Ravens by George Dawes Green

bet, Tara tapped his wrist and warned: “Go easy on yourself, cowboy,” and made it look like
     an excuse to touch him — and Nell caught this. And grinned.
    A few hands later, Nell went off to the back porch to feed the cats, and Shaw said softly, “Tara. You’re astonishing. You’re
     perfect. You’re going to save them all.”
    His little slant smile.
    A sentiment flared up inside her then, which had the shape of a pillar. If it wasn’t pride, she didn’t know what it was. In
     an instant it was gone, vaporized by self-revulsion. But it had been there.
    Nell came back in and sat and said, “Deal! Let’s go!”
    And now Tara raised the stakes. She bet thirty dollars on a hand that looked like a bust. Shaw cried, “You got nothun!” and
     raised her back, but with a kind of manic confidence Tara brought her face close to his and said, “I have an army of scorpions.”
     And reraised — a hundred dollars.
    Shaw folded. Nell hollered with delight. Shaw proposed a toast to Tara’s
cojones,
and they all drank deep.
    Romeo was parked up Egmont Street from Nell’s house. His seat was tilted back so he could barely see over the dashboard, but still
     he had a clear view into the kitchen. The three of them so festive in there. Playing cards and drinking and throwing back
     their heads and laughing wildly. Meanwhile, in the Tercel, he sat there silently baking. For two hours, not moving except
     to brush flies away, to wipe the sweat off his face. At last the alarm in his phone went off. Time to check in. He pressed
     the number 7. He saw Shaw excuse himself from the kitchen table and come out onto Nell’s little portico and lift the phone
     to his ear.
    “You’re being watched,” said Romeo. And he could see, even from this far, how much this annoyed Shaw.
    Shaw scanned the street till he spotted the Tercel. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous when you’re this close to me!
     Why aren’t you patrolling?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “The smell of this city is making me sick.”
    “What smell?”
    “They say it’s the pulp mill. But to me it’s like everyone’s dead. I think all these ranch houses and condos are filled with
     dead people. If they’re not dead, how come the streets are so empty? How come Brunswick stinks so much?”
    “Smells OK to me,” said Shaw.
    “Maybe you’re just too drunk to smell it.”
    “I’m not drunk at all.”
    “Oh shit,” said Romeo. “I been
watching
you get drunk. What, are you trying to seduce them? That’s what it looks like. All that drinking and joking and flirting.”
    “I’m trying to put them at ease.”
    “OK. Good plan. You be the charmer; I’ll be the ghoul.”
    Romeo didn’t know where that had come from. Lack of sleep probably. But Shaw cast him a long troubled stare. Forty yards between
     them, but still it felt Shaw was searching right into his eyes. Finally Shaw said softly, “Listen, Romeo, I know how hard
     this is. What you’re doing is a lonely thing and I’m amazed how well you’re doing it. But just, you got to know, I’m
with
you. You know? I’m with you every second. All we got to do is get to the end of this deal; then we put our money into the
     bank and retire and all the rest is play, OK? You know what I want to do? I want to go to Trinidad like we were planning on,
     and when we get there, we’ll open a hospital for the poor. OK? Or an orphanage or something. I mean it. Just spread the fucking
     love wherever we go. And drink cuba libres and have a big swimming pool and bang all the pretty nurses and have a constant
     blast but one thing I promise you is I’ll never forget your courage here this week. You know?”
    “I guess.”
    “I told you I needed you, and you were there. And everything that’s happened since comes from your courage. I’m not ever going
     to forget that. OK?”
    “Sure. I mean you don’t have to say this.”
    “You OK then?”
    “Yeah.”
    “We just have to make it to the