“One thing,” I said. “Sadie’s marriage was difficult. Her husband was strange in ways I don’t want to go into. His name is John Clayton. I think he might be dangerous. You need to ask Sadie if she has a picture of him, so you’ll know what he looks like if he shows up and starts asking questions.”
“And you think this because?”
“Because I’ve seen something like it before. Will that do?”
“I suppose it will have to, won’t it?”
That wasn’t a good enough answer. “Will you ask her?”
“Yes, George.” She might mean it; she might only be humoring me. I couldn’t tell.
I was at the door when she said, as if only passing the time of day: “You’re breaking that young woman’s heart.”
“I know,” I said, and left.
2
Mercedes Street. Late May.
“Welder, are you?”
I was standing on the porch of 2706 with the landlord, a fine American named Mr. Jay Baker. He was stocky, with a huge gut he called the house that Shiner built. We had just finished a quick tour of the premises, which Baker had explained to me was “Prime to the bus stop,” as if that made up for the sagging ceilings, water-stained walls, cracked toilet tank, and general air of decrepitude.
“Night watchman,” I said.
“Yeah? That’s a good job. Plenty of time to fuck the dog on a job like that.”
This seemed to require no response.
“No wife or kiddies?”
“Divorced. They’re back East.”
“Pay hellimony, do you?”
I shrugged.
He let it go. “So do you want the place, Amberson?”
“I guess so,” I said, and sighed.
He took a long rent-book with a floppy leather cover out of his back pocket. “First month, last month, damage deposit.”
“Damage deposit? You have to be kidding.”
Baker went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “Rent’s due on the last Friday of the month. Come up short or late and you’re onthe street, courtesy of Fort Worth PD. Me’n them get along real good.”
He took the charred cigar stub from his breast pocket, stuck the chewed end in his gob, and popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnail. It was hot on the porch. I had an idea it was going to be a long, hot summer.
I sighed again. Then—with a show of reluctance—I took out my wallet and began to remove twenty-dollar bills. “In God we trust,” I said. “All others pay cash.”
He laughed, puffing out clouds of acrid blue smoke as he did so. “That’s good, I’ll remember that. Especially on the last Friday of the month.”
I couldn’t believe I was going to live in this desperate shack and on this desperate street, after my nice house south of here—where I’d taken pride in keeping an actual lawn mowed. Although I hadn’t even left Jodie yet, I felt a wave of homesickness.
“Give me a receipt, please,” I said.
That much I got for free.
