CHAPTER 29

.....The media circus wound down as the sun settled behind the Teapot Dome, shadows lengthening and the stone faces of the bluffs turning blood red before they faded off into the darkness.
.....The circus may have wound down, but it sure stayed in town. Night fell on everywhere else for miles, but in Harding the lights of the town blazed for one night like a supernova in post-event activity. And like a dying star, the brightness would be short-lived.
.....Although the grounds surrounding the high school were now dark and silent, the rest of the town was a-crackle with activity. The phone lines hummed with speculation and innuendo. Televisions were for the first time in five years locked in all day on the cable news networks, with TiVOs armed and VCRs set on pause/record as channels were surfed, residents looking for mementos of their fifteen seconds of fame as they were interviewed LIVE for their views on the tragedy, or looking for familiar faces in the crowds on the other side of the police lines.
.....With the sole exception of the Teapot Cafe, every business in town stayed open into the late of the night. The rhubarb surrounding the events of the day an unexpected boon to the merchants of the community.
.....Even the chain restaurants went briefly from being a corporate write-off to providing a short-lived burst of revenue to be funneled out of town. Quarter Pounders and McNuggets and trans fat-saturated fries flew across competing counters before they could even be spared a moment to wilt beneath the heat lamps. No quarter was given, no breaks were taken.
.....The employees made the same amount of money as they would have on any other sleepy night, but were tortured for their efforts. Bambi burned off an easy five pounds before she was cut loose at ten.
.....Overtime wasn't for part-timers, and there were no full-timers at the chain eateries. It didn't help that you don’t get tipped at McDonald’s no matter how much you bust your ass.

.....Colby Elkhart didn’t have to care about minimum wage any more.
.....Springing him from his cell, Sheriff Crawford had taken him up to his office and set him down. A deal was reached. The sheriff guided him through the paperwork, explaining that POST was an acronym for Police Officer’s Standards and Training, and that while he didn’t really need the certificate to become a Harding police officer, it would still look good on his resume if he ever decided to move on to other bluer pastures.
.....The department was more than happy to foot the bill for the training, the sheriff explained, and Elkhart was more than happy to accept the $35,000-a-year position that waited for him on the department after completing the training. He signed off on the paperwork. Part of the papers he signed included a vetted statement of the events involving the terrorist plot that had begun at the Kwickie-Stop before being ultimately foiled by the savvy groundwork of the Harding Police Department, ably thwarted with the cooperation of the observant teen.
.....Crawford also filled him in on the police code of silence, and that there was nothing lower than a cop that ratted out on other cops. Colby didn’t see anything he needed to be a rat about, so he was all good. He’d be even more than good when he was finally allowed to slap on his rod and begin to extract a little payback from that asshole Dave McShane, who had been fucking with him religiously since ninth grade...

.....The Greyhound bus pulled out of the Harding depot as just plain ol' Scott Aaron Greenway eased himself down into a travel-worn seat among a handful of unfamiliar faces.
.....He was down with that.
.....Scott had left his superfluous T and his wigger gear behind in his bedroom. His travelin' threads were a pair of jeans, a plain white shirt and a fading denim jacket that was two summers past too small. He packed lightly and withdrew a handful of bills from the family rainy stash. The family was over at the Pentecostal church that evening, praying with that fruity reverend for Pierce’s immortal soul.
.....The empty jar went back the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, light nearly three hundred bucks.
.....The first bus departing Harding was bound for San Francisco, and forty-five minutes later Scott was leaving his shame behind him. He left no note, and didn’t feel one was needed. Deal.
.....No one in Harding ever heard from him again.

.....The television remained off in the Ziegler house as the family gathered about the dining room table. Takeout from KFC remained uneaten, serving only as something to toy with. Even under the best of circumstances, the KFC Famous Bowl would be an intimidating concoction of instant mashed potatoes, corn, cheese-like goo and battered bits of chicken too suspicious to be served by themselves, but now the bowls stewed dangerously in pools of congealed grease.
.....Uneasy glances were spared towards the young man, his wrist set in a fresh-looking cast.
.....When the boy had been set loose from the police station, the looks thrown his way as the Zieglers had led him past the cops didn’t set well, narrowed eyes and barely concealed emotion. They felt as if they were part of a perp walk, not leading a victim off to the familial bosom. Mike had remained closed-mouthed through it all.
.....The shock of the events, perhaps. But still...
.....Headlights flashed through the open space in the curtains as the sound of a vehicle pulled up and parked. The engine was cut off and a door opened. Slammed shut. Footsteps approached the house and the unease in the dining room took on an almost primal weight.
.....They waited for the knock.

.....Sgt. Gary Hutchins stepped up onto the welcome mat and paused, hand poised to knock. He indulged in a quick smile, then sheathed it. In his other hand, he carried a video tape.
.....Surprisingly, the receptionist had been good for more than only one thing. The VHS had been in a deck separate from the regular feed that led back to the police station, and she had relieved the tape from behind the Main Desk at the high school.
.....And unlike all the data that had been pulled from the department’s state of the art digital equipment that had still failed to deliver a usable image of the face of the intruder, the old school video tape had captured a more than satisfactory moment of the boy in the hallway looking straight up into the camera, rifle cradled in his arms.
.....Sgt. Hutchins knocked on the door.

.....Three blocks away Sheriff Crawford sat on Pierce’s bed, a cigarette in one hand and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in the other. The bed was still made and would remain in his mind that way forever. You could bounce a quarter off of it, a trick of the trade that Bryce had passed on to his son during his last and unknowingly final leave. Photos of two dead men looked back at him from where he placed them on the night table.
.....He drank deep and chased it with another drag from the Marlboro.

.....On the other side of town, the lights were out in Tanya’s cottage. The phone was unplugged and occasional knocks went unanswered.

.....At 2:45 The Larkspur kicked out the last remaining straggler, who checked his bevnap with bleary eyes and climbed behind the wheel of his patrol vehicle. The driver made a short detour by the station before heading down the road to The Watergate Motel. The afterhours party was in full swing.
.....The parking lot of the motel was packed. Vehicles filled every slot and more vehicles blocked them in. It was going to be a long night. The news agencies couldn’t be bothered to provide RVs for the folks that made the broadcasts possible, and so every window of the Watergate was ablaze.
.....At his knock, the door opened wide. The townies partying it up with the familiar faces of their nightly news and their support teams roared his name.
.....“Clyde!”
.....Whipping off his mirrored aviator shades with a wide grin, Clyde held up and waggled a small baggy containing about seventeen-hundred bucks worth of the finest crystal meth that he could score from the department’s evidence locker on short notice.
.....Three-time loser Roger Santoro had been given twenty-to-life for holding the same bag three months back, but tonight the media was more than appreciative for his sacrifice.
.....The crowd roared their pleasure and the FOX reporter slithered up to make his acquaintance. Odd, Clyde noted...with her camera face wiped off, the reporter looked more Black Irish than Asian.
.....She was finally over her sniffles from the teargas. The recovery didn’t last long.

.....Four doors down, in what Clyde would have considered one of the motel’s two Room 2s, Daniel Wolfe lay fully clothed on the uncomfortable bed, staring up at the ceiling. Even if every room of the motel wasn't rocking with the activity of the off-duty media blowing it up, he still couldn’t have slept.
.....He had the nagging feeling that despite everything seeming to be over, he was still in a world of shit. His calls to Tanya went unanswered, and when he drove by her house the windows were dark. There was no response to his knocks, no sign of movement within. The Teapot had closed when Tanya had left. No one had the slightest idea where she was.
.....His bag was still unpacked, parked by the door.
.....But he couldn’t leave. Earlier, before being sequestered by newly-arrived members from the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the sheriff taken a moment to pass on that he wanted... needed one more thing from him.
.....There had been the implied promise of a trade-off.