Empire Of Salt by Weston Ochse Read Free Book Online Page A

them to stay.
    "Why are you looking at me funny?" Gertie asked. "You getting sick or something?"
    "No. Not sick. Just tired is all." He sighed, wishing once again for a drink. "I guess I'd like you to stay on, if you can. We don't know anything about running a restaurant and would appreciate if you taught us what you know."
    "A reprieve." Maude leaned back and whistled. "I owe you twenty, Gert."
    Maude took a rolled twenty out of her cleavage and handed it to Gertie, who immediately placed it in her own cleavage. Patrick allowed himself a smile. Amidst all the melancholy, he actually felt good.
    "We'll definitely stay. So what's next?" Gertie asked.
    "I need to find a judge to execute the will. Make everything legal, you know."
    "We don't have one of those." Gertie shook her head. "They shut down the courthouse."
    "What is this, the Wild West?" Patrick asked. "What town doesn't have a judge anymore?"
    "This one, apparently," Auntie Lin noted.
    "Where's the nearest one?" he asked.
    "Down in El Centro," came Frank's voice from the counter.
    Patrick turned in his chair to look at the disheveled head and rheumy eyes of the town drunk. Frank had already been served a beer, which he was drinking through a crazy straw. He looked almost childlike as he sucked the alcohol through several loops. As strange as it looked, Patrick would give a pinky and a thumb to join the man if given the opportunity.
    "Where's that?" Patrick asked, licking his dry lips.
    "About forty miles as the crow flies."
    "What about by road?"
    "About three hours."
    "Why so long?"
    "Construction and farming equipment. Lots of farms around the Salton Sea."
    "You serious?"
    Maude snapped her fingers. "What about Will Todrunner?" she asked Gertie.
    "What about him?"
    "Isn't he a Justice of the Peace too?"
    "He sure is." Gertie said. "Listen, let me give him a call and I'll get him over here. He's going to want to meet you anyway, seeing as how you're going to be living here now. That reminds me. Are you going to be wanting to move in to your father's place?"
    "I think so. We really don't have a place to stay and can't afford a hotel. We've driven an awfully long way." He glanced quickly at his hands, then shoved them into his pants to stop them from shaking. "But if it's going to be a problem we can make some -"
    Gertie shook her head. "It's no problem. We don't really live there anymore. But Me and Maude had some stuff we might want to get out first. The will gave you everything and we don't want to do anything that Laz didn't want."
    Patrick felt like he needed to say something but he didn't know what it was. He'd wondered why his father had made him the sole heir, especially when he had had these two women who clearly adored him. There'd been no mention in the will about Maude or Gertie. He'd have thought there would have been some direction if his father had shared the sentiment. After all, he'd spent more years with them than he'd spent with Patrick. He'd been thirteen when his father left, and other than a card with a twenty dollar bill every now and then, he hadn't heard from the man in more than thirty years.
    "He talked about you all the time," Maude said, as if she was reading his mind.
    Patrick shook his head. "He didn't know me."
    "Oh, yes he did. He used to travel to Philadelphia twice a year. He watched you play in your school band. He went to your high school graduation. He even went to your daughter's Christmas pageant last year."
    As she spoke, Patrick's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. Suddenly, his mouth felt dry. Why had his father been there and never said anything? He was about to ask that question when a man in a wide-brimmed hat, white shirt and black dungarees burst into the restaurant. All eyes went to him as the door slammed open, then closed.
    "My boy is missing. I think something happened to my boy," he said. He was out of breath. His eyes were wild.
    "Abel, take it easy." Gertie stood and rushed to his side. She tried to grab his elbow