On Tenterhooks by Greever Williams Page B

like.”
     
    “I’m fine, thanks. Did you find anything?”
     
    “Here’s all I got .”
     
    He handed Martin a small, grainy photo print-out . The picture, from the store’s security camera , was of a tall man, dressed in black . A wide -brimmed black hat hid his face from the camera.
     
    Martin tended to loathe extended conversations with Lloyd, the store’s elderly security guard . He had been with the pharmacy for nearly thirty years . He had no close family so he stayed at his post long after he’d reached the end of his useful shelf life as an enforcer of law and order inside the confines of the drugstore. L loyd was more like a tradition than an actual crime deterrent . Years ago, the city had built a new downtown police precinct headquarters less than a block from the pharmacy, so there was rarely a shoplifter to snag . Martin found the idea of Lloyd chasing, let alone apprehending, a criminal ludicrous . But as with any small town, this one had its traditions, so the security guard stayed on, despite his ineptness or obsolescence .
     
    Lloyd had become bored over the years and to combat the tedium of his regular day shifts, he took to chatting up the teenage clerks who covered the front of the store. He was well - versed in their culture and his tales of “the way it used to be before MP3s players and reality shows ” amused the clerks. He regularly adapted himself to their culture, often to a fault, in Martin’s opinion. What Kathie found amusing about the man annoyed Martin to no end.
     
    “Martin,” she would say, “ it’ s easy to get through a conversation with him . Just nod occasionally and have fun counting how many times he says ‘ like ’ or ‘ dude ’ in a single conversation . I am up to a record of 14 in a single five- minute conversation myself.”
    Martin squinted at the photo . “I can’t even see his face.”
     
    “Yeah, sorry. This new playback system we got for the cameras is like, the bomb , dude. I watched the whole night in about eight minutes. There’s no clear shot of him on it. The whole time, his face is covered by that ginormous hat.”
     
    Martin’s brow wrinkled in frustration as he stared at the small print-out . The photo was too grainy for him to be certain . This could be the preacher from his dreams, or it could simply be an uncanny coincidence. The figure in the photo appeared to be dressed as a preacher, and he did look rope thin . But without seeing his face — the bulging eyes, the tall yellowing teeth, Martin couldn’t be sure.
     
    “So you watched the whole night and saw nothing else unusual?” asked Martin.
     
    “Roger that . I mean , like dude, don’t get me wrong now. T here were like the usual crowd of barflies coming in and some punk - ass kids who were getting their jollies off breaking curfew to go to the store and all that . And then sometime near three , your gangly lookin’ friend there came in, wandered a bit and then took off. Didn’t buy nothing. Jimmy said that he was all singing to himself and stuff . Dude was prolly drunk . But naw, none of them went near the counter. ”
     
    “What about the biker guy who came in early this morning?” Martin asked.
     
    “Yeah ... S aw him on there , too . Looks like a dirtbag to me. But I don’t think he was out of camera-shot long enough to get that close to your shop. In fact, I rewound that sucker all the way ‘ til yesterday when you closed up . Once you left, I don’t think nobody even got near the way back of the store all the way ‘til when you opened it back up, dude.”
     
    “What about the counter here?” Martin asked . “Can’t you see that on the tape?”
     
    “No, dude, y ou know that . I've been saying’ it to them forever . We got to have a way to keep an eye on the goods back there,” said Lloyd, gesturing to the shelves of drugs in the pharmacy.
     
    “One day somebody’s gonna get a bright idea to bust in that back window, make off with that junk and