Mr. Fahrenheit by T. Michael Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

nobody’s idea of “subtle.” But if Benji thought CR would be an easier audience because CR was drunk, well, he was right.
    â€œSo . . . we’re on the same page, plan-wise?” CR said, distinctly less growly.
    â€œTotally.”
    â€œOkay. Okay, great. Awesome. Yeah.” You could almost hear the competitive machinery in CR’s head powering down as hegave a sheepish half smile. “Sorry I was an asshole a second ago.”
    Benji waved it off: no big deal. Which it wasn’t.
    Not now.
    And then they were all silent for a long, long time. By now, even the embers and the firefly ash of the bonfire were gone, so the only light came from the moon and stars peppering the sky.
    â€œSo after we wait,” CR finally said, just above a whisper, “what then?”
    Benji walked to where Ellie stood, a few feet away, and said to her, gently but openly hopeful, “What do you think? I could use your help.” But she just shook her head, still overwhelmed. Nevertheless, he turned back toward the lake. The water in the ice crater remained calm, an eerily beautiful mirror reflecting the heavens, like Benji Lightman had somehow tossed a net over the whole of the night sky and reeled it to Bedford Falls.
    â€œWe’ve got a lot of maybes ,” he said.

4
    T he Lightman family house had been passed down, father to son, for the better part of a century. Bedford Falls had originally built it to be the city-owned home for whoever they elected sheriff, but after a few decades of Lightmans comfortably holding that office, the city simply sold it to the family. And so the house—smallish but well maintained, built of bricks and ringed by a picket fence—had been owned by several generations of men who uncovered secrets for a living. One day, Papaw often said, Benji would own “this good ol’ house.”
    The house didn’t look ol’ now. In fact, the house and everything around it looked sparklingly brand-new and full of possibilities to Benji.
    He’d driven himself, CR, and Zeeko home from the quarry in CR’s truck. (The three of them lived on the same street; Ellie, who lived across town, drove home by herself.) The drive back had been silent. After the quarry, there wasn’t much to say.
    Walking up the flagstone path to his porch, Benji was a little surprised to see that Papaw’s bedroom light upstairs was turned off. Benji was out well past his (ludicrous) eleven p.m.curfew. He’d expected Papaw to be waiting up, eager to hand out a few choice words.
    Apparently , he thought, with a private joy buzzing in his head as he unlocked the door, this is my lucky night.
    There was nothing in the foyer but the dark and the familiar Papaw-smells of shoe polish and chewing tobacco. Benji noticed a hot-pink line of light glowing under the door to Papaw’s den down the hall. Voices, whispering musical voices, came from inside. Jukebox , he thought.
    He quietly kicked off his shoes, then started down the hallway, one hand on the wall to steady himself. He passed the coatrack, the gun cabinet, and a picture of his dad in an army uniform, sitting in front of an American flag. Then he eased open the door and peeked inside the den.
    Papaw sat in his recliner, his head tilted to one side. The light and the music radiated from his old jukebox in the corner; air bubbles floated upward through the water in the jukebox’s neon piping, throwing quavers of light around the room. People always said Benji looked like Papaw, even though there really wasn’t any resemblance at all. More than anything, Papaw looked like a seventy-something version of Richard Nixon, to the extent that Benji had once seen pictures of the former president in his first-grade history book and asked his teacher why nobody had told him his grandpa had been the leader of the free world. Papaw looked a little younger than his years now, in the jukebox glow.
    Benji didn’t recognize