Written by Stephen F. Moloney
“I dunno if it’s ‘cause I haven’t eaten anythin’ proper since last night …” said Travis, through a mouthful of food. “But this is quite possibly the nicest hotdog I’ve ever eaten.”
“Yeah, they’ve always been pretty good here,” replied Ray, as he brought his can of soda down from his mouth and placed it back onto the wall above the 18th green where the pair of them were having their impromptu picnic. “Though, I must say, knowin’ Denby’s own money paid for them makes these ones taste particularly good.”
“His face when he was handin’ it over is what does for it me,” smiled Travis, the sight of Mr. Denby cracking open his vault of a wallet to settle his bet with Ray still happily fresh in his mind. “I mean, I’ve never seen anyone swallow a mouthful of rotten fish before, but I’ve gotta think it can’t be far away from how he looked when he put those five Ben Franklins into your hand!”
“Poor guy,” joked Ray, laughing as he remembered the look on Mr. Denby’s face that Travis was referring to. “If only he knew he’d already lost before Mustang and Kretschko had even walked off the 1st thanks to Wilford tryna’ punk the kid out.”
“Well, the day is still young …” teased Travis, peeling back the wrapper surrounding his hotdog a little more to line up his next bite as he gave a quick look around the rear of clubhouse to see if he could spy Mr. Denby anywhere.
“Naw, I’ll just leave ‘im off with emptyin’ his wallet,” smiled Ray, grabbing three of the large fries he and Travis had gotten to split between them. “Plus, if I was to tell him ‘bout Kretschko, I’d have to go all the way down to the main gate to do it …”. He popped the fries into his mouth. “And I ain’t doin’ that.”
“I still can’t believe he’s doin’ that, by the way,” scoffed Travis through a mouthful of hotdog. “I mean, suddenly decidin’ to start chargin’ people to come in and watch when he sees there’s a crowd lookin’ to get in?”
“Are you kiddin’?! Of course he is!” laughed Ray, as he readied himself to take another bite from his hotdog. “That man would crawl over a mile of broken glass if you told him you thought you saw a five-dollar bill lying at the end of it!”
“Yeah, well, that might be true, but it sure don’t change the fact it’s tacky as hell,” sighed Travis, as he grabbed his own can of soda to go about taking a drink from it.
“What is?” asked Mustang, suddenly bouncing up over the wall from out of nowhere.
“Ah, there you are,” said Ray, having been expecting his arrival. “Here …” He reached down to his side and grabbed the tinfoil-wrapped hotdog he’d bought for Mustang. “Eat that.”
“Ooh nice, thanks,” cooed Mustang, eyeing the hotdog hungrily as he took it from Ray’s outstretched hand and sat down alongside him on the wall. “I’m starving.”
After ripping open the tinfoil and taking a huge bite out of the hotdog, Mustang, with his eyes still locked on his lunch like a hungry hawk, asked, “So, come on, what were you talking about?”
“Ah it was nothin’, really,” replied Ray, taking it upon himself to answer Mustang’s question after seeing Travis was in the process of polishing off the final piece of his hotdog. “Bill was just tellin’ us after we dropped you off that Denby’s gone down to the main gate so he can start chargin’ people to come in and watch the afternoon matches.”
“Really? There’s more people coming? Cool,” said Mustang, sounding completely unperturbed at the prospect of yet more eyes watching him play as he swallowed the mouthful of food he’d been eating before changing the subject. “Also, did you get me a drink, by any chance?”
“Yeah, here …” answered Ray, quietly grabbing the can of soda he had, indeed, gotten for Mustang and handing it to him. “So, spill – how’d it go watchin’ that Hiro kid?”
“He is so good, man!” replied Mustang, enthusiastically, as he popped open the can. “I mean, I thought he looked good on the range, but to actually see him on the course? He was just on a different level to the dude he was playing; like, it almost seemed unfair that he had to play Hiro, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, we were thinkin’ that when we saw the result go up on the board,” said Ray, just before he took another bite from his hotdog.
“The results are up?!” asked Mustang, his interest piqued to such an extent he actually paused from taking the bite he’d just been about to clamp his jaws around. “Seriously?! For all the matches?!”
“Well, I dunno if all of ‘em are up yet,” replied Ray, trying his best to get the words out without a side helping of half-chewed hotdog. “But when we looked at it there were about … what? Five or six up there?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right to me,” said Travis, lowering his can of soda down from his mouth as he saw Ray had turned to him looking for verification.
“And did it say who I’m gonna be playing?!” asked Mustang, pressing for the answer he thought was obvious he would have been looking for.
“Gee, I dunno, kid …” replied a cheekily smiling Ray, feigning ignorance on the matter in an effort to wind Mustang up. “How ‘bout you, Travis? Can you remember if the result of Felix’s match with Blackridge was on the board?”
“Ooh, now there is a question …” sighed Travis, he, too, now smiling as he, instantly, got straight in on the joke. “Well, let me see – ‘Bluckradge’ and ‘Fellix’, was it?”
“You guys suck,” smiled Mustang, shaking his head in amused exasperation as he wrapped up his hotdog once again and placed it down onto the wall before getting back to his feet.
“Aw, come on, kid! What did we do?!” called out Ray, jokingly, as he and Travis watched Mustang walk off in the direction of where the scoreboard was set up on the other side of the clubhouse.
“Yeah!” called Travis, chiming in. “We were just tryna’ help! Come on, give us another shot! It’s ‘Bladgerick’ and ‘Fillex’, right?!”
With Ray and Travis falling away into laughter off behind him, Mustang rounded the corner of the clubhouse and was, immediately, wrapped up in the warm embrace of the blazing sun. Though he’d been expecting to be greeted by a rather large crowd – given what he’d heard from Ray – Mustang was pleasantly surprised to find but a few people milling around the clubhouse, the majority of whom were just staff at the Creek looking to get some sun on their lunch break. With an unobstructed path to where it was placed up against the sidewall of the clubhouse, Mustang came to a stop in front of the large wooden scoreboard displaying the entire bracket for the Memorial – and from just one quick look at it, he could tell this, clearly, wasn’t its first rodeo.
Covered in what looked like years upon years worth of thick, white paint to keep it looking fresh – despite the obvious bits of damage and cracks in the wood; the carefully lined-in black text reading ‘Memorial Matchplay’ handwritten in the most intricate-looking cursive at the very top of the board; the divided-off sections for each progression of the tournament – from ‘Round 1’ all the way through to the ‘Final’ – neatly marked with the same handwritten cursive, except instead of black paint, each heading was done in a vibrant red colour that stood out against the white background like a cardinal in the snow; this was a scoreboard from another time – and you could just feel the history radiating off of it.
At this particular moment in time, however, the history of the board and the long list of, no doubt, distinguished names who would have graced it throughout the years were far from Mustang’s mind as he carefully set about studying the results.
His eyes flicked up to the top-left section of the board. He saw the slat of wood with his name on it – like the board itself, painted white and filled-in with black text – had already been taken from its groove in ‘Round 1’ and slid into its new position in the ‘Quarter-Finals’ section; leaving Kretschko’s name left with nothing but a reminder of how much he’d lost their match by sitting above it.
What Mustang’s attention had quickly become focused on, though, was the name sitting beneath his own in the ‘Quarter-Finals’ section – Horton Blackridge. He let his eyes drift back over to ‘Round 1’. According to what the board was saying, Horton had seen off Felix 4&3 in their match. ‘So, it took you until the 15th,’ thought Mustang, running through the layout of the first hole into ‘Dead Man’s Alley’ and trying to imagine how Horton might have played it going on what he’d seen earlier that morning up at the range. ‘Good to know.’
Now knowing whom his next opponent would be later that afternoon, Mustang – with his curiosity quenched – cast his eyes over the rest of the scoreboard to see how the overall bracket was taking shape. On his own side of the draw, Truman Ballas and Skip Devereaux had set up a repeat of their final from the previous year after seeing off Herman Lucas and Bob Griswell respectively – meaning, if Mustang did, indeed, manage to get past Blackridge, he’d be playing either Byron’s father or the defending Memorial champion in the semi-finals the next morning.
After setting aside that rather sobering proposition for his future self to contend with, Mustang shifted his concentration across the board to the other side of the draw. As Ray had said, Hiro’s 6&5 win over Nick Ramsay had already been noted, and seeing as Kurt Keaton had seen off Eric Squires 2&1 in the match out directly before theirs, Hiro’s and Kurt’s names had already been slotted in for their afternoon meeting in the quarter-finals. Henry Miller had been pipped 3&2 by Corey Samberg in the match after Hiro’s, noted Mustang, but, in reality, he now only had eyes for the result of one particular match. The match which had gone out last that morning. The match Mustang had something of a ‘vested interest’ in. The match between Byron Ballas and Fred Doser.
The match which, going on the score, Byron had obviously strolled.
“5&4 …” whispered Mustang, reading Byron’s winning score to himself.
As if saying those words had somehow conjured him out of thin air, Mustang’s ears were suddenly pricked by the “dulcet” sound of Byron’s self-glorifying voice filling the air from somewhere off behind him.
“And did you see my second into the 12th?” he said, putting the question to his usual band of cronies that were now huddled around him as he appeared from off behind the pro-shop with his caddie in tow – clearly, he was just returning from seeing off Doser.
“It was so sick, Byron!” chirped one of the cronies, eager to be the first to get an answer out. “Like, sicker than sick!”
“Up there with one of the best shots I’ve ever seen, Byron! Seriously!” replied another, somewhat overzealously, as he looked to make up ground on his fellow crony who’d beaten him off the line in registering his praise first.
“Yeah, man, just … like … crazy good!” added a third, scrambling to think of a suitably verbose compliment, so settling for the first sufficiently coherent string of words that came to mind, but pairing it with a boundless sense of awe and enthusiasm to make up the difference.
“Now, look, don’t get me wrong, from that distance out and with nothing but a 9-iron in my hand, would I be expecting to get it inside 5 feet? Of course – I’d be disappointed if I didn’t,” boasted Byron, addressing his captive audience like he was delivering a painful presentation on the art of ‘humblebragging’. “But the fact I only had a 9-iron left into that hole in the first place? I mean, really, you could make the argument that my drive to get me there was just as impressive, right?”
“Oh 100%, Byron!” said the first crony, again, exploding out of the blocks before his rivals. “Like, on a par 5 that long?! To only have 9-iron left for your second shot?! That’s, like, ‘tour-standard’, bro!”
“Yeah, definitely!” agreed the silver medalist from last time around, internally fuming that, once again, he’d been left to only piggyback on the first crony’s compliments. “I mean, with as much firepower as you have? You could walk on Tour tomorrow and be one of the longest hitters out there! No question!”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” smiled Byron, finding that particular piece of praise suitably appealing to his monster of an ego. He looked down at the crony who’d said it and held out his hand for a fist-bump. Looking like a lowly subject in medieval times who’d just been offered the opportunity to kiss the King’s ring, the far-too-excited-looking crony quickly reached out and bumped Byron’s fist in case he changed his mind.
Having seen all the ‘sucking up’ he could stomach, Mustang turned around and made a move towards slipping back around the corner of the clubhouse before he was spotted by Byron; the last thing he wanted to be dealing with right now was the exchange he was sure would happen if he saw him, as the pair of them hadn’t spoken since their run-in on the 18th a fortnight previously when Mustang had shown him up.
No sooner had he taken no more than a few steps away from the scoreboard, however, than the sound of Byron’s voice suddenly cut through the air, “Hey, ‘My Little Pony’!”
With his cronies, as expected, cackling like a giddy pack of hyenas at hearing what he’d called him, Mustang, after leaving out an exasperated sigh, turned around and took in the sight of a grinning Byron staring over at him.
“I dunno if you heard me there or not,” he continued, seeing that, as planned, he now had Mustang’s full attention. “But me and the boys here were just talking about how I only had a 9-iron left into 12 this morning – you know, the par 5?”
“Yeah, I know the one, Byron,” replied Mustang, trying his best to be civil, even though he knew deep down Byron had no intention of doing likewise. “Sounds like you hit a really good drive.”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” confirmed Byron, though the goading tone in his voice betrayed the fact the real reason he’d called out to Mustang was still to come. “Tell me, though … what did you have left for your second shot into 12?”
And there it was. Byron’s ultimate goal for this short exchange – revealing itself like a ‘Scooby-Doo’ villain for all to see.
If only he knew that he’d actually just set himself up.
“Well, I didn’t have a 9-iron …” replied Mustang, teasingly.
“Ha! I knew i-…”
“In fact, now that I come to think about it … I didn’t even have a second shot into 12,” he continued, cutting back across Byron just as he had tried to do to him.
As well as looking confused as to where exactly Mustang was going with this, Byron, suddenly, began to look just the faintest bit worried – and with good cause.
“Because my match was over at the 10th …” said Mustang, smiling broadly and gesturing loosely up at the scoreboard behind him as he delivered the knockout blow to Byron. “But, hey, if my next one actually makes it to 12 this time? I’ll be sure to let you know what club I end up having for my second shot – don’t worry.”
With the mic well and truly dropped, Mustang popped a taunting wink at a quietly fuming Byron before turning around and carrying on his way back around the corner of the clubhouse.
Having, once again, been outdone by Mustang – this time adjacent to the 18th green, as opposed to directly on it – a furious Byron bellowed back over his shoulder at his, now cowering, cronies, “Forget lunch! I’m going to the range!”
He wasn’t going to be outdone by this upstart nobody again.
This was his tournament.
His time to shine.
And no one was going to steal it from him.
Whatever it took …
*
“And did his match with Horton make it to the 12th?” asked Maggie, sitting back into the front passenger seat of the UTV. “Or was it another ten-hole blowout?”
“Naw, there was no blowout this time,” answered Ray, turning the key in the ignition and sparking up the engine once again. “And I wasn’t expectin’ there to be one neither. See, in whoopin’ Kretschko as badly as he had done, Mustang had served notice to everyone left in the tournament that he wasn’t just some hype-job, one-trick pony – excuse the pun. He was the real deal. So, because of that, I knew steppin’ onto the 1st tee ahead of the match with Horton that, one, he was going to be treatin’ the kid as seriously as he deserved; and, two, he wasn’t gonna be overawed by the occasion – because all those extra people who’d been showin’ up? The ones I said Denby had practically sprinted down to the main gate in order to start chargin’ to get in?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, as it turned out, the vast majority of ‘em had shown up to see Mustang,” explained Ray, as he finally got the UTV moving once again. “I mean, the tee-box was surrounded – even more so than what it had been that mornin’ – and those who couldn’t fit there – or, should I say, those who couldn’t get a good vantage point? – they’d gone on ahead and lined the fairway; some had even snuck ahead to the next tee-box if you can imagine that.”
“Seriously?!” said Maggie, again, reaching up and taking a hold of the grab handle above her seat as Ray swerved the UTV off the 10th fairway and began to zip through the rough. “So, how much of a difference do you reckon there was ‘numbers-wise’ between the crowd that was here in the morning and the one in the afternoon?”
After taking a second to rifle through the depths of his memory in order to find the snapshot of when he’d taken a moment to just look out at the 1st fairway and drink in the, frankly unbelievable, sight that lay before him on that balmy Saturday afternoon when the sun was beating down from a crystal-clear sky, Ray glanced over at Maggie and guessed, “I dunno … maybe an extra three or four-hundred?”
“That’s crazy …” sighed Maggie in disbelief, as Ray navigated the UTV out of the rough and up onto another path. “And you thought Horton would have been comfortable in that environment because of his college career, I take it?”
“Yep,” replied Ray, feeling comfortable to step on the gas a little further now that they’d returned to the path. “And couple that experience with the pressure of playin’ in multiple U.S. Amateurs and U.S. Opens? And, pretty quickly, I realized we were goin’ up against a guy who was about as ‘well seasoned’ as you could have found without comin’ across someone writin’ ‘Pro Golfer’ down on their tax returns.”
“Yeah, wow … when you put it like that it paints quite the formidable picture, doesn’t it?” said Maggie, her expectations for how Mustang had fared against Horton, suddenly, thrown into doubt.
“That it does,” replied Ray with a sigh, as he eased back onto the brake in order to prepare the UTV to creep around a, rather sharp, hairpin bend coming up on the path ahead. “The kinda golfer there’d be no shame in losin’ to, that’s for sure …”
“What?!” snapped Maggie, turning in her seat and looking hopelessly over at Ray as if she were a child hearing Christmas had just been cancelled. “Horton beat him?!”
“Oh, no, Mustang won,” replied Ray, matter-of-factly, as if completely oblivious to the disappointment he’d set Maggie up for.
“Really?!” probed Maggie, eager to make absolutely sure that she and Ray were on the exact same page.
“Yeah, 4&3,” clarified Ray, again, still completely unaware of the momentary blind panic he’d just caused for Maggie. “It was a great match, actually – lotta birdies from both of ‘em.”
Before he could continue, Maggie shot out her hand with the speed of a flyweight boxer throwing a jab and hit Ray with a sharp, stinging slap right into the fleshy part at the back of his arm.
“Owww!” he winced, as the front-end of the UTV jerked slightly to the side on account of the steering wheel slipping from his grasp. “What was that slap for?!”
“For setting me up to think Mustang had lost to Horton!” claimed Maggie, the relief still coursing through her body.
“Yeah, which I didn’t do deliberately!” argued Ray, as he righted the front axle of the UTV and set them back on a direct course for the hairpin bend. “I mean, you do realize that’s twice in the space of an hour you’ve hit me now, right?!”
“Ok! Sorry!” apologized Maggie, somewhat hurriedly. “I just tend to get a little … ‘slappy’, shall we say … when I’m really invested in something – which, when you think about it, is kinda like a compliment, so … you’re welcome.”
Ray could just shake his head and laugh as he carefully navigated the UTV around the bend. ‘You are so much like your father, it’s not even funny,’ he thought to himself, as he dropped his foot back down onto the gas once they were safely out of the bend and increased their speed again to set them whizzing along a sun-dappled corridor of trees.
“So, come on, tell me about the match,” quizzed Maggie eagerly, as she enjoyed the refreshingly cool breeze now blowing in through the gap alongside her where a window would normally be placed.
“Well …” began Ray, lifting up his hand and rubbing the back of his neck. “Mustang came out hot just like he did against Kretschko. The difference this time, though, was that Horton didn’t wilt like Wilford had when he saw it happenin’ – in fact, I think he was fully prepared for the kid to start fast. Cause as aggressive as Mustang was bein’? Horton wasn’t pullin’ no punches either; like, right from the get-go, he was tryna’ shoot down the flag on every shot – hence why the first four holes were halved with birdies.”
“So, what ended up turning the match in Mustang’s favour?” asked Maggie, taking a second to swat away a fly that had infiltrated the cabin of the UTV.
“It just came down to stamina,” answered Ray, with the assured confidence of someone who’d, clearly, analyzed this particular match countless times over in his head throughout the years. “See, deep down – though he’d shown himself capable of doing it – I knew Horton wasn’t comfortable playin’ as aggressively as he had been in order to stay in touch with Mustang. I mean, over the first eight holes, he was pullin’ off shots, for sure, but compared to how he’d looked doin’ it when I’d seen him on the range? Like, both earlier that mornin’ and before we went out again in the afternoon? He just seemed to be gettin’ more and more uncomfortable lookin’ over each passin’ shot – like he was havin’ to force himself to take them on.”
“A problem Mustang, obviously, didn’t have?”
“Well, that was the only gear he had, you know? Everythin’ was just pedal to the floor, find where the pin is, and go after it. And while I’d try to rein that in a bit when he was playin’ Kretschko? Against Horton I just let the kid be himself and go for whatever shots he was seein’.”
“Because he was playing so well?” said Maggie, speculating what Ray’s reasoning may have been for leaving Mustang off untethered.
“Well, there was that, yeah …” replied Ray, slipping the UTV past the rear of the backmost tee-box for the par 3 11th. “But, mainly, my thinkin’ behind it was that I wanted to push Mustang’s pace onto Horton and keep him on the backfoot. See, he was comfortably outdrivin’ the kid on every hole, right? Like, a good ten to twelve yards each time, easy. Instead of seein’ that as a disadvantage, though, by lettin’ Mustang go pin-huntin’, it turned the pressure up on every single shot Horton had – no matter how routine they were – and forced him into playin’ a style of golf I knew he wasn’t comfortable with.”
“Basically, you wanted to turn it into a shootout, didn’t you?” said Maggie, sounding wholly impressed at getting such a detailed ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at the tactical nuance which Ray had been famed for during Mustang’s career.
“That I did,” replied Ray. “And of all the things Horton was? A ‘gunslinger’ sure wasn’t one of ‘em. So, the way I saw it, we just had to keep pushin’ the pace and wait for him to blink first.”
“And when did he?”
“Just after the turn. Mustang won the 9th to go 1UP – rolled in a beauty for birdie from 15 feet – and you could just tell that rocked Horton,” said Ray, delivering his appraisal with a surgical-like efficiency. “After that, Mustang won the next two pretty easily to go 3UP after Horton panicked and started to chase in order to peg him straight back, but, instead, wound up hookin’ both of his approaches left and, essentially, handed the holes over. From there, then, every swing Horton started to make was done to try and eliminate the left side of the course; and while that plan did work, it was only enough to halve 12 thru 14 …”
*
“And then I birdied 15 to win the match,” said Mustang, reaching out to grab his glass of soda which had been tempting him to take another drink from it.
“So, that means you’re in the semi-finals now, right?” replied Jeanie, enthusiastically, after patiently listening to Mustang walk her through practically every shot he’d taken in his win over Horton. “Or is there another match you have to win?”
“No, you got it,” said Ray, smiling proudly, as he stepped into the breach to become Mustang’s spokesperson due to him being otherwise engaged with his soda. “He’s into the semi-finals; bright and early tomorrow mornin’ at 9 am.”
“And who’s he playing?” asked Jeanie, twiddling her pen in-between her fingers with effortless ease.
“That would be Skip Devereaux,” answered Ray, trying his hardest to say Skip’s name without sounding as daunted as he felt at the prospect of Mustang facing off against him in little over thirteen hours. “He won it last year after beating Truman Ballas in the final.”
“Oh, I think I remember you telling me about that,” said Jeanie, her face narrowing in concentration as she attempted to decode the blurry details which had popped into her head at hearing Skip’s and Truman’s names mentioned in the same breath. “Were they the guys that had that ridiculous bet on their match? Like, twenty-grand or something?”
“Yep, that was them,” smiled Ray, secretly delighted that Jeanie had remembered him telling her that story even after an entire year had gone by. “And, accordin’ to Bill, there’s rumours goin’ around that Truman made the exact same bet for their match this afternoon.”
“He didn’t!” exclaimed Jeanie, her voice coming out in a gleefully shocked whisper.
“Seriously?!” said Mustang, hurriedly bringing his glass back down to the table and sounding just as surprised at hearing that juicy piece of gossip as Jeanie had. “Why didn’t I hear that?!”
“Bill told me when you were talkin’ to that reporter from ‘The New Malo Journal’ after your match with Horton,” replied Ray, himself now reaching out and picking up his own glass of soda. “And with everythin’ else that was happenin’, I just forgot to mention it.”
“Oh, right …” said Mustang, nodding his head as he remembered his chat with the reporter in question, Melvin Burbage, a rather loud gentleman in his late-40s who smelled of chewing gum and too much hair gel. “Well, if it’s true, no wonder Truman seemed extra cranky after he lost then.”
“Well, never mind Truman Ballas,” interjected Jeanie, smiling excitedly as she reached her hand across the table and tapped Mustang encouragingly on the forearm. “You’re gonna be in the paper?! That’s unbelievable! Did he say when?”
“Uh … I think he said it should be in tomorrow’s one,” answered Mustang, sheepishly smiling.
“Then, in that case, when the papers get delivered in the morning I’ll be sure to snag one for you, ok?” winked Jeanie. “And you can get it then when you call in tomorrow evening after the tournament to tell me everything that happened – deal?”
“Or how about this?!” said Mustang, suddenly perking up as an idea caught fire in his imagination. “Why don’t you just bring it to the course tomorrow and watch me play?! I know Ray would love to see you there!”
“Oh is that so?!” said Jeanie, grinning from ear-to-ear as she looked over at an already blushing Ray, who was busy weighing up the pros and cons of jumping straight out through the window alongside their booth, and finding that ‘escaping this nightmare situation’ was proving to be a captivating enough pro on its own to give it a try.
“Well … uh … I mean, ‘love’ is a strong word, first and foremost,” stammered Ray, as a smiling Jeanie continued to stare over at him, her deep brown eyes glinting mischievously at seeing him scrambling like he was back in middle school. “But, you know … I mean, if you wanted to come and watch, that would be … you know … cool – or whatever.”
“Well, as much as I would love to come watch you two in action,” said Jeanie, stepping in to put Ray out of his misery. “I’m working tomorrow – so, I can’t.”
“Aw, really?!” groaned Mustang, his disappointment clear. “Couldn’t you just … you know … not show up for work?”
“I HEARD THAT!” yelled Maurice through the open hatch that looked out from the kitchen onto the floor of the diner.
“Sorry, Maurice!” replied Ray, waving apologetically across the diner at the notoriously moody cook who, after glowering out through the hatch in the direction of their booth, disappeared back out of sight to go tend to their order.
“As you can see, ‘not showing up for work’ isn’t, exactly, an option, I’m afraid,” smiled Jeanie, lowering her voice to avoid the, clearly supersonic, hearing of Maurice. “Sorry, Oscar.”
“That’s ok,” said Mustang, disappointedly, but still understanding the predicament Jeanie was in – it was one his mother had often been in as well. “It was just an idea anyway.”
Able to tell that he was really disappointed she couldn’t go watch him play, Jeanie – after glancing over at a sympathetic-looking Ray – looked back at Mustang, who had now taken to just slowly spinning the base of his glass against the table.
“Right, well, I’m gonna go see how your order’s coming along,” she said, trying to lighten the mood once again. “And how ‘bout I throw in three slices of cake, huh? On me?”
“Yeah, ok …” said Mustang, smiling up at Jeanie as he could tell she was trying to cheer him up. “Thanks, Jeanie.”
“You’re very welcome,” she replied, smiling warmly back at Mustang as she slid out of the booth and got back to her feet. “Now, is there any particular kinda cake your Grandpa doesn’t like?”
As Mustang proceeded to go through Travis’ list of preferences when it came to cakes, Ray allowed his gaze to idly wander over to the door of the diner which had just opened back, triggering the little bell hanging above it to gently ring – and, immediately, he was put on-edge by what he saw.
Someone wearing a dark-coloured hoodie had just entered the diner. They had the hood pulled right up over their head so that their face was completely hidden, and their two hands were plunged deep inside the large pocket on the front of the hoodie. Whether it was down to the fact he was exhausted after a crazy few days which was making him feel especially paranoid, he wasn’t sure, but Ray didn’t like what he was seeing. Not one bit. Marais des Voleurs had seen its fair share of hold-ups over the years – granted, not in a good, long while – but it was something never far from the minds of all the business owners in the town as being a possibility. And Ray knew this.
He looked out through the window alongside the booth. A black sedan was parked across the street from the diner where, previously, there hadn’t been. ‘It must be theirs,’ he thought. After verifying that there was both no driver in the car and that the engine didn’t appear to be running, Ray felt a little better about the intentions of the newest arrival to the diner – but not entirely. With them now loitering suspiciously up near the counter, Ray spotted his chance.
“Kid? …” he whispered, his eyes never leaving the slender-looking figure at the counter.
Having interrupted him in the middle of telling Jeanie about Travis’ complicated relationship with carrot cake, Mustang, caught unawares as to why exactly he was whispering, turned and looked at Ray. “Yeah?” he said, the normal volume of his voice now sounding – to Ray, at any rate – like a foghorn.
“I need you to, very slowly, slide outta the booth, so I can get out,” replied Ray, whispering each word with a calm, measured precision as he continued to keep his eyes trained on the counter.
Catching on that something was seriously amiss, both Mustang and Jeanie – who couldn’t help but overhear what he was saying – turned and looked towards the counter to see what Ray was staring at with all the intensity of a tiger stalking its prey. As soon as they locked eyes on the person standing by the counter, however, they instantly understood why Ray was acting the way that he was.
“Come here, Oscar …” whispered Jeanie, reaching out and guiding Mustang out of the booth as quietly as she could manage in order to avoid drawing attention over to them.
With his path now clear, Ray slipped seamlessly out of the booth and got to his feet. “Now, sit back into the booth – right in near the window,” he whispered to Jeanie, trying to keep his instructions as succinct as possible. “If anything happens? Get straight under the table, ok?”
Jeanie nodded her head.
“Be careful …’” whispered Mustang, trying to sound strong, but the obvious worry he was feeling still managed to breakthrough, regardless.
“Don’t worry, kid,” replied Ray, managing to stretch his mouth into a reassuring half-smile. “I’ll be fine. Now, go on – both of you.”
After returning Ray’s smile with weaker versions of their own, Jeanie ushered Mustang back into the booth and they took up their positions as instructed. With the two of them taken care of – to the utmost extent that he could anyway, given the circumstances – Ray turned his attention back onto the figure who had created this entire situation in the first place.
He walked slowly across the diner towards where they were standing, lifting and placing his boots so carefully with each step that, to anyone watching, it seemed as though he thought the tiled floor was covered with noise sensors.
After managing to make it to within six to eight feet of where they were standing by the counter without them noticing, Ray came to a stop. His eyes darted down to the countertop on his left-hand side. He saw a napkin dispenser was within easy reach from where he was standing; if this went south – even if whoever this was happened to be far smaller than Ray – that could come in useful.
“Hey, buddy …” said Ray, attempting to sound relaxed as he kicked his plan into action. “Can I help you with somethin’?”
Upon hearing his voice, the hooded stranger turned and looked at Ray.
Straightaway, all thoughts of potentially having to foil an armed robbery instantly evaporated from Ray’s mind.
Because who he found himself staring down at wasn’t some would-be highway bandit looking to make a quick score out in the sticks.
No.
It was Kiko Nakamura – Hiro’s sister.