Winter Loon(58)

“Less than she wanted.”

I could see I’d struck a nerve with Burt Rook. He sagged and his eyes widened.

“You shut the hell up before I shut you up,” Gip said to me. His voice simpered, cajoled. “I’m sorry about that. Boy’s got no place. Now, your daughter. She’s not hurt, is she? No real harm?”

The banker hiked up his pants by the belt loops and laughed. Laughed at me, laughed at Gip. “No harm done, Furniss. He took advantage of her kindness, is all. She never could resist a stray, no matter how mangy.”

Ruby pulled her hands from the pockets of her housecoat, crossed her arms hard.

He pulled an envelope out of his breast pocket. “I’m going to speak frank with you all. We’re selling this house. The bank is getting out of the property business. Goes on the market in a month, so we’ll need you out by then.” He hesitated before adding, “That is of course unless you have down payment money and want to take another run at homeownership. Can’t stop you from buying it outright.”

Gip’s voice was tight as a rubber band. “What are you talking about? You can’t do this.”

“I assure you, Furniss, I can do as I please.”

“But we’ve paid you our rent. That ought to count for something.”

“Even you know that’s not how rent works. You couldn’t make the payments and we repossessed the house. It doesn’t matter if that was yesterday or twenty years ago. Now we’re selling it.” He handed the envelope to Gip, who took it without thinking. “Your eviction notice.”

Gip let the envelope fall to the floor.

“You’ll turn us out over this? A couple of kids horsing around?” Gip said, waving his arm. “Bank promised we could stay as long as we made the rent.”

Burt Rook pushed back his jacket and pulled out my knife. “This familiar?”

Alarm flashed in Ruby’s eyes, though she was cool not to implicate me directly. Gip took a step back, clutched at the pocket on the front of his overalls. His face drained to white. Ruby looked at him like she thought he might have a heart attack on the spot. I stepped forward to take what was coming.

“It’s mine.”

Gip’s head swung my way. I met his stare as he sized me up.

“I put up with Kathryn’s slumming. I knew she was just trying to get a rise out of me. But then he takes up with that Indian girl—everyone in town has seen them—and has the nerve to bring her filth into my house. No. I cannot abide that. I won’t.”

Electric rage locked every joint in my body.

Ruby stepped sideways to get between me and Rook. She put her chicken arm down, a crossing gate against a locomotive. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “You are a son of a bitch.”

“To be clear, this eviction business has been in the works awhile. But now seems as good a time as any to give you notice, don’t you think?” He dropped his smile and, with a single flick, tried to stick the knife into the envelope. It flopped onto the mashed-pea carpeting. He shrugged off his failed attempt at drama. “Suppose it goes without saying, but you”—he swung his whole hand at me like an ax—“you stay away from my daughter.” He opened the door and stepped out like all he’d done was drop off the mail. “You all have a good day, now.”



WE STOOD THERE LONG ENOUGH to realize he wasn’t coming back. Gip slapped the door with his open hand. His breath caught in spurts, huffing out like steam from an old radiator, seething through his clenched jaw. “All over that filthy piece of tail. Got no more sense than Val, screwing all the wrong people all the damned time.”

I pulled back to take a swing at him, but he caught my fist and pushed me back against the door. “Try that again and I’ll knock your block off, boy.”

Before I could get my footing back, Ruby stepped up to me, then got even closer so I could smell her foul breath piping right into my face. I tried to turn my head and not look at her. I wanted to duck away, but she’d gotten too close. “Good for nothing,” she said, pushing on my chest with each word. I wished I had that knife in my hand, but I’m glad I didn’t. She stepped away from me, shaking mad. She stamped around like fire ants were crawling all over her skin.

“And you!” she said, pointing at Gip. “You and your ‘put it to her.’ That all you ever think about, screwing girls? I should have known. Wasn’t no way a girl like that was right to take up with the likes of him,” she said, turning on me again. “Look at yourself. You? Gip? Me? We’re nothing. What did I do to deserve this, anyhow? What did I ever goddamned do? Tell me that. You fix this, goddamn it.” She screamed into Gip’s face, her bony hands, veins inflated, flapping on the ends of her wrists. “You do whatever you got to do, you kowtow to that banker, but you fix this. This is all I got.” She stormed down the hallway and slammed the bathroom door.

Gip kicked over an end table, sent a gold glass lamp crashing to the floor. “Shit. I never should have agreed to this, taking you in. Goddamn it! I don’t even want to look at you.” He stomped on the eviction notice, ignored the knife. “Goddamn it to hell, now I’m late for work.” Blackness gathered around him and he raised his fist to me. “Where’s mine? Where is mine?” He slammed the door, then opened it and slammed it again, then again until the whole house quaked.