Chapter 5
Richard wasn’t happy. He wasn’t even a little pissed off, but so powerfully angry that his head hurt.
Rubbing his forehead while he tried to talk someone into taking him home, he thought for sure that people were more of a bastard than they used to be.
Back before he’d been to prison, he’d have been able to bum a fiver off of someone for a call or two.
Now, everyone was keeping their money around where he couldn’t get to it. No more free handouts for him today.
It didn’t help that the airport police were watching his every move.
All he had to do was get out of the airport, and he’d be just fine with them.
But he couldn’t get a ride if he was hanging around the door like a homeless man.
Damn it, but he just wanted to get to his money and fuck the rest of them.
Talking to that person on the phone, he couldn’t remember his name, he’d been hung up on, and that hadn’t gone over well.
He’d broken the phone when he’d slammed it into the receiver.
The police were pissed off about that, too, but since they knew that he didn’t have any money, they’d let it slide.
All he’d done was brush up against someone, and they’d yelled that he was trying to take their wallet.
He’d almost had it, too, but for the screaming.
He’d seen the man in line at the coffee shop.
He’d had a fistful of money that would have choked a horse.
Noticing where he’d kept it, inside the jacket pocket, he nearly had it out when the man went crazy, saying that he was stealing from him.
Of course, the police didn’t believe him, a man with nothing but twelve dollars in his wallet that he’d stolen in New York.
So they’d been following him around since then in pairs.
Like he was going to be able to get home with them tagging around him all the time.
Then he just started begging people for a ride to Dresden or something close so that he could get home to his daughter’s wedding.
That’s what he’d been telling them since he started out, and so far, he’d had no takers.
People were just too untrusting, is all it was, and he didn’t know how to overcome that.
His first plan of action when he got the money was to come back here and flip it around in everyone’s face who dared disbelieve him when he’d told them that his daughter was wealthy and that she’d make sure that he was all right from now on.
The first thing he was going to do after killing her supposed husband was to make sure that he never had less than a thousand dollars in his pockets at all times.
And he was going to carry them around in twenties, so he could tell people to keep the change.
He’d only do that to people who had treated him poorly, and so far, that was just about every person in the fucking airport that he’d come in contact with.
But in order to do any of that, he had to get to Dresden and figure out how the hell that was going to happen, which was costing him all his patience. He looked over at the cops who were still following him around like they had nothing better to do.
“Will one of you call my daughter up and tell her where I am?” The first guy said no, but the second guy said he’d do it. “She’s got a husband as a doctor, so you know I’m good for the call.”
“I don’t care if her husband is a homeless man. The less I have to follow you around and your sad attempts at getting home, the better off I’ll be. What’s the number?” He didn’t know it. “What do you expect me to do? Dial every Valley in the phone book? That’s not going to work.”
“I called the doctor, and he said he was her husband. That’s all I remember because we got disconnected somehow.
” Sure, he did, and his mother was a saint, he thought.
The fucker had hung up on him, is what happened, and he wasn’t going to let that slide either.
“There are a bunch of them in that little town. They all have the same last name. I don’t know that they’re all in the phone book, but the doctor is. ”
Just as he was making some headway in getting her on the phone, some guy walked up to them and smiled. It wasn’t one that he’d be friendly with, but he found himself smiling back.
“Are you the guy who’s heading to Dresden?
I’m headed to Zanesville, and I can make it so I go through Dresden on my way home.
” He asked him if he knew the Valley men.
“Everyone knows the Valley men. You’d have to be stupid not to.
I can take you as far as the main drag, then I’m headed home. Won’t be too far out of my way.”
“I’ll take it.” He was ready to get there when the cop found the number. There was a service on when he called, so he left a message. “Tell them that I’ve got a ride and I’ll be there in a couple of hours. They’d better be waiting dinner on me because I’m powerfully hungry.”
He thought about other things he could say to them, but there were too many people around.
What he had to say to them was private like and something that would get him into trouble with the people around him if he were to let go that they didn’t want him there.
He was coming by god, and they’d better be ready for him.
Richard was about as pissed off as he’d ever been in his life after this, and they were going to pay for it.
He’d not realized how late it was when he got into the man’s car.
He had a woman with him who was fat and ugly, but he told him that she was going to have a baby and had come home to meet his family.
Whatever. He just wanted to be in Dresden, where he could take his shoes off and be comfortable.
He’d already walked more miles today than he had in a couple of years. His feet were burning to be set free.
Richard didn’t know what to do with himself in the car with the couple.
He was sleepy, that was for sure, and found himself dozing off once in a while to the quiet rumble of the road beneath him.
As soon as he got comfortable, he made sure that he had his bag close at hand, he curled up into a ball, and closed his eyes.
They were driving, and he had no reason to make sure that they knew where they were going.
“We’re here.” He nearly cursed at the man for waking him up. “Hey, mister. We’re here. It’s time to wake up.”
He got out of the car and stretched. There was the main drag just like he remembered it, with cars in the yards and pizza joints all over the place.
Of course, he couldn’t see much, not with it being as dark as it was, but he knew that come morning, everything would come back to him and he’d be able to find his daughter.
Right now, all he wanted was a good meal and a bed to lie down in.
“You need anything?” he said that he could use a cup of coffee, but he’d get it on his own. “I wasn’t offering to pay for anything. I just meant, did you get your things out of the back of the car? We need to be going.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve got my bag. You really came through for me, and I appreciate that. Thanks.” He was trying out his being nice thing when he realized that the kid and his wife were driving away. “Good riddance, too, to you. I’ve got better things to do than fawn over you and your fat wife.”
Huffing his way to the convenience store, Richard wondered why there wasn’t a car for him.
He’d told the service that he was going to be here, and this time, there would be no excuses for him not to have a limo just waiting to pick him up.
That’s the least they could have done after the way that they treated him at the airport.
As he walked into the store, he saw that they were about as dead as he’d been on his feet.
Richard decided to chat it up a bit to figure out where they lived so he’d not be out on the street all night.
“Hiya. I’m looking for the doctor here in town. Valley is his name.” The woman behind the counter said that he was closed at this time of night. “I know that, I guess. I was wondering how one got in touch with him if he had an emergency or something. I’m his father-in-law, Richard Taylor.”
“You’re related to Sharon?” He had to keep telling himself that was her name. Not Rachel, like he kept thinking it was. He told the woman that she was his daughter. “We heard about you. You abandoned her when she was just a kid because you had to go to prison. Yeah, we heard all about you, Dick.”
“It’s Richard, not Dick. I told him that when I was speaking to him.
We had a slight misunderstanding, and I’m here to see him.
Do you suppose you could call him and tell him that I’m here waiting to be picked up?
” He was trying his best not to get upset right now.
All he needed was for the police to be called, and him being put in jail, too.
For all he knew, they’d not bail him out either.
“I just wanted to make sure they know that I’m in town and have no place to go. So I need to get in touch with him.”
“Can’t help you with that. We’re not to even tell you where he lives.
You made it clear to him that you were only coming here for money, and he’s not one to give it up so easily.
” He was starting to get mad, and he was sure that the two women knew it.
“Now you find yourself a nice place to hunker down and see about getting some sleep. Not that I think you’re going to have a better day tomorrow.
You’ll find that the entire town isn’t too keen on helping you out.
Not after the way you treated that lovely daughter of yours. ”