and drabs, to the people I trust. Then they’re invested in keeping the system going.”
“You’re making a deal with the devil,” Pax said. “You can’t wave this in front of them and not expect them to come take it.”
“Don’t you worry about that. No place is safer than the Home.” She opened the folder and slid it across the desk to him. There looked to be more than fifty pages of forms tagged with yellow SIGN HERE stickies. “This is everything we need to enroll your father in the program and start treating him. HIPAA forms, requests for records-”
“Wait,” he said. “You said, ‘First and Foremost.’ What else-”
She waved a hand. “This packet here, these are the Medicaid forms and paperwork you’d have to sign for any extended care facility.”
“What else are you doing with the vintage, Rhonda?”
Rhonda sat back in her chair. She sighed. “I’d like to tell you. I would. But at this point it’s too early to get people’s hopes up.”
Pax let go of the pages and put his hands on his lap. “Forget it, then. I’m not signing.”
“Now, Paxton, don’t be difficult.”
He stood. “I’m sorry, Aunt Rhonda. Now if you could tell Everett to drive me home…”
He stood holding the doorknob. She pinned him with a steady look, then seemed to come to a decision. “Okay, then.” She nodded at the chair, then waited until he’d resumed his seat. “This has to remain strictly confidential, you understand? It cannot leave this room.”
“It depends on what you tell me. If it’s illegal-”
“No, it’s not illegal! Paxton Martin…” She shook her head in exasperation. “This is about the men of my clade. I am not content to condemn every charlie boy to what’s happened to your father, or God help me die locked up in some shack like Willie Flint. I am determined to end this.”
“End this? How? You’re not talking about euthanizing them, or-”
“Paxton, if you keep saying stupid things I will reach across the desk and slap you.”
“I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about research, Paxton. Scientific research. Getting the medical community to pay a little attention to the problems of this clade before another generation of men have to suffer. Every two weeks I send another shipment to Stanford University in California. There’s a man there with a team of eight graduate students working on figuring out what the vintage is, what it does, and how we can turn it off.”
“Why in the world would you keep that secret?”
“You’re not from here anymore, Paxton. And you’re not a charlie or you wouldn’t ask that question. Do you think Clete or Travis or any of the young charlies want to give up the vintage? Do you think they want this to be cut off forever? Before you open your mouth, the answer is no, they would not.”
She patted the stack of papers. “Now. I know this looks like a lot of papers, but they’re already filled out except for the dates and signatures, and I can walk you through them so you understand everything that you’re signing. After you do that, we can start taking care of your father. Today.”
“I don’t know,” Pax said.
She looked at him. “Talk to me, hon.”
“It’s just…” The top page in the stack was some kind of confidentiality form, with his own name typed at the bottom. He was almost embarrassed at how relieved he felt. Each of the forms-fifty, sixty of them, it didn’t matter-was like a rung on a ladder that would let him climb out of this pit. What else could he do, quit his job and move down here? Siphon the old man every day himself? He couldn’t do that. He wasn’t strong enough for that kind of work.
“I need to talk to my father,” he said. It didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. He’d already decided he would sign. All he needed was some time to explain to himself how this wasn’t a betrayal.
“I know you feel that way. But remember, Paxton, your daddy’s not in his right mind just now. The reverend’s been my friend for thirty years, but charlie men can’t function like they used to, not when the vintage is running in them. Whether you like it or not, you’re his guardian now.”
“I understand that,” he said. “I do.” He closed the folder and pulled it onto his lap. “Let me just take this home, look it over, and I’ll sign it tonight.”
“Tonight,” Rhonda said. She got up from her chair and came around the desk, opened her arms. “Don’t look so worried, honey. You’re doing the right thing. Now give Aunt Rhonda a hug.”
His father was still sleeping when Rhonda and Everett dropped him off at the house. Pax stood beside the couch for a long time, watching Harlan’s huge chest rise and fall, jowls shuddering with each snore.
Just below his father’s collarbone a patch of skin glistened in the lamplight. A small white blister, too small for the earlier siphoning, had split.
It would be a simple thing, Pax thought. Just dip a fingertip in the wet from the blister. He wouldn’t even have to wake the old man.
Paxton turned out the lamp. He made his way through the dark to the guest bedroom, put Rhonda’s folder under the bed, and lay down. His father snored like a misfiring engine. In the dark, with the door open between them, it sounded as if Harlan were lying beside him.
Chapter 5
DEKE STOOD OUTSIDE the bathroom door, not listening. After several minutes, he said, “Honey?”
Donna didn’t answer.
“Want me to hold the cup?” He made the same joke every time.
He had to be in Masonville in forty minutes, and he didn’t want to be the last one into the courthouse. The last one to walk past all those cops.
Finally the sound of the toilet flushing and water running in the sink. Another minute passed.
“Donna…”
She opened the door. “Standing there don’t speed things up,” she said, and handed him an orange plastic cup with a white lid. It was uncomfortably warm.
“Uh, don’t we have a bag or something?”
She shook her head, pretending exasperation, and led him into the kitchen. She found a plastic bag, tucked the cup into it, and cinched the bag tight. “There you go. Nobody’ll suspect you’re smuggling pee.”
“On the street they call it Troll Gold.”
That got her to laugh. “Too bad you can’t sell it,” she said. Then, “They’re probably not going to ask about the money, but if they do-”
“They’re not going to ask about the money. That’s all done through administration. We’re only a few weeks late. The bank’s supposed to call me soon.”
They’d already run through the second mortgage on the house. He’d applied for a loan through Alpha Furniture, his business, but the bank hadn’t gotten back to them yet on whether it had been approved.
“Okay, then. You’ve got your envelope?”
He patted his front breast pocket. “Right here next to my heart.”
“If you leave those somewhere-”
“Have I ever lost them?”
“You do, don’t bother to come back,” she said.
“I’ll guard them with my life.” She followed him to the front door. The hall clock showed that it was a little past 8:20-he’d have to haul ass. “Hey, I may stop by and see Paxton afterward if I get done early at the shop.”
“Okay…”
He heard the skepticism in her voice and turned. “What?”
“Are you sure you two were best friends?” Donna said. “You and Jo, that makes sense. But Paxton… I just don’t see it.”
“He’s different than he was,” Deke said.
“He’s skittish is what he is. All the time you’re talking to him he’s got one foot out the door.”
