Читать книгу Glory Boys - Harry Bingham - Страница 35

The shop was dim compared with the street outside, but then again since the street outside was a blaze of white dust and air so hot it practically buckled, dim wasn’t a bad way to be.

The kid kicked around at the back of the store, waiting while Hennessey finished serving an old lady customer at the front. The kid was down in the hardware section, fingering the metal pans full of nails, weighing the hammerheads and axe handles. The old lady left the shop. Lundmark approached.

‘Afternoon, Mr Hennessey.’

‘Hey, Brad. Fancy some candy?’

The storekeeper pulled a jar of Brad’s favourite candy from the shelf behind him. The kid looked embarrassed, sticking his hands in his pockets.

‘Oh, gee, no, it’s OK, I didn’t mean to – I didn’t come out with any –’

‘This candy’s a treat between friends. I didn’t mean for you to pay.’

‘Oh, gosh, Mr Hennessey, thanks.’

The old man and the young one went silent as they chewed on the pink and white candy. Brad was still of school age and his mom’s blind eyes didn’t let her earn a living. The two of them lived off the town’s charity and the poorer the town got, the poorer the Lundmarks became.

‘Good candy.’

‘Yeah.’

Hennessey could tell the boy wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure about doing so. The older man let him take his time. Another customer came in, asked for a bolt of cloth, was told it hadn’t come in yet. The customer left.

‘Say,’ said Brad, who had plucked up his courage, ‘I keep telling Mom it’s time she let me earn a little money. Schooling don’t bother me none, only it don’t pay nothing either.’

‘That’s a problem with it,’ said Hennessey, hoping the boy wasn’t going to ask him for a position.

‘She thinks I ought to become a carpenter like my pa.’

‘He was good with his hands, your pa.’

‘Yeah…’

‘And sometimes you know those things run in the blood.’

‘Yeah…’

‘Only if I’m guessing right, you don’t fancy the carpenting line of work over much.’

‘Not so much.’

Hennessey was more sure now that the boy was going to ask for a job – a request which Hennessey would absolutely have to refuse – and his manner stiffened as he waited.

‘But I reckon you’re right about them things running in the blood, though.’

‘Yes?’

The boy looked up, suddenly bold. ‘Oh say, Mr Hennessey, it ain’t carpenting work I want, it’s mechanics. I am good with my hands, even Captain Rockwell said so. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, really. There are four auto shops in Brunswick now. I’ll bet one of them needs an apprentice around the place. I could come home every Sunday. I wouldn’t need hardly nothing to live off and Ma could have everything else.’

He stopped abruptly and the storekeeper finished for him. ‘Only your ma wants you to stay at home. She doesn’t like the thought of you heading off to Brunswick.’

The kid didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. It was the same all over Independence. Ever since Marion had begun its war of attrition against their neighbours up the hill, the town had been dying. Kids left, not to come back. Businesses folded. Farms went under. Hennessey was an Independence man born and bred, but he couldn’t deny that the kid spoke sense. There was no use in trying to hold the youngsters back. They had their own lives to live.

‘I’ll speak to Sal,’ said Hennessey. ‘I expect I can talk her round.’

‘Gee, would you? Gosh, thanks! And I promise –’

Hennessey raised a hand. ‘No promises, Brad.’ He hesitated. Under the counter, he’d kept a newspaper from a couple of months back. The newspaper had contained an item about the inaugural Miami–Havana mail flight, about Captain Rockwell and his new airfield in the south.

‘Autos. That’s your thing, huh?’

‘Oh sure. You know Captain Rockwell started out as a racing car mechanic. One day, I’d love to do that, but meantime

‘How ’bout airplanes, Brad?’

‘Airplanes?’

The air turned still. The silence turned holy.

Hennessey produced the paper. ‘Now don’t you dare tell your ma I showed you this. It ain’t autos, Brad, but if you don’t mind slumming it, there’s a guy working down in Miami who might have a job for the likes of you.’

He handed over the newspaper. The kid read the article, his eyes shining.

‘Gee, Mr Hennessey, do you really think he’d –?’

‘I’ve no idea. You’d best ask him that yourself. And, listen up, Brad, mind you don’t tell him I said you go see him.’

‘I shouldn’t?’

‘No, son, better not.’

The kid looked back at the newspaper, doubtfully. ‘But, you know Mr Hennessey, Miami’s a whole lot further than Brunswick…’

Hennessey suddenly felt bad about doing what he’d just done. He couldn’t have said why, but he felt like he was a man betraying a trust. He grabbed the tall glass jar of candy, tipped some out into a brown paper bag and thrust the bag over the counter, restoring the jar to its place on the shelf with his free hand.

‘I’ll speak to your ma. I’ll ask her about Brunswick. I won’t say anything about Miami, let alone airplanes. If you choose to jump on the eight o’clock freight train when it slows down just this side of Williams Point and ride it all the way down to Miami, then that wouldn’t really be my business now, would it?’

A couple more customers came into the shop, one of them Jeb Gibbs, a seventy-five-year-old man whose sweet-tempered moonshine whiskey had kept him one of the wealthiest men in town for as long as anyone could remember. Gibbs was a customer Hennessey did a lot to keep sweet. The storekeeper greeted the newcomers and flashed a last glance at Lundmark. The kid had grabbed his bag of candy and stood with it held against his chest like something precious.

‘Williams Point, huh?’ he breathed.

‘I’ll talk to her,’ said the storeman, ‘but no promises.’

The kid left. Hennessey watched him all the way into the dazzle of the street and the deep indigo shadows of the further side. He hadn’t done anything so bad, had he? And if he hadn’t, then how come he felt like such a louse for doing it?