Free Gideon by Russell Andrews Page B

time and ordered Carl to remain in the kitchen, far from the top-secret material on the desk.
    Suddenly hungry, Carl began fishing around in the refrigerator for something to eat. The likeliest candidate he could find was a half-eaten turkey hero from Mama Joy’s on Broadway, somewhere between seven and ten days old.
    “Want part of a sandwich?” he asked Wagner when the big man emerged from the bathroom.
    Wagner examined the food distastefully. “I would rather chew off my own foot.”
    “Good. More for me.”
    Carl finished making the coffee and poured them some. They both took theirs black. Wagner returned to the bed and sat there, sipping his coffee, waiting for Carl to get back to work. Carl ate his sandwich, as slowly as possible, over the kitchen sink. He drank his coffee. Poured himself another cup.
    Then he went back to the diary.
    Finally he could absorb no more. His eyes were glazing over, and his head was like a pinball machine, with descriptions of people and places, snatches of dialog, and an unknown woman’s memories and observations, both naive and harsh, careening around in there full tilt. He set the diary aside, puffing out his cheeks in exhaustion. He had been at this for more than six hours.
    “Had enough?” Wagner asked pleasantly.
    Carl nodded dumbly.
    Wagner promptly gathered everything up, returned it to the manila envelope, and taped it back around his bare leg with a roll of surgical tape he’d brought for just this purpose. He put on his jacket, went to the curtain, and looked outside, intently studying the street. Satisfied, he went to the door, opened it, and started to leave without so much as a goodbye.
    “Will you do me a favor, Harry?”
    “What’s that, Carl?”
    “Will you fucking knock next time?”
    Wagner let out a short laugh. “I’ll think about it.”
    And then Harry Wagner was gone.
    Carl needed a serious blow. He stripped to a pair of shorts and cross-trainers, put on his leather gloves, and pummeled the heavy bag with both hands for thirty minutes, staying up on the balls of his feet, dancing around it, punishing it, grunting from the exertion, until he was exhausted and his bare chest was drenched with sweat. He took a shower, first hot, then cold. He filled a tall glass with ice and poured in what was left in the coffeepot, adding a scoop of Häagen-Dazs chocolate chip. He returned to his desk and read over his notes while he drank. Then he flicked on his computer. He created a folder called “Gideon” and broke it into a dozen chapter files. He opened up Chapter 1. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out a few times, getting in the zone.
    And then Carl Granville started writing.

chapter 4
    Rayette ran off with Billy Taylor because he was the first boy she’d ever met who made her laugh. She had met boys who made her tingle all over the way they kissed her, lying out by Grinder’s Creek in the moonlight. She had met boys who made her want to punch them the way they lied to her, lying out by Grinder’s Creek in the moonlight. But she had never met a boy who made her laugh like Billy Taylor did.
    Of course, in her fourteen years of life in Julienne, Alabama, Rayette had never had much to laugh about.
    Rayette was born a year to the day after the great stock market crash of 1929. Her father, Enos Boudreau, was a salesman, and as snakebit as a man could be without actually dying of bad luck. The Depression didn’t really change Enos Boudreau’s life. All it did was prove to him that he was indeed ahead of his time: It had just taken the rest of the country some years to catch up with his failure.
    Enos talked a lot about the good times, which seemed to be back when all you had to do was knock on a door, open your sample case, then tuck the money that people threw at you right into your front pocket. Rayette had heard much about those times, but she didn’t actually remember them. What she remembered was her father trying to sell encyclopedias to white folks