Todd hummed a tune and strummed the steering wheel of Byron’s F-150, perhaps forgetting he was bait in a poker game that had attracted every skeezy pro in the tristate Memphis area. And he couldn’t seem to win a game to save his life.
Which was very odd considering his reputation as a poker shark in Halo.
Population three thousand.
Maybe not so odd.
While Todd hummed, I had picked the Fa-la-la Lavender off my nails and now sat on my hands to stop myself from eating my cuticles. I had participated in some unbrilliant activities in my twenty-something years, but never had I purposefully committed acts of breaking and entering, vandalism, illegal gambling, and intent to commit a felony.
Well, at least not all in one night.
And my nefarious activities were done at home, under the jurisdiction of my uncle, the sheriff.
I needed Todd to share in my jitters. I also needed him to stop with the hum and strum.
“How can you be so relaxed when we’re about to commit a number of illegal acts that might result in losing every penny attached to our names and getting thrown in an out-of-state pokey? Thereby ruining Christmas for not just Byron’s family, but ourselves as well.”
“I’m not worried.”
I knew Todd lived in the moment, but moments like these were the kind that gave ulcers. “I don’t trust these Memphis players. They look like they want to eat you.”
“Aw, that’s cute.”
“Not cute. Particularly Lucinda, who does want to eat you. Tell me what happened today besides losing at cards.”
“We drove to Arkansas. Went to a gaming room at a track. The Colonel introduced me to a bunch of dudes. We played poker. I lost.”
“How’d Lucinda do?”
“She won a couple hands. And then she just kind of hung around. Brought me drinks and a sandwich.”
He glanced at me with blue doe eyes I found suspiciously too doe-like. “And you said you were wrapped up with Priscilla in the back of a van? Now that sounds fun. I like how you’ll try risky moves like that.”
I pulled my hands from under my butt to grab Todd’s arm. “Priscilla and I never checked out that realty office. I kept an eye on the road when we were in the taxi. We could slip over there before we head to the art shop. Hour round trip.”
“That sounds like fun, baby. But we can’t be late for Graceland. The Colonel said so.” Todd’s strumming had turned to rapid-fire tapping.
“I promise I will just grab the supplies we need and leave. Let’s scoot over to that real estate office and see if we can learn anything.”
I had remembered the exit by the giant ribs sign that appeared just before the interstate off ramp. After that, it was a piece of cake. Follow the road until the pawn shops almost outnumbered the check-cashing shops and hang a left across from the dollar store.
Todd’s eyes grew wider the further we traveled into the heart of the industrial jungle.
Only one vehicle had parked in front of the strip mall holding the realty office. It was not the white van, for which I was thankful. I could not handle hearing Little Jimmy singing Christmas carols again. He was not a tenor and had no falsetto, no matter his aspirations.
“You didn’t go inside?” asked Todd, parking before the office.
“Didn’t get a chance,” I said. “Little Jimmy just dropped off Elvis and the elf.”
We approached the glass door.
“Venture Realty,” read Todd. He yanked on the door handle and finding it locked, we mashed our faces and shielded our eyes against the dirty glass to see inside.
Venture Realty had seen better days. Possibly in 1975. The dingy, wood paneled office had maps tacked on the wall and a dying fern. Beside a metal folding chair, a TV tray held a massive glass ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. One metal desk had been plunked before a back door. An actual rotary phone sat on the desk next to an old metal safe with a combination dial that might have interested 1930’s gangsters but would be shunned by modern thieves.
“I can see why they don’t need bars on their windows like the Cash-N-Carry.”
Todd hooked an arm around my waist. “This reminds me of my grandma’s house.”
“Can you see what’s on those maps? Looks like states.”
We squinted at the dim room. I could feel the grime transferring to my nose.
“Six of them,” said Todd. “Tennessee’s got the most pins.”
“The others must be the surrounding states,” I said, recognizing Alabama. “Most of the pins are near the border of Tennessee.”
I held my phone to the door and took a grime-filtered shot of the maps. “Let’s check out the rest of the block. Maybe someone in one of the other shops has information about Venture Realty. But first, smile pretty.”
I held up my phone and on cue, Todd struck a pose before the Venture Realty door.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“Memories,” I said and forwarded the pictures to Uncle Will. Shoving the phone into my back pocket, I took Todd’s hand to amble down the sidewalk. The diner’s closed sign let me breathe a sigh of relief. There’s nothing more depressing than an unloved diner.
At the warehouse office door, Todd peered into the high, single window, then jumped back.
“What is it? Storage for body parts or something?”
“No.” He tapped his fingers inside his cargo shorts pocket. “I just recognized the guy working the desk.”
“Who was it?”
“Fred’s buddy from the Green Room.”
“Let me see.” Todd grasped my waist and hoisted me so I could peer into the tiny window. I remembered sketching the man’s likeness. “Set me down, hon’.”
For a long moment, we stared at each other with Todd’s hands wrapped around my waist and mine on his shoulders. More of a convenient resting place than for a romantic interlude. I could tell Todd’s thoughts were similarly occupied as his hands were busy pounding the Bossa Nova Baby rhythm on my behind.
“Now what’s Luther doing working at a storage warehouse in this part of town?” I said, wriggling under Todd’s tempo. “I thought he was a musician or something.”
“You want to go in and ask him?” asked Todd, stilling his hands.
“Is he coming to the game tonight?”
“Think so.”
“In that case, maybe it’s best for him not to know that we know that he’s out here in East Bumcrack.”
Todd nodded.
“I don’t like this. Chet and Little Jimmy at the Green Room got all worked up about my sketches of players. Little Jimmy leaves Santa Elvis and his crazy elf at this Venture Realty, but nobody’s home. But now we find another poker player, Luther, conveniently working next to Venture Realty.”
Todd’s attention had drifted from my monologue and into the parking lot.
“Todd, are you with me? This seems real fishy. Can we trust these guys to not screw us over? What if we get busted and they turn us into the cops? How are you going to know who’s in your corner when you’re playing tonight?”
His eyes snapped back to mine. “Baby, the only one I need in my corner is you.”
I blew out a big breath, but gave him a hug for being sweet. Which, judging by the happy rhythm dancing across my butt, Todd appreciated. However, our corner was looking a little empty. Or a little too full of people I didn’t trust.
The “art shop” turned out to be the Art Shop, a cement block garage providing custom car paint jobs, specializing in pinstriping, scroll-work, and assorted Grim Reapers. The Art Shop also had a window-less back room popular for poker regulars when it wasn’t used for a store room.
The Art Shop proprietor, Jupiter, had one glass eye and one Cad Red eye from a constant exposure to paint fumes and energy drinks. Jupiter also blinked incessantly, a handy condition for poker according to Todd. For those playing against him, that tic was more irritant than a tell.
“How am I going to use these supplies?” I said to Jupiter.
We stood in the back room of the garage housing his desk and wire racks of urethane paint in a variety of colors. I picked up a can of primer and waved it at him. “Any guard or cop is going to see I should be airbrushing a Camaro and not painting a wall.”
Jupiter fixed his one eye on me. “I’ve got kit bottles for mixing. It’s all for show, ain’t it? You think they’re going to look that closely?”
“Cops aren’t stupid.”
“Got brushes, too. We use them for detail work. Even got your sketch work stuff. We’ve got to draw up the design on paper before we do it on the car.”
Jupiter reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a Strathmore palette pad and a box of Staedtler colored pencils. He tossed them at me.
I caught them, hugging the supplies to my chest. My fingers itched to rub the paper and guess the weight, but I didn’t want to appear greedy. “I did lose an excellent drawing pad to the maniacs in the Green Room.”
“Keep it.”
Todd patted my head at my eager smile. We followed Jupiter out of the office and into the auto bay. While Jupiter walked through the garage, stashing tarps and painter’s tape into a garbage bag, Todd and I traipsed toward a Chrysler 300 covered in craft paper and tape. A young guy in a t-shirt, ripped jeans, and skull cap squatted before the driver’s door. With a steady hand, he added shading to a trompe l’oeil Aliens’ head popping out of the car door.
“Cool,” said Todd. “Just like that alien ripped out of that dude’s stomach in the movie. Except on a car.”
Fascinated, I squatted next to the artist to check out his palette of premixed jars in various metallics. His steady hand gripped a dagger shaped brush with a bat shaped handle, thicker than I used. The flexible, slanted bristles held the thin line of paint as the artist rotated the brush under the alien’s chin.
“Is that a sable brush?” I asked.
He continued his steady progress outlining the alien’s bulbous head. “Squirrel.”
“Squirrel hair brush with a round hand grip.” I jumped to my feet and turned to Jupiter, my new best friend. “Can I get some of those brushes?”
“The Colonel said to set you up with whatever you need.” He motioned toward a rolling, metal tool cabinet. “You aren’t really going to be painting, though, right? Just for show?”
“Sure,” I said, making my voice sound like I meant it. “Whatever the Colonel says.”
I dug into the tool cabinet, opening drawers and running my hands over the smooth wood handles and soft, dark bristles. I didn’t plan to stand in a room all night pretending to paint. Any guard worth his tin badge would wonder what the hell I was doing and kick me out if they didn’t see any work up on the wall. But I had great skill in cleaning out brushes, so I wasn’t going to worry Jupiter with the details.
Jupiter turned his eye to Todd. “Heard about the game. You’re trying to raise money for your cousin who lost his job?”
“Yeah, going to give him the house cut. I don’t want to see his family suffer at Christmas.”
“On your way to Vegas, too?”
“I won a spot in an amateur tournament. The VIP pass to the Tropicana.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sure,” said Todd. “It’s going to be fun.”
I looked up from the tool cabinet, fumbling the clutch of brushes I held. Todd still stooped over the artist and his alien project. However, I stood in Jupiter’s nonexistent left periphery and caught his cyclopean examination of the dumb, blond poker bait named Todd.
Jupiter’s calculating smile reminded me of my Grandpa’s. Just before he carved the turkey on Christmas day.