Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

Will looked more than a little dubious but did as instructed.

“Is he standing there?”

When Will nodded, Carl Roebuck kicked the door, hard. Outside, there was a muffled thud.

“He fell down,” Will reported.

Carl shook his head at Sully. “Isn’t that pitiful? A perfectly good Doberman, mean as hell. Ruined.”

“Listen,” Sully said. “I heard you had some work for me.”

“That depends,” Carl said, sitting back down and putting his feet up again. “You still own that piece of shit property on Bowdon?”

“Beats me.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t care,” Sully told him, though this response was more force of habit than literal truth. In the last few weeks he’d found himself thinking about the house almost every day. He’d even wandered down from the Anderson place and contemplated it one afternoon, wondered again if the property could be worth more than the taxes owed on it and, if so, how much more. Enough more to be a possible solution to his deepening financial woes, for instance. Or enough more to make a difference to Peter. His son’s return to Bath had caused the resurgence of Sully’s unaccountable desire to give him something. When Peter was a boy, Sully’d sent him presents for Christmas and, when he remembered, on his birthday, but he couldn’t remember a single specific gift, which felt a lot to Sully like he hadn’t given anything. Maybe if he gave Peter the house, or the money from selling the house, it’d be something.

“You remember if it had hardwood floors?”

Sully said it had. He could picture his mother cleaning them on her knees.

Carl picked up the phone and dialed it. “Hi,” he said, not bothering to identify himself. “Do me a. favor. Call City Hall and find out the status of Sully’s place on Bowdon. He doesn’t seem to know if it’s his. Give little Rodrigo a kiss for me.”

Before Sully could attempt to make sense of this conversation, Carl hung up and said, “You want to run by there and take a look?”

“We could,” Sully said, feigning indifference. In fact, the idea of getting Carl’s opinion of the place appealed to him. He’d even considered asking him for that opinion more than once and had been prevented only by the fact that by asking Carl’s opinion he might appear to be wavering from his public view that Carl Roebuck’s advice on any subject was not worth having.

“Let’s,” Carl suggested without getting up or even taking his feet off the desk. Will, taking their apparent agreement literally, stood up, then, seeing that neither man had moved, sat down again, confused.

Sully studied Carl carefully. Something about his attitude was different, and he recalled Toby Roebuck’s remark that her husband was a changed man. “You’re looking especially smug today,” Sully observed, leaning forward and pulling a small end table covered with magazines around in front of the sofa so he could put his own feet up. To Sully’s way of thinking, if there were two men in a room and one of them had his feet up on something, that man had a distinct advantage. Especially if the man was Carl Roebuck. Whenever possible, Sully liked to put his feet up around Carl, even if the maneuver hurt, and he did so now, especially pleased with the fact that his work shoes were wet and that a slushy puddle began immediately to form on the cover of the top magazine.

“It’s true,” Carl said. “I’m in such a good mood that even a visit from you hasn’t dampened my spirits.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sully told him. “I’m glad to know that people like you are happy. Of course, I’d be happy too if I’d inherited a fortune, married the prettiest girl in the county and got to bang all the others besides.”

Carl grinned and leaned even farther back in his swivel chair, hooking his fingers behind his neck. “You’re right,” he admitted, sadly it seemed to Sully. “She is the prettiest girl in the county.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years, if you recall.”

“Okay, you told me so, smart-ass,” Carl conceded. “In which case you’ll be pleased to know I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

“That’s what she just told me,” Sully told him. “I didn’t have the heart to remind her who she was talking about.”

“Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau,” Carl said. Whatever it was that Carl was feeling so smug about, he was dying to tell somebody about it. Which meant that the only thing for Sully to do was feign absolute indifference.

“Mock on who?”

Carl ignored this. “You saw Toby over at the office?”

“I did indeed,” Sully told him. And if he hadn’t been taken by surprise, he’d have really seen what he saw. With Carl Roebuck sitting there looking so smug, Sully actually considered for a brief moment telling Carl about what had happened, just to see if maybe that good mood couldn’t be ruined after all. What prevented him was the possibility, however remote, that Toby Roebuck’s flashing him had been some sort of invitation to return when he didn’t have his grandson with him. He’d been flirting with the woman for years, after all. She’d be foolish to take him seriously, but a woman capable of taking Carl Roebuck seriously just might.

“She didn’t say anything to you?” Carl was still grinning maniacally. “Well, never mind,” he continued. “She’s probably only telling people she likes.”

Suddenly Sully figured it out. “What?” he said. “Don’t tell me she’s pregnant?”

“Knocked up like a cheerleader,” Carl said. His grin had taken over his face so completely now that Sully himself couldn’t help grinning through the disappointment.

Neither man said anything for a long moment.

“So,” Carl Roebuck said finally. “Now I suppose you’ll want to be the godfather.”

“I can’t be both the father and the godfather,” Sully said. “You’re going to have to contribute some goddamn thing.”

“Anyhow. No more messing around for the studmeister. I realize now,” he explained, pulling on his heavy coat, gloves, tweed hat, “that I just wanted to be a father. Isn’t it something the way the mind works?”

“It sure is,” Sully agreed. “You had the rest of us fooled completely. We figured you were just a jerk. How long you figure you can keep this up?”

Carl took a deep breath. “Except for Toby I’ve been a monk for three days, and I’m not even horny. I’ve never felt better, in fact. You should have told me it was okay to have a limp dick. I’m giving up gambling and drinking and smoking and all of it. Everything but bad companions, which is why I’m still talking to you.”

Outside, in front of the trailer, Carl let out a Tarzan yell, pounded his chest. “White hunter make baby!” he crowed. “Let’s take two cars. I’ll meet you there.”

Sully said that was fine with him. He’d taken several steps toward the gate when he realized Will was not at his side. The boy was still on the trailer step, casting about nervously in search of Rasputin, who was not in evidence. “Where is he?” the boy said.

“Come here,” Sully said. “Hold my hand.”

Will did, warily. “There he is,” he said, spying the dog.

Rasputin was leaning, cross-legged, against the chain-link fence near the gate, as if he were resting. Had he been a human being, his posture would have suggested that he was about to light a cigarette and take a relaxing five minutes to smoke it.

“Isn’t this a pitiful fucking sight,” Carl said, going over to his once faithful watchdog. Rasputin lurched feebly, unable to right himself. Clearly, he’d lost his equilibrium again and slumped against the fence, which was holding him up.

Carl went around behind the dog, lifted him off the fence, set him down again gently. “You know what he reminds me of?” he said. Before Sully could say no, Carl told him. “You,” he said.