“I’m getting out,” Josiah said. “You can come or not, it ain’t my concern. But I am getting out of this place.”
“It’s a dumb idea,” Danny said, and the audacity of that blew Josiah away. Danny Hastings calling him dumb? He should’ve swung on him, knocked the red hair right off the top of his head. He didn’t, though. Instead he just stood there and stared. Something was odd about what Danny had just said, and it took a minute but then Josiah figured out what the odd quality was—Danny had been right. It was a dumb idea.
Dumb, but not impossible. And Josiah Bradford was just about ready to take those odds, like one of the fools who went down to the casino on Friday night knowing they’d get cleaned out but not giving a shit. Worse came to worst, they’d remember Josiah in this town. They’d damn sure do that.
“It can be done,” he said, but there wasn’t much vigor in his voice. “If you don’t have the balls, all right. But don’t you tell me it can’t be done.”
Danny was quiet. After a time he opened his beer and then they drank in silence for a while, standing there awkwardly because they couldn’t lean on the rail. Josiah went over and sat on one of the chairs and Danny followed and took the other.
“Story I had to tell you is that I spoke to my grandpa today. He said a man’s in town asking about old Campbell.”
Josiah frowned and lowered his beer. “That same son of a bitch I told you about?”
“The black kid? No. Said there’s another one now. This one is doing some kind of movie. Black kid is helping him.”
“A movie about Campbell?”
This was some kind of strange. Josiah’s great-grandfather had been the subject of plenty of old Edgar’s rants over the years, but who in the hell would want to make a movie about him?
“Edgar’s addled,” he said. “A movie?”
“What he told me,” Danny said, “was that some guy was down from Chicago working on a movie and wanted to ask about Campbell today.”
“Well, I don’t know why anybody would want to waste their time on him. Campbell left a lot of nothing behind, and I’m still living off that today.”
Danny said, “Well, that’s what I was wondering. If what this guy told Grandpa is true, and he’s making a movie about somebody in your family, don’t he owe you something?”
It was a fine question. A fine question. What right did strangers have to go wandering around asking about Josiah’s own blood? Let alone turn a profit from it?
“You said these guys are headed down to see Edgar today?”
“That’s right. I was going to go down there myself, make sure they wasn’t running some sort of scam like the ones you hear about with older folks, but you’d told me to come by…”
Josiah finished his beer, crushed the can, and tossed it aside.
“We’ll take my truck.”
21
ERIC LEFT ANNE IN the rotunda when Kellen called to say he was nearing the hotel, took the bottle back to his room, and then went outside to wait. He was feeling better after having the elderly woman confirm all of the things he’d seen in the bottle.
Kellen pulled up outside the hotel in his Cayenne with the windows down and hip-hop music thumping from the speakers, old stuff, Gang Starr that had probably come out when Eric was in high school and Kellen was, what, seven? Eric had to suppress a smile as he got inside the car. A midthirties white guy like him sitting in a Porsche listening to rap—ah, this was almost like being back in L.A.
“You feeling all right?” Kellen asked when Eric climbed in.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Look pale.”
“I’m white.”
“Knew there was something funny about you.” Kellen pulled away from the hotel. He was wearing jeans and a shiny white T-shirt made from one of those fabrics that were supposed to wick moisture, along with sunglasses and a silver watch.
“Are you close to your brother?” Eric asked, looking around the Porsche and thinking about the source of it.
“Oh, yeah. We talk about three, four times a week.”
Eric nodded.
“You’re wondering if it’s hard,” Kellen said. “Being his brother. Being the unfamous one.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Eric lied.
“Man, everybody wonders. It’s cool, don’t worry about it.”
Eric waited.
“I love my brother,” Kellen said. “I’m proud of him.” The fierceness in his voice seemed directed at himself, not Eric. “But the truth? No, it’s not easy. Of course not.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”