Page 35 of Blame it on the Bet
“What can I do for you, then,” he asks, pulling out a form and a pen to take down my information.
“Oh, I think we’ll splurge on a half-page ad this time. May I?” I ask, reaching out for the paper and pen so I can write the copy myself. When I’m done, I hand it back to him, and he scratches his head.
“Pub quiz? What the hell’s that?”
“Oh, it’s a very popular way to bring extra business into a bar. Though, not likely a hundred-thousand-dollars- worth of business,” says a voice from within a side office. A moment after I place it, the well-styled head of Bryan Truitt pops around the doorway. “Well, hello, Hennessy.” He grins at me.
“W–what are you doing here?” I ask, sounding a little more accusatory than curious. I struggle to regain a calm tone. “When I didn’t see you for a few days, I thought you’d gone back to the west coast,” I offer as an explanation for my surprise.
“Oh, now, Hennessy,” he says, tsking at me as he walks out to stand next to King. “You didn’t really think I’d give up so easily, did you? Or that I’d leave without saying good- bye…”
King is looking from him to me and then back again with some renewed curiosity.
“I’d hoped…” I mutter. “What are you doing here?”
Bryan puts a hand on King’s shoulder, and King looks as if he’s just smelled something bad.
“Just so happens that Mr. Colby here has a spare office, and I’m leasing it from him for a month.”
“A month?” I echo in dismay. “You’re going to be here… across the street from the pub…for a month?”
“Why don’t you come back and sit with me for a few minutes?” he offers, with a gesture toward the doorway he just exited.
I nod dumbly and follow him to a small, windowless office containing a desk, a few chairs, and a filing cabinet. This would have been the reporter’s office. Back when the Gazette could afford a reporter. Now, Bryan has taken over the space. His laptop is on the desk, a printer/fax/scanner combo is seated atop the file cabinet, and one whole wall is eclipsed behind a giant rolling corkboard. On it are tacked a large calendar, maps of various Midwestern states, and pictures of several buildings and land lots that I don’t recognize.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I stand in front of the wall, trying to make sense of the images I’m looking at. He comes to stand just behind me. He’s so close that I can smell his clean, soapy scent. It’s nice.
“You see this speck here?” he asks as he puts one hand on my left shoulder and reaches around me with his right arm so he can point to a spot on the map of Iowa.
“Yeah…” I try to concentrate on what he’s saying and not the warmth that’s radiating from where his hand touches my body.
“That’s the town of Skye. The nearest supermarket is here,” he explains as he drags his finger over a distance of several inches, bringing his chest into contact with my back. His very firm, muscular chest. I wonder if he works out…
Stop it!
“That’s about a forty-five-minute drive in the summer, when roads are clear,” he’s saying, oblivious to my internal struggle. I hope. “In the winter, it can be a treacherous trip, taking well over two hours. Sure, there’s a tiny market right there in town, but nothing with the kind of selection that a population of that size requires.”
“Are you seriously trying to convince me that you do this for the good of the people?”
“What? No.” He laughs out loud. “I do it for cash, same as everyone else. But it’s not as if I just look for cheap properties and plop down mega malls in the middle of them—despite what you may think. As I’ve said before, I consider myself to be a kind of matchmaker. I find a town with a need. I pair it with an investor who can fill that need. Life is good, everybody wins, and all is right in the world,” he proclaims with a sweeping gesture of his arms.
I put my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah? And what about the people who own the tiny market?”
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t I mention that? The owners sold out to a gas station. There’ll be a convenience store there with even less of a selection—unless you think the town can survive on purple slushy drinks and wrinkled hot dogs.”
I ignore this last bit of information, still unwilling to concede his point.
“And what, exactly, makes you think that Mayhem needs some behemoth movie theater?”
“Hennessy, where’s the nearest theater?”
“Up in Turner.”
“How many miles from here?”
“About thirty.”
“Did you date much in high school?”
