“I ate the same things you did, Rusty.”
Him calling me Rusty again, which he hadn’t done since before I went into the Army, made my stomach buckle. I turned on the tap and rinsed out my mouth.
He tore a couple sheets of paper towel off the dispenser and walked over and handed them to me. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t know you,” he said. “I know you like the back of my hand.”
I took the paper towels and wiped my face off. I still couldn’t look him in the eye, so I looked at myself in the mirror. “What do you know about a couple of brothers named McClaine?” I said.
“I saw those boys at the picnic today,” Pops said.
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“What do they have to do with you?”
“I’m trying to find that out. Can you tell me what you know about them?”
“I know I wouldn’t want you messin’ with them.”
“I’m not but I think Donnie is. He pointed me out to them today. Then they wanted to know if I have a pair of desert boots. They had a picture of tread marks off somebody’s floor. Trying to track somebody down, I guess.”
“That piece of shit Donnie would turn on his own mother if there was a dollar in it for him.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
Pops leaned up against a sink and gave me a hard look. “You have a pair of those boots.”
“Me and a few thousand other guys, yeah. But you still haven’t told me anything about those brothers.”
“They’re like Donnie except meaner and nastier. Neither one of them’s ever worked an honest day in his life.”
“What are they into?”
“Whatever they can get their fingers in. Started out, I seem to remember, rolling Amish guys. They was arrested for that. Both did a little time, but not enough. I don’t like judging a man on rumor but those two are an exception. And over the years, rumor’s had them involved with everything from pimping to assault to breaking and entering to dealing. These days they always manage to skate, though. Learned a thing or two in prison, I guess. Or one of them did. That would be Phil, the older one. The other one’s Howard, goes by Bubby. He’s more than a little light on the intellect.”
I nodded. Couldn’t think of anything else to do or say.
“What do they got against you?”
“I wish I knew.”
He kept looking at me. Not that I could see him doing it, but I could sure enough feel it, even as I stood there staring down at the faucet. It was made of brass and getting that bluish crust along the joints and seams. The longer I stared at it the harder it was to look away.
Finally he straightened up. “Whatever it is, don’t let it get out of hand.”
“There’s nothing to get out of hand, Pops.”
He nodded once. Then turned and headed for the door. “Nip it in the bud, son. If I taught you anything, I taught you that.”
When he walked out, it felt like he took all the air out with him. He had me for a liar, I’d seen it in his eyes right from the start. One bad decision, and now this. I wanted to put my fist through that face in the mirror.
Cindy never said a word about the incident at the picnic until she came to bed that night. I was already in bed, stiff as a board underneath the cotton sheet. She came out of the bathroom wearing a full set of summer pajamas, which I knew right there was a bad sign. Plus she left the bathroom light on, then also turned on the table lamp on the nightstand. And tossed that sheet of paper down on my chest.
“You plan to tell me or what?” she said. “Cause if you’re not, you might as well get out of my bed right now.”
I took the paper and crumpled it up and dropped it off the side of the bed. Then I rolled toward her and pulled the covers back. “Turn the lights out and come lay down,” I said.
It took her a few seconds to move, but she finally did. She flicked off the bathroom light, then the table lamp. Then she climbed in, rolled onto her side and looked me square in the eyes. “Why’d you lie about having those boots?”
A long, slow breath came out of my mouth then. It felt like surrender, which I knew I had to do.
“Remember that day I got caught in the rain coming home from work?”
“What about it?”
“That was the day I found out the plant was closing. I had to take a new way home because of an accident on the main road. It was mostly farmland, second-growth timber, a few houses here and there . . .”
“And?”
“I’m taking it fairly easy in the rain because the roads are slick. And I pass this one house, out in the middle of nowhere. A little cottage is all it is. Some kind of mongrel dog chained up to the front porch. But there’s music blasting out of the house, I can hear it from the road. And there’s this woman in the yard. Turning circles in the mud and the rain. Dancing, I guess.”
“What kind of a woman?”
“That one at the picnic today. With the two guys.”
“So you stopped?”
“No! I mean I did, but only because she slipped in the mud and fell down flat on her back. So I slowed down and kept watching and she never got up. Never even moved. So yeah, I stopped. If she was hurt, you know, I couldn’t ride away and leave her lying there.”
“Was she hurt?”
“I really don’t know. She was high as a kite on something. I mean . . . she was outside dancing, and she was . . .”
“She was what, Russell?”
“She didn’t have any clothes on.”
“What!” she said.
I just nodded.
“What did you do?”
“I asked if she was okay, but I couldn’t understand much of what she said.”
“Did you call 911?”
“I should have. That’s what I should’ve done. But she was trying to get up then and said something about me carrying her inside.”
“I thought you couldn’t understand her.”
“Most of it I couldn’t. A word here and there is all. But she kept reaching up to me and saying what I thought was, ‘Take me inside. Take me inside.’ So I picked her up and carried her inside.”
“She was completely naked and you picked her up?”
“Sweetie, what was I supposed to do? Let her lay there hurt?”
“How did you pick her up?”
“One hand under her shoulders, one hand under her knees.”
“And then what?”
“Then I carried her inside.”
“Where inside?”
“The front room was like . . . nothing but a couple of chairs and a TV set. So I took a look in the nearest room and there was a mattress on the floor, so I laid her down on it.”
“Nothing but a mattress?”
“A single old mattress, that’s it. I kept asking if she was okay, if she wanted me to call anybody, but all she did was to keep smiling, you know? It didn’t seem like she was in any pain.”
“So you what? You left her there?”
“I honestly didn’t know what else to do. She seemed fine physically, other than being sky-high on something. And that house, I don’t know, it felt strange to me. It wasn’t a place people lived. So I’m thinking about you, I’m thinking about the girls. I’m thinking whatever this place is, I don’t want to be seen here. So yeah, I left. I got my ass out of there and back home to you.”
“And that’s it?” she said.