The Indian’s presence lingered in the room like a cool shadow. Tonight, he said. George, he said. She was with Gordy, thinking, Why was this guy putting it on front street? What the hell’s going on?
Gordy reinvented himself fast, coming out of the office, smiling, bringing her a cup of coffee, and holding up two fingers in a V peace signal. Ace came in a few minutes later and set a still-warm Dairy Queen breakfast bag next to her.
“You’re still here,” he said with a wry smile.
Gordy watched her carefully from the bar to see if she’d let on about their confrontation. She didn’t and he occupied himself with his clipboard.
Ace said, “I had to leave early to go to court. Overslept, didn’t even have time to make coffee.”
“No problem,” Nina said airily. “Good old Gordy whipped up a pot.”
“Anywhere, anytime,” Gordy said.
Ace observed the touchy back-and-forth, filed it away. Gordy joined him, walked him to the stairs, and lowered his voice. “Joe was by, playing hard-ass. George sent him. George says it’s on for tonight. He’ll meet you at the old RLS site east on 5. Didn’t give a time.”
Ace nodded, stared at Nina’s back for a long moment, then went upstairs. The phone on the bar rang, Gordy crossed the room and picked it up. Nina opened the Dairy Queen bag. It contained an egg muffin.
Gordy talked for a moment, put down the phone, then said to her, “That was Dale across the road. Your husband was over there this morning. Thought you should know.”
Nina lowered her eyes, picked up her coffee cup in both hands, and took a sip.
Dale really wanted to get a closer look at this woman who had come to spy on his brother. He wanted to so bad he kept putting it off just to build up the anticipation. He had Gordy’s request to intervene with Ace as an excuse to mask his curiosity.
Woman comes all this way just to see Ace. Well, isn’t she in for a surprise.
It was an accepted fact that some new floosy blowing into town would be attracted to his brother. This had always been the case, all his life. And that’s why he found this woman so tantalizing.
Just showing up, kind of mysterious.
So he puttered around in the office, brooding, periodically glancing across the road. He’d glimpsed her twice now. First in that clingy tank top, then wearing one of Ace’s T-shirts. Tallish, lean. Short red hair. His eyes drifted up to the windows over the bar. He remembered playing there as a child, when his dad had an office there. Now Ace was probably sticking it to the woman up there-maybe right where he’d put his Tinker Toys together.
He peered out the window and finally he saw Ace’s Tahoe pull in and park in back. He picked up the phone and called. Gordy answered.
“Is he there?” Dale asked.
“Yeah. He just got back.”
“That guy you hit was here this morning with a little kid. He pretended he wanted to look at machinery.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll come over in a little while,” Dale said. He hung up, then stuck his head out the door. “Give me about five minutes to clean up,” he said to Joe. “Then we’ll go across.”
Joe nodded, raised his good hand and pointed. Across the highway, toward town, a small, single-engine plane took off, banked, and headed east.
Dale shut the front door and went into the small bathroom next to the office and inspected the toilet to see if the smart-ass little kid had left any unpleasant messes. She hadn’t. So he washed his face and brushed his teeth and gargled with Scope. Then he took a moment to study his reflection in the mirror. His teeth were normal and healthy but his gums were slightly oversized and made his choppers look slightly like lingering baby teeth.
At rest, Dale was plain. In motion, he tended to look deliberate, the power in him deep, hard to see. Clothes never meant much to him. But he wore a heavy leather belt; keeping himself real tucked in and tightly cinched. If you had stuff you had to keep inside, every little bit helped.
The way his life had worked out he wound up uncomfortable with his body. He had always suffered from a debilitating shyness, and now he went to great lengths to avoid looking at himself disrobed. If he used a public restroom on the highway he made sure the door locked. Then he’d turn out the lights and do his business in the dark.
Dale was a big man with a layer of fat on the outside. But he was solid on the inside. Years spent working around the big iron had given him a hefty core of muscle.
Sometimes he snuck looks at his brother, Ace, and had the impression that there had been a screw-up. Ace, with all his flaws, should have this awkward tub of guts. He should have Ace’s body.
As it was, he was just over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, with sloping shoulders and a longish neck. His skin was smooth and white. He wore wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts. This habit struck people as odd in a farming community. “Dale, he avoids the sun,” people said.
That wasn’t it. Dale was hiding his body. Even from himself.
Everywhere he looked he was reminded of his grossness. The images of little-bitty tanned bodies shrieked at him from magazines, TV commercials, and especially the hours of “paid commercial programming” on cable-all those bikini babes demonstrating exercise equipment.
His face was the polar opposite of his older brother’s; as if Ace’s handsome face had been turned inside out. Where Ace’s cheeks were smooth and defined, Dale’s were lumpy with moguls of persistent acne. Where Ace’s nose was straight, Dale’s was thick.
Being plain and naturally reticent, his quiet voice had grown softer and softer over the years.
His hair was dirty blond, unruly even when short, as it was now. It sprouted from his scalp like a neglected lawn taken over by weeds. His eyes were pale blue and flat, without sparkle.
And now he was ready. So he stepped out into ninety-two muggy degrees wearing distressed Levis, steel-toed work shoes, and a long-sleeved blue cotton shirt buttoned to the neck and to the wrists. A broad straw Stetson perched at an angle on his head.
He looked to the east, at the ambiguous sky. According to the Weather Channel the rain had finally tapered off in Minnesota. But the solid cover of clouds remained.
He locked the door to the office and motioned to Joe, who pushed upright in the lawn chair on the concrete apron in front of the office.
“Let’s go have a look,” Dale said.
Joe squinted and said, “I just was over there. I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“C’mon,” Dale cajoled and Joe grunted, reluctantly heaving to his feet. And so they walked across Highway 5. When Dale was little, the Missile Park had smelled like a saloon early in the morning. Sawdust and soap covering a deep underscent of alcohol and tobacco smoke. He remembered the morning sun catching fire in all those bottles behind the bar. Now the bottles were gone. Now it just smelled musty, like what it had become, an empty warehouse.
They stepped inside and saw the woman sitting at Ace’s table at the back of the room, next to the pinball machine.
Gordy was standing at the front window, sipping on a Coke. Without turning, he said, “Christ. Here come both of them.” Then he spun on his heel and went past her up the stairs.
She heard them before she saw them; heavy footfalls on the porch. Then the creak of the screen door, the two men coming into the bar. The big one came in first-a Yogi Bear ramble of a walk, heavy in the middle, a long neck. Grinning. This would be Dale, Ace’s odd brother. She was prepared for him being a little off. But not the way he wore his shirt buttoned up to his neck and down to his wrists on such a humid hot day. At the moment, however, she was more interested in the Indian, Joe Reed.
He took her in as his eyes swept the room; dark eyes doing that cold burn. They shot a fast dagger thrust. Quick, sharp, and deep. Too quick to read, but Nina thought she felt contempt in his eyes, maybe even hatred.