His shift in mood made her uneasy. She wanted to be back in his good graces. She said, “I was tired of school and wanted to make some money. Wallace never wanted kids of his own, but he took us in because he’s good-hearted. There was no one else. I wanted to pay him back, that’s all. Help out.”
“But what do you want for yourself? Beyond this ambition to ‘help out’？”
“I don’t know. Nothing. The usual things.”
He leaned toward her. “I don’t believe you one bit.”
She was aware of his maleness, the breadth of him, the sureness with which his black shoes were planted on the ground, that scent she’d noticed at Dolly’s, some kind of hair oil or perfume, bitter and musky. She wondered how old he was, couldn’t guess. （Twenty-eight.） His crooked smile swung up again. “In your research, did you learn I was only nineteen when my father died? I came home after one year of university in Scotland. He left everything to me. The ranch, but also the responsibility of taking care of my mother and my sister and, very much to my surprise, quite a lot of debt. I thought there must be some mistake. One of the largest landholders in the state, a man who made a performance out of being pious, temperate, living well but not extravagantly. I couldn’t understand how he could have been in debt until I started going through his papers. Mismanagement, that’s all it was. The simplest thing in the world. Trusting the wrong people. Bad investments. He dug in deeper and deeper until he’d dug himself into a nice, deep, black pit. Fortunately, he relocated to a literal pit before he could dig us under any further. I couldn’t bear to tell my mother. In the end I didn’t have to. It turned out I had a knack for identifying opportunities, and this was eight, nine years ago—a time of great opportunity.”
The early days of Prohibition. He looked at her to be sure she was following.
“I got us out of the hole, and then I kept working. I wanted to be sure I’d never be back in it. I found the men who’d ruined my father, and I ruined them.” The crooked smile. “Not that they knew it was me. I prefer an indirect approach.” He grew abruptly somber. “I’m saying this because I want you to know I understand what it’s like to be burdened by someone else’s mistakes when you’re young. I know what it’s like to be underestimated. But being underestimated can be an opportunity, Marian, if you know how to take advantage. Do you see?”
In her experience, being underestimated hadn’t gotten her anywhere, certainly not behind the controls of an airplane, but she said, “I think so.”
“When I first saw you—I don’t know how to put it. I recognized you as someone I needed to know. You fascinated me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have—” He broke off, scraped moodily at the grass with one heel. “I meet girls all the time. Ordinarily I forget about them right away. If you were just another one, I would have forgotten about you already, too. I thought I would. I waited for you to go away. Instead, you’re always here.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “Just from that one glimpse. Do you ever think about me?”
At the memory of when she thought about him, how she thought about him, she flushed. “I have to go.” She stood, took the basket.
He reached out, grabbed her leg just below the knee through her trousers. His grip was strong, like the jaw of an animal. “Marian. All I want is to get to know you. To be your friend.” He recovered himself and let go, looked up into her face. “Here’s a piece of advice, now that we’re friends. If you’re giving Wallace money, you might as well throw it in the river. I’ve looked into what he owes. He won’t ever be able to pay it off, and at some point it’ll all come due. But I could help.”
She longed to ask exactly what Wallace owed and to whom. His debts seemed to her like a dark well she was forever peering into, listening for the splash of a dropped pebble. She said, “Just because I was dressed up like a whore doesn’t mean I am one.”
His expression did not change. “Remember you can always come to me.”
* * *
—
She’d had no reason to be curious about the house when she arrived, but on her way out she paused, contemplating its separate green-and-white garage alongside which she’d parked Stanley’s truck. The structure resembled a miniature barn, wide enough for two cars, with sliding doors padlocked shut. There were two small square windows on each long side, and she thought if she found something to stand on, she could see in. She was curious what Barclay drove. She’d seen bootleggers’ cars around, here and there, powerful Packards or Cadillacs or Studebakers, Whiskey Sixes, and she’d heard stories about souped-up engines, false floors and hollowed-out seats, armored gas tanks, flanged wheels for driving on railroad tracks and across trestle bridges.