The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [16]
“How about tomorrow night? It’s Sunday. The gods come out on Sunday, don’t they? It’s their day, Sunday. Right?”
“Fine,” Coolberg says angrily. Nathaniel hears the telltale click of the disconnection. Apparently Coolberg never says hello or good-bye.
When he returns to Jamie’s side, she asks him who it was, and when he tells her, she puts down her knife, drops her hands to her sides, and slowly leans sideways into him, a gesture of affection and, it seems—Nathaniel can’t be sure—protection. “I should be your guardian angel,” she says. “I think you need one.” She drops her head on his shoulder for a split second. Under the protective chef’s head scarf, her blond hair brushes against his neck. It feels blond.
“Do you know that guy who called me? Coolberg?”
“No,” she tells him. “It was the look on your face I recognized.”
“What look?”
“Like you were being pickpocketed. Or, I dunno, taken. You make me nervous,” Jamie tells him. “You’re too available. You need to be more vigilant. Close yourself down a little. Men shouldn’t be like you. Give me a call, if you ever think of it.”
7
JUST BEFORE HE LEAVES in the early afternoon, Nathaniel, who has finished mopping and disinfecting the floor near the kitchen drain, sees a guy escorting a pregnant woman, evidently his wife, through the front door and then to one of the long community tables. She walks past the entryway in deliberate stages, first limping from a bad left knee, then waving brokenly with her right arm for balance, as if she were directing traffic. Her progress comes in physical-therapy steps. Apparently she doubts that she will stay upright. Regaining her dignity, she sits down slowly before gazing at the dining area with the abstracted air of a queen about to announce a decree. Her husband—they are both wearing wedding rings—is white, and she is black, though their facial features are rather similar, with dark widely spaced eyes, Italian, as if they had both descended from the Medicis, one side in Italy, the other in Africa. It is the burglar and his wife, and when the burglar sees Nathaniel he nods, very quickly, a hi-but-don’t-come-over-here look.
When Nathaniel approaches them, the burglar glares at him, resisting. Nathaniel walks through his resistance. He says, “Hi. I’m Nathaniel.” He holds out his hand.
“Um, it’s Ben,” the burglar says, referring to himself. He gestures in his wife’s direction. “This here’s Luceel.”
“Hi, Luceel,” Nathaniel says. Luceel gazes at him before studying her hands in her lap. She has great physical beauty and will not exchange more than a quick once-over with just anybody. She is one of those women who rations out her glances. Maybe she is just shy.
“Um, hi. You two know each other?” she asks, looking at her fingers.
“We’ve met,” Ben says. “That’s all it is. We met someplace. He remembers me from a thing we did.” He sighs loudly, examining the traffic passing outside and shaking his head, as if the mere fact of the cars oppresses him, all those Buicks, Chevrolets, and Fords, with their purposeful owners.
“Right,” Nathaniel says. “Well. See you later. Nice to meet you, Luceel. Have a good afternoon, you guys.”
As he walks out the front door, he notices that they are conferring together, heads lowered, this topic having momentarily taken precedence over food and hunger.
In the afternoon he plays basketball in a city park with a group of guys he’s seen here before, most of them about his size, their elbows as aggressive as his own, their collective breath visibly rising above them in the cold autumn air, their sweat soaking through their shirts. One basket has a chain net hanging from the hoop; the other hoop, on the opposite court, is naked, with an unpadded support pole holding up the backboard—a funky urban playground for adults, inmates of the city. Nathaniel plays slowly and distractedly, but the other players, too, have strangely mournful expressions on their weekend faces, like the little men bowling in “Rip Van Winkle” who were unable to smile. Despite their gloom they all make self-encouraging male noises,