THURSDAY MORNING, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE FOURTH, THE pawnshop’s fluorescent bulbs sizzled as they brightened. The counters and floors were tacky with humidity. Eric had met his father at Loan Star to borrow the expensive grill someone had in pawn. While Cecil was in the back counting out money for the till, Eric went around the shop turning on the various fans. All of them had tinselly streamers that lifted and vibrated once the blades started whirling; it made the shop feel oddly crowded, though Eric was alone. The air conditioner kicked on, a heaving metallic lunge in the ceiling and then the first surges of air coming through the vents, not yet cool.
The shelves looked thin. A few nights before, eating leftover chili at the house, Eric’s father had told Justin that his return had been a boon for business. It had been something of a joke, Cecil’s way of communicating how glad he was, how relieved. Only now did Eric understand he’d been serious. Last week there had been a wall of televisions on display, but this morning he could count where four, maybe five, had sold. A compound bow was also gone, one or two of the expensive fishing reels from the shelf behind the register, and a window unit. (He wondered if Tracy had bought one for the sisters at Villa Del Sol. She’d left a couple of congratulatory messages on his cell, but he hadn’t spoken with her yet. He didn’t know when he would. She seemed part of a different life now, a long fugue marked by guilt and dread.) The jewelry case was barer than it had been, the same with the racks that housed chain saws and musical instruments. The barrenness felt like a compliment; it helped make everything real. Eric would describe the picked-over stock to Justin later that evening. Papaw owes you a commission, he’d say. You’re better than the day after Thanksgiving. Or maybe he’d wait until Monday when they were driving to the courthouse in Corpus so Justin could begin meeting with Garcia. Eric and Laura weren’t allowed to participate for the same reasons they’d been precluded from so many searches: They were a distraction, a hindrance. During Justin’s time with the D.A., they planned to take Griff to the mall, where he would help them pick out clothes and shoes for his brother. It was a surprise.
The glass case housing the pistols was so scratched that in places it appeared frosted. Eric had to lean forward to see the revolvers and semiautomatics through the cross-hatched counter. He couldn’t remember it having always been so scoured, though he also couldn’t remember ever having paid attention to the glass before. Even now, he wasn’t completely aware of having gravitated toward the guns. The search of Buford’s house had yielded a .38 and a 9mm, and Eric had wondered if he might find similar pistols in the case. He wanted to see them, to hold them and feel their heft. The sun came bright through Loan Star’s storefront, pooling and glinting in the grooves in the glass like amber.
“Not on your life,” his father said from behind him.
Eric turned from the guns. Cecil was pushing the stainless-steel grill from the back like a shopping cart. The wheels squeaked as he maneuvered around the counter. He was also carrying a set of bamboo tiki torches. He had them awkwardly trapped between his arms and his torso.
“Let me help,” Eric said.
“You’ve never been interested in pistols before.”
“I was looking at the glass,” he said, relieving his father of the torches. “It’s scratched to hell.”
“You think it’ll help your cause when someone sees Justin Campbell’s father contemplating firearms?”
“I was just looking. I would never—”
“Good,” his father cut in. “Now, open that door.”
Outside, Eric had to squint as he pushed ahead of Cecil to lower his truck’s tailgate. He slid the torches into the truck bed, then he and his father got a grip on the grill and, on the count of three, hoisted it. Eric would have been comfortable driving with it pushed against the cab of the truck, but his father fished a coil of twine from his pocket and busied himself with tying the grill down. Before he tied each knot, he gave the twine a hearty pull that rocked the truck. It was how Cecil did everything—deliberate, thorough, with an air of inconvenience.
“I’ve got some men coming over from Corpus this afternoon to put down the sod,” Eric said.
His father met his eyes, then yanked on a piece of twine and tied it off. He was in a stew. A sedan passed on Station Street and honked. Cecil waved without looking at the driver. Maybe it was someone they knew, maybe not. People liked to honk when they saw the arrow marquee beside the road: HE’S BACK!
As Cecil went around the truck cutting off excess twine with his pocketknife, Eric said, “Dad, listen, I wasn’t—”
“Are you paying through the nose for the sod?”
“Not too bad. A nursery in Corpus needed to get rid of its St. Augustine.”
This wasn’t true. He’d paid twice what he’d told Laura. She thought it was foolish and extravagant, and probably his father did too, but the idea of charcoal smoke and his family in lawn chairs with cool, fresh grass under their feet had become an oasis for Eric. Thinking of it could push the image of Dwight Buford and his orange jumpsuit and rangy beard out of his mind.
“Somebody just pawned the torches yesterday,” his father said. “I thought Laura might like them.”
“She will. She’s enjoying getting the house back in order.”
His father gazed toward the bay while a long line of cars passed. One honked, but Cecil didn’t wave. A gust of wind came up, and they turned their backs to it. When it abated, Eric’s skin felt filmy. He wiped his forehead on his wrist.
Cecil said, “He’s never going to see the light of day, son.”
“We don’t know that,” Eric said too quickly. Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized how long he’d been holding them in.
His father leaned against the truck, blotted his neck and face with his handkerchief. He looked like a man who’d already worked a full day, exhausted and short-tempered.
“Justin got to bed a little earlier last night,” Eric said. “He and Lobster filled two trash bags with weeds from the backyard, so they were worn out.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to call him Lobster anymore.”
“We aren’t. I keep slipping.”
“It’s good to get them working. It helps to sweat,” his father said. He’d been saying it Eric’s whole life. “I hope so.”
“Don’t trip yourself running downhill.”
“Do what?” Eric said.
“Let Johnny Law do his job, and you start working on putting this behind you.”
“It feels too big. It feels like all there is.”
“Well,” his father said, “it isn’t.”
Eric looked down Station, saw another line of cars coming off the ferry from the island. He tried to affect distraction, ambivalence. It always surprised him how, at forty-four and given everything that had happened, he still needed his father’s guidance. He’d long believed you outgrew such things, but a piece of advice or a kind word from Cecil could still prop him up the way it had when he was a boy. Even that his father had been short with him earlier about the guns was bracing. It meant he thought Eric capable of retaliation; it meant Cecil saw something in his son that was hidden to Eric, a store of resilience and strength and violence.
A light wind blew around them. The sun had started to feel good on Eric’s skin, though he knew it wouldn’t last. Soon the heat would tighten and become unbearable.
Eric said, “Think we’ll break a record today?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“If it keeps up,” Eric said, remembering what the deputy had said moments before Justin stepped through his doorway, “we’ll have a busy storm season.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Cecil said.
Then he rapped twice on the truck and started crossing the parking lot toward the pawnshop. He picked up a flattened beer can. Eric expected him to wing it into the weedy lot beside Loan Star, but his father just walked into the shop and locked the door behind him.