Bedbugs (32 page)

Gary’s ears flushed red. He knew the comment was directed at him, but he finished filling the two bowls and carried them over to the two men at the end of the counter before meeting Herb’s gaze.

“Get off the man’s case, will yah, Herb?” Earl snapped.

“I just . . . never had much of a mind to go hunting, is all,” Gary said, wiping his hands on his greasy apron. Several men at the counter snickered.

“Probably watched
Bambi
too many times when he was a kid ‘n didn’t like the idea of Bambi’s mother ending up as venison steaks,” Frank Harris said with a wide, bucktoothed smirk.

The Cafe filled with a brief gale of laughter. Gary’s flush deepened as he looked squarely at Frank and Herb. In a low, even voice, he leaned across the counter and said, “No—it ain’t that at all. I just don’t cotton to the idea of killin’ deer.” He paused, apparently considering his words carefully, then added, “‘N I don’t need to carry around a big rifle and shoot defenseless animals to prove I’m a man, neither.”

He was about to say more but then caught the withering glance from Earl that told him to shut his mouth and not insult good paying customers. He turned back to the stew pot and began stirring it, trying hard to control his anger.

“Come on, lay off him, Frank,” Johnny Kaufman said sharply. He was one of the two men eating stew at the end of the counter. “I don’t expect I’d be all that keen on hunting either if what happened to his brother happened to mine.”

Everyone in the Cafe grunted and nodded thoughtfully, some with downcast eyes.

“Yeah,” Herb said, “it’s been—what? Six years now since your brother got lost and died out in the woods. Ain’t that right?”

Gary glanced over his shoulder at Herb and nodded tightly. “Yup. Six years almost to the day.”

“And weren’t that a bitch, how nobody found him ‘till next spring when those Boy Scouts stumbled over him—or at least what was left of him.”

“Christ, Herb! Knock it off, will yah?” Earl said sharply. Herb turned and looked at Earl, bristling for an argument, but then he shrugged and innocently said, man, I’m just sayin’ what every damned one of us already knows. It was mighty peculiar how someone like Al could get hisseif lost and then die of exposure.”

“If you recall,” Gary said, turning to face Herb, “we had a bitch of an early snowstorm the afternoon Al didn’t show up at home. No one was gonna find him down there in that stream bed, buried under a foot of snow.” Then, looking at Johnny, he added, “And what happened to Al ain’t got nothin’ to do with my not hunting. I just plain don’t like it. Period!”

“Oooww,” Herb said. He snorted and wiped his nose, leaving a shiny trail of snot on the back of his hand. “Well, someone found him, and you know as well as I do that when they did, his bones were stripped clean.”

“—By scavengers,” Gary said.

Herb snorted again and said, “Well, that ain’t what I heard. My cousin works for the state, and he said the coroner’s report mentioned there was evidence your brother’s bones had been scraped, and maybe not by some animal’s teeth, neither. That they might’ve been scraped by a knife.”

“Bullshit!” Earl snarled. “You been listenin’ to the wrong people.” Then, to Gary, he added, “Don’t listen to that asshole.”

“Hey, I just know what I heard,” Herb said, and with that he turned back to his breakfast.

“Yo! Gary! How ‘bout another round over here?” someone shouted from the table over in the far corner. Gary nodded and called back, “Be right with yah.” Taking a tray to carry the empty bowls back, he walked slowly over to the table, making a point of locking eyes with Herb as he went around the edge of the counter.

Herb tracked him with slitted eyes, then took a slurping sip of coffee and cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, you know, now that I think ‘bout it, don’t you all think it’s rather peculiar how Al and Roy ain’t been the only fellas to get lost out huntin’?”

Just about every eye in the restaurant turned on him, and he blushed under the attention.

“Well, I mean it seems ‘s though every year someone from ‘round here goes missing or gets shot or some damned deal. Why, just last year it was Ruben Matthews, ‘n the year before that, Pat Riccoli, that guy up from Pennsylvania.”

“That’s right,” Frank piped in, “And the year before that, that fella from Mast-a-two-shits was found. Looked like he’d been chewed bad by some wild dog or something.”

“You know what I think?” Gary said as he made his way back over to the stove. “I think you’re both full of shit. I think you been breathin’ them fumes in the paper mill too damned long, and your brain’s gone all mushy.”

“Fuck you,” Herb snarled, but now that he’d been interrupted, he let what he’d been talking about drop.

“Yeah, well I still say—” Frank began as he spooned a mouthful of stew into his mouth. Before he could continue, his teeth made a loud cracking sound. His eyes widened with shock as he worked his jaw back and forth. “What the fuck—?” he sputtered as broth dribbled through his beard and down his chin.

Herb was the first to burst out laughing when Frank hawked noisily and then spat a tooth out onto the counter. It lay there, the enamel glistening like a shiny pearl on the pale green linoleum.

“Maybe you oughta think ‘bout switchin’ to Poly-Grip,” Herb said, chuckling.

“Jesus H. Key-rist, Frank!” Earl snarled. “People have to eat off this counter!”

“I broke my fucking tooth!” Frank yelled as he pressed his hand against his jaw and started massaging the cheek. A few of the hunters closest to him regarded him and the small pearly knob that lay on the counter in a puddle of stew. Frank’s cheek bulged as he ran his tongue around inside his mouth, taking a quick tally. Then he reached over the counter, snagged Gary by the shoulder, and spun him around.

“What the fuck is this?” he shouted, pointing at the tooth on the counter.

Gary shrugged, a thin trace of a smile flicking across his mouth. “Looks to me like you lost a tooth. I knew you was getting soft in the head. Must be from hangin’ around with Herb.”

“I broke my fuckin’ tooth on something in your goddamned stew!” Frank yelled, his face flushing bright red. His hand shook as he pointed angrily at Gary. “‘N you’re gonna pay for this!” He opened his mouth and began running his forefinger around inside. After a few seconds, his face clouded with confusion, and he muttered again, “What the fuck?”

Earl reached in front of Frank after grabbing a napkin from the dispenser and quickly mopped up the smear of stew. Frank snatched up the loose tooth before Earl could get it.

“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch,” Frank said, staring earnestly at the tooth. Turning to Herb, he stretched his mouth open wide with both hands and in a distorted voice asked, “Can you see which one’s missing?”

Wrinkling his nose, Herb peered into Frank’s mouth, then shook his head and said, “Nope. Everything looks fine to me. But I ain’t no friggin’ dentist.”

“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch,” Frank said as he probed deeper into his mouth with one hand. “I can’t feel a damned thing missing.”

Suddenly he stiffened and, shifting his gaze to Gary, regarded him with a hard, cold stare. Gary met him with clear-eyed detachment.

“What the fuck’d you put in this stew, anyway?” Frank said angrily.

Gary shrugged again. Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he said, “Jus’ some broth, meat ‘n vegetables—carrots and potatoes, mostly.”

 
“So how the fuck do you explain
this
?” Frank said, holding the broken tooth out for Gary’s inspection. “If it didn’t come outta my mouth—”

“What the hell’re you talking about, Frank?” Earl said, his voice lowered with sternness. “I just saw you spit the damned thing onto my clean counter!”

“I don’t mean that!” Frank shouted. “I mean this isn’t my goddamned tooth! What the fuck is someone’s tooth doing in my bowl of stew?”

“For Christ’s sake, that ain’t no tooth,” Gary said as he flipped an order of eggs onto a plate and placed four slices of toast and three strips of bacon beside them. “It’s just a chip of bone that must’ve been in with the meat I used. I just dumped in a whole batch of it straight out of the package. Must be something that got in at the processing plant.”

“Bullshit!” Frank bellowed. “This sure as shit looks like a tooth to me!”

“Well—it beats the shit out of me,” Gary said casually as he slid the plate of eggs over to Lloyd. “Hey—you want some sausage with that?”

Lloyd shook his head as he cut into the eggs with the edge of his fork. “Thanks, no. Teeth or no teeth in it, I wanna save some room for at least one bowl of that stew ‘fore I head out.” He glanced at the restaurant front window, hoping to see the first traces of morning light that would mean they could all head out into the woods, but the sky was still slate black.

“You gonna sit here all day staring at that hunk of bone, or do you want me to throw it away for yah?” Gary asked, walking over toward Frank with his hand extended.

“I dunno,” Frank said, narrowly eyeing the chip of bone. “I just might want to take it over to the Board of Health and let ‘em see what kind of shit’s in the food you serve here.”

“Now wait a minute, there,” Earl said. “You don’t want to be doing that. I got enough trouble with them guys tellin’ me how to run my business as it is.” He held his hand out, palm up, and with a quick flick of his fingers, indicated that he wanted Frank to give him the piece of bone. When he did, Earl bunched it up inside a napkin and handed it to Gary, who casually hook-shot it into the trash can by the door leading into the kitchen.

“So anyway,” Pete Coleman said in the momentary silence that followed. “Are any of you guys gonna help me look for my pa today or not?”

For several seconds, the only sound in the Cafe was that of the stew bubbling in the pot on the stove. Finally, Earl cleared his throat and said, “You know, Pete, I tend to agree with Ollie, here. I’d wager a week’s income, such as it is, that your pa shows up ‘fore evenin’.”

“Prob’ly with a seven-point buck slung across his back, too,” Ollie added.

Pete looked from Earl to Ollie, trying to find reassurance in their faces, but a cold, dark gnawing, like hunger in the pit of his stomach, was telling him that sure as the sun was less than half an hour from rising in the East, his pa was dead somewhere out there in the woods. Looking glum, he took a piece of roll, ran it around inside his bowl, sopping up the last traces of stew, then popped it into his mouth.

“And anyways, we’re all gonna be traipsing our sorry asses through the woods all day,” Johnny Kaufman said, his voice muffled by a mouthful of stew. “If something’s happened to your pa—which I don’t think did, but
if
something did, then one of us is bound to find him. No sense getting the Forest Service guys involved ‘till we know for sure something’s happened. When was the last time you fellas seen him, anyway?”

The question was directed at Herb and Frank, who glanced at each other for a moment before Herb said, “Well, we split up when we was west of Watcher’s Mountain. Roy said he was gonna try to strike a trail down to a ravine near the base. Frank ‘n me went over to the fire road ‘n headed toward the river.”

Frank nodded and then, glancing at the window, said, “Almost daylight.” Through the window, they could see the first gray streaks of dawn in the eastern sky.

Johnny waved his hand to get Gary’s attention. “Hey! How ‘bout another bowl ‘fore we leave?”

Gary came over to the counter, took the bowl from Johnny, placed it on the work bench, and then, tipping the pot to one side, scooped up a ladleful and poured it into Johnny’s bowl. As soon as he handed it back to Johnny, three other men signaled that they, too, were ready for seconds. Earl let out a low sigh, grateful that Frank’s discovery of a tooth or piece of bone or whatever that thing was wasn’t going to ruin the morning’s business.

While some men finished up their meals, others paid their bills and headed out to their trucks and Jeeps to drive out to their jump-off points. The Cafe filled with the loud clatter of silverware and plates as Gary scraped the dishes clean and stacked them up for the dishwasher, who wasn’t due in until seven o’clock. He had about half of the counter cleared and was wiping it with a damp cloth when Johnny Kaufman suddenly shouted and dropped his spoon to the floor. The loud clatter drew the attention of everyone in the Cafe.

“Well I’ll be a goddamned son-of-a-bitch!” Johnny shouted.

“What—? You got a piece of bone, too?” Frank asked, scowling.

Johnny was staring down into his bowl with a thoroughly confused expression on his face. After a moment, as several men edged closer to him to see what the problem was, Johnny reached gingerly into the bowl and, hooking his index finger, held up a stew-smeared ring. “Looks like I hit the jackpot today, huh?” he said, glancing around at the curious faces surrounding him.

Gary glanced casually over his shoulder. His expression didn’t waver a bit when he saw that Johnny was holding a ring up to the light and was turning it around, inspecting it. The square red stone gleamed dully beneath the grainy brown smear of stew on it.

“Hey! That looks like my ring,” Gary said. His voice was low and even, perfectly controlled. “I lost it this morning. It must’ve fallen into the pot when I was making the stew.” He shook his head from side to side. “Damn! I’ve got to be more careful.”