He deals with it the way he did on the job, which is by trying to work it to death. After breakfast he gets back to painting the living room, as hard and fast as he can and whether he wants to or not. This works as well as it ever did, which is to say not particularly, but at least he gets shit done along the way. By dinnertime he has the primer put on, walls and ceiling, and most of the first coat of paint. He’s still skittish as a wild horse. The day is windy, which means all kinds of noises inside and outside and up the chimney, and Cal jumps at every one of them even though he knows they’re nothing but leaves and window frames. Or, possibly, the kid. Cal wishes the kid’s mama had decided to send him to military school when he first started playing hooky.
The days are shortening. By the time Cal knocks off work it’s dark, an edgy, blustery dark that makes his plan to walk off the rest of the feeling seem a lot less attractive. He’s eating a hamburger and trying to firm up his resolve when something smashes against his front door. Not the wind, this time; something solid.
Cal puts down his hamburger, goes quietly out the back and edges around the side of the house. There’s only a sliver of moon; the shadows are thick enough to hide even a guy his size. From out over Mart’s land floats the imperturbable call of an owl.
The front lawn is empty, wind yanking the grass this way and that. Cal waits. After a minute, something small comes whizzing out of the hedge and smacks into the wall of the house. This time, with the juicy crack and splatter it makes against the stone, Cal gets it. The damn kid is egging his house.
Cal goes back indoors and stands in his living room, evaluating the situation and listening hard. The same applies to the eggs as to the tires: a couple of rocks would have been easier to come by, and would have done a lot more damage. The kid isn’t attacking Cal; he’s demanding him.
Another egg splats against the front door. Before he knows he’s going to do it, Cal gives up. He can hold out against this kid and he can hold out against his own intractable unsettled places, but not both at the same time.
He goes to the sink, fills up the plastic tub where he does his dishes, and finds an old dish towel. Then he takes them both to the door and flings it wide open.
“Kid!” he calls, good and loud, to the hedge. “Get out here.”
Silence. Then a flying egg misses Cal by inches and splatters against the wall.
“Kid! I changed my mind. Knock that shit off before I change it back again.”
There’s another silence, this one longer. Then Trey, egg box in hand and egg in the other, steps out of the hedge and stands waiting, ready to run or throw. The V of light from the doorway stretches his shadow behind him, turning him elongated and narrow, a dark figure materialized in headlight beams on a deserted road.
“I’ll look into your brother,” Cal says. “I’m not promising you anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Trey is staring at him with pure, feral suspicion. “Why?” he demands.
“Like I said. I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“None of your beeswax,” Cal says. “Not because of you pulling this dumb crap, tell you that much. You still want me to do this, or not?”
Trey nods.
“OK,” Cal says. “Then first off, you clean up all this shit. When you’re done, come inside and we’ll talk.” He dumps the towel and the bucket on the doorstep, goes back inside and slams the door behind him.
He’s finishing up the last of his burger when he hears the door open and the wind comes charging in, looking for things to grab. Trey stands in the doorway.
“You done?” Cal asks.
Trey nods.
Cal doesn’t need to check whether he did it right. “OK,” he says. “Sit down.”
Trey doesn’t move. It takes Cal a minute to realize: he’s scared he’s being lured inside for a beating.
“Jesus, kid,” he says. “I’m not gonna hit you. If you cleaned up, we’re square.”
Trey’s eyes go to the desk, in a corner.
“Yeah,” Cal says. “You messed it up pretty good. I got most of the paint off, but there’s some in the cracks. You can work on it with a toothbrush sometime.”
The kid still looks wary. “I would say you can leave the door open in case you want to run,” Cal says, “but it’s too windy for that. Your call.”
After a minute Trey makes up his mind. He moves into the room, shuts the door behind him and thrusts the egg box at Cal. There’s one left.
“Thanks,” Cal says. “I guess. Stick it in the fridge.”
Trey does. Then he sits down across the table from Cal, chair pushed well back and feet braced, just in case. He’s wearing a dirty army-green parka, which is a relief; Cal has been wondering if the kid even had a winter coat.
“You want something to eat? Drink?”
Trey shakes his head.
“OK,” Cal says. He pushes back his chair—Trey flinches—takes his plate to the sink, then goes into his room and comes back with a notebook and a pen.
“First off,” he says, pulling his chair back up to the table, “most likely I won’t find out anything. Or if I do, it’ll be just what your mama already told you: your brother ran off. You OK with that?”
“He didn’t.”
“Maybe not. What I’m saying is, this might not go the way you got in mind, and you need to be ready for that. Are you?”
“Yeah.”
Cal knows this is a lie, even if the kid doesn’t. “You better be,” he says. “The other thing is, you don’t bullshit me. I ask you a question, you give me all the answer you’ve got. Even if you don’t like it. Any bullshit, I’m out. We clear?”
Trey says, “Same for you. Anything you find out, you tell me.”
“We got a deal,” Cal says. He flips open his notebook. “So. What’s your brother’s full name?”
The kid is straight-backed, with his hands clamped on his thighs, like this is an oral exam and he needs to ace it. “Brendan John Reddy.”
Cal writes that down. “Date of birth?”
“Twelfth of February.”
“Where’d he live, up until he went missing?”
“At home. With us.”
“Who’s ‘us’?”
“My mam. My sisters. My other brother.”
“Names and ages?”
“My mam’s Sheila Reddy, she’s forty-four. Maeve’s nine. Liam’s four. Alanna’s three.”
“You said before you had three sisters,” Cal says, writing. “Where’s the other one?”
“Emer. She went up to Dublin, two years ago. She’s twenty-one.”
“Any chance Brendan’s staying with her?”
Trey shakes his head hard.
“Why not?”
“They don’t get on.”
“How come?”
Shrug. “Brendan says she’s thick.”
“What’s she do?”
“Works at Dunnes Stores. Stacking shelves.”
“How ’bout Brendan? Was he working? In school? College?”
“Nah.”
“Why not?”
Shrug.
“When’d he leave school?”
“Last year. He got his Leaving Cert, he didn’t drop out.”
“He have anything he wanted to do? He apply to any colleges, any jobs?”
“He wanted to do electrical engineering. Or chemistry. He didn’t get the points.”