LITMIR.BIZ

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any other.”

      “Uh huh. Do you have more siblings?”

      Xavier Bell took a last deep draw, spit-extinguished the homemade, and dropped the butt into the ashtray. Exhaled the smoke. “No.”

      “How old are you?”

      “Seventy-five.”

      “And Rodney?”

      “Seventy-three.”

      “Is he married?”

      “Not that I know of. He never seemed inclined toward marriage.” Bell’s face was bland.

      As was Phelan’s, while he batted around questions he decided could wait. “OK, got it. We find your brother, you spend some time, say goodbye and godspeed. Correct?”

      “That’s close enough.”

      “You mentioned an alias. Is Rodney your brother’s real name?”

      “No. He uses different names.”

      “Really,” Phelan said, adjusting to this information. “How do you know that?”

      “Because in the early days, I’d call, but then I stopped being able to find him. During this last decade of our…estrangement, I happened on the name he was using. Rodney Harris. I followed up. But then he moved again.” Xavier Bell resettled his shoulders in the blazer.

      Phelan noted again that they were not frail or humped shoulders. “That how you found Rodney was here in Beaumont? Somebody happen to tip you?”

      “Within this last year, financial conditions changed. Some aged relatives passed away. A portion of the estate was deposited into a bank here.”

      “I see,” Phelan said. “Large estate?”

      “That’s hardly relevant. Or your business, Phelan. But I will say that the apple of our mother’s eye was real estate, and she never sold a property. The sweet old miser.”

      That description rang for a beat.

      “How long ago was it you found your brother? And where, sir?” Delpha’s tone had taken on heavy-cream, she managed to pump the question full of courtesy and concern.

      Bell angled toward her. “He was around Jacksonville, Florida. About four years ago. 1969, that would make it.”

      “Four years ago. That’s the last time you saw him,” Phelan said. “You saw him in person then?”

      “Briefly.”

      Delpha offered a sympathetic smile. “Y’all couldn’t fix things up?”

      The old man’s hands opened and stretched. “I’m afraid not. My brother is a coarse man…coarser than he once was. We took different paths in life, I suppose. I told him I forgave him—”

      “For what, Mr. Bell?”

      “Everything! Forgiveness…is an attribute of the strong, they say. But I fixed nothing. As much as I tried to.”

      “What was it that you hoped would happen?” Now Delpha’s softened voice was a balm directed to Mr. Bell’s ear alone, and Bell oriented his whole body toward her.

      Phelan’s forehead wrinkled. How was she doing this?

      “Just…just…just to be his big brother again, for a little while. When he was small, he thought I hung the moon. To feel how that felt again, well, that…that was worth a great deal, and I’m a man who knows what things are worth.”

      After some seconds of silence, Bell glanced at Delpha and then passed his hand over his eyes. “I’ve embarrassed myself again, haven’t I?”

      Phelan changed the subject, asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, for Rodney’s description, a picture of him if there was one, list of habits or pastimes Bell knew about. Like, was Rodney a bowler? Or a Baptist, so they’d know where to look for him.

      Bell drew from the navy blazer a yellowed black and white photo. “That’s Rodney and me.”

      Phelan studied the photo: two men of different heights standing on a street corner, a broad door behind them. Part of a street sign above their heads read “Orle.” Their faces were alike: same black brows, straight nose, and slightly upturned lips. The men wore identical clothes: lightish suits, double-breasted unlike the blazer Bell wore today, but tacked in at the waist, two-toned shoes buffed to a sheen. Straw boaters. The taller man had an arm extended to the shorter one’s shoulder, the hand blurred as though he’d reached out at the last minute. These two could have been any youngish, well-enough-off white men in the United States in, say, 1930, ‘32,’34—sometime in there. Which told Phelan about the brothers’ conditions, being as how a fair number of Americans in the 1930s could not have produced a shiny pair of cap-toed, two-toned shoes without the aid of a fairy godmother.

      “Which is you?”

      Bell touched the photo. The taller one.

      “And this is the most recent you have? How old were you?”

      “Thirty.”

      Great, a forty-five-year-old picture. Phelan mentally rolled his eyes.

      “As for habits. We were Catholics, but I don’t know that my brother has kept up attendance. Rodney likes birds. Always did. Birds. Nature.” That was why he’d been in Jacksonville because that’s where a lot of birds nested or flew over or some such. And now Beaumont. There were wetlands all around the area.

      “Birds. All right. That’s helpful.”

      “That’s really all I have to give you. Oh, then there’s this.” Xavier Bell reached into his inside jacket-pocket, pinched bills from a wallet, and counted out a dozen real hundreds onto the metal desk. “Your fee for three weeks. I’m willing to pay a bonus if you find him by, say, September 30. Five hundred dollars. If you find him in a week, I’ll expect an immediate per diem refund. And of course I want a receipt.”

      Phelan kept his voice even. “Thank you, sir. Miss Wade will need your signature on our contract. That will also serve as a receipt for your retainer.”

      As soon as Delpha had added the financial details, she rose from the client chair. Contract and ballpoint appeared on Phelan’s desk, squared into place by her hands, for the client. “Please add your telephone number, sir. Below your name there.”

      “Certainly. But…I’m quite often at a film. I might call you,” he said, gaze darting to her. “Progress reports.”

      “That’d be fine. And, ‘scuse me,” she said gently, “but…”

      “Yes?”

      “Is Rodney dangerous?”

      The client pulled back. “I didn’t—I never said the first word about dangerous. Why would you ask that?”

      As if teasing, Delpha said, “No special reason, Mr. Bell.” Her uneasy expression transformed into a smile of mild sweetness. Phelan noticed that the smile stopped short of her eyes but didn’t think Bell would.

      Bell still stared at her, but when her smile broadened, he relaxed again in his chair.

      Phelan shut down his own amusement—see, having her in here was a primo idea—lit a cigarette, and sat back in his swivel chair. “Routine question.” He gestured vaguely. “Miss Wade is being thorough. In this business, we have to know what we’re getting into. What’s the answer, Mr. Bell?”

      The dark eyes gazed at the left side of Phelan’s desk, skimmed across it and fixed on the right side. “Rodney…caused dangerous things to happen.”

      “How did he do that?”

      “He…” Bell’s pinkish nose reddened. “Was not a loyal brother. Took what wasn’t his.”

      “Say Rodney’s a thief?”

      “Oh

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