The Searcher(30)

“Kid! Now!”

Nothing moves.

Cal cusses and digs his jump-starter, which has a built-in tire inflator, out of the back of his car. By the time he has the damn thing set up and working, and the first tire back in shape, he’s calmed down enough that something occurs to him. It would have been quicker and easier to slash the tires than to let the air out. If Trey bothered to do this instead, it’s because he wasn’t aiming to do real damage. He was aiming to make a point. Cal isn’t clear on what that point is—I’m going to hassle you till you do what I need, possibly, or maybe just You’re a dick—but then communication never has been Trey’s strong suit.

He’s moving on to the second tire when Mart and Kojak show up. “What’re you at with the prize pony?” Mart inquires, nodding at the Pajero. Mart, having come upon Cal waxing it one day, feels that Cal’s attitude to it is altogether too precious and citified for a back-country beater. “Putting ribbons in her mane?”

“More or less,” Cal says, giving Kojak’s head a rub as Kojak checks out the evidence of Lena’s dogs on his pants. “Topping up the air.”

Luckily Mart has more important things on his mind than the fact that Cal’s tires are flat as a witch’s tit. “A young lad’s after hanging himself,” he informs Cal. “Darragh Flaherty, from over the river. His father went out this morning to do the milking and found him hanging from a tree.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Cal says. “Give my respects to his family.”

“I will. Only twenty years of age.”

“That’s when they do it,” Cal says. For a second he sees Trey’s tense face: He didn’t go off. He goes back to screwing the inflator onto the valve stem.

“I knew that lad wasn’t right, the last while,” Mart says. “I seen him at mass in town three times this summer. I said it to his father, to be keeping an eye on him, but sure you can’t watch them day and night.”

“Why shouldn’t he go to church?” Cal asks.

“Church,” Mart tells him, pulling his tobacco pouch out of a jacket pocket and finding an undersized rollie, “is for women. The spinsters, mostly; they do like to get themselves in a tizzy over whose turn it is to do the second reading, or the altar flowers. And the mammies bringing in the childer so they won’t grow up heathens, and the aul’ ones showing off that they’re not dead yet. If a young lad starts going to mass, it’s a bad sign. Something’s not sitting right, in his life or in his head.”

“You go to mass,” Cal points out. “That’s where you saw him.”

“I do,” Mart acknowledges, “now and again. There’s great chats at Folan’s, after, and the carvery dinner. I get a fancy sometimes to have my dinner cooked by someone else. And if I’m looking to buy or sell stock, I’d go to mass all right. There’s many a deal done in Folan’s after noon mass.”

“Here I had you down as just a prayerful kinda guy,” Cal says, grinning.

Mart laughs till he chokes on smoke. “Sure, I’ve no need for that carry-on at my age. What sins would I commit, an aul’ lad like me? I haven’t even got the broadband.”

“There’s gotta be a few sins available in these parts,” Cal says. “How ’bout Malachy Whatshisname’s poteen?”

“That’s no kind of sin,” Mart says. “There’s what’s against the law, and then there’s what’s against the church. Sometimes they do be the same, and sometimes they don’t. Did they never teach you that, in your church?”

“Might’ve done,” Cal says. His mind isn’t entirely on Mart. He would be happier if he had a clearer sense both of Trey’s capabilities and of his boundaries. He has a feeling that both are flexible, determined almost entirely by context and need. “Been a while since I was a churchgoing man.”

“We wouldn’t meet your requirements, I suppose. Ye’ve all them churches where they play with the snakes and speak in tongues. We wouldn’t be able to offer you any of that round here.”

“That darn Saint Patrick,” Cal says. “Chasing away our equipment.”

“He couldn’t foresee Yanks arriving in on us. Sure, ye weren’t even invented back then.”

“And now look at us,” Cal says, checking the tire pressure gauge. “Getting everywhere.”

“And welcome. Sure, wasn’t Saint Patrick a blow-in himself? Ye’re the ones that keep our lives interesting.” Mart crushes the end of his rollie under his boot. “Tell us now, how’ve you been getting on with that aul’ wreck of a desk?”

Cal glances up sharply from the gauge. Just for a second, he thought there was a slant to Mart’s voice that put more into the question. Sections of Mart’s land have a perfect view of Cal’s backyard.

Mart cocks his head inquisitively, guileless as a kid.

“Doin’ OK,” Cal says. “Some staining and varnishing, and it’ll be back on the road.”

“Fair play to you,” Mart says. “If you ever need the extra few bob, you can set up as a carpenter: have your workshop in that shed there, find yourself an apprentice to give you a hand. Just make sure you pick a good one.” And when Cal looks up again: “Did I see you heading into town there, yesterday afternoon?”