“You’re so full of bull you’d call an alligator a lizard.” Tall Boy looked as if he was about to launch himself forward, fists clenched and cocked, ready to throw. He didn’t, though. Fletcher had put enough doubts into Tall Boy to make him believe things might not go as expected. Tall Boy’s uncertainty was mirrored on the faces of Cocky and Freckles. Muscles was the only one to look disappointed the fight hadn’t already started.
“You’re welcome to try your luck if you that’s what you think.”
Chapter Three
As Tall Boy glared at him, Fletcher made a point of not getting into a staring contest. One, it would narrow his field of vision, giving Tall Boy’s buddies a chance to land a strike of their own, and two, if things weren’t to get physical, Tall Boy needed a way out of the conflict that would allow him to save face.
“Forget ’bout him.” Tall Boy threw a dismissive gesture in Fletcher’s general direction. “Old man like him ain’t no threat to us. Be wrong to kick the ass of someone so old.”
“So I don’t have to leave?” Fletcher made a point of asking his question in a pleasant tone. While he was quite happy to get into it with the four youths, he’d prefer not to until he knew more about them. Specifically, why they’d been appointed as the town’s guardians. It’s not uncommon for the locals in small towns to protect their town’s reputation and stick up for each other, but it’s rare that a gang can be hustled together in the space of minutes to run off first Brad and then him. Two separate people, on two different days. While he knew things happened differently in rural areas, the youths’ speed in arriving and instant insistence he leave was, at the very minimum, a complete overreaction to his presence and the conversation he’d had with Agnes in the diner.
A parking lot on Main Street wasn’t the right location for him to get the answers he needed Tall Boy to supply. A few well-aimed punches or a squeeze on some pressure points would get one of them talking, but across the street a woman was pushing a stroller and looking their way. A gaggle of preteen kids hung on the corner. Their eyes wide with excitement as they watched proceedings.
If these four were an unofficial police force, they’d no doubt have the backing of the locals and, as such, he was in a no-win situation. Fletcher knew how these things went down. If they weren’t acting for the townsfolks it would be a different matter, as local punks getting a short, sharp lesson wouldn’t bother anyone except the punks’ families. However, an out-of-towner using even a mild form of torture on them was another thing altogether. A blind eye might happily be turned to a deserved beating, but anything further than that couldn’t not be acted upon for fear of future repercussions.
The whole point of torture was the extraction of information from someone who didn’t want to share what they knew. Fletcher could have the answers he wanted from Tall Boy or one of his friends in less than two minutes; however, to break their initial resistance he’d have to hurt them a little. They’d scream before they talked and there were too many witnesses for that to be allowed to happen.
All of this didn’t mean he couldn’t still put the frighteners on Tall Boy and his buddies. “I’ve come to the conclusion you’re not very bright, so I’m only going to use small words. You do not try and fight me. You’ll get hurt. Hurt bad. A friend of mine has gone missing and I am going to find her. You’ve seen her picture. Her name is Lila: she has blonde shoulder-length hair; she’s maybe five three, has a pretty face. If you know where she is, go get her, leave her in this square and hit your horn ten times. I’ll come get her; then, and only then, will I leave your town.” Fletcher shot a look at Tall Boy’s buddies to keep them from getting any silly ideas. “If you don’t know where she is, that’s cool. But be warned, if I find that you’re standing between me and her when I find her, you’re going to feel pain like you’ve never imagined.”
Tall Boy eyed him as if he was a circus freak from bygone days. “You’s talkin’ with the tongue outta your shoe. We don’t know where the bitch is, and if you don’t leave town, next time we see you, we’ll not think kicking your ass is such a wrong thing to do. C’mon, let’s get outta here ’fore we catch arthritis from this old coot.”
Instead of reacting to the childish and medically inaccurate taunts, Fletcher let Tall Boy have the final word as he turned to head back to the pickup. The lad had come to run him out of town and had failed. Not only that, his failure had been down to a cowardice to engage. Losing a fight hurts your pride as much as your body; chickening out of one means all the hurt is focused on your pride. Tall Boy would regret not having the nerve to take Fletcher on when he had the superior numbers. That regret would niggle at him, make his head and heart fill with a bitter self-loathing.
The worst parts of it all for Tall Boy were that not only had he failed as a fighter, he’d also failed as a leader. His lieutenants were at his shoulder when he’d decided not to lead them into battle. There was no getting away from it, his stock would go down in the eyes of his buddies.
As always, there was a flip side to this. Tall Boy had intimated that he would be happy to have the fight another time. It could be bravado, or it could be the youth’s natural cunning that had made him happy to delay the fight until he could get some weapons to make a fight that was four against one the foregone conclusion that it should be. When that happened Tall Boy would be fueled by his own self-loathing, any taunts he’d received from his buddies and the criticisms of the townsfolk for failing to protect their collective reputation.
Next time they met, Tall Boy would be out for blood and would come prepared to spill Fletcher’s.
Fletcher had known all of this when he’d squared off against the four youths. On certain levels he welcomed it. The years he’d spent as a single father had been hugely gratifying as he’d watched his daughter morph from a child into an independent young woman. All the same, he missed the adrenaline rush that came whenever he went into combat situations. It had been a long time since he’d felt quite as alive as he felt now, although he knew he’d have to temper his reactions to what was necessary rather than what made him feel good.
One thing was for sure, after the way they’d attempted to run him out of town, Fletcher was looking forward to his next meeting with Tall Boy and his cronies, as he’d make a point of getting some answers from them. There had been a spark of recognition in Tall Boy’s eyes when he’d eventually dropped his gaze at the picture of Lila that Fletcher had held against his chest so Tall Boy couldn’t help but see it.
Fletcher glanced at his watch as he walked along Main Street and gave a silent curse. It was too late in the day for anywhere with town records to be open, if Daversville had such a place. Had he been able to check the town’s records, he could have gotten Mary-Lou Henderson’s address. After that he’d have been able to devise a way to talk to her. Once upon a time he’d have gotten her address from a phone book, but the popularity of cell phones had put an end to that.
Brad had described the server as young, so Fletcher figured there was a good chance Mary-Lou still lived in the family home. This meant that even if he found the right house, Mary-Lou’s folks could prevent her talking to him anyway. A man his age couldn’t just knock on a door and ask to speak to a girl in her late teens without expecting some kind of parental interference.