Nobody's Fool (94 page)

Now, suddenly, he was awash in debt.

"I tell you what," Sully said, arriving at a compromise.

"Why don't we call it a loan?" From the back stairs came a peal of laughter from Wirf, who had stopped to wait on the landing, still in listening range.

"That's your old man," he called up to Peter.

"He'd rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it." They left it that Sully and Peter would meet back at the flat in an hour to unload Peter's things, which were still sitting in a small U-Haul trailer in the driveway at Ralph and Vera's house. Peter would pack the rest of his and Will's clothes into their suitcases, leave Will with Ralph while Peter and Sully effected the move. Vera, blessedly, would not be there, having driven to Schuyler Springs VA hospital, to which Robert Halsey had been admitted during the night. Sully would use the hour to locate Rub, whose assistance they would need to cart the furniture up the narrow stairs to the flat.

"Good luck," said Peter, who was convinced that Rub would have nothing more to do with them.

"He'll do what I ask him," Sully assured his son, though he himself was far from certain. In fact, he was not looking forward to what was almost certain to be a humbling experience. Sully wasn't the sort of man to offer direct apology, and he had a feeling that the indirect ones he usually used on Rub--offering to buy him a big ole cheeseburger at The Horse, for instance--might not work this time.

He might actually have to say he was sorry for the way he'd acted.

Which he was. It wasn't that he denied that he owed Rub an apology.

He just hated to establish an ugly precedent of public apology, which could conceivably open the floodgates to other forms of regret. A good place to start looking for Rub, he decided, was the OTB. Not because Rub would be there so much as that he could cash his triple and bet another. This was no time to come off 1-2-3. In a perverse world it was liable to pop twice in the same week, especially if he wasn't on it. The windbreaker men had all left, but Jocko was there, peering at the racing form through his thick glasses. When Sully's shadow fell across it, he peered up over the top of his glasses, which had slid down his nose.

"Free at lass, free at lass," he said.

"Thank God a'mighty."

"It's a great country," Sully agreed.

"Somebody said you'd walked," Jocko folded his racing form and slipped it under his arm.

"I found that difficult to credit."

"It's true, though," Sully said.

"I

punched out the right cop, as it turned out."

"How did Barton look?"

"The judge? Half dead. At least half."

"You're lucky. He used to be a terror. He must be preparing to meet his maker."

"You haven't seen Rub around?" Sully inquired.

"Not once since you went in. Is his wife's name Elizabeth?" Sully shook his head.

"Bootsie," though now that he thought about it, Bootsie could conceivably derive from Elizabeth.

"Big fat girl? Worked at the dime store?"

"Right."

"She was arrested this morning."

"Good God," Sully said.

"What for?"

"Theft. She had half the dime store out at their house." Sully nodded.

"She did have a habit of taking a little something home with her every day."

"Turns out they been watching her do it for about a month."

"I hope they have bigger jail cells than the one I was in.

Bootsie wouldn't be able to turn around in that one," Sully said, then showed Jocko his ticket. " By the way. Turns out I was on this after all. " Buoyed by the security of his windfall. Sully decided now might be the best time to stop into the diner. It was after one o'clock, and the small lunch crowd would be gone. Indeed, when he arrived the diner was empty except for Cass, who was sponging down the lunch counter and, to Sully's surprise, Roof, who'd been gone for a month. Ruth was not in evidence, and the combination of her absence and Roofs unexplained presence was disorienting. It was as if Sully'd stepped back in time, and he checked Hattie's booth to make sure she wasn't there, that he hadn't dreamed the events of the last several days.

That he'd dreamed the last month of his life seemed a distinct possibility, given the fact that the dream ended with his winning a triple. But Roof was there, all right, wordlessly scrubbing the grill two-handed with the charcoal brick, and Sully selected a stool nearby, in case he needed an ally.

"You're back, Rums," he ventured. Roof did not turn around. Nor did he ever. When the diner was busy and the door opened, everyone up and down the lunch counter leaned forward or backward to see who it was, except Roof, who preferred to face his work than the cause of it.

"Town this size need a colored man," he observed.

"We realized that when you left," Sully said, grinning at Cass, who'd watched him come in with knowing amusement and had as yet made no move in his direction.

"Can I get a cup of coffee, or are you on strike?"

"I should be on strike where you're concerned," she told him, grabbing the pot.

"Anybody ever tell you that funerals aren't the place for practical jokes?"

Yesterday, halfway through the service, Otis had discovered the rubber alligator in his pocket and let out a bleat that had caused everyone in the church but Hattie to jump.

"He was supposed to find it when he got home," Sully admitted. There was enough thick coffee in the bottom of the pot to give Sully about three quarters of a cup.

"There," Cass told him.

"That's all you get, and more than you deserve."

"Don't make another pot," Sully told her.

"I won't," she assured him.

"Starting next week, other people make the coffee."

"Speaking of other people ..."

"She's out back, taking a delivery," Cassexplained.

"We had a bet. She said you wouldn't have the nerve to come in today. Nerve is my word, not hers."

"I wish people would quit wagering on my behavior," Sully admitted, recalling that someone (who?

) had won a pool when he dropped out of the college.

"You make things up with Rub yet?"

Cass said.

"I'm on my way over there as soon as I leave here," Sully told her.

"Good," Cass said.

"You two were a popular quinella." They were grinning at each other now, two old friends.

"You going to stay around awhile, or what?" She shook her head.

"The movers come Monday.

Wirfs going to mail me a check when the sale goes through. "

" Mail it where? "

" Boulder, Colorado. "

" Why, for Christ sake? "

" Why not?

" Sully shrugged.

"All right, be that way."

"I will." Her certainty made Sully nervous.

"Roof came back, didn't you, Rufus," Sully observed.

"You didn't like North CCarlina?"

Finished, Roof tossed his brick aside.

"Full of lazy kids," he said with surprising vehemence.

"My grandkids. They think you stupid if you work. Make damn near as much not working. Do a little scammin' on the side. They say, what the matter with yo' brain? Workin' like a nigger. I told 'em, I don't know what you are, but I'm a nigger. A workin' nigger." Sully looked at Cass, who was also stunned. This was more than Roof had said in twenty years. It sounded like twenty years of need might be behind it.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with work but the pay," he said, pouring vinegar on the grill, causing a toxic cloud. Sully leaned back from the powerful fumes.

"That and the conditions."

"And the time wasted," Cass added.

"And the aches and pains," Sully said.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with work," Roof repeated. Perhaps a man who's waited twenty years to say something is not easily joked out of it. Finished with the grill, he filled his water glass, drained it, then ambled out from behind the counter, tossing his apron into the linen hamper.

"Vail be good in Colorado," he told Cass without looking at her. And then, setting his empty glass on the counter, he left.

"You don't suppose Rufus has flipped, do you?" Sully said when the door swung shut behind him.

"No, I don't," Cass told him. From the back room. Sully heard Ruth's voice and turned on his stool, expecting to see her come in.

"Who's going to live in the apartment out back?" it occurred to him to ask.

"Probably Ruth," she said. Sully frowned at this intelligence.

"She's thinking about putting the house on the market."

"What about Zack?"

"At the moment he's living in the trailer out back."

This was the first Sully had heard of any of these arrangements. They increased his feeling of disorientation.

"What trailer?"

"The one the daughter had been living in. You should talk her into renting the apartment to you," she suggested.

"I don't think so." Sully grinned, though the possibility had momentarily crossed his mind.

"I'd be better off going to Colorado with you. Safer."

"You'll be plenty safe right here," Cass said significantly.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning Ruth's through with you. Meaning you've finally managed to lose one of the few women in this town worth wanting."

"Who are the others?"

"Good." Cass threw up her hands.

"Make a joke."

"You think Ruth would have been better off if she'd divorced Zack and married me?" Ruth came in from out back right then, saving Cass from having to answer. Ruth studied Sully a moment, then consulted her watch.

"You owe me a dollar," Cass told her.

"Put it on my tab," Sully suggested.

Ruth went to the register, lifted the bottom of the cash drawer, slid a folded invoice underneath.

"Your days of running tabs are over, friend."

Sully shrugged, took out a dollar and slid it next to his empty cup.

"Maybe if I start paying I can get a full cup of coffee now and then."

The two women exchanged glances.

"You okay to close by yourself?" Cass said.

"Yup," Ruth assured her.

"You're a free woman."

"My philosophy professor says there's no such thing as freedom," Sully offered.

"He said this before or after he met you?" Ruth wondered.

Cass was looking around the place with what were clearly mixed emotions. Sully, for some reason, squirmed.

"What time are you off Monday?"

"Early."

"How early?"

"Six," she said.

"Maybe seven."

"You need help packing?"

"The movers are doing it all," she said.

"I'm not lifting a finger."

Sully shrugged.

"I'll come by."

"Don't," Cass said, sounding like she meant it, and he saw that her eyes were full.

"Send me a postcard," he suggested.

"Addressed where?"

"To The Horse, with the rest of my mail. Piss Tiny off."

She came around the counter then and they hugged, and Cass whispered a thanks in his ear.

"What for?" he said.

"No clue," she admitted.

"Don't look at me like that," Ruth warned when Cass was gone.

"Like what?"

"I4kc I just won her restaurant in a crooked poker game."

"I didn't mean to," Sully said, realizing that this was precisely the way he must have looked.

"In fact, I was about to ask how business was."

"Too early to tell," she said.

"Some of the regulars are going down to the donut shop for their morning coffee, or so I hear." Sully nodded, ashamed.

"They'll be back."

"If not, to hell with them," Ruth said jauntily, meeting his eye directly.

"You get a good deal on this place?" Sully said, deciding a subtle change of emphasis couldn't hurt.

"The best," Ruth said.

"I got a good price and used "Vmce's money."

"Can't beat that," Sully conceded.

"Nope," Ruth agreed.

"It reminded me a lot of the deal Kenny Roebuck offered you twenty years ago."

Sully nodded, not so much acknowledging the truth other observation as her apparent decision that they would quarrel.

"I hope you'll be as content with your decision as I've always been with mine," he told her. Ruth couldn't help but smile.

"Your head must be made of solid granite."

"It's a good thing, too," Sully said, "since everybody keeps kicking it."