Vi's Gold
Gold Rush to Gold Trickle.
Saturday evening – poolside at The Safari Inn
Doc snorted in amazement, which caused a drip or two of Dickel up his nose. For a moment, he was sure the game was up; gagging, sputtering and coughing, he sat up in his lounge chair as Edzel thumped his friend’s back, hoping to dislodge the dark liquid as it threatened his lungs.
“GOLD?” Doc finally managed to gasp. “In the cellar? What the hell -- ?”
Edzel shook his head, returning to his lounge chair. “Doc, I seen some strange shit in my days, you know? This is number one on the hit parade. And I don’t think I’ll ever know what to make of it.”
Arch and Dilly Klumpe offered the pool to Vi for a thank you party for the gang’s support during and after the fire that destroyed Vi’s Roadhouse, with Vi springing for the bar and a pourer, plus snacks. As the regulars trickled in, the strange Gold In The Cellar Story was shared, hashed, and rehashed.
By this time, Doc and Edzel were fairly surrounded by the regulars, all stunned as the story unfolded.
“…Vi and I rolled back all the garbage we’d put against the wall, and there was a nice neat hole where the melted gold had been.”
“Empty,” Vi piped in as she sat on the side of Edzel’s lounge chair.
Previous Saturday night – 11pm, in the parking lot of what was left of Vi’s Roadhouse
Police Chief Walton Cedar’s Tullahoma Police Department SUV was parked hard by the road next to the Vi’s road sign. Despite the cloudless night, the New Moon phase plunged the area into impenetrable darkness – just what the team was hoping for.
Jimmy Don and Jimmy Jay were in the backseat of the Chief’s SUV, both armed. The SUV was pointed east, paralleling the highway, with Walton eying oncoming traffic. Jimmy Don stared out of the back passenger side keeping tabs on the rubble that was all that remained of the bar. Jimmy Jay knelt on the backseat, watching approaching traffic from the west.
Even on a Saturday night, rural Coffee County outside Tullahoma was quiet, the roads all but silent. As Chief Cedar once observed, “This time a night all that’s on the streets are drunks and sorry folk gotta work the shit shift.”
Feeling slightly silly dressed completely in black, Vi and Edzel had parked in the back of the lot, then carefully made their way to the hole in the wreckage that was the former liquor storage and keg cellar.
Edzel carried a large, dark brown tarp big enough to cover the entire cellar, and he and his new bride quietly spread it out, keeping one corner peeled back to gain entrance to the cellar using an aluminum ladder.
As midnight approached, the air was still. Heavy. Frogs croaked in the drainage ditch that had last year overflowed thanks to the remnants of a gulf hurricane and threatened to consume the bar.
“Ed, I feel like a perfect fool,” Vi hissed as they descended the ladder into the cellar. “We look like criminals, and dammit, we’re on our own property!”
Jimmy Don lent the couple a set of head lamps from his construction equipment, and Edzel switched on his light, shushing Vi. His light startled her and she winced.
“And don’t look at me with that stupid light on your forehead!”
Ed turned his head, facing the rubble covering the wall in question. “You think I like this? I think it’s smart to be careful, even though I feel like I’m in some cheesy mystery movie. Let’s move this crap out of the way,” pointing at the wall, “and get the hell out of here.”
Vi began rooting through the rubble, tossing it behind her. A few pieces of metal flew over Edzel’s shoulder, banging against the aluminum ladder.
The racket echoed out of the cellar and into the countryside despite the muffling of the tarp above their heads.
“Jesus, Vi – I reckon if they’s anybody lookin’ for us, you just sent up a flare. I’ma go topside and roll out the red carpet.”
Vi sighed. “Just help me move this out, okay? JD ‘n’ JJ did a bang-up job wreckin’ it. I just hope they ain’t no nails in this garbage. I can check my calendar but I don’t believe gettin’ tetanus was on the schedule.”
The last stack of boards pushed aside, the newlyweds looked at one another, then faced the wall where the drips of gold were first discovered.
Their headlamps swept the wall side to side, when they finally spotted…
A Week Later, Poolside
“An empty hole?” gasped Amy.
Vi nodded. “Nice. Neat. Empty.”
JJ, listening from the pool atop a tire tube, a jury-rigged smaller tube floating his long-neck, spoke up.
“Amy, it was surgical. Whoever was down there knew exactly where to go, and brought some good equipment, too. Nice, clean cut into the wall. Looked like a room opening where they’d just taken a door off its hinges. Bastards.”
Augie spoke up from the other side of the pool in his own lounge chair. “But, NOTHING in the hole?”
“I swear it was like they vacuumed the cubby hole,” said Ed. “You could see a little bit where the fire melted some of the gold that leeched into the concrete – they didn’t try scraping it off or nothing.”
He looked at JD and shook his head. “A clean getaway.”
The group hadn’t mentioned Chief Cedar’s part in the affair. When Ed and Vi exited the cellar and reported back to the trio in the Chief’s SUV, Cedar smiled grimly. “Well, well. Horn swoggled.”
“Bamboozled,” piped in JD.
“Boned,” breathed JJ with finality.
JJ and JD said goodnight and thanked the Chief, who nodded. “We’ll be chewin’ on this for years.” He started the SUV. “Y’all be safe. It’s past midnight. The dipshits are out, you hear?”
Aggie and Augie were looking up at the stars, lost in thought. “Well,” Aggie decided. “At least you got a sliver of the pie anyway.”
Edline was soaking in the shallow end of the pool, her elbows resting on the edge facing Edzel. There was a growing line of empty Margarita glasses forming a barrier between her and Edzel, and she peaked over the top.
“Yeah. So whattaya gonna do with it?”
Vi waved her away. “Oh, Monday morning we traipsed up to Jimmy Don’s buddy ‘n’ sold it off. Some of it’s payin’ for tonight.”
There was general agreement and a smattering of applause.
Then several of the regulars felt easier heading back to the bar for a few more rounds.
“The rest, I am thinking will add a few nicer touches to Vi’s Roadhouse 2 point Oh,” said Vi, looking to her husband for approval.
Ed held up his hands. “Hey, I told you from the beginning, it’s your booty. I support whatever you decide, unless it’s replacin’ ME with EDZEL 2 point Oh.”
Jimmy Don had been relaxing in his own lounger a few feet away, a passel of dead soldiers resting in peace on a tray beside him. Suddenly his head snapped up. He glared at Vi. “Wait a goddam minute. ‘Nicer touches’? What the HELL does that mean?”
The regulars all broke up at JD’s panic. Vi rolled her eyes. “Oh, dear JD. NOTHING that would cause an infestation of button-down shirts ‘n’ monogrammed golfers.”
JD sat back, satisfied. “Thank GOD. All it takes is a couple feet ‘a’ brass railings ‘n’ a green fern to screw up a good thing.”
He stood up, deciding whether to pee in the pool or in the office restroom of the motel. He headed to the motel restroom, muttering over his shoulder.
“Leon tries to put somethin’ like tiramisu on the menu, I’ll drink at home, thank you very much.”
Vi’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think that man knew what tiramisu is!”
Edzel yawned. “I always thought it was that chick in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I’m stickin’ with Snickers.”
Vi patted his small paunch. “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
As always, thanks for keeping tabs on the goings on in Tullahoma here. PLUS, we’re getting closer and closer to the release of “Vi’s Roadhouse” on Amazon, available in paperback, e-book, AND audio book too.