Page 73 of Fast and Dirty

“Are you sure?” Agnes questions. “He sleeps pretty deep. Sometimes it’s taken the use of a cattle prod, but he’s woken up.”

“It’s been confirmed,” Dottie shakes her head, dabbing at her tears. “And what the hell is going on here, anyway?”

Hattie rushes over to console her and fill her in on the events of the last few days.

“That’s terrible!” She exclaims, gazing up at the old building with puffy eyes like it’s the last time she’ll ever take in – and it just might be. “I don’t understand what’s going on with this town.”

“It’s simple,” I mumble quietly, mychest feeling heavy. “Kira left and it’s falling to shit.”

“Here, here!” Agnes bellows from her cocoon of chains. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Those hearing aids of hers are no joke.

But clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks this place isn’t the same without Kira.

“It should be a crime to tear this place down,” Agnes tuts, shaking her head. “It’s older than I am for shit’s sake.”

A crime…

“What if it was?” I ask, my head lifting, my eyes scanning my neighbors. “What if it was a crime to tear that place down, no matter who owns it?”

“I’ve heard of this…you just have to register a building as a historical landmark,” Hattie waves her finger.

“But who the hell could enforce that? We don’t have a mayor,” Kaleb slouches against his bike as I see the streets start to populate with town folk. They start off looking like colorful ants and get larger as they make their way closer. Great. The word is definitely out, it will be mere moments before all the bored cops in this town abandon their donuts and come rushing to the scene just for some kind of taste of legal action.

“West …it should be you,” Hattie tilts her head.

“What?” I hear my own voice go up so high it borders on feminine. “Agnes, you practically run this town. Why don’t you run for mayor?”

“Pffft, I’m just as old as he was. In fact, I’m pretty sure I tapped that back in the day…” She squints an eye and gets a far-off look in her eye like she’s trying to retrieve something from her long-term memory files.

“We need a mayor now,” Hattie holds out her hands as her pile of hair bobs with her movements. “There’s no time to campaign. I vote for West for the interim!” She holds up her hand, looking around at everyone else to follow suit.

“I can’traise my hand, but I second the motion,” Agnes chirps, and Ned raises his hand without looking up from his magazine.

“Has everyone gone insane?” I blurt out. “I’m a mechanic, and I hate suits!”

Kaleb pipes up. “You run Shane Auto like a well-oiled machine, and I bet you could do the same for this town. Who says you have to do it behind a desk? The autoshop can be your office, and you can keep running it and make decisions for this town at the same time.”

“Someone find a Bible!” Agnes blurts from her compromising position.

“Oh no. Gramma?” Hattie scurries over to her and kneels down close. “Is it happening? I thought we had more time…”

“I’m not dying, brainiac!” Agnes scoffs. “We need an interim mayor to save the Inn. Westy-boy, you’re up.”

“I told you, I’m not mayor material!” I insist yet again.

“Tough shit, you’re being voted in by default. And it’s just temporary, we can figure out a real election later.”

“No!”

Agnes’s placid expression doesn’t change one iota as she pipes up. “Did you all know that the city West was raised in was a community big on cotillion?”

What the fuck?

At least six heads have swiveled in Agnes’s direction after raising her voice a few octaves.

“Agnes…” I look at her suspiciously as more dread starts to churn in my gut. “What are you doing?”

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