Дэвид Балдаччи: One Good Deed

“How come it’s two months past due, and you don’t have the money or the Caddy yet? You don’t strike me as a man overly full of generosity.”

The man looked at Jackie. “This gent is a keeper, Jackie, I’m telling you.”

Jackie commenced shooting admiring glances Archer’s way and giggled once more.

“She your wife?” asked Archer, though he saw no ring on her.

“I got me a wife, but she ain’t it,” said the man offhandedly.

Jackie’s giggle died in her throat as she glanced, embarrassed, at Archer. She took a sip of her gator bog drink and said, “There’s no need to be like that.”

The man glanced at her, a look on his mug that Archer had seen many times before on gents, especially in bars, and one he had never once liked.

“Did I ask for your opinion, sweet cheeks?”

“Well, no, but—”

His hand shot out, gripped her wrist, and squeezed. “Then keep it to your goddamn self, you hear me?”

Archer tensed and was about to jerk the man’s hand off her, when he caught a look from Jackie that silently pleaded with him to do no such thing. Archer relaxed back against the bar as the fellow gave Jackie’s wrist one more grind and then flung her hand away as he drilled her with a look of quiet satisfaction. “Just so we understand each other, honey.” He turned back to Archer like nothing had just happened.

“So?” asked Archer expectantly, masking his anger.

“The truth is I’ve tried to collect on this debt, only Mr. Tuttle is not amenable to honoring the debt.”

“And how many men have you paid a hundred dollars to try for you?”

“Well, I will concede that you are not the first. The exact number I prefer to keep private. But I will say that Lucas Tuttle is not a man you want to crowd.”

“And suppose I try and fail? Do I keep the money?”

“Depends on the effort expended. I mean, you can’t just waltz on down the road and make a feeble attempt at obtaining my collateral and then expect to get the cash, now can you?”

“I don’t expect so, no. Then, you would be the judge of that?”

“I would be, but I’m a reasonable man. Wouldn’t be in business for long if I weren’t.”

“And if I failed your expectations, I’d have to give this back?”

“Well, the fact of the matter is, soldier, till you deliver me the car or show me the efforts you undertook to my reasonable satisfaction, you don’t walk out of here with that money. I just put it there as what they call an inducement.”

“Supposing I have expenses in gaining back your collateral? How am I to pay for them with nothing up front? You see my problem?”

“What sort of expenses?”

“Till I see the lay of the land and this Mr. Tuttle in particular, how should I know?”

The man looked warily at Archer, then at the money, and then back at Archer.

“You’re the first one to lay out that issue.”

“Well, I’m looking ahead. Maybe I get this done for you, there’s more opportunity for me in Poca City, like you said.”

“How much front money are we talking about then?” asked the man warily.

“I’d say two Jacksons would do amply.”

The man picked up a pair of bills and handed them to him. “I’m placing my faith in you. Now, see here, what’s your name, soldier?”

“Aloysius Archer.”

“That’s a heckuva name. You go by your Christian name, son?”

Archer shook his head. “Too hard to spell and most folks can’t pronounce it. I go by Archer.”

The man put out his hand. “I’m Hank, Hank Pittleman.”

“Well, Mr. Pittleman, let me see what I can do. Now, if I get the car for you, doesn’t that mean he gets that paper you showed me marked paid? So, do I need to take that with me?”

Pittleman smiled, took a long puff on his stogie, and shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s not how this works, Archer.”

Squinting through the man’s wispy curtain of cigar smoke, Archer said, “Well, tell me how it does work then.”

“Like your expenses, how can I know what I’m gonna get for a 1947 Cadillac? I might get five thousand for it, though I sure as hell doubt it. I was crazy in the head for not asking for more collateral.” He glanced here at Jackie. “Maybe my heart is just too soft. The point is, Archer, even if a miracle happened and I got some poor sucker to fork over five grand for the Caddy, the debt still isn’t paid in full because there’s interest on top. I got to make a profit on my money. You see that, don’t you? Money neither is nor should be free.”

“I always like to make a profit off my money too.” He rubbed his fingers over the twenties.

“Say I sell the Caddy for three thousand, then Tuttle still owes me another two thousand plus interest, plus my incidental costs of collection.” He tapped the pile of twenties. “Like this. Adds up.”

“Mr. Tuttle has dug himself one deep hole.”

A smile creased Pittleman’s face. “Hell, I didn’t make him take my money, did I?”

“You have his address, and directions there? I don’t know the area.”

Pittleman took out a thick pencil and wrote something down on a bar napkin and slid it over to Archer. “When do you expect to do this then?” he asked, pocketing the pencil.

“Soon.”

“What does soon mean?”

“Pretty soon.”

He put the twenties in his jacket pocket.

Pittleman watched this move. “Now, so you know, I have technically just made a loan to you. Though not a scrap of paper has passed between us to legally memorialize that arrangement. But my money has long strings attached. Same as Tuttle’s. And I demand honesty and integrity in my associates. Expect the same of myself.”

“Well, I aim to deliver both, Mr. Pittleman.”

In response, Pittleman drew the switchblade from his coat pocket once more, sprung it open, and speared the remaining twenties lying there, pinning them to the wood of the bar. The knife quivered there like a pine tree in the wind.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Archer didn’t even look at the blade or the stabbed twenties. “Now, where can I reach you most times?”

“Right here at this time will do, every day except Saturday and the Sabbath.”

“And then you’ll be at worship?”

“No, then I’ll be with my dear, beloved wife.”

Pittleman suddenly clutched his head and grimaced in pain.

“Hey, you okay?” asked Archer, gripping him by the shoulder.

“Must be all this cheap hooch.”

Recovered, Pittleman unpinned his knife and thrust it back inside his pocket after closing it. “I trust I will hear good news from you, Archer.”

Archer tipped his hat first to Jackie and then to Pittleman.

“I will do my best.”

“For me you will, you mean?”

“Well, can you see it any other way?”

Archer headed to the door while most of those at the bar, and Pittleman and Jackie in particular, watched him go.

He was no longer shuffling. He was walking upright, springy and brisk, like any free man with serious folding money in his pocket would.

It was five minutes before nine in the morning. The sun was scaling the sky, which was a dazzling blue without a single cloud marring its surface. As Archer stood there on the pavement, looking up, he had started to doubt that cumulus was even allowed here.

Then he lowered his gaze and turned it to the Poca City Courts and Municipality Building. Done in the rococo style and also decidedly on the cheap, the structure was easily big enough for the unwieldy name chiseled across its imitation stone front that was bracketed by false spindle turrets and its middle filled in with even more curious architectural elements. It looked to Archer like it had been dropped from a fairy tale into their midst. A castle without a king or queen; he wondered what they had done with the moat.