Nebraska

“Good,” Max said.

This was many years ago. This was 1926.

They sat at the counter of Henry's lunchroom facing the mirror. A streetlight came on outside the window. There was a counterman and a black cook and a kid in a cracked leather jacket and cap at the far end of the bar. He had been talking with the counterman when they came in.

Max read the menu and ordered pork tenderloin, but they weren't serving that until six. They were serving sandwiches. He ordered chicken croquettes but that was dinner too.

“I'll take ham and eggs,” Al said.

“Give me bacon and eggs,” said Max.

They ate with their gloves on, then Al got down from his stool and took the cook and the boy back to the kitchen and tied them up with towels. Max stared in the mirror that ran along the back of the counter. Al used a catsup bottle to prop open the slit that dishes passed through into the kitchen.

“Listen, bright boy,” Al said to the kid. “Stand a little further along the bar.”

Then he said, “You move a little to the left, Max.”

For a while Max talked about the Swede. He said they were killing him for a friend.

At six-fifteen a streetcar motorman came in, but he went on up the street. Somebody else came in, and the counterman made him a ham and egg sandwich and wrapped it up in oiled paper.

“He can cook and everything,” Max said. “You'd make some girl a nice wife.”

Max watched the clock. At seven-ten, when the Swede still hadn't shown, Max got off his stool. Al came out from the kitchen hiding the shotgun under his coat.

“So long, bright boy,” Al said to the counterman. “You got a lot of luck.”

“That's the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the races.”

They went out the door and crossed the street.

“That was sloppy,” Al said.

“What about where he lives?”

“I don't know this town from apples.”

They sat down on the stoop of a white frame house. Inside, a man and woman were leaning toward a crystal radio. There were doilies on their chairs, and the man slapped his knee when he laughed. Part of a newspaper blew past Max's shoes. He snatched it and opened it up. Al nudged him when the kid in the leather jacket came out of Henry's. They followed the kid up beside the car tracks, turned at the arc light down a side street, and stood in the yard across from Hirsch's rooming house. The kid pushed the bell and a woman let him in.

“The Swede'll come out looking for us,” Al said.

“No he won't,” Max said. “He'll just sit there and stew.”

Al stared across at the second-story window.

After a while the downstairs door opened again and the woman said good night. The kid walked up the dark street to the corner under the arc lights, and then along the car tracks to Henry's lunchroom.

The two men crossed over to the rooming-house yard. Al stepped over a low fence and went around the back. Max walked up the two steps and opened the door. He stood in the hallway and listened and then he climbed a flight of stairs. He softly walked back to the end of a corridor. Al came up the rear stairs from the kitchen. He unbuttoned his coat and cradled the shot-gun.

Max knocked on the door but there wasn't an answer.

He turned the handle and pushed the door with his toe. They walked in and closed the door behind them. The Swede was lying on a bed with all his clothes on, just staring at the wall. He used to be a prizefighter and was too long for the bed. He turned to look at them and Al fired.

Rex got the call on a Thursday. His mom was just home from work at the grocery store and he was in his T-shirt and jeans eating a TV dinner and reading a newspaper spread over the ottoman and not paying me any attention. His mom called him to the phone, said it was some man. Ron, it must've been. He put his finger in his ear and turned with the phone, but he still had to ask the guy to repeat this and that. Rex went ahead and jotted everything down on the calendar from church, then tore off the month and folded it up to fit in his leather-braid wallet. Then he sat down on the couch and belched, he's so uncouth. He looked at his TV dinner with the crumb custard still in the dish. Then he got up to run the sink faucet over it and stuff the tray down in the trash. His mom was cooking at the electric range when he was in there. She moved the teakettle onto another coil and dried her hands on her apron and turned around, kind of smiling. He swung his hand back like he was going to slap her, and she screamed and hid under her arms. When he didn't hit her and just grinned instead, she walked right out of the

kitchen, heavy on her heels. She was careful around him the majority of the time. You couldn't help but notice.

So Max was an old man now, with a trimmed white beard and brown eyes and size eleven shoes and trouble sleeping nights. He combed his thin hair forward to hide his bald spot. His face was baked red from the sun, his shirts were open at the collar, and he could no longer drink wine. When he last met the man in the black suit, they talked about quail hunting and heavyweight boxing and fishing for marlin off the Keys. Then the man passed a paper to Max, which he signed with a strong cross to the X and a period at the end of his name. They sent a check twice a year. As he stood up he said, “Let me defend the title against all the good young new ones.”