It was a short walk to the taxi stand but it took a long time.

“Not even a desk job,” he said as they reached the front taxicab in the line.

“I know,” Danny said. “I’m sorry.”

“‘Too strenuous,’ they said.”

Steve worked his way into the cab and Danny handed him his cane. He came around the other side and got in.

“Where to?” the cabdriver asked.

Steve looked at Danny. Danny looked back, waiting.

“You guys deaf? Where to?”

“Keep your knickers cinched.” Steve gave him the address of the rooming house on Salem Street. As the driver pulled off the curb, Steve looked over at Danny. “You help me pack up my room?”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“I can’t afford it. No job.”

“The Widow Coyle?” Danny said.

Steve shrugged. “Ain’t seen her since I got it.”

“Where you going to go?”

Another shrug. “Got to be somebody looking to hire a heartsick cripple.”

Danny didn’t say anything for a minute. They bumped along Huntington.

“There’s got to be some way to—”

Steve put a hand on his arm. “Coughlin, I love ya, but there’s not always ‘some way.’ Most people fall? No net. None. We just go off.”

“Where?”

Steve was quiet for a bit. He looked out the window. He pursed his lips. “Where the people with no nets end up. That place.”

CHAPTER seven

Luther was shooting pool alone in the Gold Goose when Jessie came around to tell him the Deacon wanted to see them. It was empty in the Goose because it was empty all over Greenwood, all over Tulsa, the flu having come in like a dust storm until at least one member of most families had gotten it and half of those had died. It was against the law right now to go outside without a mask, and most businesses in the sinners’ end of Greenwood had closed up shop, though old Calvin, who ran the Goose, said he’d stay open no matter what, said if the Lord wanted his tired old ass, He could just come get it for all the good it would do Him. So Luther came by and practiced his pool, loving how crisp the balls snapped in all that quiet.

The Hotel Tulsa was closed until people stopped turning blue, and nobody was betting numbers, so there wasn’t no money to be made right now. Luther forbade Lila to go out, said they couldn’t risk it for her or the baby, but this had meant he’d been expected to stay home with her. He had, and it was mostly better than he would have imagined. They fixed up the place a bit and gave every room a fresh coat of paint and hung the curtains Aunt Marta had given them as a wedding present. They found time to make love most every afternoon, slower than ever before, gentler, soft smiles and chuckles replacing the hungry grunts and groans of summer. He remembered in those weeks how deeply he loved this woman and that loving her and having her love him back made him a worthy man. They built dreams of their future and their baby’s future, and Luther, for the first time, could picture a life in Greenwood, had formed a loose ten-year plan in which he’d work as hard as a man could and keep socking away the money until he could start his own business, maybe as a carpenter, maybe as the owner/operator of a repair shop for all the different gadgets that seemed to sprout out from the heart of this country damn near every day. Luther knew if you built something mechanical, sooner or later it broke, and when it did most wouldn’t know how to fix it, but a man with Luther’s gifts could have it back in your house and good as new by nightfall.