The Ghost of Tobacco Road Read online

  After firing up his grill Logan went inside and took a shower while the coals burned down. He put on an old pair of jeans and his favorite T-shirt and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, put his potato in the microwave and then went outside to grill his steak. The night was warm and he could smell the salt air from the nearby Atlantic Ocean mingling with the smoke from the grill. Just over the treetops, Logan could see the yellow glow from the port lights. The ships came and left at all hours of the day and night and Logan could hear the low rumble of the huge cargo cranes unloading the containers.

  As Logan grilled his steak he thought to himself again that things could be worse, and had been worse more than he cared to remember. Just as he flipped his steak, he heard the metallic clink of a Zippo cigarette lighter.

  “Evening neighbor,” said a voice in the darkness.

  Logan looked to his right and saw an orange pinprick of light flare in the darkness about shoulder height off of the ground. He knew the voice immediately. It was his neighbor Lowell.

  “Hey Lowell, didn’t know you were home,” Logan said as he replaced the dome-shaped cover on his grill. The coals were just right and the steak was coming along nicely.

  “Yeah, pulled in this morning from a six-month cruise. Cape Town, over to Sao Paulo and then home. The old lady is inside recovering, if you catch my meaning.” Lowell then took a long pull on his cigarette causing the orange tip to glow bright enough for Logan to see part of his face.

  “Come on over,” Logan said. “Have a beer.”

  Lowell left the small concrete patio at the foot of the backdoor to his trailer and walked through the darkness over to where Logan was standing. Logan went inside and grabbed the rest of his six-pack from the refrigerator. He had promised himself earlier that after two shots of whiskey in his office that he would only have one beer with his steak. But now all bets were off. He had company, and when men had company they always drank beer. Logan knew he was making excuses but decided that cutting down on his alcohol could be put off until tomorrow.

  He returned to his patio and handed Lowell a can of beer, then he placed the rest of the six-pack on the small plastic table next to the grill. Lowell popped the top on the beer, took a long pull from the can and then chased it with a drag on his cigarette.

  “It was a good cruise. Same old, same old. That was my third time on that route. I’m ready for something new. I’m ready to go past Cape Town and see what’s on the other side of Africa. I still haven’t seen the Indian Ocean yet.”

  “And you call yourself a sailor,” Logan replied as he grinned and removed the cover on his grill to flip his steak.

  Lowell laughed and took another sip of beer. “Yep, I’m a sailor alright. Yo ho and a bottle of rum and all that shit.” Lowell then took the last drag on his cigarette before dropping it to his feet and stepping on the butt.

  He knew Lowell liked sailing with the merchant marine. He knew part of what Lowell liked was the travel and the other part was that it was basically a six month on, six month off kind of job. Now that Lowell had returned from his cruise he could lie around his trailer and relax for the next six months without having to work.

  “Steak?” Lowell said as he watched Logan flip the piece of meat on the grill. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I sold a car today. First one in almost a month. I was getting worried. You know how Charlie is about the rent. He was beginning to nag about it.”

  “Fuckin’ landlords,” Lowell replied as he took a swig of beer. Then he looked over his shoulder at Logan’s trailer, the yellow bug light illuminating the rickety stairs that led up to the backdoor.

  “Still all by yourself, man?” Lowell didn’t want to dig, but he and Logan had been neighbors for a while. He considered Logan his friend.

  Logan tapped the leg of the grill with the side of his foot before looking at the backdoor of his trailer.

  “Yeah, all by my lonesome. She ain’t comin’ back. Can’t say as I blame her.” Logan felt ashamed of himself. He was angry at his wife for leaving him for another man, but deep down inside, just like he had told Lowell, he didn’t really blame her. After all, who wants to be married to a used car salesman that lives in a trailer park and can barely buy groceries?

  “Fuck her,” Lowell replied.

  “I used to on a regular basis. Now someone else is fucking her in a big fancy house.” Logan laughed half-heartedly at his joke. Lowell only grunted and took another sip of beer.

  Just then Lowell’s wife opened the backdoor of their trailer and motioned to him with her hand. Lowell turned and smiled at Logan.

  “I think she’s ready for round three. Thanks for the beer, brother.” Lowell then raised his beer can to Logan and walked off towards his trailer and his waiting wife.

  Logan smiled and shook his head. Then he removed his steak from the grill and put it on his plate, picked up the beer from the plastic table and went inside. He took his potato from the microwave, fixed it up and then sat down in front of the TV to eat. He thought about Lowell and his wife and what they were probably doing at that very moment and felt a pang of loneliness lance his gut. He knew the cure for that was to finish off the six-pack along with his steak. He was alone tonight, but maybe if he sold just one more car this week or next, he could give Sexy Sarah a call. Her cure for loneliness worked even better than beer or whiskey.

  He passed out an hour later on his cheap naugahide sofa. He awoke in the morning with the familiar headache that he always woke up with after a night of drinking. It was like a nail being driven into his forehead. His breakfast was hair of the dog, as usual, and after an hour or so and a hot shower he was ready to go to his car lot. Today was a new day and maybe he would get lucky again and sell another car. Logan knew there was a fool born every minute, and maybe another one of them would wander onto his lot before the day’s end.

  3

  Logan pulled onto his car lot and was more than a little surprised to see an older gentleman peering through the window of the lone pickup truck that he had for sale.

  “Holy shit,” Logan mumbled to himself as he brought his car to a stop near the door to his office. “There’s no way I can be this lucky.”

  He tried to comb his hair in his rearview mirror using his fingers in a futile attempt to neaten his appearance. Then he reached for the pack of gum in his console. Despite brushing his teeth he knew the beer was still on his breath and he didn’t want it to cause him to lose this sale, if there was going to be a sale. Once he had himself together he stepped out of his car. The morning was cloudy and he could feel random raindrops hitting his arms as he walked towards the gentleman looking at the pickup truck.

  The man looking at the pickup truck spoke before Logan could even introduce himself. There was an authoritative tone in his voice.

  “Good morning,” the man said as Logan approached the truck. “The name’s Bill. I need a work truck, don’t give a shit if it runs good or not because I know how to work on an engine, and I’ve already blue booked this truck on my cellphone. So we can skip the sales pitch. What would you take for it?”

  Logan could not believe his luck. He didn’t have much in the truck. It had been part of deal he had made to trade several cars with a buddy of his in Lumberton who also owned a car lot.

  “I’ll knock a hundred off the blue book value because you said you need a work truck. I like to help the workin’ man get the job done. We can step inside out of this rain if you’d like, or if you’d like to take it for a test drive I can go get the key.”

  “Five hundred off the blue book and we can skip the test drive. Like I said, I know how to work on an engine.” The man then gave Logan a look that signaled he was finished negotiating.

  He quickly did the math in his head. Five hundred off the blue book would still give him a profit.

  “You drive a hard bargain but you’ve got yourself a deal.” Logan rubbed his chin. “Let’s go inside and sign the paperwork.”

  Thirty minutes later Logan
was sitting behind his desk staring at the stack of hundred dollar bills. He loved when people paid in cash. He turned and looked through the window at the empty spot where the pickup truck had been parked and once again could not believe his luck. He had not sold a car two days in a row in, well, never. The red Toyota would pay his bills for the next month, and now his profit on the old truck could be spending money. Hell, he might even buy himself another steak. Maybe he’d buy three and invite Lowell and his wife over for dinner. And then there was Sexy Sarah. Maybe he’d give her a call later.

  He grinned at the thought of calling Sexy Sarah. He leaned back in his desk chair and put his feet up on the desk. Then his eyes wandered to the drawer that contained the bottle of whiskey. No, he told himself. He was not going to open that drawer. He felt his mouth begin to water at the thought of having a shot but he knew he had to be strong. He knew the drinking had to stop.

  Logan milled around his office for the rest of the morning. He made a few phone calls to some of the repo guys he knew and to several of the banks that he did business with. With the economy in the tank there was no shortage of repossessed cars to choose from. After lining up several cars to go check out, Logan locked up his office. He planned to go look at the cars and then get some lunch on the way back. He didn’t worry about missing any business on his own lot. He had already sold the truck and he had never, in his entire time as a used car salesman had this good of a week.

  He returned to his office with his lunch from a burger joint down the road from his lot. His attempts to make a deal on several of the cars had fallen flat. How did they expect him to make a profit if they wouldn’t come down on the price? Logan turned on the small TV next to his desk and enjoyed his lunch. To hell with them anyway, he thought to himself as he bit into his burger. He didn’t need their overpriced junk. He had plenty of that already sitting on his lot.

  ***

  The mail was delivered around three o’clock that afternoon. Logan waved at the cute girl driving the mail Jeep and immediately felt pity for her. He had a high school friend named Gavin that had gone on to work for the Post Office as a letter carrier after graduation and had been miserable ever since. In fact, Logan could not ever recall knowing anyone that hated their job more than his friend Gavin did. The guy was truly miserable.

  Logan walked out to the small mailbox by the entrance to his lot and retrieved his mail. He watched as the cute girl in the mail Jeep drove away and then had a thought about how nice it would be to nail her in her Jeep surrounded by everyone’s mail. She had been his carrier now for a little over month and Logan didn’t know if she was so friendly towards him because she was new on the job, or if it was because she liked him. He quickly convinced himself she was just being nice as part of the job. What would a pretty girl like her want with a guy like him anyway?

  He flipped through the letters as he walked slowly back to his office. There were three letters from attorneys and the rest was junk mail. When he got back to his desk he threw the junk mail in the trash and tossed the other letters on his desk. He would get to them soon enough. Getting letters from the law offices of this guy or that guy was common for Logan. Most of the time he just ignored the letters until the lawyers got frustrated enough to start calling on the phone.

  Logan poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped on it while he stood by the window and surveyed his lot. Two cars in two days… If business was this good all the time he wouldn’t have to live in a trailer and eat bologna sandwiches or microwave pizza. Logan thought about the steak from last night. He could have one of those every week if business stayed like this. But Logan knew from experience that it wouldn’t.

  Once back at his desk, Logan picked up the three letters from the law offices. He recognized two of them and tossed them aside immediately. He knew what the letters were going to say, but the two people suing him had no legal recourse whatsoever. His cars were always sold “as is” with no warranty either expressed or implied. What part of “buyer beware” did these people not understand?

  He read the return address on the third letter and almost tossed it aside out of reflex. But something in the return address caught his eye. The letter was from a law office in the town of Starlight, NC. Logan had lived in North Carolina his entire life but had never heard of a town named Starlight.

  Logan held the letter up in front of his face and read the return address again. The name of the law office was Blackwell and Burns and they were located on 104 Magnolia Avenue in the town of Starlight, NC. Logan frowned as he read the complete address again. Why would a law office in a town he had never heard of be sending him a letter? All of his customers were from the Wilmington area and he didn’t ever remember doing paperwork on a car with a customer from a town called Starlight. What the hell kind of name for a town was that anyway?

  He dropped the letter on his desk and leaned back in his chair. Just what I need, he thought to himself. Now some out-of-town legal eagle was after him for a pound of flesh. And if it wasn’t over a car, what could they be after? Maybe they wanted his shitty old trailer. Logan knew lawyers made a living by taking one-third of whatever they won in court so if they wanted one-third of his shithole trailer then they could have it. And his car lot wasn’t worth much more. He was in hock for most of the cars he had for sale and by the time the bank repossessed all of them there wouldn’t be enough left over to buy lunch, much less make it worth a lawyer’s time to sue him. Logan ran his hands through his hair and let out a long sigh. Then he glanced at his whiskey drawer. Just one shot, he mumbled as he opened the drawer.

  The shot of whiskey was good but Logan knew there was a better way to deal with this situation. He moved the envelopes and several pieces of paper aside until he found the cell phone number he was looking for. He had written it on his desk calendar. The calendar had expired several years ago but Logan knew the phone number was still good. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. A woman answered after three rings.

  “Can I speak to Sarah, please?”

  “Hey Logan, it’s good to hear from you. How’s business?” Sarah replied, cutting Logan off.

  Logan smiled. He knew that Sexy Sarah knew the answer to the question. She knew he wouldn’t be calling her if business was bad, which it usually was.

  “Business is great, or at least it has been for the last two days. I moved two vehicles, a car and a truck. Made some coin on both. Enough to pay the rent for a month and buy myself a piece of shoe leather and a potato.”

  “Still eating alone?” Sarah said with a hint of playfulness in her voice.

  “Well, there was Lowell, my neighbor. But he didn’t eat with me. We just had a beer. He just got back from Cape something, Cape… Town or some shit like that.”

  He was stalling. He knew what he wanted, and he knew that Sexy Sarah knew what he wanted. It was her business to know what he wanted, and she was very good at her business. Finally he worked up the nerve to ask. He chided himself for being shy about it but it still bothered him that this is what his life had degenerated to. But he knew Sarah was special, and that there was a method to her madness. She had a plan and Logan knew that he was helping her with her plan while getting a little something out of it for himself.

  “I’m locking up at eight tonight. Why don’t you come by.”

  “I think I can accommodate that request, Mr. Shaw. Anything else?”

  “Wear the black one. Match it to your stockings.”

  “Yes sir. Eight o’clock it is. See you then.”

  With that the phone line went dead. Logan placed the receiver on the base and leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. It had been a while since he had made enough extra cash to give Sexy Sarah a call. He knew he should probably save his money because he would most likely not sell another car for the rest of the month, but it was either her or the whiskey bottle. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out which one was the better choice.

  The rest of the day passed slowly for Logan. Around a quarter to eigh
t he walked over and flipped the switch on the OPEN sign in the window next to the front door, extinguishing its yellow neon glow. Then he drew the shades and turned off all of the lights except for one small lamp sitting on a table in the corner of the office. He wanted just enough light to be able to see what Sarah would be wearing. He took three one hundred dollar bills out of his desk drawer and laid them on his calendar where Sarah would see them. He knew she was worth every penny.

  Right on time, Sarah drove up in the BMW he had sold her six months ago. He watched through the blinds as she stepped out of the car. She was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse and looked very business-like. Logan realized she would look right at home in any corporate boardroom. But he was not surprised. He knew Sarah was no bottom-dollar streetwalker. She was both classy and sexy, and any man that would cheat on her for another woman had to qualify and the dumbest man on the planet as far as Logan was concerned.

  Logan knew Sarah would come in without knocking so he walked over and sat down in his desk chair. He knew Sarah would walk right in and lock the door behind her. She knew the routine.

  “Well hey there, car man.” Sarah closed the door behind her. Just as Logan had suspected he heard the deadbolt click after Sarah closed the door.

  “You look like a million dollars of tax-free money,” Logan said as Sarah walked across the small office before finally stopping beside his desk. Logan rotated his chair to face her as a smile worked its way onto his face. Hell yes this was going to be better than a damn bottle of whiskey. A whole lot better.

  Sarah didn’t say a word. She walked behind Logan’s chair and put her hands on his shoulders. He closed his eyes and exhaled as she slowly began to give him a massage. Then she moved her hands down his chest and began to unbutton his shirt while kissing the side of his neck. He knew that the most expensive bottle of whiskey in the world could not compare to the touch of Sexy Sarah.