Chapter 5

Sam and his henchman were driving a red van with Conner’s Fresh Produce painted on the side. Sam walked closely behind Evan, the gun barrel aimed squarely at his back. The streets of Shinoe were virtually dead and even if anyone happened to pass by, the parking lot was so badly lit that a passerby would not have seen the events unless they had been specifically looking out for them. The van was parked at the far edge of the lot, cloaked almost completely in darkness and shadows.

“Inside,” Sam said.

“Conner’s Fresh Produce,” Sam said. “Nice cover.”

“In!”

Evan opened the sliding door on the side of the van and stepped inside. He was ordered to sit in the front seat while Sam took the wheel and the second attacker sat directly behind him. Sam handed his friend the gun as he started the van. From behind, Sam’s friend leveled the gun at Evan’s head as Sam pulled out onto the road.

“We’re giving you a chance,” Sam said. “We’re giving you a chance to come out of this smelling like roses.”

“How’s that?”

"We’re in the same boat,” Sam said. “We are both drug runners. So is my friend, sitting right behind you. I don’t know your bosses or who you work for, but if they are anything like the people I work for, your job is probably shit. And if you were to tell them that you lost the drugs that their fake money paid for, they’d probably kill you. Does that sound right?”

“It had crossed my mind,” Evan admitted.

“Well, thanks to your fake money, I may be killed,” Sam explained. “I have a considerably huge debt to pay off and your money was supposed to pay it. It was to be paid by tomorrow morning and now that is obviously not going to happen. Not unless you can get me two hundred thousand dollars by tomorrow morning.”

“That’s impossible.” It was a large figure and Evan wondered how Sam had racked up such an enormous debt.

“That’s why you’re going to do me a favor,” Sam said simply.

“What favor?”

Sam had pulled onto a road that Evan was fairly familiar with. It would carry them into the desert, far away from everything living and into the absolute middle of nowhere.

“You’re going to be my spy,” Sam said. It was not a question, nor a suggestion. It was a demand.

“I don’t think I’m really qualified for that,” Evan said. “I didn’t even realize you had slashed my tires until about four hours after you had done it, so I think spy work is a little over my head.”

Sam’s friend tapped the gun barrel against Evan’s head. “No jokes,” he said simply. Evan got the impression that this man didn’t speak very often. He bit his lip to refrain for making any further wisecracks.

“A spy for what?” he asked, ignoring the man sitting behind him and exchanging glances between Sam and the road that unwound ahead of them.

“There’s a bus that runs down this road every so often,” Sam explained. “Usually it’s about two times a month, sometimes three, sometimes only one. This bus…somehow it’s like a ghost. There are stories about it driving down the road but I have never spoken to anyone that has been on it.”

“Like a Greyhound bus?” Evan asked.

“I think so. But rumor has it that a huge drug cartel out of Mexico is using it to deliver drugs back and forth from Mexico to California.”

“That sounds far fetched,” Evan said, baffled at the absurdity of the concept. “Where did that rumor come from?”

“It’s sort of obvious, really,” Sam said, as if Evan had asked an incredibly stupid question. “It’s a bus that runs a route that is not on any local bus schedules and, by all accounts, never stops at any regular bus stops. There aren’t but so many things it could be doing out so late, you know? And I figure that if I can let my debtors in on a tip like this—that there is some secret drug train running under everyone’s noses and stealing their business—then maybe they’ll take it easy on me.”

It was hard for Evan to hide that the idea impressed him. Still, the story about the bus seemed nonsensical to him. “Wouldn’t something like this be reported to the police or something?” he asked.

“I thought so, too,” Sam answered. “But apparently there have been no complaints about missed stops or foul play. And to tell you the truth, I really don’t even know if anyone other than drug dealers and a few of the folk in my tribe know about it.”

Evan was so confused by the story that he had almost forgotten about the gun pointed at his head. “How would people in your tribe know about it?”

“I think you know as well as I do how much peyote and mushrooms my people sell to you stupid white people. Therefore, if you want to get technical, my entire tribe is really nothing more than a drug warehouse.”

“That’s true,” Evan said. Then, once again unable to stop his sarcastic tongue, he added, “It’s nice to see someone take pride in their heritage, but where do I fit in?”

“The bus is running tonight. We’ve had a few people keeping their eyes out for it for the last two months, set up along the routes that it’s been said to follow. I got a call less than an hour ago from one of my guys out in Arizona. It should be through here in about an hour and a half. And when it comes through, you’re getting on it.”

“You think a bus running drugs is going to pick up a hitch hiker?” Evan asked. This notion seemed dumber that the scenario of a secret drug-running bus.

“Well, that’s where it’s all on you,” Sam said, pulling the van over onto the side of the road. Evan had almost completely lost track of where they were, but if he had to guess, he would say they were probably a good twenty miles outside of Shinoe.

“All on me?” Evan said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam parked the van on the bare and dusty side of the road and turned to Evan. “It means that when you see that bus coming, you do anything you can to get on it. I don’t care what you do, but you have to stop it and convince them to let you on. So when you get out of this van, keep walking to the south to meet the bus.”

“And,” Sam added as an afterthought, “don’t bother trying anything stupid. You’ll see a few cars on the road periodically. Those are members of our tribe that we’ve sent out to check on you.”

With that said, the man with the gun reached up past Evan and opened his door for him. Nudging the gun against Evan’s neck, he pushed Evan out of the seat and into the dry desert night.

“That’s it,” Sam said. “Get on that bus, find out what’s on it and who is running it and then meet me back at your motel tomorrow.”

“So you honestly think that a secret bus that’s running drugs will not only pick me up, but will also let me off with no problems? Are you crazy?”

“That’s your problem for right now. But if you don’t show up tomorrow morning, it had damned well better be because you’re dead.”

Before Evan could even start to protest, Sam closed the passenger side door in Evan’s face. He threw the van into Drive and made a quick U-Turn, headed back towards Shinoe.

“Shit!”

It was the first time Evan had screamed to the top of his lungs in a long time. It felt surprisingly good, despite his situation. His voice didn’t echo; it only rolled gently in all directions to the wide open spaces all around him.

He glanced at his watch. It was approaching eleven o’ clock. The desert was now cloaked perfectly in the night, an endless sea of dust on dark that stretched out further than he cared to imagine. He was all alone in the midst of it and he felt like a very small fish in an enormous sea.

Chapter 4 (part 2)

The cab picked him up and the ride back to the motel was made in silence. Evan had simply stared out of the windows, wondering if life in Shinoe was always as hectic as today had been. Max Young had spoken about today as if it had possibly been the worst day of his life, so Evan assumed that the town was usually pretty quiet. He then thought about what the desk clerk had told him about how the heat could put people a bit on edge. Evan guessed that this was possible; the sweltering heat of the desert sure as hell irritated him most of the time.

But when the cab dropped him off at the motel, Evan found the air to be a bit cooler, almost pleasant. While Shinoe wasn’t really in the desert per se, it was damned close. It was close enough that Evan considered the warm breeze that swirled around him to be a desert wind.

Evan watched the cab drive away as he took a seat on the hood of his car. He supposed he could just rent the room for another night and then find a garage tomorrow to replace his tires. After that, there was still the decision of what to do about the drugs and his boss. But he’d cross that bridge when he got there.

He stood up and headed for the motel office. He didn’t make it three feet before someone jumped him from behind.

The weight of the attacker was light and Evan nearly saved himself from falling to the ground. But he soon felt the additional weight of a second body on top of him and he knew right away that fighting might only make the situation worse. Besides, whoever was on him was not punching or kicking him. He was simply being pushed to the ground and pinned there. There was a slight yet sharp pain as the right side of his face smacked the pavement.

“Don’t move and don’t speak,” one of his attackers said. This was followed by a familiar clicking sound as a hard cumbersome object was pressed against the back of his head. “You do anything stupid and we’ll kill you. Got it?”

Evan had had his life threatened several times before, but never with a gun to the back of his head. But he knew that it would be best to respond to any comments that were made to him. Staying silent might only infuriate his attackers and from the sounds of it, they were already plenty pissed.

“Yeah, I got it,” Evan said. He realized that his assailants had taken the effort to push him down so that they were on the ground on the passenger side of his car, hidden away from the road. To anyone passing by, they could not be seen.

“Good,” a second voice said. “Not such a stupid white man after all.”

Evan noticed the voice and the cheesy reference and although he knew it might be stupid to do so, his sarcastic side took over. It was something he had always had trouble keeping in check.

“Hey, Sam. What can I do for you?”

“The money was marked. Every single bill.”

“Did you discover that before or after you broke into my room and stole the shit?”

This question prompted a hard elbow to be driven into his back. Evan coughed weakly as the right side of his face was pushed harder into the ground. He could feel pebbles and grime scratching and stinging at his cheeks but that sensation was not nearly as dominant as the insistent weight of the gun pressed to his skull.

“What’s the matter?” Sam asked. “Did we screw you over before you had the chance to screw us? Did you know the bills were marked?”

“No, actually,” Evan answered honestly. And he was suddenly not so mad at Sam; all of his anger was in that moment directed towards his boss, Emile Gorrengo. “I just picked the briefcase up and followed instructions. That’s all I ever do.”

Again, another elbow crunched into his lower back. This time the force of it caused Evan to bite into his bottom lip.

“Don’t lie to us,” the other attacker said. This second voice sounded almost the same as Sam’s, only with a stern edge to it.

“I’m not,” Evan said. “I swear. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

There was a brief silence as the two men pressing him down took a while to sort out their thoughts. Finally, Sam said, “Come with us.”

Chapter 4 (part 1)

When he reached the bar, he still had no ideas as to how to improve his current situation. He was sweating profusely, his feet were aching when he arrived at the bar, and he had no clue as to where to go from there. His brain remained empty of ideas when he took a barstool, was still empty when he finished off his first drink and emptier still when he ordered his fourth.

After placing the order for his fourth drink, the bartender smiled at him and began to mix his Vodka Tonic. “Rough couple of days, I take it?” the bartender asked.

"You could say that,” Evan said. “Was my performance last night all that memorable?”

“I’ve seen better,” the bartender said. “But just to let you know, if you get that drunk tonight, I’m calling you a cab. I shouldn’t have let you drive as drunk as you were last night.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Also,” the bartender said, “this drink is already paid for by the nice man sitting there on the other end of the bar.”

Evan looked to his left and saw a man sitting on the opposite side of the bar with a bottle of beer. Seeing that Evan had spotted him, he smiled and waved. It took Evan a while to place the face but it finally came to him. It was the policeman that had pulled up next to him that morning during the fiasco with the elderly boxing match.

Evan had always been nervous around any form of law enforcement, but he figured there was no trouble he could get himself into right now. Sam had the drugs and the drug money, leaving Evan’s hands clean. And as far as his personal life, Evan had not touched any form of drug—other than alcohol—in over three months. So what was the harm in going over to thank the policeman? Besides, the fact that the guy was drinking and not in uniform made him a little less of a threat anyway.

Evan walked to the end of the bar and took the stool next to the officer. “Thanks for the drink, man,” he said. “I really appreciate it. What’s the occasion?”

“For breaking up Senior Citizen Wrestlemania this morning,” the cop said. “Most people would have just had a laugh and carried on with their day, you know?”

Evan tilted his head and shrugged. “Honestly, I usually would have done the same thing. I don’t really know why I stepped in. It seemed like the right thing to do, I guess. And it was just too funny to pass up.”

“Well anyway, it was nicely done.” He took a sip of his beer and then offered his hand. “Max Young,” he said. He was a man of average build. He had a face that men would call haggard but women would call rugged. There was a decent growth of hair on his face but it was not so thick that it could be called a beard.

“Evan Abner,” Evan said, shaking the man’s hand. “What happened to those two old farts anyway?”

Max Young shook his head and took another sip of beer. “Man, today was the worst day I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve been a cop off and on for eleven years and I never saw anything like today.” He then nodded towards the beer in his hands and said, “This is the first beer I’ve had in about two years. Today was that bad.”

“Yeah, I heard about the hit and run and the shooting. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, we tried to keep the whole shooting incident quiet, but it got out. When one cop offs another one in plain sight, it’s pretty big news, you know? But today, it seemed like everything that happened was bad. There was that hit and run, then the old guys fighting, then the shooting.

“But as far as the thing with the old guys…that got even weirder,” Max explained. “I knew right away that I was going to let them go. I’d just warn them, like a slap on the wrist, you know? So I talked to both of them and they went on their merry ways. Then right around four o’ clock this afternoon, right after I got off duty, I got this call at home. One of those old men—the one in the checkered pants—killed his wife and then tried to kill himself.”

“Oh my God,” Evan said, genuinely shocked.

“It’s obviously not looked well upon when a cop divulges all this kind of information to a stranger, but I had to get it off of my chest somehow, you know? This has been one absolutely fucked up day.”

Max Young truly did seem upset about something and while it did seem peculiar that a cop would spill this type of information, Evan was glad that he could help the man unwind…even if he was a cop. Besides, there was something to Max's voice that made Evan think that he didn't give a damn if someone found out that he was blabbing police business to a stranger. Max Young seemed pissed, upset and extremely anxious about something.

“Yeah, it sounds like it” Evan said, sipping uncomfortably from his drink.

After a moment’s silence, Max said, “So you’re not from around here, I know that. I know every face in this town. What brings you here to Shinoe?”

Evan thought quickly, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. “Well, I heard about this tribe of Indians out in the desert. And I’ve been fascinated with the culture since my freshman year of college.”

“You’re not talking about those peyote freaks out to the west, are you?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Nothing but trouble. We’ve had tips that they’re dealing the stuff to these big name guys in California and Texas. But when we question them, they pull this ‘you’re infringing on our religious practices and rights’ bullshit.”

Evan was well aware of this fact. It was why his Emile Gorrengo had selected the tribe as a source in the first place. “That must suck,” Evan said.

“Yeah,” Max agreed. He tipped his beer to his mouth and finished it. He looked at the empty bottle, contemplated getting another and then decided that it was time to leave. Apparently not having one for two years had made Max cautious around the bottle.

"Well, I just wanted to thank you for your good deed this morning,” Max said. “Be careful driving home. And if you do head out to find those hallucinating-mushroom- eating-peyote freaks, watch out. You could get in a lot of trouble. ”

“You don’t think much of them, do you?”

Max Young shook his head. “Not a bit.”

Evan thought better of asking for directions to where the tribe could be found. Although he could think of no better pleasure than putting a few rounds through Sam’s stupid head, Evan knew not to push things. The last thing he wanted to do was to make a police officer suspicious of him.

“Well, thanks for the drink,” Evan said.

“No problem,” Max answered. “And it was nice to meet you.”

With that, Max paid his tab and left the bar.

Evan sat at the bar by himself for a while. A few stragglers came in and out of the bar as he watched the TV behind the counter and shared small talk with the bar tender. Somewhere in the midst of the talk, Evan finished another drink. His head was a bit swimmy and he was feeling incredibly pleasant.

“What number was this one?” Evan asked the bartender.

The bartender took a moment to count in his head. “That was number six. But I’ll be honest with you…I started making them weak after number three.”

“That was probably for the best.” Evan looked at his watch as was amazed to find that it was 8:45. “Eh, I guess I’ll pay my tab and take you up on that offer for a cab.”

The bartender nodded and handed Evan his bill. “If you don’t mind my asking,” the bartender said, “are you okay? Like, are you in trouble or something? You look sort of antsy and came off as a bit uncomfortable when Officer Young started chatting with you.”

“No, I’m not in any trouble,” Evan said. “It’s just been one of those days, you know? A really strange and messed up day.”

“Yeah, for the whole town or so it seems. What a weird day.”

Evan and the bartender shared a silence as Evan paid his tab with his credit card. The bartender called a local cab company and after that, headed to the other end of the bar to refill another customer.

Evan got off of his barstool and then went to the bathroom. When he came out, he waved to the bartender and headed outside to wait on his cab. As he sat there on the bar’s small porch, he stared into the approaching night.

Somewhere off in the distance he could hear the piercing sound of ambulance sirens.

Chapter 3

Having been in similar situations several times before, Evan knew that his best bet was not to panic. The instant he discovered that the peyote was missing, he walked back outside and scanned the parking lot again. There was no one suspicious lurking about or watching him, nor were there any suspicious cars parked there. Common sense pointed a finger at Sam, the angry Indian with the Cowboys tee shirt.

“Little bastard,” Evan said, walking back into his room. But he was a ballsy little bastard. Evan couldn’t imagine the guts it took to go through the process of breaking and entering with the police nearly in plain sight.

He sat on the bed to think for a moment, knowing that he had no other choice than to get the drugs back. If he called Emile with this bad news, he’d most likely never get another job from him again. Even worse, Evan had heard of some drug runners being executed for such a disaster. He didn’t think Emile Gorrengo would have any qualms with putting a bullet through his head.

Evan walked back outside and unlocked his car door. The car was a plain looking Camry, as not to catch the eyes of any policemen on any random day and time. Such a plain looking and rather common car would not warrant any unnecessary investigations that would uncover the unregistered handgun beneath the driver’s seat or the various drugs that were often carted around in the trunk.

Evan got into the car, cranked it and cut on the air conditioner. He then reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a map of New Mexico. He looked the map over and realized that even if he was absolutely sure that Sam had come back while he had left for the diner to take the drugs, there was no way to find him. Evan had no idea where Sam lived. According to Emile and various other sources, the peyote was supplied by a small and secretive tribe of Native Americans somewhere out in the New Mexico desert. Having driven along many roads that stretched through that hellish wasteland, Evan knew that it would be a fruitless search.

The only way to get even a clue of the tribe’s whereabouts would be to call back to LA and ask for directions. But that request would no doubt turn a few heads and result in several unwanted questions being asked.

Evan tore the map in half and threw it into the back seat. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror, running a hand through his light brown hair. His eyes still looked tired, making him look a bit older than his twenty-four years. He looked away, sighed and killed the engine.

Back inside his room, he sat on the bed for a while, trying to decide on his best course of action. He glanced to his cell phone from time to time, wondering if the simplest thing to do would be to call LA and try to explain things to Emile. It would be dangerous and could very well end up costing him his life, but it was the only solution he could think of.

Somehow, despite the worry and anger, Evan drifted off to sleep shortly after twelve thirty. When a series of police sirens went blasting by just after one o’ clock, he did not wake up.

___________________________________

What did wake Evan up for the second time on that hot and miserable Tuesday was another knock on the door. This time when he opened his eyes, his head was not hurting as it had in the morning and the world seemed to be a bit clearer.

“Hello?” said a male voice through the door. “Mr. Abner, are you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Evan said as he slowly got to his feet.

When he answered the door, he recognized the man on the other side as the fellow that had checked him into his room yesterday afternoon.

“Hey,” Evan said. “What can I do for you?”

“It is three o’ clock,” the short balding man said. “Check out was at two. Are you interested in renting the room for another night?”

Evan considered this for a moment and then said, “No thanks. I’m sorry it’s so late. I sort of drifted off. I’ll be by the office in a second to pay up.”

The balding man smiled and nodded. Without saying anything else, he turned and headed back to the office. Evan closed the door and began packing his clothes into his small suitcase, beginning to really understand for the first time the amount of trouble he might be in. With his clothes packed, he looked to the nightstand where his cell phone sat.

He picked it up and studied it. It was no good to him now. The only person he ever called from it was Emile. If he made any other calls from it, the call could be traced. So, if Evan did decide to simply run away from his current situation, the cell phone would be of no use to him. He frowned at the phone and then, in a sudden fit of anger, hefted it through the open bathroom door. The phone hit the tiled wall and shattered into several pieces which made an oddly pleasant sound as they jingled on the floor.

Evan left the room and was once again assaulted by the dreary heat outside. Growing slightly irritated with the weather, he rattled the broken door handle behind him as he exited. As he made his way to the office, he looked down the road towards the intersection.

The road check was no longer in progress. Evan watched as a small car passed through a green light uninterrupted.

In the office, Evan handed the short balding desk clerk his key and paid for the room. “I noticed that the cops are done with the road checks,” Evan commented as he handed the clerk his money. “I take it they found their man?”

“Yeah,” the clerk said. “It was right at one o’ clock. I don’t see how the sirens didn’t wake you when they passed by. But they found him. The guy was drunk, or so they say. He hauled ass after he hit that boy but he ended up running out of the road a few miles out of town.”

“That’s messed up,” Evan said.

“Well what’s really messed up is what happened when they found him,” the clerk said. He scratched at his balding head as he continued, looking around as he did so as if he were about to tell a juicy secret. “The story goes that when they found him and threw the cuffs on him, two policemen started arguing about something as they put the guy in a patrol car. One of them drew their gun and fired. The other cop died right on the spot.”

“There’s something you don’t hear every day,” Evan said with a smirk. And directly behind this, speaking of things you didn’t hear every day, Evan recalled the old man in the extremely short khaki shorts: This asshole spit in my scrambled eggs!

“I think it’s the heat,” the clerk said. “Once it really settles in, it makes people a little wiry, you know?”

“I guess so,” Evan said. “It’s dreadful out there. Anyway, thanks for the room. Take it easy.”

The clerk smiled and nodded.

Evan walked to his car and looked around the block. Shinoe was almost deathly quiet at this hour. There were only five cars on the street and three people walking on the sidewalk directly across from him. It was such a small town that he was surprised that everyone wasn’t still abuzz from the hit and run incident from that morning, or about the police officer shooting one of his own. The more Evan thought about cop-on-cop violence, the weirder the story seemed. The streets were peaceful and quiet, the perfect scene for a man to clear his head and sort his thoughts. But Evan had other ideas, a better place to sort his thoughts without the afternoon heat pressing down on him. He had been there last night and he was sure that he had downed most of their vodka. After all, there was always a temporary escape to be found in the bottom of a bottle.

As he went to unlock his car, he noticed that the car seemed to be a bit lower to the ground than usual, as if he had a flat tire. He hunkered down to check the front right tire and found that it was indeed flat. Only, to say it was flat was an understatement. There was a large puncture mark torn down the front of it.

Evan knew without checking that the other three would be in the same condition. But he checked anyway and proved himself correct. He had no idea how he had missed this when he had come out to look at the map earlier.

Evan stood there for a while, simply staring at the ground. Sam had done this, too. He was sure of it. He’d probably done the tires first and then broken into the room and taken the peyote. For the second time in his ridiculous drug running career, he had been duped. With a curse, he unlocked the car and threw his suitcase in.

He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, wondering if he should take his gun with him. He decided not to because as weird as things in this town had been today, there was no telling what might happen to him. If he did come in contact with the police for some reason, the unregistered gun being found on him would surely not go over well.

Evan stepped out of the car, closed the door and locked it. “Oh, to hell with this,” he said loudly.

He kicked the car hard, sending a slight pain up his entire leg. He then shook the pain off and headed out of the parking lot. He walked along the sidewalk next to the main highway and started walking east. The bar was only about five miles away and the sun was finally beginning to lose some of its strength as the late afternoon approached.

He walked alone on the side of the gritty streets, not bothering to look back at the hotel parking lot or his useless car again.

Chapter 2

Evan nearly collided with the smaller of the two old men. He probably would have walked directly into the middle of the confrontation if he had not been pulled out of his thoughts by the old man’s raspy voice, yelling at a fever pitch.

“If you don’t get in there and pay for my breakfast, I’ll pound your face right into the road!”

Evan blinked in surprise, halting in his tracks. The shouting man looked to be about seventy or so, his skin wrinkled and pocked here and there. He was wearing a plain white tee shirt that was littered with stains, and a pair of khaki shorts that revealed far too much of his old puffy legs.

The other elderly man was dressed in a tacky polo shirt and a pair of green and red checkered pants. He looked as if he might be headed to a golf course, although Evan couldn’t imagine a thriving golf community anywhere near Shinoe.

“I will not pay for you food, you crazy old shit!” the golfer said.

Evan knew that he should just walk into the diner and leave the two men to their skirmish. Not only was watching the argument embarrassing, but his stomach insisted that it was time to eat. But the entire scene was just too comical not to watch. Evan backed up a bit and was surprised when the man in the stained white tee shirt actually threw a punch at the golfer.

The punch was weak and easily dodged, even for men of their ages. This was followed by the laziest grapple that Evan had ever seen and he had to fight not to laugh.

"Pay my bill, asshole!”

“I won’t do such a thing! You should have kept your eyes to yourself.”

“It’s a free country! Aaargh.”

As funny as it was, Evan felt that he had to do something. As the golfer was attempting to throw an old callused right hand into the other man’s gut, Evan approached the two men and managed to push them apart. There was a sickening moment when he feared that he had been too rough with them, and he was sure that the man in the stained tee shirt was going to fall to the sidewalk and dislocate a hip.

With the two men separated, Evan stood his ground between them, hoping that he was hiding the amused expression he had been wearing moments ago. He glanced into the diner’s large window and saw that the scuffle had somehow gone unnoticed to the patrons. Everyone inside was eating and chatting, oblivious to what was going on outside.

“Calm down, now,” Evan said. “There’s no use in fighting.”

The old men temporarily looked shocked, but the man in the stained tee shirt took a single step towards Evan. “How old are you, punk?”

“I’m twenty-three.” Again, he fought hard not to laugh at them. The question was laced with anger and Evan wondered how he could ward off an attack by an old man without looking like the asshole in the situation.

“You’re a piss ant,” the golfer said, the old men now on the same side now that they were confronted by a younger man attempting to fix up their mess.

“Yeah, maybe,” Evan said. “But you two old farts were fighting in the middle of the street. I figured I’d break it up before you caused a scene and made fools of yourselves.”

The golfer seemed to understand this but the man in the short shorts and tee shirt was still clearly upset. “Well, this cretin spit in my scrambled eggs!”

Evan couldn’t stop the laughter this time. He bit his bottom lip in order to contain it, but he did a poor job. And once it was out it felt good, so he let it all out.

“Oh, is that funny?” the golfer asked.

“Well, it’s not something you hear ever day,” Evan said. He turned to the golfer as he managed to control his laughter and said, “Sir, did you spit in his scrambled eggs?”

“Hell yes, I did. He was ogling that poor pretty waitress and grabbing at her every time she walked by.”

Evan caught the laughter before it could escape this time. But he was so busy concentrating on that effort that he didn’t notice the approaching police car. It pulled up from behind them and Evan didn’t see it until it was directly beside him.

It pulled over to the curb slowly and stopped. The officer inside rolled down the window and looked at Evan and the two old men suspiciously. As was his nature, Evan started to panic at the sight of the police car and its driver and he wondered if Sam had maybe ratted on him and turned him in for having peyote in his motel room.

“Thank God, officer,” the man in the stained shirt said as Evan managed to keep his panic back. “This man has spit into my eggs!”

It was still funny to Evan, almost like a completely abstract moment in time, but some of the humor was lost now that there was a cop no more than five feet from him.

At the old man’s accusation, the cop looked directly at Evan. He slowly got out of the car and stood in front of the three of them. The cop was older but not nearly as old as the two quarreling men. He looked tired, distracted and rather pissed off. He looked Evan up and down with a frown.

“Son, did you spit in this gentleman’s eggs?”

“No sir,” Evan said. “I was walking down the street, coming to the diner, and saw these two men fighting. I broke it up but this one seems to be pretty mad,” he said, hitching a thumb at the old man in the tee shirt.

“That’s right,” the man said. “This young man only broke us up. But this ingrate right here, spit in my eggs.”

Evan saw that the officer was also clearly amused at the situation. He looked to the ground, cleared his throat and then looked at Evan with a knowing smile. The suspicion he had worn on his face only moments ago was totally gone.

“Thanks for your help, son,” the officer said. “Go on and get something to eat. I think I can handle these two from here.”

Evan nodded. He and the officer shared another glance that pretty much translated to: Have you ever seen anything this frigging funny? Evan gave the elderly men a brief nod and walked inside the diner as quickly as he could.

Once inside, Evan took a seat in the first booth he came to and let out a large hearty laugh. Everyone turned to look queerly at him but he didn’t care. He let it out and didn’t stop until the waitress came around to take his order.

When his food arrived, he took his time as he ate. He got the burger exactly like he wanted (the waitress clearly questioning his choice of having it topped with eggs and chili) and downed a few glasses of water. He order desert but really only picked at it. He did his best to pick up on bits and pieces of surrounding conversations concerning the hit and run and managed to obtain some valuable information. It was amazing how much a stranger could learn in a small town by simply listening in on the gossip circles.

According to the scattered conversations Evan was able to eavesdrop on, sometime shortly after ten o’ clock a pick up truck had jumped a curb, plowed through a single mother’s front yard and struck her twelve year old son. The kid had been carried to the hospital with several broken bones. Depending on the source of the gossip, Evan had heard several different outcomes concerning the boy’s condition. Some said he was in a coma, some said he had suffered a broken neck while others stuck by the several broken bones scenario. The police had not yet found the truck and would more than likely have the road checks in full force until the driver was found.

Evan assumed that, being a small town, the search would not last long. Happy with the assumption that he’d be out of Shinoe within the hour, Evan paid his bill and left the diner.

Outside, the cop had sent the old men on their way. The street was pretty much dead adn still unbearable hot. Walking the length of the block was enough to cause swaet to pop out on Evan's brow. When he rounded the corner and the motel popped into sight, he was frustrated to see that the road check was still in progress. He checked his watch and found that it was nearly noon. That made it close to a two hour search in a town roughly the size of a welcome mat.

Scowling, Evan made his way back to the motel. He walked to his door, fumbling in his pocket for the key and grimacing at the feeling of sweat trickling down his face. He retrieved his key and placed it in the lock only to find that his door was open a quarter of an inch.

He grew nervous in an instant because he was quite sure that he had locked the door behind him when he had left. He could even remember double checking the lock after the door was closed. Quietly, he jiggled the door handle and found that it had somehow been wrenched loose. Evan cautiously looked around the parking lot for any sign of cops or possible intruders and then threw his shoulder to the door, barreling in.

His room was practically the way he had left it. Nothing had been broken, no objects thrown about, nothing out of place as was the case with any room that had been broken into and thoroughly searched.

Of course, after a closer inspection, the one thing that Evan did notice that had gone missing was the briefcase full of peyote that he had slid underneath the bed.