Chapter 6

It was a rather quick conversation between the caller and Michael.

But the words shook him in a way that few things had ever done.

“You got lucky this time, paper boy,” the caller had said and hung up quickly.

Michael pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the number. It was a private caller, just as he suspected.

One thing he was sure of, whoever these people were, they didn’t want him around. That was fine with Michael. For a long time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be around Langford.

That had all changed one night a few months earlier with the phone call from his mother urging him to come home, that his father was sick. For Michael, that wasn’t that big of a deal. His father was frequently sick, or at least thought he was sick.

But for his mother, he had returned home. This time, his father wasn’t faking. He was sick. Prior to the old man’s death, Michael learned many things about his father and family that he never expected to hear.

Things such as because of poor money management, he was about to lose the Langford Review and his house to the Bank of Langford. At the last minute, Sandy had stepped in and helped Michael save the paper.

Now, that was all for waste. The Langford Review was no more, at least the building. The newspaper could carry on, but this week’s issue was ready to be taken to the printers tomorrow. There was no way Michael could redo the whole newspaper and get it ready for the printers by noon the following day.

He was still standing across the street, watching the building burn. Squiggy and Mule had joined him, sitting down on the sidewalk drinking beers and throwing the bottles underneath the various law enforcement vehicles parked in front of the Burroughs Building.

They seemed to think this was great fun, not that it surprised Michael. Squiggy and Mule were a little different than most people, not that they seemed to care. For the last few minutes, they appeared to be having a farting contest. Michael wasn’t paying that much attention. Apparently Mule had gotten too intent in the contest and had to run off in search of the nearest bathroom.

“Ooh!” Mule said, as he got up. “A convict is about to sneak past the Guard Shack!”

Michael watched Mule go down the sidewalk, looking much like the speedwalkers you see in the Olympics and the local track.

Squiggy was trying to talk to some girl, but she was showing no interest.

“Hey, baby,” he said, “how bout you and me go for a trip?”

“I think not,” she said. The woman was very attractive, young and seemed a little out of Squiggy’s league, not that he would let something like that bother him.

“Why, you a lesbo?”

The woman shook her head and looked around for help. “No, I think you are disgusting.”

Squiggy nodded and spit a huge wad of spit on a police car. He watched it slide down the front bumper and drip to the ground.

“I ain’t that bad,” he said.

She had left by then, gone in search of a safer environment. The fire department was doing its best to get the fire out. The wind was whipping up and that didn’t help matters.

A man slipped in beside Michael. “Aaaarrreee yyyooouuu Mmmmister Hhhunt?”

Michael looked around and saw a huge man, wearing a long sleeve shirt with a massive badge on his chest. He was also carrying a pistol on his belt. But what caught Michael’s attention was the huge growth on the man’s neck.

“Wwwhhhooo wwwwaaaannnnt’s tttooo knnnnoooowww?” Squiggy asked, making Michael wish his friend would go away.

“Shut up, Squiggy,” Michael said, hoping that he didn’t start stuttering or stare at the man’s growth. “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

The agent answered by saying he was special agent Moody from the FBI. Almost every word was a struggle.

“Hey hoss, you got a speech impotency?” Squiggy said.

The man frowned at Squiggy. “That’s impediment,” Michael said.

“Whatever,” Squiggy said and tossed his latest beer bottle under the front tire. He looked at the agent and squinted his eyes. Michael had a fear of what was fixing to happen. “Dude, you got like some big growth on your neck!”

The agent was not amused. Michael half expected him to pull out his massive gun and blow Squiggy away.

“Is that why you talk like a retard?” Squiggy said.

The agent started moving toward Squiggy. Michael could see the blood vessels on the agent’s forehead sticking out. “You ever been arrested?” the agent said, not stuttering nearly as bad since he was so angry.

“A few times.”

“Ever been busted by the FBI?”

“Naw, but them Arkansas cops must like to do cavity searches. I couldn’t walk for a week after the last one. Looked like a dadgum bronc rider.”

The FBI agent looked puzzled and backed off. He had handled hundreds of criminals in his service career, but never handled anything like this. Agent Moody walked back toward Michael, trying to shake his head but having a tough time with the goiter.

As he looked down the road, a huge man was jogging toward them. The man seemed awful excited about something. Mule skidded to a stop, staring at the FBI agent’s neck.

“Wow, is that one of them goiters?” he said.

The agent took a step back. He nodded, his hand poised inches above the pistol.

“Cool! Can I touch it?”

“No,” the agent said, offended beyond words.

“Please? My gradmammy used to have one and she’d let me play with it for hours. I like the way they feel.”

The agent was a little sensitive in the first place, thankful that most people were sensitive enough not be make a big deal about the growth. But that certainly wasn’t the case here.

Squiggy was laughing so hard that he laid back on the sidewalk and rattled off several poots, sounding almost like a machine gun going off.

“Let’s go over here and talk,” Michael said, moving away from Squiggy and Mule. He turned around and saw Mule following. “We need to talk in private, Mule.”

Mule’s smile slowly faded away. “Dadgummit!”

Michael and the agent stepped into a recessed area of the entrance to the Burroughs Building, right above where an advertisement for some pharmacy that had closed years before.

“What can I do for you?” Michael said.
The agent looked around to make sure nobody else was listening. “Do you have any idea who you are messing with?”

“No,” Michael said. He wasn’t aware of messing with anybody. But somebody was sure messing around with him.

The agent told a story that was almost hard to believe, even for Michael.