Chapter 55

I admit that it took me most of the morning to stop smiling. I knew I had something to take care of, so I tried to stay calm. Since I didn’t think he was going to call me, just after noon I called Tommy. Either he didn’t want to talk about it yet, or he didn’t know.

“Tommy have you talked to Crystal yet?” I asked.

“No, what’s up?” he asked me seriously.

“You need to talk to her. I don’t have all the details. Find out all you can, then we need to pow wow,” I said. I broke the connection, so that he would know it was serious without a lot of conversation.

I began researching our options. I wasn’t about tho leave the business like this, but something had to change. The changes which we made at that time were just the beginning. The first change was Crystal was out, period. There were no second chances as far as I was concerned.

I turned over my worm beds while I waited for Tommy to get back to me. I assigned the three deliveries to Lucinda and Gerome.

“What’s going on? You never assign me this many deliveries at a time?” Lucinda asked.

“I just thought I would reward you,” I said with a laugh. “Be careful, I’ll drop three double dime bags at the dead drop we use by the railroad tracks,” I said. “That means make sure you aren’t followed there. It will be more than a misdemeanor amount in this drop. Make two trips if you would feel better that way.”

“Something is going on,” she said.

“You know me I’m just playing it safe. Now you do the same,” I said.

“I finished packing some worm cups, then went on a delivery run. I stopped by the railroad track crossing of a county road. I deposited a fast food bag, with three ‘double dime’ bags inside, on the side of the road. Then I called Lucinda again.

“Okay love do your thing,” I said.

“Love that’s new, I like it. I’m out of here,” she said.

I had left the addresses for the deliveries on the blind email site before I left the house. So for the afternoon, I expected to be free to just deliver worms. After my call to Lucinda, I turned off the burner phone and removed the battery. At that point I was out of touch for company business. The supply of worms for the rest of the weekend was my only mission. The delivery wasn’t critical, but I wouldn’t be able to get away with Saturday deliveries during the summer.

I got home about four, then I put the battery back in my burner phone. I did that after I was reasonably sure I didn’t have anyone checking me out. I found that I had four messages from Tommy. They were all variations of ‘we need to meet’.

“Tommy come to the barn,” I suggested. Since we didn’t have any unprocessed product the barn was empty. Well it did hold sixty buckets waiting to be used. The seeds were on order and would be placed inside their plastic bag mini greenhouses when they arrived. I knew exactly how to germinate the seeds and then how to plant them inside the buckets. By that time the buckets would be moved to my cabin.

At that moment I was sitting in the Soul waiting for Tommy to arrive. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Tommy his granddaughter was out. If he gave me any shit, he was out as well. I didn’t need him at all.

“Hello Ed,” he said when he exited his huge pickup truck.

“New truck?” I asked.

“My retirement toy. This one doesn’t break down every other day, like that piece of shit I had been driving. I still have the box truck we use for hauling,” he said. “I expect you want to discuss what we are going to do about Crystal.”