The Deconstruction Of Walter Pigg: Walter Pigg, #1

By Carl Purdon

How can a man cheat the hangman?

 

… when the hangman is himself.

 

When he's backed himself into a corner with no way out?

 

Walter had done the unthinkable. He had lied to his wife. Deceived her. Not with another woman but with their money. Finances. Gambling debts. They were about to lose their home. His life insurance might save her but nothing could save him.

 

His bookie was sending a man. If not today then tomorrow, or the next day. Walter had heard the stories. The broken kneecaps. Cracked skulls. The men who disappeared without a trace. Hanging had to be easier. Less painful. Final. But life wasn't through with Walter yet.

 

Not by a long shot.

 

If you like strong characters you'll think about long after the book closes, you'll love The Deconstruction Of Walter Pigg.

 

Get it now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carl Purdon
• Release date: Jun 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393546207

Carl Purdon

The voices spoke early to the young boy growing up in 1960s and 70s Mississippi. As soon as his education permitted, he began to write down some of what those voices told him and entertained his family with  boyish poetry. As he grew into his teens the voices spoke of darker things, so he stopped sharing, and soon abandoned writing altogether. The voices didn’t stop. Around the age of forty, Carl began writing his first Novel, The Night Train, and published it in 2012. The Reconstruction Of Walter Pigg is his seventh novel, and picks up where The Deconstruction Of Walter Pigg left off. Carl lives in Pontotoc, Mississippi with his wife, Sharon, and two of their four children. He still listens to the voices.

Book preview

Also by Carl Purdon

THE NIGHT TRAIN

NORTON ROAD

BLINDERS

RED EYES

TEMPLE’S GHOST

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WALTER PIGG

Dedication

To my loving wife, Sharon, for her unwavering support of my lifelong dream.

CHAPTER ONE

The house was old. Antique old, not dilapidated, with a living room ceiling two stories high and an upstairs railing which prevented stepping out of a bedroom and into the living room without taking the stairs. Hardwood floors bore the scratches of a hundred years. An entire century of living under one roof. The original owner had died of tuberculosis in the bedroom Walter shared with his wife, but Walter didn’t believe the story because the original owner had been an Irishman.

Off the living room lay the kitchen where the Piggs took their meals for lack of a formal dining room. They didn’t entertain so the kitchen suited them. Upon taking ownership Walter had converted the downstairs bedroom into a den, then later a study because dens went out of fashion and Mildred insisted an engineer should have a study whether he brings his work home with him or not. Out went the camel-brown sofa with the high back and carved feet and in came a very expensive desk Mildred bought at an estate sale in Aberdeen. It was said to have belonged to a wealthy planter related by marriage to Jefferson Davis. The possibility that Davis might have sat at the desk, or even leaned against it, perhaps rested a drink on it during some social gathering, intrigued Walter, not because he concealed any special admiration for the Confederate president but because Walter had a great respect for history.

It was the middle of the afternoon and Walter had the house to himself because he had feigned a stomachache after lunch. It was Monday, the thirteenth day of June, two thousand sixteen. Duly noted in Walter’s hand across the top of the letter he had left for Mildred on the small table beside the recliner. On that table sat an Iron wood lamp carved in the shape of a lion’s leg by a true African artisan and purchased during a safari by the second owner of the house. The lampshade was the color of a November sunset and the lion’s paw rested with authority on the upper left corner of the letter. It seemed fitting because both lamp and letter were rich with detail. Neither Walter nor the artisan had cut any corners. Everything Mildred would need to sort out the mess Walter had made of things was in the letter, including a reminder that the suicide clause of his life insurance policy had long since expired in case the agent should try to slip a sneaky. Missing was the personal message telling her how much he loved her and how sorry he was for deceiving her. He did and he was, but the words kept getting jumbled so he signed his name and surrendered the letter to the lion.

Walter fetched a chair from the kitchen and placed it meticulously beneath the now-still noose that hung from the upstairs railing so that when he toppled the chair he would drop straight and not swing and sour his stomach. He stepped up and gave the rope a good two-handed tug to set the knot, then checked the noose to make sure it slid with minimum friction. He had purposefully wrapped thirteen coils because thirteen was an unlucky number and bad luck was Walter’s area of expertise. Bad luck oozed from his pores like sweat. Sticky sour sweat that clings to a man’s skin and follows him out of the shower because his insides are rotten from all the wrong he’s done. Wrong on top of wrong, until he can’t stand to be alone with himself for fear his thoughts might drive him mad.

Walter didn’t consider himself insane, though he had overheard his father call him curious when he was twelve. Curious as in peculiar, not inquisitive. He hadn’t much cared what anyone called him after that, and he never told his father he had heard because his father was a good man and Walter didn’t want to burden him with the knowledge that he had hurt his son. One bad thing said in the privacy of one’s living room long past ten on a school night doesn’t make a man a bad father, especially when the person it was said about would not have heard had he not been sneaking to the kitchen for a soda he was already told he couldn’t have.

You have to admit the boy’s curious. Those were the exact words. What his mother had said before or after Walter would never know. Curious, as in strange, not curious as in wanting to know what makes a clock tick or a bird sing. Peculiar, as in keeping a secret because his parents couldn’t have helped but hate him had they known what really happened that day at the gravel pit. Forcing them to hate one son after losing another would have been a cruel and unjust punishment for Walter to inflict on his parents. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath and tried to picture Mark before that day. He tried to imagine how different things might be had it not happened, but no. Even on the brink of death his brain refused to grant him a reprieve.

He looked up, beyond the rope tied to the railing, beyond the ceiling, beyond the green shingled roof, beyond the clouds he couldn’t see but knew were there, all the way up, beyond the blue and the black beyond even that and straight into heaven where Cecil and Mae Pigg were at that very moment looking down on him with disapproval for what he was about to do even though they knew what he had done because angels know everything and if Cecil and Mae Pigg weren’t angels then angels couldn’t possibly exist. Heaven itself could not exist without Walter’s parents because they were dead and every preacher he had ever known had told him good Christians go to heaven and Cecil and Mae Pigg were Christian to the core even if one had said something that caused the other to say you have to admit the boy’s curious.

He looked up through the ceiling and shingled roof and into heaven and asked aloud for a sign that some exception might be made in his case because he was terrified of hell. Some assurance that a prayer murmured in his last moments of consciousness might gain him forgiveness. Save his soul from eternal damnation. That his works might be graded on a curve given the sorry hand life had dealt him.

No. That’s not how it works, but still ...

He slipped the noose over his head and pulled it snug against his neck with the knot slightly behind his left ear. The knot drooped to his shoulder as his hand fell away. He slowly bent his knees to make sure the rope tightened high against the right side of his neck just below the jawbone so it would clamp the jugular vein and render him unconscious in less than half a minute. Half a minute of no blood to the brain beat three minutes of kicking and clawing and silent screaming should the rope spare the vein and crush the windpipe. Half a minute gave him time to beg forgiveness and hopefully rescue his soul from eternal damnation because he believed salvation can come in an instant if one is truly repentant, which he wasn’t at that moment but hoped to be once the rope jerked tight. Half a minute of intense suffering beat an eternity in hell should the drop break his neck instantly and rob him of the opportunity to regret what he was about to do.

Aren’t you watching this Mother, he mumbled, still looking up. Dad?

Nothing. As an afterthought he included Mark in his plea, then he took three deep breaths and steeled himself for the journey. Up, down, or into the vacuum of unknowing oneness with nothing. It was too late to worry about what people might think. That ship had sailed. People were of no use to him now. People judge and make assumptions and cast aspersions based solely on the one percent they know of a man. Men are like icebergs. It wasn’t the shiny ice above the surface that sank the Titanic. Walter hadn’t liked people in such a long time. He could count on one hand the people who might attend his funeral without grumbling.

Mildred would move on. She was a strong woman. A good woman. As good a woman as any man deserved. Better than he deserved by any stretch of the imagination though she would deny it. She would say the opposite, that it was she who didn’t deserve him, which was true but not in the way she would say it. She would say he was better than she deserved because that’s the kind of generous woman she was and it wouldn’t be a lie, not because it was true but because she believed it to be true and a lie requires intent.

He hesitated yet again, second-guessing himself for not telling Mildred what really happened that day when he was ten. She knew the story but not the truth. He twisted his head toward the paper held to the table by the lion’s paw. Held as though his soul leaving his body might whip up a wind and blow the paper away where it wouldn’t be found, leaving Mildred to discover the truth on her own. When the next bank statement came in the mail, or the tow truck driver showed up to take her car. Perhaps he had no soul. Perhaps that’s why he felt such an emptiness inside. A great void where his soul should be, as though someone had removed the seed from a peach without breaking the peel so that the meat of the fruit encircled nothing.

You have to admit the boy’s curious.

Financial ruin was burden enough. Too much, but he couldn’t undo what he had spent the last two years doing. The only way to lessen her burden was by not heaping misery on top of misery, so he raised his right foot and placed the hard sole of his slipper against the back of the chair and applied just enough pressure to set himself, then he closed his eyes and heard an explosion of glass that almost made him kick the chair prematurely. His eyes flew wide and he saw a baseball bounce off the wall and roll underneath the sofa, leaving a trail of broken glass in its wake. He looked upward again, through the ceiling and green shingles and past the clouds, then he loosened the noose and jerked it over his head with great relief and rushed to the window in time to see three boys flee his lawn.

THREE BOYS, IDENTIFIABLE only by age and race, approximately, one attribute being as hard to nail down as the other, ran from his lawn, leaped the sidewalk, then disappeared down the street. Neighborhood kids he had chased from his yard a dozen times. Three broken windows in three months, the difference this time being that he knew instead of suspected, not that it meant the police would believe him. His word against ... societal upheaval.

Even Mildred had balked at his idea to install a game camera in the yard, saying they were children, not animals. A debatable point in Walter’s view, but as was his way, he had relented. Too bad, he thought, as he went to the kitchen and fetched the broom and dustpan, otherwise his proof would be concrete. As it stood, all he had were a few shards of glass and a ball with fingerprints.

He swept the glass into a pile then into the dustpan. A lone sliver refused to go in no matter how he hit it with the broom, so forgetting his wits he stooped down and picked it up with his fingers. The outcome was predictable. He slapped the handle of the broom to the floor and jerked himself straight, then flung the dustpan against the wall in anger. When he pulled the bit of glass from the tip of his index finger the blood dribbled out and spread underneath the nail. Not being one for the sight of blood, especially his own, he rushed upstairs and rummaged the bathroom medicine cabinet for some antibiotic salve and a Band-Aid, then realizing a Band-Aid can’t be placed on a fingertip no matter how hard one might try, he discarded it into the trashcan and started back downstairs to call the police, sucking the tip of his finger as he went. Halfway down he saw his wife standing in the doorway with a dark-skinned boy who looked to be no more than four or five. Younger and smaller than he had judged but they had been running. You caught one! He rushed down and grabbed the boy by the ear and jerked him from the threshold. Come take a look at what you did!

Walter!

Mildred slapped his hand from the boy’s ear. Whose side are you on here, Walter said, then to the boy in his gruffest voice, Who’s your mother!

Mildred put her hand on Walter’s shoulder and tried to push him back. Walter Pigg this is your grandson!

Every molecule in Walter’s body froze at the word grandson. Physical and mental. It all ground to a halt. Everything. Had the house caught fire and burned to the ground he might have died in that spot. Except for the sting of the flames against his flesh he might have welcomed it. Had he known what was to come he might have struck the match himself.

His name’s Jackson, Mildred said, but it didn’t sound like her talking. It sounded distant and strained. Broken up the way radio waves sputter when the signal is bad.

It was the worst thing anyone could have said to him. Then, If this is a joke. He tried to laugh but couldn’t. Of course it was a joke. It had to be. They didn’t have a grandson. Especially not —.

Amy’s back, Mildred said.

For a moment Walter thought she said Amy’s black, and he opened his mouth to tell her how ridiculous she was, then he realized his mistake and it all seemed so sudden. First the broken window then —.

She’ll be along in a little while and you’d better not yell at her.

Walter looked past Mildred toward the door. It was a joke. There must be a camera somewhere. Mildred had borrowed a neighborhood boy and was making a joke. My birthday! You’ve never been able to surprise me so you decided to pull a prank.

It’s not a prank, Mildred said. She was doing a great job looking sore. You’d better get it out of your system before she gets here!

The threshold was empty. No one had a camera pointed at him. He looked at Mildred again and saw how angry she was and she wouldn’t take a prank this far, especially not on his birthday. All the oxygen seemed to evaporate from the room. My chest is tight, he said.

Stop it, Mildred said.

This is your fault, he said. Ole Miss was your idea.

Ole Miss was her idea, Mildred said, and it had nothing to do with this.

This, Walter said, trying desperately to figure out what this was.

Don’t you dare say another word, Mildred said. Our daughter’s home and you’d better mind your tongue. Say hello to your grandfather, Jackson.

The boy stood fast with his eyes glued to the floor and paid Walter no attention whatsoever. His skin was light enough for the father to be Hispanic, but the hair was wrong.

You used the front door, Walter said. We never use the front door. You caught him in the front yard and you —.

I used the front door because I noticed the broken window coming up the driveway, she said. Say hello to your grandfather, she said again, then in a whisper so only Walter could hear, I don’t think he talks.

Walter lifted the boy’s face by the chin and examined him. He looks normal. Excepting skin tone.

Run upstairs and wash your face, Mildred said. The boy didn’t move.

I don’t think he runs, either, Walter said, then he saw Mildred’s eyes drift across his shoulder toward the rope he had forgotten in all the commotion. I can explain that.

Please take it down before Amy gets here, she said, then up the stairs she went with the boy in tow.

JACKSON SAT IN WALTER’S recliner without knowing better, forcing Walter to sit on the couch with Mildred, who had not yet explained why she didn’t call and tell him Amy was coming home, or that he had a grandson whose skin was the color of chocolate milk. His mistaking the boy for a hoodlum was an understandable mistake considering the timing of the broken window and by any stretch of the imagination shouldn’t erase his right to an explanation.

Naturally I thought he was one of them, Walter said to Mildred when the time seemed appropriate to resume the matter.

Naturally you would, she said, him being darker than you.

That’s unfair, Mildred.

Yes it is.

One of the boys was white, I think, he said. Had you shown up at the door with a white boy I would have reacted the same.

Even after I told you he was your grandson?

How long have you known?

Since this afternoon.

And you’re telling me you weren’t shocked?

Her face betrayed her. Of course she was shocked. Why shouldn’t she be? Reverse the roles and black grandparents would be shocked at a white grandson. It doesn’t make them racist, it makes them human. Ordinary. People expect what they expect.

Well?

I was shocked to have a grandson, she said. Not at his color.

Hogwash. I don’t believe you. You were as shocked as I was. You’re just better at hiding your feelings. In your line of work you have to be.

My line of work?

Public service.

What public service? I’m office administrator for the mayor. He’s the public servant.

And you’re his proxy.

No I’m not.

Then you’re the face people see when they come to see him.

Meaning?

Meaning you have to be politically correct. Careful.

I don’t have to be careful, Walter, because I don’t think the way you do.

She was being difficult on purpose. I won’t even bother calling the police this time. What use is there? If they send anyone at all they’ll make a report and probably not even file it.

They always send someone.

Eventually, he said. How long did it take last time?

They have real crimes to solve, Mildred said. Something she had probably heard the mayor say to one of his complainers. Walter stopped short of criticizing the mayor because Mildred was fond of the man.

Report a broken window and they look at you as though reporting is the crime and not the breaking. Down is up and up is down. He looked at the boy who was still in his chair without knowing better. For future reference I sit in that chair. Got it?

Walter!

He can at least acknowledge me, Walter said. If he can’t speak then he can nod, or blink, or tap his foot three times.

Mildred flew from the couch and scooped the boy up as though Walter had beaten him with a club. Walter felt the heat of her eyes on his back as he seized the recliner. Facing her again, in partial recline, he marveled at her ability to overreact.

I took half a day because it’s my birthday, he said, supposing she was wondering why he was not at work when she got home. I’m entitled to half a day on my birthday, aren’t I?

Mildred shot to her feet, dumping the boy off her lap and onto the middle cushion. Walter’s instinct was to flinch. Mildred had never struck him but today was no ordinary day. I forgot your cake in the car! She rushed from the room as though an unattended cake might explode, as though she had left the grandson in the car and not the cake.

Walter couldn’t help but laugh. She’s always forgetting something, he said, then he remembered something he had forgotten. Don’t move, he said as he left the recliner and retrieved a roll of duct tape from the utility room then a cracker box from the pantry, dumping the crackers on the kitchen table as he passed. He ripped the box lengthways from the corner and placed it over the hole, red side out so Mrs. Crinch across the street would see it and drag out her binoculars for a closer look. She had been the county’s chancery clerk, elected twice then defeated. Relegated to retirement, then her husband died and she took to sitting all day at the window watching Walter through binoculars as though he were a bird.

As an afterthought he pulled the cardboard from the hole and drew a smiley face on the outside with a Sharpie, then put it back and sealed it with tape. That’ll keep out the flies, he said without turning, hoping to see the curtains move across the street. He had heard Mildred come in through the back door then into the living room from the kitchen. She could describe those boys to a T. Could and would being the operative words. I bet she sat at that window and watched them throw the ball.

She’s an old woman, Mildred said. She’s probably afraid to say anything.

Walter turned. Ha! She doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t like me. Someday it’ll be her window that gets broken. How will she feel then?

Sit down, Walter. It’s only a window. Before Walter could argue she reminded him that Amy would be home soon. I hope you’ll let her settle in before you interrogate her.

Honestly Mildred, you make me sound awful.

Not awful, she said. Persistently rigid.

He returned the tape to the utility room because putting things where they go means finding them next time you look. When he returned to the living room Mildred was on the sofa stroking the boy’s hair.

Admit it, he said. You had lunch with her.

With Mrs. Crinch?

Don’t be sly, Mildred. You know very well I mean Amy.

I had lunch with Angela, she said. Angela and I always have lunch at Corky’s on Monday.

Meanwhile I brown bag.

No one’s stopping you from going out to lunch, Walter.

I save ten dollars a day bringing my lunch from home. Fifty dollars a week. Two hundred dollars a month. Two thousand five hundred dollars per year, every year. He saw the light bulb go off in her eyes and knew she was about to correct his math. Two weeks of vacation per year, he said, extinguishing the light. I’m an engineer, remember. Calculations are my thing. People think accountants are the mathematical whizzes but they deal in finances. They count money. Engineers are the real mathematicians. If we forget to carry a one something falls down.

Minus the cost of the food you carry from home, she said. Ten dollars a day minus that.

Touché, he said. You should take our grandson to the kitchen for some cake.

Amy’s not here yet, she said.

You know I don’t like surprise parties, Mildred. He disliked parties in general, but he hated surprise parties in particular. Nothing kills a birthday like coming home to people jumping out from behind the furniture and yelling at the top of their lungs then staying past their welcome.

There’s no party, Walter. Just cake. If you don’t want it you don’t have to eat it but I’m not cutting it until Amy gets here. And it’s your birthday so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Walter deposited himself in his chair. The recliner. I can’t read the paper anyplace but here, he said. Reading on the couch gives me a crick in my neck.

You have your chair and your paper so read. No one’s stopping you.

I’m simply explaining why I need the chair.

You have the chair.

It’s a medical condition. My father had neck cricks.

Read your paper.

Walter took the newspaper from the table beside his chair and unrolled it. The paperboy always rolled it too tight. Complaining to the main office did about as much good as calling the police to report a broken window. Customer service is dead, he said as he flattened the paper against his thighs and watched it curl at the edges. You never get to talk to a real person anymore. He looked up to see that Mildred paid him no mind. Nowadays you’re lucky if they even have a phone number listed. Everything’s done by email. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to actually read an email past the first two sentences? Send more than a few and they stop responding altogether.

He read the first paragraph of the front page above-the-fold article. Two men had robbed the Texaco and made off with less than two hundred dollars. Robbery still made the front page, which spoke well of their small town. Not true in the bigger cities where gangs and prostitutes and homeless drug addicts roamed the streets. They start by breaking windows, he said without looking up. Civilization was built on that premise. He scanned below the fold. The supervisors held another board meeting and doled out money for county employees to attend conferences in Biloxi. Why do they always have to hold conferences in Biloxi? Why not Jackson?

No one wants to go to Jackson, Mildred said.

Exactly! Jackson’s not safe. They should hold their conferences where normal people have to live.

Normal people live in Biloxi too, Mildred said. It’s your birthday, Walter. If reading the paper upsets you then don’t read it.

He folded the paper and set it aside. "People are bound to ask questions. One mention that I have a grandson and it’ll be let’s see a picture."

So show them a picture.

Wouldn’t that be a hoot? He knew he was pushing his luck but he couldn’t help it. When he got aggravated he couldn’t control himself. We’ll be the laughing stock of the neighborhood.

A noise from the kitchen brought Mildred off the sofa. Amy. Mildred hurried away and Walter rose to follow, then his phone rang and the name on the display stopped him in his tracks.

THE NAME PERRY STUBBS existed in Walter’s phone contacts disguised as one of his coworkers at Hegger & Associates, complete with faux email address and the title of Project Engineer. When the phone rang and the name appeared, Walter answered without thinking. He was startled into answering, as though the ringing itself forced his finger to the screen, then he stood dumbfounded, not knowing what to say even though Mildred had fled the room.

In his ear he heard the voice of the man who would be his undoing. Where’s my money, Pigg?

No, it wasn’t Stubbs who would undo Walter. Walter had done it to himself, and he had done it to Mildred, too, though she didn’t yet know it. Poor thing. She was partly to blame for trusting him with the finances. Not exactly blind trust because slipping his misdeeds past her required some trickery on his part.

In your pocket, Walter said. Everything and more!

There better be more.

You have it all, Walter said. You’ve bled me dry. Drained the well. I’m a wrung out rag.

Not yet you’re not wrung out, Pigg, Stubbs said. Because I’m not done wringing! His voice brought to mind a short grubby imp, but Stubbs was tall and lanky. Physically he was spent due to age, but he had a part-time guy who had broken Grant Kirkshire’s arm in three places.

You coming Walter? It was Mildred. Mildred’s head, at least.

Can’t she come in here? He ended the call and turned off the ringer.

Mildred mouthed the word cake. His birthday. He had forgotten. Fifty years and already he was forgetting things.

By the time he reached the kitchen the phone was tickling his leg. Seeing Amy took his breath. You look like a Barbie doll come to life, he said. She was more tan and blonder than he remembered and he wasn’t sure he liked the change.

She rushed forward and threw herself into his chest. Hello, Daddy. I’ve missed you so much.

So much you didn’t call.

Oh Daddy.

Let her settle in, Walter.

It’s not like we asked you to send us a finger, he said. Or a lock of hair.

Everybody sit, Mildred said. Not Papaw’s seat, she said to the boy when he bellied up to the head of the table. Still the boy tried. He doesn’t know, Mildred said to Walter as though he had already scolded him.

They sat and Mildred brought out a platter of fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, and mashed potatoes.

You cooked that in a hurry, Walter said.

I stopped at KFC on the way home.

They joined hands and Walter blessed the food. Short and sweet because he was hungry and it wasn’t every day that Mildred let him eat fried chicken. Grilled, baked, or broiled ruled Walter’s life of late because Mildred had succumbed to the popular belief that flavor kills. If it tastes good, spit it out.

I’m glad you’ve taught Jackson to say Grace, Mildred said. Too many parents these days don’t.

Walter thought his daughter’s smile forced. The boy hadn’t actually done anything other than not pull his hand away when Walter took one and Amy the other. He was still looking at the floor after the amen just as he had been before the blessing commenced, but if it made Mildred happy to think it was learned behavior then so be it.

I haven’t had fried chicken in years, Amy said. It looks delicious.

I haven’t had fried anything, Walter said. It’s a wonder I’m not green from all the leafy vegetables your mother forces down me.

Amy laughed. It felt good to hear her laugh again. So good it almost brought a tear to his eye thinking how much he had missed her. It looks good on you, Daddy, she said. Mother knows what she’s doing.

Your father’s wore the same size pants since he was forty, Mildred said. Ten years and he hasn’t gained an ounce.

Walter felt the phone vibrate in his pocket as he opened his mouth to speak and he forgot what he was about to say so he cleared his throat and forked a chicken breast from the platter. When in doubt, eat. Conversation abated as they emptied their plates and filled their bellies. Afterward Walter pushed himself back from the table and dropped his wadded napkin into a plate of bones and addressed the elephant in the room. Now that we’ve eaten, he said, cutting his eyes toward Mildred with a warning not to challenge what he was about to say. I suppose you’d like to explain yourself.

You don’t have to explain anything, Mildred said in open defiance.

Knowing makes your mother less curious, Walter said. Mothers and daughters keep things from husbands and fathers. On occasion the man of the house stumbles into the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, and overhears things he wishes he could un-hear, which is why they keep such things from him in the first place. Under ordinary circumstances, Walter didn’t mind the game, but keeping a grandson secret is over the top. Out of bounds. Unthinkable.

Walter had secrets. In March Perry Stubbs had offered hundred-to-one odds that Donald Trump would not be the next President and Walter, a lifelong democrat, slapped down a thousand dollars not because he thought Trump had a chance but because the odds were too lopsided to resist. Even Stubbs himself chuckled when he wrote out the ticket and stuffed it into Walter’s shirt pocket then slapped him on the back and said, Pigg you won’t do.

Well, Pigg did, and for three months solid he had kicked himself for being such a silly fool. At times he still felt the cold hand of Perry Stubbs on his back. Explaining that one to Mildred would be awkward, assuming she was still listening after the overall picture of catastrophe settled into her bones. Broke is broke and everything going back to the lender or being sold off to pay the bookie was inevitable whether she knew or didn’t know that one thousand dollars of the reason was a real estate mogul with orange hair.

It had long ago stopped being about the likelihood something would or would not happen. No longer was it a game of chance. Walter was a slave to the odds, and both he and Perry Stubbs seemed hell-bent on seeing which one could best the other. All Walter needed was for things to break his way just once. One big win would shuck the monkey off his back and put him in the clear so he didn’t have to tell Mildred anything, but to win big he had to bet big, and betting big these days meant more credit from Stubbs. What did Stubbs have to lose? Loaning money to Walter so Walter could place bets with Stubbs was a win-win for the imp who grew tall. Tall lanky cigar-chomping Perry Stubbs, sitting behind his grubby little desk in the back room of his pawnshop raking in his own cash, and charging Walter twenty points a week for the pleasure. If Stubbs was the company store, Walter was the hireling who couldn’t admit when he was licked. Well, he was licked, admit it or don’t.

In his pocket the phone vibrated and across the table Mildred swore she didn’t know anything he didn’t know, at least he thought that