11 Eleven On Top (13 page)

The hat was egg-yolk yellow and rooster-comb red. It had a bill like a ball cap, except the bill was shaped like a beak, and the rest of the hat was a huge chicken head, topped off with the big floppy red comb. Red chicken legs with red chicken toes hung from either side of the bottom of the hat. The rest of the uniform consisted of an egg-yolk yellow short-sleeve shirt and elastic-waist pants that had the Cluck-in-a-Bucket chicken logo imprinted everywhere in red. The shirt and pants looked like pajamas designed for the criminally insane.

“You'll do a two-hour shift at the register and then we'll rotate you to the chicken fryer,” Mann said.

If it was in the cards that the bomber was going to succeed in killing me, I prayed that it happened before I got to the chicken fryer.

It turns out the three-to-five shift at the register is light. Some after-school traffic and some construction workers.

A woman and her kid stepped up to the counter.

“Tell the chicken what you want,” the woman said.

“It's not a chicken,” the kid said. “It's a girl in a stupid chicken hat.”

“Yes, but she can cluck like a chicken,” the woman said. “Go ahead,” she said to me. “Cluck like a chicken for Emily.”

I looked at the woman.

“Last time we were here the chicken clucked,” the woman said.

I looked down at Emily. “Cluck.”

“She's no good,” Emily said. “The other chicken was way better. The other chicken flapped her arms.”

I took a deep breath, stuffed my fists under my armpits, and did some chicken-wing flapping. “Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, clu-u-u-u-ck,” I said.

“I want french fries and a chocolate shake,” Emily said.

The next guy in line weighed three hundred pounds and was wearing a torn T-shirt and a hard hat. “You gonna cluck for me?” he asked. “How about I want you to do something besides cluck?”

“How about I shove my foot so far up your ass your nuts get stuck in your throat?”

“Not my idea of a good time,” he said. “Get me a bucket of extra crispy and a Diet Coke.”

At five o'clock I was marched back to the fryer.

“It's a no-brainer,” Mann said. “It's all automated. When the green light goes on the oil is right for frying, so you dump the chicken in.”

Mann pulled a huge plastic tub of chicken parts out of the big commercial refrigerator. He took the lid off the tub, and I almost passed out at the site of slick pink muscle and naked flesh and cracked bone.

“As you can see, we have three stainless-steel tanks,” Mann said. “One is the fryer and one is the drainer and one is the breader. It's the breader that sets us apart from all the other chicken places. We coat our chicken with the specially seasoned secret breading glop right here in the store.” Mann dumped a load of chicken into a wire basket and lowered it into the breader. He swished the basket around, raised it, and gently set it into the hot oil. “When you put the chicken into the oil you push the Start button and the machine times the chicken. When the bell rings you take the chicken out and set the basket in the drainer. Easy, right?”

I could feel sweat prickle at my scalp under my hat. It was about two hundred degrees in front of the fryer, and the air was oil saturated. I could smell the hot oil. I could taste the hot oil. I could feel it soaking into my pores.

“How do I know how much chicken to fry?” I asked him.

“You just keep frying. This is our busy time of day. You go from one basket to the next and keep the hot chicken rolling out.”

A half hour later, Eugene was yelling at me from the bagging table. "We need extra-spicy. All you're doing is extra-crispy. And there's all wings here.

You gotta give us some backs and some thighs. People are bitchin' about the friggin' wings. If they wanted all wings, they'd order all wings."

At precisely seven o'clock, Mann appeared at my side. “You get a half-hour dinner break now, and then we're going to rotate you to the drive-thru window until closing time at eleven.”

My muscles ached from lifting the chicken baskets. My uniform was blotched with grease stains. My hair felt like it had been soaked in oil. My arms were covered with splatter burns. I had thirty minutes to eat, but I didn't think I could gag down fried chicken. I shuffled off to the ladies' room and sat on the toilet with my head down. I think I fell asleep like that because next thing I knew, Mann was knocking on the ladies' room door, calling my name.

I followed Mann to the drive-thru window. The plan was that I remove my Cluck hat, put the headset on, and put the Cluck hat back over the headset. Problem was, after tending the fryer, my hair was slick with grease and the headset kept sliding off.

“Ordinarily I don't put people in the drive-thru after the fryer just for this problem,” Mann said, “but Darlene went home sick and you're all I got.” He disappeared into the storeroom and came back with a roll of black electrical tape. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he said, holding the headset to my head, wrapping my head with a couple loops of tape. “Now you can put your hat on and get clucky, and that headset isn't going anywhere.”

“Welcome to Cluck-in-a-Bucket,” I said to the first car.

“I wanna crchhtra skraapyy, two orders of fries, and a large crchhhk.”

Mann was standing behind me. “That's extra crispy chicken, two fries, and a large Coke.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder. “You'll get the hang of it after a couple cars. Anyway, all you have to do is ring them up, take their money, and give them their order. Fred is in back filling the order.” And he left.

“Seven-fifty,” I said. “Please drive up.”

“What?”

“Seven-fifty. Please drive up.”

“Speak English. I can't understand a friggin' thing you're saying.”

“Seven-fifty!”

The car pulled to the window. I took money from the driver, and I handed him the bag. He looked into the bag and shook his head. “There's only one fries in here.”

“Fred,” I yelled into my mouthpiece, “you shorted them a fries.”

Fred ran over with the fries. “Sorry, sir,” he said to the guy in the car. “Have a clucky day.”

Fred was a couple inches taller than me and a couple pounds lighter. He had pasty white skin that was splotched with grease burns, pale blue eyes, and red dreads that stuck out from his hat, making him look a little like the straw man in The Wizard of Oz. I put him at eighteen or nineteen.

“Cluck you,” the guy said to Fred, and drove off.

“Thank you, sir,” Fred yelled after him. “Have a nice day. Go cluck yourself.” Fred turned to me. "You gotta go faster. We have about forty cars in line.

They're getting nasty."

After a half hour I was hoarse from yelling into the microphone. “Seven-twenty,” I croaked. “Please drive up.”

“What?”

I took a sip of the gallon-size Coke I had next to my register. “Seven-twenty.”

“What?”

“Seven fucking twenty.”

An SUV pulled up to the window, I reached for the money, and I found myself staring into Spiro Stiva's glittering rat eyes. The lighting was bad, but I could see that his face had obviously been badly burned in the funeral home fire. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to speak.

His mouth had become a small slash in the scarred face. The mouth smiled at me, but the smile was tight and joyless. He handed me a ten. His hand shook, and the skin on his hand was mottled and glazed from burn scars.

Fred gave me a bag, and I automatically passed it through to Spiro.

“Keep the change,” Spiro said. And he tossed a medium-size box wrapped in Scooby-Doo paper and tied with a red ribbon through the drive-thru window. And he drove away.

The box bounced off the small service counter and landed on the floor between Fred and me. Fred picked the box up and examined it. "There's a gift tag attached.

It says Time is ticking away.' What's that supposed to mean? Hey, and you know what else? I think this thing is ticking. Do you know that guy?"

“Yeah, I know him.” I took the box and turned to throw it out the drive-thru window. No good. Another car had already pulled up.

“What's the deal?” Fred asked.

“I need to take this outside.”

“No way. There are a bazillion cars lined up. Mann will have a cow.” Fred reached for the box. “Give it to me. I'll put it in the back room for you.”

“No! This might be a bomb. I want you to very quietly call the police while I take this outside.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Just call the police, okay?”

“Holy crap! You're serious. That guy gave you a bomb?”

“Maybe...”

“Put it under water,” Fred said. “I saw a show on television and they put the bomb under water.”

Fred ripped the box out of my hand and dumped it into the chicken fryer. The boiling oil bubbled up and spilled I over the sides of the fryer. The oil slick carried to the grill, there was a sound like phuunf, and suddenly the grill was covered in blue flame.

Fred's eyes went wide. “Fire!” he shrieked. He grabbed a super-size cup and scooped water from the rinse sink.

“No!” I yelled. “Get the chemical extinguisher.”

Too late. Fred threw the water at the grill fire, a whoosh of steam rose in the air, and fire raced up the wall to the ceiling.

I pushed Fred to the front of the store and went back to make sure no one was left in the kitchen area. Flames were running down the walls and along the counters and the overhead sprinkler system was shooting foam. When I was sure the prep area was empty I left through a side door.

Sirens were screaming in the distance and the flash of emergency-vehicle strobes could be seen blocks away. Black smoke billowed high in the sky and flames licked out windows and doors and climbed up the stucco exterior.

Customers and employees stood in the parking lot, gawking at the spectacle.

“It wasn't my fault,” I said to no one in particular.

Carl Costanza was the first cop on the scene. He locked eyes with me and smiled wide. He said something to Dispatch on his two-way, and I knew Morelli would be getting a call. Fire trucks and EMT trucks roared into the parking lot. More cop cars. The crowd of spectators was growing. They spilled onto the street and clogged the sidewalk. The evening news van pulled up. I moved away from the building to stand by the Buick at the outermost perimeter of the lot. I would have driven home, but the keys were in my bag, and my bag was barbecued.

The flashing strobes and the glare of headlights made it difficult to see into the jumble of parked cars and emergency trucks. Fire hoses snaked across the lot and silhouettes of men moved against the glare. Two men walked toward me, away from the pack. The silhouettes were familiar. Morelli and Ranger.

They had a strange alliance. They were two very different men with similar goals. They were teammates of a sort. And they were competitors. They were both smiling when they reached me. I'd like to think it was because they were happy to see me alive. But probably it was because I was my usual wreck. I was grease stained and smoke smudged. I still had the headset taped to my head. I was still wearing the awful chicken hat and Cluck pajamas. And globs of pink foam hung from the hat and clung to my shirt.

They both stood hands on hips when they reached me. They were smiling, but there was a grim set to their mouths.

Morelli reached over and swiped at the pink gunk on my hat.

“Fire extinguisher foam,” I said. “It wasn't my fault.”

“Costanza told me the fire was started with a bomb.”

"I guess that might be true... indirectly. I was working the drive-thru window, and Spiro pulled up. He tossed a gift-wrapped box at me and drove away.

The box was ticking, and Fred got all excited and dumped the box in the vat of boiling oil. The oil bubbled over onto the grill and next thing the place was toast."

“Are you sure it was Spiro?”

“Positive. His face and hands are scarred, but I'm sure it was him. The card on the box said 'Time is ticking away'”

Morelli took a quarter from his pocket and flipped it into the air. “Call it,” he said to Ranger.

“Heads.”

Morelli caught the quarter and slapped it over. “Heads. You win. I guess I have to clean her up.”

“Good luck,” Ranger said. And he left.

I was too exhausted to get totally irate, but I managed to muster some half-assed outrage. I glared at Morelli. “I don't believe you tossed for me.”

“Cupcake, you should be happy I lost. He would have put you through the car wash at the corner of Hamilton and Market.” He took my hand and tugged me forward.

“Let's go home.”

“Will Big Blue be safe here?”

“Big Blue is safe everywhere. That car is indestructible.”

Morelli was in the shower with me. “Okay,” he said. “There's some bad news, and then there's some bad news. The bad news is that it would seem some clumps of hair got yanked out of your head when we ripped the electrician's tape off. The other bad news is that you still smell like fried chicken, and it's making me hungry. Why don't we towel you off and send out for food?”

I put my hand to my hair. “How bad is it?”

“Hard to tell with all that oil in it. It's sort of clumping together.”

“I shampooed three times!”

“I don't think shampoo is going to cut it. Maybe you need something stronger... like paint stripper.”

I grabbed a towel, stepped out of the shower, and looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. He was right. Shampoo wasn't working, and I had bald spots at the side of my head where the tape had been bound to me.

“I'm not going to cry,” I said to him.

“Thank God. I hate when you cry. It makes me feel really shitty.”

A tear slid down my cheek.

“Oh crap,” Morelli said.

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “It's been a long day.”

“We'll figure this out tomorrow,” Morelli said. He took the cap off a tube of aloe ointment and carefully dabbed the ointment on my chicken-fryer burns.

“I bet if you go to that guy at the mall, Mr. Whatshisname...”

“Mr. Alexander.”

“Yeah, he's the one. I bet he'll be able to fix your hair.” Morelli recapped the tube and reached for his cell phone. “I'm calling Pino. What do you want to eat?”