Chapter 16: Thirteen Chairs

Boone walked out into the dark with his hands open at his sides.

I watched from the window as he crossed the yard and the cattle guard and stood at the green Ford's door.

The window came down.

They spoke for less than a minute, and Boone came back with his shoulders square.

"He says good evening," he told me. "He says he wanted to be sure we were all home safe. He says he'll see you at nine."

"Did he threaten you?"

"He asked after my rib."

That was Gus.

He had never once threatened anyone in a way that could be repeated.

At ten to nine the next morning I walked into the clubhouse with the recorder in one hand and the flip phone in the other.

Tawny came behind me with her split lip, and Mags came behind her in her good blouse, with a plate of biscuits nobody had asked for.

Boone stopped at the door.

A prospect doesn't sit in church.

He stood against the wall with his blank leather cut and his arms crossed, and every man at the table looked at him and away.

Gus waited at the head of the long table with his glasses on.

Twelve men sat on either side.

"Hallie," he said. "I've given the floor to you. Go ahead."

I set the recorder in the middle of the table.

I didn't play the one from the unit.

Half of them had heard the shape of it on the grapevine, and I was not going to give Gus an hour to talk it into mush.

I put the flip phone beside it and pressed my own phone's button.

"Evening, sweetheart," said Gus's voice, from the little speaker.

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