The Road to Round Mountain: The Betrayal by (25 page)

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Gordon literally jumped out of his chair and ran behind the  Sheriff and out of view from the window to the right of the  Sheriff’s desk. “I see we understand each other Sheriff, Trust is the key. If I had wanted to, I could have had Gordon’s head flying against the wall right about now”.

The Sheriff let out a rather loud exhale, “Okay, message received, how do you want to proceed from here”? “That’s better Sheriff, the more you cooperate, the easier this will be”. Gordon remained behind the Sheriff’s high back chair for some added protection, as long as there is no red dot on your forehead that might be a good spot. “The first thing I will need you to do is at exactly 8:00 pm tonight, have one of your deputies watching the front door, as a delivery per-son will come in with a package for Billy”. “For Billy, I don’t understand what”…… “You’re interrupting me again Sheriff.  In the package will be a bottle with some medicine in it.  Medicine that you will need to make sure that Billy takes at exactly 7:30pm Friday night. Do not ask why, just make sure that you follow the instructions on the bottle”.

“Then what happens after 7:30”? “You will receive a call tomorrow sometime in the afternoon, make sure that someone is close by your office phone to answer. Failure to do so will result in a tragic accident for the Girl, and then we will be forced to take Billy by any means at our disposal; and I do mean any means. So now that we have an under-standing, just a reminder that any deviation from instruc-tions will mean that not only will this town need to employ replacements for the Sheriff’s department, but then again, there might not be enough of Astoria left to warrant such an expenditure. You do what you are told, everybody lives’;

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you don’t, well the coroner shall be busy for quite some  time”. The phone went silent.

The Sheriff looked at the phone as if was expecting  something evil to pop out of the receiver. He dropped the receiver back into its cradle and crossed his hands on top of his  desk. He glanced over at the clock on the wall, it read 10:30  am. He brought up his hand to his chin rubbing it back and  forth. The Sheriff was worried, and I have never seen him  worried. That visual frightened me, not just a little, but a lot.  I looked over at Gordon and he was still checking out his  body for red dots; that did not concern me as much.

The silence in the room was frightening in the fact that  Me and Gordon still don’t know what took place in his  conversation. Judging by the look on the Sheriff’s face I  wasn’t certain that I wanted to know. One thing that I am  sure of was that it was Agent Boling that called. I don’t  know why I’m even bothering calling her Agent. Maybe  at one time she was worthy of that title, but know she was  only worthy to be on death row, express line please; ride the  lightning, party of one!

The Sheriff finally broke the silence, not with words but  with a fart that was worthy of one of my Dad’s. Maybe it  was because we were all scared shitless (no pun intended),  but the three of us broke out in laughter that at one point  I didn’t think would end. Oh God how good that felt. The  odor from his gift to us was starting to make my eyes water;  part of that could have been the laughter. The Sheriff got up  from his high back chair and started to open the window,  which couldn’t happen soon enough; it smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and rotting corpse, though I had no

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firsthand knowledge of the latter, I was sure that it would  smell like this. “Careful Sheriff, you don’t want to give him  a clean shot” (referring to the red dot bandit earlier). “Hell  boy’s if he sniffs this, I could be charged with murder”, and  with that we all broke out in laughter again. “My wife tells  me that, in the proper proportions, I could be weaponized”.  Once more the laughter started and Gordon fell out of his  chair onto the floor, “Shit, no more, my ribs hurt too much”.

I took a few moments to compose ourselves, and when  we were all seated the Sheriff let us in on the phone call.

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39

I wAs vIsIbly
 
shaken after the Sherif f told us of Bol-

ing’s plan, or at least part of it anyway. The Sherif f stopped a  couple of times to ask if I was okay. I wasn’t but told him I  was so he could continue. The stakes must be awful high to  blow up half the town and kill all of the Sheriff’s deputies in  order to make sure that I go with them. I knew why she had  chosen drugs, it was either that I was passed out and they  could take me peacefully, or I nuke them. It wouldn’t have to  come to that of course, but it was an option that I was looking forward to.

That brought me to my previous plan that Gordon and  I had discussed earlier, except this time we would have to  change a few things and I spent the next hour or so convincing the Sheriff that the plan would work. He was receptive  to my ideas, but kept giving me a bunch of what ifs. That was  just his criminal justice common sense checking to see if my  plan had any flaws. It did have a few, but not enough for the  Sheriff to think that it wouldn’t work. We worked out the

kinks in short order. The Sheriff stood up and paced about  his office for a minute before saying, “I do have to say Billy,  that I am impressed. You just might want to consider police  work, you sure have the instincts for it. Just how sure are you  that Boling is going to try to do a swap at the time everyone  is supposed to be going to the movies”?

“It only makes sense that she would work this in when

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the Four Horsemen start their little robbery spree. You  know as a diversion thinking that everyone else will be too  preoccupied to pay much attention to her little swap. That  way she can call the shots without having the entire force  trying to get a clean shot at her”. The Sheriff smiled as  he rubbed his jaw some more. “The more I think about  this, the more I think this might work. I’ll need to call my  wife and have her stop by the drugstore for the items we’ll  need for tomorrow and then I have a few calls to make to

see about getting some backups in here, just in case”. The  phone rang again, we all froze.

The Sheriff put a finger up to his mouth to indicate that  we need to be quiet. He let it ring three times before picking  up. “Sheriff Pasco”, he said in a passive manner. “Sheriff, this  is Adrian Montrosse, I have some more information for you  about that location in Nevada”. The Sheriff looked over at

us and shook his head. We took that as a sign that it was not  Boling on the line. “That’s great, but do think you could send  what you found to my e mail, we got us a bit of a situation  here”. The Sheriff explained what had happened in detail,  then he listened intently to the caller.

“You can really set that up”, the Sheriff asked? “Most definitely, I will have four more than capable bodies in you town  by noon Friday. Will that give you enough time”? “Absolutely,  but how will I know who they are, we do get a bit of visitor’s on vacation this time of year”. “Okay then, be at the  lighthouse at noon and I will give you an identifier that will  be the answer to a question that each of them will ask you,  they will arrive separately about ten minutes apart, giving  you enough time with each to discuss your intentions, you

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just act like you’re giving directions to tourists. These men  are very professional, highly loyal, and extremely accurate”.

“Noon it is and I can’t thank you enough for your help  Adrian”. “The pleasure will be all mine once I hear that  certain individuals are six feet under”. “Amen Brother”, the  Sheriff replied. He hung up the phone in seemingly a much  better mood than when the phone first rang. I couldn’t wait  to hear what had made him perk up and ready to rumble.

I was ready for some good news, I kept thinking about  Jennifer and how I wish that we could be together, and how  useless I felt right now not knowing where she was at and  that she was okay. The anger started to build again the more  I thought about, so much so that the Sheriff’s desk started to  vibrate and dance around a bit like we were in an earthquake.  The Sheriff’s eye’s bugged out as he looked over at me. He  could tell what I was thinking about, “Billy, simmer down,  that anger isn’t going to help us right now, especially if my  desk goes flying through the wall”. The desk was still bouncing a bit but not as much, “Either you stop, or I’m going to  rip another one and clear the room”.

That worked, I started to giggle as did Gordon and the  desk returned to being an inanimate object. In the back of  my mind though I was thinking of Jennifer, trying to push  my anger aside as to not lose control again; it wasn’t easy.

The Sheriff relieved that his desk did not require an  exorcism, sat back down and filled us in on his phone call.  “How can someone send so many expert snipers to one spot  so quick, I asked in confusion? “Not quite sure about that  myself Billy, though I’m grateful to have the extra help cause  we’re sure going to need it”. “Where are they going to hide

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at, blend in or whatever it is they do not to get seen”, Gordon  inquired. “That all depends on Boling and where she wants  to do this at. I grew up here and I know every inch of this  town, so no matter where it’s at, I’ll have spots picked out for  them”, The Sheriff answered.

That only left one minor detail for our plan to succeed  and went over it with the Sheriff and Gordon. “That’s one

thing I hadn’t thought of Billy, I’ll bring that up when she  calls. For now, let’s go get something to eat and when we get  back I’ll need to check my email that our friend is sending  me; something about finding that location in Nevada”. That  will be a great help to me in trying to figure out how to put  these clowns out of business. I was stoked.

Dairy Queen would not have been a choice of mine since my art work in the bathroom, but being with the Sheriff I felt somewhat safe from not being asked to leave. The old curmudgeon of a Manager gave me a glare on the way in. I steered clear of the counter so not to send their computers into a catatonic state. That seemed to please the Manager.  The Sheriff had already asked what we wanted before we got inside and he placed the order at the counter. The Manager was running register at the time of the Sheriff’s order. “Your order comes to $19.87 Sheriff”. He looked at the menu

board with a scowl on his face, “Did you all raise prices on  me”. “No, that’s what your order rings up at”, The Manager  replied. “That can’t be right; it should be about 12 dollars  give or take a few pennies”. The Manager kept glancing over  at me which was making me very uncomfortable. I did a little  math in my head and the Sheriff was right. I started concentrating on the screen that the Manager was looking at.

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“He added an extra meal that we didn’t order Sheriff”.

The Manager gave me one nasty looking scowl. “How do you know that Billy”? Gordon got up on his tip toes and whispered in the Sheriff’s ear. “No shit”. Gordon nodded.  The Sheriff turned to look at Billy, “You can see what’s on the screen, even though you couldn’t see it unless you were on the other side of the counter. Can you tell me what’s on the screen”? I concentrated a little harder and replied, “I see that he rang up the two orders of chicken strips for me and  Gordon, and your Number two double cheeseburger, but he added a number three, a triple cheeseburger”.

The Sheriff had a grin on his face as he went around the side of the counter, told the Manager to back away from the register and went through the swinging gate up to the register. The Manager was visibly terrified of what was hap-pening, maybe not so much by the Sheriff coming behind the counter, but the reason for him being there had more than concerned. “I’ll be damned Billy, you were spot on.  Everything you said that was on the screen is on there”. He turned towards the Manager, who seemed to age ten years in the past ten seconds. Sweat was dripping from the graying eyebrows he sported.

“Ken anything to say”, the Sheriff sarcastically asked? “It was just a mistake Sheriff, really, here see”, as he brought out a plastic card from his pocket and swiped it on the mag-netic strip just off to the side of the screen. “There you go compliments of Dairy Queen. You guys just have a seat and we’ll have that ready for you in just a minute”. The Manager moved real quickly to the back of the restaurant and called for someone named Nadine to take over register.

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We took our seats at a booth by the front door. The  Sheriff just stared at me. “What”. “Since when did you find out you could do that”, as he pointed up at the counter. “By accident; Gordon and I were playing cards and he won like the first four or five hands, and I thought, I wish I could see his cards so I could at least win one hand”. “And I didn’t

win a hand the rest of the night”, Gordon declared. I just  smiled and said, “Yeah, it was easy after the first couple of  hands”. The Sheriff took off his hat, scratched his head, and  then looked around the dining area. He noticed a lady sitting at a table about ten feet from us. He could see that she  was busy on one of those big smart phones and where we  were seated we could only see the back of her phone. “Okay  Billy, you see that lady on her phone”. I nodded at her existence. “Suppose you tell us what she’s doing on her phone”.  Challenge accepted. I concentrated on the lady’s phone, trying not to stare so she wouldn’t think I’m a stalker or something. “She’s on Facebook, playing a game. Bejeweled, she’s  playing Bejeweled”, I said proudly.

The Sheriff got up from his chair and casually walked  over to the lady. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but  the Lady was smiling. He promptly returned. “He asked  her what type of phone that was because he was thinking  of getting his wife one”, Gordon chimed in. “Showoff”, I  replied. “I’ll be go to hell if she wasn’t playing Bejeweled.  Billy you are starting to scare me just the least little bit”.  I smiled as an older lady, Nadine I presume, brought our  complimentary lunch.