“Close to gettin’ a real break.“ Spooner stared at Colby through narrowed eyes. “Once, just after the army, I met a guy who had a line on something real hot. Something he’d set up during his tour in the Philippines. He was gonna cut me in on a piece of the action. But things folded.“
“Tough.“ Colby wondered what the action had been, and decided it would be better not to ask.
“Then, another time, I thought I had something set with some dude who owned a string of massage parlors. I was gonna manage a couple of them for him. Sort of be a bouncer, you know? Except I was gonna get a piece of the business. But that didn’t work out either. There were one or two other things but, like I said, nothin’ ever worked out.
Everything always went wrong.“
“So you came back here. Never thought you’d wind up in Fulbrook Corners, Eddy. I thought you hated this town as much as I did.“
“I still hate it,“ Spooner muttered. “But after Pa died, I owned this place free and clear, and Clark gave me that job down at the station. What was I supposed to do?“
“I don’t know,“ Colby said honestly, hating the whine in Eddy’s voice and simultaneously feeling guilty for his reaction. Eddy’s life had been a hard one.
“Hell, you wouldn’t understand. You got lucky. You weren’t trapped here the way I was.“
“No.“ Luck came in a variety of guises, Colby decided.
“You always came out on top.“ Eddy was silent for a moment. “Saw your kid in town today. Knew who he was the minute he drove into the station. He looks like you, but he’s got those Fulbrook eyes, don’t he?“
“Yeah. He’s got Cynthia’s eyes.“
“You gonna introduce him to old lady Fulbrook?“
Colby’s mouth twisted slightly. “Are you kidding? She met him once when he was a baby and told me she never wanted to see him again.“
“Dumb question, I guess.“ Spooner paused to open another can of beer. “I read one of those books you wrote.
Shock something or other.“
Colby felt a flicker of surprise. “Did you? I didn’t think you liked to read, Eddy.“
“TV’s more interestin’ than books, usually, especially now that Sam’s renting movies down at the grocery store.
Got me a VCR and old Sam’s got a few of them X-rated flicks he keeps behind the counter.“
“I see. Old Sam sounds like he’s decided to move with the times. What made you read Shock Value!“
“Dunno. Guess I was kind of curious about what you’d been up to. Everybody in town was talkin’ about that Shock book when it came out. Reckon they couldn’t believe it was you who wrote it. Bessie must have sold a hundred copies the first week it came into her shop. She said everyone in town wanted to read it. Maybe they was worried you’
d put a couple of local folks in the story.“
Colby couldn’t suppress a certain grim satisfaction. “It was the first book of mine to hit some of the major bestseller lists.“
“Make you rich?“
Colby grinned. “Not exactly, but I’ll admit it sure changed a few things for me and Brandon.“
“I always figured that of the two of us, you’d probably be the one who’d make out okay.“
The bitter resignation in Spooner’s voice bothered Colby. “It’s not too late for you, Eddy. You’ve got no obligations. No wife and kids to tie you down. You’re only forty-one. Why not get out of this town and try someplace else?“
“Sure. Doin’ what, for instance?“
“You’re a first-class mechanic. You always had a way with cars. You could get a job in Seattle or Portland or maybe somewhere in California. Good mechanics are always in demand, especially by people who own those foreign jobs.
Hell, some of those folks would probably put you on a retainer just to keep their BMW or Mercedes running.“
“I told you, Colby. I already tried to get out of here. Things always fall through. I never had the magic touch like you did.“
“There was no magic touch, Eddy.“
“Who are you trying to kid? You always got the breaks. I couldn’t believe it when you actually talked Cynthia Fulbrook into marrying you. Richest, prettiest girl in town. Nobody could believe it. People talked about it for months after you and she left. Old Lady Fulbrook and her old man ranted and raved and cursed you up one side and down the other. Then old man Fulbrook croaked and we heard about Cynthia dying in that car crash. Old lady Fulbrook hasn’t been quite the same since. Serves her right, the old bat. Always thinkin’ Fulbrooks was so much better than everyone else.“
Colby concentrated on an old tire that was lying in the front yard. He didn’t want to think about Margaret Fulbrook. “When did your father die?“
“The year I finished my hitch in the army. Drunk as a skunk, as usual. Went out huntin’ and fell off the top of Chained Lady Falls. No loss. To tell you the truth, I was kind of surprised he bothered to leave me this place. Course, who else did he have to leave it to?“
“That’s a fact. You were his only kin.“ Colby remembered the bastard who had been Eddy’s father. The man had been violent when he drank. Eddy had suffered from that violence frequently when he was younger.
However erratic life had been with Aunt Jesse, however emotionally neglected Colby had been while Jesse pursued her poetry, at least he’d never been subjected to physical violence the way Spooner had.
Eddy finished his beer. “You still hate this town as much as you used to?“
“Yeah,“ said Colby. “I still hate it.“
“Why’d you come back?“
“I needed a place to finish the book I’m working on. And I decided it was time to get rid of Aunt Jesse’s place. Too much trouble keeping it rented to summer tourists.“
“Larry Brockton down at the real estate office said once that you’d given him instructions to keep the place fixed up and rented out during the summer.“
“I didn’t know what else to do with it after Aunt Jesse died.“
“So you’re here to take care of that old business and finish another one of them horror books, huh?“
“Right. I thought Fulbrook Corners might offer some inspiration for my writing,“ Colby explained dryly.
“Inspiration! Here? That’s a laugh.“
“It is, isn’t it?“
“Come to think of it, Chained Lady Falls might be sort of inspirational for a horror writer,“ Spooner remarked slowly. “Remember that night we were gonna spend there?“