I’ve already told Burt about the text I’d received at Rowdy’s the night before, not long after the scene with Roof and Lynyrd and their boys. When I’d gotten to that part of my story, he’d stopped me, a grin playing across his lips, a little egg drip along with it at the corner of his mouth.
“Heard about all that from Tay,” he says. “I was on my way to meet her there before I realized I’d left something behind at the office. But she was already onherway home when she called and told me to forget it.”
“She wasn’t too happy with me.”
“So I was told,” he says, “in rather colorful language.”
He wipes his mouth, still grinning at me, still looking to me like the big kid I’ve always known.
“Look at it this way,” he says. “You don’t even need a wife of your own to get pissed off at you, on account of you’ve got mine.”
I call up the text and hand over my phone. Burt says it probably came from a burner, that even a dumb-ass like Roof Crockett, even with him being a Crockett in Cross Rivers, isn’t enough of a dumb-ass to send out a threat that instantly becomes a permanent electronic record.
When he hands back my phone he says, “There’s really not a whole lot of people he could be threatening here, right? I mean, I know how popular you are around here. But you’ve always kept the circle tight.”
I tick off the list on my fingers: My grandmother. Charlie Hall and his son. Abby. Vince Tarplay.
When I finish, he says, “Forgot one there, buddy.”
“Who?”
“The former Taylor McCarter,” he says.
“Didn’t think I had to put her on my list knowing she’s at the top of your own list,” I say. “And guessing you’re probably even less popular with the Crocketts than I am.”
“I’ve spent more time pissing them off,” he says, adding, “For all the damn good it’s done me.”
As we talk, breakfast customers come through the front door. He gets as many greetings from them as I do.
“Well, one thing sure hasn’t changed with you,” he says. “People still seem to know you’re in town.”
“Used to be the right people when we were kids. Not the kind who keep making me feel like I’m outnumbered.”
“I’m gonna take this threat as real,” Burt says. “But I gotta facefacts. With nothing more than an anonymous text to go on, even if I do try to get up in Roof’s grill, Hader will just boot me right out of the way, same as he always does when the Crocketts are anywhere in the picture.”
He eats a piece of the bacon we didn’t order and looks pretty happy doing it.
“But what Icando for the time being is keep sending cars,” he says, “past the farm every chance I get, and having a presence in front of Abby’s apartment building as often as possible.” He sighs. “We’re a small force here, Silas. Too small for what all is going on these days. But when I tell the others that it’s for you, I have a feeling it’ll put a little extra pep in their step.”
I decide to tell him then about the shot into my windshield that night outside of Rowdy’s.
“And you didn’t think that was worth reporting to your old bud?” he asks.
“I just assumed it was one of those dirtballs I’d caught dealing drugs outside school.”
He takes his last piece of bread and soaks up the last bit of yolk on his plate. I’ve always liked to eat. But not like Burt Webb does, and has, for as long as I can remember.
I pour us more coffee.
“Listen, there’s something I want to say, just because I don’t know how long I’m gonna stick around.”
“Talk to me.”
“This is home, and always will be, you know that as well as anybody,” I say. “But there’s a part of me feeling the way you do when you’re only going through a city to change planes. The difference with me is that I don’t know what my final destination is supposed to be.”
“I get it,” he says. “You don’t have to tell me any more than that.”
He’s always been that kind of friend. The best kind. Knowingwhat you need even when it might only be for him to back off and give you all the room you need.
