“Count on it.”
“This check,” I said.
“What about it?”
“This is between you and me. St. Alban’s is a small town. I don’t want anyone to know about this. Not even Beth.”
“If the check is valid, Ms. Daniels will see it on her bank statement.”
“By then it will be okay. In the meantime, I’m counting on your discretion.”
“I’m just one part of the group,” he said. “There are a number of local board members who will learn about it.”
“I don’t want any talk.”
“I can’t speak for the whole town,” he said. “But I can assure you, no one will question it.” He stood, took my hand and pumped it vigorously. “You see? It’s just as I’ve said. Every day something seems to happen that can’t be explained. This town attracts good fortune. Has, ever since—”
I looked at him.
He shrugged. “Well, quite a while now. We like to think of it as our turn.” He turned somber a moment. “We had a long dry spell. You can’t imagine.”
Pocket stared off into space. I came prepared to hear him ask if Beth and I were dating, but the possibility never seemed to cross his mind, which impressed me. Surely he wondered why I’d take a cook and caretaking job if I had this type of money. I had two reasons, but planned to keep a lid on them. First, I thought the structure of the job would help stabilize Rachel’s mood swings, and second, I wanted to poke around to see if I could find the source of the power I’d felt twice in this strange little town. Something was drawing me to stay in St. Alban’s, and if the townspeople were going to be seeing a lot of me, it made sense to have a reason for being here. Like a job. After a while Pocket seemed to remember he had company.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What was I saying?”
“You were saying I couldn’t imagine the dry spell St. Alban’s has had.”
“Oh, right. Well, to be honest, I can’t really imagine it, either. But I’ve heard the stories, we all have. During the worst of it, our forefathers barely managed to keep their families alive.”
“Why’s that?”
“The town was cursed.”
“Excuse me?”
His words had come too quickly, and he seemed to regret having said them. He hastened to add, “But that was then, and this is now.”
“The town was cursed?”
He smiled. “Forget I said that, it’s just an old wife’s tale, a figure of speech. What’s important is the tide has turned, and it’s a new day, a happy time for our town.”
Pocket sat back in his chair and filled the silence between us by drumming his fingers on his belly. Before long he had a rhythm going where each tap produced a hollow sound not unlike a housewife thumping a melon for ripeness. He abruptly brought his concert to a close and looked at the check again.
“This is valid?” he said.
I nodded.
“And you’re a cook.”
“Cook and caretaker,” I said.
He winked. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve been holding off this foreclosure for six months, hoping something would work out. We’re days away from filing, and suddenly, out of the blue, you and your girlfriend just happen to show up in time to save Beth’s Inn.”
“So?”
“Don’t you find that amazing? I mean, you being a total stranger and all?”
“I’m just protecting my job,” I said.
Chapter 9
I FIGURED BOB Pocket would be on the phone before I got out the front door. I also figured he’d shit his pants when he found out I could buy not only the bank in which he worked, but the whole town as well. I’d been worth a half billion dollars before my recent score, but now my net worth was north of six billion. What could this tiny bank be worth, twenty million at best?
Two weeks ago I put twenty-five million in Rachel’s account, which meant The Seaside’s
I walked across the street to Rider’s Drug Store and purchased three EpiPens, which cut their supply in half. The pharmacist looked blissful. He said, “I just ordered those EpiPens last week.”
“You sell a lot of them, do you?”
“In all the years I been here, I sold one,” he said.
“That being the case, why’d you order six?”
“Just had a feelin’,” he said.
