Longboat Blues by H. Terrell Griffin

Author:H. Terrell Griffin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781468519549
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2005-09-13T07:00:00+00:00

We drove out of town on the main highway, which meandered southeast until it ran into U.S. 19. We turned into the dirt driveway of something called the James Motel. There were four separate tin roofed concrete block buildings, each of which held two rooms. The paint was peeling from the red doors of each room. A fifth building, with a sign in front announcing it to be the office, appeared to be the living quarters of whomever ran the operation. A rural mail box and a round newspaper box with a faded Tallahassee Democrat painted on its sides were attached to posts in front of the office. .

The sheriff said, “James’ mother owns this dump. She used to make a small living out of it, but I doubt she’s had an overnight guest in years. She had a stroke about five years ago, and John pretty much takes care of her and the place. He lives out back in a trailer. Once in a while, some politician from Tallahassee will drive down with his secretary and rent a room for a couple of hours. That’s about all.”

“How does he make a living?” I asked.

“He worked at the local Ford dealer’s body shop until it went out of business. Now he teaches body work in the shop at the high school and runs the motel.”

Behind the main building was an extra long mobile home set up on stacked concrete blocks. It was painted in alternating horizontal stripes of orange, white and brown. Each stripe was about two feet wide. There was a set of handmade wooden steps leading to the front door. There were gracious old oak trees surrounding the place, but grass only sparsely covered the ground.

We parked in the yard and got out of the car. The door to the trailer home opened to reveal a man wearing a sleeveless undershirt, khaki trousers and a pair of white socks without shoes. He had a beer belly, sparse brown hair going to gray, and a face that had lost its teenage bout with acne.

“Hello, John,” said the sheriff. “We need to talk to you about an airplane.”

“Hidy, Sheriff,” said James. “Don’t know much ‘bout planes. I ain’t never had to fix one.”

“We want to talk about the one you bought, John,” said the sheriff.

“You got to be kiddin’, Sheriff. I hardly got the money to pay the light bill this month. Florida Power’s already threatened to shut it off. ‘Sides, what would I do with an airplane anyway?”

“John, this is Mr. Royal. He’s a lawyer from Longboat Key. We have good evidence that you put up a million dollars for Rundel Enterprises to buy an airplane. You can tell us what you know about this, or I can get an affidavit from a lawyer in Sarasota named Jones and come back and arrest you. I don’t think you really want to screw around with me.”

“Now Sheriff, you know damn well I ain’t never had a million dollars, or anything close to it.

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