could tell they'd been in the way of traffic for a while as he slowed and navigated his way around the partial roadblock.
Prosperity had fled. Storefronts were clogged with broken roll-top desks, legless or seatless chairs, boarded- up buildings like Lou's Tack and Saddle Repair, Bud's, Vega Boot & Shoe Shop. On the side of what had been a diner somebody had painted bypass city. Buy Bond's Bread for extra nutrition. Memories of the 7th War Loan. The city Meat Market was empty. Keerist, what a ghost town.
The entire downtown area resembled one huge and sprawling thrift shop. The Main Street Bank Building was straight out of the Northfield, Minnesota, Raid, and appropriately it was now a historical museum. Eichord stopped and asked for the directions to the Spoda house. The man had never heard of it. He asked if the guy remembered the Iceman murders back in the 60s. Nope. Where was the local police station or sheriffs office? Weren't none. Was there anybody who had lived here a long time? Sure. Plenty of folks. Name one? Freda over at the gas station. Freda and her husband been here since the war. Eichord didn't ask which war. How do I get there? elicited the following direction:
“Go yonder to the Picken's sign and turn around an’ go back a block.” Jack digested this while he drove. He kept thinking of the James gang as he drove past crumbling brick edifices that triggered movie memories of the Daltons and Youngers. Pioneer Seeds. Wilson Grain still hawked their wares from ply-boarded hulks of weed- covered, vanished commerce. The town belonged, at the very least, to a world of cars with running boards, obsolete fireplugs, and five-cents phone booths.
A sign said Motel—Right, and his word-puzzle brain automatically substituted Motel-Blight, passing the once-pink motel with its totally redundant vacancy sign. One more tiny business clinging by its fingernails to the slippery precipice of the mercantile exchange. How many eternities since the NO vacancy neon had blinked on?
Eichord pulled up next to a gas station that sold eats, worms, and de xe coolers & vented heaters—not an appetizing combination. He thought the missing lu in De Luxe to be the final indignity. A person of indeterminate sex and age appeared, materialized really, from the shadows.
“Howdy,” Eichord said, and the person nodded. “I was looking for somebody who knew this town back in the old days, and the feller down at the bank said you might be the right person to come to.” Nothing by way of response, so Jack plunged ahead, wondering whether to flash his shield or not. “I was trying to find out a little something about a family who used to live here back in the 60s. The Spodas. Can you help me?'
“Depends.'
Jack realized then that it was a woman. “You Freda?” He smiled pleasantly.
“Yep,” she said.
“Boy,” he said, looking around as if he'd just seen the town for the first time. “What happened here anyway?'
She shrugged and waited.
“Looks like a kind of a ghost town. What happened to all the businesses?'
“Ever'body left.” She spoke slowly. “It was the oil boom.'
“The oil boom.'
“Yep. An’ then it just died out and, uh, they lost the bank and a bunch of businesses and stuff, uh, you know, just died out.'
“When was that?'
“Huh?'
“When did the business die out?'
“Oh, few years back. I forgit rightly.'
“When was the oil boom? I mean, could you put a year on it when the town was prosperous?'
“Nnn.” She made a noise as she shrugged. “There's always been wells n’ stuff. An’ people around here was, uh, you know, leasing their land for high prices. Specially up north a ways. An’ they had a lot of workers come in here and then the highway went around us and it really died then.'
“When was that? When did the highway go around you?'
“The highway bypassed us in ‘76.'
“You mean the town was prosperous until 1976, then?'
“Yeah.” He felt her unfreezing as he eased her into the details. “See, this was ole Highway 66.'
“This was Route 66?” he said incredulously.
“Yeah. Was back then.'
“Listen. I'm looking into a family that was here back before that. You ever hear of the Spodas?'
“Yep. I heard the name.” He saw something change in her weather-beaten, deeply tanned face.
“Can you tell me about them? Where they are now?'
“You a cop,” she said in a hard voice without the question mark on the end.
“Matter of fact, I am.” He nodded, again pleasantly, speaking in a soft, soothing voice and not whipping his gold out.
“No-goods.'
He nodded. Tell me more. She didn't. So he said, “Tell me about them, please.'
“I didn't know the woman. You hear things in a small town. I didn't really know her.'
“You heard what sort of things?'
“There was all kinds of rumors about that family. It was the talk of this town for years. Sex things. They was supposed to be perverts.'
“In what way?'
“She slept with everybody in town. Supposed to have slept with her own son. What was made him touched when he was little. He was off,” she said, tapping her head.
“Off. How?'
“I don't know what you call it. Touched in the head. They always said it was because o’ her. Somebody, a social worker or somethin', they found out about her and the boy. And then the half-sister too. He'd been messin’ with his own half-sister. She was off too. The whole family was off.” She shook her head.
“What happened to them?'
“She's been dead for years. The sister's in the looney bin. I heard the boy got into some trouble.'
“The Iceman murders?” She nodded. “What do you recall about those murders?'
“Nothin'.'
“But you just said you remembered he'd got in some trouble,” he said gently.
“That's all I ever heard. Somebody said he got into some trouble with the law. But I don't ever remember hearin’ anything about him goin’ to prison. I think somebody said they seen him in Las Vegas some years back. I don't rightly remember.'
“In Las Vegas? Who saw him?'
“Oh, my stars, that's too long back. I don't recall. You just hear rumors in a small town.” She looked around like she wished a car would pull up wanting gas, oil, eats, worms, and a de xe cooler—something to get her away from the interrogation. But up and down the highway as far as you could see, Eichord and the woman were the only living souls.
“It's very important, Freda. Who told you he was in Las Vegas? Try to remember if you can.'
“I told her,” a scratchy voice said, and Eichord jumped a little as he turned and saw the man who had come up silently behind him. He reminded Jack of the farmer with the pitchfork on the famous painting.
“Yes sir.” Eichord smiled. “Can you tell me a little more about the Spodas?'
“Just that the one they called Arthur never spent a day in jail. I seen him myself big as life at the California Club in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, wheeled right to the table like he owned the place.'
“Pardon me? You say wheeled?'
“Yeah. He was in a wheelchair. Still is, I imagine.'
“I didn't know he was handicapped.'
“Heard his mama caught him an’ his sister together and took a ball bat to him, is what put him in a wheelchair. ‘Course that was just the stories at the time.'
“When was this?'
“'bout the late 1960s sometime, I reckon. Probably a good thing too. He wasn't nothing but trouble.'
“Do you know where I could find a picture of Arthur Spoda?'
