Specials were posted on a board that rested on a tripod just outside the glass door. The door had a flat metal bar across the front of it, just like the door of Reznick’s office. He pushed through the door, stepped inside, and released a pleasant sigh.
The aroma was thick inside. Behind the front counter were tri-tips on a spit over a grill that held chicken and ribs, and a large pot. Behind the counter stood a tall black man in a long white apron over a white T-shirt. His short black hair was sprinkled with white.
“Hello, there,” Reznick said.
“Hello to you,” the man said, smiling.
“Are you Uncle Leroy?”
“That’s me, all right.”
Reznick shook his head and smiled. “I’ll tell ya – I don’t think I’ve ever smelled better barbecue in my life.”
“Well, if I do say so myself, it tastes as good as it smells. What do you have a hankerin’ for today?”
“I think ribs sound really good.”
“Ribs it is. Ribs for one?”
“Yes.”
Leroy turned around and unrolled some aluminum foil.
“You’ve only been open a couple days, right?” Reznick said.
“Three days.”
“How’s business so far?”
Leroy put some ribs on the foil and wrapped them up. “Truth be told, I’ll be outta here in two weeks, it don’t get any better soon.” He put the ribs in a white paper bag. “You get two sides with that. I got mashed ‘taters and gravy, I got coleslaw, which I made this mornin’, I got a green salad that’s just so-so, I’m afraid, and mister, I got baked beans my momma made that’ll take you outta your body.”
Reznick laughed. “Let’s see, give me… some coleslaw and some of those metaphysical baked beans.”
Leroy laughed then.
While Leroy went to the refrigerator for the coleslaw, Reznick said, “What’s wrong with us, Leroy? What happened? We’re two guys who are good at what we do, and all we want to do is sell our services and make an honest living. Right? Isn’t that what America is all about? So how did we end up here, short of customers? Huh? What do we have to do? I read online this morning about that serial killer – have you heard about this?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Leroy said as he put the Styrofoam container of slaw in the white bag.
“He’s the one who built a shack out in the woods and had all those women he’d killed sitting up in a row in that shack. He’d cut their throats and watched them die. Then he’d had sex with them. I mean, Leroy, can you imagine anything more horrible, anything more barbaric? But now they’re making a movie about him.”
Leroy scooped baked beans from the pot into a Styrofoam container.
Reznick said, “Now, you and me, Leroy, they’ll never make a movie about us. Nobody’ll ever write a book about you or me. But go to the bookstores and the shelves are filled with books about men who kill their wives and women who kill their husbands, or their children – and people eat them up with a spoon. And you and me, Leroy… we can’t make a buck. So what’s wrong? Huh? Hey. I’ve got an idea. Do you have any business cards, Leroy?”
“Yes, I do, I just had ‘em made up.”
“Tell you what,” Reznick said. “We’ll trade business cards, you and me, and we’ll hand them out to people. What do you say? It’s always easier to talk up somebody else, right? And we’ll actively try to get rid of them, okay?”
Leroy frowned for a moment. “Are you serious?”
“Sure, I’m serious. Of course, if you’re not interested, you just say so, and no harm done. But I think we might be able to stir up some business for each other.”
The frown relaxed and Leroy smiled. “I’m sorry, but I don’t even know your name, or-or what kind of business you’re in.”
“Oh, yeah, you don’t, do you?” Reznick reached under his coat and produced a single business card. “Marcus Reznick of Reznick Investigations. I’m a private investigator. Call me Marc. I’m just two doors down.”
“A real private investigator, how about that. What’s your specialty?”
“At the moment, it’s divorce cases. But I also find people, find things, follow people, do thorough background checks. I’ll even serve papers, I’m not proud. I’m reasonably priced, totally confidential, and I’ve been in the business since I was a kid. It’s second nature to me.”
“You got yourself a deal, Mr. Detective. Hang on.” Leroy hurried down the counter in the long, narrow room, and disappeared through a door in the back. He came back a moment later with a thick stack of business cards. He handed them to Reznick and said, “There you go.”
“Thank you. And I’ll go get some of mine and bring them to you.”
“That’s a good idea, Marc.”
“Hey, what the hell, it can’t hurt.”
Reznick paid the bill for his lunch and left Uncle Leroy’s Homemade Barbecue. He walked back down to his office. A hot, smothering breeze had blown up while he’d been getting his lunch – it was like some darting, invisible mythological creature that sucked the breath from its victims’ lungs, leaving two scorched husks. He stepped up to the door of the office and found someone seated in the chair facing his desk. The person’s back was to him until he pushed the glass door open, then he stood and turned.
“I hope you don’t mind me comin’ in here and waitin’ for ya,” the man said.
“No, not at all,” Reznick said. “In fact, I’m glad you did.”
He was built like some kind of comic book superhero – his muscles seemed to have muscles. But he didn’t quite look like a body builder. Reznick guessed he was in construction, or the timber industry, something like that. His short hair had a sandy color, and he had one of those mustaches that drop down from the corners of the mouth to the edge of the jaw on each side of the chin. He wore work boots, jeans, a long sleeve plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned, with one of those shoulder-strap undershirts on under it.
“Are you Mr. Reznick?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“My name’s Morris Carey, but everybody calls me Mo.”
“Have a seat.”
Reznick went behind his desk and sat down. He put the white bag containing his lunch on the desk. His stomach gurgled.
“Well, Mr. Carey, how can I help you?”
“I’m not sure you can, see, that’s the thing. I never been to no private investigator before, so I don’t even know if this is the kinda thing you handle.”
“Why don’t you let me decide.” Reznick smiled at him.
“Yeah, okay, I can do that. See, it’s my wife.”
“If it’s your wife, Mr. Carey, then I can assure you that it’s the kind of thing a private investigator would handle.”
“Really? Okay, then, I guess I was right in callin’ on you.”
Reznick leaned forward a little, genuinely interested. “Tell me, Mr. Carey – what made you choose me?”
“‘Cause you was in Anderson,” Carey said. “Anderson’s closer to me than Redding. I’m in Happy Valley.”
For a moment, the smile dropped off Reznick’s face. He had a bad memory of Happy Valley – a wooded, rural area west of Anderson – and had not returned there since he’d made that memory. He’d been hired by a couple middle-aged parents who drank too much and probably paid little attention to their children, who wanted him to rescue their son from the bad crowd into which he’d fallen. He’d run away from home, they said, and they wanted him found and brought back. They suspected they knew where he was – they gave him the address. They asked him if he carried a gun, and he said yes. They said he might need it.