Wearing his one and only pair of jeans and yet another polo shirt, he slid behind the wheel of his car, dumping a small plastic bag of dirty washing on the passenger seat. He backed out of the slot and headed the short distance towards the town square. He spied an open laundromat that offered service washes a block short of the main square and parked right outside. Huge cream-colored washing machines ran down one side of the laundromat while dryers ran down the other. Just two of the six washers were spinning around churning up suds. The fluorescent strip lights bounced their off-white light from the chrome doors of the giant appliances. At the far end of the shop a slim girl with short bobbed light-brown hair was reading a book with one hand while shoving wet bed sheets into a huge tumble dryer. She seemed oblivious to Ed’s presence, he coughed gently but she still almost jumped out of her skin when she finally noticed him. As she turned he could see she wore a fitted T-shirt that proudly announced I AM A NERD across the chest.
“Oh my gosh, you scared me!”
“Errr, sorry, didn’t mean too,” he offered his most disarming smile. The girl seemed to relax a little. He extended his arm to show the girl the bag of washing.
“I was wondering if you could do a service wash for me please?”
“Oh, for sure, no problem, do you want it just washed or pressed too?”
“Pressed as well please if you don’t mind, thanks.” She stopped what she was doing and took the bag from his hand. After dumping his clothes into a plastic basket and counting the items she handed him a ticket.
“I’m working late tonight so I’ll do them now, have them ready for you for the morning okay?”
“Yes, that’s great thank you. What time do you open?”
“I’ll be in for 8.30.”
“That’s perfect, thanks… err?”
“I’m Molly.”
“Great, thanks Molly, see you in the morning. Oh, what’s the book?”
“Oh it’s a self-improvement book; I am doing a course on psychology at college.” Impressed at her enthusiasm for her job and life in general he offered her his biggest smile again and then turned and headed back to his car.
A quick glance at his watch told Ed that he still had time to kill so he carried on with his ‘to do’ list. The gas station where Buster worked was closed up tight, the lights all off. He carried on and turned left at the intersection onto Main Street. He drove straight passed the right turn for Memorial Square and went on another block to where a neon light beamed brightly from the drug store. There was little traffic but he signalled right and pulled in directly outside the store. An elderly couple were in deep conversation with the similarly aged woman behind the glass-topped counter as the door closed behind him. They all stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared at him with undisguised curiosity. Ed felt like he had just walked into a wild-west saloon where the piano player stopped playing and the barman started moving bottles of liquor quickly under the counter. As a travelling salesman this was not the first time he had come across this situation, and each time he felt like saying ‘Howdy folks’ in his best Clint Eastwood voice. Instead, he waited to be served. The old couple shuffled up a little and the old lady behind the register enquired “Yes, can I help you dear?” He stepped up to the counter and looked down towards the woman’s well-coiffed grey hair.
“Yes, could you give me something for headaches please?” She reached behind her for a box of generic painkillers.
“Will there be anything else?”
Ed shook his head.
“That’ll be three dollars and fifty cents then, thank you”.
Ed handed over the exact amount, picked up the box and headed for the door. He gave a nonchalant nod to the elderly couple as he passed them and wasn’t surprised to hear their voices before the door closed on his departure.
“That’s definitely him, the man Mr Ryan told me about…”
The elderly ladies went back to their gossiping as he climbed in his car. News certainly travels fast around these parts he thought. A very different welcome from the one he had received from Tash earlier in the liquor store. He turned the key in the ignition, fired up the car and selected drive. When he had checked the road was clear he did a quick U-turn across the Main Street and headed back to the library.
He arrived a little before six so he did a K turn and parked in the same spot that he had that morning, next to the Burgundy and rust Nissan, and went inside. He never noticed the pick-up truck with dark tinted windows parked on the other side of the square, with a lone man watching intently as Ed made his way into the library. “Quite a bookworm aren’t you Mr Saunders?” the driver said to himself, “you keep on digging and I’m gonna have to whup ya like you was a redheaded stepchild.”
Linda and Ed came out together at five after six. Ed felt that since he had arrived Linda had been staring at his face, not his features so much but the cuts and grazes on it, but he had said nothing and let it go. They walked towards the Nissan.
“Is this yours?” he asked. She nodded a yes. “You sure that thing’s gonna get you home?” he asked teasingly, looking at what remained of the wafer-thin metal.
“Hey, don’t knock it, I know she’s not pretty but she’s never let me down yet” replied Linda as she gently patted the car on the hood, a pretend hurt look on her face.
“Okay, but I think I’ll keep my distance when I’m behind you, just in case something falls off!”