“Claire, it’s Susie. I see Cliff across the street talking to that new man in town. What’s his name? I forget.” Named Susan at birth by her parents, everyone in town called her Susie as far back as anyone can remember. From her spot behind the counter at her family’s general store, Susie could see anything and everything in town.

“Good. Tell me what you see.”, Claire said as she scooted to the edge of her seat.

“Well, that new guy is wearing a suit and glasses. His hair is kind of short. I think he uses Brylcreem. He’s very tall. Cliff looks a bit like a munchkin next to him. There’s…”

“Susie!”, Claire interrupted. “I guess I should have asked what are they doing.”

“Oh.” Susie tilted her head and her mouth opened. “Cliff seems to be doing all the talking. Might be asking questions ’cause the new guy just shakes his head yes or no.”

“His name is Walt Fricker.”

“Oh.” Susie giggles. “That’s a funny name. I wonder…”

“Susie! Focus”. Claire was becoming a bit impatient.

“Well, Cliff must have found out what he wanted to know. He just walked off. Funny thing is, that Fricker guy spent more time talking earlier with Cloyd.”

“What?”

“You know Cloyd. He’s always around. Him and that stinky dog of his.” Susie’s voice reflected only the slightest hint of disgust. She didn’t like speaking ill of anyone, but that dog had been in her store more than once and she had to walk the aisles spraying Lysol before customers would come back in. “Anyway, the new guy Bricker was pointing this way and that way. Cloyd shook his head. New guy pointed at Charlie. Cloyd shook his head again and then left. I can just hear what Granny Lillian would say. She’d say, ‘I don’t understand why he doesn’t just pitch that smelly little dog in the river and take a big bar of lye soap to it. I’ll swear’. That’s what she’d say.”

Claire dropped her head. “It’s Fricker, not Bricker.”, with emphasis on Bricker. “Thanks, Susie. You’ve been a big help.”

Susie grinned on the other side of the line as she put her free hand to her forehead. “Oh, silly me. I’ve never been good with names. You are so welcome! Oops. Gotta go. Customers.” As the call ended, Claire could hear Susie say, “Welcome to Wagner’s. Well aren’t you the cutest thing since Shirley Temple! Here, have a Tootsie Pop.”

Cliff walked into his office at City Hall and saw Claire place the handset back on the phone at his desk.

“Who were you talking to?”, he asked.

“Time and temperature.”, Claire responded. “Your clock is two minutes fast.” Cliff looked at the Timex on his wrist, adjusted the time and then the clock on the wall. “What did you find out?”

Cliff turned toward Claire and took a seat across the desk from her. “Well, not much really. He’s not much of a talker. Mostly all he did was shake or nod his head.”

Claire narrowed her eyes. “What did you ask him?”

“Just the usual stuff.”, Cliff responded. “Things like, ‘Are you from around here?’, ‘Are you married?’, ‘Do you plan to open a business here?’. You know, normal things curious people would ask.”

Claire felt her chair lean back as she put her hands behind her head. “We’ve been over this before, my little sugar dumplin’.”

She swiveled the high-back leather chair and stood, the three-inch heels of her shoes clicking on the floor as she walked toward Cliff.

“If you want to learn things about people, asking yes or no questions won’t cut it.” Claire emphasized “yes or no” with fingers on both her hands in air quotes.

Cliff stood. His bottom lip drew up.

“Did you invite him to the Rotary Club meeting today?”, she asked.

“Yes, dear”, Cliff responded.

“Well?”, Claire asked with a sarcastic tone.

With a wry smile, Cliff raised his hands. “Asking yes or no questions won’t cut it.”, complete with air quote emphasis.

Claire didn’t move an inch. She just stared into Cliff’s eyes. The corners of his mouth dropped. He had seen that look before.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, dear. I did. He accepted.”

Claire blinked. “Good. I’ll go with you so you can watch and learn. Fricker will tell us everything we want to know.”

*****

A loud crack echoed through the back dining room of Curly’s Diner & Buffet. “The weekly meeting of the Jordan’s Bend Rotary Club will come to order.” Nathaniel Bitterman placed the ceremonial gavel next to the lectern on the dais. As president of the club, it was his duty to move the meeting along its planned agenda for the next hour. He liked being president. It fit well with his position as the president and chairman of the board of Bitterman Bank & Trust, “proudly serving the good folks of Jordan’s Bend since 1868 as the first and only bank the town has ever seen.” With him on the dais were George Wagner, vice-president and owner of Wagner’s General Store; Dr. Elizabeth Franklin, secretary/treasurer and the towns only family practitioner; and Bro. Eugene Dawson, pastor of the Jordan’s Bend Methodist church and club chaplain.

“Bro. Eugene, will you open the meeting with a prayer, which will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Bro. Eugene was a huge teddy bear of a man who exuded a sense of calm and reason. He also had a knack of seeing through deception and calling it out in such a manner that the individual on the receiving end of his words felt grateful for them. He rose to speak and everyone in the room followed suit.

“Let us pray.” Every head bowed. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather as a community. We thank you for guiding our hearts and minds in your service so that we may strengthen the foundation of this town that was so expertly crafted by those who came before us.”

Members of the club responded, “Amen!”

Bro. Eugene continued. “Thank you for the food we are about to receive. Thank you to the hands that provided it for us and bless it to the nourishment of our bodies. And all God’s people said,….”

The room erupted with a rousing, “AMEN!”

After the Pledge of Allegiance, members sat down. Bro. Eugene walked to a front table and took his place next to his wife, Sarah.

Nathaniel turned to the club. “Thank you, Bro. Eugene, for that fine blessing. May we earn the words that flowed so eloquently from your mouth to God’s ears.” When the applause settled, Nathaniel looked to the back of the room where Curly Wilson stood, and gave him a nod of the head.

“Ladies and gentleman, the buffet is now open!”, proclaimed Curly. The sound of wooden chair legs scooting across linoleum that had seen better days and probably installed during the Truman administration, chattered in repeated patterns as the near thirty members of the club edged their way to the front of the line like pigs to the trough when the farmer threw in the slop. Experienced members knew the most valued seats in the room heavy with red velvet curtains covering the many windows were the ones next to where Curly stands week after week each Tuesday. Their target – metal pans lining forty feet of steam heated culinary delights such as fried chicken or catfish, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread, salisbury steak smothered in brown gravy and mushrooms, fried okra, chocolate pudding, yeast rolls, black-eyed peas, corn on the cob, creamed corn and seasonal favorites all hygienically protected by heat lamps mounted under a decorative hanging carrier with opaque sneeze guards on two sides.

Curly had the longest buffet in a three-county area. The Rotary Club was his largest customer group. The revenue from the weekly assault brought in more than the rest of the month combined. Times were getting tough.

Members ate their lunch, engaging in polite chit-chat, joke telling and commentary about local happenings. After thirty minutes of noshing with gusto, President Bitterman rapped the gavel. “Ok, let’s settle down. Curly, would you mind going outside and tell our members who smoke that our program is about to start?” Curly nodded his head and left his post.

When all were in place, President Bitterman took to the lectern.

“Good ladies and gentleman, may I hear a motion to dispense with our regular agenda so that we may address a new circumstance in our community?”

“I make a motion!”, said George Wagner.

“Fine. Can I get a second?”

“I second the motion!”, responded Mayor Anderson.

“We have a motion and a second to dispense of our normal agenda. All in favor say Aye”

A loud “Aye” was received.

“All opposed, No.”

Silence.

“The Ayes have it.”, proclaimed President Bitterman. “Vice President Wagner, will you take the lectern.” Claire shot a glance at Nathaniel and nodded. Bitterman nodded back. She turned to her husband next to her and wink. Cliff blushed.

George rose and adjusted the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Rotarians. It is our goal as a community to make each and every man, woman and child who picks Jordan’s Bend as their home, be in from generations prior or those who move to our fair city, to feel as if they have been here all along. To that end, we ask that our newest community member, Walt Fricker, to take the lectern so that we may learn more about him and him more about us.”

Walt sat in disbelief as he watched member after member rise to their feet in applause. He thought back to the invitation extended to him by the mayor. He didn’t believe the man he met was capable of the wily deception necessary to craft this ambush. But he was ready. As he stood and walked to the lectern, urged forward by smiling faces at tables with empty plates and soiled napkins, he said to himself, “the games afoot.”

The heavy smell from years of fried foods filled his lungs as he rounded the corner of the dais. He stood at the lectern and the group sat in silence.

“Mr. Fricker, we’d like to know more about you. Who has the first question?”, asked President Bitterman. Claire’s hand shot up.

“Mr. Fricker, we have noticed you cleaning the window of the old Herald building. What are your plans? Where did you come from and what did you do before?”, she asked.

Walt put hands to each side of the lectern and picked at the peeling laminate.

“Yes, I was. Florida. My own business.”, he replied.

Walt didn’t like questions.

Claire frowned. She didn’t like short answers.

“Is that all?”, Claire asked in a follow up.

“That’s all.”, Walt responded. He saw the mayor turn toward Claire, his hands up in an “air quote” fashion. Claire slapped his shoulder.

The room fell into an awkward silence. Based on what they saw, no other members asked a question.

“Well,”, President Bitterman said, “I guess now it’s time for you to learn more about us. The floor is yours.”, his arm making a sweeping motion in front of him.

“That won’t be necessary.”, said Walt. “I already know everything I need to know.”

The club members looked at President Bitterman to see the look of surprise on his face, which soon changed to a sliver of disgust.

“Is that so?”, he said to Walt.

“Yes.”

“In that case, suppose you regale us with your knowledge. I’m sure we’d all like to hear”. President Bitterman looked at the membership who shook their heads in agreement. Several “here, heres” lifted above the din.

“Very well.” Walt scanned the room. Looking back at him were faces blanketed in the righteousness of a shiver of sharks.

“Curly Wilson, you’ve owned the diner for the past twenty years, inheriting it from your father, the original Curly. Your first name is actually Albert, but changing the name to Albert’s would possibly diminish the brand your father spent his adult life to build. After all, he is the one who put the linoleum on the floor, the velvet red curtains on the windows and the sneeze guards that still line both sides of the impressive buffet.”

Curly – that is, Albert – stood there with his mouth open.

Walt returned to scan the room.

“Dr. Elizabeth Franklin.” Walt fixed his gaze on one of the most beautiful women he had seen in a long time. Statuesque. Long red hair and freckles with a smile that was now fading from her face. “You moved here from up north fifteen years ago following your divorce. By the way, your ex was a fool. You took over a practice as the only medical provider in the county. You have grown the practice from a handful of patients to a thriving business, adding staff along the way. As such, you moved from the original office you occupied on the outskirts of town to a newly decorated and renovated medical office in downtown Jordan’s Bend. It seems we will be neighbors. I look forward to it. Well done.”

The smile returned to her face.

Walt continued.

“The power structure in your city has remained in the hands of four families from founding through the recent celebration of the centennial to this very moment in time. It doesn’t take a detective to see that the surnames of Bitterman, Wagner, Sparks and Anderson on the windows of the offices of bank president, general store owner, sheriff and mayor are faded and of a font no longer in use in modern municipalities. However, the given name painted in the same font above them suggests family succession, since the given names are not faded as the surnames.”

Members looked around the room.

“Speaking of hands, one might deduce from the significantly less than rugged skin on the hands of our mayor portends to a life of relative luxury free from the need to earn a living as the ones required by his fair constituents.”

“Well I never!”, Mayor Anderson protested.

“Thank you for confirming my assertion.”, said Walt.

Nervous laughter from the back of the room was heard. Claire was visibly angered and not amused.

“I can tell from the corners of this lectern that President Bitterman has a nervous tic of flicking his thumbnails on each hand, picking at the laminate. Since he has been president of the club for going on four years, having attempted to step down but returned to the position of power following the lavish praise heaped upon him by the members of this room, he graciously accepted the gavel. An artful ruse to fill the void in his soul following the death of his wife five years ago from an auto accident in which she was not wearing a seat belt.”

Walt look at President Bitterman, who looked down at his thumbs.

“By the way, it wasn’t that the membership in this room felt that President Bitterman had excelled at leadership, it’s just that none of you wanted the job.”

Scanning the room again, Walt said, “Should I proceed with the reading?”

The silence was so strong, one might think a funeral was being held.

“No? Ok then. Well,thank you for the kind invitation. Curly, the salisbury steak was magnificent.”

And with that, Walt stepped away from the dais. The eyes that had been fixed upon him before he spoke were now cast downward.

Except for Claire.

Walt matched her steely gaze with a knowing gaze of his own. Neither blinked as he walked across the room, extended a tip to Curly, who was holding the door open for him. Walt adjusted his glasses as he drove away.

After what seemed to be a lifetime of stunned silence, Sheriff Sparks said, “Well…I think I need a cigarette. Who’s with me?”

(To be continued.)