One Good Deed(88)

Yet maybe there was a reasonable explanation.

You might be an ex-con, Archer, but you kept your heart, despite a war and then prison. And that’s something. As bad as things might get, don’t ever sell yourself short on that.





Chapter 36



HE DROVE FAST back to Poca City. The wind whistling through the open windows felt good, liberating, and about as far from Carderock Prison as a man could get and still be on this earth, he reckoned. He dropped the Nash off at the garage on Fulsome, leaving the keys in the glove box, as Jackie had requested.

Then he stood there in the heat of the falling sun, marveling at how he had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. And it felt damn good. And he had one person he needed to tell first.

Jackie answered the door at Ernestine’s house dressed in a pair of zippered white trousers and a pale blue short-sleeved blouse. Her Veronica Lake peekaboo had been clipped back, and her feet were bare. Her lovely features were fevered and anxious. “Well? How did it go?”

He held up the packet of money. “Your old man paid in full. Including three hundred for me instead of the two hundred,” he added with a grin.

She hugged him tightly and then went up on tiptoe and gave him a congratulatory kiss on the cheek as he took off his hat. “This deserves a drink,” she said, after coming back down to her heels.

She poured out two tumblers from the bottle of Rebel on the sideboard, and they sat and clinked glasses, then each took a drink.

“Talked to a man out at your father’s today, Bobby Kent.”

“Bobby has worked there a long time. He’s a good person.”

“He, uh, he told me about the corn picker.”

This was such an asinine thing to say, and Archer regretted it as soon as his mouth closed on the last word of it.

Jackie’s features veered from happy to neutral and then all the way to stark disapproval. “Did you go out there to collect a debt or to ask nosy questions about my family history?”

“I…It was stupid. I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”

He took a swallow of his drink and looked pensive.

She gave him another pointed look. “Is there something you want to say in there, but just can’t work up the courage?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure, you do know, Archer. A man like you always knows. You finished with your drink?”

“I suppose so.”

She yanked it from him and stood. “Well, you have the cash, so there.”

“Thing is, I was hoping you could take it over and give it to Marjorie. I mean, I’ve met her a few times, but I don’t really know the woman.”

She looked at him incredulously. “And you really think she’ll be happy to see me?!”

“With six and a half thousand dollars as a peace offering?”

She studied him for an uncomfortably long moment, before holding out her hand for the envelope, which he gave to her. “I’ll do it on the condition that you go with me.”

“Why?”

“’Cause it’s your job, Archer, not mine. I’m not being paid a dime to do this. In case you don’t get the picture, with Hank gone, I’ve got nothing.”

He thought about telling Jackie about her father’s change in fortunes but decided against it. He had promised Tuttle, and he suspected that Jackie might make the wrong decision about going back home if she could be enticed by a mountain of wealth waiting for her. He didn’t know Lucas Tuttle, but he had enough misgivings about the man to make him pretty certain he didn’t want Jackie to go back to him.

“I can give you a cut of mine, then.”

“I don’t take charity, Archer, from you or any other man.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be charity.”

She put a hand on her hip. “What then? I’m not a whore, either. Or do you think otherwise?”

“’Course not, the thought never entered my mind.”

“Yes, it did. Don’t lie to me. I’ll put up with a lot from a man, you’ve seen that for yourself. But I don’t tolerate lies. I just won’t have it.”

“You called yourself chattel, not me.”

“And I can’t believe someone who spent two damn years in college can be that stupid.”

“How the hell did we go from celebrating to this, I wonder?” said Archer with a look of total bewilderment. “I mean, this is just a puzzle to me, truly.”

“A puzzle? This is a man and a woman having a legitimate discussion about important things. But I’ll let you off the hook for now.” She opened the envelope, took out his three hundred, and handed it to him.

He didn’t reach for it.

“Archer, you earned it. Take the damn money.”

He slipped the bills into his jacket pocket.

She put the envelope with the rest of the cash into her pocket, then sat down, poured him another drink, and handed it to him.

Archer looked bewildered at the woman’s mood swings but decided peace right now was preferable to what had just happened.

“You got a smoke?” he asked.

“Chesterfields.”

“That’ll do.”

She passed across a cigarette and he cupped his hand around hers as she lit him up.