Sara looked up at David with her mouth open in shock. Was he trying to start a fight? Did he want R.J. to drag him out into the alley? But then David winked at her and she understood.
“Listen, kid,” R.J. said, “I can still do a day’s work and this so-called weight I’m carrying is dormant muscle.”
That made them laugh. Dormant muscle!
; When R.J. looked at Sara, she knew he was aware that David had purposely saved them from depression and R.J. was grateful. “Put me down there for brick laying or any kind of construction.” He looked at David. “And what can a blue-eyed darlin’ like Jock here do?”
“Put on your list that I could be a style consultant,” Ariel said.
“For what?” Sara said. “Are you going to help them decide between the Dolce and Gabbana or the Armani for the gala?”
Ariel didn’t smile. “I’m going to teach Phyllis Vancurren to dress her age.”
Sara laughed. She’d been topped.
At that moment a man walked past their table, bumped into it, then caught himself before he fell. David reached out to catch him but the man righted himself. He was short, thin, ugly, had a beer in one hand, and the unmistakable look of a long-term drunk.
Sara moved the napkin with the list away from the man’s hand before he knocked it off the table.
“Yeah, that’s it,” the man said, slurring his words. “Move away from me, missy. High-class goods like you can’t be near somebody like me.”
Sara kept her head down.
“You want to get away from her?” she heard R.J. say and there was fight in his voice.
When she looked at R.J., she saw that he was about to get out of his seat and go after the man, but David was doing his best to keep R.J. pinned in place against the wall.
The drunken man stood at the end of the table for a moment, blinking to clear his vision. He looked from Ariel to Sara, then back again, then shook his head. Sara knew that with her Ariel wig on they looked enough alike to be twins.
She could feel the tension of the two men at the table and she was afraid they were going to do something rash. She looked back toward the bar, intending to summon help, but everyone in there and at the tables was studiously looking down and ignoring them.
She was just about to get up and see if she could coax the man away from their table when he stood up straight. He stumbled to get his balance, then walked toward the bar.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief when he was gone. Sara made a quick glance about the room and saw that the patrons had started eating again. They made her angry. It was as though they thought that anything bad happened to them was deserved. R.J. caught her eye and they exchanged looks. He too had seen the lack of reaction from the other patrons.
“Only centuries of inbreeding can create something like that,” R.J. said and they all smiled. The man had indeed been ugly: skinny, with big, stand-out ears. His skin was sallow, his cheeks shrunken and covered with bristles of gray.
“How old do you think he is?” David asked. “I have an idea he’s no more than forty-five, but he looks much older. Hard island life, I guess.”
In the next moment the front door opened and a man came in. His face was red, as though he’d just come in from being on a boat. As David and Sara watched—the other two couldn’t see over the backs of the benches—the man went to the bar, ordered a beer, then slapped the drunk on the back. “Got a new dog yet, Fenny?” he asked loudly. A hush fell over the restaurant and the bartender nodded toward their booth. When the man saw David and Sara, his face turned an ugly shade of purple and he hurried out of the restaurant before he was served his beer.
The four of them fell back against the tall backs of the booth. To say it was silent in the restaurant was an understatement. Sara was sure she could hear the linoleum cracking. In the next moment noises came from the bar, but she didn’t turn around to see what was happening. They knew that the drunk, a.k.a. John Fenwick Nezbit, was being ushered out of the building.
Sara glanced at David and saw that even he had lost his smile. “That’s what we’re up against?” he whispered. “A judge might believe him over us?”
“Come on,” R.J. said, “let’s get out of here.”
They kept their heads high and their eyes straight ahead as they walked out of the restaurant. Sara could feel the people around them working hard not to stare.
Once outside, they slowly walked toward the boardinghouse.
“If they took everything away from us on the word of a man like that …” Ariel said, but couldn’t finish her sentence.
“Then there’s no doubt that this is a put-up job,” R.J. said.
Sara glanced at him and saw that his eyes were glassy, but she couldn’t tell if it was fear or anger. He was the one being accused of the crime. He was the one who stood to lose the most if … if…. She couldn’t bring herself to think about what could happen.