Max Collins: Scratch Fever

“That’s the funny part. She was asking me about the band — asked about you, in particular — then she just walked away. I wasn’t even through talking yet.”

Jon smiled at Bob; inside his head sirens were going off and red lights were flashing. “Well, be honest, Bob — when are you ever through talking?”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Bob said, and slapped the bar, and drinks all down the line spilled a little.

Jon thanked Bob and went back to Toni, pulling her away from her admirers.

“I was right,” he said, taking her by the arm.

“About what?”

“It was who I thought it was.”

“The woman?”

“Yes.” And he told her what Bob had told him.

“So what now?”

“Now I call Nolan.”

The pay phone was in the bar, on the wall around the corner from the pinball machines. He got change from the bartender. Toni was right with him.

“Do you have this guy’s number?” she asked.

“Yeah. I memorized it.”

“Memorized it?”

“In case something like this came up.”

“Oh.”

He had the receiver up to his ear and the coins poised to drop, when a hand settled on his shoulder, like a UFO landing. It was a hand that made Bob Hale’s hand seem dainty.

Jon turned and looked at a guy just a few inches taller than he was but infinitely bigger. A sandy-haired man with sad grey eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses, and shoulders you had to look at one at a time.

“Excuse me,” the man said. He licked his lips.

“Yeah?”

“I’m waiting for an important call.”

“My call won’t take long.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d not use the phone.”

It wasn’t a threat, exactly; the tone was rather kind — Please do me a favor . But the favor was being asked by a man who looked like the son of Kong in a business suit.

“Look,” Jon said, “this is a public phone. You can’t keep people from using it.”

Which was a ridiculous thing to say. This guy could obviously keep people from using the phone. He could keep the state of Iowa from using the phone.

“I have a sick kid,” the man said. Softly. “I’m waiting to hear about my sick kid.”

Toni spoke up. “What the fuck are you doing here, then?”

Jon raised a hand to quiet her. “It’s okay, Toni.” He smiled at the guy. “It’s no emergency on my end, mister. You can wait for your call. Be my guest.”

Toni stood with fists on hips and glared at Jon, who pulled her away from there by the arm.

“Jon, why are you letting that asshole...”

“Shut up,” Jon said, and took her back into the club.

He pulled her off into another of the cubbyhole rooms behind the storefronts; a couple was making out in this one, so Jon dragged her into the cubbyhole next door. She was fuming.

“Why d’you go along with that bullshit?” she demanded.

“I think somebody told him not to let me use the phone.”

Toni thought about that

“Look,” he said. “I got to find out if that woman is still around. My guess is she split, but if she’s still around, maybe I could corner her or something. I don’t know.”

“What good’ll that do?”

“Maybe I can avoid a violent confrontation. I know how this woman’s mind works. She’ll figure if Nolan finds out she’s alive, he’ll come looking for her.”

“Is she right?”

“Yeah.”

“So what good does talking to her do?”

“I’ll lie. I’ll tell her Nolan’s dead or in prison or something. That she has nothing to worry about from him.”

“But what about from you?”

“I’ll tell her I don’t give a damn, personally, about her or the money she took.”

“Is that true?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s go look for her, then.”

They went back out through the bar, and noticed that the sandy-haired guy was sitting in a booth near the double doors to the club area, well around the corner from the pay phone, not an ideal place for somebody waiting for a call. Jon looked at him with a smile and a silent question, and he looked back and shook his head no, indicating that the call hadn’t come yet. Jon shrugged at him, smiled again, and walked on with Toni.

Around the corner, a drunk in overalls was leaning against the wall, talking on the phone, slobbering at the receiver.

Jon said, “Looks like I’m the only one the worried papa wants to keep off the phone.”

He and Toni casually walked through the bar and up through the restaurant, both floors of it, and the woman with streaked blonde hair and tinted glasses wasn’t there.

“She either split,” Jon said, “or she’s outside, ducking me. In her car in the parking lot, maybe.”

“You want to go looking for her?”

“Not in a dark parking lot.”

“You’re not scared of her?”

“Of course I am.”

“Why?”

“She almost killed me once. With a shotgun.”

“Oh.” Toni swallowed and followed Jon back into the club, where they immediately headed for Bob Hale, still perched at the stage-right bar.

“Bob,” Jon said, putting a good-buddy hand on the big man’s shoulder, “some drunk is tying up the pay phone.”

“Well,” Bob said, smiling, hauling himself off the stool, “let’s kick his ass off, then.”

“No, no. Listen, I have a kind of private call I’d like to make. Can I use the phone in your apartment?”

Bob grinned at Jon, then at Toni, then back at Jon. “You two can use my apartment for anything you want, if I can watch.”

Toni laughed — a little tensely, but she laughed. She liked Bob, Jon knew. Considered him harmless, a teddy bear with a hard-on.

“No, really,” Jon said, “I need to use the phone. How about it?”

“Sure,” Bob said, and led them back around the bar to a hallway. They followed him down it.

Bob lived at the Barn. So did a German Shepherd about the same size as Jon. It stayed in the bedroom Bob kept, on the lower floor of the barn part of the Barn, in the rear, a bedroom Bob referred to as his apartment.

Bob unlocked the door, and the dog began to growl. It sounded like Mt. St. Helen’s thinking it over. Bob reached a hand down and grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled him away from the doorway, back into the bedroom. The dog was still growling, but that only made Bob laugh. Amid the laughter, he gave the dog a sharp command, and the dog sat, teeth bared, Rin Tin Tin with rabies. If Bob hadn’t been there, Jon and/or Toni would have been dead by now.

It was a big, messy room: plush red carpeting with underwear, shirts, other clothing carelessly wadded and tossed; a queen-size canopy waterbed with red satin sheets and black plush covers over at the right. No rough barn wood here: dark paneling, with built-in closet. At the near end was a bookcase wall with no books in it, just thousands of dollars’ worth of stereo equipment, as well as a 19-inch Sony with videotape deck, and a library of XXX tapes.

Also the phone, which Bob handed Jon as he marched the dog out into the hall, closing the door as he went. Toni stood and watched as Jon touch-toned Nolan’s number.

On the third ring, he heard Nolan’s voice: “This is Nolan.”

“Nolan! Listen...”

“You’re talking to a machine. Leave your message at the beep.”

Jon just looked at the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Toni said.

“An answer machine,” he said. “Now I’ve heard everything. Nolan’s got an answer phone! I don’t believe this.”

The phone said, beep .

Jon left his message, Bob locked his dog back in the bedroom, and they all went back into the club, where Jon and Toni headed for the stage.

For the last set.

WHEN SHE blew the words on “Heartbreaker,” Toni knew she was scared.