He understands that it’s not surprising. When Johnny first came home, she had no use for him, but the more Cal sees of Johnny, the more he figures there are ways Trey’s brother Brendan took after his daddy. Trey idolized Brendan. If she saw in Johnny flashes of things she had thought were lost to her, she might find it hard to turn away.
Cal knows, not that it makes any difference, that Johnny isn’t deliberately trying to put the kid in harm’s way. He doubts that the extent of the possible harm has even crossed Captain Chucklefuck’s mind. Johnny has a plan, and everything is going to plan, so in his head, everything is hunky-dory. He has no conception of the dangers of being the one with a plan, when your targets have no such thing and are willing instead to do whatever the situation demands.
The undergrowth ticks and twitches as things follow their accustomed trails among it; a weasel or a stoat streaks neatly across the path, fine as a brushstroke, and vanishes into the other side. The moon moves, shifting the shadows. Cal wishes, with a surge of something that feels like vast dawning grief, that Johnny had waited even one more year, till Cal had had just a little more time to shore up the kid’s cracked places, before he came prancing into town breaking things.
He hears Johnny coming before he sees him. The dumb fuck is sauntering up the mountain singing to himself, softly and happily: “But I’m tired of all this pleasure, so I’m off to take my leisure, and the next thing that you’ll hear from me is a letter from New York…”
Cal stands up quietly, in the shadow of the tree. He lets Johnny get within ten feet before he steps out onto the path.
Johnny leaps and shies sideways like a spooked horse. Then he recognizes Cal and recovers himself. “Fuck, man, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he says, hand to his chest, managing to pull out a laugh. “You’d want to watch yourself, doing that. Another man woulda given you a clatter, if you took him by surprise like that. What are you doing out here, anyhow? I thought you were headed home to the bed.”
Cal says, “You said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Jesus, man, cool the jets. ’Tisn’t life-or-death. It can wait—I’ve been celebrating here, I’m in no state to be having delicate conversations. And neither are you, if you’re out here getting brambles stuck in your arse at this hour; you musta got a touch of the sun on that river. Go on home. I’ll buy you a straightener tomorrow, and we’ll have a nice civilized chat then.”
Cal says, “I been waiting here two hours to hear whatever you’ve got to say. Go ahead and say it.”
He watches Johnny eye him and the escape routes. Johnny isn’t drunk, but he’s considerably closer to it than Cal is, and the terrain has too many surprises to favor a quarry with no head start.
Johnny sighs, running a hand over his hair. “All right,” he says, marshaling his resources to humor the pushy Yank. “Here’s the story. No offense, now, and don’t be shooting the messenger, yeah?”
“Takes a lot to offend me,” Cal says.
Johnny grins automatically. “That’s a great thing, man. Listen: I hate to say it, but my friend Mr. Rushborough, he’s after taking against you. No reason that he’s given me; he just doesn’t like the cut of you. You make him nervous, he says. I’d say ’tis just that you don’t fit the idea of the place that he’s got into his head, d’you know what I mean? Them hairy aul’ farm fellas that smell of sheep shite and tin whistles and forty shades of green, they’re what he came looking for. A street-smart Chicago cop like yourself…” He turns up his palms. “That doesn’t fit the image at all, at all. ’Tisn’t your fault, but you’re upsetting the dream. And men get awful edgy if you upset their dreams.”
“Huh,” Cal says. “You know what, I had a feeling it was gonna be something along those lines. Maybe I’m psychic.”
“Sure, you’re a man of experience,” Johnny explains. “A man that’s seen as much of the world as you have, he can spot when another man’s taken against him. It happens sometimes, no rhyme nor reason to it. But you see where that leaves us, don’t you? If you were to stay on board with this, Rushborough’d only keep getting edgier, till in the end he’d decide,
“Yeah,” Cal says. “Like I said, no surprises there. Now it’s my turn. Run whatever con you want, I don’t give a shit. Like you said, I’m not from around here. But you don’t get to bring Trey into it. She has to live here, once you and Whatshisname are done and gone.”
