Mystic River

He glanced over and noticed Brendan peering above the aisle tops at the cash registers, like he was either planning to stick the place up or hoping for a glimpse of someone. For one irrational second, Jimmy wondered if he'd have to fire Pete for dealing out of the store. But then he checked himself, remembered that Pete had looked him straight in the eyes and sworn he'd never jeopardize Jimmy's life's work by dealing pot in his place of business. Jimmy had known he was telling the truth because unless you were the Grand Wizard of All Liars, it was nearly impossible to lie to Jimmy when he looked in your eyes after asking you a direct question; he knew every tic and tell and eye movement, no matter how minor, that could give you away. Something he'd learned by watching his father make him drunken promises he never kept? you saw it enough, you recognized the animal every time it chose to resurface. So Jimmy remembered Pete looking him dead in the eyes and swearing he'd never deal out of this place, and Jimmy knew it was true.

So then who was Brendan looking for? Could he be stupid enough to be considering a rip-off? Jimmy had known Brendan's father, Just Ray Harris, so he knew a sizable chunk of dumb ran in the genes, but no one was so dumb as to try to rob a store on the East Bucky Flats/Point line with his thirteen-year-old mute brother in tow. Plus, if anyone got some brains in the family, Jimmy would begrudgingly admit it was Brendan. A shy kid, but good-looking as hell, and Jimmy had long ago learned the difference between someone who was quiet because he didn't know the meanings of many words and someone who just stayed inside himself, watching, listening, taking it all in. Brendan had that quality; you sensed he understood people a little too well, and that the knowledge made him nervous.

He turned toward Jimmy and their eyes met, and the kid gave Jimmy a nervous, friendly smile, putting too much into it, as if he were overcompensating because there were other things on his mind.

Jimmy said, "Help you, Brendan?"

"Uh, no, Mr. Marcus, just picking up some, ah, some of that Irish tea my mom likes."

"Barry's?"

"That's it, yeah."

"Next aisle over."

"Oh. Thanks."

Jimmy went back up behind the registers just as Pete came back in, carrying that stale reek of a hastily puffed cigarette all over him.

"What time's Sal getting here again?" Jimmy said.

"Any time now, should be." Pete leaned back against the sliding cigarette rack below the scratch ticket rolls and sighed. "He's slow, Jimmy."

"Sal?" Jimmy watched Brendan and Silent Ray communicate in sign language, standing in the middle of the center aisle, Brendan clutching a box of Barry's under his arm. "He's in his late seventies, man."

"I know why he's slow," Pete said. "I'm just saying. That was me and him at eight o'clock, 'stead of me and you, Jim? Man, we'd still be in the weeds."

"Which is why I put him on slow shifts. Anyway, it wasn't supposed to be me and you or you and Sal on this morning. It was supposed to be you and Katie."

Brendan and Silent Ray had reached the counter and Jimmy saw something catch in Brendan's face when he said his daughter's name.

Pete came off the cigarette rack and said, "That it, Brendan?"

"I?I?I?" Brendan stammered, then looked at his little brother. "Ahm, I think so. Let me check with Ray."

The hands went flying again, the two of them going so fast it would have been hard for Jimmy to keep up even if they were making sounds. Silent Ray's face, though, was as stone dead as his hands were electric and alive. He'd always been an eerie little kid, in Jimmy's opinion, more like the mother than the father, a blankness living in his face like an act of defiance. He'd mentioned it to Annabeth once and she'd accused him of being insensitive to the handicapped, but Jimmy didn't think that was it? something lived in Ray's dead face and silent mouth that you just wanted to beat out with a hammer.

They finished flinging their hands back and forth and Brendan bent over the candy rack and came back with a Coleman Chew-Chew bar, making Jimmy think about his father again, the stench of him that year he'd worked the candy plant.

"And a Globe, too," Brendan said.

"Sure thing, kid," Pete said, and rang it up.

"So's, ah, I thought Katie worked Sundays." Brendan handed Pete a ten-spot.

Pete raised his eyebrows as he punched the cash key and the door popped open against his belly. "You sweet on my man's daughter, Brendan?"

Brendan wouldn't look at Jimmy. "No, no, no." He laughed, and it died as soon as it left his mouth. "I was just wondering, you know, because usually I see her here."

"Her little sister's having her First Communion today," Jimmy said.

"Oh, Nadine?" Brendan looked at Jimmy, eyes too wide, smile too big.

"Nadine," Jimmy said, curious as to how the name had come to Brendan so fast. "Yeah."

"Well, tell her congrats from me and Ray."

"Sure, Brendan."

Brendan dropped his gaze to the counter and nodded several times as Pete bagged up the tea and candy bar. "So, yeah, okay, good seeing you guys. Come on, Ray."

Ray hadn't been looking at his brother when he spoke, but he moved anyway, and Jimmy remembered once again the thing that people usually forgot about Ray: he wasn't deaf, just mute, few people around the neighborhood or otherwise, Jimmy was sure, having encountered one like that before.

"Hey, Jimmy," Pete said when the brothers had gone, "I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Why you hate that kid so bad?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I don't know if it's hate, man. It's just?Come on, you don't find that mute little fucker just a little spooky?"

"Oh, him?" Pete said. "Yeah. He's a weird little shit, always staring like he sees something in your face he wants to pluck out. You know? But I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about Brendan. I mean, the kid seems nice enough. Shy but decent, you know? You notice how he uses sign language with his brother even though he don't have to? Kinda like he just wants the kid to feel he ain't alone. It's nice. But, Jimmy, man, you look at him like you're two steps from slicing off his nose, man, feeding it to him."

"No."

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Straight up."

Jimmy looked out over the Lotto machine, past the dusty window onto Buckingham Avenue lying gray and damp under the morning sky. He felt Brendan Harris's shy goddamned smile in his blood, itching him.

"Jimmy? I was just playing with you. I didn't mean nothing by? "