The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(37)

“You think I’d let that dog hurt you?” Peter took the coffeepot off the stove and put on the big frying pan, set some butter to melt.

“No offense, sir, but you’re still sitting down and that dog’s got four-wheel drive. And he looks real hungry.”

“He is hungry,” said Peter, assembling supplies from his cooler and laying them out in the pan. “I haven’t fed him anything yet. What about you? You hungry?”

“I already had my cereal this morning, sir.”

The bread sizzled in the hot butter. The dog sniffed the air and came over. Peter pushed the dog away. “You mean you don’t want a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich? Nice and hot? I might have a few doughnuts in the cooler, too.”

Charlie crept down the steps, bat held at the ready. “Sir, you are a mean bastard, sir.”

Peter grinned. “Courage, Charlie.” He flipped the sandwiches. “Courage is doing something that scares the hell out of you. But you do it anyway. Your dad taught me that.”

Mingus stuck his nose in the pan. When Peter whacked it with the spatula, Charlie’s eyes got even wider, if that was possible. The dog backed away, focused on the pan, just the tip of his tongue showing now, and the white serration of his teeth. A string of drool hung from one jowl.

Charlie choked up on the bat so he could hold it with one hand, and tiptoed closer. Mingus ignored him, his gaze locked on the food. Then Charlie glanced at Peter’s face and saw the bruise.

“Sir? What happened to you?”

“A misunderstanding,” said Peter. “Don’t worry about it.”

He wanted to say that the other two guys went to the hospital. But that probably wasn’t the right message to send to the boy.

Instead he laid out the four sandwiches on the wide cedar plank he used as a cutting board, and chopped each sandwich into quarters. Charlie stood with the chair and stove between him and the dog, still poised to flee. Peter handed him a section of sandwich. Mingus’s massive head turned as if on a swivel, following the sandwich. The string of drool hung longer.

“Hold it on the palm of your hand,” said Peter. “Like this.”

He held another section on his own hand, fingers fully open and outstretched. Mingus took it with surprising delicacy, like a little old lady nibbling a cucumber sandwich, except for the slick of saliva left behind. Mingus licked his chops, the white teeth flashing, then went over to Charlie and nosed his elbow as if to say, “You gonna eat that?”

Charlie blinked at high speed, and a slight but rapid vibration ran through his entire body. But he lowered his hand, fingers carefully spread.

Mingus took the food with just the tips of his teeth and wolfed it down without seeming to chew. Then sniffed the hand thoroughly and licked the remaining butter off with several swipes of his huge tongue.

Charlie smiled so wide Peter thought his face would split. “Can I do it again?”

“Sure,” said Peter. “But get your brother first, so he can meet Mingus, too.” Peter busied himself making more sandwiches, wishing with everything he had that Big Jimmy was there to see his boys growing up.

In the end, he wrapped up a hot sandwich and a pair of doughnuts in a paper towel for each boy to eat on the way to school.

“Sir,” said Charlie, “Mingus really smells bad.”

“I know,” said Peter. “It’s on my list.”

—

He drove back to the lumberyard, keeping one eye on his rearview, and bought new steel entry doors and locks for Dinah’s house. The work would take him a good chunk of the day, and he’d be outside where anyone could see him.

Anyone at all.

Peter wasn’t quite sure what to think of the scarred man. The confident swagger was real enough, but he didn’t set off Peter’s radar like Lewis did, or Nino, or Oklahoma Ray. Still, Peter didn’t fool himself into thinking the scarred man wasn’t dangerous.

He set up his tools in Dinah’s narrow side yard. The nearby houses protected his flank, and the tall wooden fence at the alley shielded him somewhat from the rear. If they came from the front and back, he could always duck through the house.

He wondered how many there would be. Probably more than one.

The yard was a few steps above the street, so he could see over the parked cars up and down the block. High ground, somewhat protected. He’d had worse positions. And the dog was on sentry duty, pacing the sidewalk, trailing a plume of stink so powerful you could practically see it coming off him. A walking gas grenade with four legs and a tail.

A car came down the street. A red Kia. It didn’t stop.

Now a blue pickup. It didn’t stop, either. This could take all day.

He kept the new Sig Sauer in his jacket pocket, spare clip on the other side. He’d paid Lewis twice what it would have cost in any gun shop, but the serial number was ground down, and the gun was clearly otherwise unused, with traces of the heavy packing oil still in the checkered handgrip.

Peter didn’t mind the cost. He thought of it as health insurance.

Another car, a silver Toyota sedan. A big old Buick. A woman pushing a stroller, who crossed the street to avoid the dog. His awareness was raised to a watchful hum. Then a tan GMC Yukon with an elaborate tubular bumper. He couldn’t see the driver, but he figured it was Lewis, keeping his word to keep an eye out for Dinah.

He bounced on his toes. He might as well get some work done.