Beauregard let his hands hang between his knees and lowered his head.
“You ever thought about going out West? I hear there’s still some work out that way for a fella who know his way around a steering wheel.”
Beauregard grunted. “My Daddy went out West and didn’t never come back,” he said.
Boonie sighed. “Your Daddy … your Daddy was one of a kind. I only seen two other men who could handle a car under the hood or behind the wheel like Ant Montage. You one of them. The other one is locked up in Mecklenburg. Your Daddy was as good a driver as he was a friend. And he was a damn good driver,” Boonie said. He pushed his baseball cap back on his head and stared at the aluminum beams in the ceiling.
Beauregard knew he was seeing it in his mind. Seeing him and his father flying down the road moving moonshine or speeding away from a bank robbery on the streets of Philadelphia, hooting and hollering all the way.
“You still think he might come back?” Beauregard said.
“Huh?”
“Daddy. You still think he might show up on my doorstep one day? Carrying a basketball and bottle of Jack so we can go catch up,” Beauregard said.
Boonie blew some air between his full lips. “Men like your Daddy, like me, like you used to be, we don’t die in hospital beds. Ant wasn’t perfect. He loved driving, drinking, and women, in that order. He lived life at 100 miles per hour. Men like that, well, they go out on their own terms, usually with a bang. But I tell you what, if he did go out that way, you can bet your ass he took some boys with him. You look so much like him. It’s like he spit you out. But you different. Your Daddy, he just won’t the settling down type. That made things hard for him and your Mama. How is Ella these days?”
“She doing. She over at the nursing home. Her cancer done slowed down but she still smoking like she got a bad ring in her engine,” Beauregard said.
“Damn. That cancer, boy, it just takes ’em down inch by inch. Louise went down so fast. Doctor told her she had it in March, she was gone by September. How long your Mama had it?” Boonie asked.
“Since ’95.” Beauregard said. He thought his mother was going to outlive them all. Unlike Mrs. Boonie, she was too mean to die.
“Ella was always tough as shoe leather,” Boonie said. He smiled at his own joke.
“Well, I guess I should get on down the road, Boonie.” Beauregard stood.
“Hey, hold up, let’s have a drink real quick,” Boonie said. He swiveled in his chair and grabbed a mason jar out of one of the drawers in the filing cabinet directly behind him.
“It’s 11 o’clock.”
Boonie unscrewed the lid. Two shot glasses had magically appeared on the desk as well. “Hey, like Alan Jackson says, it’s five o’clock somewhere. I’m sure glad we been able to catch up,” Boonie said.
He filled both glasses. Beauregard picked up a glass and clinked it against the one Boonie was holding. The shine was smooth as the glass it was held in. A warm tingle wound its way down his throat.
“Alright. Well, keep me in mind if you hear anything,” Beauregard said.
“You sure?” Boonie asked.
“What?”
Boonie put the mason jar back in the drawer.
“Just saying maybe it’s a good thing I ain’t got nothing. Like I said, you different from your Daddy. You don’t live for this. It ain’t all you got,” he said.
Beauregard knew Boonie meant well. Nowadays he was a connect. A guy who could put you in touch with some other guys. He also hired out Chompy One and Two as garbage disposals. They disposed of the kind of garbage that bled and cried for its mama before it died. He was the guy who could help you move your loot without charging an exorbitant finder’s fee. He was also Beauregard’s de facto godfather. Boonie had helped him refurbish the Duster. He’d given Kia away at their wedding because her father was doing twenty to life in Coldwater for killing her mother. Boonie was the third person to hold Javon when he was born. Boonie did all the things Anthony Montage should have done. So Beauregard knew he meant well. But Boonie didn’t have a daughter graduating from summer school next month. He didn’t have two sons who seemed to grow six inches every night. Or a wife who wanted a house with a foundation before she died. Or a business that was one month from going under.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said.
He left.
THREE
Kelvin rolled up to the shop around eleven. Bug wasn’t there yet, so he went across the street to the 7-Eleven and got a chicken salad sandwich and a soda. He slipped into a weathered booth and ate his sandwich and sipped his soda. Most 7-Elevens didn’t have a place to eat but this one had once been a diner. When the Egyptian family that owned the 7-Eleven bought the building they had kept the booths. It was a scorcher today. Not for the first time, he contemplated cutting off his braids. But he knew he had an odd-shaped head with a few too many indentations to rock the bald look. By the time he finished his food, Bug still hadn’t arrived, so he walked back across the road and opened up the garage. They had a transmission to put in for Lulu Morris that was going to be a bitch. Shane Helton had dropped his truck off complaining of a shimmy in the steering column. Kelvin thought it might be the rack and pinion. Bug was of the opinion it was just the velocity boot on the driver side. Bug was probably right, but a velocity boot was only 300 bucks. A rack and pinion was at least 1500.
He hoped to God it was the rack and pinion.
Kelvin raised the three garage doors on the three repair bays and turned on the overhead air handler. Whistling, he drove Shane’s truck onto the hydraulic lift. As he was hopping out, he saw a faded blue Toyota pull up to the first bay door. The car stopped and a short thin white man got out and walked into the garage. He stopped just in front of the tire changer. He had longish brown hair and a scraggly brown beard. His muddy brown eyes darted from side to side.
“Beauregard?” he asked with an inquisitive inflection at the end.
“Nah, I’m Kelvin. He ain’t in yet. Can I help you with something?”
The man licked his dry lips.
“I really need to talk to Beauregard,” he said.
“Well, as he ain’t here can I help you?” Kelvin asked.
The man ran his hand through his hair. He stepped a little closer to Kelvin. He smelled like cigarettes and old sweat.
“Just tell him my brother Ronnie is looking for him. Wants to talk to him, patch things up, maybe have some work for him,” the man said.
“Ronnie who?” Kelvin asked.
“Ronnie Sessions. He know him. They used to work together,” the man said.
Kelvin sighed. He knew who Ronnie Sessions was, or at least he had heard the name. Ronnie was a crazy-ass good ol’ boy from Queen County down on the back heel of the state. Ronnie was known for two things: his twenty-three Elvis tattoos, and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down with titanium fasteners. Last Kelvin had heard, Ronnie was doing five years up in Coldwater on a burglary charge. Robbed a marina or something. This was after he screwed Beauregard over on a job.
Bug had not been pleased.
So Kelvin couldn’t imagine why in the hell Ronnie wanted to be within one hundred feet of Bug. Let alone tell him he was back in town. Maybe he had a fetish for getting his teeth kicked down his throat.