evening.”
James looked at me. “We did.”
“Who told you?”
“Hey, kid, don’t take offense. Thomas LeRoy noticed you in the crowd. Wanted to know who the new guys were and how you were doing.”
“Tell him we’re doing fine.” James smiled.
“So, you saw the rev. Pretty good show, eh?”
“Well,” I watched him take a swallow of beer and realized we didn’t have any. What the hell were we thinking? “we didn’t stay for much of it.”
“Still, you saw some pretty powerful stuff. You make sure you come down to the trailer in ’bout half an hour. We’re playin’ some poker and I think you’ll have a good time.”
More free beer? Sooner or later they’d make us pay for the privilege. Of course, the way James played, the beer wasn’t free.
And, of course, James had the same thought I did. “We’ll be there. Looking forward to it.”
Stan kept his elbow on the truck bed, watching us and blowing out puffs of gray smoke from his cheap cigar. It smelled somewhat like wet rags in a trash fire. “What do you boys do when you’re not selling food?”
“You mean for fun?” James asked.
“No. What are your day jobs? Some of us do this full time. I travel with the rev. Crayer pretty much works with the rev full time. Now Dusty, he’s a retired school teacher if you can believe that, and Mug is a three-time convicted felon who has his own catering business. You don’t want to fuck with him. Is that what you boys do? Cater?”
“No, sir.” James got off his bucket and stepped to the rear. “I work for a seafood restaurant and Skip here sells security systems.”
“And neither of us is a felon,” I added.
James nodded. “Not yet.”
Stan pursed his lips and frowned, almost as if he didn’t believe us. “That’s what you do, huh? A little sales and food.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bruce tells me you had some questions about the rev and this operation.”
I could feel James’s eyes shift toward me. “Just heard some things and wondered.”
“You got questions, ask me.” Straightforward. The horse’s mouth so to speak.
“They weren’t important. I’d just been here a while back and remembered an incident — ”
“The Washington girl?” He said it in a low, guttural voice.
“Yeah.”
“Sad story. They never found the killer. Reverend Cashdollar,” he paused, “and his wife felt terrible. You know Gwena? Anyway, any time someone in this unit has a problem, the rev and his wife get personally involved. He even paid a private detective to look into the death, but they never got the first clue.”
I was tempted. I wanted to say, “Hey, I heard she was Cashdollar’s girlfriend,” but I didn’t. There was a menacing tone to Stan’s voice and I didn’t even want to go there.
“You listen to me, kid. I’ve been here longer than anyone. Got it?” He puffed on the cigar.
“Got it.”
“Michael Bland, he was a druggy. Guy overdosed. It’s on the record, so you can drop your questions about him.”
“Michael Bland?”
He stared at me, his eyes burning holes in my retinas.
“He was a vendor. Just like you.” There was a long silence.
“Ah.”
“I just think it’s better if you get a straight answer from someone who knows what’s going on.”
I nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“Well boys, I hope you do well in your day jobs, that sales and fast food thing, because this right here is a tough racket. And to be honest, we don’t need more competition.”
I waited for him to smile. He blew a puff of smoke at me, and didn’t. “Just so we understand each other.”
I’ll admit I was puzzled. “I’m not sure we do.”
“You think on it, boy.” He spun around and headed back down the path.
As he walked away I said, “Nice guy, that Stan.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, lighten up, Skip.” James glared at me. “All he said was he didn’t need the competition. And as for the questions — ”
“James, I think there was a veiled threat in there somewhere. Not really veiled.”
“Skip, Skip. He’s right. If you’re going to go around talking about the possibility of Cashdollar being involved in a murder, you probably should talk to someone who was here when it happened. Pal, I’ll always defend you, but you were a little out of line. And our cigar chomping buddy just wanted to let you know.”
“What about his line ‘Just so we understand each other?’ When someone says something like that, it’s a threat, James.”
I could see him replaying the conversation in his mind. “Like I said, Skip. He doesn’t like the competition. So we take a hint and don’t come back next year. Hell, if we make it big, we won’t have to.”
“Maybe that’s all it was.” I didn’t ever want to come back. Ever. So I wasn’t going to argue with James.
He lit a cigarette and took a slow drag. He let the smoke out through his clenched teeth and stared down the trail at the lineup of competing trailers and trucks that sold the food. The donuts, the pretzels, the onion rings, and pizza. “I mean, the guy did invite us down for poker.”
I saw two guys carrying a heavy crate to their pretzel van, and two doors down somebody was dumping a bucket of soapy water from the back of his trailer. One old man walked by our trailer, his shoes sucking mud as he hefted two cardboard boxes of frozen french fries on his shoulders. The vendors were getting ready to close up shop.
We pushed the temporary counter back into the truck, folded up the aluminum step-down, and pulled the sliding door down. I snapped the padlock. “Poker and free beer.” I had to admit it.
“Oh yeah, we can’t forget the beer.”
“It doesn’t pay for the losses, but it makes them tolerable, eh, James?”
“Ah, yes. Beer. Now there’s a temporary solution.” James gave me a wide-eyed stare.
I had to think. Finally it came to me. Homer Simpson. You’ve got to love Homer. Beer, a temporary solution.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
W e showered in the cement block building, ignoring as best we could its sour odor of rotting garbage and soiled laundry. I changed into another pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I kept thinking about Em’s car being back in her parking lot. Maybe somebody brought the car back and she was still wherever. Or maybe something had happened to her and they just brought the car back, but she was laid up somewhere or worse. You know how you start thinking some bad thoughts and they just get worse and worse? I’ve never had good thoughts that just got better and better. Does that happen to everyone?
“Skip, let’s tap a couple bucks from last night.” James pulled on a Bob Marley T-shirt and walked out of the building. I ran to keep up.
“James, we talked about this, man. If we’re going to run this like a business, then — ”
He turned, and with a very sober expression said, “Poker is a business too, Skip. The kind of money those guys were playing for? Come on. Five hundred dollars.”
I took a very deep breath. “It comes out of your share. No questions about it when we do the split.”
“Do you realize how upset you’re going to be when I win big tonight?” He gave me a sad look.
