Chapter 1

Sunday, October 11, 1998

The hell with it, Jason thought as he looked at the misshapen blade that lay still nearly red-hot on the anvil. What I ought to do is just call it a bad job and start over.

Things go like that sometimes. They start bad and just don't get better no matter what you try to do to fix them. Thus it is with many things in life, and thus it is with making knives. This sucker was just going to come out wrong no matter what he did with it. That was something that didn't happen much anymore, as many years as he had been turning out knives in his garage workshop.

The medium-height, medium-build, dark-haired man with the full beard looked at the blade cooling on the anvil realizing that now he'd rather be doing something else on this bright Sunday morning, anyway; winter was coming and there wouldn't be many nice days like this left. This is supposed to be a hobby, he thought as he bent to turn off the valve for the gas feeding the forge. It's supposed to be fun and it isn't this morning.

Decision made, the rest was easy; a few switches thrown and MacRae Knives was closed for the day. He stepped out the garage door and noted that it was going to be a very nice day for October, and that started an idea brewing in his mind as he noticed Vicky Varney coming out her back door a few yards away. "Morning, Vicky," he said in a neighborly fashion.

"Morning, Jason," the heavy-set blonde in blouse and jeans smiled as she headed for her car parked alongside her parents' garage. "Not a bad day, is it?'

"Not bad at all," he smiled at his younger neighbor. "I was just thinking about getting in the Firebird and heading down to the Chicago. Won't be able to do that top-down stuff much longer."

"No," she sighed. "Not that I get a chance to do it much, anyway."

"Well, if you'd like breakfast, come on along for the ride. I'll even buy."

"I think I can manage to take you up on that offer," she grinned, turning in his direction. "I've always thought that was the coolest car."

"I've been happy with it," he replied as he walked from the old unattached garage that he used for the hot metal work to the new one, attached to the house. "Despite the fact that it's a miserable car, if you get right down to it."

"I can't remember you not ever having it," she commented as she headed for him.

"Probably not," he nodded. "You must have been all of three? Four?" He'd bought the bright red '68 Firebird convertible right out of the Army, back in '72, mostly wanting a cool car to pick up chicks. He hadn't been thinking about some other things, like the fact it didn't have power steering and really needed it -- it took the arms of a blacksmith to turn the wheel at low speed, but then, he had them. It was one of the crappiest handling cars he'd ever driven, with a huge 400-cubic-inch V-8 stuffed up in the nose like a head cold; even a mild touch of the brakes at speed with the wheels turned was the recipe for an instant spin. It was a four-handed job with a lot of cussing to get the top up and down; it was down now, and had stayed that way for several years.

He'd discovered all that early on, but after he bought the car. After that first glorious summer he'd mostly left it parked, except for the occasions when he wanted a cool car, which usually involved picking up chicks; occasionally he got called on to drive it in one of the local parades, often with a queen candidate riding on the back deck. That was how he'd met Jody; she'd first let him into her in the back seat not long after.

A couple times when things were tight after they were married, Jody had suggested selling the car, but he'd always put her off -- it was clear it was going to be worth some real money some day if he held onto it. A couple times it had turned into a real fight, but he'd prevailed. Now, Jody was over twenty years gone, Lord knew where, and after considerable care and a mild restoration by Mel Austin out at the Bradford Speedway he'd turned down offers of over $40,000 for a car he'd paid $1200 for.

"Something like that," she smiled. "God, I remember when you took me in it when I was a homecoming queen candidate. I don't even want to think about how long ago that was."

"I remember," he smiled as he opened the door into the garage for her. "You looked mighty good in that gown." She had, too; he really did remember and wasn't just being nice. She hadn't been the most slender girl in the lineup, but her heavy frame had gone well with her big chest, and the low-cut blue gown had exposed a lot of it. She'd been a good-looking girl in high school, and had a huge smile when she was named homecoming queen. That was long ago. He remembered her coming home from college after her first year; her "freshman fifteen" had been more like fifty, and she'd put on even more before she left college. She'd lost some of it when she finally came back to Bradford a couple years ago following her disastrous marriage, but still was on the "downright fat" side of "pleasingly plump."

"Yeah," she sighed. "That was a big deal for me. It may have been the biggest deal I had in high school. And, you know, nobody even mentioned it last night."

"Last night?" he said as he got into the Firebird. The right side was within inches of some cabinets, so he'd have to back it out into the driveway before she could get in.

"We had my tenth class reunion up at the Brass Lantern in Hawthorne," she shook her head. "God, I can't believe it's been ten years." She said something else, but he couldn't hear it in the sound of the big V-8 coming to life.

In a few seconds, he'd backed the car out; she hit the button to close the garage door, then came over to the passenger side and got in. "People have changed some, I bet," he grinned.

"Oh, shit," she shook her head. "Everybody's changed. I honest to God can't believe some of it. You remember Jennlynn Swift?"

He frowned as he let up on the clutch. "I think so," he said after a moment. "She's Archie Swift's kid, right?"

"If they claim each other anymore, and after last night, I doubt it," she shook her head. "She'd asked Emily to pick her up at the airport in Hawthorne, since she was going to fly in. Emily and I went over to meet her, and she flew up in this gleaming white Learjet."

"I guess I'd heard she flew her own plane into town the last time she was here years before. Was she flying it for someone?" he asked as he backed out onto the street.

"She owns it," she sighed. "She told us she'd paid cash for it. Over half a million bucks. She was kind of plain and drab in high school, but she stepped out of that plane like she was something off the cover of Cosmopolitan. Just absolutely gorgeous, hot and sexy, looking like a million bucks and she's worth a lot more than that."

"Sounds like she's done well," he nodded. Now that he thought about it a little, he thought he might remember her. Not a bad looking girl, but very serious about her Christianity, and went out of her way to show how serious she was. That wasn't surprising; her father was the pastor of the most right-wing fundamentalist church in town and rarely passed up the chance to express his disapproval of anything and everything.

"Uh, yeah," she said dryly. "While we were having dinner, Emily asked everyone to tell a little about what they'd been doing. Jennlynn said she's an engineer with some company out in Phoenix and runs her air charter business as a sideline. She has a retired general as a chief pilot. Then she said her parents threw her out on her ass in 1990, so to get through Caltech and part time ever since she's worked in Nevada as a licensed prostitute."

"What'd she do?" he smiled, shaking his head. "Say that so it'd get around town and piss off her parents?"

"Probably," Vicky nodded. "Except I don't think she was lying. She says they call her 'Learjet Jenn, the fastest woman in the state of Nevada'. She says she hasn't kept records, but she estimates she's had over a thousand men and has grossed over a million bucks at it. We talked about it some and as far as I can tell she sounds like she knows what she's talking about."

"Maybe we'd better go to Hawthorne for breakfast," Jason grinned. "Maybe even Bolivar. When her dad hears about that it's going to be like a nuke hit the Disciples of the Savior Church."

"If anyone has the guts to tell him," she smiled. "And hell, that isn't even the only thing to come out. You remember Shae Kirkendahl, right?"

"Sure," he smiled. "She'd be hard to forget." A vision of the girl came to mind immediately. Two years running she'd led the girls' basketball team to state championships, the only playoff-determined titles the school had ever won. He'd gone to several of the games, along with much of the rest of the town. Slender and a touch on the plain side, Shae was easily the best girl rebounder in the state and hell on defense -- at least partly because she was six feet, eight inches tall. "So what happened with her?"

"She's filled out a little, and is darn good looking herself," Vicky smiled. "She works as a sports reporter on some cable network out of New York, moonlights as a model and on some kids' TV show." She shook her head and continued, "She had a couple guests with her I didn't recognize, a cute little blonde and her husband. God, I don't believe it."

"Believe what?"

"After Jennlynn made her announcement, there was dead silence. I mean, everyone was shocked shitless and no one had any idea what to say. So, Emily said something like, 'Did I get everyone at that end of the table?' This little blonde stood up and introduced herself as Dr. Eve McClellan. I'd talked to her earlier in the evening, just in passing, and I just plain drew a blank on her. I thought she and her husband were just Shae's guests. I knew damn well we didn't have anyone named Eve in the class. Emily was drawing a blank too, and said she didn't remember her."

She was silent for a moment. "People do change," he said to fill the void as they slowed for the stop sign at Elm Street. There weren't any elms on the street anymore; Dutch Elm disease had done them in when he'd still been a kid.

"No shit," she shook her head. "So then Eve goes, 'I've probably changed more than anyone, but I'm a lot happier than I could ever have been when I was Denis Riley.'"

"Denis Riley?" Jason replied in absolute amazement. He remembered Denis well; a shy, dorky, awkward boy, the son of the man who had been the General Hardware Retailers plant manager for several years. He remembered a long time ago coming upon a group of boys who were beating on the kid; a yell and some foul language had broken up the fight. Denis had been the worse for wear, and he'd taken the poor battered kid home. The following Monday his dad, Bill Riley, called him into his office. Nothing was said about rescuing Denis, but Bill promoted him from the appliance dock to driving a fork truck. The pay was a little better, and he got to sit down instead of being on his feet all day. There had been a similar incident a year or two later. "He had a sex change operation? Jesus, I wonder what his dad said about that!"

"His folks -- and I should say her folks -- were behind her all the way," she explained. "A bunch of us sat around in the bar afterwards, and she told us the whole story. It turns out she'd started her transition while we were still juniors. She started living full time as a woman the day we graduated, and hasn't used the name 'Denis' since. She had her operation a year later." She sighed and shook her head as he turned onto Main and headed for the west side of town. "I know until last night, I thought a sex change was something pretty sick, but it comes down to the fact that Eve makes a better woman than Denis would ever have made as a man."

"I will be damned," he said, shaking his head. "Denis Riley? That's about the last thing I would have thought."

"Me, too," she sighed. "Damn, it doesn't seem fair."

"What?" he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

"I was a popular kid in high school," she sighed unhappily. "Top-ten student, I was looking forward to college, I was going to get on the on-ramp out of this town and do big things. Denis was this little dweeb with barely passing grades, and no one ever figured him for much of anything. Now he's a good-looking, happily married woman with a doctorate and a nice career as a clinical psychologist, and I'm..." she hesitated, loathe to speak the truth before spitting it out. "I'm a fat slob with a lousy job, who divorced a jerk, and can't find anyone to date but other jerks."

There wasn't much he could say in reply, and there was only the sound of the engine and a little wind whistle for a few seconds.

"At least I can say that she worked for what she has," she continued finally. "I just let things happen to me, and look where it got me."

It wasn't the first time he'd heard that sort of message from her, but this one was a lot more bitter than he'd heard before, at least recently. He took his hand off the shift knob and laid it on her leg. "Hey, Vicky," he said gently, but loud enough to be heard over the noise in the convertible. "Someday you'll get your turn. You're just going to have to be ready for it when it happens."

"I know," she shook her head. "But that day better get coming. I'm not a bit closer to it being my turn than I was ten years ago. In fact, I'm further away. I had it pretty good in high school, and Denis didn't. Now it's the other way around."

Bradford's Main Street turns into Taney Road at the city limits; not far beyond is the I-67 overpass. On the far side of the overpass is the huge General Hardware Retailers Distribution Center where Jason had worked since the early '70s. A huge chain-managed twenty-four-hour truck stop sits on the other side of Taney Road. On the near side of the overpass, in a cinder-block building that could be in better shape, is the somewhat over-named Chicago Inn, which dated back the forty years or so to right after the freeway opened. Most of the transient traffic stopped at the truck stop; that included through trucks as well as the many that headed in and out of General Hardware. Most of the locals, however, were of the opinion that the food at the Chicago Inn was better, the prices cheaper, and the place more friendly -- the waitresses there were likely to call you by name and ask about the kids.

It was still a little early for the after-church crowd, but the parking lot of the Chicago was pretty full when Jason and Vicky pulled the Firebird into the back of the lot; he was a little touchy about risking a dent in the classic car. They walked in the back door and past the kitchen, to find the place was a little full. There was a rarely used "Please Wait To Be Seated" sign up at the register, but in a few seconds Liz Austin came up to them. "Hi, Jason, Vicky," she smiled. "Smoking or non-smoking?"