Chapter 5
“I’m Scooter Stahl, owner/operator. Nice to meet you. This is great,” he said, sounding like he meant it. And the way Scooter was grinning was inviting. “Just follow Atlantic Avenue down to Sandbridge, ‘bout ten miles. You can’t miss it. Dockside is the big building, next to the dock, obviously.”
Ten miles? Shit. Andy set his empty juice bottle on the counter for Harry-Rex to scan. “What’s the nearest bus stop?”
Scooter snorted. “You’re at it, pal. Sandbridge is way down the beaten path. Where you stayin’? My waitress and cook live up here in town, you can probably carpool. Of course, you risk having to listen to Jason sing along with the radio, which is a fate worse than death, I assure you.”
Andy grinned uneasily. “I just got into town, really, a couple of hours ago. Haven’t had time to make arrangements yet.”
Harry-Rex gave Scooter a raised eyebrow. “Did Jeff take the dog?”
“No, no he did not,” Scooter sighed. He held up one hand, as if requesting a bit of patience. “Jeff left me in a bind in more ways’n one. He’d been renting the apartment over my garage, too. Left his dog with me. If you don’t mind sharin’ a space with the garbage dog you can stay there, at least ‘til you make other arrangements. It’d be doin’ me a favor, to have someone help look after Trick until Jeff staggers back into town in…I give ‘em ‘til September before the money runs out.”
Harry-Rex hummed “Dueling Banjos” under his breath, then gave Scooter a gap-toothed smile. “Do you hear that?”
“God, shut up, Harry-Rex,” Scooter said. He rolled his eyes. “I ain’t like that. You’re gonna give Big City a heart attack.”
Andy laughed, though it was all awfully convenient. There had to be a catch somewhere. There was no such thing as a free lunch. Maybe Scooter’s restaurant was a smuggling front. Though smuggling from where, he didn’t know, when the local bus station was small enough to spit from one side to the other and the nearest foreign border was several hundred miles away.
Either way, until he found out, at least he’d have room and board and a little money coming in. “Think I can manage to hold my own, if it comes to it,” he said. “I’m in. One question, though. Why ‘garbage dog’?”
“Trick doesn’t eat dog food, he eats table-scraps. Pizza, fish sandwiches, pretty much anything on your plate. He’s somethin’ of a mobile trash can, and he doesn’t have much respect for personal space,” Scooter said. He counted off bills and handed them over to Harry-Rex, and tucked his change into his pocket without looking at it. “Come on, help me with this, would ya? My truck’s out front. Why don’t you drop by in a few days, Harry-Rex? Bring June. I’ll make up a fish-fry special and we’ll have us some talk, yeah?”
Christ, moretalking? Suppressing a sigh, Andy put the ice pack down, picked up an armful of Scooter’s purchases, and followed him back out of the store.
Scooter loaded the bags into the bed of a rather beat-up Dodge Ram. “Harry-Rex’ll feel better, if he sees you’re doin’ okay in a few days. An’ I might as well get this out of the way: I am gay an’ pretty much all the locals know it. If that’s gonna be a problem for you, best we part ways now, no hard feelings.” There was something hesitantly belligerent in Scooter’s stance, like the Deliverancejoke Harry-Rex had made earlier had rubbed him a little raw.
Andy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m bisexual myself,” he offered. “So unless you’re going to jump down my throat for not being gold-star gay, we’re good.”
Scooter studied him for a moment, those piercing gray-blue eyes seeming to see right through him. “A’ight, then. I don’t fuck customers and I don’t fuck employees. Those’re rules I don’t break—learned ‘em the hard way. So long as we’re clear, hop in and I’ll show you what passes for home for this neck of the woods.” 3
Andy didn’t seem to be one for small talk, and Scooter gave up trying to draw him out fairly quickly, instead just settling for what his Ma had called “rattlin’ on.” Giving Andy a feel for the area, pointing out the spots of interest. Not that there were many; Sandbridge was a tiny town that might as well have been a suburb of Virginia Beach, all of four miles of narrow beach reaching between the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound. A few apartment buildings and some single family homes housed the tiny population. There were no hotels, which dissuaded the majority of the tourists, but people in the know rented out the oceanfront cabins and houses. Sandbridge was…secret. Good beach, good food, but off the beaten path.