“How’s the kid?” Froehmer said one day, not long after he’d got his silver.

“Good,” I said. Froehmer probably knew I hadn’t seen the kid. He probably knew more about it than I did.

“You’ve worked it off, in case you were wondering.” I wasn’t. Froehmer had given me cash enough to live off of, and deducted the other, I guess.

“That’s good news.”

“So you can go on working the way you’ve been doing, or we can make other arrangements, or you can go on and do whatever you want.”

“Okay.”

“Think about it.”

“I’ll do whatever you need,” I said.

“You’ve got an aptitude,” Froehmer said. “We could take advantage of that, put that to use, the way you’ve been. Keep you off construction sites if you want.”

“Okay.”

“The pay’s better. If that’s okay.”

“That’s okay by me.”

“Okay then,” Froehmer said. “We’ll be in touch.”

I didn’t hear from him for almost a week. Then he texted me and we had breakfast at the diner. He handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. “It’s small,” he said. “Well, a little bigger than a paperweight, but still, something you won’t have any trouble with. Go take a look, and when you’ve got it figured out, I’ll let you know what it is.”

That’s the way it worked. That’s the way it always worked. Except sometimes it wasn’t Froehmer. There’d be someone else. I didn’t know if they worked for Froehmer like me, or if he’d recommended me to somebody else. I didn’t care. I did the work and got paid, a job here and there, and enough money to live and enough time to spend with my father on the days he needed.

“How’s work?” he liked to ask.

“Good.”

“Froehmer’s looking after you?”

“He throws work at me, when he’s got it.”

“Enough to get by?”

“I can’t complain,” I said.

“He’s a good man to know.”

“He says the same about you.”

“You could do a lot worse.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about Froehmer or himself.