I said, “Something’s not right, Billy. Let’s talk about it.”
“You’re coming down off a drunk, that’s all. You gonna be sick?”
“I don’t mean that.”
“What, then?”
“This whole thing.” I sat up in my bunk and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “Who’s Tommy?”
“Tommy?”
“The guy April talked about on the answering machine.”
“Tommy Crane.” Billy sighed. “Fuckin’ pig farmer. Lives up Two-fifty-seven a few miles. April used to do him and maybe she still does. She said on the tape she was coming down here to kiss him good-bye. That’s what we’re doing down here, remember?”
“An old boyfriend, right? Like Joey DiGeordano. And that guy at the Pony Point, Russel-another old boyfriend. Maybe Hendricks too. All these old boyfriends-and you don’t seem too shook about it, Billy. That’s what the fuck is bothering me, man. It’s been gnawin’ at my ass since you hired me.”
Billy squinted against his own smoke. “What’s your point?”
“Do you love her?”
He looked down at the table as he butted the cigarette in the foil. His face had fallen into shadow, but when he looked back up again it was lit by the fork of the flame. “No, Nick, I don’t love her. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love, to tell you the truth. But I’m sure I never was in love with her.”
I struggled against a curtain of alcohol that now pushed down upon my consciousness. “I don’t mind being a sucker, Billy-it’s happened to me before-but I don’t want to be your sucker, understand? We’ve got too much behind us, man, too many years.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s clear it.”
“You put April onto the DiGeordano heist, didn’t you?” Billy nodded with hesitation. “Joey called it the first time I sat with him. He said you were pimping your own wife. I didn’t want to believe him. Now I do.”
Billy nodded again and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, man.”
“You two wer e going to split the two hundred grand down the middle, then April was supposed to disappear. But April got wise. She booked with the full take and left you out in the cold. Now you want to find her and take back your share. That’s what you really hired me for-right, Billy?”
“That’s right, Greek,” he said. “That bitch took what was mine, understand? And now I want it back.” The shadow of the candle’s flame danced across Billy’s smile.
My eyes closed, watching him. The trailer darkened, and then it was black. I dreamed of high school, Billy, me, our teachers, our friends. Dead now, all of us.
FOURTEEN
There was a tightness in my chest, and in my sinuses the suffocating stench of stale smoke. I unzipped my bag and sat up naked on the edge of the bunk. My feet dangled, and I let my toes touch the cold linoleum of the trailer floor. I pushed the hair away from my eyes and rubbed my face for a long while. Then I dressed slowly, turned the knob of the trailer door, and stepped down onto the concrete patio, out into the light.
It was a clear and cold sunny day. Billy stood down by the bank, scrubbing Maybelle with a thick-bristled brush that he dipped in the brackish water of the creek. I zipped my jacket to the neck and walked across a field ridged with hard brown mud and a ground cover of freshly sprouted winter wheat. By the time I reached Billy, he was drying Maybelle with a yellowed towel. Maybelle shook off, snorted, and ran up the bank to greet me, her tail moving excitedly. I rubbed the top of her head as she pushed the side of her snout against my leg.
Billy’s car was parked by the boat shed. A deep scrape was etched in the white paint and ran from the rear quarter panel to the mirror on the passenger side. I looked at it and then at Billy.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I’m feeling bad enough, so let’s not talk about it, okay?” I nodded. “How you doing?”
“A little rough,” I said.
Billy put his fists in his pockets and tried to widen his eyes. “Want some breakfast?”
“Sure.”
THE PONY POINT WAS open for business. We parked in front and left Maybelle behind. By now she had used her paws to form a bed from the yellowed towel.
A small bell sounded as we opened the front door and stepped inside. Wanda was behind the bar. She flicked her chin in our direction and threw us a tight smirk as she looked us over. I kept my eyes on my shoes and followed Billy to a booth.
A square-headed guy wearing a camouflage hat sat alone drinking coffee in the booth behind Billy’s back. At the bar sat Flattop and his two older companions, beers in front of them all. They were still alive but barely conscious-one of Flattop’s eyes had rolled up into his head while the other stared straight ahead. The uncle leaned his weight into Flattop, in an effort to keep them both upright. The other man was sleeping, his posture still erect, his hand wrapped around the body of the Bud.
I looked over at the hunter and then at Billy. “What’s in season?”
“Rabbit,” Billy said.
Wanda stood before us, her shapely septuagenarian hip slightly cocked. She tapped the pencil on the order ~
Billy said, “I’ll have one in a mug.”
I said, “Just coffee for me. And breakfast. Eggs over easy, with toast and scrapple.”
Billy nodded. “I’ll have the same.”
Wanda wrote it down and then spun on her heels. She walked back behind the bar and tore the check off the pad, sliding it through the reach-through. I saw an eggshell apron fill the space and a brown hand grab the order. Flattop’s uncle snapped his fingers with an on-the-one beat and sang, “I’m gonna stick… like glue.”
“I’ll be back in a minute, Billy.”
I rose with difficulty and shook the dizziness from my head. At the bar I took a thick white diner mug from a stack and poured some coffee from the fullest pot heating on the Bunn-O-Matic. I had a sip standing there, then walked around the U of the bar to the kitchen’s entrance.
Inside, Russel was standing over a large grill. On one side of the grill a dozen hand-packed burgers precooked slowly on the breakfast-level heat. Russel poured some grease from a coffee pot onto the other side. It spread into a pool the size of a dinner plate and began to sizzle.
“How’s it going?” I said.
“It’s goin’,” he said without looking up. Russel took a thick black-handled knife from the rack and cut two slices from a wax-papered block of scrapple. He laid the scrapple carefully into the grease, then turned to face me.
Russel’s hair was cut in a modified fade. His eyes were baby-round and olive green. Two black moles dotted the brown skin of his left cheek.
“I’m Nick Stefanos.” I walked across the brick-colored tiles and shook his hand. His grip was tentative.
“I know your name,” he said, and grinned slightly. “But I would have recognized you anyway. You’re wearin’ the same tired shit you had on last night.”
“Didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
“Uh-huh.”
He faced the grill again and turned the scrapple. I walked over to the opposite wall and leaned my back against a stainless-steel refrigerator. The kitchen was warm, and Russel had opened the back door. Some sun fell in through the wood-framed screen. Through the screen I watched a large black cat lick her kittens clean on a concrete porch. Beyond that, on a worn patch of brown grass, a three-legged German shepherd slept. I had a deep swig of coffee and lit a cigarette. The smoke of my exhale hovered and shimmered in the oblong wedge of sun.
“I’m looking for April Goodrich,” I said.