Edgar Calloway's Arc

Chapter 3 of 2

They walked in at dusk. Rosemary took Edgar's arm like a wife of forty years. The bar smelled of smoke and salt. Fishermen leaned over their drinks. Behind the counter stood the owner, broad as a barrel, gray beard spilling over his apron. Shanty O'Brien. He watched the door the way a man watches weather. Edgar set coins on the counter. "I'd clear a few tabs," he said. "The slate. Quiet." Shanty did not reach for the money. He looked at Edgar's face a long time. "You live up the hill," Shanty said. "The one who writes. Never drink here. Never buy a round." "No." "Now you walk in with gold." Shanty set both hands flat on the wood. "Where's a hermit get coin to pay other men's debts?" The room went quieter. A fisherman turned on his stool. Edgar felt the old pull to run. He kept his boots still. "Someone's working to shut my bar," Shanty said. "Spreading lies. Scaring off trade. A stranger with money shows up, I ask questions. That's how I keep this place standing." So that was it. The man was not hunting Edgar. He was hunting a threat to his door. Edgar saw the opening, plain as a crack in ice. "I'm no part of whoever's after you," Edgar said. "Think on it. A man wrecking your bar doesn't pay your customers' debts. He empties your till. I'm doing the other thing." Shanty's eyes narrowed. He weighed it. Rosemary leaned in. "He sold his books," she said, light and easy. "Forty years of writing. A buyer from the city paid well. He's old. He wants it gone before he is." The lie landed clean. Edgar hadn't planned it. He let it stand. Shanty looked between them. Then he pulled a battered ledger from under the counter. He turned it toward Edgar. Names and sums, written small. "The widow's boy," Shanty said, tapping a line. "The family with the three children. A few others behind." He paused. "You settle those, I'll know you meant it." Edgar counted the coins out. Each one struck the wood. Shanty drew a line through every name. When the last tab was gone, he closed the ledger. "The town will talk," Edgar said. "Let them," Shanty said. "They'll say an old writer struck it rich and paid his neighbors' way. Good for my bar. Nobody digs past a happy story." He studied Edgar once more. "You come back, you drink. A man who never drinks draws eyes. You don't want eyes." "No," Edgar said. "I don't." They stepped out into the cold. Rosemary still held his arm. The debts were clear. The slate was clean. But the cover story was hers now, not his, and every coin to come would ride on it. He owed her the truth of that letter, and the owing had grown teeth.