Page 36 of Hold

“I got sewage coming up in a first-floor bathtub. Looks like a blocked line.”

“Awesome.” Liam looked at Jake, whose face had paled at the wordsewage. “We’ll be right there.”

“You got the new kid with you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Great. Trial by fire, huh?”

Well, it would certainly teach Jake to look for his own job next time. “What’s the address?” Laurie gave it to him, and he hung up and made a left turn.

“Bet you’re glad I gave you the overalls now, huh?” Liam grinned.

Jake still looked pale. “Why would it come up in the bathtub? That’s so gross.”

“When the block is farther down the drain, the water goes wherever it can go. And brings whatever it likes with it.”

“So when she said sewage, she really meant…”

“Raw shit, yeah.”

Jake went from white to green. Liam had to laugh.

He got out of the van at the house, a well-loved 1960s cape with an extension to the side he’d bet his bottom dollar hadn’t been permitted properly, and directed Jake to get the power auger. He picked up the case with the inspection camera in it and knocked on the door.

The bathroom the homeowner directed him to already stank, and sure enough, the evidence was sitting morosely in the bottom of the bathtub. On further questioning, she confessed that the sinks and tubs all over the house had been draining slowly for weeks. As Jake wheeled the auger to the front door, Liam bit his tongue on the folly of people ignoring obvious problems until there was an emergency and met him outside.

The cleanout drain plug was halfway down the yard. This was not going to be fun. “All right,” he said to Jake. “Gloves and glasses, second shelf down, right-hand side.” Jake went and came back, and they suited up. Liam took a wrench and approached the plug. “Better not stand too close,” he told Jake, which was pretty nice of him, he thought.

Sure enough, a good twist of the wrench and the plug popped out as if it had been waiting for Liam all its life. And out of the drain spewed everything that hadn’t been able to drain down to the town sewer. Liam jumped back—looked like everything reached a good two feet high there—and then looked around at Jake.

“Oh God,” the boy was saying. “Oh Jesus.” And he added the contents of his stomach to the debris.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Liam grinned.

Jake carefully sat down and ran a shaky hand over his mouth, keeping his eyes averted from the mess. “You’re sick.”

“No,you’resick. Go get some water. There’s nothing to do here but wait for the backup to settle down. Then we’ll snake it.”

When the pressure had released, Liam got some bags and began to clear up the godawful contents of the pipe. Jake didn’t come back for a while.Mission accomplished. Jake’d be lugging buckets of spackle at the home improvement store by Thursday.

Liam checked the plug at the street and found that it had been knocked over, by a lawnmower probably, and had cracked and fallen into itself, creating the blockage. He went back to the van to get PVC pipe and a new plug to replace it, and found Jake sitting on the back fender, still shaky and green.

“All right, Jake,” he said, “the worst of it’s over. Just some digging and PVC and solvent. Come on.”

They were carrying some supplies to the street cleanout when another Pat the Plumber van pulled up. Later, Liam swore he knew it was his father before the van had even rounded the corner.

“How’s it going?” Pat said, walking over to them. “Broken cleanout?” Then he said, “This the new guy?” before he got a hard look at Jake.

When Laurie had asked the date of birth when they put Jake on the payroll, Liam had said, “I’ll get back to you on that,” because he knew what Pat would say.

Which was what he did say when he saw Jake’s pallid face and spiked hair. “What?” Pat exclaimed. “He’s just a kid!”

“He’s fifteen. Same age I was.”

“He’s—but he’s—” Right now, Jake did look young, unsure, and scared as the older man’s voice rose. “Who the hellareyou?”

Jake seemed to hope Liam would answer for him, but Liam didn’t.

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