Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

H IS HAIR DISHEVELED, HIS SLEPT-IN clothes heavily wrinkled, and with darkened pouches under his bloodshot eyes and stubble on his chin, Devine, carrying the binder, walked into the kitchen the next morning. Well, it was actually nearly the afternoon, he thought, as he checked his watch. He was instantly flooded with the mingled smells of coffee, eggs, bacon, and toast that Rose was overseeing on the stove top.

“You sleep in too?” asked Devine.

“Yep,” said Rose. “Me and Dozer are definitely night owls.”

“Yeah, Nate mentioned that before.”

Rose looked up, flinched, and said, “Whoa, don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit, dude.”

A moment later, Nate Shore walked in from the other doorway and said, “Yeah, like really shitty.”

“Thanks, guys,” said Devine. “Is the coffee ready? I think I’ll just dump it on my head.”

Rose set the table and ladled out the food onto three plates while Devine poured himself a cup of coffee and Shore did likewise.

The three men sat down and commenced eating.

Rose looked Devine over. “Didn’t sleep well, huh? I got somethin’ to help that. Nothin’ to get you hooked on,” he added quickly. “I’m talkin’ meditation, breathin’ exercises, stuff like that. It works, no lie. It ain’t heroin, but sometimes it comes close.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine.” Devine held up the binder. “You two ever seen this before?”

Rose said, “Yeah, Betsy put stuff in that thing all the time. She’s a good drawer, too.”

Shore cracked his thick neck and nodded. “And she puts photos in there. Her mom had one of them old cameras where the pictures pop out and then come to life in ’bout a minute.”

“Yeah, a Polaroid,” noted Devine. “You two made the cut.”

He held the binder open to a particular page, where there was a picture of Betsy, and Shore and Rose.

“Damn, am I really that fat?” said Rose, peering closely at his image.

“Good cooks always fat,” noted Shore with a grin. “See, they always eatin’ fine. But I look pretty damn buff, if I do say so myself,” he added with a chuckle.

A dejected Rose looked at his unfinished fried eggs, buttered toast, and crispy bacon and slowly pushed his plate away.

Devine opened the binder to the last entry.

“She wrote this about her uncle. Any thoughts? Keep in mind this was before her parents died and before she knew Glass was going to try to adopt her.”

Rose and Shore looked at the words on the page and exchanged a nervous glance, but neither man spoke.

Devine put the binder down, sat back, and gazed at them both. “Okay, guys, you say you want me to protect Betsy? Well, guess what? To do that, I need you to tell me what you know. All of it.”

Shore fingered his coffee, while Rose listlessly poked at his eggs.

“Some guys come to see Dwayne and Alice last year,” began Shore.

“What guys?”

“Men in suits. Dwayne and them ain’t livin’ here then. They was in a little apartment in a town called Roslyn. And they was about to get kicked outta there ’cause Dwayne couldn’t hold a job like always and they was behind on their rent and such.”

Rose chimed in, “Roslyn’s where they filmed that TV show, Northern Exposure . Watched it when I was a kid. Good show, what you call quirky.” He grinned at Shore. “Like us, Dozer, quirky .”

Shore didn’t crack a smile. “Anyway, they was livin’ there and some men come by.”

“Wait, you mean you two were there when they visited?” asked Devine.

Shore nodded. “We’d just finished up some drug counselin’ and we had jobs, too. We slept on the floor, but it beat livin’ on the street. We helped with the rent and bills and such, but we ain’t makin’ much and the dude that owned it wanted to sell the whole shebang. Some guy was gonna knock it all down and put up a big-ass gas station or some such. Dude like tripled the rent and no way we could pay that, even with all us workin’.”

“Keep going,” said Devine, as Shore paused to take a sip of coffee.

“So these two dudes in suits come by. They wanted to talk to Dwayne.”

“Just Dwayne, not Alice, too?”

“I ’member they just asked for Dwayne, ain’t that right, Kor?” replied Shore.

“Yep. Dwayne told us to go get us some ice cream. It was hot that day, so’s we all liked that idea.”

“The men didn’t announce who they were or show some ID?”

“No, but Dwayne seemed to be expectin’ ’em,” said Shore. “I mean, least he ain’t surprised when they showed up.”

“But didn’t Alice want to stay and see what they wanted?”

Shore nodded. “She did, but Dwayne say there was no problem. Just told us to go get some ice cream and they’d be all done by the time we got back. I pulled him aside and asked him if he was sure. I woulda stayed to help him if he needed it. Those dudes looked pretty tough, but I’ve kicked ass in bars all over. I can hold my own with most, no shit.”

“No shit is right,” agreed Rose. “I seen it. Dozer bust you up, man. But he a pussycat underneath. Gentle as a baby. Just tickle his tummy and he goes right to sleep.”

“Jesus, Kor, keep that crap to yourself,” growled Shore.

“Okay, go on,” prompted Devine again.

Shore said, “Well, we went and got us the ice cream. I had pistachio, love me a good pistachio. Double scoop. Always get me pistachio. What’d you have, Kor?”

Rose cocked his head and thought. “Not sure. Let me see now. I think it might—”

“Hey, it was the rocky road, right?” broke in Shore. “I ’member now.”

“Naw, man, I wasn’t doin’ rocky road then. I’m pretty sure it was—”

Devine broke in. “It’s okay, guys. I don’t really care about the flavors. What happened when you got back?”

Shore said sheepishly, “Oh, right, um, well, Dwayne was lookin’ pretty pleased with hisself.”

“What did he say had happened? And did he tell you who the men were?”

“He say they was business associates.” Shore sniggered. “I mean, shit, we ain’t Einsteins or nuthin’ but me and Kor ain’t stupid neither. If them boys was Dwayne’s business associates , I’ll run through downtown Seattle in my birthday suit singin’‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ at the top of my damn lungs.”

“Hope to God I don’t never live to see that ,” commented Rose.

“That’s all he said, ‘business associates’?” asked Devine.

“Yep, but Alice pulled him into the bedroom and we heard her hollerin’ at him.”

“And Betsy?”

“She’d gone to her room, I think,” noted Shore.

“What happened when Alice and Dwayne came out of the bedroom?”

“She looked like she’d been cryin’ and Dwayne had his arm ’round her,” said Rose. “They didn’t say nuthin’ else ’bout it. Like it ain’t never happened.”

Shore added, “Next thing you know, they bought that car and moved to this here place.”

Devine said, “We know that the money for the car and house were paid directly to the sellers by an unknown third party. You think that was who those men were? Or who they were representing?”

“Who else could they be?” said Shore. “I mean, Dwayne had ’bout much money as we did and then he gets a car and a house? Some weird shit goin’ on. Ain’t no free lunches, right, Kor?”

“Amen to that. You get money like that, bro, you got to pay for it somehow, someway. Pay the piper, pay the damn piper. Maybe the devil.”

“And you never questioned him about it later? After he got the car and this place?”

Shore said, “Tried to. But all he said was he won the lottery. Over and over.”

“Over and over,” agreed Rose. “Man sound like a broken record.”

“And Alice?”

Rose looked at Shore before speaking. “From then on, Alice looked mighty scared sometimes, ain’t you say, bro?”

“Scared shitless, I’d say.”

“No free lunch, like you said, Dozer,” observed Rose.

“So she thought Dwayne had done something that would come back to bite them?” asked Devine.

“Well, Alice was fuckin’-A right ’bout that, wasn’t she?” said Rose, before chomping down on a thick slice of bacon.