Page 16 of Midnight

Jacob’s focus shifted to the big blond-headed man. “You don’t look much like your brother.”

“I take after Pop and Ev… Uh… Joe takes after Mama.”

Jacob caught the hesitation. His suspicions were right. They weren’t who they said they were, and they weren’t here for beer.

“I can’t answer your question about what the bar’s worth. When you have exactly what you want in life, no amount of money can tempt you to give that up,” Jacob said, then took the money they left on the bar and put it in the register. He glanced up in the mirror again and caught them leaving. They were arguing all the way out the door and still arguing when they got into an older model white car and drove away.

He shrugged them off and forgot about them.

As for the Brandt brothers, their reconnoiter had revealed more than they expected, none of it good.

“You just had to talk,” Everett shouted. “Damn it all to hell, Freddie! Whatever Kingston thought about us before, when you sputtered around with which name you were going to call me, we were made. He didn’t know what we were about, but he knew we were lying.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Joe.”

“Joe? Joe? Now I’m Joe? Look…the charade is over, Freddie. I’m Everett.”

“Right,” Freddie said, then glanced out the window at the passing scenery.

Silence settled within the cab and Everett was just driving, wanting to get home before bad weather came in, when Freddie shifted nervously, then glanced at his brother.

“Hey, Everett?”

“Yeah?” Everett said.

“What’s a charade?”

Everett sighed. Freddie didn’t just look like Pop. He wasn’t any smarter than him, either.

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it,” Everett said.

“Okay,” Freddie said, and leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes, while Everett was pondering their next move.

* * *

It was midnight in Crossroads one week later, and Jacob had just seen his last customer to the door, locked up behind him, and turned the OPENsign to CLOSED. He paused, watching taillights of the truck as the man drove away. That particular customer stayed until closing every night he was here, not because he liked to drink. He just didn’t have anyone to go home to, and Jacob understood that better than most.

He sighed, then turned around and began going through the bar, straightening up chairs and turning out overhead lights, but always leaving on the nightlights and the neon sign over the bar.

He paused for one last look before digging in his pockets for his house keys, then headed down the hallway separating work from home, thinking about a hot soaking bath as he unlocked the door and stepped across the threshold.

But before he could shut it behind him, he heard running steps on the porch, then breaking glass. And his first thought was,I’m about to be robbed!

He dropped the keys and ran toward the bar where he kept his gun. Panic added speed, but they were already inside. Someone tackled him from behind, and he hit the floor belly first, with the man on top of him.

Then, to his horror, he heard a whisper in his ear. “You should have sold out, old man.”

And that’s all it took. Jacob was down, but he was far from out. He made a quick move that took his assailant off guard, then bucked him off and kicked. He heard the assailant hit the floor cursing, as he kept crawling toward the shelf where the gun was hidden. Then all of a sudden, he heard someone jack a shell into the chamber of a rifle.

He looked over his shoulder, saw the silhouettes of twomen behind him, and then the rifle aimed straight at his chest. He rolled and was reaching for his gun when they fired. He felt a hot, burning pain, and then everything went black.

* * *

Freddie Brandt was hysterical!

“You shot him! You weren’t supposed to shoot. We said we wouldn’t kill no one!” he screamed.

Everett slapped him. “It’s your fault. You weren’t supposed to talk. We were just gonna blindfold him and gag him and do the search, but you had to go and challenge him about not selling up. Even after we were gone, he would have figured out it was us.”