The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn Read Free Book Online Page B

He holds his hand up to measure. ‘You know who done it?’
    Ian shakes his head. ‘She told me what he looked like.’
    ‘Was he on foot?’ Chief Davis asks.
    The cobbler pauses a moment, then says, ‘No. I heard a engine running, but I didn’t see it. Must’ve parked to one side or the other.’
    ‘Car or truck?’ Ian says.
    ‘He said he didn’t see it. He couldn’t tell you just by—’
    ‘Truck,’ the cobbler says, then nods to himself as if getting internal confirmation. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘definitely a truck.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Ian says. ‘You’ve been a big help. Someone will probably come down with a book of arrest photos for you to look through, and maybe even ask you to Mencken to help reconstruct a picture if you don’t recognize him in the book.’
    He reaches across the counter and picks up Maggie’s photograph. He slips it into his wallet, folds his wallet, and slips it back into his hip pocket.
    ‘And if you see him again,’ Ian says, ‘I want you to call nine-one-one.’
    ‘Okay,’ the man says.
     
     
     
    When they get outside Chief Davis says, ‘Goddamn, Ian, if you ever get tired of being a dispatcher, I tell you what, I’ll give you a job down at the dealership in a second. You can just bully folks into buying cars. I’ll sell out in a week.’
    ‘Thanks, Chief.’
     
     
     
    Cora Hanscomb at the dry-cleaning place next door claims to have neither seen nor heard anything. She says this without looking away from the TV upon which her gaze is fixed. She sits in a metal fold-out chair behind the counter and moves popcorn from a bag in her lap to her mouth. The backs of her fingers are glazed yellow with imitation butter and several pieces of popcorn lie on the floor around her chair and in her lap.
    ‘Nothing?’ Ian says again.
    ‘Huh-uh.’
    ‘Too busy watching the tube to pay attention to a kidnapping?’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘Can’t bother even to look at the people talking to you?’
    ‘Huh-uh.’
    ‘Right,’ Ian says. ‘Thanks a fucking lot.’
    ‘Watch your mouth.’ She says even this without looking away from the TV, her voice a droning monotone.
    ‘Get fucked,’ Ian says, and pushes his way out the door.
     
     
     
    They walk into Bill’s Liquor. Ian glances left to Donald Dean. He’s standing behind an orange Formica counter looking bored. A scruffy guy, maybe forty-five, maybe fifty, with oily brown hair and a patchy beard that makes his face look like it was mauled by a large cat. Above the beard, high on his cheeks, acne scars. He’s thin as a stick and pale, and his smile, when he smiles, looks like a grimace. Teeth crammed together like he’s got a few too many. He nods at Ian and reaches over to a tub of red vines, which is sitting between a tub of pickled pigs’ feet and a tub of beef jerky, pulls one out, and chews on it awhile.
    Chief Davis walks over to him.
    Ian turns right. He walks to the refrigerator at the back, scans the shelves, opens a glass door, which immediately fogs up, and pulls out a six pack of Guinness. The door swings shut behind him as he turns around and walks to where Donald and Chief Davis are standing at the counter.
    ‘—at all?’ Davis is saying.
    ‘Huh-uh.’
    Davis turns to Ian and says, ‘He didn’t hear nothing either.’ ‘Maybe the battery in his hearing aid is dying too.’
    ‘What? I don’t—’
    ‘Nothing.’
    Ian sets the beer on the counter.
    Donald rings it up and says, ‘That all?’
    Ian scans the shelves behind him, looking just below the rows of hard liquor, to several boxes of cigars and cigarettes.
    After a moment he says, ‘Gimme a couple of them Camachos.’
    Donald turns around and looks for them.
    ‘Diploma?’
    ‘Maduro. Bottom shelf, to your right.’
    He grabs them and rings them up. Then he grabs a black plastic bag and loads Ian’s purchases into it. Ian knows the cigars will be dry and probably taste like smoking dog turds. The middle of summer and they’ve been sitting