Chapter 24: Payment One

On the first of the month, I woke up at six and Caleb's side of the bed was empty.

The studio was quiet, and my mother's bed was folded up against the wall.

She had moved into the old house on Thursday, with a new lock on the door, and the whole place felt larger.

I found his coffee mug on the draining board, upside down and still warm.

His boots were gone from beside the door.

I put on my yellow raincoat over my pajamas and went down the stairs two at a time.

There was only one place he could be going.

The diner's front door was unlocked.

The sign in the window still said CLOSED, and the lights were off, but the grill pilot glowed blue at the back.

Caleb stood at the old brass register by the pie case in the half dark.

He had a white envelope in one hand, thick and creased.

He did not hear me come in.

I stood by the stool Gus liked and watched his hands.

He laid out eighteen hundred dollars in twenties, slowly, as he had done thirty-seven times before.

Then he pressed the key on the register, and the drawer rang open.

"You're up early," I said.

He turned fast.

"Stevie."

"It's the first," I said. "I woke up and you were gone, and I thought, I know exactly where this man is."

He looked at the envelope, and then at me, and I saw the color come up in his face.

"I wasn't hiding it," he said.

"I know."

"I just wanted to do it once with nobody watching."

"Then I'll go."

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