The Stranger

“They’re real strict with the drunk-driving stuff now. Saves lives. But anyway, Rick comes to my door. Mr. Mayor now. Got the suit, with the American flag in the lapel. Don’t join the military; don’t help out the little guy; don’t take in your tired, your poor, your huddled masses—but if you wear a little flag, you’re a patriot.”

Adam tried not to smile.

“So Rick comes in with his chest out and this big grin. ‘The developers are offering you a lot of money,’ he says to me. Goes on and on about how generous they’re being.”

“What do you say?”

“Nothing yet. I just kinda stare at him. Let him bloviate.”

He signaled to the kitchen table for them to sit. Adam didn’t want to sit in Eunice’s chair—it felt wrong somehow—so he asked, “Which chair?”

“Any’s fine.”

Adam took one. Then Rinsky sat. The vinyl tablecloth was old and a little sticky and felt just right. There were still five chairs here, though the three boys he and Eunice had raised in this very house were grown and gone.

“Then he starts in on me with the good-of-the-community stuff. ‘You’re standing in the way of progress,’ he tells me. ‘People will lose their jobs because of you. Crime will increase.’ You know the deal.”

“I do, yes,” Adam said.

Adam had heard it before many times, and he wasn’t unsympathetic. Over the years, this downtown neighborhood had gone to seed. Some developer, getting a ton of tax breaks, had come in and bought up every building on the block on the cheap. He wanted to knock down all the dilapidated homes, apartments, storefronts, and build shiny new condos and Gap stores and tony restaurants. It wasn’t a bad idea, really. You could make fun of the gentrification, but towns needed new blood too.

“So he keeps talking, about the shiny new Kasselton, how it will make the neighborhood safe and bring people back and all that. Then he comes up with his big pot sweetener. The developer has new senior-living housing in the heights. And then he has the gall to lean across and give me the sad eyes and say, ‘You need to think about Eunice.’”

“Wow,” Adam said.

“I know, right? Then he says I should take this deal because the next one will be worse and they can throw me out. Can they really do that?”

“They can,” Adam said.

“We bought this house in 1970 off my GI Bill. Eunice . . . she’s fine, but sometimes her mind isn’t on the track it’s supposed to be. So she gets real scared in strange places. She starts to cry and shake even, but then she gets home, right? She sees this kitchen, she sees her creepy figurines or that rusty old refrigerator, and she’s okay again. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Can you help us?”

Adam leaned back. “Oh yes, I think I can.”

Rinsky studied him for a few moments, his eyes penetrating. Adam shifted in the chair. He could tell what a great cop he must have been. “You got a fu

“Call me Adam. What kind of fu

“I’m an old cop, remember?”

“Of course.”

“I pride myself on reading faces.”

“And what are you seeing on mine?” Adam asked.

“That you’re cooking up a badass, killer idea.”

“I may be,” Adam said. “I think I can end this quickly if you have the stomach for it.”

The old man smiled. “Do I look like I’m afraid of a fight?”

Chapter 12

When Adam got home at six P.M., Cori

He didn’t know whether that surprised him. Cori

“Hello?” he shouted. “Thomas? Ryan?”

No answer. There was a time in this world when that meant something, maybe was even a cause of concern, but with the video games and the headphones and the teenage boys’ constant need to “shower”—was that a euphemism?—any concern was short-lived. He started up the stairs. Sure enough, the shower was ru

As expected, Ryan was lying in bed with his headphones on, fiddling with his iPhone. He slipped them off and sat up. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’s for di

“Good, thanks. Work was busy, sure, but overall, yeah, I’d say I had an okay day. How about you?”

Ryan just stared at his father. Ryan often just stared at his father.

“Have you seen your mother?” Adam asked.

“No.”

“She and I are going to Janice’s tonight. You want me to order you two a pizza from Pizzaiola?”

There are few questions more rhetorical than asking your child whether they want you to order them pizza for di

“Your brother likes pepperoni,” Adam said, “so I’ll go half-and-half.”

Ryan frowned.

“What?”

“Just one pie?”

“It’s only the two of you.”

Ryan did not seem placated.

“If that’s not enough, there are Chipwiches in the freezer for dessert,” Adam said. “That okay?”

Grudgingly: “I guess.”

Adam headed back down the hall and into his bedroom. He sat on the bed and called the pizzeria, adding an order of mozzarella sticks. Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon. Cori

“Hey, Dad.”

Thomas wore a towel around his waist. Water dripped from his hair. He smiled and said, “What’s for di

“I just ordered you guys pizza.”

“Pepperoni?”

“Half pepperoni, half buffalo chicken.” Adam held up his hand before Thomas could say more. “And an order of mozzarella sticks.”

Thomas gave his father a thumbs-up. “Nice.”

“You don’t have to eat it all. Just leave the leftovers in the fridge.”

Thomas made a confused face. “What is this leftovers of which you speak?”

Adam shook his head and chuckled. “Did you leave me any hot water?”

“Some.”

“Great.”

Adam normally wouldn’t shower and change, but he had time and felt oddly nervous. He showered quickly, managing to stay seconds ahead of the hot water, and shaved away the Homer Simpson five-o’clock shadow. He reached into the back of his cabinet and pulled out an aftershave he knew Cori

He put on a blue shirt because Cori

Yet a voice in Adam’s head couldn’t help but wonder: Depending on how this di

That was melodramatic, of course. Pure hyperbole. But if hyperbole couldn’t feel free to roam in his head, where could it roam?