Free Dangerous Times by Phillip Frey Page A

and
said, “Told me you had a rental to look at.”
    “Yeah,” Staub mumbled, eyes lowering to the
carpet.
    Kirk could almost hear the hog’s mind,
shifting and grinding for a way out of this. Staub raised his eyes
and went into his bully stance. “Thought you were going to work on
your car,” he said.
    “That’s my plan,” Kirk answered, “right
after I leave here.” He looked Staub straight in the eye. “And
what’s your plan?”
    Beverly couldn’t take this and walked off
with her drink. Staub glanced at her backside as she disappeared
into the kitchen.
    Kirk understood the look, her thin waist and
tight jeans outlining the body of a younger woman. Understanding at
the same time that Staub didn’t have the decency to control himself
in Kirk’s presence.
    Staub picked some real estate papers off the
coffee table. “Plan was to celebrate. Building I checked out was a
beauty, so I hadda act fast. I wanted to show Beverly what I
bought.”
    “Okay, then,” Kirk said, letting him off the
hook.
    Staub relaxed and said, “So let’s have a
drink and keep the party goin’.”
    “I’d like to have dinner,” Kirk said, “then
get back to the shop to work on my car—remember?”
    “Oh yeah, sure, that’s good.” Staub ran a
hand over his salt-and-pepper crew cut. “No, no time to party.”
    “But time enough to say goodbye,” Kirk
suggested lightly. He went to the door and opened it for him.
    “Whatever you say, Johnny-boy,” Staub
grinned on the approach. He stopped in the doorway. With a turn of
the head he called out, “Talk to you later, Bev.”
    “Jesus H…” was heard coming softly from the
kitchen.
    Kirk followed him outside and watched him
until he disappeared through the archway. Son of a bitch, he
thought, recalling the two of them in the pickup, Staub saying
something about a better woman he was after.
    Kirk looked past the archway and into the
darkness alongside his Cottage Six. Change the bulb tomorrow, he
told himself, not in the mood to get the ladder. Change the bulb
and clean the pool in the morning.
    The moon poked between the clouds. Kirk saw
a shadow move over the fieldstone wall. He looked skyward. Tail of
a passing cloud he assumed.
    Beverly put on her bunny stove mittens,
opened the oven and slid the stew out. She carried it to the table
and set it on the quilted pad.
    Kirk walked in and said, “How long has he
been after you?”
    “I don’t know,” she answered him quietly,
slipping the mittens off.
    He hung his marine jacket on the back of the
chair, stood at the table and said, “Okay then, how about a
guess?”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Beverly shrugged on her
way to the scotch bottle. “Nothing’s ever happened, and it never
will.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “‘Cause there’s nothing to tell.” She poured
herself another Johnnie Walker Red and teetered in her slingback
wedgies. Beverly steadied herself and turned her eyes on him. “I
love my two Johnnies,” she smiled awkwardly. “Want one?”
    “It’ll slow me down. I’m going to try to
finish the car tonight.”
    “You and that darn car,” Beverly sighed.
“Si’down and eat,” she said.
    Kirk could tell she was only a few swallows
away from oblivion. “We’re not done yet,” refusing to sit. “Was
Staub chasing after you when Dad was alive?”
    Beverly leaned against the refrigerator and
stared into her drink. “Li’le bit…” She took a swallow. The rim of
the glass lingered on her lower lip, and her eyes welled up with
moisture. “It’s your father’s birthday tomorrow.”
    “I know.” Kirk felt his mother’s grief,
still running deep after all these years. Thinking of Staub then,
angry with himself for not seeing what the son of a bitch was up
to; family friend, playing the father…
    “My hero,” Beverly said. She went to him and
gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Saving me from the big bad
wolf.”
    “Would I still be your hero if I dumped your
drink out?” he