StoneDust by Justin Scott

my car.”
    Aware this was not the swiftest move, I contrived to excuse myself on the grounds that I hadn’t cashed Janey’s check and didn’t expect to learn much more from Ted than Michelle had told me, anyway. I was equally aware that when it came to Rita Long, my ethical standards had degenerated to those of a starving man with a rock discovering pheasant under glass.
    Ted locked the shop and signed out at the principal’s office, and I followed his Honda out of town and up Mount Pleasant Road. He drove sedately, more like a retiree than the hotshot contractor who used to race his Corvette down to Long Island Sound where he had docked a cabin cruiser. With his beautiful Susan at his side, they had been one of the sights of the town.
    They still were, for that matter: Susan Barrett didn’t need Corvettes and cabin cruisers to knock male socks off; driving a rusty compact these days, she still stopped traffic; while to go drinking with Ted was to have women whisper in your ear, “Who’s your friend with the blue eyes?”
    ***
    An encampment of Amish folk, up from Pennsylvania in modest vans and RVs, were building a brand-new ultra-modern dairy barn for Gill Farm. The men had split into two crews—masons pouring the perforated concrete floor and carpenters erecting the frame. Their women were cooking supper under some maple trees.
    I pulled up a moment to say hi to Fred Gill, who had recently bought Ellis Butler’s herd when Ellis retired. Fred was beaming like a new father. The huge concrete basin behind the barn, he explained, was a holding-mixing tank for a cow manure slurry, piped from under the cows, that he would spread on his fields; by feeding them indoors, he figured to double production and halve costs, as the cows would be fertilizing their own corn.
    I congratulated him and caught up with Ted’s Honda behind the old barn where Duane Fisk and Bill Carter were pulling nails and stacking siding. I wasn’t quite prepared for my initial reception.
    When Duane saw me, he hurried over, calling, “Hey, Ben. Perfect timing. Things are moving real fast all of a sudden.”
    Duane was broad and beefy, a little shorter than I, and making excellent progress on a beer gut. In fact he had been putting on new weight for several months. Now when he smiled his jowls got big and his eyes nearly disappeared in slits of flesh.
    I got out of the car. He slipped his hammer through his nail apron and tossed his catspaw nailpuller on the grass so we could shake hands.
    â€œYou look happy. What’s moving?”
    â€œWe’re going to pick up Reg’s half of the Mount Pleasant subdivision. Me and Bill and Ted. Rates low, the market’s coming back. We’ll throw up four houses to start; first one we sell we start two more.”
    â€œTerrific,” I said, curious what bank owed Duane a favor, and somewhat glad for them. As I’ve noted, I had never liked the Mount Pleasant deal; but the damage had been done already, in the course of clearing the lots and building the road, so there was little point in the scarred-up hillside eroding further as it sat empty. The people who bought their houses would make their own mark planting new trees and gradually erase the bulldozer scars with lawns and gardens and barbecues.
    In fact, I was so glad for them that I didn’t see the bribe coming until it was wrapping around me like a gaucho’s bola. “Thing is, Ben, we’d like you to handle it with an exclusive.”
    â€œThat’s a decent offer.”
    â€œYou’ve got the kind of buyers we’ll need. Right, Bill?”
    â€œDamn straight,” said Bill, and Ted chimed in with a less-than-convinced, “Absolutely.”
    This was absurd. I specialized in country homes—second homes for well-off New Yorkers—and I hadn’t met one yet who’d buy a house in a subdivision, much less one with a gravel pit for a front