“So’s my office.”
Rufus looked into the old man’s eyes. Stubborn old mule, he thought. But he’s holding the case ace, here. And he knows it. “Thanks, Moses,” he said, humbly.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:33
“What is this?” Dett asked Tussy, touching a dark-green leaf lightly with his fork.
“That’s basil leaf. Sweet basil, they call it. When I make my tuna salad, I always put some across the top. It adds something to the flavor. And it looks pretty, too, the way parsley does. I always put a sprig of parsley when I serve anything. See that pot on the windowsill there? I grow the basil myself. You have to keep it indoors; it won’t survive a good frost.”
“It’s good,” Dett said, chewing the basil leaf slowly.
“Oh, you’re not supposed to eat it.”
“Why not?”
“I… I don’t know, now that you say it. That’s just what the waiter told me.”
“Where?”
“In this place where I went out to eat. An Italian restaurant. I had a veal cutlet, and this leaf was on it. I asked the waiter what it was, and he told me. So, later, I tried it myself. Putting it on food, I mean. I like to do that, try new stuff. Don’t you?”
“I guess I never think about it.”
“Maybe, working at the diner, I get the idea that food means a lot to people. They’re always talking about it, aren’t they?”
“Not the people I deal with.”
“Well, I guess people are different around here-we even have a Businessman’s Special at the diner. I had dinner with a man once, and he said it all went on his expense account.”
“Big spender,” Dett said, dryly.
“That’s what Gloria said! I mean, not the words, but the same way you said them.”
“Well, I thought women liked it if a man spent money on them.”
“Some girls do. You know what my mom always said? She said the man who spends a lot of money is all well and good to go on a date with; but the man who’s careful with his money, that’s the one you want to marry.”
“But the man you married-”
“Joey wasn’t careful with anything,” she said, sorrowfully. “But, by then, my mom wasn’t around for me to listen to.”
“Your father wouldn’t have liked him, either.”
“No, he sure wouldn’t,” Tussy said. “Daddy was always joking that I wouldn’t even be allowed to go out on dates until I was twenty-one. He didn’t mean it-I went to school dances with boys-but he looked them over careful, you can bet on that.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“Would you be that same way? If you had a little girl, I mean.”
“I’ll never have a little girl.”
“Why not? Plenty of men get married at-”
“I’ll never get married, Tussy,” he said.
In the silence that followed, Dett plucked the sprig of parsley from his plate and put it into his mouth.
“You’re a strange man,” Tussy finally said.
“Because I’ll never get married?”
“No, because you eat basil!” she snapped. “I think plenty of men are never going to get married. It’s probably more fun being a bachelor. But you’re the first man I ever met that I was… that I had a date with, that ever came right out and said it like that.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Well, come on! If you were a girl, and a man said he was never going to get married, would you go on seeing him? I mean, I know some girls would, if he was… generous and all. One of the girls who works at the diner, her boyfriend is already married. But…”
“I have to tell you the truth,” Dett said.
“Why?” Tussy said, getting to her feet and starting to clear the dishes. “Why do you have to tell me the truth?”
“I… I’m not exactly sure, Tussy. But I know I have to.”
“But you still ask me to go out with you? Even though you’re never going to be my… boyfriend, even? Because, if you want a girl just for… fun, I’m not her.”
“I know that.”
“How?” she demanded. “How do you know all these things?”
“I promise to tell you,” Dett said. “I have to tell you, or this would all be for nothing. But I can’t do it now.”
Tussy snatched Dett’s empty plate from the table and brought it over to the kitchen sink. She stood there, with her back toward him, and said, “You’re never coming back again, are you? To Locke City, I mean?”
“No.”
“It would be easy to lie. Just say you might be. In your business, that’s always possible. Something like that.”
“It would be a lie.”
“What do you want from me, then?” she said, turning to face him. Her mouth was set in a firm line, but her green eyes glistened with tears.
“I want to tell you my story,” he said. “I waited a long time.”
“For what?”
“To find you,” Dett said.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:38
“This place is really… impressive,” Ruth said. “I never saw a house built like it, one huge room, with no walls.”
“I did it myself,” Sherman told her. “It started out as kind of a hobby. I bought the land when I was just a kid. It was a few years into the Depression. I was already a cop, so I wasn’t worried about having a job, but I couldn’t afford to buy a house. And what does a man living alone need a house for, anyway? So I thought I’d invest in a piece of land and sell it someday. Like the big shots do, only just this little bit.
“I started out by clearing the land. Coming up here on my days off. I guess that’s when the idea came to me.”
“How long did it take you to finish it?”
“It’s still not finished,” Sherman said, ruefully. “At the rate I’m going, it may never be. But it’s good enough to live in. For me, anyway.”
“Where did you learn how to do all the… things you have to do? To build a house, I mean.”
“I just read about it. At the library. They’ve got books on everything there. Plumbing-you can’t get city water out this far; I’ve got a well-electricity, everything. I didn’t always get it right the first time, but I just kept worrying at it until I solved it.”
“Like one of your cases?”
“That’s exactly what it’s like,” Sherman said, looking at Ruth with open admiration. “You collect as much information as you can. Then you take whatever you want to test-it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a plumbing line or a theory-and you try it out, see if it’ll hold up.
“You put a lot of pressure on it,” the big man explained. “Work slow and careful. Keep good notes. Check and recheck. Never let your emotions get in the way. Just because you want something to turn out a certain way doesn’t mean it will. If you let what you want… influence you, the whole thing falls down.”
Ruth made a complete circuit of the big room, then seated herself elegantly on a couch made of wide, rough-hewn pine planks, covered with a heavy Indian-pattern blanket.
“How did you learn the carpentry part?” she asked. “Was that from books, too? Or did your father teach you?”
“The only thing my father ever taught me was to fear him,” Sherman Layne said, his voice as quiet as cancer. “Until the day I taught him to fear me.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:47
“What do you mean, ‘find’ me?” Tussy said.
“Would it be enough if I promise to tell you everything?” Dett replied. “Not now, before I leave. If you don’t want to see any more of me until then, I’ll understand. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I thought you were going to take me out again tonight,” she said, making a pouty motion with her mouth.
“I am. I mean, I’ll take you anywhere you want to-”
“You know where I’d like to go? The drive-in. I haven’t been there in a million years. But I looked in the paper this morning, and North by Northwest is playing. I really wanted to see that one.”