the depressing words and the way he says them seems to have a kind of strangling effect. He looks almost crazed as he moves from one side of my head to the other holding a black comb and scissors.
I close my eyes and try to block Vince out of my thoughts. I think about Nurse Ballen’s house instead, and how I might get inside. I wonder if I should try to make friends with the baby-sitter next door. She probably has a key to the house, and maybe I could persuade her to let me borrow it. I have to get inside somehow. That shaky, cold feeling has been coming over me more and more frequently since the fire at Ryan’s building. I don’t know why, but I realize now that the only way to stop it is to work on Nurse Ballen’s house. To help her and her kids have a better life.
Vince picks the electric razor up off of his tray and runs it, buzzing, around the side of my head. “You and I have known each other since we were seven years old,” he says. “You realize that?”
“Sounds right,” I say.
“Now that my parents are gone, and Cynthia, there’s no one alive I’ve known longer than you.”
I sigh. I want to get out of this chair. I’ve had enough. “You okay, Vince?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just think that’s something, don’t you? That’s history. I mean, I know a lot of guys, and I’m friendly with them, but we’re not friends. You reached out to me after Cynthia passed. You can’t deny history.”
“Are you about done here?” I ask. “I’ve got a building site I need to check on.”
“Almost,” he says, squinting at my head as if searching for remaining flaws. “Okay, finished.”
I stand up and my whole body aches, as if I have been sitting in that chair for hours, not just ten minutes. I am not making anyone happy. Not myself, not Nurse Ballen, not Kelly. I am not man enough to be Kelly’s husband. I wonder if the best way to honor her would be to let her go. Perhaps I should be alone, like Vince. I could leave Kelly everything—the real estate, the cars, the money. I would just leave.
“The cut is on the house,” he says, which is what he’s said every time he’s cut my hair for the last fifteen years. He swells out his chest as if he is offering me an amazing gift, when, in reality, I have brought in nearly half of his customers, so it is only good business to make my cuts complimentary.
“Thanks.” I clap him on the shoulder and say, “Take care.”
As I pull open the door the phone on the counter rings. Vince falls on it before the first peal ends. He hunches over the phone, his voice a soft whisper. I shake my head in amazement. This sweet, hapless man whom I, too, have known longer than anyone else in my life, does have a girlfriend. I wonder, as I walk into the humid air, what kind of woman would have him.
I PASS the burnt remains of Ryan’s building on the way to the site. I will rebuild as soon as possible. I can’t wait to break ground. The original structure is more than half gone, the remains blackened and gnawed. The scene brings on the cold feeling in my gut. I knew the building was dangerous; I should have acted sooner. I see Eddie Ortiz standing on the edge of the caved-in roof, and look away. No one died this time, I tell myself. No one died.
An old friend of mine on the town council runs one of the best residential psychiatric-care facilities in New Jersey. I called him the night of the fire, and Ryan had a room the next day. Ryan’s been a nervous wreck since he moved in, which is understandable. The guy lost his home, after all. But all he talks about is those damn birds. They don’t allow pets in the center, so he will have to find a way to get over the loss. At least now he’ll have proper care, someone to make him take his medications, and some structure to his days. Kelly cried after we left Ryan at the facility, but I know it’s for the best. He’s safe there.
I spend a few hours at the site. I eat a sandwich with my men and use my cell phone to work on a pending