“YOU SAID A…zzttzztt AND…zzttzztt…TOTAL COMES…zzttzztt…WINDOW.”
Just as I was pulling away from the speaker, I noticed a display mounted underneath. It read WHOPPER, SWEET TEA, $3.87. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d had trouble with the audio system. Funny, I thought. Instead of fixing the microphone and the speaker, they’d installed a whole ’nother gadget. I fished my wallet out of my hip pocket and extracted a five-dollar bill as I eased around the building to the drive-up window.
I waited several minutes, but the window remained tightly closed. I gave a quick tap on the horn. Still no response. Behind me another horn blared, louder and longer than my polite little toot. I checked the mirror and saw two more vehicles idling behind Cash’s car. Now both of them blasted their horns at me. Frustrated, I decided to forego the Whopper, and gunned the gas. Suddenly an arm emerged from a window—a second drive-up window, which I hadn’t noticed—and waved frantically. I nearly clipped the hand with my outside mirror.
A pleasant young woman, probably a UT student, opened the window and smiled. “I was about to send out a search party for you,” she said brightly. “Your order comes to three eighty-seven.” I held out the five. She made change, then handed me a white paper bag and a heavy cup. “Enjoy your meal,” she said.
“THANK…zztt…MUH,” I said, delivering my best imitation of the faulty loudspeaker.
She looked startled, maybe even alarmed. The window snapped shut.
I’d meant to save the Whopper until Cash and I got to the Ag farm, but the smell of charbroiled beef came floating up out of the bag, almost like one of those beckoning fingers of aroma in an old cartoon. I held out as long as I could, which wasn’t long—just long enough to get from the Strip back to Neyland Drive. Steering with my left knee along Neyland’s slight curves, I fished out the burger and unfolded the wrapper to expose half the sandwich. My mouth was watering, despite what Jeff had told me about the carcinogenic chemistry of flame broiling—or maybe because of what Jeff had told me. Did knowing that the Whopper had a dark side beneath those grill marks make it more appealing? I’d never been particularly attracted by the idea of illicit sex, but I knew that some people were, and I wondered if this was anything like their experience. Maybe this, I thought, taking a greedy breath, is the sweet smell of forbidden fruit. Brockton, you are one reckless daredevil. The truck swerved as my knee slipped, and I made a quick grab for the wheel with my right hand. See? Once I was tracking straight again, I hoisted the burger with my left hand and bit down. “Mmm-mmm,” I moaned, as a symphonic chord of hot grease, smoky beef, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickle, onion, and carcinogens crescendoed in my mouth.
Chewing contentedly, I led Cash up the ramp onto James White Parkway, down the ramp to Riverside Drive, and then along Riverside to the Ag farm above the river confluence. As we passed the barn and the equipment shed, I noticed that the water truck’s windshield had been replaced but the deep dent in the hood remained. Then again, the fenders were rusting and the silver paint was peeling off the water tank, so I didn’t feel too bad. Besides, I’d done some serious groveling to the farm’s employees–and underscored the apology with a couple of cases of beer.
Cash and I bumped along a pair of ruts to an unburned part of the pasture and pulled to a stop beside Jason Story. Jason was reclining in a folding camp chair, the geometric, NASA-looking kind, with a footrest and drink holders and probably a mini-fridge and a television set tucked away somewhere. He was slouched, a floppy hat pulled low over his eyes, his chin practically on his chest, and when I saw him, I thought, Oh, Lord, he’s fallen asleep. But then I saw his right index finger twitch, and he raised a handheld electronic display from his lap to his face. His left hand came off the armrest and gripped the top of a large fire extinguisher standing in the grass beside him.
Jason barely glanced in our direction when we got out of our vehicles and slammed the doors. His attention alternated between the electronic display in his hand and the 2006 Lexus SUV that idled in the grass ten feet in front of him.
“Jason, this is Darren Cash,” I said, “an investigator with the Knox County D.A.’s Office. Darren, Jason Story.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jason,” said Cash.
“You, too,” Jason said, not making a move. “Sorry if I seem rude. I need to keep a pretty close eye on this thermocouple monitor.” I was just about to ask Jason what the readout was saying when a series of earsplitting beeps came from beneath the car.