Free Gravewriter by Mark Arsenault Page A

finally payday—too bad you’re the one writing the check. Empty your pockets and dig deep, dig until it hurts.
    â€œHey, Billy.”
    Billy kept smiling, kept waving to Bo. “Not in front of my kid,” he said.
    The bear, all six-seven of him, jerked around. “Well, whadda ya know,” he said. He smiled at Bo in the window. Then he waved—a dainty side-to-side wave, like the royal family’s wave, which seemedodd from a man with wrists as thick as fence posts. “Look at the little feller in the window,” he said, and laughed. “He living with you now?”
    â€œSince Angie died.”
    â€œWe can go around the corner, Billy—I know you’re not the running type.”
    â€œThanks, Walt.”
    They stood and waved a while longer, big fake plastic smiles on their faces, and then Billy and Walter the collector walked away together, as if two old friends. Joggers circled the park on their right, in front of the giant sandstone armory. Billy looked at the castle and sighed. He imagined a dozen knights on horseback charging from the gates to help him.
    They skirted a homeless man in a soiled Miami Dolphins sweatshirt, who had stopped to pick fresh cigarette butts left by mourners at a funeral the night before. The morning was cool, the sky perfect blue but for the expanding white streak of a jet heading north. Billy watched the jet with the irrational hope that it could take him north, too. Where? Bangor would have been far enough. Or New Brunswick. Iceland must have some nice neighborhoods.
    Walter the collector hummed a cheerful little melody. For such a huge man, he had a gentle way about him. His size-fourteen shoes landed softly on the concrete. He placed his hand lightly against trees and telephone poles as he came to them, as if to guide his bulk around them without doing any damage. He was polite to people they passed, smiling and nodding.
    â€œNotre Dame fucked me,” Billy said.
    â€œThey were giving three points on the road, with a second-string quarterback,” Walter said. He frowned. “Can’t see what you were thinking.”
    â€œI thought Anderson was going to play.”
    â€œNot with a broken bone in his hand.”
    â€œNonthrowing hand,” Billy said in his own defense. It sounded ridiculous when he said it out loud. He kicked a rock down the sidewalk, disgusted with himself. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    The first punch to the belly folded Billy in half. He managed only a tiny squeal as his lungs emptied and felt as though they would collapse. His knees buckled and he started to sink to the ground. The second punch struck higher and rattled Billy’s rib cage. He collapsed on his side in the alley, his face a twisted grimace as he strained for air. He saw a rat hole in a brick wall. He wanted to wiggle into it.
    Walter lifted Billy’s wallet from his back pocket and thumbed through it. “Fifty-eight dollars?” he said. “Christ, Billy, is this it?”
    Billy tapped a fist on his chest and writhed meekly on the ground.
    Walter lectured like a disappointed father reviewing a bad report card. “You gotta do better than fifty-eight bucks, Billy. Mr. C. told me not to settle for less than the hundred-dollar minimum. What am I supposed to tell him?”
    Gasp! Air leaked back into Billy’s lungs. He lay there on his side, hugging himself and trying to breathe normally and calm his frantic heart. Walter was the most decent of the collectors Billy had come to know over the past decade. Once Walt decided you had been properly punished for a late payment, he stopped punishing you; he never hit for fun, unlike the other leg breakers. Two cannonball shots to the gut must have seemed like enough, for Walter grabbed Billy by the lapel of his sports jacket, dragged him as effortlessly as he would Raggedy Andy, and propped Billy against the wall.
    Billy flinched at a