He'd taken to eating lunch here each day rather than going home or bringing something he'd made himself. He was not the only one. The coffee shop seemed to be a favored hangout of many locals. And the food was not half bad. Besides, it couldn't hurt to patronize the business of his landlord. He might be able to stave off potential rent increases. Or get some free work done should the plumbing act up or the roof leak.
Barry pulled open the smoked glass door and felt the welcome chill of air-conditioning. The place was already starting to fill up, but his usual table by the restroom was free and he waved to Lurlene , grabbed himself a menu off the counter, and sat down.
He'd felt awkward the first time he'd come in here. He was not one for eating alone, was not one of those people who was comfortable without companionship in social settings. Being by himself in restaurants or movie theaters always made him feel self-conscious, as though everyone were staring at him, and though intellectually he knew that was not the case, he'd been sorely tempted to get his food to go and eat it in the office. But he forced himself to sit down at the counter and order lunch, and while he was fidgety and ill-at-ease, he managed to get through the meal unscarred.
He returned the next day. Barry was not good at meeting new people, at injecting himself into existing groups or conversations, but he was lucky enough this time to have Bert do it for him. He was seated at the counter, eating a cheeseburger, pretending to be proofreading a manuscript, and behind him, two old-timers were talking about Kingdom of the Spiders, a William Shatner horror movie that had been on one of the Salt Lake City stations the night before. The movie had been filmed in Camp Verde, Arizona, which was where one of the old-timers was from, and he was tearing apart the topography of the film, complaining that in one scene Shatner was driving away from the ranches he was supposedly heading toward, and that editing and selective shooting made the movie's downtown seem very different from what it was.
"It wasn't that they just shot the flick at Camp Verde," the old man said. "I could understand that. But they claimed it was Camp Verde.
It wasn't supposed to be no made-up town or nothing. They were pawning it off as a real place."
"This guy here writes scary stories like that," Bert said from behind the counter, nodding toward Barry. "Maybe he knows why they do things like that."
Barry hadn't attracted any attention in the coffee shop on his first visit, had been ignored by the other customers as though he wasn't there. But all of a sudden the old man and his cronies took an interest in him, and Barry found himself the subject of serious attention. One old-timer even reached into his shirt pocket and put his glasses on in order to see better.
"I rent him the old museum out back," Bert went on. He sounded almost proud. "He writes his books back there."
The old man who'd been complaining about the movie squinted at him.
"You a famous writer?" he asked.
Barry laughed. "I don't know how famous I am, but I make a living at it."
"What's your name?" one of the other men asked.
"Barry Welch."
There was shaking of heads all around.
"Never heard of him," someone said.
The complainer pushed his chair back, walked over to the counter, held out his hand. "Name's Hank Johnson. Pleased to meet you."
Barry smiled, shook the hand. "Likewise."
"So, as a writer, would you do something like that? Put in false stuff about a town even if you knew it wasn't true?"
"Writing is lying," Barry said. "We make things up, and if we put in real places or actual events, we change them to suit our story. We don't care about reality."
Hank nodded. "Makes sense. Ticks me off. But it makes sense."
"A helpful hint: don't watch Kingdom of the Spiders if you're looking for realism."
The old man chuckled. "You're all right, son. Come off a that counter there and eat with us. I got a lot a questions and I don't like standin' here this close to Bert. It's disturbing."
"Hey," Bert growled.
Barry picked up his plate and glass and followed Hank back to his table.
Ever since then, he'd been treated like one of the regulars, one of the gang, and that was another reason he was glad he'd been forced to rent the office. There was something gratifying about being a part of the workaday world rather than remaining apart and aloof, isolated in his hillside house in his gated community. It appealed to his egalitarian, democratic sense and made him feel as though he were a better person for it.
Lurlene came over and took his order--barbecued chicken sandwich and a Coke--and he nodded to Lyle and Joe over at the next table. "Where's Hank?" he asked.
"Can," Joe said simply.
Hank emerged a moment later, wiping his hands on his pants. He nodded at Barry, smiled. "Howdy, son. Hot enough for you?"
"Temperature's fine out in my little shack."
"Lucky bastard." Hank sat down in his usual spot at the adjacent table, gestured to Lurlene for some more iced tea.
At the next table over, Lyle cleared his throat. "Another dog got poisoned last night."
"No shit?"
"Bill Spencer's Lab, Go. They found him facedown in his bowl, tied up right in the front yard. Guzman's going to do an autopsy on him this morning."
Hank shook his head. "Never liked Guzman. I take all my animals to Ryan. He's my pet and livestock vet."
"Yeah, but Guzman'll be able to tell what killed him."
"We already know what killed him. What's this make? Four dogs this year?"
"Somewhere around that."
"Six pets total if you throw in Abilene's cats," Joe offered.
"I never even heard about this," Barry said.
Hank nodded. "Been goin ' on for a while. It's not regular, not consistent, but every month or two some dog'll be poisoned. Always happens in the middle of the night. It's bad enough for a man to come out and find his animal dead, but when it's kids that find the body, like with the Williamson girls ..." Hank shook his head. "It just ain't right."
"And that walking piece of crap Hitman won't do a damn thing about it."
Hank snorted. "Hitman. There's a proper candidate for lynching."
Barry chuckled, but stopped when he realized that he was laughing alone. Hank wasn't serious, he wasn't proposing murder, but the sentiments behind the statement were anything but joking, and he understood, looking around the room, just how different he was from these people. This was a whole other world, and while he might be friendly with Hank and Joe and Lyle and some of the other regulars, he was just a visitor here.
A woman at one of the other tables spoke up. "Why don't the sheriff just arrest those bastards?"
"That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question."
Barry was incredulous. "You mean the sheriff knows who's doing this?"
"Everyone knows."
"Who is it?"
Lyle looked at him as though he were a moron. "Your homeowners'
association."
The answer came as a complete shock, and Barry's first instinctive reaction was one of guilt by association--no pun intended. He was suddenly certain that everyone in the coffee shop held him at least partially to blame for the pet killings, but a quick look at the faces of his lunch buddies convinced him that such was not the case, that he was considered one of them--not one of them--and though he was filled with relief, he still felt at fault somehow, as if he had betrayed the people around him.
"The homeowners' association," he said dumbly.
Lyle nodded.
Hank spoke up. "It's true."
The expressions on the faces of the other men and women were grim.
Barry wished he could dismiss such a charge out of hand, but it was too easy to believe, and he had no trouble picturing a pet-killing committee dressed all in black, spreading out through Corban in the middle of the night to do away with dogs.