I grabbed a six-pack of subzero, chilled, take-away brews from the Longhorn Saloon AKA the last place I had seen Jasper alive. Say what you will about rodeo fans, but they don’t even bat an eye when a fully costumed clown walks by with an arm full of booze.
I rendezvoused with Kelly Lewis behind the Stetson Bowl, a mere hundred yards from the mobile home of the rodeo performer whose clothes I had stolen. I found it distressing being so close to the scene of the assault, no matter how ‘gentle’ my cousin assured me he had been. I had no idea how hard Declan choked the poor bastard, but if it was sufficient to ensure that the jester would remain unconscious, I finally had the chance to question Jasper’s ex.
I handed Lewis a beer and took a seat on a tree stump across from his lawn chair while he roasted a couple of marshmallows on a long, two-pronged, stainless steel fork. He held them over a small bonfire.
“S’more?” he asked, using his other hand to retrieve some graham wafers and a Neilson’s Jersey Milk chocolate bar out of the duffel bag beside him.
“I’m good, thanks,” I replied.
He held up his beer and I leaned forward, reaching across the open flame so we could clink bottles.
“To not being gored,” he said.
“To not being gored.”
We took big sips and reclined in our seats. “That last rider was fucking bananas,” said Lewis. “Never seen that guy before. And hoisting a brewski with his free hand to boot,” he said, chuckling. “I’m not sure if I just witnessed a maniac or a trailblazer in action.”
I wiped the sweat from the back of my neck and tried not to lick my chops like a Pavlovian dog upon hearing the mention of my favourite fruit while anticipation of a frosty banana milkshake tiptoed across my taste buds. “No doubt. I think that guy is from Ireland,” I said, feigning ignorance.
Lewis shrugged. “Worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.”
“I’ll drink to that, Bub.”
We sipped our brews in silence as I tried to figure out how to smoothly segue the conversation. After a few moments, I gave up and went for it.
“Look, Kelly—I need to be straight with you about something.”
“Shoot.”
“I’m not a rodeo clown.”
Lewis took a big pull from his frosty longneck bottle of suds. “Hey, Man. I know.”
“You do?”
“Hell, yeah. Felt like a fraud myself for at least a year on the circuit. But if you pay your dues, in time you’ll build up your confidence.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant—”
“Just don’t ever mistake confidence for crazy like that Irishman did,” he said, shaking his head while referring to Declan. “I’ve never seen a beast buck so hard. That wacko must have pulled the flank strap extra tight.”
I leaned back on my dry and cracked lodgepole pine stump stool and sipped my beer. Lewis scraped globs of melted marshmallow off of his spit and onto a graham wafer, then topped it with a gooey chocolate bar and squished the sweet sandwich flat with another graham cracker. He took a messy bite and stoked the little bonfire with his stainless steel skewer.
“Flank strap?” I asked, curious what Lewis was referring to.
Lewis slurped the chewy confection of melted gelatin, cocoa, and crumbs off of his lips. “Right, you’re new. A “flank strap” is rodeo slang for the sheepskin-lined rope tied around the bull’s lower torso near its hind legs. Drives the poor bastards batshit.”
I nodded impatiently, frustrated that I was getting nowhere. “My name is Jed Ounstead. I’m a private investigator. And I just recently became fast friends with Jasper Adams.”
Lewis stopped chewing and stared at me. “What?” he said, his mouth full of dessert. “But you were—we just corralled a bull together, Man!”
“I know. But I needed to talk with you ASAP and security wouldn’t let me in without a little creative deception.”
“Why the hell not?” he snapped, quickly growing antagonistic.
I scratched an itch on my cheekbone above my trimmed beard. I felt the makeup cake under my fingernails. I wiped the residue on the oversized overalls I was wearing. “It’s kind of a long story. And it’s not really worth the time trying to explain it,” I said.
Lewis considered my words as he laid his skewer down on the grass and dirt in front of him. He kept his suspicious eyes laser focused on me, despite sliding a cellphone out of his pocket. He stole a glance at his device and tapped the screen quickly a few times before returning his gaze to me.
“You’re in cahoots with that Irish jackass, aren’t you? I knew there was something off about that whole gong show.”
“That was my cousin and his ill-conceived attempt to cause a distraction so I could get you alone to chat.”
“This is weird,” Lewis said, chomping down the last of his s’more and chasing it with another sip of his beer. “And if it’s about Jasper, then I sure as hell have nothing to say.”
“Look, I know you guys were lovers. I just need to know what went down between you two. Why the bad blood?”
“What did he say?” he asked anxiously.
“Just that you guys had a good thing going there for a while.”
Somehow that cut through Lewis’s defenses. “Jasper said that?” he asked, softly.
“Yeah.”
“And you believed him?”
“Let’s just say the reason we bonded was because we were drowning our sorrows while commiserating over lost loves. I didn’t know him well, but I can tell you that I question a lot of people in my line of work. I have no doubt he was being genuine.”
Lewis’s eyes welled up ever-so-slightly with the formation of tears. He sniffed quickly and cleared his throat.
“I can’t believe he hired a PI.”
“He didn’t. I took it upon myself to track you down after …” I trailed off, catching myself from revealing Jasper’s fate. Lewis seemed like he had nothing to hide so far, but for all I knew he had been playing me from the start.
“After what?”
I bit my tongue, unsure of how to proceed. Turned out it didn’t matter, because before I could even muster a response, I felt something slink around my neck and tighten so snuggly I was certain my Adam’s apple was being crushed.
My hands snaked out behind my head, only to find two giant muscular arms that felt thicker than the tree stump stool I was sitting on pulling a leather band so taught I started to see dancing stars in my field of vision.
An ice-cold demeanor spread across Lewis’s face. He looked over my shoulder at someone while I flailed wildly, my fingers desperately trying to pull the leather belt away from my throat.
Lewis nodded. My garrotte grew even tighter around my neck, and I slid forward off of the tree stump stool and onto my knees. Lewis slowly crouched down in front of me, until we were eye-to-eye, despite my vision beginning to blur.
“Flank strap,” he muttered by way of explanation as I succumbed to the strangulation.
Then my world went dark.