No one had been following him. A good thing.  He really couldn’t remember anyone following him since way back in Missouri, and he wasn’t all that sure about the gray car in St. Louis.  He looked down the road toward the town, fists dug hard into the small of his arched back, stiff and road weary.  Ferris’ Bluff.  Pop. 1724, the sign said.  The town, all three or four blocks of it, was about a quarter mile, maybe a bit more, down the patched concrete two-lane from the gas station.           
           
Ace eyed the sign on the old lever-handled gas pump.  Pay Inside Frist First.  Welcome to Arkansas, he thought, and shut the door of his pickup.  He stretched again, working his tired neck muscles.  The drive through the Ouachita Mountains, scenic as all hell, had been a brutal thing. 
           
Two lanes of twisty no-shoulder mountain road teased him with sweeping vistas of fog shrouded mountains.  Deep dark valley views distracted him.  He had barely survived. It had been a life or death competition between the lure of the views and sudden switchbacks and cliff-side curves. The occasional big eared deer played chicken with him. That was exciting, in an adrenaline spiked holy-shit kind of way.  And then there was the oncoming traffic, locals with no fear and lots of experience with the mountain road.  Jerks.
           
He turned to look at the store.  Leets Store, the hand painted sign on top of the flat roofed building said.  So many of the small towns he’d driven through had commercial strips lined with Wal-Marts and Burger Kings and car dealerships.  “The McDonalds is out on the highway”, everybody would say.  Not in Ferris’ Bluff.  There just wasn’t much of a highway for them to clutter up.
           
Leets Store.  It looked deserted but a half-curled plastic Open sign dangled inside the glass front door.  Ace took in the two rickety wooden rocking chairs sitting out front and imagined a couple of old guys sitting out there spending afternoons watching cars go by, waving to neighbors and friends, jawing about the war or the price of soybeans.  Small town America.  Quiet.  Familiar.  Anonymous.  A rare smile on his face, Ace pulled the squeaky door open.
           
 Raack!  Shraack! 
           
He jumped at the sound of a pump shotgun’s slide and zeroed on the twelve bore muzzle aimed in his face.  A flying dive to the left, his right hand immediately, instinctively, cleared the .45 Hi-Power from the back of his jeans. Ace landed hard on the linoleum behind a set of shelves, crinkly bags of pork rinds and cracklins exploded and the bent tangled skeleton of a display rack clattered around him.
           
Ace heard voices, hollering and cussing, but not footsteps approaching.
           
“Oh shit, mister!”
           
“You damn fool.”
           
“I didn’t see him coming.”
           
“You okay fella?”
           
 “Hey mister, you okay?  Aw shit-fer-sure.”
           
Ace crawled through the burst bags, crunching his way over for a quick peek, the pistol held back out of sight.  They didn’t sound like killers.
           
Two old guys, sixties maybe – seventies maybe, were standing behind a long counter facing the door.  One was big and red cheeked with wild wispy white hair wearing faded denim coveralls. The other one looked kind of like a ferret, pointy-faced with a greasy comb over. A thin guy, his bony shoulders hangered a wrinkled plaid shirt.  Neither one looked like a threat.  An old Remington 870 lay sideways on the counter.
           
“You okay, bud?”  The big white haired man pushed, wrestling to get past ferret face.  Ace tucked the Hi-Power back in his jeans under his shirt and sat back, listening.  “I sure didn’t mean to scare ya’ like that.  We was just messin’ with this old gun Dicky brought in.”
           
Ace took inventory of his forty-four year old body while the two old guys danced behind the counter and apologized over and over.  His shoulder hurt like hell and he had a small cut on his left arm.  Pork rinds and corn chips were ground into the knees of his jeans, his backside, the elbows of his shirt, and the heels of his hands.
           
“I’m okay,” Ace finally said from behind the shelves when he could find a break in the old guys’ chattering.  He got to his feet slowly; sure there would be a dandy bruise on his left knee in a few minutes, and stepped around the shelves about the time the big man cleared the end of the counter.
           
“I am so sorry, mister,” the white haired man said and held his hand out. “Del Leets.”  They shook hands and Leets gestured over his shoulder.  “And that there’s Dicky Stover.  Man-oh-man, you sure you’re all right?  Way you throwed yourself over like that?”
           
“Yeah, I’m fine.  Andy Evans, but everyone calls me Ace.”
           
Leets looked down at the debris, brushing chips and pork rind dust from his hands that Ace had passed on, and frowned.  “What a dang mess.” 
           
Dicky shuffled over with a broom and a waste basket.  “The Frito lady gonna be right pleased, Leets.  That’s more chips ‘n you sold in the last six months,” he cackled.
           
“Look, I guess I can pay for the damage,” Ace said, mentally checking his wallet, not really wanting to shell out for couple dozen bags of ruined junk food.
           
“Naw,” Leets grumbled, “This one’s on me an’ Dicky.”
           
“Me?”  Dicky waltzed his broom around.  “Me?”
           
“Wull you brought the durn gun in here.”
           
“Wull you was the one pointin’ the durn thing at the fella here.”
           
Ace guessed the argument would have gone on for the rest of the afternoon but a car pulled up to the pump. The woman behind the wheel honked the horn twice and the door of a classic orange ‘72 Olds Cutlass convertible swung open.  She waved at the front door.  Leets and Dicky went stone silent for a moment.
           
Ace could see where the woman could cause a couple of old geezers to shut up.  He saw bottle-blonde hair peeking out from a headscarf and a pretty pouty face half hidden behind over-sized white framed sunglasses.  The woman challenged a tight low-cut striped top and amply filled a pair of Capri pants that she had to have used a pliers to zip up.  She wasn’t Dolly Parton busty but Ace figured she wasn’t too far from it.
           
“Reena,” Dicky whispered, leering with a gap toothed grin.
           
“Yeah, that’s our Reena all right,” Leets echoed.  He was frowning.
           
“You gonna turn on the pump?”  Dicky asked.
           
“Yeah,” Leets grumbled, shuffling off.
           
“That’s Reena,” Dicky said, nudging his elbow into Ace’s side.  “Lawyer Tre-mont’s wife.”  Leets trundled back over to watch her fill the car.  Ace noticed she had an impressive backside too. 
           
“Ever-thing wiggles but her toes.” Dicky snickered.
           
Ace stepped back and rubbed his face with both hands. He regretted it immediately.  There were still greasy crumbs of corn chips and cracklins stuck on them.  He smelled like a snack.  Leets and Dicky scurried back behind the counter and ditched the pump gun when Reena hung up the hose.  Ace stepped over to the end of the counter and watched the woman walk across the store.  Dicky wasn’t far from right.  Pretty much everything wiggled.
           
“Miss Reena.”
           
“Delmon.  Richard.”  She nodded at the two old men.  Ace could tell she enjoyed the power she had over them, well, Dicky at least.  Leets didn’t seem as impressed.
           
She turned to look at Ace.  Her furrowed brow hinted at curiosity and a tinge of worry. She frowned and looked back to Leets.  “Any problem getting’ a couple to go, Delmon?”  She jinked her head at the stranger.
           
Leets pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow toward Ace, like he was pondering something important.  “No. No problem, Reena.”  He stepped through a door behind the counter and came back with two Budweiser tall-boys and slipped them in a bag.  Reena settled up with Leets.  The bag clutched firmly to her chest, she gave Ace a flirty, knowing smile, and all three men watched her jiggle out of the store, her high-heeled sandals clacking on the linoleum.
           
“Afraid you’d check her ID?”  Ace joked.  Reena had to be on the downhill side of her thirties despite some truly valiant efforts with makeup.
           
“Dry county.”  Leets shrugged.
           
“No problem.” Ace assured him.  “So you boys always play with shotguns?”
           
“Naw,” Dicky grumbled.  “I took the thing in the other day over t’ my place and it don’t work.”
           
“Dicky runs the Book-N-Pawn when he ain’t over here botherin’ me,” Leets explained.  “Durn thing won’t e-ject the shells.”
           
“Mind if I have a look?”  Ace asked. 
           
Both of the old guys watched Ace fiddle and poke at the thing.  He took out a Leatherman tool, dug around inside the shell port and asked Leets for some oil or WD-40.  After a few minutes he slid three shells into the bottom of the gun and said to Leets, “Catch.”
           
Ace racked the slide three times fast.  Leets managed to catch one of the shells.
           
“Sumbitch.”  Leets crowed.
           
“Thanks, Ace.”  Dicky clapped him on the back. 
           
Leets found a rag for him. While Ace was wiping his hands he told him he guessed he should get back to gassing up and get going.
           
“Just passin’ through?”  Leets asked and waved off the twenty Ace held out.  “You go on and fill ‘er up.  I’ll put it on Dicky’s tab.”  Dicky sputtered and cussed until Leets asked Ace what he was gonna charge for fixing up that old 870.
           
“Actually, I’m here to see someone.  An old friend,” Ace said.  The look Leets and Dicky gave him made it clear he wasn’t getting out of there without telling them who. 

“Granville Tubbs was my dad’s best friend.  Know him?”
           
Leets winced and Dicky looked down at the floor.  “Yeah, we know ‘im,” Leets muttered. 
           
“He’s over ‘t the Shady Oaks death house.”  Dicky jerked a thumb toward the highway.
           
“Death house?”  Ace knew he’d heard him right.
           
“Don’t mind dick head here.  Shady Oaks is the old folk’s home.”
           
“Don’t no-one come out alive.”  Dicky argued.  “And don’t be callin’ me dick head.”
           
“How long’s he been in there?”  Ace hadn’t talked or written to Tubbs in over two years.  He hadn’t talked or written to anyone from the old days in that time.  He’d been leaving as faint a footprint as he could.  Had to.  It was the best way he could figure to stay alive, but he was tired of the road and so lonesome for a familiar voice.  He just hoped it had been long enough.  That they’d forgotten about him. He was counting on it.
           
“Near a month.  Had some spells ‘a some kind and ain’t been the same since.”  Leets voice jerked him back into the store.
           
“He’s in a purty bad way.”
           
“Your daddy’s best friend you say?” Over the years Leets had shared a thousand stories with Granny and bet Ace he’d heard of his daddy.
           
“Was way back in the Navy years.”  Ace dodged giving them his father’s name.  It wasn’t Evans and he sure as hell wasn’t going to explain it.  And so much for crashing in Tubbs’ spare room.  “I might be around a day or two.  You got a decent motel in town?  Decent meaning cheap.”  The decenter the better, he thought, but didn’t say.
           
“There’s the Travel-Aire other side ‘a town out on 84 but it ain’t what anyone ‘ud call decent.”  Dicky rolled his eyes.  “That’s about it.”
           
“Annie Travers is rentin’ out rooms,” Leets chimed in. “She’s got this big ol’ house over on Pecan Street.  Been rentin’ out since her husband died.  I hear she’s a durn good cook too.  Meals go with the rooms is what I hear.”
           
“Well, thanks for the tips, boys.”  Ace shook hands with both of the old men.  “I’ll probably be seein’ you around.”
           
“Sorry agin’ for that mis-understandin’ with the pump gun.”  Leets shouted as Ace headed out the door to gas up the truck and go look for the Travel-Aire Motel out on 84, wherever the hell that was.  The last thing Ace needed was a room in some widow’s house that probably smelled of lilac sachets and boiled cabbage and old lady.

***

Ace found the motel.  The Travel-Aire looked to be right out of central casting, circa 1952, with its flat roof, turquoise stucco, and rounded white trim.  The office guarded a central court surrounded by ten or so tiny bungalows hidden from the highway.  He paid for three nights.  The old biddy behind the counter gave him a deal.  Some deal.  Ninety-five bucks.
           
When he pulled into the courtyard the first thing he saw was Reena’s orange Cutlass parked half behind an overgrown shrub on the end.  Ace shook his head and pulled up to unit number three.
           
There was a screen door, the old galvanized mesh torn and rusty in half a dozen places, and no window air conditioner that Ace could see.  June in Arkansas was damn hot.  Well, maybe the walls were thick.  Maybe there would a breeze at night.
           
When Ace pushed the door open the first thing that hit him was the smell.  Ace didn't mind smokers.  He’d enjoy a stogie himself now and then, but forty years of cigarettes slept in the paint and the carpets of unit number three.  When he flicked on the light there was a mad dash across the dresser top.  The roaches were so big he could actually hear them skitter.
           
He took one look at the bed, a sway backed double with a trough so deep he thought if he lay down in there he might never get out.  Ace closed the door and drove back to the office.  He tossed the key on the counter and told the biddy he wanted his money back.  She put up a pretty good fight but when Ace growled at her she grabbed the cash from the till and threw it on the counter.  Well, ninety bucks, anyway.
           
Ace fired up the truck and went in search of Pecan Street and old lady Travers’ place.

The house on Pecan Street didn’t look like a spinster’s white elephant or a tumbledown rooming house. No sir.  Three stories tall with a screened front porch guarded by blazing red flowering shrubs, it looked like something out of a Rockwell painting.  Witch-hat roofed turrets soared two stories and there was a railed open porch up there.  It was painted white with green and blue accents highlighting the intricate scrollwork under the eaves.
           
He approached the house at a loss, wondering about the proper etiquette for knocking on the front door when there was a porch.  Should he knock on the screen door?  He looked for a bell or a buzzer.  Should he just barge onto the porch and knock on the door?  He had his hand on the screen knob when the front door opened and a trim, pretty woman in her mid-thirties or so stepped out.
           
“Mr. Evans?”  She asked, opening the screen door and extended a slender hand.  “I’m Ann Travers.  Del called and said you might be stopping by.”
           
Hello Ferris’ Bluff, Ace thought, taking her cool hand in his.  “Andy Evans.  Most folks call me Ace.”
           
“Ace it is.  Come in.  Come in.”  Annie held the door wide.  Ace stepped into the house and back in time.  To his right he saw a large living room filled with old expensive looking furniture.  Gleaming wood smelled of lemon oil.  The lampshades had dangly things at the bottom.  There were doilies everywhere.  To the left a stately dining room was filled with a polished table that would easily seat twelve surrounded by buffets and sideboard tables covered with silver bowls and tea services.
           
“Wow,” Ace said, afraid his meager funds weren’t going to be enough to stay more than a night or two.
           
“I dust, therefore I am.”  Annie laughed easily.  Ace smiled for the second time that day.  “Del said you were in town to see Granny Tubbs.  He’s such a sweet old guy.”
           
Ace kept the smile on but inside he was churning worries.  These people, strangers, already knew more about him than he had let out in years.  And calling Tubbs a sweet old guy?  They didn’t know much about Master Chief Granville Tubbs.  Something bumped behind him. Ace turned toward the noise.
           
“This is my daughter, Valerie ... Val.” 
           
A serious looking twelve year old looked up at Ace from her wheelchair.  She had long straight blonde hair and piercing green eyes that looked too old on her, too wise for her innocent unlined face.  “Hi.”
           
“I’m Ace.”  He offered his hand, which she took lightly in hers.  “Nice to meet you, Val.”
           
“Why do they call you Ace?” She asked, tilting her head to the side, still not smiling.
           
“My initials.  Andrew Christopher Evans,” He explained.  What he didn’t tell her was that the name, Ace, was his own creation. His father had saddled him with the name Arleigh Chester, after two of the old man’s heroes, and his real last name was Evenson.  “Ace’ had been created in about the second grade and it was the last thing he really had from his old life.  He’d crafted his alias around those initials.  Val was looking at him so intently he wondered if she had just read his thoughts.
           
“You kind of look like an Ace,” she said, then wheeled her chair around and disappeared into the back of the house.
           
“I’m sorry,” Annie apologized.  “Va’s a little, um, outspoken sometimes. When she says anything at all.”
           
“It’s no problem.” Ace shrugged.
           
“Since the accident, since the chair, she’s a little abrupt with people.”
           
“Sometimes I have the same problem.  Don’t worry, Annie.  I like her.”
           
“Well, let me show you the rest of the place and your room.”  Annie started to turn toward the back of the house.
           
“Ah ...”  Ace felt embarrassed but he had to ask.  He’d be more embarrassed if he couldn’t pay her.  “How much, exactly, is the room?”
           
When Annie turned to look at him he studied her face.  Her green eyes had laugh lines at the corners, and a sprinkle of faint freckles dotted her nose and cheeks.  Val had gotten her blonde hair from her mom, it seemed, but Annie’s was cut short.  She wasn’t wearing any makeup as far as Ace could tell, a far cry from Miss Reena earlier, and didn’t need to.
           
“Thirty dollars?”  She said it like a question, like she was asking if it was too much.  “And that includes breakfast if you’re around and dinner too, if you don’t mind eating with all of us.”
           
“Thirty sounds really fair.  This is a great house.”  Ace could afford to stay in the great house for about five nights if he needed to, he figured.  It would depend on Tubbs’ circumstances.  A door banged in the back followed by a voice echoing down the hall, “Mom, I’m home.”
           
“My son.” 
           
A rangy brown haired kid in baggy cargo shorts and a Tony Hawk t-shirt came striding down the hall with a Mountain Dew can in his hand.  “Who’s this?”  The kid asked, hooking a thumb in Ace’s direction.
           
Before Annie could answer Ace stuck out his hand.  “Ace Evans.  The ugly roomer.”  The kid screwed up his face, not getting the joke his mother was laughing at.  He eyed Ace’s hand and finally gave a limp shake.
           
“Chaz.”
           
“Charles.”  Annie corrected him.  The kid rolled his eyes.
           
“Is it okay if I go with Chaz?”  Ace asked.  He knew what it was like to have a dorky name and he didn’t want to alienate the kid.
           
“Okay.  Sure.”
           
Chaz squeezed past them in the hall and bounded up the steps.  When Ace and Annie turned to head for the kitchen a voice drifted down the stairwell.  “Ugly roomer.  I get it now.  Ha Ha.”
           
“He’s fifteen,” She explained.
           
“Hey, at least he got it,” Ace said.