The Last Coin Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mrs. Gummidge is with her now, but
she
shouldn’t have to do all the smoothing over. Not when it was you chasing …”
    “ ’Possums. I was chasing ‘possums.” He turned away and walked toward the door. “I’m going out to the restaurant and inventory supplies. Have you seen my copy of
Grossman’s Guide
? I can’t make another move without it.”
    “There’s work that needs to be done worse than that.”
    “Later. I promise I’ll do it this afternoon. Draw me up a list. Either the restaurant will open or it won’t. I don’t think you’re as keen on it opening as I am.”
    “I think we need a chef, and I don’t think we can afford one.”
    “That’s just it.
I’m
the chef, Pickett has volunteered as
maître d’
    until we get onto our feet. But unless I get things squared away out there, we don’t have a chance. I’ll need more money, by the way. I’m over budget now.”
    “Talk to Aunt Naomi.”
    “Maybe
you
should, what with this ’possum business and all.” He bent across and kissed her on the cheek, trying to look cheerful and matter-of-fact and swearing to himself that he
would
set in to paint the garage that afternoon. For certain he would, just as soon as he finished the business of shaping up the bar. Talk to Aunt Naomi—the idea of it appalled him.
    “Square it with her this afternoon,” Rose said. “She doesn’t bite. Explain yourself a little bit, and she’ll see reason. And don’t carry on about ‘possums, for heaven’s sake. She thinks you’re insane. You know that, don’t you? Remember when you told her about how many baby ‘possums could sit in a teaspoon, and then tried to say that that’s how ‘possum mothers carried their babies around? In a spoon? Don’t talk that way, not in front of Aunt Naomi. You can talk nuts like that all afternoon with Pickett, but for goodness sake, leave it alone in front of people who don’t understand it.”
    He nodded, as if he thought Rose had given him good advice. But she gave him a look, seeing through him again, so he winked at her and went out, trying to seem jolly. She was right, of course. He’d have to confront the old woman after lunch. He’d bring her chocolates and flowers and explain about the mythical ’possum—not terrify her with it, of course, or say anything nuts. He’d just tell her about how it was big as a dog and had threatened her cats and about how the beasts burrow under bedsheets and build nests. If he spread himself a little bit, there’d be no telling what he might convince her of.
    Jules Pennyman crouched outside the kitchen door, dabbing at his shoes with a rag. The shoes were already polished—they were new, in fact—and so didn’t, maybe, need much dabbing. But he dabbed at them anyway, with the same methodical squint and tilt of the head with which he regarded himself in the mirror each morning when he trimmed his mustache and beard. His feet hurt, actually, as if his shoes were two sizes too small. There was damn-all he could do about it though, except hide the pain and wait for it to get worse.
    He wore a Vandyke beard, razor-cut to a point that could have impaled a potato. His silver hair was brushed back cleanly—the sort of hair that wouldn’t allow itself to become tousled unless the situation absolutely called for it. He might have been a barber, talcumed and rose-oiled and with a mustache that curled at the ends. What he was, though, no one was certain. He was “retired” and had been in the import-export business. He wore white suits. He collected silver coins. He was a product, he said, of the “old school.” He had appeared at the doorstep some weeks back, having returned from travel in the east, and looking for a place, he said, where he could “watch the sea.” And he had the habit of paying his rent on time—even early. This last virtue alone was enough to recommend him, at least to Rose.
    He was well read, too. Andrew had liked that at first, and had made a show of