The Last Annual Slugfest Read Free Page A

doesn’t say is ‘Let me give you what they would have paid you, Bert.’ No ma’am, I don’t hear those words from her. You know her?” he demanded, looking directly at me for the first time.
    “Not well.”
    “Save yourself the pleasure. Particularly if you’re thinking of some kind of business arrangement. Once that woman’s got a dime, it never leaves her hands.”
    “Why did you let her have the lodge?”
    But Bert Lucci was too well launched in his monologue to be deflected. “So, once I agreed, then all of a sudden, it’s not good enough. Now I ask you, is she planning to have the Queen of England here? Is she thinking of bringing her good family china and putting on a formal dinner? No. This is the Slugfest my lodge isn’t good enough for. I had a janitorial service out here for three days. And you know who had to pay for that. They spent an entire day on the bathroom alone.”
    I pressed my lips together to forestall a laugh. I knew what shape the bathroom had been in. “She went to a lot of trouble to bring the Slugfest here,” I said, trying to steer Bert Lucci back to my interest.
    “Spent too much time in that cigar store. Last thing that woman needs is nicotine to speed her up. What she needs is a harness to keep her out of the way of normal people.”
    I laughed. “I heard you rather liked Edwina when you two were younger,” I said.
    “Like! A day with that woman is what convinced me to live here in the woods.”
    “If she’s such a plague to you, why did you let her come here with the Slugfest?”
    Bert Lucci stepped down from the ladder. “Curry Cunningham got me a group of logging crews from up north just for Saturday night. That’ll make up some of the fees. But I’ll tell you, if you know Edwina, you know Her Highness is not a woman you tell no.”
    “But why did she insist on having the Slugfest here to begin with?”
    Bert Lucci’s face softened. He eased the hammer back through the loop in his pants. “Don’t make sense, I’ll grant you that. Told her that myself, when I could get a word in between her orders. But you know she doesn’t bother to explain herself.” With a sigh, he said, “I can’t stop and gab now. I’ve still got enough work for six days left. And if everything’s not just right, you can bet I’ll hear about it. Her Highness wants it up to snuff when the television cameras get here.”
    “Television?” The Slugfest was a local event, more in the line of a church supper than a newsmaker. It hardly merited network coverage.
    “So she says. She had me install two-twenty wiring for them. They’d better show. And it’s already after five o’clock; I’ve got to get hammering.”
    After five! I raced for the men’s room, pushing open the door without even a knock. It was empty, and spotless. It looked like it had been renovated rather than merely cleaned. I noted the read, and then ran for my truck.
    When I got back to the PG&E office Mr. Bobbs would be waiting. It was just a question of what he would be more perturbed by—my late return and the Missed Meter, or his impending duty as a judge of the Slugfest.

CHAPTER 3
    M R. B OBBS WAS NOT seated in his cubicle waiting for me. He was out in the middle of the office, pacing. With his light brown hair and pale horn-rimmed glasses, his tan suit and shoes, he resembled a cloud of dust blowing toward me. Pointedly, he looked at his watch.
    “I know it’s after five-thirty,” I said. “A number of roads were out. There are three new mud slides, not to mention the ones left from last year.”
    Before, he had looked distressed; now his eyes narrowed in suspicion. But I knew he was not worrying about the hazardous roads having endangered me; he was afraid of a Missed Meter.
    I put the route book on the table before me. “There are no Changes,” I said. “Changes” were notations we made when a meter had been removed or tampered with and required a repairman or an inspector. “But I do have an