Only the Rain(38)

Cindy turned halfway in her seat and gave Pops a big smile. “I’m impressed,” she said.

He said, “I tend to have that effect on the ladies. Right, girls?”

“I still don’t see what that has to do with a vehicle,” I said. “What wall is that vehicle climbing?”

“What does Lumina have to do with my little car?” he asked. “What that word really means is the open space inside my intestines.”

“Ewww!” Dani said, which was probably the effect Pops was going for.

“How do you know all these words?” Cindy asked.

“You didn’t know I’m such a brainy guy, did you, sweetie? Truth is, I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble with a former English professor. She whups me good every time, but at least I’m learning a thing or two from my beatings. It’s got so that now, every time I hear a word I don’t know, I look it up.”

Cindy said, “Maybe that’s something you should try, Russell.”

“What? Playing Scrabble?”

She said, “No. Learning a little something.”

For Cindy to say that in front of the girls and Pops, it hit me like a slap. My face went red and hot. And I realized then how angry at me she still was. She was still stinging from being humiliated at the picnic, from the suggestion that I’d been cheating on her. She’d been stewing about that the same as I’d been stewing about those McClaine brothers and what their next move might be.

So I sat there with my mouth clamped shut and my stomach churning until I pulled up in front of Pops’ place. Then I told her, “I’ll be right back. I need to make a pit stop.”

In the lobby I gave Pops a quick hug and told him, “I’m going to hit the head. I’ll call you in a day or so.”

Then I hustled down the hall to the men’s room and made it into a stall maybe half a second before I started throwing up. I gagged and spit until I felt like crying.

When I came back out of the stall to wash up, there was Pops leaning against the wall. “I’m fine,” I told him. “Something I ate, I guess.”

“I ate the same things you did, Rusty.”

Him calling me Rusty again, which he hadn’t done since before I went into the Army, made my stomach buckle. I turned on the tap and rinsed out my mouth.

He tore a couple sheets of paper towel off the dispenser and walked over and handed them to me. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t know you,” he said. “I know you like the back of my hand.”

I took the paper towels and wiped my face off. I still couldn’t look him in the eye, so I looked at myself in the mirror. “What do you know about a couple of brothers named McClaine?” I said.

“I saw those boys at the picnic today,” Pops said.

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“What do they have to do with you?”

“I’m trying to find that out. Can you tell me what you know about them?”

“I know I wouldn’t want you messin’ with them.”

“I’m not but I think Donnie is. He pointed me out to them today. Then they wanted to know if I have a pair of desert boots. They had a picture of tread marks off somebody’s floor. Trying to track somebody down, I guess.”

“That piece of shit Donnie would turn on his own mother if there was a dollar in it for him.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

Pops leaned up against a sink and gave me a hard look. “You have a pair of those boots.”

“Me and a few thousand other guys, yeah. But you still haven’t told me anything about those brothers.”

“They’re like Donnie except meaner and nastier. Neither one of them’s ever worked an honest day in his life.”

“What are they into?”

“Whatever they can get their fingers in. Started out, I seem to remember, rolling Amish guys. They was arrested for that. Both did a little time, but not enough. I don’t like judging a man on rumor but those two are an exception. And over the years, rumor’s had them involved with everything from pimping to assault to breaking and entering to dealing. These days they always manage to skate, though. Learned a thing or two in prison, I guess. Or one of them did. That would be Phil, the older one. The other one’s Howard, goes by Bubby. He’s more than a little light on the intellect.”

I nodded. Couldn’t think of anything else to do or say.

“What do they got against you?”

“I wish I knew.”

He kept looking at me. Not that I could see him doing it, but I could sure enough feel it, even as I stood there staring down at the faucet. It was made of brass and getting that bluish crust along the joints and seams. The longer I stared at it the harder it was to look away.

Finally he straightened up. “Whatever it is, don’t let it get out of hand.”

“There’s nothing to get out of hand, Pops.”

He nodded once. Then turned and headed for the door. “Nip it in the bud, son. If I taught you anything, I taught you that.”

When he walked out, it felt like he took all the air out with him. He had me for a liar, I’d seen it in his eyes right from the start. One bad decision, and now this. I wanted to put my fist through that face in the mirror.