My Stepbrother's Regret novel · Chapter 6 of 32
Chapter 6: Tulsa
My bench is the third one back, under the only window that opens.
It has a green rubber mat and a cracked parts tray my boss gave me on my first day.
It also has a coffee ring nobody's allowed to clean.
On Monday morning I sat down at it and couldn't remember how to open a caseback.
I had a 1960s dress watch in front of me with a broken balance staff.
A customer's grandfather's watch.
I put the loupe in my eye and looked at it for ten minutes and saw Tulsa.
"You're breathing on that," my boss said from the front counter.
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be somewhere else." He limped back with his cane and his reading glasses on a chain. He's seventy-one and has been on Wabash since before it had the L tracks painted. "You look like you got hit by a bus."
"Just a stepbrother."
"Same thing." He leaned on my bench. "A man from the chain came in again Friday. Nice suit. Wants the lease, the benches, the name on the door. He'll pay what I'm asking."
"I know."
"Labor Day, kid. I want it to be you. I can't wait past Labor Day."
"I know."
"Sixty thousand. I can't take less. My wife's knees aren't getting any cheaper."
"I know," I said, and my voice did something on the last word.
He looked at me over his glasses for a long moment.
Then he patted my shoulder twice and limped back to the front without saying anything else.
That was worse.
Mags came through the side door from the engraving counter at ten.
She had two coffees and her visor pushed up on her bleached hair.
She took one look at me and put both coffees on my bench.
"Who do I kill?"
"It's complicated."
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