in and hired those men to beat us. I just don’t know how he knew we were at the cemetery.”
“He didn’t,” Jim Bob said, snapping the snaps on his shirt. “But he thought it was a good possibility. He’s trying to discourage us. It’s just.
“And how are we going to do that?” I asked.
“For the time being, leave that up to me.”
“So what do we do?” Ann asked.
“You and Dane go home and do what you always do. Normal business. Go to work. Go home. Go to work. Regular shit. And Dane, I’d like you to hire Russel to work at your place. Ben said you owned a, what is it?”
“Frame shop,” I said.
“Yeah, you put him to work so he isn’t a vagrant, and I’ll put him up here at the Inn. Just pay him a token salary and count it out of what you owe me. Keep it cheap, though.”
“I’m not sure I like this,” I said.
“I’m not wild for it either,” Russel said.
“We gonna get this done,” Jim Bob said, “we’re gonna do it my way, or you two can do it yourselves or just forget it. I’m curious and I want to do this for Ben, but I’m gonna call the shots or it ain’t gonna happen. It’s not like I’m making ally big fortune off this.”
“I’m paying you,” I said.
“It ain’t my regular fee. Lot of this is coming out of my pocket, and I can tell you now, if you want to stay in business, you don’t work that way. You don’t buy the frames for your clients, do you, Dane?”
“I'm not asking you to work cheap,” I said. “You settled on a fee-”
“I’m not complaining. I’m just saying money isn’t what’s keeping me in this. But I’m not going to stay at it unless I’m calling the shots. That’s how it is.”
“All right,” I said, “I’ll take him on, but let’s don’t drag this out.”
“It takes as long as it takes,” Jim Bob said. “Ben can start working for you in the morning. In the meantime, I’ll get on the next step here. You want to check in and see how things are going, great, give me a call. But this is gonna take some time and I want to be left alone as much as possible.”
“That’s it then?” Ann said.
“For now, Lady,” Jim Bob said. “So let’s say good night, or damn near good day, and go home and sleep. You skipping work today, Dane?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You look like hell. Tomorrow Ben starts working for you.”
“Nine o’clock,” I said.
Ann and I stood up.
Jim Bob shook our hands. “Just go on about things regular like.”
Russel offered his hand to me, and after a moment, I shook it. Then he offered it to Ann.
She looked at it for a long, hard moment.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
He nodded and put his hand by his side. “I don’t blame you,” he said.
“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Ann said.
We went out. On the way home it started to rain again. This time very hard. It continued that way throughout the day and most of the night and the morning after.
24
A day’s rest hadn’t helped me much. I was still tired on the morning I started back to work. Depressed too. The idea of having Russel around me all day was not appealing.
To make the situation even more confusing, he reminded me more and more of my father. It wasn’t just the massive hands. He moved like my father and I fancied their voices were much the same.
And perhaps there weren’t that many similarities, and I was merely trying to raise the ghost of my dad and give him substance.
But if that was the case, why couldn’t I have chosen a more suitable host than a goddamn ex-con who threatened my child and nearly beat my brains out?
The morning was already hot, as usual. The rain had quit only a few hours before and the sun was out now and boiling the wetness off the brick streets like the damp off a beached fish’s scales.
I had to pass in front of the shop before I could make the turn that led to the lot in the rear where I parked and as I passed, I saw Russel standing out front, leaning on the glass door. I had hoped to at least have a little time to get unlocked and get the coffee brewing before I had to deal with him.
I went on around back and parked and opened the shop and went through to the front door and tapped on it. Russel jumped a little, and I unlocked the door and let him in.
“Snuck up on me,” he said.
“I drove by out front and saw you. I thought maybe you saw my car.”
“No, I was woolgathering. Nice place. It looks like you get some business.”
“Yeah. We do all right.”
I led him to the back and told him to take a chair and I put on coffee. When I was finished with that, I turned the thermostat to a cooler level and went over to the cash register and unlocked it. I had the bag of money I’d brought from home, just enough small change and dollars to get us rolling for the day, and I put all that in the register.
“What is it you want me to do?” Russel said.
He had left his chair and was standing at the counter.
“I don’t really know,” I said. “I haven’t thought about it. I guess you can clean up.”
“All right. With what, and how do you want things done?”
I took him to the back and showed him the closet with the broom, mop and dustpan. I showed him the bathroom. “You can get water from here for mopping,” I said. “Somewhere in that closet is a bucket and there’s some soap and all manner of stuff. I’m not even sure what’s in there. We’re not too good at cleaning up, actually.”
“I noticed,” Russel said. “There’s glass and wood and sawdust all over the floor under the work tables.”
“Yeah, well, we’re busy. You just do what you like, but look busy. I don’t want to make James and Valerie feel like I’m playing favorites.”
James and Valerie came in then, and they looked at Russel, then looked at me.
“New employee,” I said. “I’ve hired him for a little while to kind of straighten the place up, since we don’t seem to get around to it.” I hesitated, wondering if I should say Russel’s name. It didn’t seem likely they would remember who it was I was supposed to have shot, and even if they did, it was even more unlikely that they would associate the last names as kin. “This is Ben Russel.”
James shook Russel’s hand and Valerie smiled, which was good as a hug any day. She seemed to like what she saw in Russel, and it was obvious Russel didn’t mind looking at her either.
“Well,” I said, “let’s get to work.”
Russel straightened the closet first, then swept and mopped the joint until it was as shiny as the White House silverware. When he wasn’t working, he talked to Valerie, and they got along just fine. A lot better than James got along with her. It burned James so bad he came up front and leaned on the counter and whispered, “What’s that old guy got that I haven’t got?”
“A hard-on?”
“Funny, boss. You’re a riot. Maybe you should get your own television show.”
After about a week, I got fairly comfortable with Russel. I even praised his work. I wanted to hate him, but I kept finding myself liking him. Now, when I looked at him, I didn’t get the vision of him on my son’s bed clutching the boy’s pajama top in one hand and holding a knife in the other. I couldn’t associate the man that night with the man working for me. I saw a man that reminded me of my father. And that made me uneasy. I’d force myself to remember what he’d done so I could get mad. But the anger wouldn’t last.
