“Hold on...” I started.
“Oh, Ms. Wolfe,” Apocalypse Pablo interrupted. “You really can’t smoke here. You’re at a gas station.” As if she weren’t aware of exactly where she was, he waved his hands toward the pumps.
There were no cars, but the NOSMOKINGsigns on the posts between pumps and plastered across the wall Granny was leaning against were pretty obvious.
Myra and I gave her twin glares.
“So I am, I see.” She rubbed the cigar out against the wall of the mini-mart, then pocketed it. A haze of cherry-scented smoke mixed with the freshness of rain.
“Are you ready?” Apocalypse Pablo swiveled toward Myra and me, a smile wide on his earnest face. “End is coming soon! Any day now. If you haven’t secured a place in heaven for your soul, you’re going to feel real awful about that. Real awful.” That last he delivered in a conspiratorial whisper, his hand cupped around his mouth.
“I’m good,” I said.
“All stocked up,” Myra answered.
“You have a squeegee, then? Two?” He was as excited as a kid counting down to his birthday. “You’ll want a back up ‘cause it’s going to get all kinds of messy. Blood and gore and fire. Brimstone. That’s messy too, I’d expect.”
Not for the first time I wondered if he were getting “apocalypse” confused with “Christmas”.
“We got it covered,” I said. “But we do want to ask you about the other night.”
His grin faltered and fell apart, his sunshiny eyes suddenly dark. “Oh, that was an awful thing. That poor man. Now he’s going to miss the apocalypse.”
Granny coughed her way through a laugh, then reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “There, there now, sonny.”
A truck pulled up and rumbled to a stop right beside Granny.
“Hey, Granny.” Rudy, one of the many Wolfes in town waved at us through the rolled down window. “Ready to go, or do you need a few more minutes?”
“Oh yah. I’m ready.” She strolled over to the truck, opened the door and bounced up inside with a nimbleness belying a woman of her age.
“Hey there, Rudy!” Apocalypse Pablo sang out. “You ready for the end of the world?”
“Sure am!” Rudy said.
“You might need some squeegees to keep things clean. You know. During the apocalypse.”
“Naw,” Rudy drawled, showing a lot of teeth in his grin. “We Wolfes like it messy.”
He tipped a couple fingers at his forehead and eased back out toward the road.
“He’s going to wish he had a squeegee,” Pablo said sadly before he instantly brightened. “So you want to talk about poor Mr. Rossi being dead in the equipment shed?”
“Can we go inside?” I asked.
Myra was already opening the door for us.
Pablo pivoted on his heel and practically bounced into the building. “Hi Stan! I know you like me out there waiting for cars, but Ms. Reed and Ms. Reed need to talk about the dead guy.”
Stan was middle-aged, heavy in the face and belly and one of the most cutthroat bowlers I’d ever met. He smelled of cigarette smoke and Old Spice. He gave Myra and I a seven-ten split nod.
“Help yourself to the office. Can I get you coffee?”
His coffee was number three on the ten most toxic substances in Ordinary.
“No thanks,” Myra and I said at the same time.
Apocalypse Pablo took us past the snacks, toilet paper, and cold remedies, along the dimly lit wall of soda, beer, and energy drinks to the narrow door in the back.
