Wrapped in Rain(69)

"It's complicated."

"Does it involve your brother?"



"Yes."

"Is there a woman?"

"Yes."

Doc got excited, and I heard the spring on his seat as he sat up straight. "Is it that long-legged stewardess you told me about? The one with the dangling key card?"

"No."

Doc sat back in his chair, tweaking the spring the other direction and sounding not too impressed. "Is she married?"

"Yes. Or rather, was. They were married, then divorced, but recently tried to patch things up."

"And let me guess. To top it off, she has a child."

I paused, wishing I had reached his voice mail. "Yes."

"You're right, it is complicated. How'd you manage to get yourself in this mess?"

"Long story."

"I'm listening."

So I told him the short and the fast, minus the part about the .357. With it coming out of my mouth, and me listening to myself, I even thought I sounded a bit crazy.

"You mean to tell me, your brother Mutt, exhibit A in the cuckoo's nest, is living there?"

"Yes."

"And you've got this married woman, Katie somethingor-other, who has her five-year-old son with her, running from an abusive husband who probably lives, works, and eats within a few blocks of me, whose bar-drinking buddies work with the government?"

"Something like that."

"If I were you, I'd drop all three at the bus station and grab the first flight to Los Angeles."

"Doc, I can't."

"Can't or won't?"



"Doc, my brother is a mess, and this woman, well-"

Doc interrupted me. He sounded like Thomas Magnum. "I hear something in your voice I haven't heard before."

"Yeah, well .. .

"You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you?"

"Not in the least bit."

"Me neither, and I've been married four times. Women! Can't live with them, can't live with them."

"Doc, I just need some time. A month. Maybe two. I don't know."

"You got enough to live on?"

"For a time. I can't retire, but we can make out."

'-We' or `I'?"

I paused. "We."

"You know, you could make the upper echelon. You're almost there now." Doc firmly believed that I'd make a great photographer one day.

"And when I get there, where will that be?"

"At the top, Tucker."

"The top of what? Doc, there's only room for one man on top of Everest. It's cold, lonely, and it kills a lot of the people who climb it. My father showed me that."

"All right, Rain"-the Zippo cracked and popped again-"do what you've got to do, but don't make me come down there and kick you in the tuckus. You're too good to quit. You see what others don't. Always have. Remember that. Get your collective crap in order and don't wait too long to pick up the phone."

"Thanks, Doc. I'll be talking to you."

Doc hung up, and I knew I'd let him down. But Doc also knew bits and pieces of the whole story, and he could sense that pressure in the cookerwas building. Unscrewing the vent was often better than watching the top blow sky-high.



I splashed water on my face, wiped the grit from my eyes, and strolled out the back door, walking nowhere in particular. Aimlessly circling the cottage, the footprints caught my attention-they were large, about the same size I'd seen out on the highway pointing at Katie and me through the fence. I scoured the ground, and when I picked it up, the cigarette butt was cold, smoked down to the nub-like somebody had enjoyed it and the tip smelled of an overabundance of a cheap man's cologne.





Chapter 29


FROM WEDNESDAY TO SATURDAY, MUTT WORSENED. Every time he used the barn toilet, he used an entire roll of toilet paper, clogging it every day since he got here. His hands were chapped, cracked, and bleeding regularly from hard water and too much soap. He had yet to break the seal on the toiletries I bought him, and his face was one constant contortion. But amid this digression, I had noticed odd progress-if you can call it that.

I woke Saturday morning to the sound of an engine running and another high-pitched sound I couldn't quite place. Like a mower or go-cart. I climbed upstairs, walked side of the house was soaked.

Mutt stood at the edge of the back porch, wearing protective safety glasses and yellow earplugs stuffed into each ear, and both hands gripped the biggest pressurewasher wand I'd ever seen. He had braced his legs against a column and looked like he was holding a flamethrower. At his feet was a thirteen-horsepower Honda engine on wheels connected to some sort of pump that fed water through a hundred-plus feet of pressurized hose snaking around the porch. A small transparent hose ran out the side of the pump and sucked bleach from a gallon bottle resting nearby. Mutt was spraying the sides of the house with broad strokes and had already made pretty good progress. The roof, windows, gutters, and sides of the house were covered in bleach, the smell was strong, and the sound almost deafening. None of which I wanted to face first thing in the morning.



I looked up, caught a wave of misty bleach in the eye, and felt the sting. Judging by Mutt's stance and evident pressure coming out the end of that wand, that thing could peel the chrome off a trailer hitch. Waverly didn't stand a chance. Algae, mold, and thirty years of goo trickled and then gushed down the cracks and crevices of Waverly like wet paint in the rain. Even the mortar came clean. The roof tiles, long since green and black with algae, were returning to their native orange and even glistening a bit. As was the brick and green trim around the windows and shutters. The difference between what had been cleaned and what remained to be clean was striking. To be honest, I hadn't thought the house was that dirty.