Choke (8 page)

There was a dirt lot at the edge of town where a big oil tanker, minus the cab, sat most of the time. Smaller tank trucks would cart oil in from local wells and dump it into the large one and, when it was full, a semi cab would hook up to it and take it to the refinery in Houston. She tucked the van behind the big tanker trailer and sussed out her surroundings.

The pump jack from a nearby oil well clanked and creaked. There were two wells in town, a small one and this huge one next to the lot. Immy strained to hear any other noises, but the pump was too noisy.

She slid from the car, wincing at the dome light when she pushed the door open. She wished she knew how to turn that bright beacon off, but she had no idea. That probably wasn’t in either of her books. She was greeted by the familiar, slightly rancid smell of oil being brought to the surface of modern-day America after rotting deep in the recesses of history for eons. Dead dinosaurs, her mother had always told her, deceased prehistoric beasts. The smell didn’t remind her of anything alive, that was for sure.

“Hi, Immy,” called old Mrs. Jefferson.

Immy froze. Bent nearly double from osteoporosis, Mrs. Jefferson walked by with her ancient, waddling basset hound on a leash. Immy waved, knowing she would never hear an answer. The woman was deaf as a cactus. Immy waited until they shuffled out of sight, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and proceeded.

It was only four blocks from the lot to her house, but tonight, of course, it was a bustling four blocks. She could have sworn there were more people out tonight than she had ever seen at the Memorial Day Parade. She hadn’t bothered with a disguise for this mission, counting on the dead of night to cover her tracks.

She had wisely, she thought, worn her flip-flops because they were black, but their
thwack, thwack, thwack
as she tried to steal through the night undetected cancelled the stealth factor of the color.

Chained in the side yard, the Wilson’s ancient Rottweiler growled, then barked, as she tried to sneak by. He set off the pair of beagles next door, and they passed the relay baton off to Lacy, the cute little cocker spaniel in the next block. In every yard, people sitting sipping sweet tea or beer raised a hand in greeting.

Maybe they couldn’t see who she was. After all, it could be that they were just being neighborly because someone was passing by, someone they’d never be able to ID in a lineup, she hoped.

The block before her house, all fell quiet. No one was about, and no dogs were chained in the yards. But the trailer she came to before hers harbored a vicious, dark Brahma hen named Larry Bird. She had been given the name when she was just a young chick, and a wrong gender had been determined. By the time she started laying eggs, the name had become stuck. The feisty fowl was usually in a somewhat flimsy pen behind the trailer, but it must have escaped tonight. That was not an unusual occurrence.

Larry Bird rushed at Immy’s ankles without a warning cluck, nipped and drew blood. As chickens go, she was enormous, Brahmas being one of the larger breeds of fowl.

“Shoo, shoo,” Immy whispered as urgently as she could without shouting. She flapped her hands at the menace, but Larry kept coming, ducking and darting, nipping one of Immy’s ankles. Immy jumped onto the lowest branch of the magnolia tree in the neighbor’s front yard and kicked down at her to make her go away, but Larry only bit at her flip-flop. Her leap had shaken one off. The chicken ran back in the direction of its pen with her flip-flop prize.

“You damn Larry Bird,” she yelled, then cringed, hoping no one had heard her. She waited a few minutes, but the hen didn’t return. Should she go after it and retrieve her footwear, or should she go to her home and get her sneakers?

She decided not to walk through chicken droppings with one bare foot—one bleeding bare foot. She jumped down and dashed safely to her own trailer.

Once inside, she sank onto the welcoming plaid couch. It didn’t seem old and worn out in the darkness. It seemed heavenly and smelled like home. Her head fell back, and she closed her eyes. She mustn’t fall asleep, though. She had to snatch some clothes and be back by the time Baxter returned to Cowtail from Wymee Falls with her disguises.

She tugged two suitcases out from under Hortense’s bed, opened drawers in both bedrooms, and threw clothing into them for her and her mother, flinging aside items she didn’t think they would need. She stuck a few things in for Drew, too. Not wanting anyone to know she was there, she left the lights off and worked in the dark.

It was hard finding a pair of shoes. She crawled around on the floor of her tiny closet, trying to match two of them. For the first time in her life, she wished she were like her mother, who lined her shoes up neatly every night instead of kicking them into the closet. Immy owned two more pairs of sneakers besides the ones she had with her at the motel, a worn-out pair she was saving in case she ever did yard work or perhaps painting, and a white pair she saved in case she wanted to go someplace special and have clean, white shoes. They were the same brand and style, one pair new and one old. Without light, however, she couldn’t tell which was which, so she picked up both pairs, put two shoes on after pulling on a pair of socks, and tossed the other two into the suitcase. In the process, most of the closet floor got emptied out into the room.

Ready to exit, she remembered her phone charger. She usually kept it in a kitchen drawer but not a specific one. She opened the junk drawer and spread her palms atop the items, but she wasn’t able to feel the charger. She pulled the contents out: hammer, screwdriver, pair of pliers, wine opener, and about forty dry ballpoint pens, piling the contents onto the counter. No phone charger. The next drawer was the knife drawer. Should she chance it? No, she would probably slice her fingers. Hortense kept phone directories in the next drawer. She was reluctant to throw old ones away for some reason Immy could never fathom. Immy heaped that drawer’s contents on the counter, beginning to give up hope of finding her charger. The pens and the hammer clattered to the floor when she drew the phone books out and shoved them onto the countertop.

Then she came across a flashlight in the next drawer, which held mostly kitchen linens. By some miracle, it shone. Weakly, the batteries on their last ions, or whatever batteries use to produce current, but it gave light. The counter was now a mess. But there, plugged into the socket next to the microwave, was her charger. She clutched it, triumphant, and got ready to leave.

Once again, she put her ear to the front door and listened for passersby. She grabbed an umbrella from the stand next to the coat closet so she could fend off Larry Bird if she should attack again, but her return trip was mercifully uneventful.

* * *

WHEN BAXTER RETURNED FROM WYMEE FALLS, he banged on the flimsy motel room door so loudly he woke up Hortense.

She sat up on the bed and tucked the spread around her chins. “Don’t answer it!”

Immy tiptoed to the door and peeked through the hole. “It’s just Baxter, Mother.”

“How does he know we’re here?”

“I’ll explain later.” Baxter stuck his head into the room before he entered. “Mrs. Duckworthy.” He strolled in and gave her the unsexy version of his smile. “I thought you were a guy.”

Hortense beamed him her best evil eye. “Why would you think that?” Immy knew she was sensitive about her appearance. It may lack many things, Immy knew, but her looks would never lead a person to believe she wasn’t a female.

“Well, Immy said—”

Immy’s kick to his booted ankle shut him up. “Do you have the goods?” she said. “Were they still open?”

“Sure. They closed at eight. I was there in plenty of time.” He handed her a shopping bag and, separately, the receipt. Immy dug the money out of her purse and added an extra two dollars. “For gas,” she told him. The other shopping bag seemed to be full of cold remedies when she peeked into it, but Baxter didn’t sound like he was sick. He looked confused when he left.

“Would you mind informing me of what is transpiring?”

Immy turned to give her mother an explanation. “I have a plan.”

* * *

IMMY REMEMBERED, FROM VISITING HER father in the hospital as he lay dying from his gunshot wounds, that visiting hours started at ten a.m. She had been only twelve, but there wasn’t anything about his death that she didn’t remember vividly. Surely, the hospital still had the same visiting hours.

She set out from Cowtail at nine-thirty, wearing the wig, one of the three wide-brimmed straw hats Baxter had bought, huge round sunglasses, and three beauty marks on her left cheek. She had been relieved Baxter hadn’t found a fat suit. It didn’t sound like a fun item of apparel.

The ever-present, incessant west wind buffeted her between the motel door and her car, so she held tightly to the hat. The wind in these parts was either blowing or blowing hard. It was never not blowing.

The only parking spot left in the lot was in a corner on the top tier. She hoped the van wouldn’t be too noticeable there. A lot of pickup trucks kept it company. She checked her beauty spots in the rearview mirror and tilted the hat forward to hide more of her face. She could only hope Xenia had regained consciousness after her wreck with the combine. Nothing new had been reported about the case this morning on television. The reporters had merely rehashed the same material they’d given out the day before. They had added an outside shot of the restaurant, though. Hortense had surprised Immy by crying when she saw it.

Immy put her hand on the door handle to exit the van. Her palms and the bottoms of her feet prickled. “All right,” she told herself. “You’re frightened. That doesn’t mean you can’t do this.” She smeared a little more of Hortense’s bright red lipstick on her lips and opened the car door.

Her hat blew off. The wind whipped at the door. She tugged at the door handle, holding it against the rooftop gale so the hinges wouldn’t break. After she clambered out and pushed the door shut, she watched her new hat sail over the parapet and dive toward the street below. It skidded toward the fountain by the front door, then disappeared around the other side of the hospital, rolling on its brim. She held tightly to her wig and hurried to the elevator.

The front desk jockey wouldn’t tell her what room Xenia was in unless she was a relative.

“I’m her cousin. Her cousin Millie.”

The receptionist didn’t look as if she believed her, but she didn’t challenge her statement either. “Ms. Blossom has a visitor with her. When he leaves you can go up.”

“Who is it? Cousin Ned?”

“I believe it’s her husband.”

Immy sat on a hard vinyl chair and thought about that, frowning. A husband would be just as fictional as a Cousin Ned or a Cousin Millie. Xenia wasn’t married, but she had been living with Frankie Laramie for a while. He had probably told the receptionist he was her husband so he could get up to the floor to see her. Frankie Laramie and Xenia Blossom were well matched, in Immy’s opinion. Both were good looking but with an underlying crudeness about them. Xenia was most always dressed to play up her bosom. Frank, all spiked black hair and narrow pants, looked like some slick, big city gangster. He was a huge fan of Xenia’s bosom, but he seemed to like Immy’s, too. Immy was always a little uncomfortable around him. He had an uncle or cousin or something who owned the Wymee Falls franchise for The Tomato Garden restaurant. Frankie’s sleazy-looking relative had started coming to Hugh’s restaurant a few months ago. Hugh and the relative would go into the upstairs office and close the door to talk. Something was going on, but Immy wasn’t sure exactly what.

When Frank stepped off the elevator and walked through the lobby, his head down and his steps dragging, Immy gave a shudder. He moved like a slow snake today. He looked up and saw her.

“Hi, Imogene,” he said. She had never seen him look so bad. His dark eyes were underscored by matching hollows, and his clothes looked like he’d worn them for a few days. Frank was usually outfitted and pressed neat as a trussed turkey.

“I’m here incognito, Frankie.” Damn, he’d seen right through her disguise.

He ignored her comment and dropped onto the chair next to hers. “She’s bad off, Imogene.” His voice cracked when he talked.

“Is she still unconscious?”

He balled one fist inside the other and twisted it against his palm. “I don’t know if she’s going to make it.” Then he slowly turned to face her. “It’s your family, that damn Hugh Duckworthy. It’s his fault. He’s your uncle.” His knuckles turned white.

Immy drew back. He was blaming her for Xenia’s accident? “I wasn’t there, Frankie.”

“But that damn Hugh was. She came storming out, said he refused to give her the last paycheck. She was madder’n a mad cow. Tore off and lost control of the car. Only reason I’m OK is because I had my seatbelt on. She didn’t. She got tossed out of the convertible and she looked…” He gulped loudly, and his eyes misted. “She looked so broken.”

“Xenia fought with Hugh right before her wreck yesterday?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“Yesterday?” She couldn’t have fought with Hugh. He’d died three days before that. Why had Xenia lied to Frank?

“Have you seen a newspaper lately?” she asked him.

He looked at Immy like she was a two-headed goat. “I don’t read newspapers.”

Of course not. “Have you seen any TV this week?”

“Just Xenia’s soaps.” He got his pack of Virginia Slims out of his shirt pocket and fingered the wrapper.

So, maybe he still didn’t know Hugh was dead. She bet he didn’t know she and Hortense were wanted either. That was a relief anyway. He wouldn’t be likely to rat them out.

“I’m glad now that damn Hugh never hired me.”

“I didn’t know you applied for work at the restaurant.”

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t take me on.”

“Can’t you work in your own family’s restaurant? Don’t some of the Laramies own The Tomato Garden in Wymee Falls?”

“It’s a franchise, and my Uncle Guido has it. He’s not exactly a Laramie. He’s a Giovanni, Ma’s brother. No way I’d work for him, though. He’s a slave driver.” Meaning, Immy thought, Frank would like a job but wouldn’t actually like to work. He hadn’t had Hortense for a mother.