| |
GERTIE WAS HITTING the jackpot with the three ladies, especially after buying them a round of whiskeys. Turned out Mary and Jennie knew Bonnie, who indeed had recently been pressured by Wade Guillory to carry on another affair with him, even though Bonnie had started seeing someone else and told Mr. Guillory she was taken.
“Is my rotten boyfriend Gill the guy she’s seeing?” Gertie asked.
Mary shook her head. “From time to time they get together. She’s serious about another guy who’s separated from his wife and is in the process of getting a divorce.” Mary tilted the shot glass and allowed the last drip of whiskey to drop onto her tongue. “She keeps your boyfriend on the side even though she thinks he’s way too clingy, just in case her Mr. Serious doesn’t go through with the divorce. Bonnie likes being single, but she also likes a man around when she needs one. Even a clingy one.”
“Does Mr. Serious have a name?” Gertie asked.
Mary grimaced. “Sorry. Bonnie swore us to secrecy.”
Mary’s lips may have been zipped, but her eyes sure weren’t. She kept tossing side glances toward the poker room, as did the other two gals at the table.
“I hope he’s good looking,” Gertie said. “After what that horrible Wade Guillory put her through, she deserves someone good. And someone other than my rotten boyfriend.”
“He is,” Jennie said, her nose reddening with each sip of whiskey. “He looks like an older Burt Reynolds.”
“Jennie,” Mary said, scolding her. “It’s private. Bonnie didn’t want anyone to know anything about him.”
“And I respect her privacy. Please don’t tell me anymore.” Gertie stood. “I should go. It was nice chatting with you.”
After leaving the table, Gertie made her way to the far end of the bar, intending to “accidentally” push her way into the card room while searching for the ladies’ room. All she had to do was see which man resembled Burt Reynolds.
A beefy man stood in her path. When she tried to circle around him, he extended his tattooed arm out to prevent her from getting any closer to the door.
“That’s a private room,” he said in a gravelly voice. “For club members only.”
Gertie shrugged. “Well, tell me how much the club fee is, and I’ll pay it.”
“Men only.”
Gertie smiled. “I understand.” It was obvious this was a man who’d had his share of scantily clad women wanting favors. Even Marge in the pink skirt wouldn’t move this mountain. She opened her purse and took out her wallet. “You don’t make the rules around here.” Pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Based on the watered-down drinks the cheap owner makes his bartenders pour, I’m assuming he doesn’t pay you what you’re worth. So maybe this will help you break one of his silly rules.”
He smiled back. “Actually, I make the silly rules around here. I own this place. Men only.”
She sighed as she heard laughter coming from inside the card room. She could see through the opening at the bottom of the doors several pairs of feet seated around a table. Unfortunately, she wasn’t tall enough to see above the doors to get a good look at their faces. She needed to be elevated.
She glanced at the bar, hoping to find a spot where she could hop up and give herself some height. But even if she were able to do that, the bar didn’t wrap around far enough to see inside the club room.
Hooting and whistling from behind interrupted her thoughts. She turned and saw a woman climb up on the saddle of an electronic horse ride, the kind of kiddie ride she’d seen outside of supermarkets in bigger cities. “Old Buck” was written in Western-style cursive on the base of the ride. A man plunked a coin in the coin box and pressed a button. Immediately the horse began to buck, a bit more than a children’s ride, enough to make the woman riding atop gyrate and jiggle.
“I bet the men love that,” Gertie said, rolling her eyes to the bar owner.
He must have missed Gertie’s eye roll, because his eyes gleamed and he nodded proudly. “They do. Aside from being a ‘cheapskate’ bar owner, I like to build things. When I heard a bar owner in Texas was building a mechanical bull, I thought, ‘hell, I can do that.’ I went and bought me one of those kiddie rides and messed with the gears. Souped it up.”
Gertie watched as the men continued to ogle the woman on the toy bronco. “I think you need more spice in that soup.”
“I gave it plenty. There are four gears. She’s using gear one, the ladies’ gear. Gears two and three are made for men who actually know how to stay on a real bucking horse.”
“What’s the fourth gear?” Gertie asked.
He smiled broadly. “Hydraulics that’ll lift the ride a couple of feet. It’s still a work in progress, though, so no one’s allowed to ride in four yet. But when I’ve perfected it...”
Gertie looked back at the door to the card room, then again at the bucking toy horse. It was already on a platform. Maybe that would be just the lift she needed.
The ride came to an end. One of the hooting men who wore a cowboy hat lifted the woman off the horse and set her on the floor. He pulled a bill from his pocket and stuffed it in her tight blouse. Other men gathered around followed suit. “Who’s next?” the man in the cowboy hat called out.
“Me!” Gertie answered.
––––––––
MARGE CHOSE TO REMAIN silent, hoping Buster would spill the beans about who hired him and what he was hired to do. So far all he’d said was that Marge shouldn’t have come to the bar tonight.
“Not that I don’t enjoy getting a look at you,” he said, raising his brows. “But if you think you can come here and make me change my mind about charging you extra, you’ve got another thing coming.” A couple walked by their table. Buster remained silent until they’d passed out of earshot. He leaned into Marge. “You have only yourself to blame. I told you what I was going to say, and you said ‘fine.’ It makes me look like an idiot when I have to go to the sheriff and change my story. You’re lucky I’m not charging you double to do that.”
Marge nodded, playing along. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”
Buster nodded as well. “And I told you where to drop off the money. And when. Tomorrow at the park. The Swamp Bar’s not the place for a money exchange.”
He sighed and glanced around the bar. “But since you’re already here...” he reached under the table and placed his hand on Marge’s thigh. “You can place the money in my hand.”
Marge had no idea how much had been agreed upon by Buster and the woman he thought she was. “Why don’t we renegotiate the price? And maybe go over again what you’re going to tell the sheriff.”
He frowned. “You were okay with the price when we talked over the phone.” Buster thought a moment and cast a suspicious glance at her. “Now that I think about it, I suggested meeting in the park at midnight, but you said you didn’t drive after dark. And yet you’re right here.”
Damn, she thought, he was smarter than she’d given him credit for. Just then a “Yeehaw!” rang out from the other side of the bar. A familiar “Yeehaw!” She and Buster both turned toward the commotion.
“Oh, my Lord,” Marge said under her breath. Gertie was sitting on the mechanical horse. A group of men crowded around the attraction and were cheering her on.
––––––––
GERTIE SAT UP ON THE kiddie horse and waved to the crowd of men. Already the raised platform had given her a better view of the poker room and the players in it. She could see several of the men’s faces. A couple others at the table had their heads down, scrutinizing their cards. It was those two with their heads down that interested her. Of the men she was able to see, none of them resembled Burt Reynolds.
“Are you paying attention?” the bar owner asked. He was standing on the platform next to her, explaining the rules.
Gertie nodded. “I’m only allowed to press button number one.”
“That’s right. And if you have to jump off, jump to the sides. These blow-up mattresses will cushion you.”
“Or jump in my arms,” the man with the cowboy hat shouted. “I’ll cushion you.”
“What if I accidentally press button number two, then what happens?”
“Don’t press it. It’s a bigger buck.”
“What’s underneath the tape?” Gertie asked, indicating the fourth button that had a piece of masking tape covering it.
“That’s gear four. The one I’m fine-tuning and don’t want anyone to use yet.”
“The one with the hydraulics? The one that goes up higher?” Gertie asked.
The bar owner nodded. “Just stay with button number one. Okay, you ready?”
She nodded. “Let me get a quarter from my purse.”
He shook his head and held up a quarter. “This one’s on me.”
He dropped his quarter into the ride’s slot and stepped off the platform. The gathering crowd of men cheered her on as she pressed button number “1” and the horse began bucking from front to back, causing her body to gyrate to the delight of her audience.
“Yeehaw!” she called out again, keeping her eye on the poker room. She was having a hard time seeing one of the men’s faces as another man’s head was in her way. She’d have to get even higher. She lifted herself so that she was standing in the stirrups.
“Ride ‘em, Pickles!” one of the men shouted.
Gertie caught a glimpse of a man in the room who did resemble an older Burt Reynolds. She had a strange feeling she’d seen him before, but the glimpse was so quick she wasn’t sure.
“No standing,” the bar owner called out to the boos of the men egging her on.
Gertie sat back down in the saddle and waved to the crowd. She needed to go higher. Hoping maybe speed setting “2” with a bigger buck would do the trick, she pressed it. The buck was indeed faster, and she had to grip the handles tighter and press her legs tighter to avoid falling off. It must have also made her look more seductive, because the hooting of the men grew in intensity, as did the owner’s voice, commanding her to stay with button number “1”.
This was doing nothing to help get her higher. She glanced down at the tape covering the button that would activate the hydraulics.
“Reduce your speed,” the owner called out again.
She nodded to him and reached down as if to push button number “1”. Instead, she pressed down on the tape covering button number “4.” The ride screeched as the hydraulics lifted the horse higher, accompanied by a faster and more aggressive bucking.
“Don’t do that!” the owner called out. “Number one. Button number one!”
Gertie felt herself sliding off the back of the horse and grabbed Buck’s head, pulling herself back on the saddle.
“I see boobs!” A man shouted. “Whooooo!”
“Go Pickles!”
Gertie lifted her head and looked down through the bar doors. The men inside were all standing now, looking over the top of the doors at her. Some were cheering.
Even with her head bucking up and down she was able to get a good look at him.
And, indeed, he did look like Burt Reynolds.
She hadn’t thought of it when they’d met several days ago. Her thoughts were elsewhere that day. The day she and her friends discovered Mr. Guillory’s body.
She certainly hadn’t been thinking how Deputy Broussard looked like Burt Reynolds.
She was so stunned to see Broussard in the poker room that she momentarily loosened her grip of the horse and slid to the side of him. She grabbed onto the reins and tried to pull herself up. Then she heard a pop and the horse began bucking wildly. She couldn’t help herself from screaming. Even the men from the card room began rushing out.
“Unplug it!” one of the men shouted.
“No, don’t do that!” the owner shouted back. “She’ll go flying! You’ll have to jump away from the horse, Pickles!”
––––––––
MARGE AND BUSTER HAD gotten up from their seats and were watching the spectacle. Gertie was hanging off the side of the mechanical horse, which had somehow lifted itself several feet up from the platform and was bucking violently. As spies, they’d been trained not to blow their cover during a mission, even if a fellow spy was in trouble. But they weren’t spies anymore, and Gertie was one of Marge’s best friends.
“Push away from the horse!” Marge yelled. “Damn. Wait here. I have to go save her,” Marge said to Buster.
She started to move toward the other end of the bar when Gertie leapt backward off the bucking horse, landing in the arms of a crowd of men who had gathered around her. Applause broke out as someone pulled the plug of the horse and it came to an abrupt halt.
Buster came up next to Marge and stared at Gertie as she was set down with her feet flat on the floor by the men, who, one by one, stuffed bills in her crop top. The bar erupted in cheers and clapping.
“Wait. She looks familiar.” He looked at Marge. “Do you know her?”
Marge shook her head. “Nope. Never seen her.”
“But you were going to go over there and save her.”
“It’s my personality type.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “Who are you?”
“The one who hired you,” she said, touching his earlobe to distract him. She leaned in to lick his ear, but it looked like it could use a good cleaning, so thought otherwise.
His suspicion of her must have trumped his manly desires, because he took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hired me for what?”
The teasing of his earlobe may not have worked on Buster, but it was enough to set off his girlfriend, who stood at the bar watching them. “Keep your hands off him, bitch!” she called out.
The focus of the bar patrons had now shifted from Gertie to the enraged girlfriend, who shouted out her intention to “kill the skank.” No one kept her from storming over to the table. After all, a good cat fight was just icing on tonight’s cake for many of the bar’s clientele.
––––––––
GERTIE’S EARS PRICKED up when she heard the word “skank.” Not that some of the women in attendance tonight wouldn’t qualify for that designation, but Marge was definitely at the top of the skankily dressed list for the evening.
The word was shouted from a woman who was making her way from the bar to a little alcove over by the restrooms. Gertie shook her head as several more men held out bills to slip in her top. “Sorry, boys, but I have to go. Oh, wait, is that a ten?” She grabbed the $10 bill from an eager hand and stuffed it alongside other bills sticking out of her top. She rushed over to find Marge standing at a table with her hands up.
“You do not want to fight me,” Marge was telling the irate woman who was vowing to kill her. “It will not end well for you.”
“I told you she was no good,” the woman was shouting to Buster.
The men standing around started hooting and hollering, “Cat fight!”
“I don’t know who she is,” Buster said to the angry woman. “She started accusing me of all kinds of things.”
Gertie pushed her way through the crowd and stood in between the woman and Marge. She needed to give the crowd a reason to leave. “She’s a Fed!” Gertie shouted to the crowd eager for some entertainment. “Run!”
It didn’t matter that drinking was legal at the Swamp Bar, located just outside the city limits of Sinful, which was dry. Just shouting, “Fed” in a bar in these parts was enough to remind many of the people there that sometime in their lives they probably committed a crime, even if they didn’t remember doing it. Best to run.
Buster appeared horrified, momentarily frozen. He then grabbed the irate woman and soon they too were joining the throng of people for the exits.
“What the hell’s going on?” Marge asked. “I could have handled her.”
Gertie looked over toward the card room. Deputy Broussard was fighting his way through the panicked crowd toward her.
“We need to leave. Now.” Gertie grabbed Marge and they joined the exodus outside. Instead of heading toward a car, like most of the patrons, they hit a path toward the dock, where Ida Belle was waiting in their boat. Marge hopped in first, followed by Gertie.
“Gun it!” Gertie shouted to Ida Belle, who started the motor and sped away from the bar.
Ida Belle gave several glances at the bills stuffed in Gertie’s crop top. “I’m not even going to ask.”
“I could have handled that gal,” Marge yelled. “You didn’t have to yell, ‘Fed.’”
“Oh, yes, I did,” Gertie said. “Deputy Broussard was there playing cards. And get this. I found out Bonnie was seeing someone other than Gill. Deputy Oscar Broussard.”
Marge’s eyes widened.
“What the hell?” Ida Belle said. “He’s the one leading the murder investigation.”
“The one who has steered the investigation toward my Aunt Louanne,” Marge added.
Gertie nodded. “Ladies, I think we might have to add another suspect to our list.”