Текст книги "Day Shift"

Автор книги: Charlaine Harris

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

And she left, too. Manfred said, “Dammit.” He’d finally said things out loud that he’d wondered about for months—and said them out loud to Olivia, of all people. And she’d blown him off and gotten out the door as fast as she could.

30

The town fell silent again at dusk. Everyone did the same things they’d done the night before, even though some of the tension had gone. Fiji called Manfred to ask him if he wanted some homemade bread, and when he said yes, they met in the middle of Witch Light Road. There was still plenty of light; they talked a little. Though the heat radiated off the road, it was still pleasant to be outside, to be confident that nothing was lurking . . . yet.

“Mr. Snuggly won’t come out of the corner of my bedroom,” she said. “He’s gone into scaredy-cat overload.”

“One more night of this, you think? After tonight?”

“I think so.”

“What, exactly, are we so afraid of?”

“Well,” Fiji said, “it is the full moon.” She looked at him significantly, obviously expecting Manfred to pick up her meaning.

“It’s been the full moon lots of times since I moved here, and I’ve never had to do this before.”

“Then you should ask yourself, ‘What’s different about this time?’” she said patiently. “Here’s the bread. There’s beer in it. Enjoy.” She cast a quick glance over at the pawnshop, perhaps hoping that Bobo would emerge. She turned to go back to her house, calling good-bye over her shoulder.

Manfred raised the bread to his nose. It had the most wonderful aroma. He wondered if baking might someday be included in his skill set, because he would do anything to make his house smell like this. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A police car was driving very slowly down the street. The driver was looking from side to side. There was someone else in the front seat. Manfred saw that the passenger was Shorty Horowitz.

“Shit!” Manfred said. He flagged down the car. It pulled into his driveway. He didn’t know the driver, but it was a sheriff’s department uniform.

“You know this man, sir?” asked the deputy.

“Yes, where was he?”

“I found him on the Davy highway just north of here. He says he has a grandson here? Someone named Barry Bellboy?” The deputy said this very carefully, as if he suspected he was the butt of a joke.

“His grandson is over at the hotel,” Manfred said. “I’ll bet he’s going nuts.”

He looked over at the hotel and saw Barry standing in the hotel doorway, looking from one direction to another, obviously terrified. Manfred waved his arms and pointed at the patrol car. Barry came running across the intersection like there was no such thing as traffic, and in a second was standing by the car, panting.

“Oh, you’ve found him! Thanks so much.”

“You Barry? He do this a lot?” asked the deputy.

At least it’s not Gomez, Manfred thought.

“I’m Barry Horowitz. He’s never done this before,” Barry said. “God, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I was really, really . . . scared.” He leaned down to look across the deputy at the errant Shorty. “Granddad, where’ve you been? Why did you leave?” His voice sound gentle, and he’d put the fear away somewhere.

“Barry?” Shorty turned to look at his grandson. He seemed puzzled.

“That was part of the problem,” the deputy explained. “He kept telling us your name was Bellboy, and I put out a call to search for someone of that name. Of course, there wasn’t anyone in this area called that.”

Barry didn’t seem to be able to speak. He looked stricken.

“You ready to take your grandpa back home?” the deputy said, looking a little worried.

Barry had recovered his vocal cords. “Okay, Grandpa, you ready to go back to the hotel?”

“All right. If they’ll give me cake for supper and let me take a nap.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Whitefield won’t mind giving you some cake, if she’s got one made, and you can sure take a nap in your room.”

“Barry took a nap,” Shorty said. “But it was time for me to go home.”

“That was my big mistake,” Barry told the deputy. He seemed to have recovered his wits. “He woke me up last night with this ‘going home’ theme, and I dropped off to sleep this afternoon. He gets worse the closer to night it becomes. Sundowner syndrome, they call it.”

“Sundown,” Manfred said significantly. The deputy looked at him oddly, but Barry got Manfred’s drift.

It was very close to nightfall.

“Thanks so much, Deputy . . .” Barry paused.

“Nash. Glad to help. Glad we found the old guy before he came to harm.”

After some well-meaning advice from Deputy Nash and more profuse thanks from Barry and more disjointed statements from Shorty, Barry and Manfred extricated Shorty from the car and waved while the deputy backed out and turned right to go back to Davy.

“Go, go, go,” Manfred said. “Do you need to stay at my place?” He made the offer reluctantly, but he made it.

“We’ve got the time,” Barry said. “I don’t know what the urgency is, but we’ll be inside in four minutes, maximum.” He began to coax his grandfather toward the hotel, promising cake and ice cream and many naps. Manfred stood in his doorway watching.

Finally, the tall man and short man reached the double glass doors to the hotel.

Manfred heard a sound coming from somewhere close, a deep sound, one he could not identify. But it made him think of the zoo again.

In an instant, he was in the house with the door shut behind him. And he locked it. And he drew the curtains tight.

After he had gotten his breathing under control, he noticed that the message light on his cell phone was blinking. He had two messages. The first one was from Magdalena Powell. “I did the thing I said I was going to do,” she said. “Have you called my mom yet?”

The second message was from Fiji. “What the hell is with the cop car?” she said.

Manfred returned her call.

“Yeah?” she said breathlessly.

“Barry’s grandfather went walkabout,” he told her. “The cops returned him. Deputy Nash was confused because Shorty kept telling him that his grandson’s name was Barry Bellboy. Weird, huh?”

“He’ll have to do something about Shorty.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s thinking about that right now.”

“Did you tell Barry that? About the Bellboy thing?”

“The deputy did. Barry freaked out.” Manfred reconsidered his terminology. “Actually, he was scared shitless.”

“That’s pretty strange. Well, have a good evening and enjoy the bread.”

31

The next day was a strange one, right from the moment Manfred woke up. He glanced at his calendar and realized he had a dental appointment in Marthasville. Manfred hated going to the dentist almost as much as he hated zoos. This dentist in Marthasville was supposed to be especially good at treating jittery patients, and when Manfred had heard of her, he thought he’d give her a try before his teeth rotted out of his head. And he’d made an early appointment so his entire day wouldn’t be ruined by the anxiety over the impending trip.

By the time he got back to Midnight, it was ten in the morning. The dentist had been good and kind, but he was frazzled and longed for nothing more than to drink something cold and soothing and to bury himself in work. The past few days had put him horribly behind.

Manfred noticed there were some cars at Fiji’s shop, and he was glad that she had some business. There was a car outside Joe and Chuy’s place, too. And the hotel. Lots of visitors to Midnight today. Weird.

Manfred unlocked his front door and got another unhappy surprise. Olivia was sitting in his kitchen. She leaped to her feet when he came in. “Who are they looking for?” she said.

Manfred’s heart had stuttered when he saw her inside his house, and it took a few seconds for him to be able to process what she’d said. “Olivia, I’m plenty pissed that you broke into my house,” he said, trying hard to make his voice even. He didn’t want her to see how frightened he’d been.

“I’ll apologize later,” she snapped. “Who?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He poured himself a drink with lots of ice and let it cool his sore mouth.

“There are people in Midnight,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why are they here? They’re looking for someone. I want to know who.”

“They’re just shoppers,” he said, though he did not believe that.

“Bullshit!” She leaped from her chair, and he flinched. “How often have you seen four cars at one time in Midnight? Cars that stopped? With strangers inside?”

Manfred’s phone rang. He held it to his ear. “Yes?” he said.

“Hi,” said Fiji, in a bright, impersonal voice. He knew right away that something was wrong. “Mr. Bernardo, I did some research, and that was the correct reaction.”

It took him a second to decipher that. Barry had been right to be afraid that the name “Bellboy” had been broadcast. “Yeah,” he said. “I understand. That why you have visitors?”

“I am definitely not the only shopholder in Midnight who feels that way.”

“I understand,” he said again. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile in her voice. “We’ll talk later, when you’re at liberty.” And she hung up.

“You’re right,” Manfred told Olivia. “They’re not here to shop. But they’re not looking for you. They’re looking for Barry.”

He stood at his window, assessing the situation. There was a sign across the way on the front door of the chapel.

“Can you read that sign, Olivia?”

She joined him. “It says, ‘CLOSED today and maybe TOMORROW.’ With ‘closed’ and ‘tomorrow’ in caps.”

There was now another car at Home Cookin. But the restaurant wouldn’t be open for a while. A woman—at this distance he could only tell she was tall and thin and pale—crossed Witch Light Road after turning away from Home Cookin. She hesitated in front of Joe and Chuy’s shop, and then walked to Gas N Go. He saw her push open the glass door, and he could almost hear the electronic buzz.

“They’re everywhere,” Olivia said.

“Olivia, I don’t know who these people are or what they’re doing here. Barry is the guy who probably knows all about it, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of his senile grandfather that he’s in a fix. I don’t think this is connected to you.”

“Tell me.” She seemed to relax a little.

“In a nutshell, Barry Horowitz isn’t his real name. It’s Barry Bellboy, which is pretty strange, and I have to think that isn’t the name he was born with. Yesterday in the evening, Grandpa got lost, told the deputy who found him what his grandson’s name was, the deputy broadcast that name to find somewhere to return Grandpa, and apparently whoever Barry is so scared of heard it. They’re in Fiji’s shop now. You believed these people were looking for you?”

“Yes, I did believe that,” she said. “They’ll be here any minute. No matter who they’re looking for, they’ll go to every place in Midnight.”

“Are you gonna let them see you?”

“Hell, no! I’m going to hide in your kitchen and listen to what they say to you.”

“Thanks,” he said bitterly. “Jump in and save my life, okay?”

“They’re not going to kill you. At least, probably not. But if they get aggressive, I’ll take action.”

Manfred thought it was ominous she didn’t say what that action might be. Maybe Olivia would run out the back door.

He was almost relieved when he saw her put a gun ready on the table. He didn’t know anything about guns, and he didn’t like them. It was worse than having a snake on the table. But at least now he knew she was not planning to leave him defenseless.

She sat, hands folded, waiting.

She was better at it than Manfred.

He took a cold drink to his workstation and began to answer personal e-mails. He never had very many. But today, he heard from Rain, and it was a significant message. She and Gary had gotten married. “Since we couldn’t see the situation with his kids changing and we weren’t getting any younger, we just eloped!” she wrote. Manfred sighed heavily. Rain Redding. He’d have to get used to it. And he’d have to have a conversation with Fiji about an appropriate wedding gift. He tried composing a reply, but after two abortive attempts, he decided he would call later. An unspecified “later.” When all this is over, he thought.

Finally, he started real work. He turned on the psychic hotline phone, as he thought of it, and started taking calls. In between calls, he answered the paying e-mails. And if he caught up with those, there was the Amazing Bernardo website, and messages to answer there. The routine took over. He almost forgot about the woman with the gun behind him, and the strange people going around searching Midnight, and he worked. After all, the bill from Magdalena would be high, and his car wasn’t any younger.

At least he wouldn’t have to fly home for his mother’s wedding.

A knock at the door broke his concentration. He sent the e-mail he was working on (Your boyfriend gives off a very violent vibration, and you should take care of your own safety first) before he went to the door.

And then looked down.

The man was less than five feet tall and looked to Manfred’s uneducated eyes like an Indian. Manfred could not have specified what kind of Indian or his country of origin, but he was built broadly and he was very dark skinned. The whites of his eyes weren’t actually white, but faintly yellow.

“Hello,” Manfred said, hoping Olivia was primed to take action. “Can I help you?”

“Your name, sir?”

The Indian’s voice was not the deep rumble Manfred had expected. It was a light tenor. Manfred felt ridiculously self-conscious and couldn’t decide what a totally innocent response would be to what was actually a kind of strange question.

“You’re the one who knocked,” he said. “I’m working here, and I need to get back to it.” He began closing the door, but there was a small boot in the way.

“Excuse me,” said the Indian. “Perhaps I wasn’t polite or clear. I am looking for someone, and I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” Manfred retorted. “I am working, and I am not obliged to answer your questions.” He tried to close the door again. The boot didn’t move.

“Is there anyone else in your house?” the Indian asked.

“No, there is no one else in my house.”

“May I look and see?”

“No.” Manfred was definite about that.

“Has there been a strange man in town lately? Tall, in his late twenties, perhaps using the last name Bell or Bellboy?”

“If there is, I haven’t met him, but mostly I’m stuck here working, which I need to do now.” Manfred deftly kicked the boot out of the way with his own and slammed the door, locking it as quickly as he could.

Then he walked back to his desk and threw himself into the chair to make it creak and roll noisily over the hardwood floor. And he waited. After an extremely long thirty seconds, the Indian moved away. Manfred exhaled slowly and deliberately.

“You heard?” he said.

“Yeah. I think he’s a daytime guy, working for a vampire.”

Manfred turned around. Olivia looked a lot more like the woman he knew than she had when he’d returned home that day. Some terrible emotion had leaked out of her to be replaced by practicality. “Why do you think that?” he asked.

“Was he wearing something around his neck?”

“Yeah,” Manfred said. “A bandanna. Like he was part of an Old West pageant.”

“Okay, then. He’s a fangbanger.”

“I don’t know much about the vampire thing,” Manfred said. “I’ve only been to Louisiana once, and that was in the daytime.”

“They do keep a low profile almost everywhere else,” Olivia said. “Especially since the were-animal disaster. I know there’s an enclave in Dallas, though. I think these people searching Midnight were sent by that enclave. They all arrived about the same time, they’re all strangers, they’re all asking questions, I assume. They’re going in and out of all the businesses in town. They’re looking for Barry, so they’ve got a grudge against him for some reason, and he knows about it. Since they’re after him, not me, I’m outta here. I have something to do in Dallas.” And she was gone.

Manfred hardly noticed. Before he could think the better of it, he called Barry’s cell.

“Hello.” Barry’s voice was low and cautious.

“Someone was here.”

Barry said, still very quietly, “I saw them out the window. If they find me, I’m dead.”

“Are you . . . well hidden? A short guy with a bandanna around his neck was here. He was very persistent.”

“His name is Alejandro,” Barry said. “Even for my grandfather, I shouldn’t have set foot in Texas again.”

Manfred was powerfully curious to learn the whole story, but this was not the time to ask to hear it. “We won’t give you up,” he said, aware that his own voice had hushed to match Barry’s.

“You won’t have a choice,” Barry whispered. “They’ll find me and take me to Dallas. I won’t get away with it this time. Better keep back.” And he hung up.

Manfred had an idea. There was a huge downside, but it might work, and he owed it to Barry, or Rick, or whatever the hell the man’s name was, to try something. Barry had done him a good turn. True, he’d gotten paid. But he’d done it willingly.

Manfred spent some time on the phone with Magdalena Powell. Then he warned the other residents of Midnight. When a news van rolled up, they were as ready as they were ever going to be. As he’d hoped, Magdalena was eager to take the opportunity to be on television. This would be a tiny press conference, maybe the smallest in Texas history: with a reporter from the Davy paper, a reporter from the closest television affiliate, and the regional stringer for a Dallas paper. Manfred elected to hold it in front of the Inquiring Mind, with Fiji’s permission. He reasoned that Fiji could use the publicity a lot more than he could. Besides, her lovingly created garden, with flowers blooming everywhere, was a much nicer backdrop than his barren little cottage.

Mr. Snuggly obliged by sitting on the porch and looking picturesque. One of the reporters almost stepped on him and then leaped to one side, looking wildly around to find the source of the tiny voice that said something very pointed to him.

Manfred, nervous and regretting his impulse already, let his gaze pan over the streets of Midnight. The strangers were popping out of the Midnight buildings, and they started to drift down to Fiji’s. That was exactly what he’d wanted.

Magdalena looked at her watch, looked at the reporters, and said, “Time to get started.”

Manfred would rather have waited another two or three minutes, but he didn’t want to rouse any suspicion in Alejandro, who was standing like a very unfortunate statue by one of Fiji’s rosebushes.

“I wanted to announce today,” Manfred said clearly, “that I am innocent of the charges leveled against me by Lewis Goldthorpe. These charges relate to the disappearance of some jewelry of his mother’s. Also, I understand that Lewis Goldthorpe has been hinting to his media connections that I am guilty of some kind of wrongdoing in the death of his mother, my friend Rachel Goldthorpe. The very idea of such a thing is repugnant to me, and I suggest that if Lewis keeps spreading this kind of terrible rumor, I will see him in court with my lawyer, Magdalena Orta Powell.” Manfred felt relieved at getting through this statement, especially “repugnant,” and he added, “Magdalena Powell can kick Lewis’s butt legally.”

There was some actual laughter, and Magdalena, who wanted to punch him, instead smiled in an arctic way. Manfred was relieved she didn’t shove him off Fiji’s porch.

“Magdalena,” called the man who’d almost stepped on Mr. Snuggly’s tail, “how are you gonna kick Jess Barnwell’s butt?”

“Barnwell’s a fine lawyer,” Magdalena said seriously. “But he’s got an unreliable client.”

“As opposed to a phone psychic?”

“Ouch,” said Manfred, smiling. “But I’ve heard much worse.” He thought, Barry, get out now! Now!

He didn’t know if Barry could pick up on Manfred’s particular thought pattern, but he did sense that Barry was on the move, and he saw a car pull out of the alley running behind the hotel. It turned left to drive west on Witch Light Road. That would take him to the nearest highway north, which would get him into Oklahoma in a few hours.

Manfred turned his attention back to the here and now. “I may be a phone psychic, among other things, but I don’t make false accusations against people to the police or the media,” he said.

“You’re saying Lewis Goldthorpe has slandered you?”

“I’m saying that he should remember that he lives in a glass house,” Manfred said, and he thought Magdalena was going to blow a fuse. “It may be in Bonnet Park, and I may live in Midnight.” He swept his hand around theatrically to indicate his surroundings. “He may be the son of a millionaire, and I may be the grandson of a great psychic.” (He owed his grandmother Xylda that, he figured.) “But when he makes statements that besmirch the memory of his mother, he has forfeited his right to my respect and consideration.”

That got their attention, and there was a lively back-and-forth between Manfred and “the media” until Magdalena shut it down with a graceful statement thanking them all for coming today. The little crowd dispersed, the fangbangers gathering to engage in a low-voiced conference, the reporters to straggle back to their vehicles and depart.

“That was a good idea,” Magdalena said. “I think. What made you so determined to do it?” He’d only been able to get her to agree to show up by telling her he’d do it without her. Instead of dropping him as a client, she’d figured being on television was not so bad.

“It was a diversion, plus I wanted to get up in Lewis’s face,” he said. “He’s tried to say I’m a thief. Well, maybe he’s a murderer. He needs to be worried about himself.”

“You baffle me,” she said, looking at her client with frustration all over her face. “And if you think I did this for free . . .”

“That never crossed my mind,” said Manfred honestly. “I expect your bill in the mail. Listen, as long as you’re here, would you like to have an early dinner at Home Cookin?”

The lawyer’s face was a picture of startled. She hesitated. “A regular gathering?” She was gauging the social texture of the meal. Manfred didn’t blame her.

“It’s almost always just us Midnight people,” he said. “But I’m giving Arthur a call.”

That decided her, as he had suspected it would. She looked at her watch. “I am through for the day,” she said. “All right. As long as you know we’re just . . . lawyer and client.”

Magdalena was attractive, but he’d rather date a barracuda. “Of course,” he said, hoping he sounded just a little regretful.

Fiji came out of her house, where she’d been secluded in the back during the press conference. He could tell she was feeling pretty today, though she always seemed pretty to him.

“Fiji, you coming with us?” he asked.

She smiled. “I guess so. I don’t feel like cooking and making my kitchen hot, you know?” Her smile brightened when Bobo emerged from the pawnshop. He crossed the road to walk with them. “Hola, Magdalena,” he called.

Manfred was not at all surprised to find that Bobo knew his lawyer.

“Hey, Feej, are you going to charge Manfred? Since he used your garden as a backdrop for his press thing?”

“Nah,” she said. “The shop sign was probably in the photos.”

Mr. Snuggly rubbed against Manfred’s denim-covered leg before vanishing into the backyard in his mysterious cat way. They passed the closed chapel with its sign, and none of them said anything, though Magdalena gave it a curious look. Manfred, who’d been texting, grinned. “Arthur’s showing up in a few minutes,” he said.

“Cool,” Bobo said. “I haven’t had a talk with him in months.”

“Okay,” Fiji said. “I kind of like him.” She sounded faintly surprised, as if she were not in the habit of liking law enforcement officers.

Fiji and Bobo walked ahead. While Manfred and Magdalena were out of hearing, he asked, “Just out of curiosity, can you find out the terms of Morton’s will?”

“It’s a matter of public record,” Magdalena said. “If you want to pay for my time, of course I can get a copy.”

“I do, and the sooner the better.”

“I’ll tell Phil tomorrow.”

When they were about to cross the Davy highway, they saw Chuy and Joe emerge from their shop doorway. They, too, were eating out tonight. Now that the strangers were gone, and so was Rick Horowitz (né Barry Bellboy), everyone was happier except maybe Shorty Horowitz. Manfred was glad Barry was on his way to safety; he was glad no vampires would come to Midnight. Crisis averted.

And, he had to confess to himself, it was a relief to have the telepath gone from their midst, as much as he’d been curious about what Barry was “receiving” from his companions.

“By the way,” Magdalena said.

“What?”

“I only agreed to your little press conference because the Bonnet Park police had already called me to tell me they’d found the jewelry. You’d just been cleared. So it was safe for you to deny all the charges in public.”

Manfred stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “I should have wondered harder why you agreed to do it,” he said. “You know what? I’m just happy it’s over. I couldn’t have killed her, and I didn’t steal anything, and it’s all public knowledge.” He felt amazingly lighthearted.

Chicken and dumplings was on the menu that night, along with baked tilapia. These were new, so they were all more interested than usual in their food.

Manfred wasn’t the only one to notice that Arthur chose a chair by Magdalena, or perhaps Magdalena had arranged to have an empty seat available. She was a lawyer and used to strategizing. But after Arthur had ordered, his phone buzzed, and he stepped outside to take the call. Dillon was in the kitchen getting another pitcher of iced tea, and Madonna was cooking.

Manfred had been able to see the tension in the way his landlord was sitting. There was something Bobo wanted to say, and since he couldn’t get rid of Magdalena as well, he leaned forward with sudden resolution.

“I wonder where our missing citizens are,” Bobo said. Since they were all seated around the big round table that dominated the little restaurant, they could all hear him even though he didn’t raise his voice. He meant the Rev and Diederik.

“Just one more night,” Fiji said, even more obliquely.

Manfred wasn’t sure he really wanted to know what the Rev was up to. “I guess we’ll find out if we’re supposed to know,” he said, and grabbed a piece of corn bread from the basket in the middle of the table.

Arthur came back in, Magdalena stopped looking from one to the other of them as though she expected them to speak in tongues, and Dillon eased through the swinging doors to the kitchen with a brimming pitcher of tea. He refreshed their drinks, but he seemed subdued. Manfred had a moment of doubt. Was the atmosphere of Midnight contagious? Dillon had always seemed like a normal ranch teenager. Now he was preoccupied.

“Dillon, you doing okay?” Bobo asked, just before Manfred could get the words out.

“Yeah, just broke up with my girlfriend,” Dillon said, and smiled weakly. “I made her mad. I told her I saw . . .” He hesitated, and the smile faded away. “Well, never mind. She just got mad at me. When she cools off, we’ll talk.”

“That’s a good plan, Dillon,” Bobo said. “Give her time to come around.”

He ducked his head. “Can I get you guys some more bread?” The basket for rolls and corn bread was almost empty.

“Sure,” Manfred said, not because he wanted any more but because he wanted to give Dillon a reason to exit.

Arthur looked after the boy. He seemed lost in thought for a moment.

Magdalena was unexpectedly entertaining at table talk. She had a number of stories that Manfred suspected were stock stories, anecdotes she told to keep the social ball rolling: terrible clients, terrible judges, funny lawsuits. Arthur was more engaged in that world than any of the others, and he laughed the hardest. He was inspired to tell “best arrest” stories. And Bobo told a few “weird things people wanted to pawn” anecdotes—the used coffin, the grenade, the blank tombstones.

This was high entertainment for a Midnight dinner. Manfred looked at the smiling faces around the table: at Joe and Chuy, who were clearly enjoying themselves; at Fiji, who laughed out loud; at Olivia’s guarded smile and Bobo’s animated face. Dillon brought out a buttermilk pie with Madonna’s demand that they all try it, since it was a new recipe. It was already sliced, and they each took a piece. It was rich and delicious, but Manfred thought it too sweet. However, Madonna was so formidable that he didn’t say anything.

At eight thirty, the diners scattered for home as though they’d heard a warning bell sound. The glow in the sky was golden pink, and Magdalena’s and Manfred’s shadows preceded them as they strolled back to his house, where her car was parked. They didn’t talk: It was hot, and they were full, and Manfred had things to think about. Apparently, so did his lawyer.

Magdalena unlocked the car and opened the driver’s door. A blast of furnace-hot air gusted out. There was no question of leaning against the metal; she stood, shifting from foot to foot, a woman whose shoes were definitely pinching.

“You call my mom yet?” she asked.

“Nope, but tomorrow for sure.”

She seemed to consider, her eyes on her feet, as if she could make them ache less by looking at them.

“You people here are all very odd,” she said at last, and then she left.