Bucky kicked the doorjamb and looked hard at Colette, and she returned the stare, watching his eyes. She was trying to tell what he was thinking. “I’m not trying to do him a favor, if that’s what you’re wondering about,” she said.

Bucky let out a little growl. “Is he working somewheres?” He was staring into the middle distance now, figuring.

She shook her head. “Probably swatting mosquitoes on the porch.”

“Give him a call, then.”

“Uh-uh. Not me.”

“Well now, you don’t expect me to personally offer a job to the bastard that kicked my ass through a shithouse floor, do you?”

“You have to talk to him sometime or other.”

“Aw hell,” the foreman said, “give me his number and I’ll call him.”

The next morning Paul was trying to repair his father’s rusted-through lawn mower when his mother called into the yard that he was wanted on the phone. When the foreman told him who wanted to hire him, he laughed out loud.

“This is a joke maybe, right? You down at the Little Palace and Uncle Simon put you up to this?”

“No joke. If you can repair injectors and got any kind of stationary license, you can start work in an hour from now,” the foreman said.

“Wait a minute.” He stared down at the linoleum. “My ex-wife works out there. Did she have anything to do with this?”

“I’ll tell you what’s got to do with this. This boiler room was put together out of secondhand machinery fifty years ago by chuckleheads, and they’s nobody in the parish can make it put out the volume we need. I know you and Bucky had differences in the past, but if you can stay out of his face and put up with a little of his bullshit, we’ll pay you fifteen dollars an hour.”

Paul looked through the screen door to where his father was beating on the rusty lawn mower with a wrench. “I’m just curious about who gave you my name.”

There was a bit of static in the phone. Maybe the foreman was changing hands in desperation. “She did.”

“Oh yeah?”

“But let me tell you something. She’s trying to save her job by keeping this place open. They ain’t no romance in that gal.”

“I wonder why not?” Paul said to himself. The foreman heard the comment and became angry.

“Look, damn it, you want to work or not?”

“Well, hell yeah.”

“Then get your ass down here.”

“I’ll be there when you see me.” He went out and stood on the edge of the front porch, bouncing on the balls of his feet. A job, he thought. A job where Colette works. How the hell was this going to play out?

*   *   *