charges? Are you going to sue us?”
Probably not, I decided. I didn’t care what happened to Libbie, South Dakota, and I certainly had no love for Miller and his bounty hunters. Harry was right, though—I wasn’t a guy to take legal action against cops, and that’s what it would eventually amount to, me suing the Libbie Police Department. ’Course, I didn’t want Tracie to know that. At least not while I could use the threat to leverage a meal. I grabbed a menu from behind the napkin dispenser.
“What’s good?” I said.
“Rush was like that. Whenever someone asked a question he didn’t want to answer, he’d change the subject.”
“Did you spend much time with him?”
“Some.”
Tracie glanced casually across the restaurant toward the front door. Of course, she had slept with him. She didn’t need to say it; I could see the words written on her face.
My, my, my , my inner voice chanted. He did get along, didn’t he? If what Miller had said earlier was true, the Imposter had bedded at least three attractive women using my name. I discovered that I was more than a little jealous.
“Tracie, what are you doing here?” I said. “How the hell did you end up in Libbie, South Dakota?”
“You make it sound like a Russian gulag.”
“There are those who’d agree with me.”
“Honestly, McKenzie, this is the only place I’ve been where I’ve felt completely at home, completely relaxed.”
“Mayberry.”
“Hardly that. Still … I don’t know, McKenzie. Either you like small-town life or you don’t. I like it.”
“Were you born here?”
“No, no. My ex-husband was. Christopher Kramme. He was from Libbie. I met him in Chicago. He was taking graduate courses in aeronautical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He wanted to build airplanes. I didn’t discover until much later that he was more passionate about that than he was about me. Oh, well.”
“Were you a student?”
“I was a model. And an actress.”
I knew it , my inner voice said.
“Really?” I said.
“Not a supermodel by any means,” Tracie said. “I can’t complain, though. I worked steady. A lot of advertising work—catalogs, brochures, a lot of weekly supplements for department stores like Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, Value City. Some TV spots, too, some video work, plays. I acted in a couple of small theater productions doing Harvey , Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Announced —I once played Typhoid Mary in A Plague of Angels . They made me look thirty years older than I was. That was sobering. I read somewhere that the average career expectancy for a professional football player is something like four-point-four years. I bet it’s the same for models. Still, it was fun. Not as much money as you’d think, but a good time. People stopping me on Michigan Av and pointing at an outdoor board, my face twenty feet high, and saying, ‘Is that you?’ What a rush.”
Tracie took a long sip from her drink before continuing.
“Anyway, we lived in the same apartment building. At least once a week Christopher would come to my door carrying a pitcher of strawberry margaritas, and we’d sit on my balcony and get pleasantly stoned. Not once did he make a pass. Whenever the evening would start to take a romantic turn, he’d glance at his watch, jump up, and say, ‘Gotta go.’ For the longest time I thought he was gay. Then I discovered he was a member of an entirely different minority group.”
“What’s that?”
“He was a gentleman.”
“Ahh.”
“We finally went out on a real date—I had to ask him—and we just hit it off. He proposed, I accepted, and suddenly I was packing to go to Libbie to meet his parents. Unfortunately, his father died at the same time. Heart attack. He was only sixty-one. They say he was a great guy. They also say that it was the shock of his son settling down that killed him. They were wealthy people, the Krammes, and Christopher took advantage of that. Never held a job.
Probably not, I decided. I didn’t care what happened to Libbie, South Dakota, and I certainly had no love for Miller and his bounty hunters. Harry was right, though—I wasn’t a guy to take legal action against cops, and that’s what it would eventually amount to, me suing the Libbie Police Department. ’Course, I didn’t want Tracie to know that. At least not while I could use the threat to leverage a meal. I grabbed a menu from behind the napkin dispenser.
“What’s good?” I said.
“Rush was like that. Whenever someone asked a question he didn’t want to answer, he’d change the subject.”
“Did you spend much time with him?”
“Some.”
Tracie glanced casually across the restaurant toward the front door. Of course, she had slept with him. She didn’t need to say it; I could see the words written on her face.
My, my, my , my inner voice chanted. He did get along, didn’t he? If what Miller had said earlier was true, the Imposter had bedded at least three attractive women using my name. I discovered that I was more than a little jealous.
“Tracie, what are you doing here?” I said. “How the hell did you end up in Libbie, South Dakota?”
“You make it sound like a Russian gulag.”
“There are those who’d agree with me.”
“Honestly, McKenzie, this is the only place I’ve been where I’ve felt completely at home, completely relaxed.”
“Mayberry.”
“Hardly that. Still … I don’t know, McKenzie. Either you like small-town life or you don’t. I like it.”
“Were you born here?”
“No, no. My ex-husband was. Christopher Kramme. He was from Libbie. I met him in Chicago. He was taking graduate courses in aeronautical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He wanted to build airplanes. I didn’t discover until much later that he was more passionate about that than he was about me. Oh, well.”
“Were you a student?”
“I was a model. And an actress.”
I knew it , my inner voice said.
“Really?” I said.
“Not a supermodel by any means,” Tracie said. “I can’t complain, though. I worked steady. A lot of advertising work—catalogs, brochures, a lot of weekly supplements for department stores like Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, Value City. Some TV spots, too, some video work, plays. I acted in a couple of small theater productions doing Harvey , Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Announced —I once played Typhoid Mary in A Plague of Angels . They made me look thirty years older than I was. That was sobering. I read somewhere that the average career expectancy for a professional football player is something like four-point-four years. I bet it’s the same for models. Still, it was fun. Not as much money as you’d think, but a good time. People stopping me on Michigan Av and pointing at an outdoor board, my face twenty feet high, and saying, ‘Is that you?’ What a rush.”
Tracie took a long sip from her drink before continuing.
“Anyway, we lived in the same apartment building. At least once a week Christopher would come to my door carrying a pitcher of strawberry margaritas, and we’d sit on my balcony and get pleasantly stoned. Not once did he make a pass. Whenever the evening would start to take a romantic turn, he’d glance at his watch, jump up, and say, ‘Gotta go.’ For the longest time I thought he was gay. Then I discovered he was a member of an entirely different minority group.”
“What’s that?”
“He was a gentleman.”
“Ahh.”
“We finally went out on a real date—I had to ask him—and we just hit it off. He proposed, I accepted, and suddenly I was packing to go to Libbie to meet his parents. Unfortunately, his father died at the same time. Heart attack. He was only sixty-one. They say he was a great guy. They also say that it was the shock of his son settling down that killed him. They were wealthy people, the Krammes, and Christopher took advantage of that. Never held a job.
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