Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

His lower lip quivered and his eyes filled. “I tried to fight them back, Gideon. I really did.” He pulled off his glasses with one hand and pulled the other away from me to wipe his eyes. “First I said there was no need for violence when we could talk. I tried to get in the middle so I could reason with them. I tried to reason with them…”

“I know you did,” I said. “I know that without you telling me.”

“When they turned on me and started calling me names, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I tried not to hit anybody. I wasn’t afraid. I’m not a coward. I just wanted them to stop.”

“You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known,” I said softly. “You taught me to box, but you taught me to talk it out first. Trying to reason first takes a rare courage.”

“When they started hitting me, I knew I had no choice.” He was crying harder now, struggling to keep his volume low and angling his face toward the window so others in the restaurant would neither see nor hear him. I hadn’t seen him cry since Evelyn’s funeral. The sight was so disconcerting I wanted to stand and embrace him, but that would draw more attention to him. I waited, as I knew he would want me to.

After a moment he dabbed his eyes with a paper napkin and blew his nose. Then he sat back and took a breath to collect himself. “I landed a couple of solid punches but there were so many of them. So many of them, filled with a hate deaf to reason.”

“You can’t reason with hate,” I said.

He shut his eyes for a moment. “Hate that couples with any human personality trait—fear or faith, anger or loss, despair or greed or lust—can only sire a monster. I stared into the face of that monster. What scares me most is that its lack of empathy is metastatic.”

I said nothing and let the seconds crawl.

Finally, Bobby broke the silence. “All right, my old will was simple. Everything went to you and Mira. But that was before Shakti and Kayla, before I had the building remodeled and real estate took off in the Village.” He smiled sadly. “This update is long overdue.”

“Bobby, unless there’s something you haven’t told me, there’s no need—”

He cut me off with a shake of his head. “This isn’t about my health, son. As far as I know, it’s fine—not that it matters when…” He looked off, lips pressed together as if holding in an unrefined fury that had poured into the spaces purged by his crying. “This is about preparation for the inevitable, about putting my affairs in order. When a person can be attacked at random, when complete strangers need no reason other than…” He trailed off again, pushing his glasses up. Then he chuckled with uncharacteristic bitterness. “You know, I’ve been stomping around this slush ball for more than seven decades. I still can’t explain whether my being on it matters or why the world should hang in space at all.”

“Your students would say you were put here to teach.”

“In forty-plus years, I probably had five thousand students. Five thousand in a world of seven billion—a remorseless world.” He tsk-tsked. “Like most dreamers who grew up in the Sixties, I thought I would change the world. Now I can’t help wondering what the point of it all was when some dumb kids in the Midwest have a Nazi-themed senior prom and their teachers don’t stop it. When a college fraternity in California throws a blackface party and has to be told why it’s wrong. Now I understand all that truly matters is the family you leave behind.” He avoided my gaze for a breath or two. “My DNA and all it could have been goes into the urn with me...”

I nodded. I hadn’t expected his preference for cremation to change. We had talked before about his and Evelyn’s failure to have children. However good they had been together, however many foster children they had taken in over the years, however much they had loved each other and Mira and me, however much they had given of themselves to the community, there was a hole in Bobby’s life beyond repair.

“But I couldn’t be prouder of you and Mira if I were your biological father,” he said as if reading my mind. “You are my family, and you mean everything to me. If my being here, being alive, meant anything, Evelyn and you two are the best parts of it.”

“We owe you everything,” I said.

“You owe me nothing.” He sat up straighter and sniffed before exhaling. “Now, can we get down to business? With property, life insurance, and savings, I have a sizable estate—not enough to pay a death tax but enough to do some good for the people I love.” He flipped open the top copy on the pile of papers in front of him. “My estate still goes to you and Mira. You’re still co-executors who share in the apartment building, whether you keep it or sell it. But there are carve-outs. If you keep the building, I want Sam to have a free apartment, even after he can’t work anymore. Nine units take in money now. After me, there’ll be ten. If you sell, Sam gets a monthly stipend to help with rent wherever he goes.”

“Bobby…”

He held up his hand. “Let’s stick to business. Please.” He waited until I murmured my agreement. “Another portion of my estate has been diverted to a trust fund for Shakti. It’s not much, but it’ll give him a solid financial foundation. College, grad school, maybe a down payment on a house. Of course, if I know Mira, it will be college and grad school.”

Smiling because I knew he was right, I found the page and skimmed it.

He turned to another page. “Kayla has her own money and doesn’t need anything from me, but I want