Chapter 7

IT WAS COLD OUT and Amy wasn’t dressed well for it, but her parka was white and she wanted to be hidden. The lighter weight jeans jacket didn’t do much against the chill October wind. At least she had a stocking hat pulled down over her ears and her hands stuffed in her pockets. She was a long way from what she wanted to see, but there was no place to hide between the Johnsons’ storage shed and the back of the C-Store where her brother worked.

It was just midnight and her timing was perfect. A dark blue van pulled up behind the store. Harry Conway got up from his chair next to the back door where he’d idly been doing curls with a twenty-pound dumbbell. He went to the driver’s door and the window came down. She was too far away to hear what was said, but when they’d finished talking, the driver showed Harry a box. He nodded and returned to his chair, pausing to knock on the C-Store door again.

Something about Harry’s posture and attention told Amy this was different. Harry was holding something in his hand, but the dumbbell was still on the ground next to his chair.

The door opened, and Jerry came out, carrying a box of cold cereal. He walked up to the driver’s door and showed the driver what was inside the box. The driver handed him the box Harry had inspected and immediately backed out of the store lot.

Amy clicked one more photo on her cellphone and backed away from her hiding place. As soon as she was in the Johnsons’ front yard she turned and ran the six blocks back home. She narrowly missed getting run over by some idiot driving with no headlights. She slipped in through the kitchen door and quietly crept upstairs to her room. She didn’t turn on any lights, but stripped off her clothes and crawled into bed, shivering.

Amy wasn’t the only one practicing her surveillance skills this weekend. Will Enders was parked in a field access road with his lights off. He’d left twenty dollars here the night before and returned to pick up the pint of hooch he’d paid for. The process of getting corn liquor out here in the country was one of the worst-kept secrets around. It wasn’t the first time he’d picked up a bottle.

When harvesting and picking had tapered off in October, he was laid off from the grain elevator. He got his notice at the beginning of the week, but stayed clean and sober all week long. He had a lead on a job driving a snowplow for the county but who knew when it would snow this winter? He figured a little drink this weekend wouldn’t hurt anything.

But Will had another purpose for picking up a bottle just now. He’d been disturbed for two weeks about his son being attacked by those bullies again. He appreciated and approved of the team making sure Dennis got home safely at night. He didn’t like having to depend on girls—even big girls—to provide safety. And that had brought him to a well-reasoned conclusion. He was going to have to do something to make sure those kids were no longer a threat to his son. He wasn’t sure what it would be yet, but it started with observing their patterns and behaviors.

He left the field drop-off and drove up the road a ways to pull in to another field where he sat with his lights off watching the direction of the exchange. He opened a Pepsi, drank off a few swallows, and filled it back up with hooch. This stuff could take the chrome off a Cadillac and you didn’t want to drink it straight. Besides it tasted terrible.

He sipped on the drink for half an hour before he saw a car come out of the field he had left and head toward town. He pulled out of his field without turning on the lights and followed a safe distance back. The car pulled into the Smiths’ driveway and Lee Smith got out to go inside. So, it was the boy himself who guarded the drop-off. Everyone knew that if you tried to stiff the Smiths or if it wasn’t your turn to pick up, you were likely to get a tail full of buckshot and never be allowed close to it again.

Will drove back home, weaving a little uncertainly with his drink still clutched in his hand. A shadow darted out in front of him and he slammed on the brakes, squealing to a stop. He saw long hair flowing out behind her as she ran. He didn’t know who it was, but she was probably out past her curfew giving a blowjob to her boyfriend. Damn kids. He turned on his headlights and made his way back home.

It was delivery night and Harry sat outside the back door of the C-Store lifting his weights while he waited for the van. The delivery went off without a hitch when Jerry handed over the box of twenties and took the box of coke from the driver. They’d need to repackage that and get it ready for their regular Saturday night customers.

As Jerry returned to the store, Harry’s eye caught a movement across the way near the Johnsons’ back yard. It was short and skinny, just like that little pussy who turned them in last spring. Did he think he could get away with spying on their private business? Harry took off running after the fleeing spy, his gun clutched in his hand. That kid would pay this time.

Fifty feet ahead of him, a car squealed to a stop and then turned on its lights and pulled away. Harry kept running and looked down the street toward where the car turned on Elm. He recognized the car as the one the shrimp’s parents brought him to school in. They must all be in on it. He brought his gun up into the kind of stance the cops used on TV shows. “Bang,” he whispered. Of course, he wouldn’t shoot in the quiet town at night. Someone would hear and get curious. But later, he’d teach that cunt a lesson.

“Good work, Team!” Ardith shouted at the end of practice Thursday. The girls practiced four days a week, but it had proven too hard to get a practice in on Fridays with the other activities around. “That’s a wrap for our pre-season practice. The IGHSAU gave us October to pull ourselves together and create a team. Now, the official season practice starts Monday. It’s November fourth and all the other schools will start practicing. That means that any edge we got by starting practice a month early is going to erode pretty quickly if we don’t keep on our toes and work even harder. I know you’ve got a big party planned Saturday night. No alcohol! No drugs! No hazing! Otherwise, have fun.”

“You didn’t say ‘no sex,’ Coach,” Roberta called. The other girls gasped and then started giggling.

“And no unprotected sex,” Coach called back. That really got them laughing.

“Don’t forget to wash your practice jerseys and personal towels,” Dennis called as the girls headed for the locker room. “Some of them are getting ripe!”

Dennis followed Ardith to her office and opened his laptop.

“What’s our weekly status?” she asked.

“I put in the order for uniforms,” Dennis responded. “You said it looked like we were keeping all of them on the team, so I ordered the full ten plus one extra in each of the three sizes. The girls all chose their own numbers and there were only a couple arguing about who got which number. Roberta and Daniella were funny because they wanted numbers as far apart from each other as they could get. So, they’re eleven and fifty-two.”

“Eleven sounds normal. Why fifty-two?”

“Daniella said it was the number of cards in a deck. And, like she wanted, it’s our highest number.” Ardith just shook her head.

“So far, we have eight parents who have volunteered for scoring positions. I figure we need four more volunteers to make sure we’re covered with two for every game.”

“Good.”

“We’re going to pull the gym divider for practice, starting Monday. JV will be practicing at the same time we do so we’ll be playing the side baskets for practice. And I’ve put in a request to double the number of towels we get. I figured we could slide the order in with the increase for the two boys’ teams. Some of the girls have been leaving their personal towels in their lockers and they don’t smell very good. I don’t know if we’ll get them by Monday or not. We should have them the following week.”

“You take good care of them, Dennis. Any problems?”

“Nothing to speak of. Sometimes there’s grumbling, like when I got on them to clean up the locker room before they left. But it’s just normal grumbling.”

“Good. Wrap up and get home. You’re doing a good job.”

Dennis beamed with pride. The coach last year had never said one word of praise or encouragement. But what could he expect? He grabbed his backpack and waited for the last girls to leave so he could take the towels out. Natalie was giving him a ride this evening. Well, Daniella was driving, but he’d be riding in back with Natalie and that was what counted.