'It's not like I took it out of the house.'
'We aren't going to touch it again, not until we leave.'
She frowned across the room at me. I could tell that she thought I was being too hard, but I didn't care.
'Promise?' I asked.
She shrugged. 'Fine.'
I brought the stack of money over to the bed and began to count it. I was still a little drunk, though, and I kept losing track of the numbers.
'He didn't take any,' Sarah said finally. 'I already checked it.'
I froze, startled. I hadn't realized why I was counting it.
LYING in bed, waiting to fall asleep, we whispered back and forth at each other.
'What do you think will happen to him?' Sarah asked.
'To Jacob?'
I sensed her nod in the darkness. We were both on our backs. All the lights were out, and the baby was asleep in her crib. Sarah had forgiven me for lecturing her.
'Maybe he'll buy a farm,' I said.
I felt her body go tense beside me. 'He can't buy the farm, Hank. If he stays--'
'Not my father's farm. Just any farm. Someplace out west maybe, in Kansas, or Missouri. We could help him set it up.'
Even as I spoke, I realized it would never happen. It had been the wine that had allowed me to hope for it earlier that evening, but now I was sobering up, seeing things as they actually were rather than as I wished them to be. Jacob knew nothing about agriculture: he'd have just as much of a chance succeeding as a farmer as he would becoming a rock star or an astronaut. It was simply childishness on his part to keep on dreaming of it, a willful sort of naivete, a denial of who he was.
'Maybe he'll travel,' I tried, but I couldn't picture that either -- my brother climbing on and off planes, dragging suitcases through airports, checking into expensive hotels. None of it seemed possible.
'Whatever he does,' I said, 'things'll be better for him than they are now, don't you think?'
I rolled over onto my side, draping one of my legs across Sarah's body. 'Of course,' she said. 'He'll have one point three million dollars. How could things help but be better?'
'What's he going to do with it, though?'
'Just spend it. Like us. That's what it's for.'
'Spend it on what?'
'On anything he wants. A nice car, a beach house, fancy clothes, expensive meals, exotic vacations.'
'But he's so alone, Sarah. He can't just buy all that for himself.'
She touched my face, a soft caress. 'He'll find somebody, Hank,' she said. 'He'll be okay.'
I was tired, so I tried to let myself believe her, but I knew she was probably wrong. The money couldn't change things like that. It could make us richer, but nothing more. Jacob was going to remain fat and shy and unhappy for the rest of his life.
Sarah's fingers moved up my face, a shadow in the darkness above me, and I shut my eyes against them.
'Everybody's going to get what they deserve,' she said.
SOMETIME before morning I awoke to the sound of someone moving through the house. I rose onto my elbow, my eyes focusing instantly. Sarah was sitting beside me, her back against the headboard, nursing Amanda. An icy wind was rattling the windows in their frames.
'Someone's in the house,' I said.
'Shhh,' she whispered, not looking up from the baby. She reached out with her free hand and touched me on my shoulder. 'It's just Jacob. He's using the bathroom.'
I listened for a bit, listened to the walls creak against the wind, listened to Amanda softly cooing as she drew the milk from Sarah's body. Then I lay back down. After another minute or so, I heard my brother pad heavily back down the hallway to his room. He groaned as he lowered himself onto his bed.
'See?' Sarah whispered. 'Everything's okay.'
She kept her hand on my shoulder until right before I fell asleep.
6
WE PICKED up Lou just after seven and drove into Ashenville, to the Wrangler. The Wrangler was one of two taverns in town, each an exact replica of the other. Years before, it had sported a western theme, but all that remained of that now was its name and the huge, graffiti-ridden skull of a longhorn steer slung up above the doorway. The building was long and narrow and dark, with a bar running down one wall and a line of booths down the other. In the rear, through a pair of swinging doors, was a big, open room. There was a pool table here, some pinball machines, and a broken-down jukebox.
Things were relatively quiet when we arrived. There was a handful of older men at the bar, sitting alone with bottles of beer. A few of them seemed to know Lou, and they grinned hello. A young couple was seated in one of the booths, leaning toward each other across the table and whispering fiercely, as if they were fighting but afraid to make a scene.
We went into the rear, and Jacob and Lou set themselves up for a game of pool while I bought the drinks. I got a boilermaker for Lou, a beer for Jacob, and a ginger ale for myself.
Jacob lost to Lou, and I bought another round. This happened three more times before some people came back and we had to give up the pool table. We went up front then and sat down in one of the booths. By now it was after eight, and the place was getting busier.
I continued to buy the drinks. I told Lou my ginger ale was scotch and soda, and he laughed, calling it an accountant's drink. He wanted to buy me a shot of tequila, but, smiling, I refused.
It was interesting, watching him get drunk. His face took on a deep redness, and his eyes went watery, their pupils slowly sinking beneath a flat, glassy sheen. He started to use the bathroom between every round, and by nine o'clock the meanness had begun to unshroud itself, the petty spitefulness, the essential Lou. At odd moments he seemed to forget that I was buying him his drinks: he'd begin to call me Mr. Accountant, start his winking routine with Jacob, his sneers and giggles. Then, just as quickly, he'd bounce back, slap me on the arm, and all three of us would be the greatest of friends again, coconspirators, a gang of gentlemen thieves.
Whenever a fresh drink arrived, he'd make a toast, the same one each time. 'Here's to the little lady,' he'd say. 'Blessings on her downy head.'
The tape recorder was in my shirt pocket. I reached up and scratched at it every minute or so, obsessively, as if it were some sort of talisman and I were touching it for luck.
After we'd been drinking for about an hour, I turned to Lou and asked, 'Would you really've told the sheriff if I hadn't agreed to split the money?'
We were alone; I'd given Jacob my wallet and sent him up to the bar to buy another round. Lou pondered the question, his head bowed. 'I needed the money, Hank,' he said solemnly.
'You couldn't wait till the summer?'
'I needed it right away.'
'Five months? You couldn't have held on for five more months?'
He reached across the table and took a sip of Jacob's beer. There was only a little left, but he didn't finish it. He smiled weakly at me. 'I told you how I had some gambling debts?'
I nodded.
