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DANNY CAME BY IN midafternoon, and Josiah was feeling fine, having spent the day sanding and painting the porch rails, with a beer or three for company. Fu
Today, though, he got to the job simply because he needed something to busy himself with. It was a fine day, warm and filled with promise, one that called for doing something beyond sitting on your ass. Most weekends, Josiah was more than content to sit on his ass; he spent Monday through Friday working for other people, figured he’d earned himself a couple days of doing jack shit. Something was different today, though, in his mind and in his body, as if that evening wind that blew up while he slept on the porch had carried some sort of energy right through his skin. Mark it on your calendars, folks-as of May 3, Josiah Bradford was no longer content to bide his time.
It was a shame to involve somebody like Da
When Da
“Hell,” Da
“Boredom,” Josiah said. There was something about the porch rails that offered him a surprising amount of satisfaction, his work shining clean and white and stark under the sun. It had the shine of achievement.
“Looks nice, though.”
“Don’t it?”
“Better’n you anyhow. That black boy poked you good, didn’t he? Your eye looks like hell.”
“It was a bullshit sucker punch,” Josiah said and walked away. He went to the spigot that hung loose from the foundation-he’d been meaning to mortar it back in for years-and, turning on the water, put the brush under the stream and massaged it with his fingers, watching the white paint wash away from the bristles and waiting on his anger to do the same. Last thing he wanted to hear about was his damn eye.
“I got a fu
“You hear what I asked you earlier?” Josiah said.
“About making some money?”
“That’s the one.”
“I heard it, yeah.”
“And you’d like to be in on that.”
“You was to twist my arm enough, I’m sure I’d agree to it.”
“Even if it was the sort of thing could get you in a piece of trouble if you were dumb enough to get caught.”
Da
“I hope you ain’t talking about cooking crank,” he said.
“Hell, no.”
That seemed to put Da
“All right. Good. But what is it you’re thinkin’ of?”
Josiah went up the porch and into the kitchen, came back out with two Keystones and handed one to Da
“You ever lift your head up when you’re pulling weeds down at that damn hotel?” he asked. Da
“Every day,” Da
“You noticed any signs up lately?”
“Always signs up.”
“Uh-huh. I’m talking ’bout one in particular. List of things going on down there, conventions and tours and shit.”
“I know it.”
“You noticed what convention’s heading in next month?”
Da
“Gemstones,” Josiah said. “Go
Da
“A thing like that comes rolling into your town,” Josiah said, “you’d be fool not to capitalize on it.”
“You got to be kidding,” Da
“Kidding hell. We’re going to get those stones. Won’t be all that hard either. See, the way I got it figured, a fire clears that building out, and fast. With all the liabilities and shit they got to consider? Man, first flame goes up, that place empties out.”
“Josiah… you don’t think them guys who own the stones have thought of that?”
“They can think of it all they want, point is they can’t stop it. You have any idea the sort of scene you’d have down there with a fire going? They call that chaos, son, and you know what happens during chaos? Shit gets lost.”
“You think they’re not going to notice-”
“’Course they’re going to notice, numb nuts, what I’m saying is by the time they do, it’ll be too late. We get a fire going, get the building empty and the sprinklers on and then hit those cases fast and get out. You don’t got to worry about alarms because there’ll already be a thousand going off, a few more ain’t go
“All them stones is, like, registered or whatever,” Da
“We won’t sell them here.”
“Well, I know that, but where do you think we’re going to do it? We could go all the way across the country-”
“Won’t sell them in this country,” Josiah said, voice soft, and that brought Da
“I’m getting out,” Josiah said. “You can come or not, it ain’t my concern. But I am getting out of this place.”
“It’s a dumb idea,” Da