Chapter 3 #2
“Nora, honey, I want you to know how proud I am of you. And how much I admire who you have become. As long as it doesn’t make work difficult for you, then that works, because I can’t keep my job unless I’m living within the beck and call of the state capitol.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Nora said. “But you fly home tomorrow, and I’m still here sorting out the last bits of my parents’ lives. I don’t expect it to take long, and at the same time, I’m working from here like I work at home, and packing up what to keep and what to let go.”
“Then we make the most of our time here together and deal with what comes next when it’s time.”
She looked up, startled to realize it was already dark outside. She stood and began drawing curtains and pulling down shades. When she saw Ash watching her, she shrugged it off.
“Prying eyes,” she said.
He accepted the answer without commenting, which was a relief. He already knew she lived and worked in a high-rise in Fort Worth, but she was unwilling to ruin their reunion by revealing why she’d climbed an ivory tower and refused to come down. That was for another day.
They made love in the dark, and fell asleep in each other’s arms, and he was gone after daylight, leaving her well-loved and at peace, and with the knowledge that he didn’t snore.
* * *
After their visit to prison, Freddie and Everett Brandt made the decision to abandon the Dallas/Fort Worth area and move to Amarillo.
It was a place big enough to get lost in, but close enough to Crossroads to investigate the possibility of finding their inheritance.
They’d bought into that idea really quick, and were already imagining it secreted away in some nook or cranny on the Kingston property.
Freddie’s truck was in a shop back in Mansfield.
He’d taken it in for repair, then didn’t have the money to get it out, and a man Everett knew was in jail, awaiting transport to an area prison, so he took it upon himself to pick the lock at the man’s apartment, take the keys to his sports car, and drive it out of the parking lot like he owned it.
It was an older model white Mustang, but it ran good, and they needed wheels to get to Amarillo.
They packed up what they could carry from the places they’d been living and abandoned the rest, leaving landlords to clear out the refuse of their lives.
Freddie hadn’t worked since his last stint in jail, and Everett was drawing disability from an on-the-job accident three years ago.
The way he looked at it, he was set for life, until they found out about the money.
After that, all he could think about was one million dollars.
A week later, they were holed up in Amarillo, paying rent by the month in a rehabbed motel that had been turned into apartments, and planning the kind of house they were going to buy after they recovered the loot.
But the hitch in the plan was Jacob Kingston. He still owned the bar and lived on the property. There was never going to be easy access. Still, they decided to pay a visit to the bar, see the layout, and feel the old man out about selling it.
The sun was shining, but the day was cold as they set out for Crossroads, but the car was warm, and the tank was full of gas.
They had beer money in their pockets, and a plan they’d cooked up the night before.
Everett was well aware of Freddie’s issues.
He didn’t always understand, or get things right, and began talking about the plan again as they drove.
“Now Freddie, we have been over this a dozen times, but I want to make sure you remember your role. We’ll go in the bar like regular customers, and I’ll casually ask Kingston if he’s interested in selling the property, right?
If he is, then he’ll have to let us at least look around to check it out,” Everett said.
“But we don’t call each other by our real names.
I’m Joe Wilson and you’re my brother Dan. ”
Freddie frowned. “I don’t want to be Dan. I want to be Darren.”
Everett rolled his eyes. “Fine, you’re Darren. And what’s my name?”
“Everett,” Freddie said.
“No! I’m Joe. Shit, Freddie. Just let me do the talking or you’ll screw this up before we even get started.”
Freddie frowned, but he didn’t argue. Freddie knew his limits. He knew he was good-looking, but Everett had the brains.
* * *
It was a chilly afternoon at the Tumbleweed Bar, but late-October weather in the Texas panhandle was iffy on a good day.
The wind had a bite to it, and had there been enough moisture in the air, it might have been cold enough to work up a little snow.
But it hadn’t happened, and the nip didn’t slow down the customers.
The Tumbleweed was cozy and warm, and the perfect hideout for every old cowboy and every out-of-work local in Crossroads, not to mention the customers from the constant traffic out front on Highway 86.
Jacob was mopping up a beer spill on the floor and waiting for Billy Jack Woford’s wife, Lisa, to come pick him up, because Billy Jack didn’t drive anymore. Nobody minded Billy Jack’s lapses in memory, or that one beer made him drunk. His wife was just grateful he was still alive.
Once Billy Jack had earned a living as a farrier until he got kicked in the head.
He had been in a coma for weeks and woke up thinking he was still in high school, and that his wife was his girlfriend.
The kick erased fifteen years of his memory.
He drew disability and sometimes forgot how to count the money he owed, but Billy Jack would just smile at his own confusion. He didn’t have a care in the world.
Jacob got the spill cleaned up, stored the mop, and was back at the bar serving customers when the door opened.
He looked up, thinking it might be Lisa coming for Billy Jack, and saw two strangers, instead.
He watched them scoping out the place and thought nothing of it as they meandered toward the bar and sat down at the two stools at the end.
“Afternoon. What’ll it be?” Jacob said.
“Two Lone Star Originals,” Everett said.
Jacob got the bottles out of the cooler and popped the lids, eyeing the men as he served them. “Enjoy,” he said as he set a little bowl of pretzels between them and walked away.
“Now what?” Freddie whispered.
“Drink your beer. Have a pretzel, Darren. Relax.”
Freddie grinned. It was like being a spy. “Yeah…yeah…right,” and took a big swig.
Everett was eyeing Kingston’s size and age, trying to decide if he was as imposing as he appeared. He’d expected an old man, not a big, physically fit dude. The only thing that gave away his age was the full head of gray hair and the weathered maturity of his face.
He popped a pretzel in his mouth and crunched it, and when Kingston went to the cash register to make change for a customer, Everett saw the ripple of muscles across his back and frowned.
What Everett didn’t know was, at the same moment he frowned, Jacob glanced up in the mirror over the bar and saw it. That one’s trouble, he thought, then turned back to his customer.
“Here you go, Waylon. Buy Lorraine some flowers before you go home, and she won’t even care that you’re late.”
Waylon grinned. “I’m always late getting home.”
Jacob shook his head. “Doesn’t mean she’ll always be there when you get back. Buy her flowers, man. Trust me. Don’t ever take your woman for granted.”
The smile slid off Waylon Morris’s face. They all knew what Jacob’s wife had done to him and their sons.
“Right,” Waylon said, and left the bar as three more customers walked in.
Everett Brandt finished his beer and was pulling out his wallet when Jacob came back to them.
“Ready for another round?” he asked.
Everett flashed a big grin. “Not this time. I’m driving.”
“Good call,” Jacob said. “Just passing through?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Everett said. “I’m Joe Wilson. This is my brother Darren. We’ve been admiring your setup. This is a nice place. Are you the owner, or…”
“Thanks, and yes, the Tumbleweed is mine,” Jacob said.
“Ever think of selling it? We’re looking for something like this.”
Jacob shook his head. “Sorry. No… Not for sale.”
Freddie felt obliged to at least participate. “What would a place like this sell for?” he asked.
Everett resisted the urge to put his fist in his brother’s mouth.
Jacob’s focus shifted to the big blond-headed man. “You don’t look much like your brother.”
“I take after Pop and Ev… Uh… Joe takes after Mama.”
Jacob caught the hesitation. His suspicions were right. They weren’t who they said they were, and they weren’t here for beer.
“I can’t answer your question about what the bar’s worth.
When you have exactly what you want in life, no amount of money can tempt you to give that up,” Jacob said, then took the money they left on the bar and put it in the register.
He glanced up in the mirror again and caught them leaving.
They were arguing all the way out the door and still arguing when they got into an older model white car and drove away.
He shrugged them off and forgot about them.
As for the Brandt brothers, their reconnoiter had revealed more than they expected, none of it good.
“You just had to talk,” Everett shouted. “Damn it all to hell, Freddie! Whatever Kingston thought about us before, when you sputtered around with which name you were going to call me, we were made. He didn’t know what we were about, but he knew we were lying.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Joe.”
“Joe? Joe? Now I’m Joe? Look…the charade is over, Freddie. I’m Everett.”
“Right,” Freddie said, then glanced out the window at the passing scenery.
Silence settled within the cab and Everett was just driving, wanting to get home before bad weather came in, when Freddie shifted nervously, then glanced at his brother.
“Hey, Everett?”
“Yeah?” Everett said.
“What’s a charade?”
Everett sighed. Freddie didn’t just look like Pop. He wasn’t any smarter than him, either.