Nate and Miss Edna were both groggy at the breakfast table the next morning, and Grandmother Tillman chided them.
“I heard you two up ‘til all hours last night, chattering like a couple of school girls.”
“Miss Edna was telling me all about Cole’s. It’s amazing what goes on in your home town, right under your own nose, and you don’t even know about it.”
Miss Edna shot a questioning glance at Nate but he shrugged it off. He let his comment work on Grandmother Tillman. If she followed up on it, then he might be able to include her in his plan. If not, then he would have to figure out how to do it alone.
Grandmother Tillman refilled her coffee cup, looked out the window, and seemed more interested in the weather at that moment, rather than anything Nate had said.
“Like what,” she finally asked.
Nate feigned a moment of confusion, as if he had completely forgotten what he had been talking about.
“Oh, a gambling casino,” he said. “I never would’ve thought a town like Davis Corners would have a gambling casino.”
Miss Edna wanted to point out that one slot machine hardly constituted a gambling casino, but she kept still, wondering what Nate was up to.
Grandmother Tillman laughed.
“A gambling casino, here in Davis Corners? What are you talking about?”
Nate related what Miss Edna had told him about Captain Jack, the slot machine in the truckers’ locker room. Grandmother Tillman looked shocked. She discounted Nate’s hyperbole, this certainly was no casino, but it was an incursion that could only get worse. She had heard stories about truck stops that were centers for drug dealers and prostitution. She certainly would like to see Buddy Cole’s little aberration nipped in the bud.
As Grandmother Tillman felt herself starting to get worked up, she realized she was being artfully manipulated by her grandson. She chose to go along, partly for her amusement, partly to see what he was up to.
“But what can ordinary people like ourselves do about it?” She laced her question with a generous dollop of sarcasm, which Nate missed.
“The ideal solution, if such a thing was possible, would be to get rid of the slot machine and make restitution to those who’d been victimized.” Nate tried to look as if this was the first time he had given this any thought.
Grandmother Tillman was amused by his dramatics.
“I hardly think of those truck drivers in the back room as victims,” Grandmother Tillman said.
“Even so, it wouldn’t be right for Buddy Cole to profit from what he’s been doing,” Nate said.
Grandmother Tillman went to the stove and poured Miss Edna another cup of coffee.
“Revenge is tricky business, you two. It’s like a ditch you dig for your enemy to fall into. You’re as likely to fall into it yourself and break your own neck.”
Nate squirmed at the table, realizing he had been too transparent. He wondered if his grandmother was angry at him for trying to persuade her in such a round about way to help them get even with Buddy Cole. All three of them sat around the table staring silently into their cups. Grandmother Tillman thought about that day at the trailer park, seeing all of Miss Edna’s belongings strewn in front of her trailer. She remembered how humiliating it had been for the young woman.
“No, it’s best to walk away from revenge,” she said. A conspiratorial smile crossed her face. “But shutting down an illegal casino, now that’s a whole other story.”
Nate and Miss Edna squealed like two kids whose mom said they could skip school just this once. Nate laid out his plan to the two of them. Miss Edna was astounded and voted for it immediately. Grandmother Tillman pondered it carefully before admitting it could work. The three of them worked out some last details and decided to do it.
“Your mother’s not going to be real pleased with me if she finds out about this,” Grandmother Tillman said to Nate. “One of the reasons you’re here is so I can keep you out of these kinds of high-jinks.”
“I know,” Nate said. “I’m asking you to get in trouble with me so we can get even with Buddy Cole for how he treated Miss Edna.”
“So be it, then. I’ve always been a sucker for someone who speaks the plain truth.”
A few necessary phone calls were made, and the plan was put in motion.
That evening, around eight, Miss Edna strolled into Cole’s as if nothing in the world had ever happened. She swung by and visited with Angie, the girl working the cash register. They giggled and Miss Edna slipped her something. Pearl, the waitress on duty, sniffed her nose up when she saw her sit at the counter. The truckers all whistled and hollered and asked where she’d been.
“We’ve heard all kinds of stories, Sweetie,” one said. “You been all right?”
“I’ve never been better.” The sincerity in her voice relaxed the men at the counter. “What’ve you been hearing?”
“Nothing you’d want to hear, and nothing anybody believed.”
Pearl sniffed again when the trucker looked at her.
“Sylvester,” Miss Edna called back. Sylvester looked up from the grill.
“What can I get you, girl?” he said.
“What say you and I have our old regular?”
Sylvester threw a couple of t-bones on the grill and smiled. Pearl immediately grabbed her purse from behind the counter and headed toward the Ladies’ room. She stopped by the phone along the way and made a quick call.
Miss Edna joked with the men at the counter and asked about a half dozen of her friends who weren’t there. Truckers had one of the most extensive and reliable communication systems anywhere. A new joke or piece of gossip put out on Monday would work its way over the Interstate and CB network, so that every trucker who worked the regular routes knew it by Wednesday.
“I can’t see you guys from this side of the counter,” Miss Edna said as she moved around to the other side. “This is more like it.”
Pearl came back from the Ladies room.
“Employees only, behind the counter,” Pearl said in a snooty voice. “Since you quit without notice, I’m surprised you’ve got the guts to show your face here at all.”
“Quit?” Miss Edna looked at the truckers.
“Buddy said you went crazy and tore your place up and then quit without giving him any notice,” one of the truckers said.
Sylvester walked out from around the grill with two steak dinners and set them at the end of the counter. Miss Edna walked down and sat across from Sylvester, on the customer side. Sylvester filled two cups with fresh coffee, and they started eating.
Between mouthfuls of t-bone and fries, Miss Edna said , “I don’t suppose Buddy gave any reason why I would go crazy like that and throw all my own stuff out into the dirt and mud.”
“Because he wouldn’t cheat on his wife and children like you asked him to,” Pearl said in her snooty tone.
“And you believed that?” Miss Edna said.
“Why wouldn’t I? It sounds like something you’d do.”
“Let me show you what’s wrong with that story, and it has nothing to do with what I would or wouldn’t do.”
Miss Edna walked down to the end of the counter. She had been making herself a salad and still had a raw onion and a knife in her hand. She laid them down and put her arm around the trucker sitting at the end.
“You married, cowboy?”
“You know I am,” he said.
“Love your wife and kids?”
“You know I do.”
“If I asked you to go to bed with me, would you?”
“In a heartbeat, darling.”
Everybody at the counter laughed, except Pearl.
Miss Edna walked down the counter and repeated the interview in pretty much the same fashion with each trucker.
“See, that’s what’s wrong with Buddy’s story,” Miss Edna said to Pearl. “If I had asked him to go to bed, that horny little toad would’ve done it.”
“Well, I just don’t think...”
“For the love of God, Pearlie, we’re talking about Buddy, here. He’d screw a woodpile if he thought there was a snake in it.”
Once again, everybody laughed. Miss Edna was enjoying being her old self again.
“Speak of the horny little devil, and up he pops,” she said when she saw Buddy’s truck pull up outside. He got out of the truck and stomped into the diner.
“Lookee who’s here, like she’s the queen bee. I thought you left town.”
Buddy went behind the counter and walked down to the end where Miss Edna and Sylvester were eating. While he was doing that, Nate slipped into the diner and grabbed the key to the truckers’ locker room off of the wooden statue by the cash register. Miss Edna saw him and looked at the end of the counter where she had left the onion. Nate scooted by, right behind Buddy, grabbed the onion and headed back to the locker room.
“I should’ve called the police on you, you owed me thirty days notice on your trailer or one month’s rent.”
“Why didn’t you, then?” Miss Edna said.
“Felt sorry for you, I guess. Fine way you repay me, sneaking back here and eating my food.”
“Right, I snuck in through the front door, after all, you left it open. Oh yeah, you also left all the lights on and all these people in here. And I seem to remember that this is a restaurant. People eat food in a restaurant.”
“I should call the police now,” Buddy said.
“No need to, here they are.”
Ernie Roberts, the policeman who had interrogated Nate about Grub Hanley walked into the diner. He took his hat off and gave a general nod to the crowd at the counter. The argument came to an awkward silence. He sat down alone in one of the booths and Pearl went over to take his order. Miss Edna went back to eating her t-bone.
“How did queen bee here order her steak?” Buddy called over to Pearl.
“Didn’t order a steak. Didn’t order anything.”
“Hear that, Officer Roberts? The lady here is eating food she didn’t order and didn’t intend to pay for. What’re going to do about that?”
Roberts didn’t have a chance to answer. Nate came running out from the back room, bawling like a baby.
“That machine took my money. It took my quarters I saved to go to the movies.”
He ran over to Grandmother Tillman, who had walked into the diner at just that moment.
“What machine, child? Don’t cry. What has you so upset?”
Everybody stiffened to attention. The sudden appearance of Grandmother Tillman was like the school principal walking into the poker game in the boys’ lavatory. Buddy Cole looked at the statue by the cash register and panicked when he saw the key for Captain Jack wasn’t there.
Officer Roberts walked over to Nate.
“Calm down, son. What’s wrong?”
“I was playing with that machine in the back, the one with the pretty wheels that go around, and it took all my money.” Nate continued to bawl profusely, and he hoped Officer Roberts wouldn’t detect the strong onion aroma on his cheeks. The general atmosphere of the diner smelled so heavily of grease and onions, however, that no one could have detected what little Nate added to it.
Officer Roberts went back into the truckers’ locker room and returned.
“What’re you doing with a slot machine here?” he said to Buddy.
Grandmother Tillman went into hysterics.
“A slot machine? A slot machine? You have gambling where young children can lose their lunch money and allowances?”
The entire diner was silent and everyone was waiting to see how Buddy got out of this one. Buddy smiled confidently.
“Not a real slot machine, a toy one. Why if you’ll look again, you’ll see there’s a sign that says it’s for entertainment, not gambling.”
“But it took my money,” Nate said though his blubbering.
“All you have to do is tell me how much you lost, that is, how much you played with, and I give it right back to you.”
The policeman looked at Grandmother Tillman. “If that’s the case, I’m not sure any law’s been broken,” he said.
Buddy gave Nate the eight quarters he said he’d put into the machine. “Just like the sign says,” he said with a smug smile.
“You’ve never given me my money back,” one of the truckers said. “I’ve put twenty bucks into that thing over the last two years.”
“Same here, I never got anything back.”
And so it went all along the counter.
“Well, you should’ve asked,” Buddy said.
“We’re asking now.”
Buddy looked at Officer Roberts. “This is silly, how would I know how much money people have put into that thing. Everybody and his brother’d start showing up asking for money they never lost.”
“What’s the name of that bass boat of yours?” Miss Edna said.
“Captain Jack’s Loot,” one of the truckers said. “That’s where all the money is. Sell that damn boat and give us our money back.”
The crowd started getting riled and Officer Roberts had to yell out for everyone to calm down. He asked Grandmother Tillman what he should do.
“First of all, you’ve got to confiscate and destroy that gambling machine.”
Buddy winced.
“Secondly, some kind of restitution should be made. The easiest way would be for Mr. Cole here to sell the boat, since that’s where the money seems to have gone, and distribute the money in reasonable shares until all claimants have been satisfied or all the money’s gone. I would volunteer to distribute those funds, unless someone feels I wouldn’t be objective or trustworthy.”
Nobody in Davis Corners was going to touch that last challenge, not even Buddy Cole.
“You’ve got no way of knowing that I bought that boat with winnings from the slot machine,” Buddy said.
“There’s another way, then,” Grandmother Tillman said.
This part was outside Nate’s plan, and he was curious what Grandmother Tillman was up to.
“What’s that?” Buddy said.
“Why your tax records, of course. You would’ve claimed the money as revenue so we can get the exact amount off your tax records. You did pay taxes on it, didn’t you?”
Buddy was silent as he realized he’d been done in.
One of the truckers piped up, “If Buddy sells the boat and gives the money to Mrs. Tillman, we’ll put the word out and people can get in touch with her.”
“That, or I can turn it over to the IRS folks and the feds,” Officer Roberts said to Buddy.
“Okay,” Buddy said. “But what about this bitch here who’s been stealing food from me?”
Grandmother Tillman walked over and slapped Buddy’s face.
“Check with the girl at the cash register,” she said. “Come on, children, we’re leaving.”
As Grandmother Tillman, Nate, and Miss Edna marched triumphantly out the door, Angie held up the slip that Miss Edna had given her earlier.
“Here’s the order, all paid for. Count the cash drawer, if you want.”
Everyone at the counter hooted and jeered at Buddy. Outside, in Grandmother Tillman’s car, they celebrated, too, as they drove away. Grandmother Tillman thought about all the unfairness and bullies in the world. Twice in her life he had gotten the upper hand on them. Once, on the bridge with Ricky Thornton, and again tonight when she slapped Buddy Cole. She realized it was two more chances than most people got, and said a prayer of thanks, while at the same time she asked for forgiveness.
Chapter 21
Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes
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