'Percy - ' I began, then saw a frown crease his grin and realized my mistake. I took a deep breath and began again. 'Brad, what have you got against me?'
He looked puzzled for a moment, maybe a bit unsettled. Then the grin returned. 'Old-timer,' he said, 'could be I just don't like your face. What you writin, anyway? Last will n testicles?'
He came forward, craning. I slapped my hand over the page I'd been working on. The rest of them I began to rake together with my free hand, crumpling some in my hurry to get them under my arm and under cover.
'Now,' he said, as if speaking to a baby, 'that ain't going to work, you old sweetheart. If Brad wants to look, Brad is going to look. And you can take that to the everfucking bank.'
His hand, young and hideously strong, closed over my wrist, and squeezed. Pain sank into my hand like teeth, and I groaned.
'Let go,' I managed.
'When you let me see,' he replied, and he was no longer smiling. His face was cheerful, though; the kind of good cheer you only see on the faces of folks who enjoy being mean. 'Let me see, Paulie. I want to know what you're writing.' My hand began to move away from the top page. From our trip with John back through the tunnel under the road. 'I want to see if it has anything to do with where you - '
'Let that man alone.'
The voice was like a harsh whipcrack on a dry, hot day... and the way Brad Dolan jumped, you would have thought his ass had been the target. He let go of my hand, which thumped back down on my paperwork, and we both looked toward the door.
Elaine Connelly was standing there, looking fresh and stronger than she had in days. She wore jeans that showed off her slim hips and long legs; there was a blue ribbon in her hair. She had a tray in her arthritic hands - juice, a scrambled egg, toast, more tea. And her eyes were blazing.
'What do you think you're doing?' Brad asked. 'He can't eat up here.'
'He can, and he's going to,' she said in that same dry tone of command. I had never heard it before, but I welcomed it now. I looked for fear in her eyes and saw not a speck - only rage. 'And what you're going to do is get out of here before you go beyond the cockroach level of nuisance to that of slightly larger vermin - Rattus Americanus, let us say!'
He took a step toward her, looking both unsure of himself and absolutely furious. I thought it a dangerous combination, but Elaine didn't flinch as he approached. 'I bet I know who set off that goddam smoke alarm,' Dolan said. 'Might could have been a certain old bitch with claws for hands. Now get out of here. Me and Paulie haven't finished our little talk, yet!'
'His name is Mr. Edgecombe,' she said, 'and if I ever hear you call him Paulie again, I think I can promise you that your days of employment here at Georgia Pines will end, Mr. Dolan.'
'Just who do you think you are?' he asked her. He was hulking over her, now, trying to laugh and not quite making it.
'I think,' she said calmly, 'that I am the grandmother of the man who is currently Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives. A man who loves his relatives, Mr. Dolan. Especially his older relatives.'
The effortful smile dropped off his face the way that writing comes off a blackboard swiped with a wet sponge. I saw uncertainty, the possibility that he was being bluffed, the fear that he was not, and a certain dawning logical assumption: it would be easy enough to check, she must know that, ergo she was telling the truth.
Suddenly I began to laugh, and although the sound was rusty, it was right. I was remembering how many times Percy Wetmore had threatened us with his connections, back in the bad old days. Now, for the first time in my long, long life, such a threat was being made again... but this time it was being made on my behalf.
Brad Dolan looked at me, glaring, then looked back at her.
'I mean it,' Elaine said. 'At first I thought I'd just let you be - I'm old, and that seemed easiest. But when my friends are threatened and abused, I do not just let be. Now get out of here. And without one more word.'
His lips moved like those of a fish - oh, how badly he wanted to say that one more word (perhaps the one that rhymes with witch). He didn't, though. He gave me a final look, and then strode past her and out into the hall.
I let out my breath in a long, ragged sigh as Elaine set the tray down in front of me and then set herself down across from me. 'Is your grandson really Speaker of the House?' I asked.
'He really is.'
'Then what are you doing here?'
'Speaker of the statehouse makes him powerful enough to deal with a roach like Brad Dolan, but it doesn't make him rich,' she said, laughing. 'Besides, I like it here. I like the company.'
'I will take that as a compliment,' I said, and I did.