Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (which ebook reader .txt) 📖

until they’ve lost it.”
“Isn’t that the truth. Hope your boyfriend won’t get jealous with you standing here talking to me.”
“He’s my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.”
Vulnerability on Amy’s behalf sent mixed signals straight back to Charlie. Broken hearts proved fatal in some cases. A woman with ruined emotions were most susceptible to lowdown bastards. Could Amy’s weakness be Charlie’s strength? Amy slanted her head to the side. Noticeably, she observed the pits spread out across Charlie’s rough face. He didn’t have to second guess how she picked up on how bad his complexion was.
“You hungry?” Charlie offered, clutching his wallet.
A familiar growl echoed from her stomach. “With no food in our apartment, I’m starving about right now.”
“Cheesecake Factory sound good?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Charlie escorted Amy inside the luxuriously-decorated Cheesecake Factory. Nothing less would’ve been expected from any business operating on The Country Club Plaza. Shiny red oak panels and glistening marble floors marveled in fine tune with the low lights and soft music.
A gorgeous receptionist with silky blonde hair and even tan greeted Charlie and Amy. “Welcome to The Cheesecake Factory, how may I help you?”
“Can we look at your menu?”
“Sure can.”
“We’re both starving like two castaway souls.”
“Will you be eating here or will it be carry out?”
Charlie initiated a warm smile over to Amy. “Wanna eat here or somewhere else?”
“Didn’t you say that you lived two blocks from here?”
“Two short blocks.”
“We can go back to your place,” Amy suggested, her eyes feasted on the mouth-watering menu.
“My place’s fine. Besides, look at the mob of people who’ve already filled up all the tables. The Plaza Lighting Ceremony brings in people from all over the state.”
“All over Kansas and Missouri, as far as that concerns,” the receptionist interjected, not able to keep her eyes off Charlie.
A quick frame flashed through Amy’s mind. A prior news broadcast reminded her of a man wanted for the possible responsibility of both dismembered bodies found in Brush Creek.
Charlie requested his meal after studying the menu. “I’ll have the grilled rib-eye steak with the marinated French fries and garden salad. So, Amy, have you seen anything on the menu you’d like to order?”
“Same thing you ordered, Charlie.”
“Anything to drink?”
“How about the Cognac with the spicy vanilla and matured fruits.”
“Now that’s the perfect drink to put you in the holiday spirits.”
The receptionist shook her head and told them, “Sorry, but drinks are only for in-house.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. What about desert?”
“Let’s see,” Amy paused. “The chocolate oreo mudslide cheesecake sounds good enough to make you slap The President and his mother.”
“What exactly is that?”
The receptionist explained in tasty details. “It’s chocolate oreos baked in our creamy chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate-almond brownie crust.”
“No, desert like that sounds good enough to make you slap The Queen of England. We’ll both have the exact same dinner and desert.”
The receptionist said with delight, “Your order will be coming right up.”
Despite customers flooding into the restaurant and bar, the receptionist found someone else to relieve her up front. She disappeared far off into the kitchen. One of the main chefs, some tall Italian guy with slicked back hair pinned up into a long ponytail, picked up on her weird behavior.
“Hey, got something you wanna talk about?” the chef asked the receptionist.
“Nino, would you think I was crazy if I told you that the Brush Creek killer might be up front?”
Other chefs in the kitchen chopped and pounded away at dishes for their hungry customers.
“Brush Creek killer?” Nino tried envisioning. “The psycho who killed those two women they found chopped up in trashbags?”
“Yes, Nino, yes!” she bravely spit out. “When those two cops were jumped down in Brush Creek by the sicko who killed their canine dog, they had a composite sketch done of the man they were looking for. That man up front, he sorta looks like that drawing they put on the news.”
“Sorta isn’t good enough. Have the cops even caught that guy yet?”
“Not yet.”
“How about we both take a peek at this goolamafoombacchi.”
“Goolamafoombacchi?”
“It’s an Italian term. You’d have to be Italian to understand.”
The pair smoothed their way past the swinging double doors of the kitchen. Charlie and Amy waited with ultimate patience up front. A line of restless patrons stood to the side with hopes of getting a table after others were finished.
“Whaddaya think, Nino?” the receptionist asked.
Nino studied Charlie with intense impunity. The face came more into focus. “Darling, he doesn’t look much different from the hundreds of other guys who traffic in and out of The Cheesecake every week. It’s been awhile since the news talked about the prick who might’ve killed those women found in Brush Creek.”
“Nino, I have one of the most photogenic memories in the world.”
“Still, you can’t go around making false accusations against people.”
“Don’t think I’m trying to make something out of nothing.”
“Haven’t you ever heard that everybody in life has a twin somewhere on this Earth?”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Let me get back in this kitchen to feed all these hungry people. You know that’s how we make money here at The Cheesecake Factory.”
The main receptionist returned up front. Charlie struck the strongest chord with her. Ironically, her intuition about him was one-hundred percent correct. Yes, a vicious serial killer was in her presence. An emotionally and mentally disturbed murderer was also in the presence of many others.
Their order finally arrived. The total for the check had been calculated. Charlie had to reach into his pocket for a hundred and thirty-eight dollars and forty-seven cents. No, meals at The Cheesecake Factory weren’t cheap. Any business operating on The Country Club Plaza wasn’t cheap at all.
Charlie handed her a crispy one-hundred dollar bill and a crinkly fifty dollar bill. He and Amy stepped outside The Cheesecake Factory. Karma was hot on his trail. Charlie was hit hard with an unwelcome surprise. Sandy Barnholtz and Carol Wexler had come out to be a part of The Plaza Lighting Ceremony. Sandy’s wandering eyes guided her right over to where Charlie and Amy weaved through the thick crowd. Unfavorably, Charlie had no idea he was being watched by the very woman he tried to assault that one dark night down in Brush Creek.
“Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaarlie!” Sandy’s voice screamed out in shattering octaves.
Charlie looked around to see who could’ve called out his name with explosive aggression. The crowd had gotten alarmed. Who was this Charlie? Could there have been more than one person among the assembly of people named Charlie? He looked around again and spotted the woman he feared most. She projected burning eyes of vehemence. She pointed a venemous finger at him.
“Who’s that woman, Charlie?” Amy asked, a ringing going through her ears.
“Your guess is as good as mine’s,” Charlie ignored, the crowd irritating him by every passing second.
“There are two women over there staring at us. They’re pointing at us like they wanna come over here and beat the both of us into the concrete.”
“Let’s just get the fuck away from all this bullshit.”
Charlie snatched Amy by the arm and they weaved through the aroused crowd. People weren’t too happy with the utter disrespect Charlie displayed. They stared at him as though he had balls the size of Mountain Everest. The nerves on a scumbag like him.
Carol moved in front of Sandy and acted as a sort of a shield.
Sandy insisted on confronting Charlie face-to-face.
“Babe, please don’t hold me back,” Sandy elected, trying to force herself from Carol’s blockade.
“Don’t get yourself hurt or killed,” Carol warned Sandy, still blocking her every move.
“But he’s the same sicko-sonofabitch who killed those women found in Brush Creek. He’s the same shitbag who killed Bolo and tried to rape and kill me. He’s the same dirtbag who attacked those two cops down in Brush Creek and killed their canine, the same motherfucker I saw the night of the prayer vigil.”
“Your mind playing tricks on you again?”
“Carol, I’d be willing to bet my life on it, that that was the same puke named Charlie. Aren’t you the one who told me a long time ago to go to the police? Didn’t you tell me to come forward and help the police get him off the streets?”
“Sure, I’m the one.”
“Then, why are you holding me back?”
“By chance, what if he wasn’t the same man the police were looking for. What if he wasn’t the same psycho who killed Bolo and tried to rape and kill you?”
A swift draft of wind blew across the malevolent face of Sandy. “Babe, other women’s lives are at stake. Remember the night we were at Missy D’s? Remember the black guy named Derrick who described a neighbor of his named Charlie, a guy with a badly acne-scarred face who was a Vietnam War veteran?”
“The gay black guy who had a white male lover counterpart?” Carol recalled far too well. “The night we were in Missy D’s for the celebrity impersonation show?”
“Yes, you’ve got the right person and the right place. I asked him about the name of the apartments they lived at, but can’t remember for shit, even if my very life depended on it.”
“The Rose-something. It was some type of Jewish name.”
“Roseberry, Rosenstein, Rose----.”
“Right now, if my brains were a hundred