“Yes. Emmett is smart, and Sugar has always been a good kid. But don’t be left alone with Wiley. Just be careful with him.”
The pizza arrived. I paid for it with Annalise’s card and offered Bill the first slice. He took it gladly. The conversation turned religious after that. Bill was sure I was a good Christian, and that the dog attacks were the work of Satan.
It went on that way for a while. The three of us talked about all sorts of things, and Sara accepted a slice after all. It was very friendly. I pried here and there about their personal lives but didn’t learn much. Bill had one daughter and one grandson, Paul, who was at a boarding school in Georgia. Sara said she and Stan had never been blessed with kids. Of course. Bill started in on Charles Three again, but Sara told him to lay off.
After a while, the topic turned to me. Bill asked again if I’d come to town to work at the toy plant. The scarecrow was standing at the bar, getting another pitcher. I decided it was time to try to drive that wedge between the town and the Hammers, so I told them why we had met with Able Katz that morning. “My boss wants Hammer Bay Toys to outsource some of its manufacturing to Africa. Sewing doll clothes, I think.”
Sara looked as shocked as if I’d slapped her. “What? He’d never do that.”
“It was only a first meeting,” I said with a casual shrug. “So nothing was decided.”
The scarecrow stared at me for a moment, then left the empty pitcher on the bar and went back to the booth.
“Sewing… Three of my aunts work in sewing. Aunt Casey needs that job to keep her house. We need those jobs here in town! Do you know how many of our older folks support themselves with a sewing machine now? What’ll they do if the jobs go overseas?”
“People need jobs all over.”
Sara collected my glass. “You know what, Ray? I don’t want you in my place anymore.”
The scarecrow and his two friends walked out the front door. They watched me silently as they passed. I didn’t like that look.
I stood. Bill protested. “Aw, don’t be that way, Sara. It’s not his fault.”
“It’s all right, Bill,” I said. “It was time I was leaving anyway. Sara, do you have a back door?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”
“Because I expect those three guys are waiting for me outside.”
Bill struggled off his stool. “I’ll go have a look-see.”
“You stay right there, Bill,” Sara said. “I’ll check the parking lot if Ray here is feeling nervous.”
She walked to the front door and went out. Bill lifted the lid of the pizza box. It was empty.
“Well,” Bill said, “thanks for the grub and the company.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Is… is it really true about Africa?”
“Times are harder there than they are here, Bill.”
Sara came back in and told me that the parking lot was empty. So was the street.
She stood by the door. I walked across the room, matched her scowl with a smile, and went outside.
I had only taken three steps when I saw them leaning against a pickup truck. They smiled. The short one was holding a knife, and the other two were carrying tire irons. Scarecrow held a snub-nosed.38 in his off hand.
Behind me, I heard Sara close the door and throw the bolt.
CHAPTER SIX
“Hey, stranger,” the knife holder said. “We’re here to welcome you to Hammer Bay.”
“Really?” I said. “Because I don’t see a muffin basket. You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?” The bar blocked one side of the lot, and a cinder-block wall of the business next door blocked the other. There were no stairs, windows, or gaps that I could use to get away. Behind me was a chain-link fence with struts blocking my view of the other side. A Plymouth Reliant was parked up against it. If I was going to run, that was the way, but there was still that gun.
The one who had spoken was average height and wore large tinted glasses. The other was well under six feet and built like a fireplug; he held a beer in his off hand. Both were thick with muscle that comes with hard physical labor and the flab that comes with fried food. The short one wore a construction worker’s helmet, and all three wore steel-toed work boots.
Glasses took a small box from his inside pocket. He lifted out a couple of tiny bundles wrapped in tissue or toilet paper and handed them to the others. Each man wet the bundle on his tongue, popped it into his mouth, and passed the beer back and forth to wash it down.
The short one nodded toward me. “Look at his tattoos. He’s the one who set up Harlan for Emmett Dubois.”
“Izzat right?” Glasses said, then threw the empty bottle at me. I ducked. It shattered against a fence pole behind me. “Well, well, well, now I’m double happy we waited for him.”
The tall one bared his teeth and came toward me. He kept the barrel of the gun pointed at my stomach while he raised the tire iron. What was it with tire irons in this town?
“Don’t you run from me,” he said with all the practiced bullying of a wife beater. “Don’t you run!”
I wished Annalise had let me keep my ghost knife.
