Page 37 of I Will Ruin You

“Good,” I lied as he started walking over. “Good as can be expected, anyway.”

I fired off a couple of shots. That caught Jack’s attention. He was shrewd enough to put the pieces together.

“Selling the boat?”

“Thinking about it,” I said. I decided to try out some of the excuses I’d eventually use on Bonnie when and if the boat disappeared from the driveway. “We don’t get up to the lake as often as we used to. And Rachel, she’s not all that interested in fishing. Neither is Bonnie, for that matter.”

“You’ve kept it in good shape,” he said, taking a walk around it.

He took one last long draw on his cigarette, walked to the street and tossed it into a storm drain, and then came back and surveyed the boat again, hands in his pockets.

“What are you asking for it?”

“I... I’m not sure yet. I was going to go online and see what a rig like this with the trailer is going for. I paid around seventeen for everything, but that was ten years ago, so, I’m not sure.”

He nodded slowly. “Thing is, as it turns out, I’ve been thinking about getting something like this. I retire this year, and I’m going to have to find some way to fill the time. I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a kid.” He smiled, the memory washing over him. “I’d always wanted to do that with my own boys, but somehow it never happened. It was work, work, work for me. Now maybe I could make it up to my grandkids. Take them fishing the way my dad took me.”

“I’m hoping to get ten thou.”

Jack turned his head slowly to look at me. “Hmm.” A pause. “That seems fair. You sure you couldn’t get more for it from someone else?”

“Ten thousand now would be preferable than holding out for, say, twelve thousand two weeks from now.”

“Something to think about,” he said.

“I’m going to post some ads tonight. See what happens.”

Jack was thinking, nodding very slowly. He seemed to be on the edge of a decision.

“I’d have one request, if you didn’t find it too out of the ordinary,” I said.

“What would that be?”

“Only if you’re interested, and no pressure, but if you are, you think you could pay me in cash?”

Jack studied me for a moment, trying to read between the lines. “Cash.”

I forced a smile. “I mean, I know a check from you isn’t going to bounce or anything.” I uttered a short, nervous laugh. “It’s just, well, it would be convenient, that’s all.”

I wasn’t good at this.

Jack asked, “Is everything okay?”

I nodded, maybe a little too quickly. “You’ve got my cell number, right?” I asked. He nodded. “Text me if you decide you want it.”

Jack said a goodbye and went back into his house. I was taking a few more shots when a Honda Civic came to a stop at the foot of the driveway. There was a young guy behind the wheel.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for Randall Street?”

I walked over to him, pointed. “Head that way, take the second right, it’s the next left.”

“Thanks.” He gave me a longer look. “Hey, aren’t you that teacher, Mr. Boyle?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

He extended a hand out the window. There was an envelope in it. I took it without thinking.

“You’ve been served,” he said, then powered up the window and drove off.