The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [21]
6
AS HENRY DUNLAP WAS GETTING READY to leave the office one afternoon, Willard showed up, over a week late on the rent. For the last few weeks, the lawyer had been slipping home in the middle of the day for a few minutes and watching his wife and her black lover go at it. He had a feeling that it was an indication of some kind of sickness on his part, but he couldn’t help himself. His hope, though, was that he could somehow pin Edith’s murder on the man. God knows the bastard deserved it, fucking his white employer’s wife. By then, sled-footed Willie was getting cocky, reporting for work in the mornings smelling of Henry’s private stock of imported cognac and his French aftershave. The lawn looked like hell. He was going to have to hire a eunuch just to get the grass cut. Edith was still pestering him about buying the sonofabitch a vehicle.
“Jesus Christ, man, you don’t look so good,” Henry said to Willard when the secretary let him in.
Willard pulled out his wallet and laid thirty dollars on the desk. “Neither do you, for that matter,” he said.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of things on my mind lately,” the lawyer said. “Grab a chair, sit down a minute.”
“I don’t need none of your shit today,” Willard said. “Just a receipt.”
“Oh, come on,” Henry said, “let’s have a drink. You look like you could use one.”
Willard stood staring at Henry for a moment, not sure he had heard him right. It was the first time Dunlap had ever offered him a drink, or acted the least bit civil since right after he’d signed the lease six years ago. He had come in ready for the lawyer to give him hell about being late with the rent money, had already made up his mind to knock the fuck out of him today if he got too mouthy. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Charlotte needed another prescription filled, but the drugstore was open until six. “Yeah, I reckon I could,” Willard said. He sat down in the wooden chair across from the lawyer’s soft leather one while Henry got two glasses and a bottle of scotch from a cabinet. He poured the drinks, handed the renter one.
Taking a sip from his drink, the lawyer leaned back in his chair and gazed at the money lying on top of the desk in front of Willard. Henry’s stomach was sour from worrying about his wife. He’d been thinking for several weeks about what the golfer had told him about his renter beating the fuck out of that man. “You still interested in buying the house?” Henry asked.
“Ain’t no way I can come up with that kind of money now,” Willard said. “My wife’s sick.”
“I hate to hear that,” the lawyer said. “About your wife, I mean. How bad is it?” He pushed the bottle toward Willard. “Go ahead, help yourself.”
Willard poured two fingers from the bottle. “Cancer,” he said.
“My mother died from it in her lungs,” Henry said, “but that was a long time ago. They’ve come a long way with treating it since then.”
“About that receipt,” Willard said.
“There’s damn near forty acres goes with that place,” Henry said.
“Like I said, I can’t get the money right now.”
The lawyer turned in his chair and looked at the wall away from Willard. The only sound was a fan swiveling back and forth in the corner, blowing hot air around the room. He took another drink. “A while back I caught my wife cheating on me,” he said. “I ain’t been worth a shit since.” Admitting to this hillbilly that he was a cuckold was harder than he thought.
Willard studied the fat man’s profile, watched a trickle of sweat run down his forehead and drip off the end of his lumpy nose onto his white shirt. It didn’t surprise him, what the lawyer said. After all, what sort of woman would marry a man like that? A car went by in the alley. Willard picked up