“Two days, what?”
“Two days of walking.”
“You burned the car, right?”
“No. Left it by a police station.”
“Crazy,” Ty said. “So why you stop there? At your store, paint guns, whatever?”
East had to remember before Shandor, before Perry, when he was just a kid in the street. “I got cold, man. Cold and tired. Sign said HELP WANTED, so I went in.”
“I know they liked you, didn’t they? Had you pushing a mop?”
East shrugged. “Hundred dollars a day.”
“White man stealing from you,” Ty jeered. “I hope you stole a little back.”
“I don’t steal,” East said.
“You stole that lady’s car.”
“Yeah.” East’s blood quickened. “That was different.”
“Oh.” Ty’s fingers tapped the wheel. “Tell you one thing different. Bet it wasn’t no white lady’s car you stole.”
East shut his mouth and looked out at the dirty snow, stinging. Ty hummed. He drove fast, relaxed. Fourteen now, and he seemed to know driving by heart. He seemed to have the airport route in his head. He seemed just to pick things up like that.
East said, “Ty. Back at the gas pumps, when you held the gun on that dude. What were you thinking? What was the play?”
“You mean,” Ty said, “before you shot me?”
“Before I had to. You were out of control, man.”
“Maybe I was,” said Ty. “But come off it. Who was saving your ass, every time? In Vegas, from Michael Wilson, from that hick-ass town? And who did the job?”
“What job?”
“The judge.”
Then East remembered the judge: his name, his face. The dark shape of him moving around in the bright cabin like a rat in an experiment. “Ty. Did the judge know you? He looked at you.”
“I bet he did.”
“He smiled at you,” East said.
Ty just laughed.
“You ain’t gonna tell me?”
“No,” Ty said.
This shit, thought East. “But now you’re saying I’m in charge.”
“Play that,” said Ty. “You always in charge. Fin had a hundred hungry niggers working, but you’re the only one ever follows directions. Did you ever wonder how I had a gun after they took one off me?”
“You had a second one,” East said, “they didn’t find.”
“Same one,” said Ty. “Fin gave it back. You listening now?”
“Forget it,” East seethed.
“East. You got your way. You understand that your way goes on top of my way. But your way don’t stop me?”
“Just be quiet, man,” said East. The rain was letting up, and Ty took the exit to the airport. But East was in his mother’s apartment again, arguing. Arguing for his life against this impossible boy.
“You stick to business,” said Ty. “But I am business, East.”
They sat hot in their seats, hating each other like brothers, till they pulled up to the terminal, gray planes hanging in the sky.
22
Along the departures curb, the gray Lincoln stopped. NO PARKING. DROP-OFF ONLY.
Ty said, “When you’re ready to drop it off, call this number.” A sticker on the dash. “Give them one hour. They meet you here. Or wherever you need.”
“What do I need? Credit card? Fill the tank?”
“Bitch, this ain’t Avis. Just give the car back.” Ty handed East the keys. “Walter said you don’t fly. So if you got to drive this car back to LA, okay. But call and let them know.”
East scanned the line of windows along the terminal. Airline porters. Police. Families pulling suitcases on small invisible wheels.
“Two more things,” said Ty. He popped a compartment between the two seats. “There’s your phone. A charger too.”
East spun his phone in his fingers. The familiar weight and shape.
“Just be careful. Don’t say much. Be smart. I called you. So my new phone is the last number on it.”
East stared at the phone. “Thanks,” he made himself say.
Ty reached down into the compartment again and came up with a roll of bills.
“Three thousand dollars, if something comes up,” he said. “This is my money, now. A loan to you from me. Understand? Say it.”
“It’s your money.”
“All right. Take it.”
East let the money sit in Ty’s hand for a long time. A debt he didn’t want. But there was nothing else now.
He put it away in his pocket.
“Don’t lose it.”
“I won’t.”
“Plus this.” Ty fished a little silver gun out of the compartment, showed it, and replaced it. Then he took an envelope out and laid it on his thigh as he threaded the zipper on his jacket. FIRST CLASS, it said, just like East’s. DATE OPEN. JOE WARNER.
“So, this is it,” East said. “No luggage? Nothing?”
Ty shook his head.
“So. Six days. You got what you need. Any questions, you call me.”
Ty picked up his ticket. East studied him for a long moment. The sharp easiness. His long little balding head. Kidney bean — that’s what their mother had called him.
“I don’t want to come back here. Winter and shit. If I do, it’s the old rules. There will be consequences.”
“I hear,” said East.
A hard chuck on East’s arm, right on the bandage — East kept from crying out. Ty unsealed the door with a rush of wind. He climbed out and straightened his colorless jacket. Ticket folded over once in his hand, he checked the traffic behind them and then mounted the sidewalk, passing people in parkas and colorful letter jackets. East watched Ty hurry toward the electric doors, which slid open for him, just another young man on the way somewhere else.
It took East a moment: now he was expected to drive the Lincoln off. DROP-OFF ONLY. Not to slide over: to get out and walk around the big car. He did so, his hands and chest tingling. Paused at the driver’s door and checked the little chrome key ring: DODGERS. The brand of home.
A girl passed on the sidewalk, small and black, leading her parents, who were all burdened down with garment bags and ski poles. East didn’t look: he knew she would be the Jackson girl, all big eyes and bravery. That face swimming atop her face.
Then she was gone.
He coaxed himself onward, opened the door, lowered himself into the driver’s seat.
—
Barely any noise. Solid. He checked the mirrors, moved the seatback up. He wished he’d watched the route more on the way. Ty drove the roads as if he knew them. East knew only one town.
If he could find his way back to the long old highway, he’d be all right.
The wind moved the trees. The rain was stopping. But the pavement was already dry.
The steering wheel was thick and almost drowsy in its softness. He would need a little sleep as soon as he could get it.
—
Back at the range, he spent a few hours. He polished the countertop. He cleaned the storeroom. In the evening dark he dragged items out to the Dumpster — his bed of clean, flat cardboard. His blankets — he saved his new, still-fresh pillow. The box he’d fit under at night. He slept his last night on the sofa, comfortable without the heaters. The cold didn’t bother him now. He wasn’t as skinny as he used to be.
The last day. East took alcohol and rubbed down the register, the bathroom, the door handles, the cabinets — any place he’d touched, any place he’d made his. He went to the bank and cleaned out his Ohio account, took cash, more than a thousand dollars. Added it to Ty’s money and Walter’s.
At a table outside the little grocery where farmers sometimes came, he bought a handmade bouquet. Dried flowers, yellow and orange. He walked them across the highway to the leaning-forward yellow house where Perry had lived with Marsha. He stood for a moment on the porch but didn’t knock. He left it on a rocking chair beside her door, with a note that said, From Antoine, thanks. RIP. An ambiguous good-bye. He didn’t know if she’d ever get them. He doubted she’d ever step inside the range again, or her son would. It seemed to have been abandoned, except for him. It seemed to have been just the one man’s dream, and when he died, it stopped. East had left it spotless. He hadn’t stolen a thing.