The band took a break and Lee got up to go to the men’s room. He studied the graffiti over the urinal. Someone had written
He came out. Gilmore was waiting in the passageway, leaning on the brickwork with one hand in his pocket.
— Looks like you’re having a good time, said Gilmore.
— We’re having a good time, yeah.
— What would you say to going for a ride?
— You want to go for a ride someplace?
— Have a smoke.
Gilmore took out his Camel cigarettes and offered one to Lee.
— I told you before, said Lee.
— I know you did. It’s just a ride is all it is.
— Where is it you want to go?
— I have a business associate I’d like to visit. All you’re along for is just another pair of eyes and ears, that’s all. Lee took a long drag: Eyes and ears, said Lee.
— In business there’s a matter of appearances.
— You keep using that word,
He had a fifty-dollar bill folded between two fingers. He tucked it into Lee’s breast pocket. He said: On good faith, Lee. It was a hell of a bad accident you were in a few weeks ago. A raw deal for a dependable guy. I want to see better things come your way.
— What about my lady friend?
— Come.
Gilmore showed Lee to the booth where he’d been sitting. Helen was in the booth with Arlene. They were laughing. Arlene looked up when she saw Gilmore.
— You keep Lee’s lady friend company, said Gilmore. You hear me?
— Yes, daddy.
— You’re going somewheres? said Helen.
Lee looked at the tabletop. Helen reached her arm behind him and patted his butt.
— Well, go on, Brown Eyes. Just give me a bit of money, will you?
He gave her a few dollars. He and Gilmore walked out shoulder to shoulder like old comrades. Out in the parking lot, Maurice was waiting at his Caballero.
— You were pretty sure, said Lee, quietly.
— Pretty sure about what, pal?
— That I’d come with you.
Gilmore just smiled.
They drove all the way back to town, to a row of frame houses along the rail line. The house they parked in front of had paint peeling from its siding. No sooner had the car come to a stop than two barking Rottweilers materialized behind a chain-link fence penning in the backyard.
A door opened on the crooked porch and the shape of a man shouted at the dogs. He came out and stood on the porch and looked at the car.
— Come on, Lee, said Gilmore.
Maurice did not get out of the car. Lee felt uneasy. During the drive into town it had occurred to him that maybe this was some affair of old blood, though he couldn’t think of who or what, but maybe this was a house he would go into and not depart from.
The man on the porch was wearing unfastened work boots and a T-shirt, despite the cold. He was short but he looked like he pumped a lot of iron. He merely nodded when they came up. The dogs behind the fence seemed half berserk. Gilmore and Lee were led into a kitchen. The room was crammed with junk on the counters, engine parts, a twelve-ton jack. Through an opening, they could see into a living room where coloured Christmas lights were strung around a shuttered window. A young child was parked on the living room floor, watching a movie on a black-and-white cabinet TV.
The man closed the door to the porch. Turned the deadbolt.
Gilmore sat down at the kitchen table. He pushed aside a telephone from which a snarl of wires had been partially eviscerated.
A woman in a wheelchair rolled through the opening into the kitchen. She was thick-bodied, with grey hair in braids. Her legs were gone below the knees. She pulled up to the table. The man in the T-shirt leaned against the wall behind her. He glanced back into the living room, perhaps to check on the child.
— Gilmore, said the woman.
— Happy holidays, Jean.
— You got a new friend.
Gilmore looked back over his shoulder at Lee, smiling: Where are my manners? This is a good friend of mine. Say hello, Lee.
Lee nodded to the woman. She looked him up and down. There was something shrewd about her, calculating.
— You might think we came because of the Christmas season, said Gilmore. Friends calling on each other to spread cheer and all that.
The woman chuckled: The way you talk, Colin, I almost got the idea you think I’m just some young hussy.
— Jean, I wouldn’t think that of you for one second. Not one second.
Gilmore brought out a thick sheaf of money held together with a wire clasp. Lee saw twenties. There might be a thousand dollars in there. Gilmore held the money out to Jean and she took it and counted it.
— On good faith, said Gilmore.
— You’ll have the van before Christmas. The electronics too. The other things, I got here.
She gestured with her head. The man opened a door off the kitchen where Lee saw steps leading to a basement. The man went down.
Lee found the woman studying him again. He wondered once more, was this old blood, was he maybe going to be taken down to the fruit cellar and shot in the back of the head? He’d heard of such things happening, cons with serious history getting out of the pen, only to be found dead a short while later. He was digging deep to remember who he’d had particularly bad blood with. There were any number of names from his first five or six years-but that really was a long time ago, and he didn’t think any of them had ended up here, in his hometown.
Just then the child appeared in the kitchen. A little red-headed girl, maybe six years old. She came and stood beside the wheelchair and regarded Gilmore and Lee. The woman put a hand on the little girl’s head.
— And how are you, half-pint? said Gilmore.
The little girl shrugged: I’m okay.
— Beautiful, said Gilmore.
The man came back upstairs carrying a canvas duffle bag. There was something long and thin pushing out the side of the bag. A golf club, perhaps, but Lee doubted it. The man set the bag on the table in front of Gilmore. Gilmore unzipped the bag and glanced inside and zipped it back up before Lee could see what it held.
— Good, said Gilmore. Of course, there won’t be any need.
— The Bible says hear no evil see no evil, said the woman.
— Sure it does. It also says a man can get up and dance three days after you nail him to a chunk of wood.
Midmorning the next day, Lee woke with a bad hangover. Helen was snoring. Lee got up and for some time stared into the mostly empty refrigerator. He had enough food for today, that’s all. He thought of the money Gilmore had given him.
He boiled water for coffee and fried some eggs. His recollection of the rest of last night was dim. After they’d
