The drinking fountain by the War Memorial hadn’t worked in years, but Danny gave the lever a flick anyway.
Nothing.
He remembered being thrilled the day he was tall enough to get his mouth on the water.
Somehow that one little memory made twenty-seven feel old.
Danny kept walking through the diagonal brickway in Kirchner Park, oversized bag of golf discs banging off his thigh on his non-throwing side.
He went into Lepko’s to grab a water for his round.
Sign by the door said All Exterior Bags Must Be Checked at The Cashier’s Desk.
Danny had gone to school with the Lepko kids, ignored the sign, walked toward the back coolers.
He hesitated by the nutrition bars, damn things were so expensive compared to candy but so good.
“Hey!”
Danny instinctively knew the Hey was directed at him. He just didn’t know where it came from. Did Lepko’s hire a security guard? Didn’t seem likely.
“Canham!”
Danny turned to see who was calling his name.
Curly blonde hair at the edge of the magazine aisle, arms folded over a t-shirt with a bowhunting slogan that half the guys in Durganville owned.
If the guy hadn’t been six foot six, Danny wouldn’t have known it was Horst Immelman.
Danny looked down at his bag as if that was the reason Horst was calling him.
“We need to have a talk.”
Moving the bag from his shoulder to his hand, Danny started toward the coolers.
“‘Bout what, Horst?”
“Umm, better if we talk outside.”
“Sure, let me grab a water and-”
“It will be brief, I promise.”
Danny sighed.
Little bubbles of an idea of why Horst wanted to talk began to form in his gut.
He followed Horst out the door he had come in.
Horst turned right, and when Danny exited Horst pivoted, right arm cocked up and index finger pointing at Danny’s forehead as though there was a laser sight on it.
“Heard you got a massage from Kelly. That can’t happen anymore.”
Danny set his disc bag down.
“Yeah, Horst, I did, but-”
“No buts. There’s no reason for Kelly to give you a massage.”
Danny Canham laughed and took a step back in case the laugh was enough to make Horst swing.
“Except for the reason that it’s her job, and I’m a paying customer, and-”
“You had sex with her when she was underage.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Jimmy Doom's Roulette Weal to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.