“I know they did, and so does Judy.” Cory nodded at the road ahead, agreeing with himself. “So what I tell Judy, I got another interview over there, this time I’m not gonna dress like a farmer and I’m not gonna show up in some pickup truck. I’m gonna dress like a guy teaches computer arts, and I’m gonna show up in Judy’s nice Volkswagen Jetta. I’ll tell her, and it’s true, I’ll even run it through the car wash first.”
“Judy’s down on me, you know,” Cal pointed out. “If she sees me, she’s gonna say, ‘What are you taking
Cory laughed. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t have you in the truck when I get there. It’s got to be just Judy and me.”
“So whadaya gonna do with me while you’re off bullshitting Judy?”
“There’s that diner about a mile before her place,” Cory reminded him.
“Randall’s.”
“That’s the one. I’ll let you off, you have a cup of coffee—”
“Or a beer.”
“Make it a cup of coffee. We gotta be sharp tonight, Cal.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll make it coffee. And you go off to Judy by yourself.”
“And come back with the Jetta.”
“And that so-called tough guy won’t have an idea in the world we’re sitting right on his ass.”
“Right.”
Cal frowned at the windshield, struck by a sudden thought. “What if they’re already gone when we get back?”
“Whatever they’re gonna do,” Cory assured him, “they won’t start in on it until after dark.”
And that also made sense. Cal nodded at the road awhile, thinking, then said, “What do you suppose they’re up to?”
“We’ll find out when we see them do it,” Cory said, and that was the end of that conversation until they reached the diner, a sprawling place that had originally been a little railroad car type of greasy spoon, but then kept adding on dining rooms and kitchens and bigger neon signs out front until now it looked more like an Indian casino than a place to eat. It was at the intersection of the smallish state road they were on and a bigger U.S. highway, and was always pretty full, though the food wouldn’t bring anyone back.
Cory stopped near the entrance and said, “I’ll be maybe half an hour.”
“I’ll sit by the window,” Cal told him as he opened his door.
“Just have coffee, Cal, okay?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t worry about me.”
Cal got out, Cory drove away, and Cal went into the diner, where he had a cheeseburger, onion rings, and a beer.
4
Usually Fred spent Sunday afternoons in fall and winter watching football games by himself in the living room while Jane read in the enclosed back porch that was a greenhouse in summer and the best view of the outside world in winter. Today, though, when she got home from Tom Lindahl’s place with the rifle, though Fred was in the living room as usual, the television set was off and he was just sitting there, in his regular chair, slumped, not even looking toward the set but downward, past his knees at the carpet on the floor, brooding. He barely lifted his head when she walked in, trying to be chipper, saying, “I never knew this thing was so heavy.”
“Oh, you got it,” he said, though without much animation. “Good.”
“Should I put it in the closet?”
“Sure. Okay.”
She started out of the room, but couldn’t help herself, had to turn back and say, “No football?”
“Ah, it’s just same-old, same-old,” he said, and shrugged, and didn’t exactly meet her eye.
She herself had always thought football games were very much same-old, same-old, the same movements seen every Sunday, like ritual Japanese theater, only the costumes changing, but she didn’t like to hear that sentiment come from Fred. She only nodded, though, and went to the bedroom and put the rifle in its place at the back of the closet, upright, leaning against the left rear corner. Then she went back to the living room, where Fred had not moved, and said, “I saw that man.”
He roused a bit. “Uh? Oh, him.”
“He’s very strange, Fred.”
“He knows what he wants,” Fred said, which seemed to her a strange kind of remark.
“He did say something,” she went on, “that I thought was odd, but maybe it was a good thing to say.”
No response. She waited for him to ask what the strange man had said, but he didn’t even look at her, so she had to go ahead without prompting. “He said George will want to see you when he gets home.”
“George?” Not as though he didn’t remember their own son, but as though he couldn’t imagine why they’d been discussing him.
