Knob's Hardware Chapter Two

Knob believed in balloons. He believed in the power of balloons in the retail market. They made children smile and customers happy, and happy customers meant spending customers. Or so Knob believed, most mornings he’d show up with his coffee and donut hollering for someone to "spruce the joint up", and someone would be obliged to go running to the large helium tank Knob kept in the employee lounge and begin filling dozens of balloons to be handed out thru out the day. A task usually accomplished by the hippie teenager Knob kept on to work the lot.

Today however Knob had other things on his mind, and Gam Moody was greeted with yesterdays wilted balloons hanging limply from the end of every Isle. Moody stepped on a sheet of plexiglass laid on the floor, underneath of which was Knobs weekly flyer spread put for easy reading. "If I’m paying for it I want to see it" Knob was fond of saying.

Moody looked down the length of the long hanger like building. At the far end he could make out the checkout registers. When asked why he put the checkout in the rear, forcing his customers to walk a narrow outside path to return to the parking lot, Knob would reply "keeps the traffic flowing", and hand the questioner a balloon, or a bag of popcorn. "Damn fool", Moody thought and began looking around.

"Detective!, over here, Oh Mr. Detective"

Moody turned and found himself him self looking at an overweight woman in a moo-moo dress clutching a wide brimmed silk hat. The bright orange flowers and gloss pink lipstick didn’t startle him half as much as her entire lack of hair, even her eyebrows were missing.

"Mr Detective I am hoping you’ll be able to speak with me today. In light of what has transpired I find myself compelled to discuss the situation with someone of your prominence."

Moody looked down, he looked up, he took out his cigarettes and looked at them, anything but her head. "And you are?" he finally.

"Oh my lord, how rude of me, I’m Loretta, I am the contractor sales agent" , she said and offered up her hand.

"I’ll see what I can do" Moody said and reached up and awkwardly took her hand in a sort of sideways handshake.

"How wonderful, I will look forward to our meeting, and now Detective I must take my place, the store is about to open." She turned and hurried off as fast as her orange heels would let her.



Moody noticed people gathering at the service desk by the end of an aisle. Balloons were being put in place and computers switched on. Someone in a dirty T shirt was trying to untangle a string of the colored flags which usually adorn used car lots. Moody spotted the woman who had been picking up around the cars outside waiting for a copy machine to finish, and headed towards her. Before he could get there his Lt. Caught up with him.

"Well, I think we got to the bottom of that one Sir." The lt. Was out of breath.

"That what?"

"That whole ruckus with the car crash Sir. We now have Mickey Nevoben in custody, I expect him to confess to the murder any minute"

"Bend over so I can kick your ass" Moody exclaimed.

"Sir?"

"Nobody kills someone and then puts up a show of such stupidity, not even that little worm. What we caught here was a minor thief and a pervert, doesn’t look like he was good at being either."

The Lt. Straightened, "No he wasn’t Sir, though he did have unknowing accomplices"

"Accomplices?" Moody would have rolled his eyes if he did that sort of thing.

"Yes sir, for quite some time now he has been dropping a circuit breaker or two in the trash once a week. The night janitors had been carrying them out and past the alarm for him. He would then collect them from the dumpster in the morning. Whenever he had a case he would sell them to his brother, an electrical contractor. Between sobs he told us he had been buying "beer and porn" with the money he made"

"How come the Janitors didn’t set off the alarm, I don’t believe Knob would turn that off at night?" Moody pulled out a cigarette, but remembered he couldn’t smoke inside before he lit it.

"Apparently they set it off all the time, so much that no one thought twice about it anymore. I do have them here in case you wanted to question them"

Moody noticed for the first time the two that were standing behind the Lt. One a tall Ichabod Crane in a beige cable knit sweater, jeans and scuffed dress shoes. The other was shorter with vacant eyes and a permanent grin.

"Hi, Im Chris" the taller one moped, shuffling forward.

"You’ll have to forgive Chris Detective, the drink has got the better of him these last ten years" Moody suddenly heard at his ear. He spun and saw Loretta hurrying off down the aisle. At least she put that hat on Moody thought.

"So you’ve been helping this Micky guy to steal have ya" Moody said turning back to them.

"Not really that we knew about, I can say that I haven’t stolen anything, but Gerry says that he once was issued a speeding ticket, but he really hasn’t driven in so long that I don’t think he knows if he ever drove or not" Chris replied ever so slowly.

"So your like his helper, or worker are ya" Moody lit his cigarette.

"Well, actually Gerry was here first, but the job seemed to much for one person and Kob hired me as well." Chris’s voice quivered and he seemed close to tears.

"This place really need the two of you?"

"Well.... Gerry can help me out here and there. Certain things require two. I can also help him with things like keeping his pants on when it gets hot in here at night." Tears were now streaming down Chris’s face.

"Lt. Get them out of here!" moody hollered and hurried away from them. Turning the corner at the end of an aisle he bumped into another employee. Tall with a protruding jaw, thick black glasses, and cadaverous remnants of hair in spots around his head. His "KNOB’S" waist apron showed his name top be "Byron".

"Needing new windows today sir?"

It took a while for the question to penetrate to Moody who was momentarily blinded by the waist apron. Originally ordered with lettering in Knob’s store color of maroon, they arrived with "KNOB’S" spelled out in hot pink outlined in black. After much apologizing and discounting Knob ended up accepting the entire five thousand piece order. Most of the town understood the situation to be the result of Knob having "dated" the printers sister, and Knob probably understood it as well, but he was offered too good a price to turn down. The store employees were given the offer not to wear the aprons, but they were also required to have on their person at all times; twelve pencils, a note pad, and a one hundred fifty page pamphlet titled "Why I Work at Knob’s". So most opted to wear the apron anyways.

"No, no windows, I’m the cop here about the murder"

Byron took a step closer to Moody, crossed his arms and said "Murder" very softly.

"You didn’t hear? One of your guys got done out in the shed last night"

Yet another step, he was now uncomfortably close "Yes I heard," almost in a whisper. He put his hands on Moody’s shoulders "horrible, just horrible. Let me know if I could help you."

"I’ll keep in touch, I got to get to the service desk there" Moody put his cigarette out on the ground and turned back towards the desk. "I’ll keep in touch all right you ghoulish bastard" He thought.

"Hey Moody!" It was Knob yelling from the front of the store. "Moody where have you been."

"I been talking to night of the living dead out back there"

"You must mean Byron, man that guy can sell windows like nobody else" Knob enthused.

"Probably gets them to sign over there soul, just throws in some windows to sweeten the deal. Anyways what do you want"

"Your boys won’t let my customers in. I got a guy out here who needs to buy one of my toilette specials, says his fammily hasn’t used a proper toilette in a week, and they won’t let him in."

Moody looked past Knob to the doorway, where a red faced man stood behind a cop, sweating and shuffling his feat. "Let him in boys," he hollered, "ain’t nothing in here for them to screw up anyways" At that the man ran into the store and off towards the plumbing department.

"Thanks Moody, hey you should come see this toilette, it will flush golf balls"

"Naw, I’m gonna be over at the desk here."

The service desk was made of knotty pine, with a brass foot rest at the bottom. Front and center was Knob’s popcorn machine. To the side of the desk was a small waiting area with a large screen tv set up. Knob had given orders that the tv be tuned to headline news, but most of the time auto racing was what was actually displayed. The woman who had been picking up the trash from the accident was making the morning popcorn when Moody walked up.

"Your one of the police aren’t you?" She said

"Detective Moody ma’am"

"I hope that Mickey is going to go to jail, to think of the times he must have been doing awful things. This type of thing does not help our Knob’s community very much.

Just then Knob and the customer arrived, knob had a large box on a dolly.

"Hey Sherry, ring this guy up for me will ya" Knob bellowed

"Why sure, you come right over here" She hurried back around the counter "What a nice day to be buying a toilette" she said sweetly

"Hey get yourself some popcorn, Moody you too" Knob offered grabbing a handful for himself from the machine.

"No thank you" squeaked the customer, who now seemed to have turned purple.

"Maybe I will" said Moody and he began fixing himself a bag.

"If you could sign for your credit card here" Sherry said pushing a keypad across the counter top the customer. The customer pressed a button and the pad emitted a buzzing sound. "Oh you just erased everything. I’ll start over" she said as sweetly as ever. She turned to Moody " I honestly don’t know where we get these people, I really don’t it’s the simplest thing to do and they screw it up" The customer looked a little shocked, but was in too much of a hurry to say anything. "There, there’s your receipt, thank you for shopping at Knob’s"

"Moody I’m just gonna help this guy out, why don’t you watch some tv" Knob hurried to keep up with the customer who was now jogging out of the store.

Moody turned to the waiting area where black and white footage of a Ferrari on a race track was showing on the screen.

Suddenly the overhead page crackled to life: "DETECTIVE, MISTER DETECTIVE. PLEASE MEET ME AT THE CONTRACTOR SALES DESK"