The Long Fall Read Online Free PDF

Correctional: time.
    Which is why he’s ended up in his brother’s office, Jimmy grinding his teeth and having to listen to Richard as he paces around the room like a prosecuting attorney building a case.
    “It never stops, and you never learn,” Richard says, pausing by the corner of the desk. Just behind and to his left, the screen saver on the computer pops up.
    Jimmy gets up and walks past Richard, then bends over and squints at the screen. It holds six photos shrunken to the size of playing cards. Standard family stuff of their mother and father and Richard’s wife, Evelyn, and one of Richard at the groundbreaking for the first Frontier Cleaners.
    Jimmy’s momentarily distracted by a shot of Evelyn in a scooped-neck blue dress—she’s a former airline attendant and had a pair on her that would make a blind man weep—before he notices the screen does not contain a single shot of him. He’s AWOL from every photo, cropped from Richard’s miniature pictorial family history.
    Jimmy’s stomach starts growling again.
    Richard’s still waiting for him to say something.
    Jimmy walks back to his seat.
    “You can’t do it, can you?” Richard asks. “You show up here, but you can’t bring yourself to ask. What do you expect me to do? Blind myself like dad and then go on and clean up after you and pretend it’s going to make a difference this time?”
    “Let’s leave dad out of this,” Jimmy says. “You’ve made your point.”
    “You really think it’s that simple, don’t you?”
    The money part was, Jimmy thinks. Money is always simple. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you spend it. If you don’t, you find a way to get some. It was Richard’s long dot-every-i memory that complicated things. That and the fact that when it came to passing judgment on anything, Richard had two favorite colors: black and white.
    Jimmy watches Richard move behind the desk again. He steeples his fingers, then looks out the window and back at Jimmy.
    “I’m not doing this for you, you know.”
    Richard adjusts his cuffs and then slides a sheath of papers across the desk. “You want to sign those, Jimmy, I can start the follow-up.”
    Jimmy leans forward in his chair. “Papers?” he asks. “I thought you were going to cut a check, like a loan.”
    “Dad named me executor of the estate, Jimmy. I’m working with his lawyer, Ben Caplan, through all the probate hassles. Things are badly tangled.”
    Jimmy nods, but he can’t untrack the thought that he’d be walking out of the office with a check.
    “What are the papers for?” he asks finally.
    “Power of attorney. You sign them, and I’ll be authorized to settle your end of the inheritance. I’ll pass the check on to Caplan, and he can push through the paperwork on the back taxes and probate costs and keep the Dobbins parcel off the auction block.”
    “I guess so,” Jimmy says. “How long’s this going to take?”
    “I told you, Caplan’s a good attorney. A personal friend, too. He’ll get it done quickly and efficiently.”
    Jimmy balks some more, his misgivings mixing with thoughts of Ray Harp and the deadlines Jimmy’s missed, Ray working on a different clock from Richard and this Caplan guy.
    “What’s the problem now, Jimmy?” The patience is leaking out of Richard’s voice, and he’s begun lightly tapping the edge of the desk, the fingers of his right hand soft but insistent.
    “I don’t know. I just didn’t think it would be this complicated,” Jimmy says.
    “What do you want me to do? Remember, you came to me, Jimmy. You have some other way to cover what’s owed on the Dobbins parcel, that’s fine.” Richard pauses, letting the silence take on some weight before going on. “Given your track record on repaying personal loans, I’d prefer that.”
    “Okay, okay,” Jimmy says, wanting to avoid that particular stretch of road. He gestures toward the papers. “I get copies, right?”
    “Of course.” Richard takes out a