Found A Homeless Genius To Save My Company novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Pancakes

Over pancakes Rex proves who he is, and the test engineer Dinah finds them with a warning: the old man spent none of it on himself.

There was a pancake house two blocks from the plant, and Loyd Hartung wouldn't go anywhere else.

"They don't water the syrup," he said.

We took a booth at the back by the window.

He set the banker's box on the seat beside him and wouldn't let the waitress move it.

I ordered coffee.

He ordered a short stack, two eggs, a side of bacon, and a second short stack for later.

"Heart doctor says no bacon," he said, when the waitress had gone.

He tried to smile.

It didn't work, and his hand went into his jacket for a bottle of pills and stopped when he saw me watching.

"My name is Rex Corbett," I said.

His eyes stayed on the table.

"You were behind the wheel of a black Buick," I said.

"A red light at Kellogg and Rock Road, in January."

"I washed your windshield with a rag and dish soap, and you gave me a twenty."

He didn't say anything.

"You looked at my hands," I said. "They were blue. You asked me when I'd last eaten and I lied."

"You said Tuesday."

"It was Sunday."

His shoulders moved.

"I know who you are, son," he said. "I knew you when you took that guard by the wrist."

I sat back.

"You didn't say anything."

"You were about to thank me for something." His voice was rough. "I couldn't bear it, not today. Not with that building still behind us."

The waitress brought the plates.

He ate like a man who had been missing meals, steadily, without looking up, and I pushed my own plate across and let him.

"You had a cut here." He touched his own eyebrow.

"My foster father."

"I put a butterfly bandage on it in the shelter bathroom."

"You told the caseworker he'd never touch me again, and he didn't."

"I got a friend at the county to make a call." He shrugged. "That's all that was."

"That's not all it was."

"You had the receipt in your pocket," he said. "The one with the drawing."

I laughed, and it came out wrong.

I remembered the receipt and the pencil.

The little valve had three chambers, drawn on the back of a gas station slip because I had nothing else.

"You looked at it at the shelter," I said. "Then you took it to your shop and you didn't bring it back for a week."

"That week, Hartung Aero was going under." He pointed his fork at me.

"Our main actuator leaked at altitude and nobody could say why."

"I had forty engineers and a lawyer telling me to file."

"And a child with a gas station receipt had drawn the flaw in a three-chamber valve, with a ruler made out of his shoelace."

"A library card."

"A library card." His eyes shone. "Found a homeless genius to save my company."

We both looked at our plates for a moment.

"Why didn't you ever tell me where the scholarship came from?" I said. "The Open Door Fund. I looked for the donor for years."

He put his fork down.

"It's what she wanted," he said.

"My wife didn't want a thank-you note."

"She wanted you to go as far as you could, and never feel you owed a soul."

"I could have written her."

"She'd have thrown it out." He smiled and this time it held.

"She said gratitude's a debt, and nobody should have to pay on a kindness."

Snow hit the window.

The bell on the door rang, and a woman stamped in with a canvas work jacket and a dark blond braid down her back.

She scanned the room and came straight to our booth.

She was out of breath and her cheeks were red from the cold.

She had a freckled face, a burn scar on one wrist, and a gray thermos in her fist.

"Loyd," she said. "I went to the annex. Your sleeping bag's gone. They cleared it out."

"Dinah," he said. "Sit. This is Rex."

She looked me over: the coat, the shoes, my coffee.

"Corbett Launch," she said flatly. "You're the one on the magazine."

"He's the boy I told you about," Loyd said gently.

She didn't sit.

She put the thermos down in front of him and pushed it an inch toward his plate.

"Soup," she said. "My mother's. You'll drink all of it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Then she turned to me, and her voice dropped.

"If you've come to help him, you should know what he's accused of."

"He told me."

"Did he tell you what he did with it?"

"Dinah," Loyd said.

"He didn't spend a dime on himself." She said it fast and low.

"I've seen every statement. There's no boat, no house in Florida, no gambling."

"Eleven million dollars went out of that company, and he's got a sleeping bag in a hangar."

"Dinah. Leave it."

"Why?" She was almost shaking. "Ask him where it went."

I looked at Loyd.

He had gone gray, and he was gripping the edge of the table with both hands.

"Leave it," he said again, very quietly.

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