Chump Change by G. M. Ford Page A

driving,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t have to show you anything.”
    Keith cleared his throat and began a serious investigation of the headliner.
    The result was predictable. Deputy Dog here desperately wanted to go all Mississippi 1963 on me. The old splay me out over the hood of the Blazer and call me “boy” kind of thing. I was betting there was a bullwhip somewhere in this moron’s morbid little power fantasy.
    Fortunately for both of us, he was smarter than he looked. The world wasn’t like that anymore, and Deputy Rockland Moon was smart enough to know it. He was probably just tech-savvy enough to know that gaps in the dash cam footage were damned hard to explain, no matter how far out in the friggin woods you lived. Besides, for all he knew, those damn Asotin County techies were saving it all up there in The Cloud someplace. Whatever the hell that was.
    Having failed to intimidate me, he immediately abandoned Mr. Smarmy in favor of Sergeant Sullen. He unceremoniously flipped my paperwork into my lap, and stood by the car window, with his feet spread wide and his fingers laced together in front of his fly, as if he was holding himself up by the balls.
    I ignored the looming presence of his crotch, and took my sweet-ass time putting everything back where it came from, folding the paperwork perfectly and patting it back into place with great care. When I finally looked his way again, he was giving me the hayseed, Grant Wood version of the evil eye.
    “I’ll remember you,” he said, and then stalked off in slow motion.
    He punished us by futzing with his radio knobs and seat belt for a full minute and a half before finally backing his car out of the way at something akin to the speed of lava. He followed us, half a block behind, all the way down the mountain, through the center of Clarkston, and across the Main Street Bridge into Lewiston, Idaho.
    I checked the mirror at the second Idaho traffic light, and he was gone.

     
    Ranching and pulp mill work started early. Not that I had any personal experience with such earthy pursuits, but it was six-fifteen in the morning and the Chat ’n’ Chew Cafe was packed to the rafters. Keith and I had to wait ten minutes before a table opened up and another five or so before the waitress showed up with the menus and ice water.
    She was about my age. Good-looking. Sturdy and freckled. One of those country women who looked like she could haul your ashes in the morning and then plow the back forty that same afternoon. She had a thick head of wavy hair that looked like it had once been ginger-colored, which I thought seemed just about right for her freckles and fair complexion. Looked good on her, anyway.
    “You boys know what you want?” she asked.
    “Something big,” I said with a smile.
    “The Big Valley Breakfast,” she said. “Three eggs any way you want em, home fries, three strips of bacon, three sausage links, biscuits and gravy.” She waved her pencil. “Guaranteed to get you through the morning.” She grinned.
    “Sounds great.”
    “Coffee?”
    “A gallon or so of the leaded.”
    She laughed and turned to Keith.
    Keith . . . well, the kid spent the next five minutes wanting to know what was in everything on the menu. How many calories was it? How many grams of fat? Was it gluten free? Locally sourced? If it involved chickens, had they been well treated as pullets? It went on and on. She was remarkably patient with him, considering how busy the joint was. Eventually he settled on three of those little restaurant boxes of Kellogg’s shredded wheat and some no-fat milk. Yeah . . . and of course, hot chocolate.
    I watched as she stuck our order up in the window with about a hundred others and then hurried toward the back of the house.
    “What’s with you and that cop?” Keith asked.
    “He rubbed me the wrong way.”
    “Man . . . I thought we were going to get arrested.”
    “If I’d let him go through the car, he’d have found the firearms