Дэвид Балдаччи - One Good Deed

“What’s your problem, fella?” barked the man.

“Show the lady some respect.”

“Respect? You kidding, pal? Dames love when guys do that.”

“Not this dame. Now apologize to her, right now, before I smash your damn nose in.”

Crabtree called out, “Mr. Archer, it’s all right. Let it be. Please.”

“But—”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account. Please.”

Archer slowly and reluctantly let the man go. The shaky fellow grabbed his fallen hat and rushed off down the hall.

Archer picked up his things and followed Crabtree down the hall but looked back twice at the man.

“I’m sorry about that idiot,” he said.

“Yes, well... Thank you, Mr. Archer, that was very... chivalrous.”

She opened the door and let him into the office.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she said. “Or some coffee?”

“No, ma’am, but I’m fine.”

“You sure? You look hungry.” She opened her purse and held out two dollars, but Archer put his hand up.

“I’m not taking money from you, ma’am, though I thank you. It’d be against the rules, no doubt, and I’m not gonna put you at risk for losing your job. Back there you said you didn’t want me to get into trouble. Well, I feel the same way about you. Just let me get to work and earn some on my own.”

She closed her purse and looked up at him with her wide, depthless eyes and said, “Well, I know what you said earlier, but the only thing I have where you can start work immediately is the slaughterhouse.”

“I’m in no position to be choosy, so if you could call ’em and tell ’em I’d like the job, that would be good. And how do I get out there?”

She looked at the clock on the wall. “A truck takes the men out there every day. Leaves at eight-thirty sharp right down the street from here. You’ll see them gathering.”

“Sounds fine.”

She looked at his suit. “However, I would not wear your new clothes to do that sort of work.”

He looked down. “You’re probably right about that. I got my old ones in this bag.”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall on the right.”

He changed his clothes in the bathroom and put the new ones into his bag.

When he came back to the office, Ernestine was just hanging up the phone. “It’s all settled.” She eyed his new suit in the bag. “Why don’t you leave those here? I can hang them up. You can pick them up when the truck brings you back.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Like you said, my job is to help people like you. Just come and see me after. I’ll wait for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Crabtree.”

“Well, good luck to you, Mr. Archer. At that place, you, um, you may need it.”

Archer saw the men collecting at the corner and headed over to join them. And, as he had expected, there was old Dickie Dill smack in the middle of them. He and a few other men were engaged in a game of “back alley” craps right there against the front steps of a building. Archer watched this for about a minute while the men were focused on the game and took no note of his presence.

Dill’s final roll of the dice brought a curse and an evil look from the man. Archer saw a dollar bill pass between the ex-con and another fellow.

“Hellfire, Archer, thought I might see your butt out here before long,” exclaimed Dill when he spied Archer.

“Hey, Dickie,” he said with little enthusiasm.

“This here’s Archer, boys,” announced Dill to the group of rough-looking gents. Most were smaller than Archer, but a couple were giants who looked like they were put out by having to share the same air with him.

“He’s one of us,” said Dill.

“What were you in the joint for?” growled one of the giants. His clothes were filthy and so was his thick beard. One eye lurched inward too far, giving him an unsettling expression.

Archer looked up at him. “Something stupid. What were you in for?”

“Killing a man who needed it. And he wasn’t the first one who bought the farm with me. Just the only one they caught me on,” he added proudly.

“How long did you do?”

“Long enough. This was in the Big House, ’cause the son of a bitch was a snitch for Hoover and the G-men. Woulda done a lot longer ’cept the guards got too scared ’a me.” The man did not appear to be joking.

Dill pulled Archer aside. “Buddy ’a mine got put back in Carderock.”

“Who might that be?”

“Dan Bullock. You saw him at the Checkered Past. He told me you gave him some good advice. Only the man got all cockeyed and didn’t take it.”

“Hey, I’m always looking out for people like us.”

Dill grinned. “You always were okay in my book, Archer.”

But there was something in the little man’s features that made the hair on Archer’s neck stand up and salute. A man like Dickie Dill did not understand nuance. And when he put his arm around Archer’s shoulders, the steely fingers bit in a little too deep, relaying critical information his mouth had not.

An old Ford truck with a sputtering radiator pulled up. Its open rear bed had wood slats on the sides and rough wooden bench seats. The driver came out and dropped the rear gate, and the men climbed on one by one. Dill sat next to Archer as the truck pulled away.

“What’cha gonna be doing at the slaughterhouse?” asked Dill.

“Don’t know yet. Guess whatever needs doing.”

“If it’s killing the hogs, I’ll show you how.”

“Thanks. Hey, saw you rolling the dice back there.”

Dill’s friendly expression faded. “So what? You ain’t thinkin’ ’bout snitchin’ on me to Miss Crabtree?”

Dill plucked something from his pocket. Archer saw it was the man’s switchblade.

This was the Dickie Dill he remembered and loathed.

Archer leaned over and whispered, “All’s I’m saying is you better watch yourself around games of chance. You remember inside Carderock?”

“Hell, that game was fixed by that bastard Riley.”

“Yeah, it was. And just like with Riley, you crapped out five times in a row back there except for your first roll, where you got your eleven and sweetened the pot and then crapped out right after. And the man who took your money palmed the dice after each throw. He sees you as a patsy for sure. So next time he asks you to play, just tell him, ‘no dice.’ Funny, huh?”

Something seemed to go off in Dill’s head and he looked viciously over at the man who’d taken his dollar. “I’m gonna cut the bastard up.”

“No, you’re not. Remember, third time’s the charm. You’re not going back to prison. Now, put the blade away. You’re not even supposed to have a weapon, Dickie. That’ll get you put right back in Carderock.”

Dill slowly slid the knife back into his pocket, but he kept shooting looks at the other man the whole ride out.

Archer could smell the place about two miles before they arrived there. The stench made his nostrils seize up. Dill noted this and chuckled, as did two other men on the truck.

“Hellfire, Archer, after a while you can’t smell nothin’,” said Dill. He touched his nose. “Goes dead in there.”

“Well, I like to smell things.”

“Like Miss Crabtree’s perfume?” said Dill with a wicked look.

“We already talked about that, Dickie.”

“Man can damn well dream.” He licked his lips, his lascivious look turning Archer’s stomach as he thought about what a man like Dill would do to a woman like Ernestine Crabtree given the chance. He was glad he had fixed the woman’s bedroom door. But then he heartened himself by thinking that Crabtree might just shoot the little bastard before he could do her any harm.

The slaughterhouse was a large, one-story cement block building with hog pens on three sides, teeming with very much living stock.