Ryder pulled three sweating Pabsts from the fridge and opened them on the table. He put one on the counter next to Jim, then handed the other to Leo. “We figure your watching days are over, Young Buddy. Me and your daddy say tonight entitles you to drink beer and play dealer’s choice with Lars and the boys who we expect around seven.”

“On a Friday night?”

“Hell, yes.” Ryder clinked cans with Leo and took a long pull, his Adam’s apple making three trips back and forth.

Jim turned off the water and dried his hands. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them it was your birthday.”

“Now listen to your Uncle Ryder. If you sit with ten dollars and lose it, then you’re finished playing. If you sit down and that lady shines on you, then put that original ten in your pocket and try not to touch it again. You dig?”

“I dig.”

“How’s the back?” Jim was slicing potatoes on the cutting board. Leo told him it was better and he sipped his beer. He didn’t know if he wanted to do any of this or not. In fact, he knew he didn’t. What he wanted was to be with Allie Donovan, curled up somewhere alone with her. He did. But he could not think this and look at Jim at the same time; not while his father stood there slicing potatoes for him, tapping his foot and moving his head in time to Howling Wolf singing how he’s built for comfort, he ain’t built for speed. Jim sometimes licked his lips when he concentrated on something he was doing with his hands, and when he did it now, Leo’s heart spread out in his chest and he had to walk fast to his room.

31

He changed into clean jeans and a striped short-sleeved shirt, then he went to his bureau, reached into Katie Faye’s box, and pulled out the black and white picture of his mother and father all dressed up, standing in that alley in New York City, his mother wearing dark lipstick, the two of them smiling into Ryder’s camera. Leo pulled a thumbtack from one of the bottom corners of the Big Bill Broonzy poster and tacked the photograph to the wall at the head of his bed. He put on his work boots, combed his hair, then pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wad in the top drawer. The money in his hand felt like it belonged to someone else. And it did; he didn’t know how much the vacuum doctor had cost the Donovans but it couldn’t have been more than $600. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let Allie have that satisfaction. Tomorrow he would walk up to Spoon Hill and hand the cash right to her mother, maybe even to Chick, who probably didn’t know a thing about it.