Graveyard Games (11 page)

Must be around seven, she
thought, but didn’t have a watch and didn’t feel like getting up to
go look. She heard it before she saw it, but she knew it was him.
The sound of the Range Rover's big tires on dirt was distinct.
She’d been listening for Cody, Mr. Cooper's Irish Setter. Her
father passed the Cooper farm on his way home, and Cody always
barked when he went by. She remembered, as her father pulled into
the driveway, that Cody had run off. It was a strange thing,
according to Mr. Cooper, because Cody was always chained and his
chain hadn’t been broken, just unhooked. Strange.
Like someone had just come in and took
him.
That’s what he’d said.

Her father pulled the Range Rover past the
Jeep and into the garage. Dusty finished her Kool-Aid off in a big
gulp and waited for him to come out of the side garage door.

She waited, but he didn’t come.

She debated going in. He was probably just
tinkering with the Range Rover’s engine. He did that sometimes when
he came home, a once-a-week routine to "check her juices," as he
said. He usually went in and changed out of his suit before he
started fooling around with oil and that kind of stuff, though.

In fact, he always did.

Dusty got up, brushing her jeans off, and
headed for the garage. If he was checking the oil, Julia was going
to have a fit. She decided to remind him about his clothes before
he got something on them and she had to listen to Julia half the
night.

"Dad?" she called softly,
putting her hand on the doorknob. Her wrist turned, but the knob
didn’t. Her hand just slipped off. She tried it again.
Locked. Strange.
She
moved past the flower bed planted alongside the garage and peeked
around the corner. The Range Rover was parked, and she could hear
the ticking of the engine as it cooled, but the hood wasn't up and
her father wasn't there.

She stepped into the garage, the fading
sunlight throwing shadows on the cement floor. The garage was as
neat as ever—saws, rakes and tools hung up on nails; screws, nuts
and bolts all in baby food jars, tops nailed to the low beams and
the jars screwed tightly into them. Two snowmobiles and the ATV
Nick and their dad loved to play with during the summer were
against the far wall. Everything in its place.

Dusty moved toward the back wall, and she
noticed the work room door open when she got to the front of the
Range Rover. She breathed a small sigh. Almost had myself scared
there, she thought. She was about to call out to him when she heard
it.

She pressed herself
against the back wall and, from that angle, she could see him
sitting on the work bench. He was slumped over, his face buried in
his arms, his sobs muffled. In front of him, lined up on the work
table, were boxes of ammunition, his .22 and a few, small
rectangles of metal that glinted dully in the florescent
light.
Razor blades?
Also in front of him was Nick's hockey uniform, his football
helmet, and the basketball that they kept in the
workroom.

"Oh my god," she mouthed,
unsure of what to do, frozen. Her father, her
father
was crying, sobs that
threatened to tear his heart from his chest. As she watched, he
lifted his head, looking at the various articles he had assembled
in front of him. Dusty trembled. He touched the gun, the razor
blades, a little tentative. He picked one up, watching it glint,
playing the light off of it. Dusty opened her mouth to cry
out.

Her father beat her to it. His scream was
full of rage, and in one motion he knocked everything on the table
to the floor. One box of ammunition broke open and shells rolled
across the cement. Nick's helmet bounced once, rolled, and was
still. The gun still lay in front of him.

"Fuck," he said looking down at it.
Terrified, Dusty looked at his face. He looked old, not like her
father at all. He also looked scared—as scared as she felt. "Oh,
fuck," he said again, his sobs starting all over as he leaned to
pick up the helmet. He put it on his head and put his head back on
the table.

Dusty left.

She just made it to the garden before she
was sick.

* * * *

The phone call came when she was least
expecting it.

Dusty had found
some
Danger Mouse
reruns on the T.V. in the family room so, at two o'clock on a
Friday afternoon, she sat sideways in the plush green armchair
wearing her pink babydoll pajamas, her legs hung over the
arm.

She had loaded herself
with a bag of Doritos and a Dr. Pepper. She loved
Danger Mouse.
It had
been Nick’s favorite and one of the mainstays of their childhood,
along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men. Nick used to
think he was Wolverine, and would run around the house pretending
to claw the furniture into submission. The thought came too fast
for her to cut it off, and she closed her eyes against the familiar
dull ache.

Danger Mouse
reruns were a rare occurrence, she knew. Then
again, she had been so busy with the soaps she hadn’t paid much
attention to what else was on in the day time. President Bush was
discussing the nation's economy on all the major networks so Dusty
had done what most Americans do when the president talks on
T.V.—switched stations.

She had not seen a cartoon
in years, and watching one now, she found it to be even more
ridiculous than she remembered, but still cute. She hadn’t
seen
Danger Mouse
since she was in fifth grade.
Not
since Nick and I
—SNIP

The phone, the only one in the house,
shrilled from the kitchen. Dusty sighed, not moving the bag of
Doritos from where they lay across her stomach, or the soda pop
clutched between her thighs.

"Julia!" she called, waiting while the phone
rang twice, three times. "Do you want me to get it?" No answer.
Four, five...

Dusty moved the stuff off her lap and headed
out to the kitchen. She picked up the light blue phone, colored to
match the wallpaper, off the wall. Julia and her father hadn’t
moved into the twenty-first century yet where cordless phones were
the norm. At least it was a push-button and not a rotary dial, she
thought with a smile.

"Hello?"

"Hi there. Can I speak with Dusty Chandler,
please?"

"This is she," Dusty replied, recognizing
the voice with a small smile. She crossed her fingers and pressed
them against her lips.

"Dusty, this is Lee Williams from over at
the Starlite. You came in last week about a job?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Can you start tonight?"

Her exhilaration was almost electric. "What
time?"

"Four-thirty."

"I'll be there."

"See you then."

Dusty stared at the receiver until it began
to make short, piercing blasts. Then she replaced it on the hook
and leaned against the wall.

Since the episode with her father, she’d
been a little shaky about leaving the house without checking on
both of her parents. She’d found no traces of anything when she
went back into the work room the next day, and her father was
intact and normal—back to business as usual.

I got the job!
She smiled at the absurdity of it. Two months
ago, if someone had told her she would be ecstatic about getting a
job in some bar, she would have laughed her head off. Now things
had changed. It wasn’t the most prestigious job in the world, but
she didn’t want it for prestige. It certainly didn’t pay the best,
but she wasn’t out to make a fortune. She thought the job would
suit its purpose very well. She went upstairs to get
ready.

Chapter Six

"How're you doing, kid?"

Dusty forced a smile as she sat on one of
the stools at the bar, facing Lee.

"Just fine," she told him, relieved to be
off her feet. The rest of the stools beside her were filled.

"Bullshit." He laughed. "But you'll get used
to it."

"Bullshit." She smiled and wiggled her toes
in her black heels. He laughed again, but all she could manage was
a rueful smile.

"Well you got twenty minutes." He glanced at
the clock before moving down the bar to take an order. "Catch a
breath of fresh air if you want, but don't be wandering out there,
okay?"

"Sure." She didn’t move from where she was
sitting, although it was too warm. She wasn’t moving from this spot
for the next twenty minutes if she could help it.

She’d never known the Starlite was so busy.
The noise around her was an unbreakable wave of sound. Above her
head, a color television blasted out a football game. The Detroit
Lions were leading Dallas by seven and that miracle had everyone
putting their two cents in.

Those not watching the game had acquired the
use of the half a dozen pool tables at the far end of the bar. One
guy stood at the old Pac-Man game in the far corner. He’d been
there since she’d arrived and, she thought wryly, he was the only
one in the place she hadn’t served at least three times.

She’d wondered how it was possible for Lee
to turn a profit in a small town like Larkspur, but she had no
trouble now seeing how he managed it. There were about fifty people
in the bar, and day to day, they were all the same faces. He made
his profits in the sheer volume of alcohol consumption.

She’d been working for three nights running,
and she was developing a nasty blister on her right heel. It was
the shoes. Although the heels were only about two inches, they
still pinched, but nothing else went with the "uniform"—a black
mini-skirt and a plain white blouse. Over this, she wore a black
vest with tiny gold stars on it, the back of which said "Starlite"
in gold letters.

A hand came down on her shoulder and she
whirled around. Sam Lewis, who was what Lee called his "clean-up
man," was smiling at her.

"Hi, Sam." She smiled back, glancing past
him toward the door. More arrivals. It was eight o'clock and still
early for the partiers. "Have a seat."

He shrugged, pointing to the man sitting in
the seat next to her.

“
Excuse me,” Dusty said to
the guy with a brush cut. She’d never seen him in there before.
“Would you mind moving so my friend can sit by me?”

The guy took a look at Sam, did a
double-take, and then sneered. “You want to sit next to this
feeb?”

Dusty gasped, her eyes flashing. “Listen, I
asked you a favor. Nicely. There’s no need to insult my
friend.”

The guy snorted, picking up his beer.
“Whatever, lady. If your taste in men runs to idiots, what is it to
me, right?”

“
Dumb hick asshole,” Dusty
whispered as he walked by. She knew he heard her, by the way his
eyes shifted, but he didn’t turn back.

“
I’m sorry, Sam,” she
apologized, patting the stool next to her. “He was a
jerk.”

He shrugged as he sat down, glancing over
his shoulder. “Uh-Uh-I’m yuh-used to it.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry for that, too.”

"So, huh-huh-how is it guh-going?" He leaned
forward to rest his elbow on the bar. His eyes were a shocking and
beautiful blue as he looked at her.

"All right," she replied with a smile. "I’m
getting used to the pace of things." She liked him, in spite of his
stutter and the slow, jerky movements that frustrated Lee whenever
Sam pulled a keg up front. He was sweet.

“
How are you tonight?” she
asked, just making conversation.

"I’m pretty guh-guh-good," he replied,
looking shyly over at her.

"Good." Dusty kept her eyes on the door. Her
twenty minute break would be up sooner than she liked.

"Huh-huh-have you seen Gruh-Grady?" Sam ran
a hand through his dark, wiry, short-cropped hair.

"The cat?” Dusty glanced at her feet. “No, I
haven't tripped over it yet tonight."

"Are yuh-you looking for someone?" His eyes
searched her face.

She looked over at him, startled. "No," she
denied. "No one in particular."

"Oh." He stood up, shoving his hands into
his pockets. "If you suh-see him, wuh-will you tuh-tell me?"

"Who?" Dusty asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Gruh-Grady," Sam said, looking puzzled.

"Oh, yeah," Dusty said, her face relaxing.
"Sure, I will."

"Thuh-thanks," Sam said with a grateful
smile.

"Can you get me another keg of Bud out here,
Sam?" Lee called. Sam nodded, his motion slightly palsied and
spastic, heading toward the back room with his leg dragging behind
him.

"He likes you," Lee said when Sam had
disappeared through the door next to the women’s’ bathroom.

"What?" Dusty looked at Lee, who was wiping
glasses with one of the towels he always had within reach.

"He likes you," Lee repeated. Dusty
shrugged. “I’m just saying…I’m glad you’re nice to him.”

She frowned. “You mean, unlike Mr. Brushcut
over there?”

“
Guys like him are a dime
a dozen.” Lee sighed. “Like some kid who talks funny is a threat to
their manhood? I don’t get it.”

“
I don’t either.” Dusty
sighed, still looking towards the door.

“
He’s had it rough,” Lee
said, following her gaze. “Especially since Roy died.”

"Who?" she asked.

"Sam,” Lee said, filling two glasses of beer
for someone out of the nozzle. “His father, Roy—he up and died last
month. Sam’s been pretty lost without him.”

“
It wasn’t the bobcat, was
it?” Dusty’s spine straightened at the thought.

“
No.” Lee shook his head.
“Heart attack, most likely. He was my age. We were in the army
together.”