“Yeah, I saw in the file you had a boy in the service I expected you’d look like an old woman, but you sure don’t. I can tell you take care of yourself, like I do. I respect my body. Watch this.” Ferris raised his right arm, cocked his fist and his bicep jumped out of the short white sleeve. “See? Does a little dance for you.” He looked from his arm to Carmen. “You like to dance? Get out there on the floor and shake it?”
“At times,” Carmen said. “Why don’t you put your arm down?”
“You want to feel it?”
“That’s okay.”
Ferris straightened the arm, raised the other one and stretched, saying, “Oh, man,” before laying them on the edge of the table again, hunching those huge shoulders at her.
“You have a stereo?”
“We didn’t bring it.”
“How about a radio?”
Carmen gave him a weary look. She said, “You’re too much,” and instantly wished she hadn’t.
He liked it—grinning at her again.
“My ex used to say that. I’d turn on the stereo and we’d dance right there in the house, the two of us. It’s what I miss the most since getting divorced. Well, it and something else. We weren’t married but a year. I think we did it more when we were going together’n when we were married, and I’m not talking about dancing now. What I think happens, when it’s right there all the time waiting you get so you take it for granted. And I mean just in a year’s time. I ’magine after something like twenty years you don’t do it near as much, or least not with the same person you’re married to. Am I right about that?”
Carmen felt herself boxed in by the table and his big shoulders filling the space in front of her, his shoulders, his wavy hair, his grin ... She tried staring at him calmly, with no expression—practiced from staring at Wayne, good at it—let this guy know she didn’t think he was cute or funny or was afraid of him. She wasn’t. She was irritated, but didn’t want to show him that either. Irritated by that goddamn grin and now by the thought—all of a sudden popping into her head—that she had missed something in his handwriting, or hadn’t paid enough attention to signs of ego. How could a person as dumb as this guy be so confident? That was not only irritating, it was a little scary.
She was wondering if maybe he could grin forever when it began to fade and he said to her, “Oh, well, you think on it and let me know.”
He slid out of the booth with his sport coat. When he turned, Carmen saw the revolver holstered on his right hip. She wanted to say something to him, but was more anxious for him to go, get out of here. He started to, he reached the doorway to the hall and Carmen got up to follow, make sure he left. When he turned she stood still, her hand on the edge of the table.
“See, you look to me like a nice person, the kind I’d like to get to know.”
“Thanks,” Carmen said.
“That’s why I know it isn’t all rosy between you and your old man, considering what he’s into, the kind of people he associates with. I can’t say I know what the deal is . . .”
It took Carmen a moment to realize what he was saying. “Wait a minute—Wayne isn’t into anything.”
“I suspect it might be something like labor racketeering, the kind of work he does, and the Bureau’s got him up against the wall.”
“No—believe me. You’ve got the wrong idea.”
“Am I close?”
“He hasn’t done anything is what I’m trying to tell you.” She watched Ferris put on his frown and pose with his head cocked.
“That’s funny, I thought your old man was in the Witness Security Program.”
Carmen felt an urge to go over and kick him in the balls, hard. “You don’t have to be a criminal, do you? Isn’t that right?”
“I think it helps,” Ferris said, “since I never heard of anybody in the program that wasn’t dirty—outside of relatives, wives, like yourself. See, that’s why I know you and him have your problems, ’cause as a law-enforcement officer I’ve dealt with plenty of guys like your old man. I’m sworn to protect his life, but that don’t mean I have to show him any respect.”
“I don’t believe this,” Carmen said with nervous energy, too many things in her mind to say at once. She saw Ferris turn to go and then look back at her again.
He said, “I don’t have to show you any respect either, if I don’t want to.”
Carmen took one look at Wayne and said, “Oh, my Lord,” not so much at the way he weaved and bumped against the refrigerator, but seeing his coveralls filthy with grease and soot, bunched under his arm.
“I stopped off. I’m not late, am I?”
“For what? We’re sure not going anywhere,” Carmen said. “Give me those.” She took his coveralls and threw them into the dark utility room. “Where’re you working, in a coal mine?”
“Close to it. I spent this morning in a coal barge welding in steel plates.” Wayne had the refrigerator open now. “The drydock foreman says, ‘So you’re a welder, huh?’ I told him, ‘You bet I am, AWS certified.’ He says, ‘Yeah, but can you weld plates watertight?’ I said, ‘Hey, I can weld a god-damn building so it won’t fall down. Is that good enough?’ He liked that, he said, ‘We’ll try you out.’ ”
Carmen watched him bump the refrigerator door closed with his hip, a can of beer in each hand, wound up because he was working again and had stopped off with the guys, back into a routine. Carmen was still tense from the deputy marshal’s visit, anxious to tell Wayne about it, but saw she would have to wait her turn. He was seated now in the breakfast nook, popping open the beer cans.
“I worked on the coal barge and then this big triple-screw towboat, the Robert R. Nally, comes in sideways from out in the river—that’s called walking the boat, when they do that. The chief engineer, this guy I got to know pretty well, was madder’n hell at the trip pilot. ...See, there’s a pilot they hire for trips, he and the captain take turns navigating, driving the boat. But this one they had caused the Robert R. Nally to run aground up here at a place they call the Backbone, Mile Ninety-four. It was pushing sixteen barges and the chief engineer said they splattered, broke the tow all apart. He said what happened, the dummy trip pilot was trying to steer the Backbone when he should’ve flanked it.” Wayne was grinning.
Carmen saw him wrapped up in his riverboat story, into a new trade and sounding like Matthew in his letters full of new words and references. At another time she might be interested. Right now it was beginning to irritate her.
“The trip pilot doesn’t work for the company, he’s like an independent contractor. He gets two-fifty a day and good ones are in demand. Even taking time off, you know what you could make a year, steering a boat down the river?”
Wayne paused, raising his eyebrows and his can of beer, and Carmen said, “Ferris was here.”
“When, today?”
“This morning. He thinks you’re a crook, involved in some kind of racketeering.”
“Guy’s an idiot. He introduces me to the dry-dock foreman and tells him I’m in the Witness Security Program. The foreman goes, ‘Oh, is that right?’ I had to tell him after Ferris left, ‘You want to check on me? Call Detroit, call my local.’ He says, ‘Well, if you can do the job ...’ ”
“I did call Detroit,” Carmen said. “I called the Marshals Service and spoke to John McAllen. I told him what happened . . .”
“We finally got a phone. Right there and I didn’t even notice it.”
“McAllen said he’ll look into it.”
“Good, straighten the guy out.”
“Wayne, I was on the phone talking to Mom— he walked right in the house.”