The Night He Left the Syndicate, I Took His Chair novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: What You Owe Me

I wrapped the test in toilet paper and put it in my jeans pocket.

I didn't tell Mavis.

At a quarter to twelve I went out through the kitchen door into the alley.

Zeke's sedan was at the curb out front. The windows were fogged. He'd be asleep with his head against the glass, the way he slept every night now.

I didn't wake him.

I walked to the cannery in the cold, with the Zippo in one pocket and two pink lines in the other.

The garage was black.

I flicked the lighter at the top of the ramp.

The flame jumped up.

He was standing where our mattress used to be.

He'd brought nothing. No cigar. No men. No overcoat, just a dark sweater.

"Ris," he said. "You came."

"You said alone. I'm alone."

"You always did what I said."

"Not lately."

He smiled at that. It was the smile from ten years ago, crooked.

"No," he said. "Not lately. That was a hell of a thing on Friday. The ice house contract. You remembered his daughter's wedding."

"I remember everything."

"I know you do."

He came a few steps closer.

"Do you remember this spot?" he said.

"Third pillar. You had a blanket from the Salvation Army and a radio with one speaker."

"And you brought me fried clams in a paper boat."

"They were going in the trash."

"You told me that every night. Every night, Ris, for a month."

For a second, in the lighter's glow, he was twenty-four.

Then I remembered the bed, and the phone on speaker, and "But you can."

"Why am I here, Orson?"

He paused.

"I saw your face in the yacht club," he said. "You know about the launch."

"One of the boys saw you get off it in New Bedford."

"Then I don't have to lie to you."

"That'd be new."

"I'm leaving through the state," he said. "Immunity. Full. I give them the Table, they give me a clean name and a new life on the mainland. It's done. It's signed."

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