At one point he overheard one of the eye-rollers whispering “trench” to one of her girlfriends. The significance of the word was lost on him. He’d been on the point of asking the girl outright, but had dismissed the idea as she’d started talking about something different and she was the least receptive to his attempts to ingratiate himself with the younger crowd.
It was something he could pursue. Maybe Agnes at the diner would be forthcoming if he threw the word at her when she wasn’t expecting it.
The more he thought about it, the more he was getting an uneasy feeling about Daversville and its inhabitants. He didn’t think they were being deceptive out of spite or malice; rather they were too scared to tell him because of possible future repercussions. The speed with which Tall Boy and the others had turned up after he’d been asking questions in the diner had shown there was someone in town who didn’t want those questions asked. The obvious thought that, as the holders of power in the town, the Blackett family might be the ones to exert control, was tempered by the way they were held in high esteem.
Fletcher mentally crossed his fingers that he’d find someone brave enough to give him the truth as he opened the door to the Fellers bar.
Chapter Seven
The door to Fellers squeaked and squealed its way open, which meant that when Fletcher took his first step inside, all fifteen eyes in the room were looking his way. Each one of them sending suspicion and hostility.
Fletcher got the room’s vibe in an instant. The eight men in Fellers all had the same traces of a hard life etched all over them. These were tough men, used to working hard for a living and taking no nonsense from anyone, and he was an outsider who’d breached what they’d think of as their domain.
Fellers wasn’t a bar for tourists, it was a spit-and-sawdust kind of place with genuine sawdust and extra spit. Like Duke’s the walls were clad with wide timber boards, but where the walls in Duke’s had been clean and well maintained, in Fellers they were rough-hewn and untreated. Rorschach-like splotches of spilled beer and bloodstains littered the timber walls, although there were two pictures adding a modicum of decoration behind the bar.
The first picture was of a mighty tree as it fell to earth. The lumberjack scurrying away from possible kickbacks gave enough scale for Fletcher to see the tree’s trunk would be at least ten feet in diameter. It was the second picture which made Fletcher lift a figurative eyebrow. It was of a youngster sitting on a swing chair which hung from a porch. The boy’s hands held a banjo while his face held a stern and uncompromising look, which still managed to ask a question.
Fletcher recognized the picture as a still from Deliverance, and somehow, he knew the actor’s name was Billy Redden, but he wasn’t sure how the information had popped into his head. That the image hung behind the bar was telling. Redden’s character in the film spoke of decades of inbreeding, and the whole of the movie seemed to be a critique of towns like Daversville and the people who lived either in them or on their peripheries. Rural Georgia may not be as sophisticated as New York or LA, but there was nothing to be gloried in a film which stereotyped rural Georgians as simple folk with animalistic appetites for violence and rape.
However, one look at the patrons of Fellers was enough to make Fletcher realize whoever had hung the picture of Redden was either playing to his core demographic or mocking them.
The patrons of Fellers all had the same basic look of dull ignorance about them, and while some of them looked as if they could be brothers, they all looked as if they’d descended from the same shallow end of the gene pool.
One had a missing eye; Fletcher could see at least four had missing fingers and he was prepared to bet a hundred bucks they’d all have missing teeth.
Fletcher had been in enough bars to read a room in seconds and, while he knew he was unwelcome, he was being tolerated. For the time being at least.
He crossed to the bar and ordered a beer.
“We don’t serve none to strangers.”
“I wasn’t asking for a none, just a beer.” Fletcher kept his voice even and his face innocent as he looked at the bartender.
A voice boomed out behind Fletcher. “He said, he don’t serve strangers. You a stranger in here so you ain’t getting served.”
Fletcher turned to identify the speaker. A tall man with corded muscles snaking along the arms poking out from his sleeveless shirt was rising to his feet. By the time he’d positioned himself in front of Fletcher, it had been noted the man had seven fingers, two eyes and some teeth.
A wad of notes appeared in Fletcher’s right hand. “I came in here for a beer and to ask if any of you have heard about a girl who went missing. I’ve a hundred bucks I’m happy to put in someone’s hand if they can give me the information I’m after.”
Some Teeth pulled his mouth into a smile and belched a gutful of beer fumes Fletcher’s way.
“How’s about you giving me that hundred bucks so you can walk out of here without you gettin’ hurt?”
There was the threat Fletcher had been waiting for. The sense of brooding machismo hung in the air of Fellers like the stale sweat and staler beer. From the moment he’d squeaked the door open and recognized the kind of bar he was in, he’d known someone would challenge him. Some Teeth had been the one to do it.
A threat had been made and now it was all about perception. If he gave the money over, there was a fifty-fifty chance Some Teeth would take a swing at him, as the act would have subjugated Fletcher while bigging up Some Teeth.
What Some Teeth didn’t realize was that Fletcher had seen the threat coming his way and had pulled out the wad of notes to invite it into his space. Hard men like these didn’t respect niceties or decency, only strength. That’s what Fletcher needed to show, and Some Teeth had nominated himself for the role of fall guy. Some Teeth wasn’t smart enough to realize someone prepared to wave a hundred bucks around in a bar like Fellers would most likely be confident he could defend himself.
This lack of respect and critical thinking was Some Teeth’s problem, and if he was dumb enough to challenge Fletcher, then Fletcher had no qualms about whatever may go down. Had Some Teeth shown him some courtesy and not figured him for a soft mark, Fletcher would have chosen a different way to conduct himself. Fletcher had never had time for bullies and therefore considered Some Teeth as the architect of his own downfall.
“The money is for information given, buddy, not for being allowed to leave.”
“I’m not your buddy.” Some Teeth’s voice was a low growl as he glared down at Fletcher. “You either hand over the cash or you don’t walk out of here.”
“Okay, okay. There’s no need for violence.” Fletcher made as if to hand Some Teeth the money but kept his left arm back far enough that the man had to stretch to reach the money. When Some Teeth’s fingers were two inches from the wad, Fletcher’s right hand swung up from his waist and connected with Some Teeth’s jaw.
Not only had Fletcher put his shoulder behind the blow, he’d risen onto his toes and swiveled his hips to employ every muscle he could into landing a knockout punch. As his old sergeant had taught him, he’d aimed inches beyond his actual target, so the blow was still gathering momentum when it connected.