MISSING LINK

Warren Murphy

CHAPTER ONE

Bobby Jack Billings had gone to bed deciding that the next day he would change his drinking habits. Not that drinking was a problem. Beer drinkers never had real drinking problems. He had read that in the Hills Gazette or someplace. Beer drinkers never got falling-down drunk, running their cars over school kids, stealing and cheating to get enough money to support their habit. No. That was whiskey drinkers. Bobby Jack was a beer drinker and didn't have that kind of problem.

That thought gave him enough solace to fall asleep, so he drained the last few drops from his can of beer and dropped the empty on the floor next to the bed. As he was nodding off, he carefully devised his drinking schedule for the next day. He would not have a beer before breakfast. In fact, he would not have any beer before lunchtime. Maybe after work in the afternoon he might have a couple, and maybe one or two with supper, and perhaps one, late at night, just to relieve the day's tensions. But that was all.

When he woke up he had a throbbing headache.

His mouth tasted like a testing center for Q Tips. The back of his throat burned hot enough to ignite the cotton. He had trouble finding his eyeglasses.

He splashed water on his face and then tried to open his eyes wide. It made the day seem a little more bearable, but the headache persisted. He remembered having lain in bed the night before, making some major decision, but in the iron light of morning he couldn't remember what the decision was. Perhaps he could remember it after he had a beer.

He padded barefoot out to the kitchen, a soft-bodied man with a soft face, and pulled a can from the refrigerator. The can began to sweat in his hand immediately, because of the great difference in temperature between the kitchen in the hot American South and the refrigerator, which he kept turned to its lowest cooling leveL This was murderous on iceberg lettuce, filling its watery bulk with ice crystals that turned the lettuce to mush when it thawed, but he liked his beer cold and he didn't eat all that much lettuce anyway, so it was a small price to pay.