After the Rain

Broker had always told her how a lot of the assholes out there weren’t that smart. How sometimes they just did things before they thought…Okay, so, a knife-she prepared herself to fight. Gordy puckered his lips, blew a kiss, took a half-step toward her, still swinging the blade off to the side.

Instinctively Nina’s hands came up and she stepped back. What happened next was so strange and fast that she found herself in the middle, missing the beginning:

The voice rasped: “Leave her alone, Gordy. I mean it.”

Nina watched, stunned. Where’d he come from? A swarthy man about five-ten, in jeans, a gray T-shirt, and boots. He had jet-black hair and the corded arms of a circus roustabout. His face was all wrong, rippled with uneven pigment. Scars showed even through his short hair. He approached silently, moving with a graceful limp, favoring his left leg. He carried his left hand protectively close to his hip, not swinging naturally and Nina immediately saw the nubs of the two missing fingers. She’d seen his kind of face before, in VA hospital burn wards; guys who’d been blown up, their skin grafted. But this guy was very focused, his quiet eyes checking the blind angles, the back doorway by the stairs.

Her response was visceral. One player sensing another player coming onto the field.

Gordy immediately put the knife away, stepped back. “Hey-just kidding, Joe,” he said.

If push came to shove, Ace and Gordy were country tough. Basically they were muddling along in a local tradition of smuggling whiskey and petty crime. Not this guy. Nina was sure. He was a trained man. For the first time since this project got under way, Nina knew she was close to something scary.

The guy stopped and probed Nina fast with cold brown eyes so intense she could almost feel her bones glow. Then he turned to Gordy and said, “We got nothing else to talk about, you and me. You understand?”

“Sure, Joe.”

“Where’s Ace?”

“He ain’t here,” Gordy said.

“Tell him George says it’s tonight, at the old remote missile bunker east of town.”

“Jesus, Joe.” Gordy rolled his eyes at Nina, alarmed.

Joe’s eyes stayed fixed on Gordy but his voice turned contemptuous. “Since when are we scared of women?” He inclined his damaged face toward Gordy for emphasis, then, “You tell Ace.”

Gordy stepped back, eyes wide; trying to make the best of things. “Yeah, sure, Joe.”

Then Joe continued on past the stairs and went out through the storeroom. Gordy, minus most of the color in his face, grinned nervously at Nina. “Just joking around, right?”

“Yeah, sure, Gordy. Ha ha. Who was that?”

“Joe Reed,” Gordy said, clearly agitated. He shook his head. “I don’t get what’s going on anymore. It wasn’t like this when Ace’s dad ran things.”

Nina folded her arms across her chest and watched him go into the office. Then she went to the table, where Ace’s morning newspaper was spread out. As she sat down she released a delayed shudder.

The Indian’s presence lingered in the room like a cool shadow. Tonight, he said. George, he said. She was with Gordy, thinking, Why was this guy putting it on front street? What the hell’s going on?

Gordy reinvented himself fast, coming out of the office, smiling, bringing her a cup of coffee, and holding up two fingers in a V peace signal. Ace came in a few minutes later and set a still-warm Dairy Queen breakfast bag next to her.

“You’re still here,” he said with a wry smile.

Gordy watched her carefully from the bar to see if she’d let on about their confrontation. She didn’t and he occupied himself with his clipboard.

Ace said, “I had to leave early to go to court. Overslept, didn’t even have time to make coffee.”

“No problem,” Nina said airily. “Good old Gordy whipped up a pot.”

“Anywhere, anytime,” Gordy said.

Ace observed the touchy back-and-forth, filed it away. Gordy joined him, walked him to the stairs, and lowered his voice. “Joe was by, playing hard-ass. George sent him. George says it’s on for tonight. He’ll meet you at the old RLS site east on 5. Didn’t give a time.”

Ace nodded, stared at Nina’s back for a long moment, then went upstairs. The phone on the bar rang, Gordy crossed the room and picked it up. Nina opened the Dairy Queen bag. It contained an egg muffin.

Gordy talked for a moment, put down the phone, then said to her, “That was Dale across the road. Your husband was over there this morning. Thought you should know.”

Nina lowered her eyes, picked up her coffee cup in both hands, and took a sip.

Dale really wanted to get a closer look at this woman who had come to spy on his brother. He wanted to so bad he kept putting it off just to build up the anticipation. He had Gordy’s request to intervene with Ace as an excuse to mask his curiosity.

Woman comes all this way just to see Ace. Well, isn’t she in for a surprise.

It was an accepted fact that some new floosy blowing into town would be attracted to his brother. This had always been the case, all his life. And that’s why he found this woman so tantalizing.

Just showing up, kind of mysterious.

So he puttered around in the office, brooding, periodically glancing across the road. He’d glimpsed her twice now. First in that clingy tank top, then wearing one of Ace’s T-shirts. Tallish, lean. Short red hair. His eyes drifted up to the windows over the bar. He remembered playing there as a child, when his dad had an office there. Now Ace was probably sticking it to the woman up there-maybe right where he’d put his Tinker Toys together.

He peered out the window and finally he saw Ace’s Tahoe pull in and park in back. He picked up the phone and called. Gordy answered.

“Is he there?” Dale asked.

“Yeah. He just got back.”

“That guy you hit was here this morning with a little kid. He pretended he wanted to look at machinery.”

“I’ll pass it on.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll come over in a little while,” Dale said. He hung up, then stuck his head out the door. “Give me about five minutes to clean up,” he said to Joe. “Then we’ll go across.”

Joe nodded, raised his good hand and pointed. Across the highway, toward town, a small, single-engine plane took off, banked, and headed east.

Dale shut the front door and went into the small bathroom next to the office and inspected the toilet to see if the smart-ass little kid had left any unpleasant messes. She hadn’t. So he washed his face and brushed his teeth and gargled with Scope. Then he took a moment to study his reflection in the mirror. His teeth were normal and healthy but his gums were slightly oversized and made his choppers look slightly like lingering baby teeth.

At rest, Dale was plain. In motion, he tended to look deliberate, the power in him deep, hard to see. Clothes never meant much to him. But he wore a heavy leather belt; keeping himself real tucked in and tightly cinched. If you had stuff you had to keep inside, every little bit helped.

The way his life had worked out he wound up uncomfortable with his body. He had always suffered from a debilitating shyness, and now he went to great lengths to avoid looking at himself disrobed. If he used a public restroom on the highway he made sure the door locked. Then he’d turn out the lights and do his business in the dark.

Dale was a big man with a layer of fat on the outside. But he was solid on the inside. Years spent working around the big iron had given him a hefty core of muscle.

Sometimes he snuck looks at his brother, Ace, and had the impression that there had been a screw-up. Ace, with all his flaws, should have this awkward tub of guts. He should have Ace’s body.

As it was, he was just over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, with sloping shoulders and a longish neck. His skin was smooth and white. He wore wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts. This habit struck people as odd in a farming community. “Dale, he avoids the sun,” people said.

That wasn’t it. Dale was hiding his body. Even from himself.

Everywhere he looked he was reminded of his grossness. The images of little-bitty tanned bodies shrieked at him from magazines, TV commercials, and especially the hours of “paid commercial programming” on cable-all those bikini babes demonstrating exercise equipment.

His face was the polar opposite of his older brother’s; as if Ace’s handsome face had been turned inside out.