Danny was on the porch, reading a library copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes that Mrs. Dunning had pressed on him, when the Lincoln turned onto Ninth Street and rolled slowly down it like a parade float, and every curtain on the block twitched. It stopped at the curb. Royce got out alone. He was wearing jeans and a Royals cap and a polo shirt with the Hadley Chevrolet logo on the chest, and he was carrying a manila envelope and a white bakery box tied with string.
"Afternoon," he said, at the foot of the porch steps. He did not come up them. Danny noticed that. "Your mother home?"
She was. She came to the screen door in her robe, with her hair wrapped in a towel, and looked at him through the mesh and did not open it.
"Mrs. Kowal." Royce took off the cap. "I'm Royce Hadley. I owe your boy an apology, and I owe you one, too, and I wanted to make it in person, because that's how I was raised." He held up the bakery box. "That's a rhubarb pie from Lindahl's. I'm told it's the best in town. I'm told I owe you a whole lot more than a pie."
Linda Kowal did not say anything.
"I had too much to drink," Royce said to the screen door. "I'm not proud of it. I had a lot riding on that evening and I let it get the better of me and I put my hands on a kid who was doing his job. I've got two boys of my own. If a man did that to one of them, I'd want to kill him." He looked at Danny. "I'm sorry, son. I truly am."
Danny believed him, a little. That was the worst part. Royce's voice was steady and his eyes were steady and the cap was in his hands, and there was something in him that seemed, for just that moment, to be telling the truth, the way a salesman tells the truth about the one thing he doesn't need to lie about so you'll trust him on all the others.
"Kenny tell you about the job?" Royce said.
"Yes, sir."
"Offer stands. Four-fifty. Start whenever you like." He held up the manila envelope. "And there's something else, and I'm going to be straight with you about it, because I think you're smart enough to see through anything else. The commission's voting on the Sunflower block in about a month. You know about that?"
"Yes, sir."