Tennessee Travelers: Chapter 1

Chapter 1





         The hot dog wrappers joined the others in the trash can by the desk, along with the cola cans and scrap paper.  Clayton Collins re-lit the panatella he was smoking yesterday afternoon.  The rancid smoke filled the room like cyanide in a gas chamber.  He hated cheap cigars, but the others didn’t come around every day.           Clay gazed around his empire at the skin mags he held onto, the stacks of newspapers he’d saved for yesterday’s reasons, and the dusty and worn detective novels carefully arranged on the shelves he’d put up.  Cat lay sleeping in a corner.  He and that cat would both have lung cancer one day, probably.  Cats don’t smoke, but this one got his share of second hand carcinogens. He went to the office with Clay everyday.  Nobody understood that but Clay and Cat, but then nobody else mattered. 

         Clay picked up a thumb worn magazine and flipped a few pages.  God, he liked looking at naked female flesh.  He picked up another one.  The cigar ashes fell across his vest.  He brushed them off and stared at the phone.  “Why won’t it ring?”, he mused.  He loved the sound of it ringing the same as a merchant loved the sound of his cash register.  That’s the way he got the jobs.  He picked up the newspaper. 

         Finally, the phone rang.  He coolly stared at it while it rang two more times.  He answered on ring four.  “Special Recovery,” he growled.  “Um Hmm.  Um Hmm..... Hold on a minute,” as he pressed the hold button.  He grinned at Cat, who had raised his head at the sound of Clay’s voice.  “We’ve got us a live one here, ole kitty,” he said.  Back on the phone he said, “Okay. Start over.  A black Lexus SC 430.  Two door coupe...retractable top.  Oh baby!  That’s slick!” He licked his lips.  “Give me a name,” he asked, and wrote it down.  He repeated the name, “Alex Moore.”  He took down the tag number.  “What are you doing chasing a California car?” he wanted to know.  “Sister bank, huh. Got it. Might be staying with his Mommy.... how sweet.  No kiddin’ really sweet, huh?  Heh, heh.  Got an address on her?  Le’me have it.” 

         Hanging up the phone, he stared at Cat and scratched his chin for few seconds.  “Ole kitty, I got to get me a shave.  We got to go calling on a Fancy Dan with a Lexus he ain’t payin for.  Can’t be looking like a bum is his neighborhood.  He might call the cops.....ha, ha, ha, ha.”  He thought he was a funny guy.  Fancied himself a performer who never got a shot.  Not that he ever tried to get one.  Just  knew he could have done it as good as anybody if he ever got a shot.  It just takes one good break.  Everybody knew that.

         He relit his smoke and picked up his magazine, started to open it, but instead he tossed it toward the end of the couch, with a half dozen others.  He paced around the office, smacking a fist into his other hand.  He bent down and rubbed Cat’s head.  “Come on Ole Kitty.  Let’s go down to ‘The Perch and Carp’ for a bite o’ fish,” he said.  That wasn’t it’s real name, but Clay called it that. There was a bunch of  customers that would perch on the bar stools and carp about everything that was going wrong in their lives.  Of course it helped that the place overlooked some back water of Fort Loudon Lake on the mighty Tennessee River.  Clay just loved listening to those saps.  As he opened the door, he and Cat walked out into the fresh air and headed for the aging black on black Coupe deVille in the parking lot.  Cat got in the back and curled up on Clay’s old shirt that was his travel bed. 

         They walked into the ‘Perch and Carp’ together.  Clay perched on a stool and set Cat on the end of the bar.  Frank turned around and said, “Get that damned hair ball off my bar!”  “Be nice Frankie.  Ole Kitty here ain’t as nasty as most o’ your customers.  Get us a Bud and some of that bait you sell for beer-batter fish,” Clay grinned as he lit another stogie. 

         Frank just grinned and said, “You son of a bitch. One of these days the Health Inspector’s gonna come in here and close me down over that damned cat.” “Yeah, and they’ll charge me with cruelty to animals for lettin him eat here,” Clay chuckled. 

         Cat was lapping beer from a saucer while he and Clay ate fish from the same plate, when Rube walked in.  Cat never liked Rube, so he jumped down and went out the door.  He jumped through the car window.  Clay left it down for him unless it was raining.

         Rube took a stool next to Clay and lit a smoke.  They eyed each other in the mirror.  Without looking over, he said, “Anything shaking today?”  Clay told him about the bank skip job.  Clay took out the scrap of paper with Momma’s address on it.  They decided to go for a ride and check it out.