Nobody's Fool

you,” Horace said, setting his toolbox down to wait, glancing at Sully as if to suggest that Sully at least would understand his position, even if this crazy, beautiful young woman didn’t.
    â€œMen are
such
cowards,” came Toby Roebuck’s voice from the den. A minute later she emerged with a check and handed it to the sad-faced locksmith, who studied it with the expression of a man who’s just realized he’s going broke by centimeters, having made a wrong career move thirty years ago. Sully knew the feeling.
    â€œI wouldn’t wait to cash that, though,” Toby advised.
    â€œOkay,” Horace stuffed the check into his shirt pocket. “Here’s the extra keys.”
    She took these and slid them into her jeans. Sully could see the perfect outline they made.
    When Horace was gone, Toby Roebuck turned to face Sully, who, until that moment, she’d not looked at. “Tell me,” she said, “how does a man—even a man like you—get
that
dirty?”
    â€œWorking for your husband,” Sully informed her, since it was true.
    â€œAh,” she nodded, as if it all made perfect sense now. “He makes you look like he makes me feel.”
    â€œHe’s a beaut’,” Sully conceded. “Listen. While you got your checkbook handy, how about writing me a check for the work I did this summer? Dummy and I have ironed things out, but all he had down at the office was the company checkbook.”
    Toby Roebuck grinned at him. “Nice try, Sully.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe called this morning and warned me you’d probably be by. He told me what you’d say almost word for word.”
    Sully grinned sheepishly. “He does owe me, you know.”
    â€œGet in line,” she advised. “He owes everybody.”
    â€œGood thing he’s got all that money,” Sully observed.
    â€œAll what money?”
    â€œDon’t kid a kidder,” Sully said.
    â€œI tell you what, Sully. You take a big pile of money and then go have quadruple-bypass surgery and see how much money is left by the time you get back to the pile.”
    Sully decided he wouldn’t argue the point, but he didn’t buy what Toby Roebuck was telling him either. In his experience, people who had Carl’s kind of money had few real duties, and about the only one they took seriously was convincing other people they didn’t have all that money you knew they had. Toby Roebuck seemed sincere enough, and Sully didn’t doubt the hospital had been expensive, but he doubted she knew much about her husband’s finances. Carl was shifty and probably had money stashed in places nobody knew about. It was probably hid so well it would stay hid when Carl finally keeled over in the middle of some nooner. “So … you going to tell me what’s going on with the new locks?”
    â€œI thought you’d never ask,” she said. “I decided just this morning that my husband no longer lives here. In fact, I don’t see him living here in the immediate future.”
    Sully nodded. “Well, it’s a bold move. It won’t work, but it might get his attention.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” Toby Roebuck sang. She didn’t sound that worried. “So … you’re no longer a college student. The old dog couldn’t learn the new tricks.”
    â€œI wish there were some new tricks for an old dog to learn, dolly.”
    â€œAnd you’re back working for Carl?”
    â€œFor a while,” Sully admitted, unwilling to concede a permanent arrangement. “We’ll see.”
    Neither said anything for a moment, neither wanting, apparently, to admit that their lives were in any meaningful way tied to a man like CarlRoebuck. “You want to see our new hot tub?” Toby Roebuck finally said.
    â€œWhere is it?”
    â€œUpstairs.”
    â€œThen I don’t want to see it,” Sully said, not wanting to add another item to the growing list of things to covet.
    Toby poured herself a cup of coffee, doctored it over at the counter. “Is it the knee still, or have you done something else to yourself since I saw you last.”
    â€œNope. Same old thing, dolly,” he said, staring at her close-cropped hair. “While we’re on the subject of doing things to ourselves …”
    â€œI got a part in this play in Schuyler,” she explained happily.