Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

meant in a much more literal sense. Pole Cats sat back in the woods on a dirt road next to Gene’s One Stop, just a little bit past where Highway 9 and Highway 12 ran together. You couldn’t see it from the road, and there were no neon signs advertising its presence. In short, you had to know it was there to find it.

It did have a website, which boasted “The Prettiest Girls in the Upstate” and a Facebook page, which shared photographs of pig pickin’s with men in camouflage and trucker hats cavorting with bikini-clad girls holding plates of pulled pork. It was also housed in a converted doublewide trailer with all the non-load bearing walls removed and a big deck built onto the front of it so the “bouncer” had somewhere to sit. I knew the bouncer, and I was being exceptionally generous to give him that much credit, since I think the last thing he bounced was his lazy behind out of high school at about fourteen. Ever since then, Lawrence “Big Baby” Nokt had bummed around town selling a little pot, beating people up for their lunch money, and picking up odd jobs when he actually had to break down and go to work for a living. Since his cousin Tina opened up Pole Cats after she aged out of her ballet career, Big Baby held down a stool by the front door and took five dollars from every sad sack who wanted to come gawk at naked boobs. Ten if they were underage.

“You sure anybody’ll be here, Lila Grace? It’s barely ten-thirty,” Willis asked as we turned off the main road. I’d let him drive, since I knew Pole Cats was on a dirt road, and it hadn’t rained in two weeks. I’d just washed Bessie, my truck, a few days ago. Let him get his car dirty instead, I figured.

“Teenie lives in the back, Willis,” I said. “And Big Baby spends more than half his nights sleeping on the stage.”

“How do you know all this?” Peter asked from the back seat.

“I have my sources,” I said. My sources are, of course, the three nosiest ghosts in three states, and they kept me well-apprised of anything the least bit prurient that went on in the fifty miles around my house. Barely a week went by without Miss Helen or one of the others regaling me with some story about who got too drunk to go home and had to sleep in their car out front of the strip joint.

We pulled up in front of the…bar, for lack of a better word, and I pointed at the two vehicles parked at one end of the trailer. “The truck is Teenie’s, and the Honda is Big Baby’s.”

“Running a low-class strip joint must pay pretty good,” Willis said, putting the car in park and opening his door. “That model F-150 will cost you fifty grand, easy.”

I got out of the car and stared in shock at the pickup. It was pretty, sure, but fifty thousand dollars? I just shook my head. “I heard she inherited some money when her daddy passed. And she runs a poker game in the garage behind the club most nights. I think that’s where most of her money comes from.”

“You know gambling is illegal in this state, right?” Willis asked, walking up the steps to the front door.

“I also know the District Court Judge plays here once a week,” I replied. “He’s not very good, though. Man’s got like half a dozen tells.” I don’t get to play cards much anymore. Ever since people decided I wasn’t lying about talking to ghosts my whole life, they assume I’ve got spectral partners hanging out over their shoulders telling me about their hands. I wouldn’t do that. Besides, most of the ghosts I routinely talk to don’t approve of gambling, so I wouldn’t trust them not to lie to me just to teach me a lesson.

Willis pounded on the door while I stood back on the ground and off to the side just a little bit. I’ve known Teenie and Big Baby ever since they were in diapers, but that doesn’t mean I want to wake them up. People who run illegal gambling parlors and shady strip clubs in house trailers are the kind of folks who might very well answer the door by shooting a shotgun through it.

But not this morning. Teenie yanked the door open and glared at Willis. “What?”

“Are you Tina McNaughton?” he asked.

“Yeah, and who the hell are you?” her tone was belligerent and her words were slurred, but her eyes were sharp and I noticed that I’d never seen her right hand. She held the door open just enough to lean a shoulder on the jamb, but not near wide enough for anyone to see past her into the darkened bar.

“I’m Sheriff Dunleavy, and we have a few questions about Peter Smalls.”

“Pete? Pete ain’t here. He left pretty early last night. Only had two beers, so if he got busted for DUI, it ain’t on me. He musta stopped somewhere else.” The slur was miraculously gone from her voice, and her posture improved noticeably. She looked at Willis and said, “Come on in. I reckon you probably are the sheriff. You smell like bacon.” She raised her voice as she turned to go inside, opening the door wider. “BB! Don’t shoot him. He’s the po-po!”

“Okay,” I heard from behind me and spun around to see Big Baby standing ten feet behind me with a twelve-gauge on his shoulder. “Howdy, Miz Carter. Ain’t seen you in a minute.”

“No, it’s been some time, Lawrence,” I replied, trying to keep the startled out of my voice and probably not succeeding very well. “I hope you’re doing well.”

“I’m awright,” he said, giving me the big, goofy grin that earned him his nickname. “Y’all go on inside. I’ll be in there in a minute. Gotta take a whizz.”

“You know you can use the toilet indoors,