Free The Mortal Nuts by Pete Hautman Page B

unlocked the plywood front and swung it open. A small sign hanging from hooks above the serving window read: Axel Speeter, Prop. He turned to Carmen, but she had wandered off and was now standing forty feet away, smoking a cigarette, talking to a man wearing a white Stetson. The crown of the man’s hat was level with the top of Carmen’s head.
    Tommy Fabian, the diminutive owner of Tiny Tot Donuts, looked up and waved. Axel waved back, then walked over to join them.
    â€œLookin’ good, Ax,” said Tommy. His small hand was swallowed in Axel’s grip. Tommy was decked out in an embroidered western-style shirt with mother-of-pearl snap buttons, Wrangler jeans, and a pair of black lizard Tony Lamas with excessively high raked heels. His fingers glittered with an assortment of gold, including an oversize, diamond-encrusted horseshoe ring. He pointed at the taco shop. “Nice paint job.”
    â€œI thought I’d brighten it up a little this year.”
    â€œGot lots a flash. Makes me hungry just to look at it. That there taco is a beaut. And the guy in the sombrero—that you, Ax?”
    â€œSure it is,” Axel said. “That was me in my heyday.”
    â€œHeyday? I guess I don’t remember no heyday. I only known you—what—fifty years?”
    â€œEver since Sydney.”
    Tommy looked up at the Space Tower and squinted, searching in his mind for confirmation. “Forty-four,” he said.
    Carmen looked bored.
    â€œNineteen hundred and forty-four,” said Tommy, with renewed certainty. “Met playin’ cards on the Henrietta. I remember now. I won.”
    â€œWe both won,” said Axel.
    â€œYeah, but I won more.”
    â€œYou always won more.”
    Tommy laughed and cuffed Axel on the shoulder.
    Axel said, “Carmen? You want to get those boxes of napkins and cups out of the truck?”
    â€œI s’pose,” she said, walking toward the truck. She flipped her cigarette toward the sidewalk. It landed in the grass. Axel walked over to the cigarette, stepped on it, picked it up, and delivered it to a nearby trash can.
    Tommy Fabian watched him, shaking his head. “I see little Carmen’s still the same gal as before. I thought you sent her off to be a nurse or something.”
    â€œI flew her back for the fair.”
    â€œYou’re a glutton for punishment, Ax. Is the other one gonna be here again too? Her old lady?”
    â€œSophie. Yeah. I made Sophie my manager this year. She’s pretty excited.”
    Tommy grinned and pulled out a short, slim cigar, licked it, held it up in the sunlight to inspect it, then set it ablaze with a battered stainless-steel Zippo.
    â€œI oughta get the name a your sign guy,” he said, sending up a cloud of blue smoke.
    Axel looked down the mall at the faded Tiny Tot concession, one of three minidonut stands owned by Tommy Fabian. Tiny Tot was one of the big moneymakers at the fair. Tommy claimed he netted out at over a hundred thousand a fair. Every year, Axel watched the customers lining up for their little wax-paper bags of greasy sugared minidonuts. He figured Tommy was lowballing his net. Tommy had once boasted about the number of sacks of donut mix he’d used during the fair. Axel did some quick math and came up with numbers that made his nuts ache. One thing for sure, Tommy didn’t waste any of his cash on paint—the red Tiny Tot lettering was faded, and the wooden sides of the forty-foot-long building showed through a ten-year-old layer of peeling yellow paint.
    â€œCould use a little touch-up,” Axel said.
    Tommy puffed his cigar. “I’m thinking I’ll throw some paint on next year. The space rental guy’s been bugging me about it. Image of the fair and all that crap. What the hell—by this time tomorrow there’ll be so many people here you won’t even notice.” He pointed with his cigar at the pristine mall. “All that