Free Pig-Out Inn by Lois Ruby

your ears.” There were full sound effects, with Fenway barking the way any respectable dog would bark at a fire truck. “A cop pulls you over, and he smells beer on your breath. So you tell him, ‘Gosh, officer, all I did was buy a paper cup from a kid eighty miles back,’ and bingo! We both spend a night in the slammer.”
    â€œIt’s not a pretty picture,” the trucker said, staring into Tag’s thin air.
    â€œBut, I’ll give you an ice cold Coke for free.”
    â€œHow much for the cup?”
    â€œFree.”
    â€œWhat’s your angle?”
    â€œYou got anything in your cab for the kids at home?”
    The trucker glanced over at his truck and back at Tag with a guilty look on his face. “Naw, I’m only away half of every week. It’s no big deal when I come home.”
    â€œYou’re going home to those sweet babies empty-handed?” Tag asked, as if he were personally offended.
    â€œâ€˜You didn’t bring me nothing, Daddy? Again?’”
    Well, that trucker headed back to his rig with his free Coke and about fifteen dollars’ worth of absolute junk—carnival prizes like spider rings and Chinese finger-prisons.
    Tag flicked a refreshing shower of water from the ice bucket on Fenway, who barked and nuzzled his nose gratefully in Tag’s crotch.
    I stepped back for a second to watch the two of them, especially the twerp of a kid in his high-water jeans and baggy alligator shirt, and I realized I was in the presence of a genuine pro.
    â€œThat was too simple, Fenway,” Tag said. “What an easy mark.”

NINE
    Barbara and Bill Wanamaker came in for some lemonade. Barbara dipped her pinkie into the glass and let the baby suck on it. She was getting bigger and bigger and wouldn’t be willing to hang around in that serving tray much longer, so the Wanamakers were spelling each other through the night, not even stopping to catch a few hours in a bed.
    While we all clucked over the baby a truck driver came in who just wasn’t like the others. Most of the customers would say “Cuppa java, black,” or “Gimme two scrambled.” This guy looked like the rest in faded jeans that sagged at the knees and seat and an A H , K ANSAS ! T-shirt, but as soon as he opened his mouth we knew he was different.
    â€œWould you be kind enough to bring me a piping hot cup of creamed coffee, with a warm scone at the side?” The Wanamakers glanced at each other and snickered, and even the baby smiled, but the Gentleman never noticed. He had his face buried in a red magazine that had no picture on the cover, just small white letters. The only words I caught were Journal of .
    Tag was mopping up his fried eggs with a wedge of toast. “What’s a scone?” he asked me.
    â€œOh, a scone, well. It’s a … it’s like a sausage … not links of course, but a sausage pattie, about so big around.” I made a circle with my fingers, starting at about watermelon size and working down to something that would fit alongside a cup of coffee.
    â€œI don’t believe you for a minute. The guy said he wanted it warm. People eat sausage sizzling hot,” Tag said.
    â€œWhat he meant was warmish hot. Nothing’s ever served hot around here, you know that. A warmish hot, used-to-be sizzling sausage.”
    In the back booth, Stephanie smoothed a page of her notebook and said, “You are both utter fools. Don’t you know that a scone is a tropical fruit? It’s related to the papaya and the mango, only not as fleshy. Mango! That’s what I’ll call the mynah bird in my fiction novel. And I’ll call the Malaysian houseboy Papaya. Brilliant, Stephanie, brilliant.”
    â€œYou have a Malaysian houseboy in your story in Kansas?” Just where did Stephanie think we were?
    â€œMy fiction novel is populated with very sophisticated people who’ve been around, Dovi. But you