Charlie asked, “Oliver?”
“Nancy’s brother. They been dating since she was fourteen.”
Charlie felt blindsided. Flora had left out the boyfriend.
“He’s nineteen years old,” Maude said. “Only wants her for one thing.”
“That thing won’t be worth shit once he’s finished with it.” Leroy stared at the TV. “Stupid girl.”
Charlie felt her mouth go dry. She tried to break down what Leroy had said, to decipher what he meant about Flora’s worth. Was he just a run-of-the-mill sexist asshole who thought a girl’s value was wrapped up between her legs, or was he a super-predator asshole who didn’t want someone else ruining his good thing?
For her part, Maude seemed oblivious to the remark. She told Charlie, “Oliver already has a rap sheet as long as my dick. He ain’t got a job, ain’t got no prospects for a job. Hell, Flora might as well stay here as soon as live with that dipshit.”
Leroy jammed a finger Charlie’s way. “You can go back and tell her this ain’t gonna happen.”
“Damn straight,” Maude agreed. “I’m not letting that child run wild. It’ll be exactly like with her mother, only worse because she’ll blow through that money like it’s water.”
Charlie asked, “What happened to the Porsche?”
Another prolonged silence followed the question.
“What Porsche?” Maude locked eyes with Charlie, even as she put the beer bottle to her mouth. The end tipped up. Her throat worked like a goose being readied for pâté as she drank down the contents.
Leroy shifted in his chair. Charlie realized he was trying to work up enough momentum to stand. Just as she was reflexively reaching out to help, he hurled himself up to his feet.
He said, “Get some fresh air with me, will ya?”
“Watch yourself,” Maude warned her husband, but she didn’t try to stop him.
Leroy walked stiffly, swinging his straightened left leg out like he was part of the Queen’s guard as he propelled himself toward the door. He let Charlie leave first, then followed her with the same awkward gait.
Charlie squinted in the unrelenting sunlight. Tears rimmed her eyes. She had left her sunglasses in her car.
Leroy said, “Thiss’a way.”
She followed him down the broken sidewalk to the side of the building that backed onto a forest. This was the kind of thing that Ben had warned her about—being led out to a secluded location by a man that set off so many warning signs in her head that Charlie might as well be living inside the siren at a fire station.
Still, she followed him. Leroy’s leg was busted up. She could easily outrun him, or overpower him, or kick him in his bad knee.
Unless he had a gun.
“Here.” He was breathless when they finally reached the covered area by the pool. There were two rotting picnic tables, each with two coffee cans filled with cigarette butts. Instead of sitting down, he leaned on the edge of one of the tables. He kneaded his left hip with his fist, hissing out a slow sigh of pain. The pink scar on his cheek was more pronounced in the bright sunlight. The wound must have taken a zillion sutures. The right side of his face had nearly been cut in two.
He said, “Flora’s a good girl, but she gets things in her head sometimes and you can’t stop her from doing them.”
“It doesn’t seem like she did this on a whim.” Charlie didn’t know how much to say. She had no proof that Leroy was molesting his granddaughter, but a junkie was a junkie, and she had learned the hard way that you couldn’t trust someone who had lost their free will to addiction.
Leroy said, “Her mama, Esme, was the same way. Just headstrong. It’s what got her killed. At least, if you ask me. The day she died, Esme got into a fight with her mama, then she grabs Flora, jumps into the car, skids out onto the highway and the next thing we know, we’re getting a call from the hospital.”
“Flora was in the car with her mother?”
“Eight years old.” Leroy stroked the scar like a talisman. “Ambulance man said they found her cradling Esme’s head in her lap, just bawling, ’cause half the thing was hanging off. Her head, I mean. Semi-trailer whacked her sideways, nearly took off her head. Does things to you, watching your mother die like that.” He looked embarrassed. “Well, I guess you’re probably the only other gal in town who knows exactly what that feels like.”
Charlie slowly nodded. After several tries, the man had finally hit the mark.
“Well.” Leroy fished into the front pocket of his shorts for a pack of cigarettes. “I guess you figured out real quick that I’m not the best role model.”
Charlie let her silence be her answer.
“I’m going to rehab first thing in the morning.” He caught her look. “Yeah, I bet you heard that before, but I ain’t never said it before. Hand to heart. I’m sick of it, is all. Not doing it for Flora, though God knows I love her. Not doing it for Maude, or because it’s the right thing to do. I’m just plain damn sick and tired of feeling like shit all of the time.”
Charlie guessed this was a better reason than most addicts could cite. Then again, he was an addict, so he could be lying. If Charlie were in his shoes, if her meal-ticket granddaughter was about to be taken away, she would probably do exactly what Leroy was doing—give the old song and dance about changing her evil ways.
Leroy picked up on her thoughts. “Yeah, you think it’s bullshit, right?”
“I do.”
Leroy shook out a cigarette, then flicked his lighter.
Charlie watched him suck down half the cigarette before he huffed a plume of smoke into the otherwise fresh air.
He said, “You can ask your daddy about me. I was an okay guy until this.” He tapped the side of his brace. “Not the best guy, but an okay guy. Paid my bills on time. Took care of my family. Made sure there was food on the table, a roof over their heads. A good roof, not like this shithole here.”
Leroy took another drag as he stared up at the depressing apartment building.
He said, “Hot as a damn scorpion’s ass in there when the sun’s hitting noon. I just sit in there and bake and watch my programs and I’m thinking—What kind of life is this? What kind of example am I setting?”
Charlie studied the lines in his old face. She was usually pretty good at reading people, but she couldn’t get a bead on Leroy Faulkner. Even his face was duplicitous. The side with the scar showed what he said he used to be: an okay guy. The side without the scar showed a junkie who looked willing to do anything to get his next fix.
Leroy said, “When you lose your mobility, you start to think, well, what’s the point? And it took me a few years, but I’m seeing the point is that I gotta get up every morning, shave and shower, put on some clothes, and stand up like a man.” He tapped the metal brace again. “So what, I need help standing? Not many people can make it on their own these days, ya know? You see them boys coming back from the Middle E
ast, got one leg gone, two legs, an arm, blown up in the head so they can’t talk right or think right or even piss straight on their own. Who am I to wallow on my ass like some kind of baby ’cause I fell off a ladder?”
Charlie still couldn’t decide whether or not he was laying out the truth or stringing her along. But really, neither scenario mattered because she was here for Flora, and Flora had made it clear what she wanted.
She told Leroy, “I hope rehab works out for you. I really do. But Flora can’t wait to see how this turns out. She’s still a kid, and there’s only so much time she’s got left before she’s an adult.”
“I know that.” He looked up at the building again. “She’s at that age where there’s a fork in the road, you know what I mean? She’s either gonna end up like you or end up like Maude. Or, hell, end up in jail, she don’t watch what she’s doing. Especially with that Oliver fella. Kid’s just as crooked as that father of his—if he swallowed a nail he’d end up shitting out a corkscrew.”
Charlie decided to take advantage of Leroy’s expansive mood. “I could go back to my office right now and draw up the paperwork relinquishing your parental rights.”
“Not gonna happen, baby doll.” Leroy stubbed out his cigarette in the coffee can. “She’s my grandchild, my own blood. I’m not gonna let anybody take her away from me.”
“Surely you can see she’d be better off not living here.”
“I would be, too. So would Maude. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Flora’s only got two years left before she’s legally an adult anyway. If you let her go now, that fork in the road is going to turn into a straight line to college.”
He laughed. “You Quinns always know how to turn a phrase.”
“Are you hurting her?”
Leroy’s head snapped around. “Is that what she said?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“And I ain’t never gonna.”
Charlie tried to give him a way out. “You need to let her go, Leroy. You don’t want me asking you these questions in a courtroom, under oath, in front of a judge.”
He looked at her, maybe for the first time. Or maybe leered at her was a better description. His gaze traced down the V-neck of her shirt, then rested squarely on her breasts. He caressed the scar on his face with the tips of his fingers. He licked his lips. “You’re a good lookin’ woman. You know that?”