Chapter 24: Free

The owner of the Gull read the deed at the end of the bar with his glasses pushed up on his forehead.

He read it twice.

"One dollar," he said.

"That's what it says," I told him.

"The Wainwright boy gave me my own bar for one dollar."

"He did."

He dug a crumpled bill out of the register, smoothed it flat and looked at it for a long moment.

"I'll mail it to him," he said. "Framed."

Pru, on the stool beside me, snorted into her beer.

It was a slow Thursday night in Port Calder, and rain ticked on the front windows.

Stalworth's sentence had been in the paper that morning.

It was life with no parole, and I had read it once and folded the page.

Emmett's sentence was four years.

Pru drove out to see him every other Sunday and came back annoyed at how well he was eating.

I wiped down the bar, and it felt like nothing more than a bar.

At ten the front door opened, and Bram walked in.

He wore the dark suit and no tie, and the scar in his eyebrow caught the light.

He stopped just inside the door and did not come toward me.

He went to table six by the window and sat down.

"He's got his spot," Pru muttered. "Look at him. Poor thing."

I took a glass down and filled it.

"Beer?" I said, when I got to the table.

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