Nerve Damage

by Peter Abrahams

  Roy gathered his legs under him, started to rise. For a moment, he couldn’t; as though all his strength had gone at once. And in that moment, he noticed a footprint in the dust. Not his—his feet were bare right now, and besides, this print came from a woman’s shoe: two separate prints, really, small square heel and larger oval toe. Lenore had been rooting around down here.

  “Goddamn it,” Roy said. The thought of this invasion and his own failure to stop it infuriated him. The next thing he knew he was on his feet, angrier than he had ever been in his life—angry at Lenore, who had framed Skippy and searched his house, possibly found and taken the evidence that would force Sergeant Bettis and the official world to believe him; all this while he lay in a hospital bed.

  What are you going to do about it? Delia’s voice again, but the effect was not as comforting as it had been in the feng shui room. “I could use some help from you,” he said.

  Roy heard a crunching sound in the snow outside. He looked up, through the high window, saw someone going by; just the lower half, from that angle, but the someone wore a black mink coat.

  “Good news,” said Krishna as Roy opened the front door. The limo sat idling in the driveway, exhaust rising in the cold air. “Oh dear—what happened to your arm?”

  “Hockey,” Roy said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still playing at it?”

  “You don’t play at hockey,” Roy said. “You play it.”

  “A tad grumpy today?” Krishna gave him a close look. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Fine,” Roy said.

  “Have you lost a little weight?”

  “Nothing to speak of,” Roy said. “Ramping up my workouts till I get back on the ice.”

  Krishna nodded. “It’s all of a piece,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “This physicality of yours,” Krishna said. “It informs the work.” Roy thought about that.

  “Are you going to invite me in from the cold?” Krishna said.

  “Oh, sure, sorry.”

  They went into the kitchen. “Didn’t you get my message?” Krishna said. “About dropping in on the way to Stowe?”

  Roy glanced at Skippy’s note on the counter.

  Hi Mr. Roy. Mr. McKenny called for me to come see him. Back later. Also—man who said his name was Krishna.

  “What are you smiling about?” Krishna said.

  “Nothing,” Roy said. “Coffee?”

  “With pleasure,” said Krishna. “But don’t you want to hear my news?”

  “All ears,” said Roy.

  Krishna took Roy’s arm, led him into the big room. He stopped in front of Delia. “My God,” he said. “Even better than I remembered. Just breathtaking.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to Roy. “The news, Roy, the excellent news, is that we have a buyer. And what a buyer. And what a price. From the sight of the photos alone, he has offered—are you ready for this?”

  “Probably not,” Roy said.

  Krishna laughed, clapped Roy on the back. Not hard—Krishna was small and soft—but for some reason it hurt. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Roy! A quarter of a million.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” said Krishna. “Just oh? It’s more than twice what we’ve gotten for anything before.”

  “I’m…stunned, that’s all,” said Roy; a lie—but why spoil Krishna’s fun? “It’s fantastic.”

  “Fantastic, splendid, wonderful,” said Krishna. He shook Roy’s hand. “Congratulations. You deserve every penny. This is marvelous work—I suspect you’ve arrived at a whole new level.”

  Roy gazed up at Delia: he saw another flaw almost every time he looked, but that didn’t make Krishna wrong about the whole new level; the very fact that he was seeing them might make him right. “Who’s this buyer?” he said.

  “That’s the beauty part,” Krishna said, “as if the money wasn’t beauty enough. The buyer is Calvin Truesdale.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Roy! Calvin Truesdale. The Truesdale Ranch.”

  Roy shook his head.

  “Like the King Ranch,” Krishna said. “Only bigger.”

  “He raises cattle?” Roy said.

  “Yes, I suppose,” said Krishna. “Besides owning twenty percent of the oil wells in the Gulf, a couple hundred radio stations, a controlling interest in Texas Semiconductors and God knows what else. But the important thing for our purposes is that in the past ten years or so he’s gotten interested in art. He’s already accumulated the largest private Giacometti collection in the country, and just last April he bought Rodin’s Seated Zola for fourteen-point-five mil. I’ve tried getting in touch with his people more than once about some pieces—that Degas ballerina I had two years ago, for example—never getting anywhere. And then what happens?”

  “What?” said Roy.

  “Yesterday morning he just walks into the shop.”

  “Who?”

  “Calvin Truesdale, Roy,” Krishna said. “Are you following this?”

  Roy nodded; those names—Giacometti, Rodin, Degas—spoken even in distant relationship, made him very uncomfortable.

  “I showed him a few things—he bought that little Matisse that’s been in the window on the spot, actually ended up strolling out with it under his arm, for God’s sake. But I went through the catalog with him, too, and that’s where he saw this.” Krishna gestured toward Delia. “He flipped over it, Roy, just flipped.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like how did he flip?”

  “Yeah.” Roy was trying to imagine some cowboy jumping for joy in Krishna’s hip and sophisticated Tribeca shop, and having trouble.

  Krishna shrugged. “He said amazing, incredible, had all kinds of questions—size, materials—and wanted to know about you, of course. He’d also like to come see it. ‘At the artist’s convenience’—he’s very polite, but the offer stands in any case, personal viewing or no, bound with a check for ten percent of the total.” Krishna had a huge grin on his face, one of those faces shaped for conveying happiness to begin with.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Roy said.

  The grin faltered, went misshapen. “But why?” Krishna said. “What sort of thinking?”

  “I just don’t know if I want to…”

  “To what?”

  “Part with it right now.”

  Krishna’s gaze went to Roy’s cast, then back to his face. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Maybe as a strategy to drive up the price?” Krishna said. “Playing hard to get?”

  “Why would I strategize on you?” Roy said. “And it’s already more than the thing is worth, way more.”

  “Hush,” said Krishna.

  Roy laughed. Krishna laughed a little, too.

  “All right,” he said. “Think about it. I understand—it’s like a mother giving up her baby. But, Roy—you can make more babies. And remember Picasso’s warning.”

  “What warning was that?”

  “Don’t become your own connoisseur.”

  Wisdom, the kind that actually shifted the mind around at one stroke, revealed what needed revealing: you didn’t come across it often. Roy caught a glimpse of what separated him from Picasso, horizons beyond horizons.

  They drank coffee at the kitchen counter, sitting on stools. “Does the driver want any?” Roy said.

  Krishna waved the idea away. “Finished with your thinking yet, Roy?”

  Roy laughed again.

  Krishna sipped his coffee. “Whatever you decide,” he said, “there’s one thing you should know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She would have loved it.”

  Roy’s eyes met Krishna’s. He came close to telling Krishna everything, starting with the present meaninglessness of a quarter of a million dollars and the possibility that his baby-making days were numbered. Then a thought came that helped him quell the impulse. “Do you remember
Tom Parish?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” Krishna said.

  “Delia’s boss. He spoke at the funeral.”

  “I was in Rome.”

  Roy remembered.

  “I still feel bad that I couldn’t—”

  “It’s all right.”

  “What about Delia’s boss?” Krishna said.

  “I’d like to locate him,” said Roy.

  “Why?”

  “Just to talk.”

  Krishna glanced across the kitchen, into the big room and Delia. Roy could see him inventing some artistic explanation. “Why don’t you try what’s-his-name?” Krishna said.

  “What’s-his-name?”

  “Fellow who worked at the same place,” Krishna said. “Government agency, wasn’t it? Delia sent him to me.”

  “Delia sent who to you?”

  “This coworker—he had an interest in mosaics from the Moorish period and I happened to have a Moroccan bowl, I believe it was, in his price range.”

  Roy was on his feet. “What was his name?”

  Krishna looked alarmed. “Is it that important?”

  Roy tried to control that old-man quaver in his voice, settle it down. “The name, please.”

  Krishna closed his eyes. “One of those combination names,” he said.

  “Combination names?”

  “In a multicultural sense.” Krishna’s eyes opened. “Paul Habib,” he said.

  “You sold a bowl to Paul Habib?”

  “A very minor piece,” said Krishna. “It couldn’t have brought more that fifteen hundred dollars, two thousand at the outside. A shrewd purchase, actually—this was many years ago and the market has strengthened considerably. But the point I’m making is that I’m sure to have contact information for him back at the office. Somewhat dated, no doubt, but you never know.”

  “Can you call now?”

  “Call?”

  “The office,” Roy said. “Have someone look it up.”

  “Friday, Roy. I don’t open on Friday.” Krishna gave Roy another look, saw something that made him take out his phone. “Philip?” he said. “When you get this message, I want you to go to the office, open the accounts file and find contact information for Paul Habib. Paul Ha-bib. Call me when you’ve got it.”

  “Thanks,” Roy said.

  “You’re welcome,” said Krishna, finishing his coffee. “Done thinking yet?”

  Seventeen

  Krishna’s limo backed smoothly out of the long curving lane to the street and drove away. An old woman walking her dog turned to watch it go by.

  Two hundred and fifty grand: a fortune for a kid growing up in a shabby town like North Grafton, Maine, utter fantasy to dream of that kind of money coming in one fat hunk. But here it was: all he had to do was say yes.

  Roy picked up the phone and called his mom.

  “Roy! How nice to hear from you!”

  “Everything okay, Mom?”

  “Everything’s super,” she said. “Couldn’t be better.” Roy’s mom wasn’t one of those northerners who ended up pining for home—even in winter—after moving to Florida. She loved Florida: the little condo Roy had bought her, the Mini Cooper she’d chosen at the dealership he took her to—first brand new-car she’d ever owned—her new friends and all the card games they played and dancercise classes they took. “Guess what the temperature is this very minute,” she said.

  Best to aim low on that question: “Sixty-eight?” he said.

  “Sixty-eight?” she said. “Brrr. It’s eighty degrees, Roy—I’m looking at the thermometer as I speak. You know the thermometer I’m talking about, on the balcony?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “And I can see a freighter, way way out there. It looks red.”

  “Sounds nice, Mom.”

  “My own personal million-dollar view,” she said. “And how are you doing, Roy?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Things are still…selling and all?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said; and smiled to himself: he knew that down deep she probably thought her Florida life could vanish like that. “No problem there.”

  “Good to hear.” Then a pause. “Is there a problem somewheres else?”

  “No, no,” said Roy. “I’m just saying the business side is going particularly well.”

  “Wonderful,” said his mom. “Any recent sales at all, if I’m not being too much of a nosey parker?”

  “Now that you bring it up,” Roy said, “we just got the highest offer yet.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “No fair clamming up now.”

  “Promise you won’t repeat it.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  Roy named the figure.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said. “Who in their—” She stopped herself.

  “Who in their right mind, Mom?” Roy said, having some fun.

  “Now, Roy,” she said. “You know I love your work—it’s so…so big. I’m just wondering who has that kind of money.”

  “It’s some rancher from Texas,” Roy said.

  “What’s his name?”

  For a moment, he couldn’t recall. “Truesdale,” he said. “Clifton Truesdale.”

  “Calvin Truesdale, you mean?” said his mom.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Roy said. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Heard of him! Don’t you read People, Roy? Just last week, I think it was, they had him hunting birds down on his ranch with the president. They’re best buddies.”

  “What president?”

  “Of the United States, for God’s sake,” said his mom. “What president. Didn’t you meet him once, if I recall?”

  “Who?”

  “Who? Good grief. The president, Roy. The president of the United States.”

  “Sort of,” Roy said.

  “How can you sort of meet someone?”

  “He was still vice president when I met him,” Roy said. “And it was only a handshake.”

  “Listen to you. Shook hands with the president. My son—in the big time and he don’t even know it.”

  “I’m not in the big time, Mom.”

  “Big enough for me,” said his mom. One more pause. “How’s Jen?”

  “Fine.”

  “Still teaching skiing?”

  “Yes.”

  Her tone changed. “You got a cold, Roy?”

  “No.”

  “Feel okay? Your voice sounds a bit raspy.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Roy said. “Got to run. Talk to you soon.”

  “Bye, son. Love you.”

  Click.

  Roy cleared his throat—more accurately, went through all those sounds and peristaltic throat movements involved in throat clearing—but couldn’t quite do it.

  He stood before Delia. No rising dust motes now, but she still seemed to be turning, perhaps a kinetic illusion he’d unintentionally created. Done thinking yet? He didn’t need the money, didn’t want to sell her, not now, not ever. In fact, a strange, even repellent desire arose within him: to dig a great hole, have Delia buried in the ground beside him.

  Then he thought of Skippy. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could get Skippy set up somewhere, somewhere out of town. He could take his GED, go to college, grow up safe; all of that depending on how this bogus weapons charge turned out. Roy went to the window: no Skippy. The old woman and her dog were coming back, a small dog wearing a snappy plaid vest. The old woman wore a thin coat with patches on the elbows and the acetate lining sagging out the back.

  A calendar hung on the broom-closet door: HOCKEY LEGENDS. Roy flipped through the months: Bobby Orr flying through the air; Gordie Howe holding off a defenseman with one hand, getting off a shot with the other; Guy LaFleur with his hair streaming behind him; Glenn Hall in goal without a mask; Boom Boom Geoffrion winding up for a slap shot; and on to Rocket Richard at the end of the year, with his hot, mesmerizing eyes, like there was a fire burning inside him. Roy knew he’d enjoy t
hat December, thirty-one days of the Rocket. All he had to do was get there.

  Rest, food, exercise: his responsibilities; everything else was up to Dr. Chu. Roy went upstairs, laid out his gym clothes—sneakers, sweats, jock, white cotton socks, a Thongs T-shirt with a long list printed on the back: hooking, slashing, elbowing, boarding, spearing, tripping, holding, roughing, high-sticking, interference, fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct, each with a little box, and a check mark in every one; and at the bottom, KINGS OF THE PENALTY BOX. Roy sat on the bed, took off his shoes.

  “I hate everything about hockey,” Delia said, “but you know what’s worst?”

  “What?”

  “The way you all stink. How come no one ever washes their stuff? It comes in waves when I stand behind the bench, almost knocks me over.”

  “Then don’t stand behind the bench.”

  “But that’s the best place to watch the game, Roy.”

  He was zooming, skating so fast he barely touched the ice, reaching speeds unknown even to LaFleur or Kharmalov or Perrault on their best days, and he had the puck on an invisible string; even better, he didn’t get winded at all, needed no more than a deep breath now and then, the air in his lungs almost tactile, like from a planet with a richer mixture. Then the horn sounded, game over.

  Roy opened his eyes. The phone was ringing. Dark shadows slanted across his room. He lay on the bed, his gym clothes twisted and bunched around him.

  Roy reached for the phone, knocked it on the floor, fumbled around. A small voice rose from the receiver, down there somewhere. “Roy? Are you there? Mr. Valois?”

  Roy found the phone. “Skippy?”

  “Is that you, Roy?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes—what is it, Skippy?”

  “Can you come down here?” Skippy said. “Soon or like right now?” His voice was low and excited. “I found her.”

  “Found who?”

  “The lady, Roy. You got to, like, hurry.”

  “What lady?”

  “The lady, the lady, you know. I can see her from here.”

  “What lady?”

  “The one, Roy. Who came to the house. Um, your house.”