Читать книгу Dead Girl - Craig Nybo - Страница 10

Chapter 4

Jo Ellen’s Diner smelled like bacon even at quarter of seven in the evening. They served breakfast all day long but I’m more likely to order a hamburger, Coke, and fries over a plate of eggs, sausage, and hash browns no matter what the time of day. I looked at the menu, a single, photocopied sheet of paper with a cheery logo of a hamburger whistling a tune in the header. The waitress--her nametag read, Vickie--stood above me. The wrinkles in her face gave her a perpetually sad expression, as if she had frowned for too many years of her life.

“What’s good?” I asked, glancing over the menu, thinking less about dinner and more about Stan’s journal, which sat on the white, Formica table in front of me.

“Throw a dart; I’m sure you’ll hit a winner.”

I looked up at her just in time to catch the end of a well-rehearsed eye roll. I smiled and pointed to the third item on the menu: “World famous chili,” I said and handed her the menu.

“Toppings?” Vickie asked.

“There are toppings?”

She sighed, long and bored. “Pepper jack, cheddar, mozzarella, lettuce, cilantro, onions, and bacon bits. Sorry, no noodles shaped like letters from the alphabet, robots or mini weenies.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked Vicky or not. “Disappointing, I was hoping to spell customer service in little, white letters.”

“That’s funny,” she said humorlessly. “Now which toppings are you jonesing for?”

I decided I liked Vicky. “Why don’t you give me the works?”

“You’re a man of means and taste.” She wrote my order on her pad and walked toward the kitchen.

I glanced around the dining room. A handful of high school boys sat at a table deeper in the hall, yakking and cracking about some girl one of them had just broken up with. A young couple, probably no older than 17, sat two booths up from me. The girl wore an uneasy smile as she watched her date eat. Her man, a muscular kid with long sideburns, consumed his hamburger in large chunks, washing it down with soda. As he ate, he spewed out flecks of burger and bits of a sports related diatribe. His letterman jacket said more than his doughboy face. Call me a grudge keeper, but I still have a negative stigma when it comes to high school jocks. I suppose it has something to do with the time one of them decided to lift me up by my jockstrap in gym class and throw me against the wall.

I gave up on people watching and got to the reason I had come to Jo Ellen’s Diner in the first place. I flipped to DeeDee’s first post-it marker in Stan’s journal. I spread the little book out on the table and smoothed the pages, manila-colored, almost fabric textured with age. I read.

April 27th, 1962

We’ve done it. I can’t believe it. I told pop to take a hike and emptied my savings, along with Joss, Ben, and Deloy. We took Joss’s Olds down to Salt Lake City and picked up a brand new bubbletop. She’s a work of art, sleek, black, almost makes me horny just thinking about her. We decided that if we were going to do it we were going to do it right. We went for the Super Sport model with a Hemi 409, the biggest block ever to be loaded under the hood of a car. And, man, does she scream. We opened her up through Sardine Canyon and hit nearly 200 miles per hour.

We talked about taking her to the Milvian Bridge to race for pinks. I’m all for it, but I think we need to get to know her a bit, learn how she handles, get some experience. There isn’t a car faster than her on the road. Performance isn’t the problem. I know we can win some pretty hard dough once we get some experience under our belts. For now, I just get off on feeling the wind in my hair as I open her up. There’s no feeling closer to heaven or hell, either way you want to play the coin.

Maybe if I can drum up the confidence I can take that ass, Biels, down a notch, maybe even take the pink sheets for that overblown Mercury of his. I’d like to see him swim in it, that’s for sure.

-Stan Corelis

“Looks like some real interesin’ readin’.” A voice interrupted me. I closed the journal and looked up into the eyes of a man in a County Sheriff uniform. Biels, his badge read.

I opened the journal and double-checked; Stan had mentioned a guy named Biels in his writing. The coincidence rattled me. I looked up at the sheriff, regaining my wit. “To whom do I owe the honor?” I asked and gestured to a chair across the table from me.

Biels settled his oversized hulk in, taking his Smokey Bear styled hat off and setting it on the table in front of him. He had sincere eyes, a bit sulky but strong nonetheless.

“You new to Bridgewater?” Biels asked.

“Just a visitor, I said.” I thought about the .38 in the bottom of my attaché. I had a permit, but I didn’t think I had brought the paperwork along. No problem, Biels could check the public records. I reached down and closed the flap on my attaché just in case Biels had wandering eyes.

“Hello, sheriff,” Vickie sidled up to my table, taking out her order pad. “You up for some cherry pupkins?” I wondered what the hell cherry pupkins were? Why hadn’t Vickie told me about them? I aimed to find out later; that was for sure.

“Not now, dear. Just coffee please.”

“Be back in a jif.” Vicky walked away, putting her pad back into the front of her apron.

“Got a call from Bob Shuler.”

The name was lost on me. I shrugged.

“A bit obsessive compulsive, but a nice guy. He lives next door to DeeDee Corelis.”

I snapped my fingers in recognition, Bob Shuler, mr. congeniality, the fat guy who insisted on watering his lawn by hand with a hose. “Oh yea, I met him on my way to see my aunt, DeeDee.”

“Bob said you weren’t related to DeeDee. He said that’s what you told him.”

“You know how it is? I don’t know Bob from Colonel Sanders. Am I supposed to give him my full bio? Truth is: I felt Mr. Shuler was prying a bit. Maybe he should keep to himself.”

“Fair enough. I guess you don’t mind if I ask what business you have in Bridgewater.” Biels stroked the brim of his Smokey Bear hat.

“Why the third degree?” I said. “Does Bridgewater have a ban on visitors or something?”

“Nope, Bridgewater’s like a little pumpkin town. Anyone’s welcome, long as his intensions are pure.”

“My intensions are pure. Should you have to know, I’m a writer. I write novels. My current project is set in a small community, a little pumpkin town you might say. I hope you don’t mind if I steal the phrase, it has a nice ring to it.” I picked up my pencil and wrote the words PUMPKIN TOWN on a napkin. I folded it and put it in my breast pocket. “I just thought I’d pay my Aunt DeeDee a visit and stick around a while, get a read on the community.”

“That’s fine, but most people ‘round here know that DeeDee doesn’t have any sisters or brothers. Ain’t no way you could be her nephew.”

Damn, why do I lie so much, especially when I don’t need to? I smiled and pushed my ivy cap back on my head. “You got me there, sheriff. Technically she’s not my aunt. But her and my mother go way back. She’s always been Aunt DeeDee to me.”

Vickie placed a cup of coffee in front of Biels. “One cup of coffee, black as a crow’s ass.”

Biels stood up from his creaking chair, reached into his pocket, and took out a handful of spare change. He counted a dollar-fifty in quarters and dropped them on the tabletop. “Coffee’s for my new friend here. He’s just rolled into town to visit his Aunt DeeDee.”

“DeeDee Corelis? I thought she didn’t have no brothers or sisters.” Vickie picked up the change and dropped it into the front pocket of her apron.

Sheriff Biels fixed me with a sharp stare as he picked up his Smokey Bear hat and crammed it down onto his head. His stare told me that he would be keeping an eye on me. “Welcome to Bridgewater, Utah, Mr.”

“Vang, Block Vang.”

“If there’s anything I can do for you, Mr. Vang, let me know.” He turned on the heel of his cowboy boot and meandered toward the exit. A few of the locals tossed waves or said hello as he walked out.

I flagged Vicky back to my table. She put one hand on her hip and fixed me with about the most efficient you’re-bothering-me stare I have ever seen. “Have you heard of the Milvian Bridge?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?”

I shrugged and smiled.

“You really ain’t from these parts, are you? The Milvian Bridge is that old rickety thing about 20 miles west of town where the kids race them hotrods.”

“They still race there?” I asked.

“Have for better than 60 years. The Milvian’s closed down now. They had to build a new bridge next to her, but the kids still party there. Don’t you think you are a bit old to be hitting the teen hot spots?”

“Baby, you haven’t seen my car. Maybe sometime I’ll take you for a ride.”

Vickie rolled her eyes and walked away.

I didn’t know what DeeDee meant in her note when she said that people were going to die. I didn’t have anything conclusive enough to write any kind of a story. I only had Stan’s journal and a sense that there was something off just beneath the skin of the little pumpkin town.