Shakespeares Champion Page 0,33
hadn't shaved that morning.
He walked away, and began doing lunges on the other side of the room. Picking an exercise almost at random, I hooked my feet under the bar on the lat pull-down machine and did stomach crunches, my arms crossed over my chest. I kept an eye on the stranger as he did leg presses. After he'd warmed up, he pulled off his sweatshirt to reveal a red tank top and a lot of shoulder. I turned my back.
As I was leaving, I almost asked Bobo if he knew the man's name. Then I thought, I'll be damned if I ask anybody anything, least of all Bobo. I gathered my gym bag and my jacket and started to the door.
Marshall entered as I was reached it. He threw his arm around my shoulders. I leaned away from him, startled, but he pulled me close and hugged me.
"Sorry about Marie Hofstettler," Marshall said gently. "I know you cared about her."
I was embarrassed at mistaking his intention, and his concern and tenderness reminded me of the reasons I'd hooked up with him initially. But I wanted him to let go. "Thanks," I said stiffly. The black-haired man was looking at us, as he stood with Jim and Darcy, who were chattering away. It seemed to me now that something about him was familiar, an echo of long ago, from the darkest time in my life. I couldn't quite track the trace of the memory back to its origins.
"How's your hip been?" Marshall asked professionally.
"A little stiff," I confessed. The kick that I'd taken in The Fight had proved to be a more troublesome injury than I'd guessed at the time. Standing on my left foot, I swung my right leg back and forth to show Marshall my range of motion. He crouched before me, watching my leg move. He told me to raise my leg sideways, like a male dog about to pee, the position the karate class assumed for side kicks. It was very uncomfortable. Marshall talked about my hip for maybe five more minutes, with other people contributing opinions and remedies like I'd asked for them.
None from the black-haired man, though he drew close to listen to the discussion, which ranged from my hip to The Fight to Lanette Glass's civil suit to stop the upcoming meeting at one of the black churches.
While I showered and dressed, I thought how strange it was that this black-haired man was cropping up everywhere.
It could be a coincidence. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. He could have his eye on someone else other than me; maybe Becca Whitley? Or maybe (I brightened) the finances of the Shakespeare Combined Church had attracted the interest of some government agency? The church pastor, Brother Joel McCorkindale, had always alerted that sense in me that detected craziness, twistedness, in other people. Maybe Mr. Black Ponytail was after the good brother.
Then why the secret tryst with Howell? The black bags? I hadn't opened the window seat when I'd been cleaning the day before, because I hadn't any business in Howell's study.
Of course, I could be attributing all sorts of things to a regular working guy, who also liked to keep fit, and go to funerals of old women he didn't know, and have secret meetings with his employer.
What with Mookie Preston, Becca Whitley, and this scarred man with his long black hair, in no time at all I was going to lose my standing as the most exotic imported resident of Shakespeare.
It was a chilly day, almost visible-breath temperature. Though I don't like to work in long sleeves, I pulled on an old turtleneck I wore when it was too cold to do without. I'd bought it before I started muscle-building, and it was tight in the neck, the shoulders, the chest, the upper arms ... I shook my head at my reflection in the mirror. I looked as obvious as Becca Whitley. I'd throw it out after I wore it today, but it certainly would do to clean Beanie's closet. I pulled on my baggy jeans and some old Converse high-tops, and after checking my mirror one more time to verify that my hair was curling and fluffy and my makeup was smooth and unobtrusive - evaluating Becca's cosmetics had made me more aware of the dangers of overdoing it - I went out to my car.
It wouldn't start.
"Son of a bitch," I said, and a few more things. I raised the hood.