Lot Lizards (5 page)

She stared at him for a moment, stared razors into his eyes just long enough for his smile to shrivel, wanting to grab his plaid flannel shirt and shake him as she screamed, You
wanna bet, Mister, you just wanna fuckin
' bet
it can't be that bad,you filthy, cocky, ignorant asshole
? But, of course, she didn't. Dina was seated at the counter just a few feet away, watching Jenny carefully as she sipped her coffee, shifting her flat ass on the chair's cheap upholstery.
 

"A coffee and a cocoa," Jenny said, jotting the drinks down on her pad. "I'll be back to take your order in a minute—" Then, just under her breath as she turned: "—you miserable, cocky sons of bitches, you stinking unbathed road rats..." Feeling a little better after the silent tirade, Jenny sighed wearily as she brushed past Kevin...
 

...who breathed deeply to catch Jenny's perfume and slowed his pace a moment, closing his eyes to shut out everything else as he let her sweet smell embrace him. An instant later, his eyes snapped open and, cheeks hot with embarrassment, he glanced around quickly to make sure no one had seen him.
 

Kevin Bissette probably enjoyed going to work more than anyone else he knew, even looked forward to it on his days off, all because of Jenny. She spoke to him very little, and was sometimes even unfriendly, but there was something about her, something besides her looks and figure—her honey-blond hair and deep blue eyes, high cheekbones and slightly crooked mouth, and her legs...in those black stockings...hips hugged by those petti pants and that brief skirt—there was a sadness about her, a tragic sort of look in her eyes and in the way she moved sometimes that made her look so fragile, so vulnerable and in need of protection.
 

The thoughts he had about Jenny Lake were different than those he had about most other women. The things he found himself wanting to do with her were similar to the things he wanted to do to other women, but with Jenny, he thought it would be...nice. It would be slow and quiet and nice. No one would get hurt. Not like the things he'd wanted to do to that girl in lit class during his senior year, that Melanie Cormick, who had stared at him every day in class with that sneering little smirk on her lips and that narrow look in her eyes. He' d wanted to do to her the things her eyes had promised other guys on campus when she hadn't known Kevin was watching, but he'd wanted to do them hard so she wouldn't enjoy them; he'd wanted to humiliate her and wipe that look off her face. And his aunt Sylvia...her, too. But with her it would be different. She wouldn't be expecting it from him, of course, because he was her nephew. And with Aunt Sylvia it would be much worse, because that was what she deserved, and doing those things to her would probably hurt her the most. There had been others, but Aunt Sylvia topped the list.
 

He'd never done those things, of course, and probably never would. But he ran them through his head sometimes, saw them happening, heard the screams. That was enough. Kevin's imagination was always enough for him. He stayed away from girls, but he was good, close friends with his imagination, which was much easier and a lot less expensive.
 

Of course, Jenny was way out of Kevin's league, not to mention his age group. Kevin was eighteen and just out of high school, trying to decide whether or not to go on to college, while Jenny was probably pushing thirty and had a little girl—a very sick little girl, Kevin had heard—and even if they were closer in age, she probably already had more men after her than she knew what to do with, so what would she want with him? But at least she didn't treat him like Aunt Sylvia or Melanie Cormick; she treated him the same way she treated everyone else and he liked that. Someday, when he had a good job and enough money and was out of Yreka, maybe he'd be able to find someone like Jenny, someone with whom it would be nice.
 

He cleared a table in the corner, glancing over his shoulder now and then at Jenny as she filled a cup with coffee. What was it about her? What made her look so...forlorn? So lost? Like a little girl who'd been separated from her mother in a shopping mall, almost. He nearly dropped a plate as he looked over his shoulder one more time and earned a sharp glare from Dina Bonnick, which was enough to make him decide to ignore Jenny for a while...but not enough to make him stop thinking about her.
 

With his tray filled with dirty dishes and utensils, Kevin spun around and almost ran into Byron Quimby, the janitor...

...who stepped back quickly, light on his feet in spite of his size.

"'Scuse me, Kevin," Byron said with a nod.

Kevin smiled. "My fault."

"So where's the mess?"

"Just on the other side of the counter, there by the coffee machine."

Byron nodded again, wheeled his bucket, mop and broom to the food scattered on the floor and began to mop up, all the while secretly enjoying the usual looks he got from the patrons, laughing inside at the sidelong glances, the whispering stares and the shameless wide-eyed gapes he got from some of the children.
 

There weren't very many black people in Yreka. Byron knew only three others. Byron was black. And he was big. Very, very big. The patrons, almost exclusively white, were usually somewhat startled when he walked into the restaurant and it took them a few minutes to adjust. This was due not only to his color but his size; his body was broad and solid, he stood head and shoulders above everyone else and was impossible to miss in a crowd.
 

Originally from San Jose, Byron used to be a trucker but grew tired of the road, decided he was getting too old to be living behind a wheel and eating bad food. He'd passed through Yreka several times and liked the area, found it quiet and relaxing, and decided it was the place for him. He had several acquaintances but no real friends, which was exactly how Byron liked it. He lived alone, which he enjoyed, preferring the company of books and music—mostly classical, which, for reasons he did not quite understand, shocked the hell out of nearly everyone he knew—and he spent much of his time making wood carvings of animals which he gathered up and sold each spring at the annual craft fair. And, of course, for entertainment, there were always the stares he got in the restaurant. They tickled him.
 

A short bearded trucker writing in his log book at the coffee counter stopped and lifted his head slowly, frowning at Byron as if the janitor had just cut a raucous fart.
 

Byron stopped mopping for just a moment, cocked a brow at the man, then smiled and, ever so quietly, almost under his breath, just loud enough for the trucker to hear, Byron began to sing as he mopped: "Swing loooww, sweet chaaari-ah-hot, comin' for t'carry me hooome..."
 

The trucker belched and went back to his log book.

The country music playing over the PA system clicked off for a moment and a female voice called, "Janitor to the travel store, please? Janitor to the travel store?"
 

The trucker looked up at Byron again, less conspicuously this time, but Byron saw him and, as he finished cleaning up the mess, shook his head, smacked his lips and muttered, "Dey jes' ain't 'nuff hours innuh day," then wheeled his bucket, mop and broom away, still humming the song. He ambled down the corridor toward the store as the foyer door was pushed open to let in a man, woman, two teenagers—a girl and boy—and a little girl, all soaked through, covered with snow, shivering with cold and looking exhausted; the man had a large bleeding lump on his forehead and blood was trickling from the woman's lower lip. Byron stepped around them as they came in, nodded hello and was about to ask what was wrong and if they needed help, but stopped just short of stepping into the puddle of blood on the tile floor...
 

CHAPTER 3

When Doug opened the door and entered the travel store with Adelle and the kids, they were met with a bustle of activity which, at first, he thought had something to do with them. He knew better as soon as he saw the blood on the floor and the man with a jagged hole in the left side of his nose.
 

The station wagon was useless—he'd hit a fence post and the car was going nowhere without the help of a tow truck—so they'd walked the rest of the way to the Sierra Gold Pan, making a feeble and unsuccessful attempt to hitch a ride; all they'd gotten was splattered with slush. Surprisingly enough, the kids hadn't complained once about the cold or the walk or even the wreck; even more surprising was the fact that neither had Adelle. Not that she didn't have any reason to complain because she did, and Doug had been kicking himself all the way from the car to the truck stop for insisting on driving her to her mother's. In the future, he would remember this trip, tell himself that Adelle was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and would never let it happen again. At least there would be a future; he was thankful that, other than a few bumps and scrapes and one hell of a scare, no one had been hurt.
 

Doug had never been so cold in his life as he'd been on that walk and felt he might never be warm again; for now, he would be happy just to regain the feeling in his hands, feet and face, but when they entered the building, his own discomfort was forgotten as Adelle leaned against him, clutching his wrist and whispered, "Oh, God, what now?"
 

Cece pressed her face into Adelle's coat and groaned, Dara turned away and muttered, "Oh, guuhhh-ross," and Jon whispered, "Gaawwd!"
 

Doug felt a little sick.

The man, pear-shaped and balding with greying brown hair, leaned heavily against a change machine, his white-knuckled hands clutching the machine's edges for support. Blood was smeared over his face, darkened his green down jacket and had splattered the floor. The man's jaw was slack, eyes heavy, face pale and, although several people stood around him looking on with shock and horror, no one seemed willing to get near him; the hole in his nose—it looked more like a rip, actually—opened and closed repeatedly as he breathed, spraying blood and making a wet rattling sound.
 

An enormous black man who, for a moment when they first walked in looked as if he were about to speak to them, abandoned his mop bucket and rushed to the bleeding man's side, shouting, "Call an ambulance!" in a voice that could be felt as well as heard. He was joined by a tall thin blond woman in a dark blue smock who darted from behind the travel store's register. Wincing, she looked at the man's nose and said, "I'll get some ice."
 

"What happened?" the black man asked.

The bleeder's head rolled slowly from left to right. "A...fight," he rasped. "Flashlight."

"Huh?"

"Some guy...in the parking lot...hit me in the face with a flashlight."

Over his shoulder, the janitor shouted again: "Call the police, too!"

"Callin' 'em now!" a woman shouted from the fuel desk around the corner.

The store was crowded, but no one was moving; they all stood in a sloppy circle, staring at the blood and the man who had shed it.
 

The door opened behind them and Doug smelled the newcomer before he heard him—it was the rank smell of a fat man who had not bathed in too long—and when he spoke, his voice sounded like gelatin being sucked up by a weak vacuum cleaner:
 

"—up here for a while, then we'll—the fuck's goin' on here? Ho-lee shee-yit!"

Doug looked over his shoulder casually and saw the man: very fat, not very tall, thin dark hair greased back above a face like a gravel pit with teeth of rotting bark. The man he was speaking to was slightly taller, not quite as fat, but with the same hair; his face seemed to be sprinkled with a rash that, in places, was the color of ripe cherries. They were both so repulsive, they could have been brothers or, at the very least, first cousins. Both men stared in awe at the blood on the floor and the shorter, fatter one leaned toward the taller and, still looking at the puddle, muttered, "Get out there and make Goddamned sure none of 'em come in here.
This'll
drive 'em outta their fuckin'
minds
."
 

The other man nodded slowly, moved backward a couple steps, then turned and hurried out the door.

"A phone," Adelle mumbled, looking as if she might be dizzy. "We should find a phone."

Doug put his arm around her and turned her toward the restaurant. "Yeah, but first let's get a table and some coffee, huh? C'mon, kids." They shouldered through the crowd in the corridor until they reached the register where a young woman stood behind the counter talking on the telephone. "How long is the wait for a table?" Doug asked.
 

Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, she said, "About forty—" She stopped, looked them over and frowned. "Oh, Lordy, you folks haven't had a good night, have you?"
 

Doug chuckled. "I'm afraid not."

Leaning toward them, she whispered conspiratorially, "Well...let me see what I can do, huh?"

"You stay here with the kids," Doug told Adelle. "I'm going to see what I can do about getting a tow truck. Wave me down if you've got a table when I come back."
 

He wound his way back to the travel store, where the janitor was mopping up the blood; the injured man was gone, but had left behind a trail of red splotches on the floor leading across the store to a door marked OFFICE. Doug asked the cashier where he could find a pay phone and she pointed him toward the fuel desk and beyond but, as he turned, stepping around the janitor, he was nearly knocked to the floor by the fat, smelly man who'd been standing behind him earlier.