Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

I was leaning against the counter in Frank Gosselin’s store, talking to Frank about the weather, when Edwin Rhodes came inside. A snowy gust of wind followed him, rustling the papers tacked to the corkboard by the door. He heaved the door closed and the papers on the corkboard fell still again. Edwin began knocking snow off his boots with his cane and pulling snow from the old metal leg braces he wore.

I was new to town and had only met a handful of people, but I’d seen Edwin before. He was at least seventy, as old as Frank, and had a shock of white hair that he kept tucked under a grey toque most of the year. Stoop-shouldered, he wore a seemingly permanent scowl on his craggy face. The most noticeable thing about him, however, was his old-fashioned metal leg braces. I wondered why, in this day and age, he wore braces that looked as if they belonged on the country’s first polio victim.

“Morning, Ed,” Frank said from his perch on a stool behind the counter. “Mighty ugly out there.”

“It’s been nicer,” Edwin agreed.

I felt like I should say something. The best I could come up with was, “Morning.” Edwin glowered and made his way down the first aisle, his oversized peacoat shedding clumps of half-melted snow.

“Don’t mind Ed,” Frank said. “It takes him about twenty years to warm up to folks.”

I smiled. “Have you known him that long?”

“My whole life,” Frank said. That surprised me, as Edwin didn’t seem all that fond of Frank.

“Anyhow,” Frank continued, pushing back the sleeves of his cableknit sweater, exposing hairy forearms. “You think your Internet weather forecast is more accurate than my almanac?”

Frank had a copy of the Old Farmer’s Almanac hanging behind his desk. It was dog-eared, stained, and worn. For Frank, it was a weather bible.

“I put more faith in technology than I do a book.”

“In my day,” Frank said, “we got smarter as we got older.”

I was about to say something in response to Frank’s barb when the telephone in the back room started to jangle. Like the almanac, Frank’s telephone was also a relic. I wondered if the phone company knew that he had a rotary-dial wall phone hanging back there.

“Back in a sec,” Frank said. He clumped into the back room and grabbed the phone mid ring. I heard him say, “H’lo?” and then I tuned him out, putting my back to the counter and playing my eyes around the store.

While most businesses boasted electronic cash registers and plastic shelves, Frank’s store was a throwback to simpler times. His shelves were handmade, his floor hardwood. There was a working woodstove in the back corner — simmering orange today. The only things that looked out of place were the shelves of liquor at the back of the store and the beer cooler.

Edwin was near the cooler. He moved with slow, heavy steps, burdened by the cane and the braces. As I watched, he opened the beer cooler and removed a six-pack of Newcastle Brown Ale. Then, without so much as a backward glance, he tucked it under his peacoat.

Edwin thumped his way back up the aisle between the shelves. He looked ridiculous with the six-pack under his jacket, but he didn’t seem to give a damn. He went straight past me, one hand on his cane and the other holding the six-pack in place. His eyes caught mine and he hooked his lip into a smile. He was daring me to say something. I didn’t.

He opened the door and the wind rushed inside, bringing swirling ghosts of snow. The papers on the corkboard did their noisy dance. Edwin looked at me. The sky behind him was grey and muted, stormy light the consistency of old milk. Still, I could see the red veins in his eyes and the grey stubble on his cheeks. In the back, Frank was still yammering on the telephone.

Edwin grinned. It seemed to say: Now we’re in this together. Then he stepped outside, head bent against the howling wind. The door banged closed, and he was gone.

I listened to the hiss of the woodstove in the corner and watched the second hand on the old John Deere clock on the wall. Was it my place to tell Frank about Ed’s theft? I was trying to decide when Frank hung up the phone and returned to his stool.

“Edwin gone?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

Frank removed a half-smoked cigar from behind the counter and tucked it into the corner of his mouth. Hooking an eyebrow, he asked, “Your lungs give a damn?”

Personally, I thought smoking in public was a nuisance, but this was Frank’s place and if he wanted to break the law I’d look the other way. Frank lit his cigar and puffed at it contentedly. Outside, the wind whooped. After a few moments he said, “You seem glum all of a sudden.”

“Not glum,” I said. “Just thinking.”

“ ’Bout?”

“Edwin,” I said. “You two are good friends?”

Frank chewed on the cigar and it bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “I think so,” he told me. “Least we used to be. Edwin’s a tough one to figure.”

“But you like him? You get along?”

“Sure,” Frank said. “He’s a great guy.”

That settled it. I couldn’t tell Frank on the off chance that it would put paid to whatever friendship these two old men shared.

“There are a lot of great folks in town,” Frank said. “You need to get out and meet them.”

“I know,” I said, though my voice mustn’t have sounded too convincing because Frank came back at me right away.

“Small towns are funny places, Sean,” he explained. “You’re a stranger until you’ve lived here half your life. But if you knock elbows and spend less time jawing with coots like me, well, who knows.”

I laughed. “You saying you don’t like my company?”

“Your company’s fine. I’m just saying that in small towns you have to push yourself. Once you do that, you’ll find there’s a lot of loyalty. Secrets, too.”

Loyalty and secrets. I’d seen both in action today.

“Maybe I’ll head out, then,” I said, pulling my gloves from my pockets. “Knock elbows.”

Frank puffed his cigar. “Come back tomorrow, we’ll play chess.”

“I don’t play chess.”

“Christ on a crutch,” Frank said. “What’s this world coming to?”

A week later, a blizzard socked in and I began doubting the veracity of the online forecast. Perhaps there was more knowledge in the Farmer’s Almanac than I was ready to admit.

I trudged to the end of Grand Avenue, snow swirling around me. It was bitter snow, like grains of sand. By the time I got to Gosselin’s, my hair and shoulders were covered. I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the front windows. I looked like I had been rolled in confectioner’s sugar.

The front door swung open and a man’s broad back filled the doorway. He grunted and strained as he backed through the door carrying one end of Frank’s woodstove. On the other side of the stove was Frank, red-faced and scowling.

“Frank, what’s up?”

“I’m... reading the... paper,” he strained. “What... does it look... like? Goddamn... stove has to go.” The muscles on his forearms bulged as he stepped through the doorway.

“Can I help?”

Frank jerked his head over his right shoulder. “Man the ship.”

“Okay,” I replied, slipping inside.

Through the door’s snow-frosted glass, I watched as Frank and the other man struggled the stove across the parking lot toward a white moving truck. It was tough slogging through the drifts, but they seemed to have a handle on it. I turned my attention to the store.

The back corner where the woodstove had sat looked empty and dirty. The floor’s big bare patch was emphasized by the discolored hardwood and the massive dust bunnies crouched in the corner. There were still lengths of duct and pipe on the floor and I half considered lugging them out to the truck. The high keening of the wind, however, convinced me that my place was behind the counter.