more I thought about it the less it made sense. Things just didn’t add up.

These were the questions that hounded me as I drove into town to Sparkie’s Lounge that night to meet Amy Delozier where, as it turned out, another rug was going to be yanked.

Chapter 11

Off and on, I subscribe to the theory that zest for life starts to lose its carbonated fizz about twenty seconds after high school graduation. This does tend to make life one long and winding road, which, ironically, was my senior class song.

A somewhat bleak theory, but all in all, it seems a far better course to face the potential fact, saddle up and ride life’s pony. Even in the worst case scenario, there are still surprises along the trail.

Take Nancy Merit, for instance. A Southern storm trooper of love, she’d gotten my heart thumping with real verve, like it hadn’t thumped in a long time. Nancy Merit was a woman who made for great general distraction, even when she wasn’t around. Unexpected bonanzas like her cause one to reexamine the whole high school graduation theory. I had to admit that when I didn’t allow the complications of pesky old reality to interfere with what I had going with Nancy Merit, I felt plenty zesty.

Sitting across from Amy Delozier Smith that evening in a dimly lit corner booth at Sparkie’s Lounge all these years later made me feel pretty zesty, too.

Amy looked great. I’d almost forgotten her gray-green eyes and her playful smile. She wore casual but expensive clothes and an annoyingly large, humping diamond ring. Her honey-brown hair was pulled back in a short, loose ponytail, giving her a kind of Grace Kelly Goes Kicky sort of look. Maybe I
was
in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. She smelled good, too. But something was different about her.

Amy and I shared a double cheese pepperoni pizza and drank Little Kings while Mario Lanza sang
Because You’re Mine
. Amy told me the story of her nose job. I just couldn’t understand it.