Later that evening, Kris sat at the Chicken Shack upon a chrome gilded bar-stool with a cracked red vinyl seat. The owner, Jimmy, was rolling silverware into paper napkins. Jimmy was an older man, but still strapping, with broad shoulders and dark moustache. His hairline was a bit high, but what remained was full and thick. He had angular Italian features. Clearly he had been an extremely handsome man in his youth, and, truth be told, many women gave him their attention still. “Can I get you another one?” he asked Kris, nodding at the mostly-empty beer before him. Kris was crunching away on his laptop, trying to capture the impressions of the day while they were still fresh.
“Not just yet, Jimmy. Thanks.” Kris looked up from the screen at a momentary impasse. Behind the bar, good light from those large windows cast small but stark slivers of shadow between the frames a vast collection of photos hung on the wall. Kris had never noticed them before, never regarded them as anything more than flair. Was that Bruce Willis?! “Jimmy!” Kris pointed to the shot, “Is that who I think it is?”
Jimmy smiled a humble-proud smile as he pulled the picture off the wall and laid it on the bar. The image was badly faded, but it was clearly Bruce Willis, vamping for the camera with his arm slung around Jimmy’s neck. And yes, Jimmy had in fact terribly good-looking. The shot looked to be circa the late 80’s. Bruce and Jimmy both had more hair, and the woman behind them was sporting shoulder pads. “Are you absolutely kidding me?” Kris marveled.
Jimmy explained, “Oh yeah, the Chicken Shack used to be the place to be. This one here,” he pointed to a frame directly behind the register, “this guy was the mayor. And that there is Roy Owens. You probably don’t remember him. He was on Hee-Haw.”
“Oh my gosh! That’s right. No, I totally I remember that from when I was a kid. We used to watch Hee-Haw at my Nana’s house all the time! Jimmy, you’re a rock star, man.”
“And . . .” Jimmy scanned the wall, “where are you? Ok, here we go.” Jimmy handed Kris another dusty frame. Looking back at Kris, from a distance of half a lifetime ago, was a teenage version of himself. Maggie and Alyssa and the two Navajo brothers were there as well. He couldn’t remember the names of the brothers, but he did remember that Alyssa had dated one of them. Maggie made rabbit ears behind Kris while he gave the metal-horns to the camera. Much of the red had been erased by years of sunlight, but it was still magical for Kris to see.
“Jimmy, I am stunned. This is really something special.” While Kris marveled at the snapshot, against his request, Jimmy cracked open another cold beverage for him.
“You know, Kris, she really cares about you.”
“Oh, I know,” he replied, “I’m just a little ticked off at her right now. Nothing big.”
“She’s an amazing girl, that one. You know she’s sort of a legend, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Back in the day she was the master at catching bad guys, the real creeps, right? She had like a gift for it. She was so good, that other cities would call her in to catch their bad guys. She was like super-hero good.”
“Really?” Kris was intrigued and impressed, “I knew that she was good, but I didn’t know she had it like that.” He took a drink, “What do you mean she was like a super-hero? Why the past tense?”
“Well, a few years back, she just sort of lost her touch. She’s still great, better than most. She’s got all that experience and all. But she can’t catch ‘em like she used to. I mean, she still catches criminals and all that; she’s still better than just about any cop out there. But the real crazies, like your Alpha fella, she hasn’t bagged a real creep in years. I guess she’s sort of lost her touch. Nobody’s calling from out of state any more. But how can you fault her, right? She’s still caught more bad guys than you or me. I don’t know. I think it’s like anything else. She’s getting a little older, maybe she’s slippin’. It’s like a rock’n’roll band, you only got so many great songs in you.”
“In-teresting,” Kris replied.
“Maybe that’s why she keeps you around, give her some fresh insight and all that.” The bell at the door clanged as Maggie herself came in. “Hey! Speak of the devil! You’re ears must’ve been burnin’, sister.”
“Good evening, gentlemen! The usual please, Mr. Jimmy.” Her salutation made her think of that old Stones song, and she started singing a verse as she took a stool next to Kris, “I went down to the Chelsea drugstore, to get your prescription filled. I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy, and man, did he look pretty ill – You cain’t always git whut you wont. I said you – Oh, look here’s my drink, I guess I can get what I want. Many thanks, Jim!” Maggie took a cool sip of beer and twisted 90 degrees to look straight at Kris. “Ok, I am cool with you ‘joining the investigation’,” she made quotation marks in the air, “In fact, I like having you around. But officially you are still just a reporter that I am doing a favor for, OK?”
Kris had cooled off since their earlier exchange, but he still wanted to bust her chops a bit, “Again: Don’t need your permission. But: Apology accepted.”
“You’re a putz, Whitlowe.”
“Let’s not spoil the moment, detective.”
“So what do you want?” Maggie asked.
“The usual I suppose.”
“No, Laughing Dog. I mean, which support group do you want to cover? One of the victims was into drugs, the other was into sex. Pick your poison.”
As much as he hated to admit it, Kris had to concede to himself that he probably couldn’t pull of the sex addict thing. Years of abstinence and the company of adolescents had the effect of making him nearly as giddy as one of his teens over the topic of sexual relations. The chances of him successfully navigating the raw public intimacy of a sexual addicts’ round-table were admittedly slim. “I guess I’ll take alcohol.”
“Good enough. Saves me from having to lie about wanting to quit drinking,” Jimmy brought her a beer and a cola and Maggie swiveled deftly towards the bar again. “Oh hey, you’ll appreciate this. Look!” Maggie displayed to Kris a shimmering, olive-colored aluminum water bottle, tattooed with happy blossoming flower silhouettes.
“Very nice,” Kris’ nonchalance betrayed his failure to be impressed.
“You’re missing the point, son,” she thumbed a slotted leaf open and began to pour some of the contents into her glass of cola. “Ya see? You said I was cliché’ before, with the flask. Well, now I am as hip and cool as a soccer mom! And . . .” she licked a drop of whiskey from the rim as she clicked the lid shut, “I’m saving the planet. Yay me!”
“Al Gore would be so proud.”
Jimmy came from the kitchen with the regular, two pot pies. He set them before Kris and Maggie and retreated back to the kitchen. The two fell into a momentary silence as they dug in to their meal. As she took her first bites, Maggie contemplated the human spectacle outside. Two flamboyant men fraternized with a tall woman with gaudy hair and broad shoulders. The trio was joking unabashedly about something and even through the window pane Maggie could tell that the laughter was at someone else’s expense. “You know what’s wrong with this place?” she observed, “Too many queens.”
Kris spat out just a bit of beer. “What?! That’s not very . . . sympathetic. I mean, you being, you know, gay and all.”
“I didn’t say gay people. I said queens. I mean look out there. All the glitz and the glam and the $100 haircuts. Blech! This used to be a sleepy little neighborhood – tidy and quaint, nothing but cute little retired Navy couples. There was one gay bar, The Copper Penny, and that was it – one!” She held up her index finger to clarify the number one, just in case Kris was unclear. She was getting herself revved up. “You know where Bliss is? That was a barber shop – a barber shop, Kris! In Crest Hill. Can you believe that? I still remember walking to school in the sixth grade, and Mrs. Ferguson had taped a note to the door saying that Mister Ferguson had passed away and that the shop would be closing. Now it’s all . . . too much.” Maggie motioned judgmentally at the street life, indicting all of the beautiful passers-by. “The Huns are at the gates, brother. The barber shop is gone; the five-and-dime is gone; the theater only shows La Cage aux Folles and Rocky Horror marathons. The Shack is the last stronghold, Kris, and who knows how much time she has left. After she goes, the Glitterati will have won completely.”
Kris touched Maggie’s hand as if about to confess a secret, and said calmly, “Hey, maybe this will make things better.” He slid the picture to her across the worn bar. And in a moment, just like that, the cynical cop was gone, and a sweet, sentimental old friend sat in her place.
“Oh wow. Look at us, Kris. My hair is so big. Everybody’s there.” Maggie traced a decade of dust from the glass and ruminated silently over the artifact. “Everything was so good then.”
Both of them were transported into the photo, transported to a place before losses of faith and dead girls found in stadia, a time before gentrification and 12 step programs. Kris wanted to ask her something, but was hesitant. “Why did you have to go?” he finally said, “It was like you were here one day, and gone the next. It was so sudden.”
“Oh, man,” Maggie sighed at the question, as if to say, Are we really going to get into this? But she obliged anyway, “Oh, it’s no story that hasn’t been told 1000 times before. The family was having some problems; the folks felt like a new start would be best for everybody, so Dad put in for a transfer and moved us east. These things just happen, I guess. And then after college I realized that I wanted to come back, so, that’s it.”
Kris found her explanation dissatisfying. “Things were so different after you left. Jonathon enlisted. A few of the gang discovered weed, so they went off and did the whole stoner thing. Alonzo and Alyssa got pregnant and started playing house.”
“In high school?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of wild, though. They are actually still together and doing great. I think he’s a welder or something, and she is in college to ‘learn computers’.”
“Wow. Good on ‘em.”
“I guess you heard about the fire?”
“Yeah, I heard through the grapevine.”
“I don’t know. Everything just started sucking after you left.”
“It’s called growing up, Kris.”
“I know, I just. . . I wish you had never left.”
“Yeah, I know,” Maggie said, “me too.”
“Half a lifetime ago.”
“Half a lifetime ago,” Maggie agreed.
A shrill chirp from Maggie’s phone broke gathering melancholy of the moment (which Maggie was thankful for). She checked the screen. “Crap-burgers!” she barked, “I gotta go.” She pulled a bill from her wallet and put it underneath a napkin dispenser, “I got you tonight. Listen, though, could you get Jimmy to box this up for me? I appreciate it.” Maggie crammed as much pot pie into her face as it could possibly hold and planted a kiss on Kris’ cheek, leaving a gravy-and-crumb swak-mark behind. “Ruvv you!” she mumbled before running out the door.
--------
Kris was alone with his thoughts again, so he finished his dinner and figured he would get back to writing. He remembered that he had purchased a wireless adapter, so he could work from the Shack now, if he wanted, and avoid a scolding from Detective Kennedy. He plugged the device into his computer and went through the usual cryptic protocol of setting up the connection, a task which Kris was expert in. Kris adroitly input all of the appropriate passwords and addresses, and waited patiently as his Mac scoured the aether for a conduit to the virtual world of the Internet. As the tiny watch icon on his desktop ticked away, Kris was shocked to notice that Maggie had left a $100 bill.
The Mac chimed that it was now on-line. With the new wireless account, Kris had also acquired a new email address. He figured that it would be a good opportunity to set up a new email dedicated exclusively to readers of his blog. A small envelope icon on his desktop had a tiny number one on it, indicating the blog already had one message. Kris assumed that it would be a standard welcome message, but found that it was instead from a user named Alphamail.
Kris opened it and found that it contained only five words, confirming what he had already suspected, “I didn’t kill Anastasia Demopaulos.”
No comments:
Post a Comment