Snowblind(12)

"It's a snowstorm. Probably not much of one," the mother replied. "Big deal."

The counter girl cocked her head as if she were waiting for a punch line too long in coming.

"Logan, stop that!" the mother snapped.

Then she lifted a hand to her temple, exhaling with embarrassment. "Sorry. Just one of those days. The guy at the gas station was super rude. Then this lady dropped her purse and I went to help her and she practically barked at me that she could do it herself. And don't get me started about the way people drive. If it's gonna turn into an icy mess later, so be it, but right now it's just a few flakes. I mean, it's New England, after all. It's not your first snowstorm."

The woman shook her head and that faint, Cherie-like smile returned. At some point her brats had frozen in place just to listen to her.

"Oh my god, they've done it to me, haven't they? I've become one of the angry snow-day people."

"It's okay. We all have those days," the counter girl said, fixing her baseball cap over her ponytail. "You sure you don't want something else?"

"Rum and Coke?" the mother said with a soft laugh.

"Best I can do is ice cream."

"Did she say ice cream?" one of the kids piped up.

"Hush," the mother said. Then she fixed her gaze on the counter girl. "Seriously, why are people so edgy today?"

"Are you not from around here?"

"Rhode Island, originally. Why?"

The counter girl gave a nod. "You remember the blizzard ten or twelve years ago? Like a million feet of snow, no school for days?"

"I guess," the woman said, grabbing her younger son by the arm and steering him away from the older one. "You guys got hit harder up here than we did, but I watched it on TV. Bad storm, sure, but this is no blizzard. No reason for people to get worked up about it."

"I'm with you," the counter girl said. "But I was only seven when it hit, so I don't remember it well. Older people in Coventry get antsy every damn winter. A bunch of people died in that blizzard-like eighteen. I guess it just haunts them a little."

Doug's chest hurt and he realized he'd been holding his breath.

A little? he wanted to say. Haunts them a little?

But how could this girl with her nose ring and streaks of purple in her hair know that his wife had been one of those eighteen? That he could have stayed home and kept Cherie company in the blizzard but instead had chosen to hang with the guys and ended up drunk with his car in a ditch? That every snowfall reminded him that he hadn't been there for his wife when she'd needed him most? She couldn't, obviously  …  but still he wanted to snap at her.

The bell over the door rang again and he glanced over to see Franco and Baxter coming in. He sat up straighter, his pulse quickening. He should have been relieved that they'd arrived-he had to be at work in a little more than an hour-but he didn't think he would ever be happy to see these two.

He spared a last glance at the stressed-out mom, realizing she didn't look like Cherie at all. Twelve years had passed since the night his wife had died and he still saw her in the faces of women he passed on the street. Still dreamed about her. Still loved her. These days, his life didn't have any room for love. It was all about work and trying to figure out if he could live with the things he'd done. Most days the answer was yes.

"Dougie Doug, what's happening?" Franco said as he slid into the booth.

"You guys hit traffic or something?" Doug asked.

Baxter dropped into the booth beside Franco. He leaned back, cocking his head and studying Doug with those ice-blue eyes, his tattoos a silent declaration of war to anyone around him.

"You in a hurry?" Baxter asked, the question tinged with irritation and menace.

"I got work."

Baxter nodded toward the front counter of the diner. "You gotta eat, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Doug said.

"You fucking guess," Baxter said, sneering. He leaned across the table and dropped his voice to a cruelly intimate whisper. "Don't be a little bitch, Doug."

"Baxter-" Franco started.

"Shush," Baxter said, keeping his eyes fixed on Doug. "When Franco said we oughta bring you in, I only went along with it because we both grew up on Copper Hill. You were a hardass little kid, man. I remember the day Benny Hayes stripped off Julie what's-her-face's shirt on the basketball court. What were you, twelve? Benny had two years and thirty pounds on you, easy, and you beat him bloody. Kid lost a couple of teeth and any chance of ever being respected by the neighborhood again.

"Now, I figure you were playing white knight, rescuing the damsel in distress even if the damsel was a tiny-titted China girl with a mouthful of braces. Maybe it was an Asian thing. But you had fuckin' steel that day, man. And the white-knight shit  …  that's what it was. Shit. We were all stealing from the White Hen back then, and the night I stole that Caddy, you were my fucking lookout. You were with me, Kelly, and the Deeley brothers that whole night, man, riding around in a stolen car, drinking stolen beers, smoking stolen cigarettes."

Baxter dropped back against his seat. He took a wad of cash from his jacket pocket and threw it onto the table.

"So go get your lunch, Dougie. I don't want you late for work. But let's stop pretending you're some kind of saint."

Doug's heart pounded. He glanced at Franco but knew there was no help coming from that direction. Taller and leaner but jacked from years of lifting free weights, and quick as the devil, Franco probably could have taken Baxter if it came to fisticuffs. But something about Baxter made people uneasy and therefore compliant. It had always been that way, but never more so than now. With his prison tats and those cold eyes, Baxter was the alpha dog in pretty much any room he entered.

"I'm no saint," Doug said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody was looking at them. A couple of old townies were two tables down, drinking coffee with their scarves still on. The mom had picked up her order and left with her boys in tow. He turned back to Baxter and Franco. "But this is bigger than stealing condoms and cigarettes from the goddamn White Hen."

Baxter smiled. "We're grown-ups now, Dougie. Stakes are higher. I know you're out of practice. Hell, I've seen how out of practice you are. And I know it's been twenty years since you took something didn't belong to you. But I told you when we brought you in  …  you're either in or you're out."

Doug stared at him for a few seconds and then he laughed. "For Christ's sake, all I did was bust your balls because you were late."

Franco scratched at his goatee and looked out the window.

Baxter just shook his head. "It ain't what you said. It's the vibe that's burning off you, today and every other time we've gotten together. You're about to crawl out of your skin, man."

"Doug," Franco said, finally speaking. His prior silence made the single word stop the rest of the conversation dead. "You and me, we worked together off and on, yeah? But we were never friends. That hasn't changed. I like you well enough, but you and me don't have the history you got with Baxter. I suggested we bring you in because you had the access and you had the need. You were squirrelly right off the bat, but me and Baxter, we figured you'd calm down once you got a little money in your pocket. So far, that hasn't happened."
     
 

     

No longer smiling, Baxter leaned in again. "What we're saying is, chill the fuck out or we cut you loose."

Something fluttered in Doug's gut and he wasn't sure if it was fear or anger. Hunger, probably, he thought. The guys were right, he definitely had the need. He might be the first guy Timmy Harpwell brought in when he needed an extra mechanic, but he was also the first guy kicked to the curb when business took a downturn. The last two years he'd been picking up a couple of days a week at Harpwell's Garage, money under the table so he could collect unemployment. He'd looked for other, more reliable work, but there were too many idle hands and hardly any jobs.

The fluttering in his gut halted and an icy knot took its place.

"I told you I'm in. Damn right I need it," he said, glancing from Baxter to Franco. "I just don't think it's real smart to be having lunch together at fucking Chick's Roast Beef in the town where we're doing shit we don't want to get caught doing. One of you gets picked up, I don't want to be a Known Associate. You see what I'm saying."

Baxter exhaled, sitting back for a moment before he looked at Franco.

"White Knight has a point."

Franco nodded, then gave a shrug. "Next time we get together at night? At Dougie's place?"

"That works," Baxter said, turning to Doug with a smile. "We'll come in the back door. I'll bring the beer if you get the food."

The idea of these guys coming to his house after dark to plot more of the small-time heists they'd been living off the past couple of months made his skin crawl. But it made sense, especially since the alternative was spy shit that none of them had the brains for.

"Sounds good," he said, keeping his tone level and wondering if he could ever get his own eyes to look as cold as Baxter's.

Wondering if that was something to wish for or something to dread.

The bell above the door rang again. Doug glanced up at the big man who stepped into the diner and froze, unable to breathe. The guy nodded in recognition and Doug found himself just able to return the nod, watching as the new arrival brushed a few snowflakes from the lapels of his wool coat. His paralysis broke the moment the man reached the counter, talking happily to the counter girl, musing aloud about the relationship between Chick's onion rings and his cholesterol.