Waiting for Joe Read Online Free PDF Page B

whatthey’d like to do to a pedophile who has abducted a young boy at a bus depot in Brandon, Manitoba, and is reported to be heading west.
    Joe finds a table near the rear of the coffee shop, adjacent to a window, while Pete takes his place in the lineup at the counter. Where once he would have faced the early morning crowd, Joe chooses to turn his back to it, staring at the window, opaque with mist, obliterating sight of the strip mall beyond. A chest X-ray, he thinks. He looks down at his hands spread across the table, fingers stiff and the knuckles enlarged and scuffed from the recent marathon of getting rid of what amounted to fifty-one years of his and his father’s life. He imagines Alfred’s hands, his father’s fingers shiny with slime as he tears the entrails from a fish.
Look here, Joe, our supper
. Joe smells kerosene and wood smoke, the time of the yellow canoe.
    Pete makes his way slowly among the tables, his eyes fixed on the tray he carries, intent on not spilling the coffees. He unloads the brimming mugs and two bagels with exaggerated efficiency. “At your service.”
    “Hey, what’s this?” Joe asks and indicates the bagel, the container of cream cheese tucked in beside it on the plate.
    “You don’t eat bagels?” Pete looks worried.
    “Sure, but you said just coffee. Thanks, buddy.”
    “The tip’s not included.” Pete grins. The gum between his missing teeth is purplish and swollen. Joe busies himself with the sugar and cream.
    Pete takes a wad of papers from his chest pocket, unfolds them carefully and smooths them flat against the table. “Take a look,” he says and slides them across the table to Joe.
    On the top page are drawings of boxes of various shapes and sizes, dimensions neatly noted. On the next page, there’s a drawing of a garden arbour inset with a bench, and again, all the measurements are noted. In shaded block printing at the bottom are the words, “Designed by Peter Lavallee.” The final page proves to be a hand-printed list of building materials and the cost of each item.
    “I made a grape arbour for a lady last year and the word got out. So far I’ve got orders for three more and half a dozen planters,” Pete says. “Over there, in Lakeside,” he says and nods in the right direction.
    “You can actually make these things cheaper than the Chinese?”
    “Better, not cheaper. And I make them to order, whatever size they want,” Pete says. “One lady took me down the street to look at an arbour in someone’s yard, told me she wants this and that different, higher, wider. Mine are stronger, too. And don’t cost much more than what you see at the garden places.” Pete’s voice is strong with conviction.
    “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.” Joe slides the papers back across the table to him.
    “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You and me, we could put this order together inside two days.”
    “Me?” Joe says.
    “Yah. I seen you work.”
    “Oh, god, no. I’m not going to be here long enough.”
    “I’d go halfers with you on the profit. You’ll make a couple of hundred bucks. That should be worth anyone’s time to stick around.”
    Pete said
you’ll make a couple of hundred bucks
, the same way more polished men might have said,
a couple of hundred
thousand. A couple of million
. Among the men who had the time to frequent a place like this, there weren’t any who would not have relished being able to say
a couple of hundred thousand
. The men around him were likely grease monkeys from lube joints, mechanics, farmers, grocery store clerks, or at most, managers.
    “Why give away half the profit when you can have it all?” he asks Pete. He notices that a large man sitting at a nearby table is taking an interest in their conversation.
    Pete dumps sugar in his coffee, stirs, empties several containers of cream into it, again stirs, while his eyes flit nervously about the room. “I only got my dad’s garage for two