Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

“Something else?”

“I’ve always got something else that needs doing.”

“I have my hands full here,” Carr says.

“Any thoughts about what you might do… afterward?”

Carr tenses at the word. “Not a one.”

“A man’s got to do something.”

“Maybe not. I’ve got a lot of money now.”

“I don’t see you as the idle type.”

“I just need some practice.”

Boyce smiles and shakes his head. “You sure about Margie-about taking a break? This sort of thing… it can be long, and none of it is easy.”

Carr shrugs again. “He’s my father.”

Mr. Boyce nods and grips Carr’s hand. He walks to his car, and the driver comes around to get the door. Boyce pauses and turns back to Carr. “You never ask about them-about Declan and Tina. Not once.”

“There’s nothing I want to know,” Carr says, and Mr. Boyce folds himself into his Mercedes and is driven away.

Carr brings his coffee mug inside. The front hall is warm and smells of soap and floor wax and fresh paint, and the living room smells of apple wood from the fire he built the night before. He raises the shades and white winter light pours in and pools on every polished surface-the floorboards, the andirons, the silver bowl on the mantel, the silver frames atop the gleaming black piano.

The frames are empty still-the photographs of Carr’s parents lost in Prager’s toolshed, or in the storm, or maybe to the sea-and the glass panes are like black windows. Arthur Carr has assured him that there are other photos of them- just as damned blurry -in a box somewhere in the attic, but Carr has yet to look. It’s freezing up there now, and there are dozens of boxes to search, and Carr knows that in these matters his father is not reliable.

Carr straightens the frames on the piano, carries his coffee mug to the kitchen, and raises every window shade along the way.