Page 46 of The Furies

Dave Evans was preparing to head home from the Bear when Paulie Fulci approached him. Dave’s late failure to remove Raum Buker from the premises had been forgiven by the Fulci brothers, if not entirely forgotten, helped by the fact that Raum hadn’t returned to the bar since his altercation with them. The Fulcis were by now aware that he was holed up at the Braycott Arms, but sometimes a man is worth hitting, yet not worth the effort of traveling any distance to hit. Should Raum have been unfortunate or careless enough to stumble into their path, the Fulcis would have undone all the progress achieved by his periodontist, and also put some work the way of a good orthopedist.

“The man in the corner,” said Paulie, “over by the specials board, I think there’s something wrong with him.”

“Wrong, how?” said Dave.

“Just wrong.”

Any number of accusations could have been leveled at the Fulci brothers—and many had, not least in courts of law—but being poor judges of character was not among them. Their reactions might have been instinctive, and expressed in the simplest of terms, but they were very rarely mistaken. It was a consequence of their comparatively childlike perspective on the world and those who inhabited it. The Fulcis viewed behavior in terms of good or bad, kind or unkind, generous or mean, and distrusted any morality that was tolerant of compromise. And, Dave thought, who was to say they were wrong? Admittedly, their own past behavior was less than blameless, and even some of their more recent exploits gave cause for concern, but an undeniable sense of righteousness and honesty underpinned everything they did, which was more than could be said for a lot of folk Dave knew. The Fulcis’ principal flaw was that they were easily led. Well, that and their hair-trigger tempers. And their willingness to use violence as a second resort, or even a first. Actually, now that Dave came to consider it, the Fulcis had a great many flaws.

So, although home was calling, Dave listened to Paulie, and used a check on the spelling of the evening’s specials as an excuse to take a look at the patron in question. He was sitting directly under the board, and dressed in various shades of tan, cream, and brown from the top of his trilby hat to the soles of his two-tone leather brogues, like the subject of a sepia photograph come to life. He was wearing a brown tweed jacket over a tan vest, a yellow shirt with a yellow-and-beige tie, and cream moleskin trousers. A single red feather poked from his hatband, like a Native American scout imperfectly concealed amid arid slopes.

But glimpsed up close, the stains on his pants and shirt were plain to see, along with the fraying of his jacket cuffs, the missing middle button on his vest—his belly straining against the cotton shirt beneath, revealing coarse gray hairs—and the scuffing on his unpolished shoes. His chin was sunk on his chest, the brim of the hat concealing his face. He was breathing so regularly and deeply that Dave thought he might be asleep, and he gave off a hint of rosewater, along with something nastier that smelled like an outhouse in high summer. An empty yellow-and-black plastic ampule stood beside a glass of what resembled brandy, although when Dave asked around later, no one could remember having served him, and the glass was not from the Bear’s stock.

Then he raised his head and opened his eyes, and Dave was reminded of hinged shells unclasping to reveal the bivalves within, or single embryos at the heart of frog spawn. The globes were milky, one more than the other, and the irises were gray, the widening pupils dark and imperfect in their circularity, as if those same embryos had been coaxed into unfolding by the sudden influx of light. His hand shifted position on the table, revealing a pair of ivory dice that matched the color of his skin. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that Dave had to lean in close to hear it.

“Are you a gambling man?”

CHAPTER LIV

Evening was leaching into night, so Eleanor Towle lit a lamp on the kitchen table. The ancient heating system had rumbled into action, gurgling and hissing, and now the house sounded as though it were suffering from indigestion.

“So the design on this coin was distinctive,” I said. “Is that what gave it a rarity value?”

Eleanor rested her chin on her hands. Her mood and tone had altered once more, and I could see she was becoming increasingly impatient, even angry. By inviting me into her home she had set in motion a chain of events that could end only with the revelation of more than she had originally intended to divulge. She wanted something in return, if just a brief respite from her loneliness. But the more time I spent in that house, the more oppressive its atmosphere became, especially now that darkness had arrived.

“You do ask a lot of questions,” she said.

“It’s why I’m here.”

“Hardly seems fair. You ask, I answer. It’s like an interrogation.”

“Ms. Towle, I don’t believe you’re sharing anything you don’t want to share.”

“And why should that be?”

“Because you’re worried.”

“About what?”

“Your safety,” I said, “and Egon’s, too. You can’t call the police because of what he’s done, and I don’t think it would ever have crossed your mind to hire a private investigator, because what is there to investigate but your brother’s crime? You’ve taken a calculated gamble that my involvement is more likely to help than hinder, but each time I ask a question, I can see you reckoning for a couple of seconds before you reply.”

“That’s because I’m putting a lot of faith in you, and it’s all one-way traffic.”

“I think ‘faith’ may be open to debate. For every truth you share, you hold another back.”

“Maybe you’re not so kind after all. Are you married?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised. I thought only married people were so cynical about the opposite sex. Were you ever married?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“She died.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but it was a rote reply. “Do you have children?”

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