“How did you learn the business?”
“It’s a franchise kind of a thing, a turn-key operation. Anybody could learn it in twenty minutes.”
“No kidding,” Keller said.
“Oh, yeah. Anybody.”
Keller drank some of his coffee. He asked if Engleman had said anything to his wife, learned that he hadn’t. “That’s good,” he said. “Don’t say anything. I’m this guy, weighing some business ventures, needs a printer, has to have, you know, arrangements so there’s no cash-flow problem. And I’m shy talking business in front of women, so the two of us go off and have coffee from time to time.”
“Whatever you say,” Engleman said.
Poor scared bastard, Keller thought. He said, “See, I don’t want to hurt you, Burt. I wanted to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d put a gun to your head, do what I’m supposed to do. You see a gun?”
“No.”
“The thing is, I don’t do it, they send somebody else. I come back empty, they want to know why. What I have to do, I have to figure something out. You don’t want to run.”
“No. The hell with running.”
“Well, I’ll figure something out,” Keller said. “I’ve got a few days. I’ll think of something.”
After breakfast the next morning Keller drove to the office of one of the realtors whose ads he’d been reading. A woman about the same age as Betty Engleman took him around and showed him three houses. They were modest homes but decent and comfortable, and they ranged between forty and sixty thousand dollars.
He could buy any of them out of his safe-deposit box.
“Here’s your kitchen,” the woman said. “Here’s your half-bath. Here’s your fenced yard.”
“I’ll be in touch,” he told her, taking her card. “I have a business deal pending and a lot depends on the outcome.”
He and Engleman had lunch the next day. They went to the Mexican place and Engleman wanted everything very mild. “Remember,” he told Keller, “I used to be an accountant.”
“You’re a printer now,” Keller said. “Printers can handle hot food.”
“Not this printer. Not this printer’s stomach.”
They each drank a bottle of Carta Blanca with the meal. Keller had another bottle afterward. Engleman had a cup of coffee.
“If I had a house with a fenced yard,” Keller said, “I could have a dog and not worry about him running off.”
“I guess you could,” Engleman said.
“I had a dog when I was a kid,” Keller said. “Just the once, I had him for about two years when I was eleven, twelve years old. His name was Soldier.”
“I was wondering about that.”
“He wasn’t part shepherd. He was a little thing, I suppose he was some kind of terrier cross.”
“Did he run off?”
“No, he got hit by a car. He was stupid about cars, he just ran out in the street. The driver couldn’t help it.”
“How did you happen to call him Soldier?”
“I forget. Then when I did the flyer, I don’t know, I had to put answers to something. All I could think of were names like Fido and Rover and Spot. Like signing John Smith on a hotel register, you know? Then it came to me, Soldier. Been years since I thought about that dog.”
After lunch Engleman went back to the shop and Keller returned to the motel for his car. He drove out of town on the same road he’d taken the day he bought the gun. This time he rode a few miles farther before pulling over and cutting the engine.
He got the gun from the glove box and opened the cylinder, spilling the shells out into his palm. He tossed them underhand, then weighed the gun in his hand for a moment before hurling it into a patch of brush.
McLarendon would be horrified, he thought. Mistreating a weapon in that fashion. Showed what a judge of character the man was.
He got back in his car and drove back to town.
He called White Plains. When the woman answered he said, “You don’t have to disturb him, Dot. Just tell him I didn’t make my flight today. I changed the reservation, I moved it ahead to Tuesday. Tell him everything’s okay, only it’s taking a little longer, like I thought it might.” She asked how the weather was. “It’s real nice,” he said. “Very pleasant. Listen, don’t you think that’s part of it? If it was raining I’d probably have it taken care of, I’d be home by now.”
Quik-Print was closed Saturdays and Sundays. Saturday afternoon Keller called Engleman at home and asked him if he felt like going for a ride. “I’ll pick you up,” he offered.
When he got there Engleman was waiting out in front. He got in and fastened his seat belt. “Nice car,” he said.
“It’s a rental.”
“I didn’t figure you drove your own car all the way out here. You know, it gave me a turn. When you said how about going for a ride. You know, going for a ride. Like there’s a connotation.”
“Actually,” Keller said, “we probably should have taken your car. I figured you could show me the area.”
“You like it here, huh?”
“Very much,” Keller said. “I’ve been thinking. Suppose I just stayed here.”
“Wouldn’t he send somebody?”
“You think he would? I don’t know. He wasn’t killing himself trying to find you. At first, sure, but then he forgot about it. Then some eager beaver in San Francisco happens to spot you and sure, he tells me to go out and handle it. But if I just don’t come back—”
“Caught up in the lure of Roseburg,” Engleman said.
“I don’t know, Burt, it’s not a bad place. You know, I’m going to stop that.”
“What?”
“Calling you Burt. Your name’s Ed now, so why don’t I call you Ed? What do you think, Ed? That sound good to you, Ed, old buddy?”
“And what do I call you?”
“Al’s fine. What should I do, take a left here?”
“No, go another block or two,” Engleman said. “There’s a nice road, leads through some very pretty scenery.”
A while later Keller said, “You miss it much, Ed?”
“Working for him, you mean?”
“No, not that. The city.”
“New York? I never lived in the city, not really. We were up in Westchester.”
“Still, the whole area. You miss it?”
“No.”
“I wonder if I would.” They fell silent, and after perhaps five minutes he said, “My father was a soldier, he was killed in the war when I was just a baby. That’s why I named the dog Soldier.”
Engleman didn’t say anything.
“Except I think my mother was lying,” he went on. “I don’t think she was married, and I have a feeling she didn’t know who my father was. But I didn’t know that when I named the dog. When you think about it, it’s a stupid name anyway for a dog, Soldier. It’s probably stupid to name a dog after your father, as far as that goes.”
Sunday he stayed in the room and watched sports on television. The Mexican place was closed; he had lunch at Wendy’s and dinner at a Pizza Hut. Monday at noon he was back at the Mexican café. He had the newspaper with him, and he ordered the same thing he’d ordered the first time, the chicken enchiladas.
When the waitress brought coffee afterward, he asked her, “When’s the wedding?”
She looked utterly blank. “The wedding,” he repeated, and pointed at the ring on her finger.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I’m not engaged or anything. The ring was my mom’s from her first marriage. She never wears it, so I asked could I wear it, and she said it was all right. I used to wear it on the other hand but it fits better here.”