“That’s good. We’re getting somewhere. What’s your name?”
“Lavern.”
“Okay, Lavern, go back to your manager, Mrs. Sasquatch over there, and tell her to drag her lazy rear end out of the chair and to get on the phone and straighten this out. Can you do that for me, Lavern?”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, suh.”
“Sorry about that. My twelve thousand is insignificant when it comes to helping along a grand program like affirmative action. I apologize. Tell your manager I said fuck me. I apologize to you, too, Lavern. Fuck me twice.”
Robert Weingart was just backing out his white Mustang convertible from his parking slot when the deputy who responded to the bank manager’s call pulled in to the lot. Weingart was wearing shades and a stylish beige fedora and a scarlet silk shirt with blown sleeves. He cut his engine and smiled pleasantly into the deputy’s face. “If this is about me, the ladies inside worked out my problem,” he said. “It was a misunderstanding about a change in currency rates. I got a little hotheaded. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell them,” the deputy said. He was a red-haired man with a florid complexion and a brush mustache and a chest that resembled a beer keg. His nickname was Top because he was a retired marine NCO, although he had been a cook and never a first sergeant. As a department comedian, he was considered second only to our dispatcher, Wally.
“I told both ladies I was out of line, sir,” Weingart said. “They seemed satisfied. I don’t see the problem.”
“You’re the author?” Top said.
“I’m an author.”
“My mother read your book. She wanted me to read it. That’s why your remarks were real hurtful to her.”
“Miss Lavern is your mother?”
“No, the branch manager, the black lady, is my mother. The one you called Mrs. Sasquatch.”
Weingart grinned from behind his glasses and inserted his hand in the top of his shirt and massaged his chest. “You’re pretty good.”
“Take off your glasses.”
“What for?”
“Because it’s rude to talk to people with sunglasses on.”
“I never heard that one.”
“You have now.”
“Anything to please.”
“That’s better. Thank you. I hear you’ve been down three times.”
“More than three if you count juvenile time.”
“So who taught you it was okay to come to a town like this and use the word ‘fuck’ in front of my mother?”
“Nobody did, sir,” Weingart replied, ennui creeping into his voice.
“You know you have a twitch in your face?”
“I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Right under your eye. You don’t have a couple of fried circuits, do you? Like a little too much crystal in the system? Because that’s what you look like to me. I think that’s why you said ‘fuck’ in front of my mother.”
Weingart stared straight ahead, his expression self-effacing, his hands resting on the spokes of his steering wheel.
“When is the last time you UA-ed?” Top asked.
“I’m not on parole. I was commuted out, all sins forgiven.”