Chapter Sixteen

Graham

There was a knock on the door, followed by a somewhat exasperated voice behind it "Mr. Castle? Hello Mr. Castle? There are some… men, in the lobby. They said they know you. They seem very insistent on seeing you. Shall I call the police sir?"

"Did one of them introduce himself as Boom Boom?" I asked, opening the door to see the fragile little man who ran the front desk standing outside the room.

He was obviously flustered and was patting his forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. I thought about Coy and felt another flicker of sadness.

"Why, yes sir, he did. I thought that he was threatening me."

"I know them." I took a look around my room, wondering if bringing them up here was such a good idea or not, but then realized them hanging out in the lobby would potentially be much worse. While I have grown quite fond of Boom Boom and the hollow people, the rest of the guests in this hotel might not be as accommodating. "Tell them to come on up here. I'll be waiting for them."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Yes" I said, a sharp edge of aggravation in my voice.

I shouldn't be so upset with this man for judging them the way he was, considering it wasn't too long ago when if I hadn't had the experiences that I did I would have done the same thing. Yet every word and nervous look that this man gave made me less and less tolerant to having him in my presence. These were my friends now and I valued them for exactly who they were.

I went back inside, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out three beers. It wasn't moonshine, but I thought I should have something to offer them when they came up. I sat the beers on the small dining table and walked to the mirror. I was wearing a tie, something I hadn't worn since the first time I met Boom Boom.

Was I seriously worrying about what they would think of me? That's a new concept.

There was another knock on the door, this time slower, and louder than before. Not a pounding, but certainly an insistent knock meant to gain my attention. As I walked to the door, it hit me what the clerk had said. Three men. Who in the hell did Boom Boom bring with him, and why did they come all the way out here to talk to me when they had my phone number?

I opened the door to see three step-ladder people. Boom Boom in the middle, Cletus, the smallest, on the right, and some man I didn't recognize towering over both of them on the left. He grinned at me as I looked them over, but the other two didn't seem as pleased. They both maintained stern expressions that I couldn't quite interpret.

"Cletus, Boom Boom, come on in. Have a beer. What the hell are you guys doing here?"

"Beer? Well, that sounds awful fine" said the man to the left as he brushed past me inside.

Cletus and Boom Boom side-eyed me as they followed in.

"Where is Holly?" asked Cletus.

He shot a glance at Boom Boom as he said it and they shared a conspiratorial moment.

"She's not here, she’s..."

"On a cruise, right?" asked Boom Boom.

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"We figured you'd do something stupid like that" Cletus responded.

Behind them, the third man finished guzzling one beer down and had begun to eye another.

"What? And who is this?"

"Oh. Right. This is BillyBob. Say hi BillyBob" said Boom Boom.

"Hey, partner" said BillyBob

"Graham," Boom Boom corrected.

"Hey Graham," BillyBob amended.

"He ain't never been good with manners," said Boom Boom.

"You mean THE BillyBob? Your brother from the skinnyfishing story?"

"I'm famous," exclaimed BillyBob as he subtly attempted to open another beer.

"Yeah, that's the one. I half wish he had stayed lost, to tell you the truth," Boom Boom said quietly to me.

"Me, too," Cletus added.

"I heard that, Cletus."

"Good. Lay off the beer, BillyBob. We're on a mission," Cletus demanded.

"Mission? What mission?" I asked.

"It's a Wonderful Life. We're your angels of Christmas past, present, and future, and we're all here to tell you to stop being so damned stupid," said Boom Boom.

"I think you have that confused with 'A Christmas Carol."

"It's the same story, Graham." Cletus said, with a tone of pity in his voice as if he was explaining something that should be patently obvious to a small child.

"The larger point at hand is that you need to go find Holly, and you need to do it with a little bit of pep in your step." Boom Boom said.

"I don't think I'm totally understanding what's going on here," I said.

"I had a feeling you would send her back on her cruise. I told BillyBob so on the way here, didn't I BillyBob?"

"You did, Cletus."

"I did, and I won a bet on it too, and don't think I'll let you welch on it either. But that's not the important thing. The important thing is we, and some other folk from the hollow, we knew you'd find a way to screw this up somehow and that just don't jive with it being Christmas and all. When BillyBob showed up out of nowhere, it felt like it was a sign from the Good Lord that we might ought to get our tails in gear and do something good for someone else."

"So," Boom Boom butted in, "we headed on up here. I remember you saying this was where you were going back round when I met you, and this is the fanciest hotel nearby, so we dropped here first. Lucky us, we caught you."

"I thought we were gonna miss Christmas," BillyBob said from behind them, taking a long drag from his second beer and shaking the near empty bottle to see how much was left. "But now we found you, we can head back home. I haven't spent a Christmas at home in years and I ain't fixing to keep that tradition going any longer."

"Well, hold on a second, BillyBob. We got to make sure he actually finds Holly first. Gotta see this thing through to the end," said Boom Boom.

"Just one problem, fellas," I said. "I have no idea how to get to her in time for you to get back."

"Oh, now that we got covered," Boom Boom said.

"How?" I asked. "We can't drive to any of the ports that they will dock at before Christmas. It's too far. And with traffic, we'd get stuck on the road for hours."

"Roads? Who needs roads?" quoted Boom Boom as he flipped a pair of sunglasses down from the top of his head and over his eyes. I had no idea what he was talking about and it must have showed on my face. Boom Boom's smile faded a bit. "I have a plane. It's a little puddle jumper, but it does all right. Didn't you wonder how we got here so fast?"

"You have a plane?" I asked, trying to process the thought of Boom Boom on anything but a tractor.

"Sure do. I got a pilot's license a while back. I had decided to go back to school to get my GED and they said that I should do some vocational training. I thought that they said 'vacational training'." He gave a long sigh and looked into the middle distance for a moment before seeming to snap back into reality. "And anyway, that brings us here."

"I don't even know what she'd do if I found her," I said. "She might just tell me she's done with me and I should move on."

"And what if she doesn't?" asked Cletus, "What if she is just plum smitten with you and wants nothing more than for you to come find her and whisk her away for Christmas? What if you are about to let the best woman in your world slip right through your fingers because you're too damned scared she might say no?"

I hate being told I was scared. But he was right. I thought about Charlie and the glimmer in his eyes when he talked about Holly. I had to find out.

"You're right. Let's go. I know what we need to do."

"I am?" Cletus looked genuinely surprised.

"You are."

"Well, hot damn. I didn't think I was going to be any damn good at this, but look at me, playing Cupid."