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Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll
MaineWriter:
--- Quote from: mariez on January 06, 2007, 04:08:02 pm ---Are Drakes produced all over the country or mostly on the East Coast? I've heard of them, but I think Hostess is more predominate in the midwest. Hostess also made (or makes) a chocolate hot-dog shaped cream in the center thing - but I can't for the life of me remember what they're called.
--- End quote ---
Well, except for a two year exile to Chicago, I have spent my entire life on the east coast, so I wouldn't know if Drake's Cakes are an eastern-only thing or not. LOL. And yes, Marie, I too seem to have lost my taste for Ring Dings and Devil Dogs and all the rest...but I remember them fondly!
L
MaineWriter:
Hello re-readers...
Happy Sunday to all of you. Today we have chapters 61-65:
http://louisev.livejournal.com/43888.html
From chapter 61:
“I don’t think I’m gonna be losin too much money on it, but maybe just in case something surfaces on this… I fired Wayne for allowin men ta pay for favors in the Gents.”
“You witness this yerself?” Wes’s voice grew sharp.
“Nope. Lauren told me about it.”
“Then you fired em an it is the right thing, but make sure yer bouncers keep a lookout. We don’t need no scandals.”
“Yessir.”
Wes smiled sidelong at him. “Yer getting better at that. I’m glad Ennis is a positive influence.”
Ellery snorted.
“Maybe you just ain’t aware of it. Times past if I had taken you off an undercover assignment like I did this week you woulda been spittin fire at me for days and never let up until I reconsidered. This time I got a few poison looks an then it was over. Got ta say, that’s right mature a you, Ellery.”
“Thank you. I got other priorities ya know. I got ta think of Ennis now, an he is scared shitless a me endin up with a crescent wrench in my skull an I can’t blame him. Whatever Justin Worrell is, he just gets in deeper an deeper. I got no idea what his whole story is but he has got ta be up to no good usin separate aliases for ownin property an credit cards an –“
Wes pulled up in the Sheriff’s spot in front of the station and shut off the truck.
L
MaineWriter:
From Chapter 62....interesting to read this in tandem with "A Small Circle of Friends"
“Ennis,” Edna said, her voice soft, and he turned, hand on the doorknob.
“Whassat ma’am?”
She smiled. “You know you can call me Edna.”
“Sure.”
“Are you ashamed ta be livin with a man that you don’t want ta tell anyone?”
His face turned bright red. “Not… not ashamed exactly. Just – it ain’t any a his business.”
“Wes an I know that you and Ellery are living together as partners, Ennis. Does it upset you that we know?”
“I dunno.” He struggled to look up to meet her eyes.
“I want you to know it doesn’t trouble us a bit. Wes and I love Ellery very much, an we are both pleased ta death that he has found a good man and isn’t a lonely ghost like he was for such a long time. Do you want to know what Ellery was like before you showed up?”
Ennis’s blush faded slightly, and he moved away from the door, lured toward her gentle comments, her obvious caring for Ellery – and for him. “Yeah I guess I do.”
“Sit down here Ennis.” She patted the surface of the table and sat, setting a large casserole dish next to her with a little click. “Ellery is a very serious detective, Ennis. Wes used to have some really bad fights with him about workin too late at the office an doin too many cases and not having a life of his own. This was after things went all awry with Bill.”
“You knew about Bill too?”
She nodded quietly, her face a firm line. “Neither Wes nor I was happy about Bill from the get go. Call it a feelin, but we had him come by for dinner an all that and took one look at him and knew that he was not good for Ellery.”
“You talk like you an Wes are his momma and daddy, Edna…” Ennis said softly.
“That’s how we look at it, Ennis. An since you are the man in his life it makes you family too, above an beyond yer workin here at the ranch. Yer a good man with a good heart, an Ellery is doin a whole lot better, despite all of this foolishness with Bill. Let me ask you, did Ellery ever mention his mother to you?”
He shook his head. That had crossed his mind more than once, but though Ellery had mentioned his father, he never once said anything about his mother. “Can’t say as he ever has.”
“Not surprised. Ellery was only a little kid then, livin on the Cantrell ranch back before his daddy sold it. His momma got sick when he was a little boy, one a those years when the flu was really bad."
“Maybe 51, I remember that one.”
“That mighta been it. So many people sick they didn’t have hospital beds for all of em. She was pregnant, and she got sick, then his daddy got sick, but she got complications, lost the baby and then died a week later. He has always been sort of a loner, and when his daddy died before he even got ta college, it just made it that much worse.”
“Jesus, didn’t know all a that. He never says nothin about it. I lost both my parents when I was 12, they was in a car accident.”
“That is what you two have in common,” she said, nodding sadly. “Yer both lackin a good bit a motherin I think. We want you an Ellery ta feel comfortable in our home Ennis. We ain’t like those stuck up people you see don’t believe men can love each other like a man an a woman can… I think that’s just silly. We’re all human beings.”
“I think so too Edna, an I appreciate it.”
“Don’t be ashamed about lovin em, Ennis. It’s just as beautiful as any other love relationship.”
“Yes ma’am.” His face was flushed with unexpressed emotions.
L
MaineWriter:
Chapter 63:
“Shit, Ennis you know yer birds.”
Ennis laughed softly, a sound that eased Ellery’s anxiety. “Ya know, sometimes, when I think about things like… some freak stalkin queer men an hittin em over the head like that Worrell fellah, all I can think of ta do is ta go out on a horse an ride into the woods, up in the high country, an build a fire, listen to the birds singin an watch em feed… things that are natural, like it’s intended, instead of all twisted an crazy. An it calms me down.” He turned, his eyes still glazed, but not as deeply as before, when he was sitting at the kitchen table. “Ya know what I’d really like ta do?”
“Whassat sweetheart?”
“Go campin. Don’t have ta be in the middle a nowhere, but somewhere quiet, with just the trees an the mountains an the birds an squirrels an stuff… where there ain’t no people around ta fuck everything up.”
“You mean by yerself?”
“No, I mean just us two. Away from all a this… insane shit. Didn’t realize it till I came down from Brokeback last week… how much I miss it… just bein out in the middle a nowhere.”
“I’ll go with ya. Might have ta tote something fer me ta lie on so I don’t end up like a pretzel, but we could do it.”
Ennis’s still face quirked into a soft smile. “You wouldn’t mind? We’d have ta bring our own biscuits cause no ovens out there.”
L
MaineWriter:
And more from Chapter 63:
Ennis was shaking his head, however. “Yeah, we do. This is the man Jack went ta see…. An he killed someone else the year before…”
“He might be a stalker a queer men, Ennis… an pokin into this … your tellin me ta poke into it an providin that information, has led to enough evidence to arrest em.”
“Yeah. Except… I thought it was all in my head, Ellery…” his voice faded then, and he pushed his plate aside, putting his head down in his hands against the surface of the table. Ellery got up again and put a long hand gently on the back of his neck, stroking the soft curls at his nape, trying to soothe him.
“An now it turns out ta be real.”
“I didn’t want it to be. I wanted it to be some stupid freak accident an no one meant em any harm…”
“Sweetheart, Ennis, it means somethin else too.”
Ennis looked up, his eyes searching.
“It means there was a killer out there who probably lured em to his death, and not some careless act a his. If there is a killer loose an he gets a man in his sights, there probably wasn’t a damn thing he coulda done about it, just like there probably wasn’t nothing those other men coulda done about it either. Just because a man goes to a queer bar doesn’t put him automatically in danger, as the dozens of patrons of the Red Stallion can gladly attest to. But if someone is stalkin…”
“Then there wasn’t nothin he coulda done…”
“Outside a not bein there. But that’s like standin in the wrong place when lightning strikes, Ennis. You can’t ever predict something like that.”
Ennis straightened up in the chair, and Ellery was surprised to see his eyes were dry, his face still. “I understand,” he said quietly.
L
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