Reluctantly he sat when Walter tugged at his arm.
Across a low, formal table sat the sofa’s love-seat cousin, also peach. Not far away on the floorboards sat a bassinet in dull gray plastic. A large orange stuffed crab waited there — clutched in the hand, East saw now, of a damp, sleeping baby.
“Make yourself comfortable.” Phillip’s voice floated from the back.
Through the door frame East saw the antique dining room — long table and chairs, a tablecloth of lace, littered with plastic plates and mail. Cheerios had spilled across the floor.
Another creaking, and presently the doorway filled with a man in gray sweats. East almost whistled. The man was gigantic: Walter was 4XL fat, but this man made him seem a youngster. He was bald and he moved tenderly, shifting from foot to foot, sizing them up. His blond lashes made his blue eyes seem peculiar and dark.
“Hi,” he said softly. “I’m Matt.” He perched on the second sofa. “Pleased to meet you two. Maybe today is the day that the floor caves in.”
Walter said, “You okay if I get right to it?”
“Be my guest,” said Matt.
“We came to buy two pistols. One should be semiauto. Second one, anything that’s straight. And bullets for both.”
“Bullets for both,” the man repeated dreamily. Almost a sigh. “How you boys this early morning? Come far?”
“A long way,” reported Walter.
“You staying here? Or just passing through?”
“Passing through,” Walter said concisely.
Walter was straight. It pleased East, reassured him — the straightest line between now and getting out. Made sense. He looked up at the other man, Matt, whose politeness felt effortlessly derogatory. Eyeing the two boys, Matt worked his mouth on something.
“Passing through. You sure? Ain’t much here to steal.”
“Leaving as soon,” Walter said, “as we get what we need.”
“Welp.” Matt leaned slightly forward, a pivot somewhere in the base of his neck. “You seem like you’re serious business. Let’s see what I can show you. Phillip. Phillip. Bring out that bunch you’ll find above the refrigerator.”
The skinny man’s footsteps scraped onto linoleum. East eyed the third man, the bearded one with wire glasses, lying in wait behind his barrier on the stairs. Was he armed? Figure he was. Figure Phillip too was just listening with the safety off. Small-town manners.
Phillip returned with a metal tray, tarnished, like it once was precious. The man named Matt accepted the tray with soft fingers. His blue eyes grew round, and he peered at the guns like a pawnbroker doubting jewelry. Then he placed the tray down before the boys.
Three guns. Two magazines.
“These are nice guns,” sighed Matt as if the boys had given him heartburn.
East stared. Guns were not his thing. He’d carried a few, even fired a few to learn. But these guns were not for boasting or learning.
“This is yours to choose, man,” he murmured to Walter.
Walter wiped his hands together and picked up the first gun. Checked the chamber first, then the action. Sighted it against a ceiling corner. Click. Quietly replaced it on the tray and tried the next.
“We good?” Matt said agreeably.
Walter said, “Not these.”
“Oh?” Comically the fat man cleared his throat. His eyes went round again. “Not these? You want what, exactly?” Over his shoulder he said, “Phillip. He says not these.”
“These guns are fine,” said Walter, “but not these.”
“These ain’t the low-end Saturday-night specials city niggers use,” said the man, licking his lips. “No offense.”
There it was. East saw it fly out and watched it sink. Just a stone in the water.
Walter made a plain, thin line with his lips and let it go. “Why don’t you show us what else you got.”
“Tell me what road you came in on,” said the fat man Matt.
“From the south,” said Walter. “From the interstate.”
“Didn’t you go visit somewhere else first? Before you came here?”
Now Walter elbowed East. “This motherfucker,” he scoffed. But East saw the cubes of windowpane light curving in Walter’s eyes, the cock of his eyebrow: Where we going with this? Improvising was wearing thin.
They’d done some things right. But nobody would tell you how many things were left.
East intervened. “We went somewhere else. Come on. Ask us what you got to ask. Then let’s see some more guns.” His voice came harder than he meant it to. Maybe that was all right.
Matt chewed on something, encouraged. “Did you go to a barn? A big-ass barn in a field?”
“Maybe.”
“Why didn’t they sell you?”
“Who knows?” said East. “I guess they didn’t like us.”
“Did they not like you because a lot of little African Americans steal? Or because a lot of little African Americans actually turn out to be cops?”
“A lot of little African Americans trying to be polite here,” East said. “Whyn’t you bring another bunch of guns if you got any? Or we can just go buy them in the next town.”
“Oh?” said Matt. “What town?”
Walter cut in: “Dubuque.”
“Well, I don’t know nobody who sells guns in Dubuque.”
“We’ll find someone,” said Walter. “But we here doing business with you, or trying.”
At this statement the baby stirred. It stretched one hand out, then emitted a loud complaint. Inside East, the black string sang murder. He hated the baby; he hated the men for using the baby, leaving the baby in the main room for show. Like the antique photographs, the upholstered furniture. As if it all meant respectability, as if you couldn’t be touched.
Somewhere its mother was probably still asleep.
Matt moaned and shifted himself on the love seat. “Phillip,” he crooned, “why don’t you see what you can find in that drawer?”
“Which drawer, Matt?”
“Second one,” said Matt. “Below the toaster.”
“Second one below the toaster,” Phillip repeated, retreating to the kitchen once again.
The big man Matt smiled, and in his sickly whine he said, “How about you, string bean? You know where you’re headed next?”
East squinted. He’d been called String Bean sometimes as a kid. That Matt had put his finger right on it annoyed him, like someone had screamed his name inside a house. But he couldn’t mean anything by it. He meant that East was long and skinny. That was all.
As much as East hated these men, he wanted to make the deal. He wanted it to be over. And he wanted to have done it.
“I’m going with him,” he affirmed.
“Mmm,” mused Matt. “That’s good. Okay, here he comes.”
The second tray: two guns, one extra clip. “Be my guest,” Matt said again.
Walter picked up the first, a gray semi, jimmied the magazine out, checked it over. “Seventeen,” he murmured tunefully.
“Good gun,” said Matt. “Not Glock’s best.”
“Why ain’t you bring this out first time?”
Matt smiled and said nothing.
“Do I get to fire it? You got room in the basement?”
“In the basement is my wife,” Matt said. “Asleep, we both should hope. No, you don’t get to fire it. If we go out in the fields, you can shoot it. But you’re in my house, first thing in the morning. You’re lucky we’re even awake.”