Thick as Thieves(9)

Ledge didn’t agree, but he nodded as though he did. He wouldn’t shoot down Don’s wishful thinking.

Don White had worked alongside his uncle in the bar for as far back as Ledge could remember. More than merely the bartender, Don had been entrusted with the bookkeeping and other facets of the business.

When Henry’s Alzheimer’s had progressed to the point where he could no longer be relied on to carry out even routine, everyday functions, Ledge had offered to let Don buy him out. Don wouldn’t hear of it.

Ledge said now, “Changed your mind yet?”

“Since yesterday?”

“Well?”

“No. Stop asking.”

“I’ll let you pay it out over four years. Five if you need more time.”

“I’ll continue running this place like it was mine, you know that. But Burnet’s will belong to Henry Burnet for as long as he’s drawing breath. After he’s gone—”

“He is gone, Don.”

“Ask me again, after. Then we’ll see.”

Don was sixty-something. The story was that days before his wedding to his high school sweetheart, she’d been killed at a train crossing.

Ledge didn’t know the particulars, because, in all the time he’d known the man, Don had never referred to either her or the tragedy that had taken her. But the lady must have been special, and the love of Don’s life. He was friendly with women customers. Over the years, plenty had gamely encouraged more than friendliness. But if Don had ever had a date, or even a hookup, Ledge was unaware of it. His life was the bar. He had adopted Henry and Ledge as his family.

From an objective observer’s viewpoint, they must appear to be a sad, sorry trio of men.

Hell, from Ledge’s viewpoint they did.

“I miss the old cuss,” Don said of Henry. “Miss his bad jokes.”

“Me too.”

Don turned his head to look at a framed picture hanging on the back bar. “I remember the day he hung that picture of you up there. He was so proud.”

Henry might have put the photograph on proud display, but Ledge hated the damn thing. A buddy of his had taken the picture with his phone as they were preparing for a mission. Ledge had been geared up, face painted, armed to the teeth, looking like a post-apocalyptic badass.

His buddy had emailed him the picture and told him to forward it to his uncle. Maybe he’ll hang it up in his bar. Brag to his customers about his nephew, the scourge of the Taliban.

Ledge raised his glass to his mouth and spoke into it. “He didn’t come back.”

Don came around to him. “Sorry?”

“The guy who took that picture. He didn’t make it home.” Ledge tossed back what was left of the bourbon.

The subject ended there, and each became lost in his own thoughts until Don muttered, “Oh, hell. Look who just sauntered in.”

Before Ledge could turn around and check out the newcomer, he slid onto the stool next to Ledge’s. “Hey there, Don. Ledge. How’s it hanging?”

Ledge kept his expression impassive, but mentally he was swearing a blue streak. This just wasn’t his day. First that unheralded face-to-face with Arden Maxwell. Now he was having to suffer the presence of this son of a bitch.

Rusty Dyle, taking him unaware like this, was grotesquely reminiscent of a Saturday morning twenty years ago.

Spring 2000—Ledge



Friday night had been a raucous one at Burnet’s Bar and Billiards. Ledge and his uncle Henry hadn’t gotten to bed until after three o’clock, when they’d finished sweeping up.

It was a rainy morning, a good one for sleeping in, but Ledge’s seventeen-year-old stomach had growled him awake. Rather than rattle around in the kitchen and wake up his uncle, who needed the shut-eye, he drove into town to the Main Street Diner for breakfast.

He was enjoying his food and the solitude when, without invitation, Rusty Dyle slid into the other side of the booth, snatched a slice of bacon off his plate, bit into it, and crunched noisily.

Ledge’s impulse was to lash out, verbally and physically. But in juvie you learned not to react, no matter what was going on around you. You didn’t take sides in a fight that didn’t involve you. You didn’t provoke a guard who would love nothing better than to be given an excuse to whale into you. You didn’t respond when the shrink asked about your childhood, whether or not you thought you’d gotten a fair shake or had been dealt a shitty hand.

The first time the counselor had asked, Ledge had told him he hadn’t minded his unorthodox childhood at all. He couldn’t miss parents he didn’t even remember. He loved his uncle, who had taken him in and raised him as his own son. He had the highest respect for Henry Burnet.

The counselor had frowned like he didn’t believe a word of it. Ledge saw no point in trying to convince him of what was the solid truth, so he had shut down and made subsequent sessions frustrating for the counselor by not answering a single question. He hadn’t “shared” a goddamn thing with the asshole.

Reticent by nature, he had come out of juvenile detention even less inclined to reveal what he was thinking. That applied especially to his take on Rusty Dyle. Nothing would give the jerk more pleasure than knowing the extent of Ledge’s contempt for him and his spiked-up, red-orange hair.

“Big breakfast there, Ledge. Feeding a hangover?”