When they pulled up to the trailer, there was an old red Chevy pickup parked out front.
“Who's that belong to?” Johnny said.
“It's Frazer's.”
Mitch pulled the Firebird in behind it, shut the engine off. The car chugged with preignition, shook and was silent.
“What's he doing here?” Johnny said.
“I don't know.”
Johnny got out of the car, looked the truck over. It was pitted with rust, the tires almost bald. There were empty beer cans in the bed.
They went up the stairs and into the trailer. The old man was sitting on the couch, Treya on his knee. He was bouncing her, holding her hips, but she wasn't smiling. Sharonda stood in the hallway, looked at them as they came in.
Frazer saw them, his knee slowed and stopped. He lifted the girl, set her on her feet. She ran to her mother.
The old man wore stained pants, a dark blue work shirt with his name over the pocket. What was left of his hair was white, and there were patches of eczema on his cheeks and neck, the skin pink with it. A grease-stained John Deere cap was on the couch beside him.
Mitch closed the door. Sharonda took Treya, disappeared into the back bedroom.
“There they are,” Frazer said. “My boys.”
He started to get up, wincing with pain. He limped toward Johnny, put out his hand. Johnny looked at it.
“I heard you were out, back up here,” Frazer said. “I can't tell you how good it made me feel to hear that.”
Mitch went past them into the kitchen. The old man smiled at Johnny, dentures yellow with nicotine.
“You look good,” Frazer said. “Healthy. Like you're ready to kick ass and take names.”
Johnny looked at him, remembered the man he had feared, wondered where he had gone.
“Something wrong?” Frazer said.
“No.” He nodded to the kitchen. “Come on. Let's go sit down.”
The old man followed him in, hips canting from side to side as he walked. Mitch was leaning against the counter, looking at the floor.
Johnny pointed at the table, opened the refrigerator door. There was a cardboard pizza box inside, an untouched six-pack of Budweiser. He pulled three loose from the plastic collars.
“It's been a long time, Johnny,” Frazer said. “When I heard you were here, I couldn't wait to see you.”
Frazer sat down at the head of the table, wheezing with the effort. Johnny looked at Mitch, tossed him a can. He caught it. Johnny put another in front of the old man, pulled out the chair opposite him, sat down. The chair was thin aluminum with cheap padding. It sagged under him.
“How'd you know I was here?” Johnny said. A faint odor of sweat came from across the table.
The old man shrugged, picked up the beer.
“Word gets around, that's all.”
He popped the beer, brought it to his lips, siphoned the foam. Johnny opened his, set it down without drinking. Mitch watched them.
“What do you mean?” Johnny said.
Frazer put the beer down.
“You've got a lot of friends around here, Johnny. That's all. And you've been gone a long time. Only natural that people would be happy to see you, tell others about it. Like I said, word gets around.”
“I guess.” Johnny took a pull from the beer. “You get to the cemetery much?”
“What?”
“The cemetery. Visit Mom and Belinda. You ever go there, clean the place up, leave some flowers?”
Frazer looked at the floor.
“Well, I do what I can,” he said. “But these knees ⦠it's not so easy anymore. Makes it tough to get around too much.”
Johnny nodded, drank beer.
“You'll want to take care of that,” he said. “Not let it get worse.”
The old man looked at him.
“Too much fucking standing up, I guess,” he said, smiled. “I guess I fucked my knees out of commission somewhere along the line. Gettin' old's a bitch.”
Johnny looked at Mitch. He was still at the sink, looking at his unopened beer.
“Mitch,” he said, “why don't you go check on Sharonda and Treya?”
He nodded, put the can on the counter, left the kitchen. Frazer drank beer, watched him go.
“Hard to believe,” he said. “That boy taking up with a nigger like that.”
Johnny shrugged, rocked back on his chair slightly, boots braced against the floor, one hand on the table to steady himself.
“You'd think he'd know better,” Frazer said. “Way he was raised and all.”
Johnny lifted his beer, swished it.
“What did you come here for, old man?”
“Want to see my boys. Isn't that enough?”
Johnny drank, put the can back down, waited.
“Mitchy tell you I got the emphysema?”
Johnny shook his head.
“Been in and out of the hospital. I got the oxygen at home when I need it. Quit the cigarettes. Christ, it seems like I quit everything that ever give me the slightest amount of pleasure. Can't work anymore either. And you know me, John. I was always a worker.”
“How much do you need?”
The old man rubbed his chin, his whiskers making a faint bristling noise.
“Come on, Johnny. You don't think I came here just toâ”
“How much?”
“I know you're just out and all ⦠probably need time to get back on your feet. But if a man can't ask the son he's raised, who can he ask? So I was thinking, maybe when things get going for you again, when you get a little something for yourselfâ”
“I don't need to wait. I can help you now. How much do you want?”
“They turned the phone off, and I'm two months behind on the electric. They'll be shutting that off too before I know. And that Jew doctor ⦠they're going to turn it over to a collection agency if I don't pay the rest of what I owe them. They don't care if I can't work, if I'm sick.”
Johnny let the front legs of the chair touch down. He took money out of his left jacket pocket, looked for hundreds, found five of them. Frazer watched him.
“There you go,” Johnny said. He folded the hundreds, slid them across the table. “Go pay your phone bill, your electricity, whatever else you need to. That should set you for a while. You need more, you let me know.”
The old man looked at the money, didn't touch it.
“Go ahead,” Johnny said. “It's a gift. For taking care of us all those years. Raising us right.”
Frazer touched the money tentatively at first, then drew it toward him. He unfolded the bills, smoothed them out on the table one by one.
“That enough?” Johnny said.
“You're a good boy, John. You always were.”
He watched the old man look at each bill, then fold them again, put them in his shirt pocket.
“But don't come here anymore,” Johnny said.
“John, I onlyâ”
“You want to talk to me, you call Mitch. I'll meet you somewhere. But I don't want to see you here again.”
“Can't a father see his sons?”
“You want to see us, talk to us, you call. You don't come by. That clear to you?”
Frazer met his eyes, then looked at the floor, nodded.
“Now finish your beer. Have another if you want. But it's the last time you set foot in here.”
“There's no cause to act this way, John.”
“Drink your beer. Then go pay your bills. And buy yourself some new clothes. You look like shit, old man. And you smell.”
Frazer scraped his chair back from the table. Johnny watched him, seeing something familiar in those eyes, the way they narrowed before the first blow hit. He remembered the fear, the taste of it like pennies in his mouth. Those same eyes, but a different man now.
“It shouldn't be like this, John.” He got to his feet, winced, one hand on the back of the chair for balance. “After all these years not seeing you. It ain't right.”
Johnny looked at him, sipped beer.
“You should come by the house,” Frazer said. “It's been a long time since you been there. Lot of memories there for you. For both of us.”
“Maybe I will.”
Johnny watched from the kitchen window as he drove away, the truck belching gray smoke, engine backfiring in the cold. He heard Mitch come into the kitchen behind him.
“What was that about?” Mitch said. “What did he want?”
“What do you think?”
“I don't like him here.”
There was a pack of menthol cigarettes on the counter. Johnny shook one loose, sparked his lighter.
“Don't worry,” he said, exhaling smoke. “He won't be back.”
Â
It was a two-story concrete-block building off Route 22, red neon signage, blackout curtains. A little after midnight and the parking lot was half full. Johnny pulled the Firebird in behind the building, swung around and parked so that the
nose was facing the street again. Reserved spots in the back here. Lindell's Lexus jeep. A Cadillac Escalade. A Ford Cherokee.
He cut the engine, listened to the car tick and cool around him. There was a single lighted window on the second floor, blinds drawn, figures moving in silhouette behind them. The office.
He watched it for a few minutes, then got out of the car. There was a fire door in the back wall, a delivery bell alongside it. He pressed it with a thumb, stepped back. The light from the window fell on him.
Footsteps on stairs inside, then the door cracked open, a line of yellow light falling on the blacktop. The man in the doorway was heavy, a hard Indian face pockmarked with acne scars, black hair slicked back off his forehead. He wore a dark silk shirt open at the neck, a gold crucifix on a chain.
“Tuco,” Johnny said.
The Mexican looked at him. Johnny raised his hands at his sides to show they were empty, let them fall.
The Mexican nodded.
“How you doing, homes?”
“He here?”
“Yeah, man. Waiting for you.”
He pushed the door wider. There was a narrow stairwell inside, concrete steps leading up. Johnny started up without waiting, heard Tuco pull the door shut.
The layout was as he remembered. Two doors off the landing, both open. One led to a stockroom with one-way mirrors that looked out on the store, the other to a brightly lit office. Johnny heard Tuco's heavy breathing as he came up the stairs behind him.
“What you waiting for, homes? Go on in.”
When he walked in the office, Joey Alea stood up behind his desk, opened his arms.
“Look at him,” he said. “Just look at him.”
He started around the desk and Johnny looked him over. He wore a gray blazer and black turtleneck, his jet black hair
moussed perfectly in place, but his hairline higher than the last time Johnny had seen him.
“Come here, you,” he said, and pulled Johnny to him, clasped him in both arms, then pulled back to look at him. Johnny could smell his cologne.
“Look at this guy,” Joey said. “Johnny Blue Eyes in the flesh.” Then to Johnny: “Do you know how long I've waited, watch you walk through that door?”
“It's good to be back,” Johnny said.
Joey stepped away. Lindell stood behind the desk, suit and open shirt, medallion. He raised his chin in greeting.
Johnny looked at the third man in the room. He sat on a chair in the far corner, crew cut hair, impassive Slavic face. He wore a leather jacket, sweater, jeans, elbows resting on his knees. He looked at Johnny, nodded. The room smelled of cigar smoke.
“Come over here,” Joey said. “Take a seat.” There was a cushioned chair facing the desk. Johnny went over to it, started taking his field jacket off. On the desk was a computer terminal, wire trays with papers, invoices, a glass ashtray with a thin cigar smoking in it.
Johnny felt Tuco come into the office behind him, close the door.
He folded the field jacket, laid it across the back of the chair. Joey watched him. He caught the bottom edge of his sweatshirt, pulled it up and over his head.
“This isn't necessary,” Joey said.
He laid the sweatshirt atop his jacket, knew they were all looking at his tattoo. He put one foot up on the chair, pulled the cuff of his camouflage pants up to knee height, pushed his sock down to the boot, showing the bare skin. He did the same with the other foot, then smacked his crotch to flatten out the material, show there was nothing hidden there. Joey looked amused.