A Marked Man Read Free Page A

closed-door meetings, do they?”
    Roche shrugged and asked a waitress in squeaky-bottomed shoes for the same thing Max had ordered. “This is a great place,” he said, hanging his head back to look at a thick layer of mostly yellowing business cards tacked to the ceiling. “It’s got character, atmosphere. I’d like to come when the band plays. Did you see the size of the gator out front? Blue.” The restaurant surrounded a dance hall and the section where the Savages sat was built off one side of the building.
    “Blue what?” Kelly said, after considering. “The shoes? Yeah, fucking idiot Elvis impersonator. Jeez.”
    “He was talking about the alligator,” Max said. “It’s called Blue. I told you that when we got here.”
    “Yeah,” Roche said to Kelly, his tone light and even. “And I’m humoring you, friend. Otherwise I’d tell you to go to hell and take your third-degree with you.”
    Time to change the subject. “Wasn’t it great to see Michele Riley yesterday? I knew she’d come for an interview just to be polite, but I wasn’t sure she’d accept the job.”
    Roche said, “I was,” and looked too pleased.
    “Because she can’t resist your charms?” Max asked. “I don’t think you had much to do with it. She likes the idea of having her own physical therapy department even if it will be small. And she’s damned good, so all the luck is on our side. I’m relieved she wants to come here—there’s nothing much she doesn’t know about me.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Roche crossed his arms.
    “You know what I mean.”
    Roche looked into the distance. “It’s a good sign she’s so positive. She’ll bring others with her—including the fiancé she ought to dump in favor of me. She seems to really like it here.” He and Max had known Michele professionally. At their invitation she had come to Toussaint the day before, expressed delight over the clinic and agreed to coordinate the physical therapy department. Her fiancé was a nurse.
    “Just remember Michele’s taken,” Max said to Roche and smiled. “It’s beginning to feel as if we should have done something like this a long time ago,” he observed. “This will be a good place for patients to recuperate.”
    “Fucking weather,” Kelly muttered as if he hadn’t heard a word either Roche or Max said. He gulped beer from a sweating glass. “You know you can’t hide forever, don’t you, Max.”
    “If I didn’t, I do now,” Max said. “Where did that come from?” He could always rely on their older brother to state the obvious.
    “Someone has to remind you what we’re facing. You get off in your own world and forget—”
    “Keep it down,” Roche said through his teeth. “We’ve been here a long time now without any problems.”
    “You and Roche have been here a fair amount of time,” Kelly said. “Making sure you two can do what you want to do keeps me pretty busy elsewhere.”
    “Can it,” Max said. “You don’t have to spend so much time in New York and you wouldn’t if you didn’t like it there. We all like it there, remember? It’s home, or it was. You’re in a rotten mood and it isn’t helping a thing. So we’re gonna get more rain, big deal, it rains plenty here and work doesn’t stop.”
    “Delays cost us,” Kelly said. He finished the sandwich rapidly and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “You know how hard it is to keep a work crew focused. If the weather gets bad they find inside jobs, and they come back when they damn well please.”
    “Dammit,” Max said. He noticed that noise had dwindled at nearby tables and saw patrons lose interest in their own conversations while they listened to the brothers argue. He dropped his voice. “What’s up with you, Kelly? You get jumpier by the day. If you want out of this project, say so. I never imagined we’d have to resort to hiding away to do our work but it’s the best we’ve got—or I’ve got. You two don’t have to be here.”
    Roche rolled