Coconut Cowboy Read Online Free Page A

stuck a key in the knob.
    â€œCome on, Coleman . . .”
    They dragged their quarry to the rear of the car.
    The woman turned around before closing the door. “You’re putting him in your trunk?”
    Serge grabbed a pair of ankles. “We don’t have one of those police cars with the cage separating the backseat, but I’ve been doing this for years. Have a nice evening.” The trunk lid slammed shut. “Everything’s back to normal.”

 
    Chapter THREE
    DINNER
    P eter and Mary Pugliese walked arm in arm along Main Street. It was a shaded street. A single traffic light blinked. A striped barber pole rotated. Potter’s Drugs still had Old Man Potter counting pills. There were portable drills in the window of the hardware store, along with a sign saying the local post office counter was in back by the penny nails, but everyone already knew that. A crimson caboose stood in the courtyard of the Railroad Hotel.
    Mary stopped to stare in a window. “They have antique shops. There’s a gumball machine.” She squeezed her husband’s arm. “I already love this town.”
    Across the street, sandwiched between a paint store and a locksmith, was an old red wooden building with a steep roof. V OLUNTEER F IRE D EPAR TMENT, E ST. 1901 .
    â€œCheck out the vintage engine,” said Peter. “All that’s missing is a spotted dog.”
    â€œThey still use something that old?” asked Mary.
    â€œNo, it must be a museum now, to go with the antique stores for the tourists,” said her husband. “Doubt that thing even runs.”
    Suddenly there was a siren and flashing red lights. A locksmith and a paint salesman flew out their doors. Someone else with shaving cream on his face ran from the barbershop. The men piled in the quaint engine. The siren seemed to be laboring for volume, because it was the original model that worked on a hand crank. A dalmatian jumped aboard. They took off into the countryside.
    â€œThat answers that,” said Mary.
    They continued to the corner and Shorty’s Garage. A “Closed” sign in the window, next to a display of fan belts and wiper blades for all occasions. The building sat amid a sea of non-­running vehicles that Shorty had promised he would “get to.”
    â€œLook.” Peter gestured up the block.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œThat dirty old neon sign sticking out from the building.”
    â€œThe black one with flickering orange tubes?” said Mary. “ Lead Belly’s ?”
    â€œSo it’s a barbecue joint.”
    â€œYou’ve heard of it?”
    â€œI’ll tell you over dinner.” Peter picked up the pace. “I haven’t had good barbecue in like forever!”
    The front of the ramshackle restaurant featured weathered wooden shingles, with narrow horizontal slits for windows. The ­couple entered to the loud gong of a brass bell over the door. “Did we do that?”
    â€œI can’t see anything.” Peter stopped to prevent tripping as his eyes adjusted. “It’s so dark.”
    â€œThe only light is more orange neon,” said Mary. “There’s a fiddle player somewhere.”
    â€œPeter!”
    â€œIs someone calling you?”
    â€œWe just moved here.”
    His name was shouted again.
    â€œI think someone is,” said Mary.
    Her husband squinted through kitchen smoke at a table in back by the restrooms. Actually it was three tables pushed together, each a sturdy maple square with a half inch of slick lacquer to fight the wear and tear for which the barbecue community is known. There were two pitchers of sweetened iced tea, a basket of biscuits, hand wipes, and racks of giant ribs surrounded by eight men of uncannily similar appearance.
    Peter noticed a familiar person in overalls at the head of the table, waving. “Peter!”
    â€œI know him,” he told his wife.
    â€œWhere from?” asked