Free Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg Page B

him, as if he were standing on a slave block. And he almost groaned out loud as it crossed his mind just what sort of handyman she might be looking for. He began to wonder if there was some kind of mark on him, a big red F advertising his wares, condemning him to their traffic.
    “Well sit down,” she said. “Take a load off.”
    He did as he was told.
    “You sure you’re interested in this job?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Mostly I’ve had students before. College boys. It kind of fit in with their needs. You know.”
    “Sure.”
    “You’re older.”
    “I’m thirty-three.”
    She smiled slightly, almost coyly. “And may I say you don’t look like the handyman type.”
    “I’ve been other things.”
    “Such as?”
    “Business. Marketing and so forth.”
    “A dropout?”
    “You could call it that.”
    “And what’d you leave behind? Wife and kids?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Nothing’s just like that.”
    “Where was it you dropped from?”
    “Chicago.” He wondered why he did not tell her Milwaukee; it wouldn’t have mattered.
    “And has it worked out for you—the dropping out?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Well, at least you’re honest.”
    “At times.”
    The smile had gone over the edge now, was openly ironic, knowing. “The work here’s simple enough. The yard and the pool, like I said in the ad. And then I have this truck I use for junk, stuff I pick up at junkyards, usually down the coast, Oxnard and around there. Stuff I use in my sculpture. You’d help me there too. Some of it’s pretty heavy.”
    “No problem.”
    “My husband’s got a computer service company. Software Systems Inc., he calls it. You know what software is?”
    “Yes.”
    “He has to travel a lot. He’s almost never here.”
    “I see.”
    She put out her cigarette now, carefully, and moved forward on her chair. For a moment he wondered if she was going to reach over and put her hand on his knee or just go straight for his fly. Close, she was all makeup, heavy eyeliner and false lashes and face color. Looking at the taut line of her jaw, the drum-tight skin, he could almost see the incisions above her hairline, the cunning face-lift scars running through the gray roots. And he felt his gut tighten. Could he bring it off? Would he be able to close his eyes and do his thing? Stoned, maybe. He would need grass, bales of it.
    “One important thing,” she said. “And I hope you’ll be straight with me. I don’t want someone who just needs a place to crash, someone who’d be here a few days and then—” She threw her hand in the air. “Gone. Split.”
    Bone assured her that was not his intention. “I think this is just what I’m looking for,” he added. “What I want.”
    “Good.” Smiling, she stood up. “Come on then. Let me show you your room.”
    When they reached it, a small efficiency apartment at one end of the three-car garage, she put her hand on his arm, just a friendly little gesture, nothing much, but sufficient to tell him what he had to know. He had not read her wrong.
    “All right?” she asked.
    Bone looked about him, at the tasteful expensive furniture, including a twin-size bed, a color TV, an air conditioner. “It’s fine,” he said.
    “When can you start?”
    He could have been back with his things in a few hours, but that was too soon for him. He was not ready for the job yet, not ready for her.
    “Tomorrow,” he said.
    She looked disappointed. But she smiled. “Tomorrow it is, then.”
    When he got back to Cutter’s house Bone found it empty except for the baby, who was sobbing disconsolately in his crib. Bone picked him up and quieted him and then changed his diaper, an operation he had not performed in many years. Then he warmed a bottle of milk he found in the refrigerator and fed him most of it, all the while feeling not only ridiculous but angry too, disgusted at Mo for having left the kid alone. It was something Ruth would never have done. No, her problem