Дэвид Балдаччи - One Good Deed

He finished up and put the robe on. When he came out Ernestine had lowered the wall bed and made it up for him; she was now sitting in an adjacent chair and reading a book. She got up and closed the volume. “It’s all ready for you.”

He glanced in the direction of her bedroom. “Thank you. Is your, um, bedroom door doing okay?’”

“It’s doing just fine, thank you.”

He was imagining Ernestine in all sorts of ways, hair down, skirt up, even naked like Jackie. It seemed he just damn well couldn’t help doing so. Archer cursed himself. He was no better than the man who’d wolf-whistled at her.

She followed his gaze and said, “Well, I’m sure you’re exhausted.” She held up her book and said, “I actually wanted to finish this tonight. I’ll just do so in my bed.”

“What’s that you’re reading?”

“It just came out recently. It’s entitled 1984 . By an English writer, George Orwell. Well, that’s his pseudonym. His real name is Eric Blair.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a dystopian novel set in 1984, hence the name.”

“Long time from here.” He added in a puzzled fashion, “Dystopian?”

“It’s about life in 1984 as the writer sees it. The people are oppressed, the government knows all. People spy on each other. No one has any free thought.”

“I think we just fought a war to stop that from happening.”

“I think we did, too. Let’s hope it was enough.”

“Guess you’re right about that.” He stared at her for a long moment, his initial lustful desire dying away. Not because he didn’t find her attractive, because he did. It was because Archer wasn’t sure he deserved anybody as intelligent as she obviously was. And yet he had become perhaps even more intrigued by who she was than by what her beauty inspired in him physically.

“Look, Archer, you don’t have to check in this week. I obviously know what you’re up to... and where you’re staying. I’ll mark it down as your having reported in and all.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Good night, Ernestine. Hope you enjoy your book.”

“Good night, Archer.”

The next morning Archer found hot coffee in the percolator waiting for him in the kitchen, a paper bag with an apple, a soft roll, some beef jerky, and a hard chunk of cheese inside, and a note from Ernestine wishing him a good day. He looked around for the woman but didn’t see her. She might have already left for work. He wanted to call out to her or go knock on her bedroom door and thank her, but he decided against that. He sat at the table, drank his coffee, and put the note in his pocket.

He took a moment to look around the small space. Then he closed his eyes and, in his mind, allowed himself the fiction of believing that this was his tidy little home and his dear, loving wife had made him this strong cup of coffee and packed him a nice lunch, before he set out to work to earn the daily bread to support him and her and a passel of kids with sensible names and fascinating futures awaiting them all.

He opened his eyes and stared in surprise into his coffee cup. Archer had never before engaged in personal fantasy in any form. He had been raised by stoic God-fearing parents who labored hard and disciplined their only child just as hard. He had volunteered to serve his country, fought in and survived a world war. He had been too busy trying to stay alive to be fantasizing about not dying. Then he had roamed a bit and fallen into a situation that had resulted in his serving time in a rough prison where the rules of civility did not exist, and the guards were sometimes worse than the men they were overseeing. This was the only time he had allowed himself to diverge from the starkness of reality, the good and the bad of it. It felt surprisingly real and personal and satisfying. For about ten seconds.

Then Archer took his paper bag, opened the door, and went to butcher hogs.

Archer did his cutting with a more practiced hand that day. But when he was done, he was as covered with hog fragments as the day before, maybe more so because he had been more productive wielding the knives and saws. He wasn’t as sore, though, on the ride home, as his hard muscles had quickly adjusted to his labor.

And the lunch in the paper bag had helped.

Dickie Dill rose from his seat on the truck, stared down the man next to Archer, and took his space when the man vacated it.

“What’s up, Dickie?” said Archer, his eyes hooded, but his peripheral vision squarely on the little man, looking for any hint of a knife coming out.

“Guess you think you done me a favor yesterday.”

“That’s the way I looked at it. You’re not back in prison, right?”

“Maybe so. But you do that again, I’ll cut you up like you do them hogs.”

“Thanks for the fair warning.”

That seemed to take all the anger and venom from the man. He settled down, pulled a pickle wrapped in wax paper from his pocket, and started chewing on it.

“We’re supposed to get paid tomorrow,” said Dill.

“I know. I’m counting on it.”

“Thing is, I hear tell there’s trouble ’bout that.”

Archer glanced sharply at him. “Come again?”

“Word is they ain’t got the money to pay all they owe us.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From folks who’d know, that’s where.”

“But look at all the hogs going through that place. They must be making money hand over fist.”

“Not what I heard.”

“Who owns the place, then?”

“Hank Pittleman, least he did.”

This didn’t come from Dill. It came from the man on Archer’s other side who had evidently been listening.

Archer gaped. “Pittleman owned the slaughterhouse?”

“Yes sir, he sure did,” said the man, an older gent in filthy coveralls and wearing an equally dirty fedora, an unlit smoke dangling over his plump lower lip, the cigarette jerking up and down as he spoke.

Archer looked at Dill, who had made no comment on this.

The older man added, “And like this here feller just said, folks say they ain’t got the money to make full payroll. Heard it too, myself.”

“So why are we working then?” said Archer.

“’Cause we ain’t got nothing else,” said the man simply with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “And they might pay some of what they owe. I ain’t walking away from cash money, little though it might be.”

“Kick in the nuts, ask me,” said Dill, finishing his pickle and wiping his hands on his pants. “I’m gonna cut somebody up they try and pull that shit on me.”

Archer didn’t even attempt to quash this notion from Dill. Part of him wanted Dill to cut somebody and then end up back in prison, where Archer firmly believed he still belonged.

He got back to town and jumped off the truck.

And found Irving Shaw waiting for him.

The detective was wearing a brown suit and freshly laundered shirt, though his haggard features told of sleepless nights and the burden of solving a murder. He pushed back his homburg and eyed Archer closely.

“Heard you got work at the slaughterhouse. How’re the hogs doing?”

“Not too good, actually, considering their only job is to die. Why are you here?”

Shaw caught the eye of Dickie Dill, who was watching him closely, his knifelike hands curled into fists.

Shaw apparently didn’t like what he saw in Dill because he pulled back his jacket so that both his pointed silver star and his .45 were showing prominently.

“Don’t I know you, fella?” he said to Dill.

“Nope,” said Dill. “Leastways, I ain’t know you.”

Shaw kept his eye on the little man for an uncomfortably long moment. “Well, I got business with this here gent, so you be on your way then.”