Over the sound of an audience alternately chanting ‘Jerry, Jerry’ and ‘Take It Off’, he could just barely make out the sound of a ringtone cutting through the melee.
“Shit, where did I put that frickin’ cell phone?” he cussed as pillows; newspapers and a pizza box flew across the room as he searched.
Grabbing the remote he muted the TV to help in his search. The sound drew him to the bookshelf lining the wall adjacent to the entertainment center. Grasping a volume of the Koran on the upper shelf, he pulled, but the book did not budge instead the entire unit began to pivot away exposing a hidden room. He pulled until the opening into the small inner room was big enough for him to pass through. Inside, a makeshift plywood desk lined one wall with a bar stool as a chair. The pictures he’d taken at Thelma’s still neatly arranged on the rough surface, a ringing cell phone laid nearby. On the wall above the desk he had carefully pinned a map of Georgia with some areas circled in red, and Moody Air Force Base deliberately outlined in blue, with the area directly south of the base crosshatched in green. A single yellow-topped pin was stuck in the map on Cat Creek Road. In the corner of the room sat a backpack that appeared to be full, with the metal buckles covered in black electrical tape.
Picking up the phone he flipped it open and lifted it to his right ear knowing that if he placed it to his left he would not be able to make out the muffled voice of the caller.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he pulled the phone closer to his ear and closed his eyes to help focus his attention on the needed sense.
“What do you mean? I thought it went pretty well. Looked like she was scared shitless in that interview.” Again listening intently as the person on the other end spoke and relayed the message.
“I had expected that, lazy stinkin’ cops!” He paused and listened, then reached for a pencil and notepad sitting on the table.
“Hold on, hold on, I’m getting a pencil, (paused) okay, give it to me.”
He wrote an address on the pad and asked, “Same as before. The information will show up in my mailbox sometime this week?”
A response in the positive came from the other end.
“You want me to be creative? Just how creative are we talking? I told you from the start that there’s just some shit I won’t do regardless of how much you’re paying me.”
The tone and volume of the caller noticeably increased and he pulled the phone away from his good ear.
“I know a stupid photo op is not going to cut it anymore but,” he was cut off with the terse interjection at the other end. He waggled his head back and forth and shook his finger in the air as if mocking the unseen caller.
Rolling his eyes and running his fingers through his unwashed hair he finally replied, “Yeah, Yeah, I get it. You won’t be disappointed. Just watch the news.”
Before he could say goodbye there was an audible click at the other end. “Well, that was rude,” he said aloud.
Looking back at the notepad he read aloud, “412 Big Buck Circle,” and drew a dark line around it. Flipping back a page he found the list he had prepared earlier and across the bottom he added:
Trip to library!!!
Then he underlined it twice with bold, menacing strokes of the pencil, breaking the tip of the pencil off with the last exclamation point.