“Eddie, I’m not on the run. I’m not even on parole. I’m out clean. You got nothing to worry about.”
“Okay,” Eddie said, clearly wanting to believe him.
“You gonna invite me in or not? Or are we gonna keep standing out here on the sidewalk?”
“Yeah, come on,” Eddie said, opening up the gate. “Maybe in the garage? Would that be all right? We can talk there.”
Mason shook his head and followed him. “This is the place you showed me. You told me you were thinking of buying it.”
“This is the place,” Eddie said. “It’s got a yard, you know? Most places don’t.”
Mason looked around at the thin strip of grass running down the lot line. Just wide enough, maybe, to drive a car down. But Eddie was right, most houses in this neighborhood didn’t even have this much.
“Bridgeport,” Mason said. “You actually moved out of Canaryville.”
“Yeah, everybody’s not all up in your business here. We really needed a fresh start. I mean, you know . . .”
Eddie cleared his throat and let that thought die in the air.
“What are your kids’ names?”
Eddie stopped and looked him. “Yeah, they were born when you were . . . I mean, it’s Gregory and Jeffrey.”
“They seem like great kids.”
“They’re a big handful.”
Eddie opened up the door to the garage and stepped inside, taking a quick look back at the house.
“Eddie, listen, I don’t want to get you in trouble here. If Sandra doesn’t want me here . . .”
“No, no, it’s cool. Come on in and sit down. I got it all set up in here. Sandra calls it my man cave.”
Mason stepped inside the garage and saw worktables along both walls. The tabletops were crowded with computer consoles and laptops. One table seemed to be set aside as Eddie’s personal desk, with a nice computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, the whole works. A leather office chair was situated in front of it.
“This is what I do,” Eddie said. “I fix them, I sell them. It’s been pretty busy.”
“I’m not surprised. You were always good with the technical stuff.” Meaning hot-wiring cars and disabling alarms.
There was a tall safe set in the corner of the garage. Mason went over and tried the handle. It was locked up tight.
“I got a couple of rifles in there,” Eddie said. “I still get to the range when I can, but too much other stuff going on, you know?”
Eddie rolled the office chair over to Mason. He pulled out a folding chair and set it up. Then he went to the little mini-fridge in the corner, opened the door, and took out two cans of Half Acre beer.
“You want one of these?”
“Sure.”
Eddie gave him the can and sat down on the folding chair. Mason looked down at the man for a moment before sitting.
“Eddie . . .”
“Yeah, Nick?”
“You can relax now.”
“I’m sorry, man.” Eddie slinked down in his chair like somebody had taken half the air out of him. “I just don’t know what to think. You show up like this, when you’re not supposed to be out for another twenty years . . .”
“There was a problem with the arrest.”
“I’ve heard of shit like that happening,” Eddie said. “But I never thought—”
“Let’s get this out of the way,” Mason said, cutting him short. “I went away and you didn’t.”
“I know, man.” Eddie looked at the garage floor.
“That’s the way it happened. You wouldn’t have given me up if it was you.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Eddie said, looking back up at him. Mason could feel him grabbing onto this idea like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline. “I would have done the same thing, I swear.”
“Okay, then, we’re good.”
“But I should have come to see you,” Eddie said. “I was worried they would see my name and, I don’t know, try to keep me there.”
Mason took a hit off his beer. You feel really bad, he said to himself. And yet if I was still down there, you’d still be sitting here in Bridgeport, not coming down to pay me a visit. So you wouldn’t have felt that bad.
“It’s okay,” Mason said. “You’re married. You got kids. You gotta move on.”
“I was gonna come. Really, I was. But Sandra, she just . . .”
She just wouldn’t let it happen, Mason thought. I get it. The same woman who even now is making us sit out here in the garage instead of coming into the house. I should go in there, find her in her bedroom with both her kids hugged tight to her chest, tell her I just got done doing five years in a federal penitentiary and would have done a lot more. I never said a word about your husband being involved. Not one fucking word.
“So I heard about Gina,” Eddie said. “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen her yet. You knew she got remarried?”
“I heard,” Mason said, trying to hide how much it still hurt.
He’d been keeping his cool. But it was getting to be a bit too much. He held on tight to his beer can and counted to three.