Free Country Hardball by Steve Weddle Page B

Wasn’t he going to SAU?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s worried about that. He’s still kinda messed up and shit.”
    “Yeah. A lot of us are.”
    “He was with her. You know, when all of y’all left the party. They were gonna, you know. Right? You know what I’m saying?”
    “Of course I know.” Loriella wiped her nose. “Staci was one of my best friends.”
    “Yeah.”
    “She was gonna be a phlebotomist, you know?”
    “What’s that?”
    “Nurse who takes your blood.”
    “That right?” He nodded. “Like a vampire?”
    She grinned, but just a little. “Something like that. Gonna make good money, too. Couple of years in college. She could have … ” Loriella swallowed slowly, let the words trail off. “I never should have left her that night.">I said I didn’t ming out” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist, mumbled out the window. Closed her eyes. “I was with her. I was with her. Right there.”
    “They’ll find out what happened. It’ll be okay.” Randy watched the lights along the road as they drove in silence. The houses here and there. Satellite dishes in the yards. New cars in the driveways. Other people who went to college, learned skills you could put on a resume. He slid some cash across the seat to her. “Maybe we can have a little something to eat? We got a long night.”
    She picked up the wad of cash. “Well, aren’t you Mr. Moneybags,” she said.
    He tapped the steering wheel. “Forgot about that, I guess.”
    She handed the money back to him. “Forget you’re a Cowboys fan?”
    “What?”
    “The money clip. Must be a serious fan to have a Dallas Cowboys money clip.”
    “It was a gift,” he said, scanning the signs for a decent restaurant.
    “That right?”
    “Yeah. Hey, you know where there’s a good place to eat? All I know of is cheap hamburger places.”
    “There’s that fancy Chinese place over other side of the courthouse,” she said.
    “It nice?”
    “Don’t know. Never been.”
    “How about seafood?”
    “Sure. Whatever’s cool.”
    • • •
    She was putting another catfish bone into her napkin when the waitress came back.
    “Would you care for any dessert?” she asked them.
    “What you got?” Loriella asked, chomping each word as though she were chewing gum.
    “Chocolate pie, lemon meringue. I think that’s it.”
    Loriella smiled, raised her eyebrows at Randy.
    “Go ahead, if you want,” he said. “I’m done.”
    “Oh. That’s okay,” Loriella said. “No, thanks.” Then she looked at the paintings on the wall. Mostly landscapes. A couple head shots.
    When the waitress started to move away, he told her to bring a piece of everything.
    Loriella reached her hand across the table to his. “Thank you for coming,” she mouthed to him.
    The waitress looked down to write on her notepad. “Oh, lord,” she said. “What happened to your leg?”
    He looked down at the outside of his pants leg, a splotch of blood the size of a hand. “Hunh,” he said. “Dog got caught in some barbed wire this morning. Tore up a little.”
    “Oh, no. Is he okay?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Better than my pants.”
    She smiled. “Oh, good. I’ll get your pie.”
    • • •
    They were finishing the pie when the waitress came back with the check.
    “That man over there, the picture,” Randy said. “That’s the guy anything,” he said.in hadas from
Apocalypse Now
, right? The boat captain took Martin Sheen up the river?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Probably. He’s in that TV show now with that guy who hopped in other people’s bodies and that comedian with the bitchy wife.”
    He said all right.
    “I think he used to live around here, maybe. It’s Shelia’s Uncle Albert. Want me to ask was he the fella in that movie? What did you say the name was?”
    “Never mind. Don’t matter.”
    • • •
    He put his arm across the back of the seat, turned to pull out of the parking lot. Watched her light a cigarette,