Eddie: Grime Doesn't Pay (The Brothers Grime Book 2)

by Z. A. Maxfield

  “Paperwork mostly. If I hear back from Laurence, I’ll get started on Mrs. Henderson’s place today. That’s over by Taft.”

  “That’s the school where your niece goes?”

  “Yeah.”

  Skippy’s smile creased his eyes into smile lines over the rim of his mug. “Maybe you can get in a little afternoon delight with that teacher of yours.”

  “I don’t think that’s—”

  “Don’t think, papi.” Skippy waved his hand. “Just take him some lunch. You know you want to.”

  “I doubt that would be appropriate.”

  Skippy pointed at Eddie. “You get a U for unsatisfactory effort there, my friend.”

  “Yeah, well. That wouldn’t be my first. I always did do crap at school.”

  Skippy frowned. “On account of your reading thing?”

  “I’m not the good-student type.”

  “Then you’d better get a little one-on-one time with your hot teacher, huh?”

  Skippy took his coffee back to the loading dock, leaving Eddie alone to think about all the different ways he could frame the question, Can I bring you lunch?

  In the end, he decided to go with simple honesty and took out his phone again. Andrew hadn’t replied to his earlier text, but it was a school day, and he was bound to be busy.

  He pulled out his phone and spoke. “I might be working in the neighborhood today comma can I buy you lunch question mark.”

  An hour later, when no answer came to either text, Eddie put his phone away so he wouldn’t be staring at it, waiting. He went to Gabe’s office and found him alone. Eddie glanced around, deliberately keeping his eyes off the space beneath the desk. “Did Dave leave?”

  “Yeah.” Gabe frowned. “He’s pissed.”

  “Sorry. How was I to know?”

  “It’s not your fault. He’s being an asshole.”

  “I don’t suppose we should tell him Skippy saw us in the kitchen.”

  “Christ. That’s the last thing I need.” Gabe rubbed his temples.

  “Skippy doesn’t carry tales,” Eddie pointed out. “He doesn’t care enough.”

  “I know.”

  “But you and Dave? How’d that come about?”

  “I guess I look enough like Jack,” Gabe said bitterly.

  “Dave’s not that big an asshole.”

  Gabe sighed. “I know.”

  “It’s been a long time coming for you. You always had a thing for him.”

  Gabe didn’t contradict him. He merely shrugged.

  “So don’t borrow trouble. Could be Jack was a warm-up act, and you’re the headliner.”

  “I’m the head something, all right.”

  “You want to know what I think?” Eddie asked. “Get him out of town. Lie if you have to. Take him away from all this day-to-day shit. Go to the mountains or drive up the coast. Go to the wine country or Vegas. Someplace where no one knows you and just…stay there for a few days.”

  “Like he’d take a vacation.” Gabe shook his head. “RoboCop don’t play that.”

  “Yeah he will,” Eddie said. “I think this time, he will.”

  “Because he’s hurting over Jack.” Gabe stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. Gabe wore his heart out in the open where Dave was concerned. He always had.

  “It’s worth a try.” Eddie felt for Gabe and Dave. They’d be good together. “You’re the best poker player I know, Gabe. You can usually tell when it’s time to go all in.”

  Gabe straightened. Nodded. Eddie left the room without saying anything more.

  Eddie’s phone vibrated, indicating he had a message. When he got back to his office, he listened to it.

  “Can’t do lunch. Any possibility for dinner later this week? Thursday?”

  “Happy to.” Eddie dictated into his phone. “Just let me know when and where.”

  “Cool,” came the reply. “Soon.”

  Eddie sent a smiling face, and Andrew sent one back. He relaxed into his chair, trying not to acknowledge how happy a simple emoticon could make him feel.

  Andrew put his phone away and got out of his car. He’d dressed in battered, ancient jeans and a T-shirt with paint all over it in the hopes he could finally persuade his father to let him inside his house to help. He’d gotten nowhere the day before, only far enough to coax his father out onto the porch, where they argued for an hour before his dad blew up and sent him home.

  This time he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. His father was going to lose his house and everything in it if Andrew didn’t convince him to accept help. He had to understand how precarious his position was. He had to.

  Andrew knocked on the door.

  From inside, he heard his father’s voice. “Go away.”

  “It’s me, Dad. I took the day off. I’m not going anywhere until you let me in, even if I have to camp out here and call in sick every day this week and the next and the next. You know how stubborn I can be.”

  “I can handle this myself. I don’t want you here.”

  “It’s too late for that. I’m here, and I’m staying until you let me in.”

  Andrew heard the sound of chains being removed and deadbolts turning. The door opened a crack. His father’s eye looked red-rimmed. Old and dark with sadness and doubt. “Son, I don’t want you here.”

  Andrew had practiced what to say. Broken record. That was a communications technique he’d found rather effective with recalcitrant first graders. “I’m here, though, and I will not take no for an answer. Here I am, and here I’ll stay, until you—”

  “God, you’re as stubborn as your mother ever was and twice as obnoxious.”

  “Do I need to say it again?” Andrew stood his ground. “Because I will. I have sunscreen. I packed a lunch. I will go to your neighbors and ask to use the toilet if I need to but here I am, and—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Boston. All right already. Come in. It’s on you now.”

  “Yes, Father. On my head it is. I take full responsibility,” Andrew said wryly as his father opened the door with some effort, just wide enough for him to squeeze through. “And call me Andrew.”

  The first thing that hit Andrew was the smell. It wasn’t as bad as the odor in Mrs. Henderson’s house, but that was only because nothing had died inside his father’s house—or rather, Andrew hoped nothing had died. He couldn’t be sure because all he could see were mountains of trash piled everywhere. Bags and boxes and piles of…God knew what. Everywhere. Up to the ceiling. Wall to wall.

  There weren’t even any paths anymore.

  There was no place to move. No place to breathe.

  Garbage was everywhere.

  Everywhere.

  Andrew lost his battle with dizziness. His knees buckled, and he fell back against the door.

  Chapter 13

  Thursday couldn’t come soon enough for Eddie. His week had dragged, from Monday when he’d undergone a thorough inventory of the business’s supplies to Tuesday when he and Kevin had started the cleanup on Mrs. Henderson’s house.

  Wednesday night, Eddie had slept poorly. He’d never admitted it to Gabe, but sometimes a scene from work continued to get to him later, after they were done cleaning. Maybe at times like those, he should call his friends and let off a little steam, but when it came to sleepless nights, when the shadows got too close and dreams were sure to turn into nightmares, Eddie could never find a way to admit he wasn’t as strong as everyone imagined he was.

  In the old days, Eddie had turned to clubs and loud techno music and strangers who would suck his dick and later, forget his face.

  Since he met Andrew, he’d wanted something real or nothing at all.

  At first, he’d blamed it on growing older, as if maybe he was finally maturing a little. It wasn’t long before he realized his newfound romantic determination was all down to a certain teacher with a heart of gold.

  All in. That had been his advice to Gabe because Eddie had chosen that move himself.

  Even if Andr
ew wasn’t Eddie’s winning hand, he couldn’t float along from guy to guy indifferent anymore.

  Thursday had finally come, and he still hadn’t heard from Andrew. He and Gabe spent the morning in the cluttered living room of a woman whose husband had killed himself rather than face another round of cancer therapies he’d deemed a waste of time.

  They sat, listening to the clock tick, watching the widow look over the cleaning contract. Her adult children stood around her, waiting for her to get on with the business of living while she sat damp-eyed, chewing the tip of a pen in the mute agony of the aftermath of death.

  Gabe had already phoned her priest and asked him to stop by. He’d also put her in touch with a support group for those left behind after suicide and made sure she could stay with her son so she wouldn’t be alone.

  That was Gabe’s gift—the place where his instinct and his empathy kicked in like a superpower. Witnessing Gabe at work was like watching a well-choreographed ballet. The more obstacles someone faced, the more effortless Gabe’s moves seemed until he practically radiated serenity.

  Gabe was the hurricane’s eye, the quiet in the storm. The big sigh of relief.

  “What’s up?” Gabe asked as he and Eddie drove back to the office. “It’s like you’re not with me today.”

  “Sorry. My mind hasn’t been on the job.”

  At a stoplight, Gabe peered at him. “You’ve been weird all week. Is it something about your guy, what’s his name?”

  “Andrew.” Eddie nodded. “He got a call and left in a hurry on Sunday. This morning Lucy said he’s been absent from school all week.”

  “And you’re worried?” Gabe asked. “Did you call him?”

  “I called and texted a couple of times, but he didn’t respond. We’re supposed to get together tonight.”

  Gabe gave a quick glance his way. “That’s not all though, is it?”

  Eddie shook his head. “We’ve been dancing around this thing between us for months, and when we finally get together, when it finally happens, it’s…” Eddie leaned back. “I don’t know what it is.”

  “It wasn’t what you’d hoped?”

  “It was better than I hoped. We just fit, and things probably moved a lot faster than they should have. Andrew doesn’t seem to have any inhibitions and I—” Eddie closed his eyes and pictured Andrew lying along his back, placing kisses at the top of his spine that seemed more like depth charges that exploded in his dick. “Should I have taken it slow since he’s not just some guy I picked up at a club? Things got real for me, and now I wonder if maybe I was just a trick to him, you know? Maybe—”

  “Aw, man. Maybe he’s just got the flu, and you’re worried for nothing.”

  Eddie took a deep breath and blew it out again. “Maybe.”

  “You’re supposed to meet him tonight?”

  “Yeah, but he hasn’t said where. His calls have been going straight through to voice mail.”

  “So you left a message?”

  “Yeah.” Until his mailbox was full.

  “I guess that’s all you can do.” Gabe lifted his shoulders. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re probably a pretty good judge of character. What do you think is going on?”

  “Something came up.” Eddie chewed his lip. “Probably something with family.”

  “So that’s probably what happened.”

  “Sure. He’ll call when he can, I guess.”

  “Sure.” Gabe nodded. “In the meantime, what do you say we go get some lunch?”

  “All right.”

  “You’re buying since I’m giving you love advice.”

  “Wait. How do you figure that?” Eddie asked. “I give you love advice all the time, and nobody buys me lunch.”

  “Ah.” Gabe held his finger up like he was testing the wind. “But my advice is worth something.”

  Andrew ate a forkful of some too-salty bean salad. He had once again gone to the deli counter at the local grocery store and purchased some bits and pieces that could be considered healthy, but only if you held them up against a fast food meal and not a home-cooked lunch.

  Cooking in his father’s house was out of the question for a lot of reasons. The refrigerator was a study in mold, the sinks were filled with garbage, and there was no place to sit. He and his father had been working their way through the one room his father allowed him in, the living room, but they’d made little headway.

  At Andrew’s insistence, they’d cleaned a patio table and some chairs, and placed them upwind of the worst of the garbage in the yard.

  Now his dad sat across from him, dirty and disheveled. He looked old, but he was still easy on the eyes. He seemed too thin, which made Andrew frown. His once-red hair was white, and his eyes were sharp and profoundly blue. He wore jeans and a UMass Boston sweatshirt, deck shoes with no socks.

  Andrew’s heart hurt just looking at his once-tough Boston Irish father, whose losses had overwhelmed him to the point where he was living in crazy town.

  Reese Daley was educated, highly intelligent, and didn’t suffer fools. He’d pulled himself out of poverty, gone to college, and married the love of his life. They’d come to California and opened a bookstore near the Claremont campus of colleges that at one time served as a sort of cultural and social mecca. They’d made enough to purchase the strip mall the bookstore stood on and some land around it before Andrew’s mother died. The bookstore thrived, and along with raising Andrew, it became Reese’s life.

  But like a lot of brick-and-mortar bookstores, the Daley’s place didn’t make them rich in the best of times. After Amazon, well… The sale of the land was enough to fund a very healthy retirement income, and in the end, Reese Daley couldn’t turn it down.

  “You can’t take off work forever.” Reese looked almost comically uncomfortable—he acted nervous on the scale of Italian opera. “We’ve made some headway. I can take things from here.”

  “No you can’t.” Andrew grabbed his water bottle and chugged a few swallows. “Your deadline is still looming, and together we’ve barely made a dent in one room.”

  “Nevertheless.” Reese’s lips compressed for a moment before he spoke again. “You need to go home. This isn’t working.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Andrew aimed his empty at a bin where they’d collected recyclables, and tossed it. It landed right in the center of the pile and clattered among the hundreds like it.

  “It’s my fault.” Reese rested his elbows on the wobbly table and leaned his head on his hands. “Entirely mine, all right? Is that what you need to hear? I can’t just snap out of this. I can’t just turn my back and let you—”

  “God, do you understand that when the city condemns this place, someone—not you and not me but some stranger—will be given the task of throwing everything you own into those big blue Dumpsters, and you’ll have fuck all to say about it?”

  Reese looked away.

  Tears stung Andrew’s eyes. “I’m trying to help. Let me help. My God, this…this shit can’t be more important to you than—”

  “What shit? The things here are valuable. They’re a part of something your mother and I built together. They’re our history. I admit it’s gotten a little out of hand.”

  “A little?” Andrew gasped. “A little?”

  “Hear me out. After the shop went under, I had to rethink things. I started collecting phonographs and vinyl records. Cameras and projectors and darkroom equipment. This is technology people think of as junk now, but it will have nostalgic value when the time is right. At least think of the books. When I had to sell the bookstore, I swore I wouldn’t give up, that I’d open a new one someday when the time was right. I keep telling you, those books are your legacy.”

  Andrew closed his eyes to block it all out. “Even if you’re right, there’s so much garbage—so much other crap—it’s impossible to tell what’s trash and what’s treasure.”

  “The things in my house are inventory.” Reese raised his voice. “They have value. Photograph
y is still about light and shadow. Vinyl records have character and quirks digital music doesn’t. People love to hold books in their hands. People aren’t all soulless bastards who want to do everything on a computer. I have first editions. I have—”

  “You have roaches, eating the binder’s glue!” Andrew shouted over him. “You have silverfish living in the pages. You have mold and vermin and God knows what else in there.”

  Reese’s fist came down on the table, and their food containers jumped. “I packed the important things carefully. I made sure they’ll be all right. In a few years, when the economy isn’t in the shitter and Amazon isn’t such a novelty, we’ll open another place. Sort of like in the book The Old Curiosity Shop. People will always want real books. Real cameras. Record albums and gramophones like their grandparents had. There’ll be money to spend and a place for nostalgia in people’s shopping habits again. It’s going to be different when the economy turns around, and then you’ll see. Things will work out.”

  “Oh, hello.” Andrew sat forward. “Am I meant to be little Nell? In case you’ve forgotten, she dies in the end.”

  His father’s mouth quirked up at that. “We all die in the end, son.”

  Andrew scrubbed at his face with both hands. He felt filthy. Grime from their labors had settled into the creases of his skin. When he’d seen himself in the cracked mirror in his father’s barely usable bathroom, he’d gasped in shock. He looked like a coal miner. He looked like he’d fled a forest fire.

  “This is too big for the two of us to do. We tried it your way. Now we do it my way. I called the shrink the city put me in touch with. First thing Saturday morning she’s coming to meet us here. I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

  Reese drew away. “Christ. Will you listen to yourself?”

  “This is the only way you’re going to save this legacy of yours.” Andrew stood up and checked his pockets for his wallet and keys. “The only way. I’m coming Saturday morning. If you don’t let me in…”

  “What?” His father’s chin came up. His accent was never thicker than when he was feeling cornered. “What will you do if I don’t roll over and do every damned thing the city tells me I have to do.”