Chapter 6: The Porch

Pearl went out onto the porch with the shotgun broken open over her arm, and nine women followed her.

I went last.

Dario's pickup stopped at the end of the walk.

Two patches got out of the cab and a third climbed down from the trailer.

Dario stayed behind the wheel with his window down.

"Evening, Pearl," he called. "Don't point that at your own club."

"It's pointed at the ground," Pearl said. "For now."

"We brought something that belongs to Becky."

The two patches went to the back of the trailer and dropped the gate.

On it, strapped down with ratchet straps, sat our bed frame.

It was black and twisted, with the springs sagging through.

A scorched piece of headboard still hung off one corner.

They dragged it across the grass and left it at the foot of Pearl's steps with a scrape I felt in my teeth.

"Property of the arsonist," Dario said, still smiling. "Table says you clean up your own mess."

Behind me, someone breathed out in disgust.

I walked down the steps.

"You hauled my burned bed fourteen miles," I said.

"I'm a thorough man."

"You're a lonely one. You came out here because you had nothing else to say to me."

His smile twitched.

"I came to take my wife home."

"To what? The garage cot?"

"To a motel I'm paying for. We'll sit down. Elena will give the money back when things calm down. We can put this behind us."

He said it warm and low, the voice he used at funerals and when talking to my mother.

The two patches behind him looked at their boots.

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