“Tire irons? Sure, I got tire irons. Got more than I know what to do with, I suspect. Thought I’d be out of business for good when the place burned down. Blew up, more like, but that raises questions I ain’t sure I wanna answer even now. Anyways, turns out my niece got the place covered. Insurance got things up and runnin’ again, I guess, but it were the money from the Jasper Improvement Society’t made it what it is. Now I’m up to my eyeballs in tire irons. Hell of a thing. Who can explain it. Ah, I’ll tell you: Frank Tilghman, that’s who. When the smoke cleared after that bad bit o’ business with Brad Wesley, look whose name was on the Improvement Society’s paperwork? Oh, it’s all legal-like. Stipulation in the contracts saying whoever owned Jasper’s most lucrative business owns the Society too, lock stock and so on. Well, with my place in ruins, and Strodenmire still vacuuming up the shattered glass from what went down during Wagon Days, and Emmet’s moonshine distillery up in smoke, the Double Deuce was the last place standing. He gave me the loans, made the place ten times bigger and better than it ever was, and all I owe him is a piece of my soul. Makes you wonder how much ol’ Frank knew when he hired that boy Dalton to clean house. Him? Good kid. M’niece, she thinks he hung the moon and stars. Couldn’t come through in the clutch, though, when the time came. Left it to me and the other old farts to finish what he started. Then again, maybe that was part of Tilghman’s plan too. Make us all complicit, if you don’t mind me usin’ a Sunday puzzle word. Blood on everyone’s hands, so to speak. We’d’a gotten nowhere if it hadn’t been for Dalton taking out Wesley’s goon squad. Maybe that was the plan all along. Now instead of me kicking Wesley some money under the table, Frank Tilghman reaches across the table and takes it right out of my pocket. Thought about bringin’ it up with Dalton during a family dinner, but the kid had about as much as he could take, losin’ his mentor and all. Who’s gonna tell him he did it all for a worse villain than Wesley was? Not me. I seen enough men broken down to ever relish the idea of breakin’ down another one. Hell, I see one every time I look in the mirror. Don’t that beat all. In fairness, Frank lost someone close to him too. We all seen the way he looked at that Pat McGurn kid before things went south. Don’t know why he felt he had to keep it a secret. We’re a forgiving bunch. When the fire department discovered Emmet’s collection of hand-drawn erotica, why, we all just let it slide. Didn’t even tell him the Milo Manara influence was too pronounced, and that woulda been the god’s honest. And hell, when I was married, how do you think my wife found the ugly man she left me for? “The lifestyle,” that’s what we called it. I don’t know about the style part, not when the fella’s wearin’ crushed velvet shirts every damn day, but it was a life alright, that it was. Worked out for the best, I suppose. They’re ugly ‘n’ happy together, just like Dalton and Elizabeth are pretty ‘n’ happy together. ‘Together,’ that’s the important thing I guess. God bless ’em. Not that I’m a religious man, you understand. Been doin’ that tai chi with Dalton in the mornin’, though. Clears the head. Maybe that’d be the time to tell him about Tilghman. Hell, I dunno. That’s a sacred time, if you ask me. Probably best just to let it be. Like I said, some questions don’t want answerin’. Valvoline’s in aisle three.”
Tags: frank tilghman, red webster, road house, the phantom menace