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  “You’d be perfect,” he said. “Of course, it would be a big commitment. Several months on the road. Then probably go on with the European tour.”

  “Europe?” Mercedes gasped, making her breasts bounce nicely.

  “And we’d get paid?” Gary said. “Like we’d actually have money left over at the end of the tour?”

  “Of course, you’d get paid. All expenses too. Nice motels and a comfortable bus, not some ratty old school bus.” Wes had seen their ratty bus parked outside.

  The owner of the place joined them then and began laying bills on the bar. “This is the best I can do,” she said, and out of the corner of his eye, Wes counted maybe a hundred and fifty dollars. Less than forty per band member for the night.

  “I’m talking a big change for you,” he said when the owner went on down the bar, wiping spills with a rag as she went. “You’ve worked hard for this. Don’t turn it down.”

  “Wow!” Gary was looking to Annie and shaking his head, making that mop of hair flop back and forth across his eyes. “We always thought something like this would happen out on the road! We’d get noticed in Chicago or New York!”

  “But I came here to find you,” said Wes. “You’re all over the Internet, you know. I knew you played the Caterpillar Lounge when you were in your home town.”

  “Really?” Mercedes said with another attractive gasp. “You came all the way here just to find us?”

  And that part was true.

  But Annie, who had been acting like counting those bills took her full attention, said, “I’ve got your card. I’ll think about it. Now, let me pay these guys.” And somehow by some sleight of hand, she’d beefed up that money while Gary and Mercedes had been dreaming of playing to stadium crowds. She dealt out more than twice what she’d taken in.

  Wes wasn’t surprised.

  Chapter 3

  Annie pulled her Subaru into the garage and parked beside her uncle’s vintage Volkswagen bug. Once the garage door had rolled closed, she lifted the back of the Subaru and also the floor of the cargo compartment. She took the small canvas bag from there and grabbed the sack of groceries she’d bought. The rest of this stuff could stay in the car for the night.

  She went out the side door of the garage and through the breezeway to the house, which was also vintage and showed it. Uncle Michael wasn’t much into keeping up paint. He lived in a world where it apparently didn’t matter if houses had paint. Or lawns were mowed. The lawn had grown more than a foot while she was gone.

  She left the groceries on the kitchen counter beside what was probably the full three weeks’ dirty dishes stacked in and around the sink. At least the house didn’t smell bad. He must have been taking reasonable care of Lisa’s litter box. She went on upstairs to her bedroom calling, “Hey! I’m home!”

  No answer, but she knew he was here, because he pretty much always was here, but also she could hear the electric whine of a sander. She slid the canvas bag into its hollow behind the floor molding of her room. With that secure—and it would be here only one night—she went back downstairs and on down to the basement. There she found her uncle, looking like some kind of alien in goggles, respirator, and earmuffs, bent over a thick board.

  She waved a hand between his face and the board, and he jumped. Not what she’d intended, but his reaction wasn’t too bad. He shut down the sander, pulled off the earmuffs, and pushed the goggles and respirator back so that tufts of his curly red hair mixed with wiry coils of gray stuck out between the straps. This meant he still looked fairly alien—and she sometimes believed he was—but he then gave her a smile, which made him look almost normal. And she knew his smiles were only for her. And Lisa, of course.

  “How do you like it?” he said, stroking the wood. It was a deep rich brown streaked with lighter browns and grays, and running through it was a sharp black line as if someone had taken a felt tip pen and drawn the silhouette of a mountain range down its length.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, stroking it too. It was hard and silky smooth. “From Africa?”

  “EBay.” He hung the goggles and earmuffs and such on the wall and started sweeping up the sawdust. “It’s going to make a nice guitar for you, you think?”

  “Yeah. ‘Course you’ve made me about twenty guitars. Maybe you should sell this one.”

  He swept more vigorously. “You don’t like it?”

  “I told you, it’s beautiful.”

  “You don’t like the guitars I’ve made you.”

  “I love every one of them. But I’m only one woman. Twenty guitars? And they’re worth too much to take on the road.” She tried to step out of his way, but it seemed no matter where she stepped in this small shop, she was in the way of his broom. “Couldn’t you sell one or two of them?”

  He took another swipe at her feet. “You don’t like them. They don’t sound good.”

  “I didn’t say that! They have great sound.”

  “You don’t like to play them. It’s the frets. The action.”

  “No, the action is perfect too.” He was sweeping too much. Agitated. “Hey, forget it.” This wasn’t good for him. “They’re magnificent guitars, and I love them and play them whenever I can. I’ll love this one too.”

  His sweeping slowed. He scooped the sawdust into a dust pan, and as he poured it into a garbage can, she could see him deliberately take deep breaths the way Dr. Kortge had taught him to do. What the hell, he didn’t need to sell anything. The house had belonged to his parents—her grandparents—fully paid for before she was born. He had his disability checks.

  And now he had her.

  “It’s amazing what you can get on eBay,” he said.

  “Yeah, eBay is great. Have you eaten anything while I’ve been gone?”

  “Sure, I’ve eaten.” He leaned the broom and dust pan against the wall. “You think I’m crazy?”

  She didn’t answer that. She just led the way up the stairs to the kitchen. “I mean anything other than canned tuna and frozen broccoli.”

  “That’s a good diet.” He followed her into the kitchen. “It’s balanced. Lisa likes the tuna too. And that stuff keeps well. I don’t have to go to the store often at all.”

  He did seem healthy. Not gaunt and yet definitely not overweight either, tall and thin, so much like her. She said, “Maybe just a little variety would be nice,” as she pulled a carton of eggs and some cheese from the grocery bag.

  “You’re going to fix me an omelet?” He started unwrapping the cheddar. “I like omelets too.”

  “Good.” She was looking forward to some home cooked food. As much as she loved to tour, giving her music to a different crowd every night, she was sick of cheap road food, which was all she dared buy in front of her band.

  Lisa came into the kitchen then. She never went into the basement, probably because she didn’t like the noisy machines, but, in spite of Annie’s pleas for some kind of hygiene, Michael let the cat rule the kitchen. The calico leaped onto the counter, licked at a dirty dish, and apparently found it stale. She butted her head into Michael’s arm with a demanding purr.

  “You know, I’ve been concerned about the mercury,” he said, breaking off a hunk of cheese for the cat. “All the tuna I eat. But I think it’s okay. I think I’m immune. Lisa too.”

  “Really?” Annie put some butter in a frying pan. “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s possible you’re immune too. Since you’re my niece.”

  “Have you been taking your meds?”

  “Annie, I take care of myself. I’ve told you, you don’t have to worry, I’m fine when you’re gone.”

  She watched him pet the cat, Lisa arching into his hand, then head-butting for more cheese. He broke off a couple more hunks, one for himself and one for the cat. Annie started cracking eggs into a bowl.

  Tomorrow she would check to be sure he was taking his pills, but he seemed so contented now. And he looked her in the eye when he talked to her. He hadn’t had any major disasters
while she was gone. Dr. Kortge as well as everything she’d read had told her he would get better with age, and now that he was sixty, that seemed to be true.

  *

  When Buzzard got home, his roomie Fleep was killing the undead on their sixty inch TV and snorting cocaine. Buzzard sank onto the couch by him, picked up Fleep’s sliver straw, and leaned into the glass tray for one of the neatly groomed lines.

  “What the hell!” Fleep shoved the tray to the other end of the beer-ringed coffee table while still trying to maintain his game. Then, “Shit! Fuck! Look what you made me do!” He dropped the game controller, grabbed the straw from Buzzard, and vacuumed through two lines.

  “Hey, I been on the road,” Buzzard complained. “You know how Annie is. Three weeks of her no dope rule, I deserve a little blow.”

  “Not mine. Get your own.” Fleep started up another game.

  This wasn’t like him. At least not lately. He’d become a very generous guy.

  “What’s your problem? I just got home! And you’ve got that slick job.” Buzzard tried for the straw again, but Fleep grabbed it, pulled out the waist band of his sweats, and dropped it in.

  Which was not only disgusting but not like him either, to be wearing baggy gray sweats that smelled as if he’d been in them for days. Lately he’d been dressing in black jeans and white Armani shirts that he’d had to order online since you sure couldn’t buy anything like that in Moscow. Plus it didn’t look like he’d combed his hair since he’d put on those sweats, or shaved. The pinstripe of beard that he’d painstakingly maintained along the rim of his jaw was now overrun by random growth.

  “You don’t look like you still got that slick job,” Buzzard observed.

  This was the most likely explanation for Fleep’s appearance and his stinginess, especially since the job had always seemed preposterous. Apparently some aging hippies with a Foundation for Renewable Hemp had been conned by Fleep’s Armani shirts and his at least sometimes fast-paced brain into believing he would get them a better return on their investments. True, Fleep had somehow gotten an MBA between college orgies, and he’d been a “financial advisor” with a broker in Boise until the broker went broke.

  Now Fleep growled, and at first Buzzard thought it was just at the zombies on the screen, but then words became more or less discernable. “Fucking hippies morphed into lawyers and accountants.”

  “Well, you know, it is a foundation,” Buzzard felt he should point out. “And they have, what did you tell me? Something like ten million dollars? ‘To research the beneficial uses of hemp.’”

  More growling. This time it sounded like, “Had ten million dollars.”

  Buzzard was still eyeing the toot. He didn’t need the silver tube. He pulled one of Annie’s hundreds from his wallet and started rolling it.

  Fleep’s attention was caught by the bill. “Where did you get that?”

  “Where do you think?” The hundred proved distracting enough that Buzzard was able to lean across Fleep and suck in a line.

  “You never pay your share of the rent, and now you’ve got hundred dollar bills?” This was followed by another volley of obscenities at the dazzling TV, which looked about as unlikely in this room as had his Armani shirts.

  Buzzard hoped it wouldn’t now be repossessed.

  “No, man, you know me,” he said. “Money’s never been my friend. Annie just gave me two hundred. Which is more than I deserve. But that’s got to last me till the band goes out again. Next week I could be mowing lawns.”

  He slouched back into the couch, feeling much better as the cocaine hit. In fact, he began to feel some sympathy for his roomie who had had that dream job and apparently screwed it up. By losing the foundation’s money? No wonder he was looking so bummed.

  Now he must have been eaten by the zombies too. With one more scowl at the TV, Fleep threw the game controller. He threw it with some serious force. Luckily it didn’t hit the TV. It just hit a couple of beer bottles that had been left on a shelf. The bottles fell, spewing beer all over the lower shelves, then bounced and rolled across the dingy carpet leaving wet streaks.

  This seemed to satisfy his need for violence. In the quiet that followed, he said much more calmly, “See that? I’m so out of it I’m not even finishing my beers.”

  “Yeah, that’s tough,” Buzzard agreed. “Want to go into lawn maintenance with me? We could start with Annie’s uncle’s lawn.”

  “What’s that?”

  Buzzard found he suddenly had Fleep’s attention again. Because the guy was so desperate he wanted to mow lawns? “Hey, it was a joke. Annie’ll mow her uncle’s lawn. She always does. But it’s weird, I went by his place on my way here, and I just don’t get why a rich guy like that lives in such a run-down dump. This hole of a rental has a better coat of paint.”

  “You’ve told me that. Her uncle is super-rich. She gives you more money than the band really makes because she gets it from him.”

  Buzzard shrugged and reached for the tray again. This time Fleep shoved it his way. He even dug out the silver straw and offered it, but Buzzard decided to stick with his hundred dollar bill even though, it occurred to him, it had also been in men’s pants.

  “You told me her uncle’s rich,” said Fleep, “because he has a lot of gold.” And as soon as Buzzard was done, he snorted up the rest of the tray, looking much happier now, excited in fact, that brain of his, which had seemed kind of muddy before, apparently kicking into gear. He poured more toot onto the tray and started chopping it. “He’s probably got it buried in his yard.”

  “Who buried what?” Once Fleep’s brain got going, Buzzard found it hard to follow.

  “Annie’s uncle. His gold must be buried in his yard.”

  “Or it could be in a safe deposit box. It could even be in the Cayman Islands or somewhere like that.”

  “Yeah, right.” Fleep looked up from his chopping. “You’re forgetting this is Moscow, Idaho. These people are hippies or rednecks. Or maybe they’re college students, or college professors.”

  “Or Mormons,” Buzzard said.

  “Exactly. Since Annie’s uncle isn’t a college professor, he’s buried his gold in his yard. Believe me, I learned this back when I was working with that broker. It’s the kind of thing old farts like that do.”

  Fleep finished his chopping and started shaping the lines the way he did, with the same precision he used to apply to his beard. “That gold is going to save my ass. You said you know where Annie’s rich uncle lives?”

  Chapter 4

  Annie was always wired after a show. Exhausted and thinking she should glide right into sleep but jangling with aimless energy instead. The first night home from a tour was even worse, because the job wasn’t yet done. And Michael was here. She wasn’t alone in her car. Michael was at risk too.

  But tonight her mind wasn’t cycling through only those fears, which she’d become more or less used to over the past few years. She found herself thinking about that booker, that man. Which was plain stupid.

  A guy like him with a bullet-proof ego? Who thought he was a gift to women even when he was just getting in the way? True, he had stunning blue eyes and a quirky twist to his mouth like he knew it was all a joke. Narrow hips and rumpled hair—and shoulders that looked perfect for cradling a woman’s head. At least thinking about him took her thoughts away from the canvas bag hidden behind the floor molding. She told herself it was okay, in the interest of finding sleep, to let herself dream old dreams of having another life, one that she could share with a man, a man who really loved her, until her body grew heavy and soft. Then she slept till noon.

  She found her uncle in the dining room, or what had been the dining room when his mom, her Grandma Mary, had been alive. Now it held his computer surrounded by junk mail stacked on every inch of the table, the chairs, and the buffet. It didn’t look as if he’d thrown a piece of it away in the five years since his mom had died, leaving him alone here until Annie had decided to move in—since her relationsh
ip with another guy had just ended in disappointment, yelling, and tears.

  Besides, it hadn’t seemed right for Michael to be all alone.

  Lisa was curled beside his computer warming herself with the CPU. Michael sat hunched forward with his head tilted back the way he did to read the screen through his bifocals. “Listen to this,” he said when Annie came up to him. “‘Have you noticed the way containers keep getting smaller? Half gallons of ice cream now hold only one and a half quarts.’” He turned to look up at her. “Tuna cans used to be eight ounces. Now they’re only five.” He leaned into the screen again. “‘Pound bags of coffee weigh only twelve ounces.’”

  “Then they’re not pound bags, are they?” she said. She’d decided the junk mail was harmless. She wasn’t so sure about these blogs.

  “The point is they used to be pound bags,” he said. “You used to expect to get a pound, and now you don’t. That’s because of Operation Reduced Expectations. That’s what it says here.”

  “You sure it isn’t just because of Bumble Bee, Starbucks, and Dryers?”

  Michael frowned. “You’re not seeing the big picture. But I don’t blame you. It’s hard for any of us to see the big picture, because of Operation Simplify Thought, which has been very effective with reality shows, fifteen second ads, and YouTube videos of Ping-Pong-playing dogs.”

  He scrolled down the page. “Here’s another one, and it has to do with that thought simplification thing. It turns out they’ve developed ‘a tasteless odorless chemical that can be added to the water supply to make people believe whatever they’re told.’”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He straightened to look at her again. “It’s one of those puzzles, isn’t it? If I believe it, it may be true. If I don’t, it still could be. Maybe they just haven’t put it in our water yet. Idaho is kind of behind on some things.”

  “I don’t believe you should be reading this crap.” It was hard to take this stuff seriously, but it couldn’t be good for him. “Maybe you should be dealing with your junk mail instead.”