Stuff Dreams Are Made Of (7 page)

“So?”

“You told me the story of Daron Styles and the food vendor. My God, James, a vendor, just like us, died. Right here.”

“Oh Christ. Give it up. Come on, amigo. They were stray moments. We aren’t a part of that scenerio.”

I nodded. “You’re right.”

“We’ll rent
The Producers
. The original, with Zero Mostel. We’ll drink some beer and laugh our asses off. Man, you are getting way too serious, amigo.”

I saw him approach the truck from the corner of my eye, his
stomach preceding him. He was puffing on a big brown cigar and carried a beer bottle in his hand.

“Hey, boys.”

“Stan.” James nodded. Stan had quite a bit of James’s money from last night and I could tell from just the way he said “Stan” that James was thinking about getting that money back.

Our poker buddy leaned on the back of the truck, studying us. “Heard you went into the tent this evening.”

James looked at me. “We did.”

“Who told you?”

“Hey, kid, don’t take offense. Thomas LeRoy noticed you in the crowd. Wanted to know who the new guys were and how you were doing.”

“Tell him we’re doing fine.” James smiled.

“So, you saw the rev. Pretty good show, eh?”

“Well,” I watched him take a swallow of beer and realized we didn’t have any. What the hell were we thinking? “we didn’t stay for much of it.”

“Still, you saw some pretty powerful stuff. You make sure you come down to the trailer in ’bout half an hour. We’re playin’ some poker and I think you’ll have a good time.”

More free beer? Sooner or later they’d make us pay for the privilege. Of course, the way James played, the beer wasn’t free.

And, of course, James had the same thought I did. “We’ll be there. Looking forward to it.”

Stan kept his elbow on the truck bed, watching us and blowing out puffs of gray smoke from his cheap cigar. It smelled somewhat like wet rags in a trash fire. “What do you boys do when you’re not selling food?”

“You mean for fun?” James asked.

“No. What are your day jobs? Some of us do this full time. I travel with the rev. Crayer pretty much works with the rev full time. Now Dusty, he’s a retired school teacher if you can believe
that, and Mug is a three-time convicted felon who has his own catering business. You don’t want to fuck with him. Is that what you boys do? Cater?”

“No, sir.” James got off his bucket and stepped to the rear. “I work for a seafood restaurant and Skip here sells security systems.”

“And neither of us is a felon,” I added.

James nodded. “Not yet.”

Stan pursed his lips and frowned, almost as if he didn’t believe us. “That’s what you do, huh? A little sales and food.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bruce tells me you had some questions about the rev and this operation.”

I could feel James’s eyes shift toward me. “Just heard some things and wondered.”

“You got questions, ask me.” Straightforward. The horse’s mouth so to speak.

“They weren’t important. I’d just been here a while back and remembered an incident —”

“The Washington girl?” He said it in a low, guttural voice.

“Yeah.”

“Sad story. They never found the killer. Reverend Cashdollar,” he paused, “and his wife felt terrible. You know Gwena? Anyway, any time someone in this unit has a problem, the rev and his wife get personally involved. He even paid a private detective to look into the death, but they never got the first clue.”

I was tempted. I wanted to say, “Hey, I heard she was Cashdollar’s girlfriend,” but I didn’t. There was a menacing tone to Stan’s voice and I didn’t even want to go there.

“You listen to me, kid. I’ve been here longer than anyone. Got it?” He puffed on the cigar.

“Got it.”

“Michael Bland, he was a druggy. Guy overdosed. It’s on the record, so you can drop your questions about him.”

“Michael Bland?”

He stared at me, his eyes burning holes in my retinas.

“He was a vendor. Just like you.” There was a long silence.

“Ah.”

“I just think it’s better if you get a straight answer from someone who knows what’s going on.”

I nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“Well boys, I hope you do well in your day jobs, that sales and fast food thing, because this right here is a tough racket. And to be honest, we don’t need more competition.”

I waited for him to smile. He blew a puff of smoke at me, and didn’t. “Just so we understand each other.”

I’ll admit I was puzzled. “I’m not sure we do.”

“You think on it, boy.” He spun around and headed back down the path.

As he walked away I said, “Nice guy, that Stan.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, lighten up, Skip.” James glared at me. “All he said was he didn’t need the competition. And as for the questions —”

“James, I think there was a veiled threat in there somewhere. Not really veiled.”

“Skip, Skip. He’s right. If you’re going to go around talking about the possibility of Cashdollar being involved in a murder, you probably should talk to someone who was here when it happened. Pal, I’ll always defend you, but you were a little out of line. And our cigar chomping buddy just wanted to let you know.”

“What about his line ‘Just so we understand each other?’ When someone says something like that, it’s a threat, James.”

I could see him replaying the conversation in his mind. “Like I said, Skip. He doesn’t like the competition. So we take a
hint and don’t come back next year. Hell, if we make it big, we won’t have to.”

“Maybe that’s all it was.” I didn’t ever want to come back. Ever. So I wasn’t going to argue with James.

He lit a cigarette and took a slow drag. He let the smoke out through his clenched teeth and stared down the trail at the lineup of competing trailers and trucks that sold the food. The donuts, the pretzels, the onion rings, and pizza. “I mean, the guy did invite us down for poker.”

I saw two guys carrying a heavy crate to their pretzel van, and two doors down somebody was dumping a bucket of soapy water from the back of his trailer. One old man walked by our trailer, his shoes sucking mud as he hefted two cardboard boxes of frozen french fries on his shoulders. The vendors were getting ready to close up shop.

We pushed the temporary counter back into the truck, folded up the aluminum step-down, and pulled the sliding door down. I snapped the padlock. “Poker and free beer.” I had to admit it.

“Oh yeah, we can’t forget the beer.”

“It doesn’t pay for the losses, but it makes them tolerable, eh, James?”

“Ah, yes. Beer. Now there’s a temporary solution.” James gave me a wide-eyed stare.

I had to think. Finally it came to me. Homer Simpson. You’ve got to love Homer. Beer, a temporary solution.

We showered in the cement block building, ignoring as best we could its sour odor of rotting garbage and soiled laundry. I changed into another pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I kept thinking about Em’s car being back in her parking lot. Maybe somebody brought the car back and she was still wherever. Or maybe something had happened to her and they just brought the car back, but she was laid up somewhere or worse. You know how you start thinking some bad thoughts and they just get worse and worse? I’ve never had good thoughts that just got better and better. Does that happen to everyone?

“Skip, let’s tap a couple bucks from last night.” James pulled on a Bob Marley T-shirt and walked out of the building. I ran to keep up.

“James, we talked about this, man. If we’re going to run this like a business, then —”

He turned, and with a very sober expression said, “Poker is a business too, Skip. The kind of money those guys were playing for? Come on. Five hundred dollars.”

I took a very deep breath. “It comes out of your share. No questions about it when we do the split.”

“Do you realize how upset you’re going to be when I win big tonight?” He gave me a sad look.

I wasn’t too concerned about how upset I might be. I’d had a feeling that the regulars weren’t quite playing fair the last time. I believed there was a little cheating and sleight of hand going on. Even the shuffle and deal seemed a bit off, but then, James had put eight bucks in the collection tonight and Cashdollar had promised him a return. I’m sure I heard the reverend say something about “if you give, God will make you rich.” I was probably blowing a perfectly good chance to make a lot of money.

I opened the truck and reached back to get our cash. I’d transferred the cash box to the small closet behind the passenger seat. Pulling it out, I opened it. Nothing.

“James. You took the money?”

“No, man. Not me.”

“James?”

“Skip?”

I looked again. Then I looked back in the closet. I leaned in and ran my hands along the wooden floor, picking up a sharp splinter. I jerked the sliver of wood out of my index finger.

“Skip, what’s the problem?” He stood behind me in the wet grass.

“There’s no money in the box, buddy.”

“Don’t
buddy
, me, Skip. I don’t have it. I didn’t take it.”

“No?”

He gave me a stern look.

“Damn.”

“Dude, how much did we lose?”

I’d put in $500 for change, plus the $500 we made. “A grand.”

“Jesus. That hurts. Had to have happened when we showered.”

I sat down on the passenger seat and rubbed my eyes. We didn’t know these people, we didn’t know anything about these people. I remembered when I was really young and my dad took me to a carnival. Probably the only carnival he ever took me to. Some guy with greasy hair, a bright red scar on his cheek, and two or three teeth in his mouth ran the Tilt-A-Whirl. I did not even want to get on. Not because of the ride, but because the guy was so scary. Dad laughed and said, “He’s a carney, son. A carney. He’s a guy who works for a carnival. They’re all scary. And you can’t ever trust ’em, but don’t worry. I’m right here to protect you.”

Dad didn’t stick around a whole lot longer to protect anyone in our family and I have never trusted carneys since. I was guessing the same guys who worked carnivals worked traveling salvation shows as well.

“We can’t afford to lose that money, James.”

“No we can’t, pard.”

“So we’re out of the card game.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got to win that grand back. I’ve got a hundred right here. I was just hoping for a bigger stake.”

I watched him pull a one hundred dollar bill from his shoe.

“Ben Franklin, here I come.”

“James, are you crazy? Think about it.”

“About what?”

“Chances are very good that someone in this group of food vendors stole the money.”

“Skip, we’ll never find it. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Not my point.”

“The point is?”

“That same person may be playing poker tonight. And
things are not necessarily as they seem. The game may be fixed. You may lose more than a grand tonight.”

“Ain’t gonna happen, amigo.”

He lost fifty bucks in the first five minutes. Another fifty in the next ten.

“Hey, pard. Lend me twenty. I know you’ve got it.”

“Beer money, James.”

My roommate gave me a pleading look. I gave him a twenty. My last twenty. Our last twenty. I wasn’t sure what we were going to use for tomorrow. Maybe James could hit Brook up for another five hundred dollar stake. And I had no idea where we were going to get more beer money.

“So you’re in?” Mug shoved some chips to the center of the table. He had a big head and a jowly face. His cheeks kind of bulged and when he talked it was as if he had a wad of cotton there. I wondered what the three felonies entailed. I remembered what Stan had said. You don’t want to fuck with Mug.

James matched the chips.

“You boys do any business tonight?” Mug smirked.

“Matter of fact, we sold a little.” I defended our meager night. Meager, hell. With the theft, it was a total loss.

Stan squinted at me. “I told you, you can’t be a weekend vendor and make any money. It’s a full-time commitment. You take Henry over there.” He pointed to lemonade-and-hotdog Henry. “Henry, how long did you go before you were full time with the rev?”

Henry studied his cards, moving them around, never looking up. “ ’Bout a month.”

“See, Henry worked in a tool and die shop, did this part time, but he realized he needed a full-time commitment.” Stan reached out and touched Dusty’s arm. “Tell ’em I’m right, Dusty.”

“Right as rain.” Dusty looked up, apparently realizing he might anger the rain god again. We all looked up. The god remained quiet. The former schoolteacher let out a sigh.

James took the pot. With two pair. And just like that he was up $150. Then he took another one and he was flirting with $400.

The rain had washed the grease smell from the air, and had hosed down some of the more offensive odors of two of the poker players themselves, so I could smell pine trees on the cooling night air. A hundred feet or so away, I could hear the soft lapping of the Intracoastal Waterway, and there were murmuring voices coming from the community of tents, trailers, and campers where the faithful and the vendors lived for the weekend.

I looked around while James played, and I tried to figure out if one of these full-time vendors had taken our money. Stan and Crayer, with their cryptic threats, Mug, who may have done jail time for theft, Dusty the school teacher who didn’t look like he could hurt a fly, Henry the tool shop guy, and the silent man sitting to my right. Any one of them could have done it. All they had to do was pop open the truck, bang the door behind the passenger seat, and it usually popped right open, even when it was locked. There’s a false wall there and a narrow closet. I’d just put the cash box there. If someone had seen me do it, stealing it would be a snap. It could have been any one of these guys, but I had suspicions about Crayer. He was right next door, and he’d probably seen me open that little closet several times. I watched him, thinking maybe I’d see something. A glance, a guilty look. Obviously, I’m not a detective. I had no idea what to look for.

The night grew quiet and I could hear crickets. Crickets and the sound of someone walking down to Stan’s pizza wagon. The footsteps made a faint sucking sound, as the soles of the shoes walked through the wet dirt and gravel left after the day’s downpour.