He hastens past her, and, on a whim, she follows.
Halfway down the block, something falls out from beneath his jacket—a book. He quickly grabs it and shoves it back under his zipper. As he’s doing so, another item falls to the ground—a wooden tube. “Fuck,” he swears to himself as he stuffs them back inside.
“What are those things that fell?” Taylor asks.
“Nothing,” he snaps, and continues briskly walking.
She scurries after him.
“Ya following me?” he asks, over his shoulder.
“No.” But clearly she is. “Was that a book?”
“It’snothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing. Was that from the room downstairs?”
He ignores her and quickens his pace, so she does as well. Only once he gets to the next corner, and halfway down that intersecting block, does he stop. His face is blotchy and sweaty, and he’s cradling the bump in his jacket like a baby. He looks behind her, as if checking whether they’ve been followed.
Seemingly satisfied, he meets her gaze. “It was junk, just some historical crap they were gonna throw out.”
“Did they say you could have it?”
His silence is the answer.
“What are you doing with it?” she asks.
He eyes her a little warily. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“I thought maybe I could sell the stuff,” Jerry admits. “There’s a couple books, some old medical stuff. Like an old-fashioned stethoscope.” He makes no move to show the alleged items. “But I don’t know where I’m gonna offload them,” he adds, working his jaw.
“You know, my landlord owns an antiques storeanda used bookstore,” Taylor says, as casually as she can. She’s thinking—what if these items are more than a load of “historical crap”?
Everything is paper, they’d said. What if there’s something in those books? Besides, maybe there’s a deal here to be made, a way to gain some favor with Jerry.
“Yeah, and?”
“Well, I could ask her for an introduction…see if maybe these are worth anything?”
“Maybe.”
“We could do a sixty-forty split? I’d be the forty.”
“Eighty-twenty,” he replies.
“No way.”
“Look,” Jerry says, shifting his eyes around, “I gotta look out for myself. The Kn—they say they’ll look out for ya, but they won’t. Not really. Eighty-twenty, take it or leave it.”
This is the exact opposite of what Eduardo professed about the Knox. Does Jerry have a skewed outlook simply because his sister got involved with Oliver? Or did something else happen? “Fine,” she concedes, sticking out her hand to Jerry, who just nods.
“But I’m gonna hold on to the stuff until then. And don’t saynothing to the others. It’s better if they don’t know. I don’t think they’d want me and ya…” His voice trails off, but Taylor gets the drift.
She’s the outsider. Always the outsider. She has been her whole life. Why would the Knox be any different? “I promise I won’t,” she assures him, trying to dampen the surprising hurt she feels.
Vivian
