Boutros starts the car. Jameel slides in next to him. “See ya in a coupla weeks, Jimmy.”
“I better see you in an hour.”
“What for?”
James bends into the open passenger window. “I hired Leo Taylor because I knew I could trust him with merchandise, and until I’m convinced about a replacement I want you personally responsible.”
“What are you talkin about b’y? Boutros’ll do the runs.”
“You’ll accompany him.”
“You trust a nigger over my boy, is that it?”
“This is business, Jameel. I expect to see you back here in an hour or not at all.” James straightens away from the window.
Jameel sticks his head out, “Fuck you Piper, you fuckin uppity sonofabitch, did you know you’re supplying my place with Piper pussy, eh boy? And that she’s fuckin your precious spade, Leo Taylor?”
James glances through the windshield at Boutros, who’s still staring at him. Jameel smirks. James can’t lay a hand on him with the big fella sitting there.
“Who are you talking about, Jameel?” he asks evenly.
“Your daughter Frances, b’y,” with a good buddy grin.
“I don’t have a daughter by that name.”
Man, he’s cool.
“If I don’t see you here in an hour, Jameel, I’ll assume our deal is terminated.”
He turns and walks calmly towards the shack.
Jameel is enraged, head and shoulders out the window, “Everyone’s had her b’y! Everyone but you, I guess, or have you had her too?”
Boutros floors it and Jameel’s head cracks against the outer chrome. “Shit!” Boutros gets a row of knuckles to the ear but he doesn’t seem to notice, he’s concentrating on James in the rearview mirror disappearing into the shack.
Inside, James has his first drink in thirteen years. He’ll get this Jameel transaction over with in a few hours. Then he’ll get hold of a rifle and go over to Leo Taylor’s place for a talk.
“Slow down, you’ll have the Mounties on us.”
Boutros doesn’t register the order.
“I said slow down.”
But Boutros takes Low Point at a steady seventy. Boutros doesn’t say a word throughout the next three runs, which makes it no fun for Jameel, who can usually count on “Yeah Pa, that’s right Pa” whenever he leaves space for a breath. Jameel sulks in the car while Boutros takes the booze from Piper, who is drunker every time and likewise dead silent. That’s how an enklese gets you, thinks Jameel, with silence. Ice, they use, they’re smart but they’re not quite human. No feelings. When it comes to his son Boutros, however, Jameel doesn’t think “silent,” he thinks “dumb”.
Boutros is calm because he has decided that tonight is the night. He’ll take money, what he’s rightfully earned, from his father’s safe, then he’ll go get Frances and they’ll drive. Wherever she wants to go. Forget the farm, forget his mother, that was the dream of a child, the grown-up knows that he has to get Frances off this island right away. There are too many men here who need to be killed, first among them her own father. What kind of a man disowns his daughter? Frances is a diamond, passed from filthy paw to paw but never diminished. The men who handle her can leave no mark because her worth is far above them. Hard, helpless, buried. You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes, she is waiting for a strong and fearless miner to go way down and rescue her up to the surface where she can shine for all she’s worth.
Boutros has to get her away tonight, before something happens, he doesn’t know what. He had a terrible feeling when his father taunted Piper about having had his own daughter. Boutros knew it must be true. For Frances to do what she does right under her father’s nose, Piper must know she’s already ruined, and he knows because he ruined her. But Boutros knows that no one is that powerful to be able to ruin something God created good. That was proven by Job. The Devil can try, but he can’t triumph.
Why did Adelaide believe Ginger when he said he was going to square things like a man with Piper? Because she was tired of not believing him. When people get tired they sometimes do things they wouldn’t normally do. Materia went for a nap with her head in the oven. That’s not in Adelaide’s line. When she gets tired, she stops tasting for truth. In a moment of fatigue she wanted everything to be all right, but wishing never made anything right. This is what happens when Adelaide stops being tough for a second.
If Adelaide weren’t in such a hurry she would run out and lose her supper into the toilet, but there isn’t time, so she walks shaky to Beel’s Grocery on the corner. “Have you seen my man tonight, missus?” is a rhetorical question. Mrs Beel goes straight to Adelaide’s house to mind the children while Adelaide takes care of her trouble. Wilfrid Beel is there with his philosophical white hair. He offers her a drive wherever she might need to go.
“I’ll let you know, Wilf.”
She leaves and walks to Teresa’s house.
Earlier that evening, Ginger had just laid Carvery in the crib when he saw a light down in the garage. He went out and opened the double doors onto the blazing headlights of his truck. He stood for a moment, temporarily blinded, and heard a soft crying.
“Hello?” he said.
Again the soft whimper.
It’s coming from the cab. Ginger opens the driver’s side and sees a dark shape huddled against the opposite door. A small voice says, “Don’t tell on me.”
His gullet leaps in fear. It’s her. Instinctively he hits the lights and they go out in slow motion.
“I’m scared,” she says, her voice muffled behind her hands.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She says something he can’t understand, barely audible and obscured by sorrow.
“You can’t stay here, Frances.”
The crying starts again — quiet, rhythmically regular, drained of passion. Like a child who’s already cried itself to sleep, then reawakened and is now no longer crying to be heard, having given up on that.
“What’s wrong?”
Soft hiccup, the voice is drenched and exhausted, “… hurt me.”
“What?” he says, stepping up on the running-board. She rustles away from him in frightened reflex.
“Shshsh, shsh, I’m not going to hurt you, what’s wrong?”
“I already got hurt.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Yes you can. But Frances, you can’t stay here, come into the house.”
“No-o-o.” Fresh terror, fresh tears.
“How can I help you if you won’t come inside?”
“Take me to a safe place.”
“Where?”
“A place I know where he can’t get me.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“Frances. Did your father hurt you?”
No answer. Sound of a hand wiping a wet nose.
“What did he do?”
She sounds more grown-up now. Brave. “I made him mad.”
“Tell me what he did to you.”
Her voice goes cold. “It’s my own fault” — sniff — “I’m no good, he’s right. Why should anyone care about me, why should you, I’m bad for everyone.”
Ginger has found a match in his pocket. As he lights it, she recoils and covers her face with her hands, “No!”
He looks at her, curled up in the corner, so fragile. He reaches out, gently pries a hand away from her face and, just before the flame dies, “Oh my Lord.” He’s shocked. Who could do such a thing?
“Don’t look at me, I’m ugly.”