What I'm asking from this town is reasonable for what I provide. You provide fear, Will said. That's all you provide. I provide stability. Brandon said with the particular conviction of a man who had told himself his own story so many times it had acquired the weight of truth.
People in this town weren't protected before I came. They needed to stop. Will said it wasn't loud. It was the specific sound of a door closing. Don't do that in my shop.
I've sat with these people for four years. Tommy Reese taught me to play chess. Lou Baitman's wife made me a pie when my back went out last winter. Patty Gould has been pouring my coffee since the day I opened. His voice didn't rise.
Didn't need to. They didn't need protection from anything until you arrived. What you built here is a predator's economy, and we both know it. Brandon's jaw tightened. The composure cracked slightly at the edges.
Decker beside him said nothing, but Decker had not looked at the walls or the floor or the motorcycles behind Will in the shop. Decker had looked at Marcus since the moment they walked in and had not looked away. The calculation in Decker's eyes was the most honest thing in the room. "What do you want?" Brandon said.
The pleasantness was gone. The performance was gone. And what was underneath was something younger and raarer and more honest than anything Brandon Keller had shown Silver Creek in 6 weeks. I want you to leave, Will said. I want Decker and Trace and the others to leave with you.
I want every business in this town to have next week without an envelope. I want Lou Baitman's wife to sleep without worrying that someone's going to knock on her door at 10:30 at night. And if I don't, Brandon said. Marcus moved. It wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't threatening. It was simply a shift in position, a settling of weight, the particular movement of a man who has stopped being patient. And the effect it had on the air in the room was immediate and undeniable. Then you stay, Marcus said. And if you stay, 31 people watch everything you do in this town for as long as you do it.
Every envelope, every visit, every time one of your men puts his hand on something that doesn't belong to him, we document it. We provide it to Sheriff Hutchkins. And we make sure that the case he couldn't build alone gets built. He looked at Brandon without any particular heat, which was the most effective thing about it. You're 26 years old.
What happens in the next 48 hours determines whether you're 60 and free or 60 and not. That's the only calculation that should interest you right now. The shop was entirely quiet. Outside, the town moved around it Sunday afternoon. Somewhere down the road, an engine turned over.
Pete Alcott leaving with his shovel head. Probably. Brandon Keller looked at Will. Will looked back at him with the expression he'd worn since the beginning patient. Clear and complicated.
The expression of a man who has done the arithmetic and is waiting for the other party to catch up. I need to think, Brandon said. You have until this evening, Will said. After that, the offer changes. What does it change to?
It doesn't have a good version, Will said. Brandon looked at the floor. He looked at the workbench. He looked at the Norton with its timing cover replaced and the Triumph with its tank off and Will Carter's whole quiet 30-year life arranged around him in the form of other people's machines given back to them in working order. Then he looked at Decker.
Decker gave him nothing. No guidance, no expression, no signal in either direction. Decker was a man who provided a service and the service had reached a junction. And what happened at junctions was decided by the person who paid, not the person employed. This evening, Brandon said.
This evening, Will confirmed. They left. Will and Marcus stood in the shop after the truck pulled out of the driveway, and the silence that settled was different from the opponents before the silence of a room in which something pivotal has just occurred. And both people in it know it. Marcus looked at the wall where the clock ran 3 minutes fast.
"He's scared," Marcus said. "Yes," Will said. Decker isn't. "No," Will agreed. "Decker's practical.
Practical men calculate outcomes, Marcus said. If he calculates that Brandon's going to make the wrong decision, Decker separates himself. He's done this before, that man. He knows how it ends when it goes wrong. Will thought about Decker's eyes steady on Marcus since they had walked in.
The appraisal of a professional measuring another professional. "You think he'll go?" Will said. "I think he's already mentally gone," Marcus said. "Brandon will follow or he won't.