Joey Warnecki - Eight Days

Joey Warnecki - Eight Days Page 2

by John Dahlborg

Chapter 2

  The first light of dawn illuminated Joey's hospital room with a soft, gray quality. He awoke to it shortly before seven o'clock and looked about him, finding his bearings. Three other beds, two occupied, shared the space with his. Two men appearing to be at least in their seventies were in the beds across from him. One was asleep, snoring loudly. Joey thought this might be a geriatric ward. The other, directly across, had his eyes open and was staring at Joey. Joey thought he might be sleeping with his eyes open, but the man spoke: "How's a body going to sleep with that old geezer making noise?" This question, delivered loudly, woke the old geezer whose sleep ended with a single, loud snort.

  "Old geezer yourself," he said, and massaged his face with both hands, as though to rearrange his features into a more youthful visage. He squinted at his roommates. "So, we woke up alive again, did we? Another day on planet earth." He addressed Joey: "What are you in for, young feller? You older than you look? Nice hair."

  "Thanks. Good morning. According to the doctor, I got shot, though I couldn't swear to it. One minute I was sitting in my own house and the next I woke up here. Kind of a shock." Joey tentatively explored the right side of his head with his long fingers. "Does it look bad?"

  "Looks like a tornado hit your head." This from the snorer. "Can't imagine a bullet doing that much damage."

  The other man snorted and shook his head. "Saw you come in yesterday. You look better now than then. Cleaned you up considerable. Head hurt much?"

  "Just a little. Hard head, I guess. I'm Joey Warnecki."

  "I'm Frank Tuttle. The geezer is Harold Hardy. You live on cannery row? Think I've seen you around."

  "Yeah, near the end of Forth Street, two-twenty six. You?"

  "Third Street. Lived there forty some odd years now. Only shooting I can recall there was when Jim Harkady shot himself in the foot, cleaning his rifle. You get yourself in some kind of trouble?"

  "No. Must have been somebody jacking deer in the park. Just one of those things, happens out of the blue."

  The nurse from the day before breezed in while the three men mused on the nature of random circumstance. "Good morning, gentlemen, are we all awake? Time for your medicine, Mr. Hardy, how are we feeling today?"

  "We're feeling like we haven't moved our bowels in three days. I'm all backed up here. No cigarettes, no coffee. How's a man supposed to keep himself regular?"

  "I guess we'll have to do something about that today, won't we?" She gave him a pill with a cup of water and put a thermometer in his mouth.

  "That'll shut him up for a few minutes, maybe." After his comment, Tuttle got his own thermometer.

  Joey spoke around his thermometer, "Am I getting out of here today?"

  "Keep your mouth closed for a minute, dear. Dr. Wickman will be doing his rounds shortly. He may decide to let you go. You do seem much improved today. We discontinued the diuretics." She renewed the bandage on his scalp and plumped the pillow behind his head. "You caused quite a stir around here. Friends calling, reporters and police coming around. Lot of people want to talk to you. Dr. Wickman has kept them all away, but once you're out you'll have a number of people bothering you."

  "Oh. Reporters, too?" It didn't sound like media attention was a desirable outcome of his accident.

  "Yes. That Tina person on the television has been around some."

  "Tina Bronki. I know her, sort of. I think I'd like to avoid any special attention, if I can."

  "Well, I'll talk to Dr. Wickman. He may be able to help, somehow. You just relax now, you'll be fine in no time." She gave him a motherly smile and went on to her chores with the other two men.

  Doctor Felix Wickman entered the room ten minutes later and went directly to Joey's bedside. "How's the head feeling, Mr. Warnecki? Throbbing this morning?"

  "Morning. No, just a slight ache. Can I get out soon?"

  "Let me check you out." He peered into Joey's eyes with his penlight, ran through tests of motor and visual response, loosened the strip of gauze around Joey's head and looked under the bandage at the wound. "Sixteen stitches. Gonna be tender for a while. I'm going to let you go today, around noon. I want to tell you though, don't get knocked on the head anymore. No sports, no fights, no alcohol for a week, at least. Non-narcotic pain relievers only. Nothing to get your blood pumping. Take a few days off work." He paused a moment. "Policeman named Sims wants to talk to you. Said he'd be by around ten. Feel up to talking to him?"

  Joey looked up at the doctor. "I know I'll have to talk to the police. That's okay, I'd prefer to avoid the press, though. I'd like to get home without any fuss."

  "Don't see why you shouldn't be allowed your privacy. Maybe we could let you go a little early, send the policeman around to your place. You got a ride home?"

  "I can call my next-door neighbor. He'll pick me up, if I can call him." Joey looked eager to go home. He cocked his head at the doctor. "What's it like, being a doctor," he said incongruously. Wickman seemed taken aback by the question. "I mean," Joey tried to explain, "I'm a carpenter. If I tear apart a wall and find rot inside, I rip it out and replace it, clean and simple. A room isn't square, I just cut to fit, you know? I think a doctor's work must be much more uncertain, more iffy."

  Wickman thought about it. "Well, we're both mechanics, in a way. Examine a problem and do what you think might fix it. But, remember when carburetors turned into computerized fuel injectors and cars became harder to fix?" Joey nodded. "Medicine is like that. Nothing is as easy as it used to seem to be. Our tools are better, but sometimes we just chase a problem around, not sure if we're doing it right. We just do the best we can with what we have, just like everybody else." The doctor smiled at him. "Your phone here is working now. I've been blocking incoming calls to it. Why don't you give your neighbor a call. See if he can pick you up around ten. In the meantime we'll get you cleaned up some more, do the paperwork here."

  "Thank you, that'd be great." Joey felt the stubble on his jaw and grinned the doctor out. He called Louis.

  "Hey, Joey, how you doing, man? Good to hear your voice. I thought you were a goner, for a while. Police been all over this place. You coming home soon?"

  Joey smiled at the concern in Louis' voice. "I'm fine, just a scab on my head and a little headache. I can come home around ten if you can pick me up."

  "Well, sure. Policeman named Sims called me last night, told me how you were. Also said he'd be around there in the morning to talk to you. Offered to bring you home, but I'd just as soon come get you myself, if it doesn't make any problem."

  "I'm certainly willing to talk to him, but who knows when he'll be around? If you come pick me up I can maybe avoid the news people. Nurse here says they've been coming around. Maybe I can sneak out without running into them, you know?"

  "They've been around here, too. I'll be there before ten, wait for you. You want me to bring you anything?"

  "I'm all set 'till I can get home, shower and change. Thanks, Lou. Bye."

  "See you at ten, Joey."

  .

  At ten o'clock, Joey was checked out of the hospital in the clothing he had been brought in with. There was a spot of blood on the collar of his checked flannel shirt, and he found a shard of glass in its vest pocket. Louis was waiting for him in the lobby. The hospital staff had insisted on pushing him to the lobby in a wheelchair. Louis, all smiles, reached down to him in it and shook his hand. Joey used the hand to pull himself from the chair, feeling lightheaded as he stood. He was smiling, too.

  "Whew, give me a minute to straighten up. All the blood left my head standing up. Been lying down all the time." The orderly who had wheeled him in stood close, ready to catch him should he fall.

  Louis lost his smile. "Yeah, man, you take it easy. You want to sit down again?"

  "No, I'm alright." He turned to the orderly. "I'm alright now, thanks."

  "I got the car right outside the door. It's raining out. You want to take my arm?"

  "That's alright, Lou. Let's just go now. I'm anxious to
get home.

  Louis took his arm anyway — this short, older, black man in pressed chinos and tweedy sport jacket helping the gangly, pale, younger man dressed in old jeans and worn flannel shirt. Were it not for the difference in their skin hues, an observer might have mistaken then for father and son. As it was, they were an unlikely pair, given the familial care with which Louis eased Joey into the passenger seat of his shiny, white, Chevrolet sedan.

  There had been no police or reporters to interrupt their progress to the car, for which Joey was thankful. Louis drove carefully over the wet city streets that led back to their neighborhood. An irregular wind was blowing from the west. Gusts would blow sheets of rain across the roadway, die into a light mist, and start up again. Louis spoke: "There's a cop parked outside your house. They put yellow tape across both your doors last night. You might have a hard time getting in."

  "There's a policeman there now?"

  "Was when I left. Been there since seven or so this morning. Expect he's there still. Joey, I don't think it was an accident, you getting shot."

  Joey raised his eyebrows as high as they could go. "What do you mean? It must have been an accident."

  Louis shook his head. "I saw where the bullet holes were. They were up on the wall above the bookcase. About six feet up. Man that put them there must have been in your backyard."

  They drove on a few blocks in silence, Louis making the turns that brought them closer to the place where what had happened might have been something other than an accident. This thought was inconceivable to Joey, and he giggled. "What, do you think one of my customers wasn't happy with my work? Come on, Lou, what can you be thinking? That's crazy."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. But I got to believe my own eyes. You'll see, you get home and look at them holes in your wall. You got to take this seriously. Somebody meant to kill you, hard as it is to believe. I can hardly believe it myself. For sure, though, whoever shot you was standing in your yard, not back in the park." Usually considered in his speech, Louis would sometimes revert to the syntax of his youth when he became excited, as he was now. He didn't want Joey to take the problem lightly. "Listen to me, Joey. With you it's always 'row, row, row your boat, gently and merrily', and all that shit, but that ain't gonna do this time. You better get yourself in the right frame of mind for this, boy, and I ain't joking with you." He nodded several times for emphasis.

  Joey was startled by Louis' fierceness. His mouth dropped open. "Okay,Lou, I get your point. You can understand how strange this is, to think that somebody would deliberately shoot at me. All right, I'll keep my mind open, but..."

  "You do more than keep your mind open. Keep your eyes open, too. Somebody tried once, might try again." Louis made a right turn onto Fourth Street.

  The rain was now just heavy enough to require windshield wipers. Knowles was sitting in his car with the engine running and his wipers going, facing them. He saw Louis with his passenger arrive and pull into Louis' driveway, on the opposite side of the house from Joey's. He shut off the engine and got out in time to intercept the two as they exited Louis' sedan. He approached Joey. "Mr. Warnecki?"

  "Yes. How are you?" He extended a hand.

  Knowles, after a slight pause, accepted it. "I was led to believe you would be coming with Officer Sims. Didn't he make it to the hospital?"

  "I managed to get released a little early, so I could avoid talking to the press. I figured the police could see me here just as easy as there. Can I get into my house, get a change of clothes?" The three men were getting wet. Joey put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the chill.

  Knowles looked from Joey to Louis, standing on the opposite side of the car, and back to Joey again. "The scene is supposed to be sealed until the other officers arrive, conduct a search. I really shouldn't let you in."

  "A search? Search for what?" Joey looked puzzled, and a bit uneasy.

  Now Knowles was hunching his shoulders, too. Louis didn't seem to notice the cold rain. He put his forearms on the roof of his car. "You could go in with him, couldn't you, makes sure he doesn't disturb anything he shouldn't. He could get a change of clothes, shower at my house, put on some dry things, clean things."

  Knowles crossed his arms over his chest, his face getting that stonewall look. "I really can't. You'll have to wait for the other officers to get finished in there."

  "Hey, look at the boy. He just got out of the hospital. He's getting soaked! He's the victim of this thing, you know. You want him to come down with pneumonia or something? Let the boy in, for crying out loud." Louis walked around the car and stood directly in front of Knowles.

  Knowles considered whether it would be worse for him if he kept Joey out and he did get sick, or if he let him in and caught hell from the department. In the end it was Joey's pitiful appearance that made the decision. "Okay, I'll go in with you and you can get a change of clothes, but that's all."

  "That's fine with me. Good. Thanks." Joey headed for his back door, Knowles right behind him.

  "I'll set out a towel for you. You come in the back way, leave your muddy shoes on the porch, hear?" Louis pocketed his keys and went into his own home.

  Knowles cut the tape with the house key and opened to door for Joey, who was looking at the cardboard taped over the window. "You think someone shot right through the window, huh?"

  "I'd say that's a fair guess. C'mon, let's get in and out." Knowles spoke gruffly. He was six months from retirement and conflicted over his decision to allow Joey to enter the scene before Sims arrived.

  Joey preceded Knowles into the kitchen, looking around as though seeing it for the first time. He stopped at the entrance to the sitting room, Knowles at his shoulder. He looked at the stain on the rug, the shards of glass that littered the floor. "Can I go in here? I'd like to see."

  "I suppose so. Just go to the center. Don't touch anything."

  Joey tip-toed over the mess and turned in a slow circle, stopping as he saw the small bullet hole and the larger, cored hole next to it. Looking back over his shoulder he could see that Louis had been right about where the shots had probably originated. This is the point at which his world dislocated. Order had been lost; chaos entered.

  Louis and Joey held in common their love for order, neatness, cleanliness. But they came to this commonality from different origins. To Louis, order and cleanliness were tied up with pride of place and self-respect. This attitude was brought on partly by his upbringing, a mother and father that kept up their own modest home and tried to instill the virtues of clean living in their progeny. His upbringing was reinforced by his years in the Navy, where these values were appreciated, and mandated. And lastly, being one of the only persons of color in this small, Maine town, keeping his surroundings shipshape was a way of dispelling the preconceptions northern Yankees might hold toward minorities usually only seen in the stereotyping mass media.

  In Joey's life, keeping order was a methodology, a way of compelling the universe to obey rules he would impose. It was a system only a few steps removed from being clinically obsessive. Understandable, perhaps, in one who had lost so many people who were dear to him.

  He looked down at the rug. "Damn, that's a mess. How long you think it will be 'til I can get back in here?"

  "Can't really say. Should be sometime today."

  "My aunt spent most of a year braiding that rug. Pieces of old coats and socks and shirts and things. That line of blue there," indicating a two-foot length of bright braid near the center, "that was my mom's bandana. Pieces of all our lives wrapped up together in a rug. Hope it all comes clean again."

  Knowles stood impassively, arms crossed. "Let's get your stuff." He led the way into the bedroom and Joey knelt down before the bureau, pulling out the bottom drawer. He withdrew a pair of jeans from a row of similar, folded jeans. The next drawer up contained shirts, mostly flannel, mostly plaid. Underclothing and socks were in the next. The top drawer remained closed.

  "Mind if I take my wallet? Like to have
some cash in my pocket, in case I get hungry before you're all done in here."

  "Not a good idea."

  "Look." Joey picked up the wallet and opened it to Knowles. "I'll show you what's in it. There's ten, twenty, one, two, three dollars. Receipt from the grocery store." He put the receipt on the bureau top and unsnapped the cover from the section of transparent sleeves. "Picture of my mom, one together with my dad." The pictures showed a young man and woman dressed in sixties, hippy-style garments. Tie dye and beads, peasant dress and embroidered bell-bottomed jeans. The man had long, frizzled, red hair that sat on his head like the roof of a thatched hut, and a fu manchu mustache hung below his jaw line. He wore an intense expression on a freckled face. The woman resembled Janis Joplin, smiling sweetly for the camera. The woman was very pregnant. The backdrop for both pictures was a crowded sea of similarly attired young people.

  Joey flipped through two empty sleeves and held up the wallet before Knowles, thumbs covering the center of the next two items. "Social Security card and driver's license," he said. Knowles squinted at the photo on the license. His reading glasses were in the car, and without them he could just make out that the picture resembled Joey. He grunted.

  Joey re-snapped the flap and pulled out everything else that was in there from various slots and pockets of the wallet, putting all in a pile on the bureau, showing Knowles the now empty spaces. "Just trash there, business cards and receipts and stuff. Okay?" He held up the closed wallet, awaiting permission to hold onto it.

  Knowles looked doubtful. "Yeah, alright," he finally assented, "you about done now?"

  Joey smiled. "You bet. Just let me grab a jacket and I'll be out of here." He made for the closet on the other side of the bed. Opening one of the bifold doors he asked, "Who put up the cardboard over the window?"

  "Sims did it."

  "I'll have to thank him for that." Joey removed an unlined denim jacket from its hanger and a Red Sox ball cap from the shelf above. "You want to check the pockets?" He felt the pockets. "Empty. Okay?"

  "Sure. Let's get out of here now."

  "Yeah, great, thanks." Joey led the way out through the back door, holding the bundle of clothing clasped to his chest. Outside, patches of blue had appeared in the ragged sky. Clouds could be seen to be stacked up in several layers and traveling in different directions. "Looks like a change in the weather," he said.

  "Yeah, I guess." Knowles put his head back to check the sky, his mouth opening. He brought his head back down. "You'll wait next door to see Sims, right?"

  "Sure. I'm just gonna shower and change. Put on a couple of new band aids. Thanks again." He glanced over Knowles' shoulder and waved. Knowles turned and saw the specter of Joe Soucup staring back at him. Knowles held his stare for several seconds, then turned back to watch Joey cross to Louis' house, pull off his shoes and enter the rear door.

  Just as Knowles returned to his car, he got a call over the radio. It was Sims: "Did Warnecki return to his house? I just got to the hospital and they said he left with the neighbor." He sounded irritable. Sims had not arrived at the hospital until eleven o'clock, being tied up with phone calls and paperwork. A call to the summer house where Joey had been tearing down the old porch had gone unanswered, and he had had a short, unsatisfactory conversation with an impatient Charles Adams about Joey's work at the Lion's Club. All Adams would tell him was that Joey had been sleeping on the job and would get no more work through him. He was too busy to talk and would likely be out of town for the rest of the day, and no, he couldn't say when he would be available to meet with Sims. "Big shot," Sims thought, "I'll pin the self-important son of a bitch down, busy or not."

  "Yes," Knowles answered, "he's at the neighbor's now, getting cleaned up."

  "He go in the house?"

  "Uh, yeah. I took him in to get a change of clothes and stuff, jacket and whatnot." Knowles prepared to defend his position. There was a pause.

  "That's alright," Sims said, and Knowles relaxed some. "Brulick get there yet with the warrant?"

  "Nope. Nobody else's been here."

  "Well, he should be there soon. Mary too. I should be there in fifteen minutes or so." He paused. "Listen, when Brulick shows up. I'd just as soon have only you and me and Mary enter the house to conduct the search. No sense having unnecessary people tracking around, okay?"

  Knowles smiled to himself. He'd enjoy an opportunity to step on Brulick's toes. "It's your investigation. Whatever you say goes."

  "See you in fifteen. Out."

  Knowles replaced the handset and looked out at the sky. The highest layer of clouds was coming in from the northeast. "Yup, looks like a change in the weather," he said.

  .

  Knowles was standing toe to toe with Brulick on the sidewalk when Sims pulled up. Mary's personal car was parked behind Brulick's department vehicle on the opposite side of the street. She was lifting her gear from the trunk and turned and waved as he pulled to a stop behind her. Sims took one of the cases from her and together they crossed the street to join the other officers on the walk. Brulick took the opportunity to turn away from facing Knowles. He had been inching back away from Knowles and Knowles had been keeping up with him, so that their shoes were almost touching.

  Brulick held up a rolled document: "I got the warrant. Chief suggested I help you out here, get done quicker." Sims took the document from his hand and unrolled it. "Back off, Knowles," Brulick said, "You got no call to intimidate me." Knowles had crept up on him again and Brulick felt bolder in the presence of the other two officers.

  "This warrant is pretty broad," Sims said, "it looks like we could carry away the whole house as evidence. 'Controlled drugs, weapons, financial records, notes, documents, personal correspondence, unknown substances', etcetera, etcetera,etcetera." 'Unknown substances'? What's that?"

  "It's a blanket warrant, you know, based on the cocaine found in the house. Chief talked to Judge Biederman this morning, set it up." Sloan had sent Brulick for the warrant, telling Sims to concentrate on the investigation. "So why don't we get on it, stop wasting time?"

  Sims felt both weariness and anger at being manipulated in his investigation. Whenever the chief took an interest in a case, his ends for doing so were convoluted and unclear. Even after the resolution of a case, his motivations for involvement were rarely evident. Sims determined again to put his resentment on hold until they finished with the house. He said, "You want to help me out?"

  "Sure, why not?" Brulick shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well, how about taking a drive to North Shore Road, check out the place Warnecki was working earlier on Monday. I tried calling there, couldn't get an answer. I'd appreciate you doing that for me."

  "Chief thought —"

  "Number forty-eight. Jennings' place," Sims interrupted.

  Brulick looked at all their faces. Each gazed back, expressionless. With no other graceful way out, Brulick acceded. His tires squealed as he pulled from the curb. The three watched his progress until he turned the corner at the end of the block.

  Mary spoke for the first time, addressing Knowles: "You really enjoy that, don't you?"

  "Enjoy what?" Knowles was innocent and unaware.

  "Looming, like some big, blue bird."

  "Well sure, don't you? Guy like that? Gotta take every opportunity that comes along." He allowed himself a small smile.

  "Hey, I don't allow him to give me any shit, but I don't go out of my way to bust his balls. That stuff can come back on you, you know."

  "Aw, bullshit. That pissant gives me any trouble, I'll squash him like the bug he is. He'd stab anybody in the back any chance he got, if they're nice to him or not. He's one of those people can't look good unless somebody else looks bad. And when I retire? In just a few short months? I'll harass him as a civilian." His expression during this short harangue was unreadable.

  Mary smiled at him. "Quite a speech, Charlie. Feel better, now you got that off your chest?"

  "A little, yeah. What I really want to know i
s, what's Sloan's angle in this?" He directed this last to Sims.

  Sims shook his head. "I don't know. Let's do this thing. Maybe we'll get some answers." He led the way to the rear entrance.

  "Hey, Mary," Knowles said. "You know what the 'A' stands for, in Harry A. Sloan?"

  Mary smiled a rueful smile. "I think I can guess, Charlie."

  They reached the rear of the building and Sims stopped, turning to the others. "Listen, let me go next door, present the warrant, take a look at this guy. Maybe I'll get a better sense of what we're doing. Be back in five, alright?"

  "Sure," Mary said, "may as well wait in the car, stay warm. Charlie can tell me more about what he's going to do as a civilian, right Charlie?" Knowles declined to answer, instead turning around and heading back to the car to wait for Sims. Mary addressed Sims: "John, I know something isn't right with all this. I don't know what's going on, but Charlie and me are solid. Count on us."

  "I know I can." Unsaid was the fact that if a scapegoat was required, one would be found, no matter what support well-intentioned friends could provide. That was the way it always had been; that was the way it always would be. Sims was the one who had seen a bag of illegal drugs where none had been an hour before. Sims was the one whose ass would be hung out to dry if the investigation went south.

  As Sims climbed the two steps to Louis' back porch, he thought of many questions he'd like to put to Warnecki. Several had to do with getting to an answer of why Sloan was involving himself, and to what ends. But he didn't feel ready to ask many questions before the results of the search were tallied. And, he felt uncomfortable even conducting the search under such dubious grounds. The door opened as he raised his fist to knock.

  "Officer Sims, come in," Louis said, "Joey's just out of the shower." He looked down to where Sims was vigorously wiping his shoes on the cocoa doormat. "Wipe 'em good, unless you want to take them off. I just washed the kitchen floor."

  "I'd prefer to leave them on." Sims felt awkward enough without standing in his stocking feet. He gave one final wipe and followed Louis into the kitchen. Joey entered from the bath hallway at the same time, barefoot, wearing jeans and a white tee-shirt, a towel draped around his neck. Joey's thin arms were roped with muscle and patterned with prominent veins.

  "I'm Joseph Warnecki." He approached Sims with an outstretched hand.

  "Officer John Sims." Sims noted the hand as he shook it. It was heavily calloused, had large knuckles, and the fingernails were bitten to the quick. It seemed too large to Sims, as though it had been transplanted from a larger body. For that matter, Sims thought, the feet must have come from the same donor. He released Joey's hand. "How's your head?"

  "Oh, I think I'm going to be fine." Joey tilted his head and turned enough for Sims to see the wound. The line of black stitches contrasted with the whiteness of the shaved area on his scalp. "Feels tight, like they had to pull the edges together to sew it up. Is one ear higher than the other?" Joey grinned.

  Sims grinned back. "Not so's you'd notice." With that hair and the stitches, who is going to notice your ears? He removed the grin from his face and passed the warrant to Joey. "This is a warrant to search your house. Certain ... irregularities have arisen that make it necessary."

  Joey's grin also disappeared as he read the warrant. "I don't understand ... 'drugs, weapons, papers' . . .

  "I don't understand, neither." Louis stood with darkened brow, his arms crossed. "Who is it did the crime here and who got shot, anyway?"

  Sims half-turned to Louis, without taking his eyes from Joey's face. "Excuse me, Mr. Armstrong, let me speak with Mr. Warnecki." Joey's face was losing what color it had and he sat down on the chair beside him. Joey looked everywhere but at the two other men. Sims thought it resembled the look of a man caught at something he had thought hidden, not so much a guilty look as one of despair, and resignation.

  Joey put his hand to his head, touching the row of stitches and released a long breath through pursed lips. "Here," he said, handing the document back to Sims, "do what you gotta do." He looked directly into Sims eyes, as though searching for something lost, something important.

  "I left some people waiting. I'll get back to you later. I'd like to set up a time I could interview you, at the department." Sims was turning the tightly rolled document in his hands. He was intently curious at the expression of profound defeat on Joey's face.

  "Yeah, whatever." Joey flapped his hand dismissively and faced the table, a quarter turn away from Sims. Sims looked at Louis, who now had his hands on his hips and was looking at Joey in consternation. Sims decided to leave. "I'll be back," he said, and left.

  Louis sat down opposite Joey. "Joey, What's the matter? They ain't gonna find anything over there. Are they? You don't have any drugs or guns over there. Do you?" Joey didn't respond. "Joey, talk to me, boy. What's going on with you?"

  Joey, who had been lost in thought, idly scratching his forearm, looked up. He chuckled. "Sorry, Lou, guess I got lost there for a while."

  "So? Is there anything for them to find that shouldn't be there, or what?"

  "Well, no drugs or guns or anything like that. No piles of money or bodies buried in the basement. Just my life. That's all."

  "Just your life. Tell me something that makes sense. When he gave you that piece of paper, you looked like you lost your life."

  "Louis, I'll tell you: If they drag away all my records and stuff, I may not lose my life, but then again, in a sense I might." He wore an ironic smile and a look or regret.

  "Stop talking in riddles. You been cheatin' on your taxes?"

  "No, nothing like that." He laughed at the frustrated look on Louis' face. "But I do have a sort of a secret life.

  Louis was ready to explode. Consciously, he calmed himself. "Look," he said, "I promised your aunt I'd look out after you. If you're in some kind of trouble, I'll do whatever I can to help. If you don't feel you can tell me what your problem is, well, that's alright." He looked away from Joey with an expression of hurt.

  "Hey, Lou," Joey put a hand on Louis' forearm, "I know you've been looking out for me since before my aunt died, even before my uncle died. And I'd trust you with my life. This thing, my secret, I don't want to make you any kind of accessory or anything. I'm going to go out walking, think it all over. I need time to think of what to do."

  Louis straightened up. "If you need some money, I got it. If you need to travel somewhere, I'll help you with that, too. Whatever it is you're into, I know you haven't hurt anybody else. Does this secret of yours have anything to do with someone wanting to shoot you?"

  Joey thought it over, biting at his thumbnail. He shook his head. "I don't see how it possibly could. It's just an unfortunate coincidence. I wish the two things weren't happening at the same time. Too much to deal with." Joey looked at his thumb. He had torn a hangnail and it was bleeding. He concentrated on it. "I'm gonna finish getting dressed and walk it off. When that cop comes back, tell him I'll be in touch. You can tell him I went walking and you don't know where, which is true, since I don't know myself." He gave Louis a smile and Louis frowned back at him and Joey went to finish dressing.

  .

  Collecting the other officers from Knowles' car, Sims led the two around to the back door. Knowles unlocked it and glanced to his left, to Soucup's window. "That's one scary old man," he said. Mary and Sims looked to see the old man peering out at them. "Every time I'd look out the back window of the car, there he'd be, staring back at me. Must go from window to window, all day long." He turned to face Sims. "You know, if anyone saw anything Monday night, It'd be him." He indicated Soucup with the key in his hand.

  "Ornery old bastard," Sims muttered. Then, more loudly, "You want a go at him after we're done here, be my guest. In fact, you could almost match him, ornery for ornery. I'd like to see that. Not too close, though. Let's go in." Sims wiped his feet going in. Mary did, too. Knowles tracked mud onto the kitchen floor.

  As before, Sims deferred to Mary in the search f
or evidence. She gave them each cotton gloves. "Charlie," she said, looking at Knowles muddy shoes, "you have the basement. While you're down there, look for a step ladder so you can get up into the attic. There's a trap up into it from the hall, outside the bathroom. Let's keep everything in order, no reason to trash this guy's house. John, you take the bedroom. I'm going to do a quick sweep in the kitchen and then do the closet in the room where the shooting occurred. We'll decide where to go from there. Okay? Let's go. You find anything interesting, sing out." They separated without comment and went to work.

  In the kitchen, Mary found nothing but what one would expect to find in a kitchen. She took an address book from the counter by the telephone. In the sitting room closet were old board games and children's books stacked up under a row of winter coats, men's and women's, hung on a pole. The pockets were empty except for moth balls. The smell was strong enough to make her eyes water. It seemed to be a space unused except for the storage of items no longer used. She took a moment to examine the bookcases: paperback titles whose themes were largely mystery and police procedurals. Ed McBain and Laurence Block. James Lee Burke and Elmore Leonard. Michael Connally, James W.Hall, and LeCarre. She thought he had a lot in common with her in his reading habits. She looked for Sara Paretski. None there. "Well," she said, "every library has a few holes in it." If he wasn't dirty, maybe they could trade books. She laughed at herself, stood upright and went into the bedroom, where Sims had a trunk pulled out of the closet and open. She stood behind him and asked, "What's all that?"

  "Time capsule." Sims was removing items, examining them briefly and stacking then aside. "Looks like a collection of stuff from the 'sixties. Photos, ticket stubs, anti-war protest placards, love beads. Love beads, can you imagine that?" He held up a strand of wood and clay beads. "And look at this." Out came a hand tooled leather belt with a brass hashish pipe for a buckle. "Lots of paraphernalia — old, dusty stuff though, doesn't seem recently used." He sniffed at a blackened corn-cob pipe. "I'd say Warnecki kept all his parents' stuff and put it in this trunk. Kind of a shrine, like." Sims looked back over his shoulder at her. "Have you seen a picture of his parents?"

  "If the picture of the hippies in the other room is his parents, then yes, I have. What happened to them, do you know?"

  "I believe they died in an accident when Warnecki was very young, but I don't know the particulars. One interesting note: According to some papers in here, his mother's name was Tomasino and his father's name was Goldberg. So, his aunt and uncle must have adopted him and gave him their name. Confusing."

  "Bag up the paraphernalia, just for form. Have you been through the file cabinet yet?" She indicated a beige metal, two-drawer cabinet alongside the trunk.

  "No I haven't. You want to go through that while I put this stuff back?"

  "Sure. You can do the bureau next." She got to her knees and moved shoes and boots out of the way so that she could drag the cabinet free of the overhanging clothing. She pulled out the bottom drawer first. Inside were five brown accordion files labeled 'state and federal taxes' for the previous nine years. She withdrew the latest one and undid the string that held it closed. It held receipts, bank statements and canceled checks, and copies of tax forms filled out in pencil. The file contained everything an individual operating a business as a sole proprietor would keep to justify his payment of due taxes. But there was one glaring oddity. Mary stood up and then sat on the end of the bed. "John, look at this."

  "What's that?" Sims left the open bureau drawer and stood with the backs of his legs against the bed to see what Mary was reading.

  "Look at the name on this return. It's the same name on Schedule C and the other schedules, and the bank statements and canceled checks." She looked up at Sims. "Who the hell is Joseph Wojciehowski, and why does Warnecki have his tax records?"

  Sims sat down beside Mary and took Schedule C, the business reporting form, from Mary's hand and looked at it. "Joseph Wojciehowski, Rock Harbor Carpentry," he read. "That's the name of the business painted on the door of Warnecki's truck, except for the 'Joseph Wojciehowski' part." He took off his cap and flipped it to the top of the bureau. "Tomasino, Goldberg, Wojciehowski, Warnecki. Who are you?" He turned his head to hear Knowles setting up an aluminum stepladder in the hallway. "Knowles," he said loudly, "check the registration in Warnecki's truck."

  "Yo," came the reply, and they heard him walk to the back door.

  "There's a checkbook in the bureau." Sims stood up, plucked a vinyl-covered checkbook from the open top drawer, and opened it. "Checks read 'Rock Harbor Carpentry' at this address. No proprietor named." He flipped to the register. "Last entry pays a lumber yard bill, then above is a deposit of two-hundred fifty dollars from Jennings, North Shore Road, labeled 'deposit for porch repair'. I see other payments, deposits, nothing sizable other than to Internal Revenue."

  "So," Mary concluded, "unless Warnecki has a roommate we don't know about, Wojciehowski must be an alias. What else do you have in that drawer?" She rose to stand next to Sims.

  "Looks like current stuff," Sims replied, "this years bills, invoices, receipts, etcetera. He must work his business out of this drawer."

  Mary pawed through the drawer herself. "Calculator, pencils, personal checkbook in name of Wojciehowski, and loose change. I'd say you're right. I'm going to drag this stuff out to the kitchen table, see if I can draw a picture of Warnecki-slash-Wojciehowski. You might want to go next door, see if he wants to enlighten us, assuming he's still there."

  "Shit, yeah." Sims grabbed his cap and strode from the room, nearly crashing into Knowles, who was entering with a slip of paper."

  "Hey, where you going?" Knowles backed against the wall in the hallway to let him pass. Sims didn't answer. Knowles frowned himself into the bedroom.

  "Truck registered to Joseph Wojciehowski?" Mary took a guess.

  "Yeah, who's that?"

  "An alias, unless it's his real name and Warnecki's the alias. Or it could be Goldberg or Tomasino. Sims is going to ask him."

  Knowles raised his eyebrows. "Interesting."

  "Hey, Charlie, your eyebrows moved. Pick up those file folders for me, would you? I want to go through this stuff in the kitchen." Mary scooped all the paper from the bureau and headed to the kitchen. Knowles looked at the file drawer, bent down to it and carried away the whole cabinet.

  .

  Louis opened the door to Sims' knocking. "What are you banging for? I can hear plain enough." Louis didn't step aside to welcome Sims.

  "I need to speak to Warnecki. He here?"

  "Joey went for a walk, said he'd get in touch with you later."

  Sims turned in a circle on the landing. "Damn," he said, how long ago?"

  "About half an hour ago. What do you want him for?" A worried look began to replace the frown on Louis' face.

  "Do you know where he's walking?"

  "No telling. Boy will walk for miles when he gets the mood. What do you want him for?"

  Sims calculated the odds of catching him on the street. He decided to spend a minute questioning Louis, then get Knowles and cruise the streets separately. "May I come in for a minute? Maybe you could answer a couple of quick questions for me."

  Louis was divided between wanting to protect Joey and curiosity about what Sims might ask. He decided that one didn't preclude the other. "Alright, come on in," he said. He looked down at Sims' shoes. They were clean enough, but Sims wiped them anyway and followed Louis into the kitchen. A big black cat jumped down from a kitchen chair and vanished into the hallway. They sat opposite one another.

  Sims watched Louis' eyes. "Let me ask you: Who is Joseph Wojciehowski?" He thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in Louis' face, and then the eyes drifted sideways in thought.

  Louis brought his eyes back to Sims'. "I can't truly say. I've heard it before, seems like a long time ago, but I can't place it. Must be years ago. Now you tell me why you're asking." His expression intensified. It would be tit for tat here or he wouldn't cooperate.


  Sims saw the situation as it was. He could view Louis as being on the opposite side of the game and keep his hand hidden, or put some cards into play, one at a time, and bet that he could get ahead. Or break even. With the captain being in the game, he decided he was losing anyway and may as well bet on Louis. "We've come across some papers that seem to indicate Warnecki may be using the name Wojciehowski as an alias. I need to talk to him about it right away. If you had to guess, where would he be most likely to walk today?"

  Louis shook his head. "Honestly, there's no way to say. He's a walker. If he's thinking deep, he won't even know where he is. Called me once to pick him up after he thought himself twenty miles up Route One. So what kind of papers are you talking about?" The cat came in, sauntered once around the table watching Sims and walked out again.

  Sims drummed the fingers of one hand on the table top. "Business papers, tax papers, bank statements."

  "Well I'll be damned." Louis was thunderstruck. "I had no idea. What in the world would he be doing that for? That why he got shot?"

  "No idea, but I'd really like to find out. And soon. Will you help me with this?"

  Louis didn't answer right away. "I don't see you as being out to crucify the boy. I'd like to help you. No, actually I'd like to help Joey and that might be the same thing, I don't know.

  Sims scraped back his chair and rose. "Whoever shot him once might try again. He'd be safer with me than out there walking around. Will you call me if you see him?"

  The cat returned and jumped into Louis' lap. He idly scratched its neck and the cat began to purr loudly. "I don't know. What I will do is advise him to call you when and if I do see him. I'll promise you that much."

  "Fair enough. I'll be getting back to you. Thanks for your time." Sims placed the chair back under the table and exited out the rear door.

  .

  Mary was sitting at the kitchen table, papers spread about on top when Sims reentered Joey's home. Knowles was leaning over the table, palms flat on its surface.

  Mary spoke: "Not there?"

  "No, left there less than an hour ago. Walking. Charlie and me should go looking for him. Getting much out of that paper?"

  "I'm getting a good sense of his financial life. Nothing that will help you find him. Go ahead, I'm good here. If I don't hear from you before four or so, I'll head back to the department. Maybe he'll show up here, and I'll call you." She picked up her portable radio from under a pile of papers and set it down again.

  "Right. Whether we find him or not, let's meet together at the end of shift and see what we've got. Charlie, all set?"

  Knowles straightened up and grunted something that sounded like a yes.

  Walking back to the cars, Sims asked what Knowles had seen in the basement and attic.

  "Not much and nothing. Basement's got an oil furnace and tank, some garden tools and a dirt floor. No junk, no clutter. Floor's packed down, nothing that looks like anybody's done any digging. Attic's totally empty, just joist tops and fiberglass. Not even a wasp nest." They reached Knowles' car.

  "Okay, Charlie. You take the neighborhoods north of Route One. I'll cruise One, north and south and then check the waterfront. Armstrong said that Warnecki's liable to walk miles in any direction. Said the more he's got to think about, the further he walks. I'm guessing he's got a lot to think about. I'll check in with you in an hour, see what's left to cover." Knowles nodded once. Sims slapped the car top and crossed the street to his. Both cars drove off slowly.

  .

  After more than two hours of walking, Joey found himself outside Emily's Rest, in the middle of a block of brick-front businesses off Main Street. Emily and Doris served breakfast from six in the morning until two in the afternoon, seven days a week, so the name was something of a misnomer. Longtime companions, the two women got up at four and didn't finish work until twelve hours later. They had help from eight until closing from a loyal, older woman named Martha, who waited tables and washed dishes, as needed. Otherwise, Doris cooked and Emily served. For two weeks out of the year after Labor Day, they closed, and Doris and Emily vacationed on the Yucatan peninsula.

  Joey was a regular. At least four mornings a week, sometimes seven, he showed up early to devour a huge breakfast. Eschewing the regular menu items, he would pick from the special daily offerings written in four colors by Emily upon a chalkboard. His stomach pulled him here today, not having been fed since a poor breakfast of runny eggs and cold toast at the hospital. He entered the nearly empty restaurant through a heavy, old, wooden door, green-painted and inset with twelve panes of beveled glass. He turned and watched it close with a solid thunk before him. The thunk brought him fully into the present from his walking reverie. He had installed the new hydraulic closer a week before. In fact, he did enough work for Doris and Emily that he built up sufficient credit to cover most of his breakfasts for the year. Breakfast barter, no tax. Emily kept a loose accounting for him in a notebook she kept below the cash register.

  Usually, both women would greet him upon his entrance, but today Emily looked to Doris, who looked back and gave her a single nod. Now, Emily smiled at Joey. "What?" he said.

  Emily's smile was uncertain and she rubbed her hands together. "Joey, we heard about your accident. Are you okay?" Emily was slender, of medium height, with long, curling red hair. She favored knee-length dresses in bright colors and wore white canvas tennis shoes. She glanced back at Doris standing behind the kitchen serving window. Doris stared soberly at Joey.

  "Oh, I'm okay, just got a scrape and some stitches." He felt a tenseness in the atmosphere, like he had somehow transgressed and was going to be excommunicated from one of his favorite places. He put his hands in his pockets and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Is something wrong?" He looked back and forth between the two women.

  "No, no, Joey, we were just worried for you, getting shot and all." Emily came forward to Joey and took his hand. "Let me see," she said, indicating that he should remove his cap. Joey removed his cap and tilted his head so show her his stitches. "Oh," she said, "that doesn't look so bad. We thought you were mortally injured." She gave his hand a pat and released it.

  "Are you still serving breakfast?" Joey felt more encouraged.

  Doris came through the swinging door from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. The last two customers left, leathery lobstermen ending up their workday with a good breakfast. Martha could be heard banging pots and pans in the back of the kitchen.

  Doris was taller than Emily, and husky. Her short, stiff, dark hair was covered by a Mets cap, turned backwards. A long, food-spattered apron covered a white tee-shirt and white, canvas painter's pants all the way down to her black, high-topped, basketball shoes. She walked up to stand beside Emily. "We're just about finished up here, didn't expect anybody else to come in today." Her manner was always direct and forthright. "You got a few minutes to talk about something, upstairs?"

  Joey shrugged, disappointed at missing breakfast. "Sure, you thinking about doing that room renovation?" The women exchanged a glance, then Emily looked at the floor and clasped her hands behind her back.

  "Yes, and some other things." Doris' intense gaze was unsettling for Joey, who resumed shifting his weight from foot to foot. "C'mon upstairs," she said, un-tieing her apron and tossing it on to a table top. Joey followed her to the kitchen, Emily coming behind.

  In the kitchen, Doris stopped at the door that would open to a stairway leading to their apartment above the restaurant. "Marty," she called, "We're going upstairs to discuss some business. Lock up and don't let anyone bother us, okay?"

  "Alright," came the reply in a cigarette-scarred voice. Martha was in her sixties and looked like her life had been a difficult one. Her straggling, gray hair always looked in need of washing and she wore large, unfashionable glasses that she continually pushed back as they slid down her long nose. Her body looked lost in a large men's flannel shirt and baggy jeans. She pursued her washing without looking up at the thre
e people entering the stairwell.

  A single flight of worn wooden stairs led to Doris and Emily's apartment kitchen overlooking the street. A steel door at the base of the stairs served as both a delivery entrance from the alley alongside and a private entrance to the apartment above. Joey gave the oak banister a shake on the way upstairs. He had tightened it up a year ago and it still held sturdy. They entered the kitchen and Joey and Doris both set their caps on the round, maple table in the room's center.

  "Done a lot of work here. Lot of breakfast." Joey turned in a circle, surveying the room. Two double-hung windows overlooked the street. A third brought light into the small bathroom adjacent. Counters, cabinets and appliances were relegated to the front and bath-side walls. All were done in 'twenties style, picked up at antique shops and flea markets by Emily, refurbished by Joey, and finished by Emily.

  Kitchen and bath occupied one-third of the building's depth. The second third opened onto a living room and two bedrooms shared the last third. Throughout, Emily had decorated in the fashions of seventy years past. It was a harmonious whole, achieved at no little expense or effort, and many arguments between the couple occupying it. The arguments were always won by Emily, who would defer in other ways to her companion, but stood firmly when the issue was her home.

  The two women had not spoken since entering the apartment. They stood observing Joey, Doris contemplatively, Emily still smiling nervously. "So!" Joey clapped his hands together to break the awkward silence and took long strides through kitchen and living room to the open doorway of the spare, unfinished bedroom. "What did you finally decide on?" He perused the space.

  "A nursery," Doris said, calmly.

  Joey froze and then turned to them, eyes wide. "Wow. That's great. That's wonderful! You'd be great parents! When's this happening?" His own problems were forgotten in hearing good news from friends. None of the time spent walking and thinking had helped him to come to an analysis of his misfortune, nor given him a prospective course of action. At this point, he welcomed distraction.

  "This coming year, we hope," Emily said, looking up to Doris and taking her hand in both of hers.

  Doris pulled a chair from the table and led Emily to sit. She stood behind with her hands on the back of the chair as Joey made his way to stand opposite them. "Have a seat, Joey," she said.

  "You adopting? Boy or girl?" Joey sat and clasped his hands before him, a large grin on his face.

  "Well, you know, we've been trying to adopt for some time now, but it's been difficult. Especially for people in our position. It puts us way down the list, or completely off," Emily spoke earnestly.

  "So we're considering an alternative route," continued Doris.

  "Ah." Joey nodded his understanding. His expression grew serious. He pouted his lips and looked down to the table top. His hands, looking for something to so, found the two ball caps and arranged them bill to bill, like opposing teams. "I guess that brings problems of its own." He looked back up to them. "But you certainly have my support, what ever you do." Discussing personal issues with them was not a role Joey was used to, or comfortable with, but if moral support was what they wanted from him, then he would give it readily. They were his good friends.

  Doris spoke: "Glad to hear that, Joey. I know we can count on you."

  "There are clinics, you know, that deal with people in our position," Emily said, "and we've visited a couple. We have friends who have gone that route and are very satisfied."

  "The problem, aside from the expense," Doris said, "is donor selection."

  "I'm afraid I don't know anything about that." Joey went back to rearranging the caps.

  "Emily feels that there is a spiritual component to being a donor that can't be discovered in the clinic's process." Doris' tone implied a tinge of flakiness to the concept. "She feels that certain aspects of character are inherited. I don't know, maybe it's true. She's more in tune with those things than I am, and that's why I'll go along with her. After all, she's the one that's going to bear the child."

  "Don't say it as though it's just a whim of mine that you'll tolerate." Emily looked over her shoulder at Doris. "We've been through this whole decision together and are in total agreement, right?"

  Doris paused and then said, "Absolutely." She looked to Joey. "So we're asking you to be the donor."

  It was a bombshell that dropped his jaw and rendered Joey speechless. He could only move his eyes, shifting his blank gaze between the two sober women.

  "I can see this is a shock to you." Doris' small smile was wry.

  "Joey," Emily said, "Don't freak out. Let me explain." She took a moment to compose her thoughts. "Okay, here it is: We've known you for a long time. You may have odd hair, but otherwise you're sound enough physically. You have a good, stable, honest, friendly character. You're reasonably intelligent. You're discreet and that's important. And you have a good heart, and that's most important." Joey looked ready to bolt. Emily continued. "Hold on, give us another minute. All we're asking you to do is give us a little bit of yourself." She held up a hand and separated thumb and forefinger an inch apart to illustrate how much. "In a cup."

  Joey blushed beet red. He was frozen in disbelief. Then he giggled involuntarily. The tension broke and Doris guffawed. "You should see your face," she said, "you look like a boiled lobster."

  Joey found his voice. "I'm speechless," he said. "Give me a minute here. I guess I'm honored by you choosing me, of all people, but I have to say that I have some serious doubts about this idea." He giggled again.

  "Joey, I agree with everything Emily said about you. Especially about you being discreet and having a good heart. 'Discreet' is important here and I know how you feel about gossip. You've never been a part of the local rumor mill, and in this town, word travels fast. We trust you. If I worry about anything, it's that the kid might have your hair." Doris 'haw-hawed' again. "we're still friends, however you decide. But Emily's best time to conceive is in the next couple days, so think fast, okay? Not to put too much pressure on you or anything."

  "No, no Joey," Emily remonstrated, "If we miss it this month, you can still contribute to the cause next month." Emily laughed with Doris. "But you will think about it, won't you?" Emily moved from humor to earnestness.

  Joey felt the heaviness of life and circumstance returning. "You know what bothers me?" he said and leaned forward, putting his weight on his forearms on the table. "Change. And no matter what I do, everything in my life is changing, turning upside-down. What you're asking me, no matter what I decide, is going to change our relationship, our friendship. Other things are going on now, being shot and some things I haven't told you about. My life is catching up to me and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

  They had never seen Joey so intense. Emily, the sensitive one, said, "Hey, Joey, if this was a bad time to put this on you, we're sorry." She put a hand on his. "Let's put everything on hold, for now. If something is going wrong in your life, we're here for you if you need us. Do you want to talk about it?"

  Joey was grateful for the human contact. He regretted his outburst. "I didn't mean to be scary." He took his hand from under Emily's and placed both of his in his lap. He sat up straight. "In the next day or two, you're going to hear some things about me that may make you change your minds about me. I don't want to get into it right now." At the look of alarm and concern on their faces he added, "I haven't done anything evil, you know, but my life is about to become complicated. Just don't make any fast judgments about me for a while, okay? Sooner or later, everything will clear up. You'll see. They have to. I've been cruising along on autopilot, but now I'm going to come down. Hope I don't crash."

  Doris, the practical one, stated their position: "We're standing pat in our opinion of you. You need to hide out, you can hide out here. You need cash, you got it. And when you get your feet under you, we'll talk about our proposition then. That's it. Now what do you want to do?"

  Joey wanted to slide away. He wanted to turn bac
k the time and live his life like it had been, before someone had taken a shot at him. If he couldn't go back in time, then he would walk, and let the world catch up with him, if it could. "I think I'll do some more walking." He rose from his chair and walked to the door. Hand on the doorknob, he stopped and turned. "I'll see you again, soon, I hope. I really do think you deserve to be parents. Any kid would be lucky to have you two for their folks." He left the apartment and exited through the side door into the service alley. He had left his cap on the table but decided not to go back for it.

  .

  Knowles missed running into Joey by ten minutes. Between them, he and Sims had cruised every street in town and Route One north and south for twenty miles in either direction. Sims had radioed Joey's description to the other two cars patrolling in town and a few men in jeans, denim jacket, and red ball cap had been stopped and identified and released. Now, Knowles was stopped in front of Emily's Rest. He often stopped for breakfast there and remembered seeing Warnecki on occasion, Joey being notable for the amount of food he could put away at a sitting. He approached the door as Martha was coming to lock up. He opened it and stuck his head inside. "Hey, Marty," he said, "you seen Joey Warnecki here today?"

  "Who?" she rasped. She stopped five feet from the door, peering at him, watery blue eyes magnified through the thick lenses of her glasses. Her head was tilted back so that she could see through the glasses that had slipped to the end of her nose.

  "Warnecki, Joey Warnecki, tall, thin guy, comes here a lot." Knowles would rather have talked to Emily. He didn't get along very well with Martha.

  "I know who he is. I ain't seen him and you're letting in all the cold air. Shut the door." She advanced, rattling the keys at him.

  He retreated, shutting the door harder than necessary. "Scrawny old bird," he muttered, "ought to get together with old Soucup, make a good pair." Watching her turn the key through the beveled glass of the door, he decided to drive back to Warnecki's house. He would relieve Mary and park on the street. "Enough driving around." He turned to leave and bumped into Pardner Jenks, who bounced away from him, managing to keep his feet with difficulty, because he was drunk. The older man wore a long, greasy, gray wool coat that dragged threads to the ground from its raveled hem. The cuffs of his baggy pants all but covered the buckle rubber arctics he wore. A black watch cap was pulled down to just above bloodshot eye level.

  "Knowlsey, fancy bumping into you here, got any spare change for your old buddy?" Jenks was a wet talker. Droplets of saliva and the sour smell of cheap wine on his breath caused Knowles to recoil away from him.

  Knowles brushed at the front of his uniform where he had come in contact with Jenks. "Geez, Pard, what the hell are you drinking? Smells awful," he said. In fact, Jenks had never been his buddy, but rather had been a longtime drinking companion to his late father. The two men together had drunk up their wages at Molly's, leaving their families to feed and clothe themselves on whatever their wives could earn, assuming the women could keep their money well enough hidden.

  Jenks took a step closer to Knowles and grinned widely, showing that a few yellow teeth remained his. "Juicy Lucy and the Mad Dog, my best old friends." He slapped a pocket on the side of his coat that hung lower and a nearly full pint slipped through a hole in the pocket lining to crash at their feet, wetting the lower trousers of both men. "Oh no! Jenks cried, "look what you done! You broke my bottle!" His face showed acute dismay and then accusation. "You owe me a buck."

  Sims looked down at the dark stain wetting his pants below the knees. Pieces of glass remained on his shoes. He composed himself and leaned forward into Jenks' face. "I'll tell you what, Pard. You pick up all that glass and I won't haul you off for drunk and disorderly." He spoke calmly, but menace lay behind the words.

  Jenks caught the tone of Knowles' voice and stooped. He picked up the two largest shards and dropped them over the curb into the street. When he stood upright again, outrage had replaced caution. "You cop," he said, the plosive carrying a dollop of spittle over Knowles' shoulder. "You ain't nothing like your old man."

  "From where I stand, that's a good thing." Knowles turned away and walked toward his car, plucking at his trousers where they stuck to his skin. From the rising odor, he knew he would smell of cheap wine for the rest of the day.

  A parting salvo came from Jenks. "Some people know how to treat people right. Joey knows how to treat people. Unlike some people I could name." When Knowles stopped in his tracks and strode back, Jenks, figuring he had gone too far, tried to shuffle away in the other direction.

  Knowles grabbed the old man by the sleeve of his coat. "Hold it," he said, "Joey who?"

  Jenks tried to pull away, but couldn't. Caught fast, he stuttered, "Ah, Joey, Joey What's-His-Name, ah, Joey Warnecki." His floating eyes pulled the name from the sky.

  "When did you see Warnecki?" Knowles released the sleeve and stared hard into Jenks' eyes.

  Never one to pass up the slightest opportunity to further his principle goal in life, Jenks' eyes dissolved from alarm to craftiness. "What's in it for me? he asked.

  Knowles leaned to whisper something in Jenks' ear. Whatever it was he said, Jenks' expression reverted to its previous state. "You wouldn't," he said. Knowles remained impassive. "Maybe you would." Jenks resigned. "Okay. Joey give me a dollar right where I'm standing, maybe twenny minutes ago, maybe half an hour."

  "Which way did he go?"

  "I don't know. I stared that dollar right across the street into the liquor store, and bought that pint you broke." Jenks pouted, but wouldn't look Knowles in the eye again.

  Knowles considered how to reward Jenks for his cooperation. A number of attractive options occurred to him, but in the end he withdrew his wallet and handed the old man a dollar. At least it would keep Jenks from bothering his old lady a while longer. He took a perverse pleasure from the act, but did not pause to consider its meaning. Jenks took the dollar as his due and shuffled across the street without any sign of gratitude.

  .

  Sims was spinning his wheels, figuratively and literally. Making a right turn from Main Street to Wharf Street, his car slewed sideways on a patch of ice and was nearly caught broadside by a sanitation truck approaching the intersection. He over steered and the car swung the other way, slamming the tires against the granite curb and bring the car to a halt canted away from the brick walk. In passing, the sanitation truck driver grinned at him and made a motion as if wiping sweat from his forehead.

  Sims took a moment to radio the town public works dispatcher to report the icing streets. Most of the roadways had dried up, but a cold wind blowing in from the northeast was freezing areas that remained wet. On Wharf Street, the wind blew directly up the street from the harbor which lay at its end. Thirty yards before him, Sims saw the sign announcing Adams Real Estate and Development hanging perpendicular to the plain, brick front facade of that establishment. The heavy, iron-bound, wooden sign was painted black, with deeply carved gilt lettering. Wooden signage was mandated in the historic district by zoning laws. Sims eased the car forward into a parking space across the street from the sign. He would see if Charles was in the office.

  This block, between Water and Wharf Streets, was once owned in its entirety by the Adams family. Through the years, especially since Charles had taken over the reins of the family's business interests, their holdings had diminished to the one building bearing the sign that now swayed in the wind. The wind that so slightly moved the sign tried to remove the cap from Sims head as he made his way from the car to the worn, brownstone stoop at the building entrance. The door, painted like the sign above, admitted him to the silence of a building where not much business was presently being conducted. The only sounds were of a cast iron radiator whistling and the clacking of keys on a computer. The floor of the room was painted brown, except for a trail worn through the paint by gritty shoes. The trail led past a gun-metal gray desk to a door opposite the entrance. In addition to the desk, the room was large enough to
contain a love-seat and two upholstered chairs, the fabric of both being a somewhat worn, green velvet. A drooping ficus occupied the space between the desk and a front window.

  The clacking ceased and Sims regarded the pleasantly smiling woman that sat behind the desk. The slender, fifty-ish woman had her hair, blond turning white, pulled back in a tight knot. Her face was pale, unlined, and had the patrician bones and bearing of an old Yankee family. She wore a white linen blouse, buttoned to the neck and pinned there by a cream and pink cameo brooch. As she rose to greet him, Sims saw that she wore a green tartan, wool, wrapped skirt fastened with a large gold safety pin.

  "Good afternoon, officer, how may I help you?" Her voice was welcoming.

  "Hi. I'm Officer John Sims and I was hoping to have a word with Charles Adams."

  "I'm Letty Adams. Aren't you June Sims' husband?"

  Sims knew that she was Letitia Adams, wife to Charles. Word had it that she had brought a sizable fortune to the marriage, and that Charles had invested it badly in a scheme to build a strip mall to the north of town. The development was doomed by poor design and vacancy, the mortgage holders ultimately foreclosing and tearing down the structure to replace it with condominiums. Though Sims was loath to accept rumor, he had to admit the ring of plausibility to this one. "Yes, glad to say I am," he said.

  "She's so nice. She was here yesterday."

  "Thank you, I know. And she did mention a meeting with your husband yesterday. Is he available?"

  "No, I'm sorry. He's away at meetings all day, I believe. I'm not sure when he'll be back. Perhaps I can help you."

  "Well, probably not. I'm trying to ascertain the movements of the man who was shot Monday night, and I know he had contact with your husband that evening. Did your husband speak of that?"

  "Joey Warnecki? How terrible. Such a nice, young man. But no, Charles didn't mention seeing him." She thought a moment. "Monday night. I believe Charles met with Harry Sloan that evening. At the Lion's Club. About the annual fund raiser. They're both on the committee. Does that help at all?" She ended with a full smile.

  Sims smaller smile faltered. Sloan hadn't mentioned seeing Warnecki that evening. "Yes. Mr. Warnecki did some work at the club that afternoon. Was anyone else at that meeting?"

  "I don't know if anyone else was there with them, but Dick Wiltse and Jim Laird are on the committee. Perhaps you might call them." Letitia Adams was the heart and soul of openness and accommodation. She retrieved the phone numbers of the two men from her Rolodex and copied them for Sims.

  "Thank you," he said, receiving the paper from her hand. He thought of another question. "Did Mr. Warnecki do any work for you, personally?"

  "Oh yes. Ever since that terrible accident at the cannery we've felt obligated to help Joey out with whatever work we could give him. And he's very good at his work, too."

  "The accident where his uncle died?"

  "Yes." Her expression grew thoughtful. "The cannery was already closed, you know, but Charles kept Stan Warnecki on as a kind of watchman afterwards. When the cannery was operating, Stan kept the machinery running, fixed whatever needed fixing, things like that. They were setting up forms for pouring concrete when Stan fell and hit his head. Even back then Charles had plans to make the building into something else. Of course, that didn't pan out at the time. The project ran out of money before anything but a foundation and deck could be poured." The way she told it, beneath her words it was a foregone conclusion that the project wouldn't reach completion. Her voice carried resignation without bitterness.

  Sims was beginning to fell uncomfortable. "So," he said, "Mr. Warnecki did some work for you. May I ask how you paid him? By check, cash?"

  "That's an odd question. Why do you ask? I should think you would ask Joey, if you needed to know something like that."

  "It's been proving difficult to get a hold of Mr. Warnecki. We're trying to come up with some motivation as to why someone would want to shoot him, and without having him to help us, we're reduced to coming at the problem sideways, so to speak."

  "I thought the shooting was an accident."

  Another person concerned with Warnecki's welfare, was Sims' thought. "It's looking like something other than an accident right now, that's why we have so many questions. I appreciate any help you can give me."

  "I can't imagine anyone wanting to shoot Joey." She was genuinely distressed at the possibility of someone wishing Warnecki harm. At the same time she accepted her husband's fiscal mismanagement with such equanimity.

  Sims brought her back to his question. "So, can you tell me how you paid him?"

  "I don't see how it pertains, but yes, we always paid him by check, unless the amount was so small it wasn't worth the bother. Joey insisted."

  "By a check made out to..."

  "To Rock Harbor Carpentry."

  "Thank you. That confirms what we've found so far. Do you know the Jennings, on North Shore? He was working for them on Monday, too."

  "Yes, they live just down the hill from us. They're summer friends of ours. I'm sure Joey deals with them in the same manner." She spoke in the courage of her convictions.

  "I'm sure he does." Sims' voice was conciliatory. "I guess I'll be on my way now. Thank you for your time." Everyone involved with him seemed pro-Joey. Or almost everyone.

  .

  When Knowles arrived back at Joey's house, he announced himself loudly at the door so Mary would know it was he entering, and not Warnecki.

  "I'm in here, Charlie," she called back, and he entered the sitting room to find her sitting cross-legged before a bookcase. Ostensibly, she was using her time to search for papers that might have been secreted between pages, but she took the time to review the contents of books that looked interesting, and that she wasn't familiar with. She considered taking a few for 'evidence', but decided against the idea as unwarranted.

  "Phew. You been drinking, Charlie?" She wrinkled her nose at him.

  Knowles scowled at her. "Naw, I'm just wearing it. Get anything new?"

  "You ought to think about changing your aftershave. Spend a few more dollars, you won't regret it. Neither will anybody else."

  "Alright, forget it, will you? I know what it smells like, I've been living with it. Answer the question."

  "Okay, Charlie. Calm yourself. The only thing I've gained is an appreciation for the guy's library. You read, Charlie?" She held up the foil-back book in her hand. She wiggled it in the light from the ceiling fixture and all the colors of the rainbow flashed luridly from it.

  "Not since high school. And if I did, I wouldn't read that shit."

  "Hey, don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Some of it would go nicely with your cologne, but some is really worthwhile reading."

  Knowles thought about the covers on the gothic novels that his wife favored, but didn't mention them. If the whole truth were to be told, Knowles would have to admit to being an avid reader of military history, but he didn't feel like sharing his personal life. Not even to someone as non-judgmental as Mary. You never knew what people might use against you. Especially on the job.

  "I got sick of driving around, thought I might as well come back and relieve you here. I can sit in the car out front, see if the guy shows up. You may as well pack it up, head back."

  "Well thanks, Charlie, that's very considerate of you." Teasing Knowles was an art. One had to keep just far enough from the line to make him wonder, without completely alienating him. It was a delicate balance and Mary had it down. Or thought she did. With Knowles it was difficult to tell.

  She replaced the book she was holding and pulled out another one. "Here," she said, handing him the book, "check this one out while you're waiting. I'll go pack up. Guy might remind you of someone."

  He removed his reading glasses from a breast pocket and put them on. " 'A Twist of the Knife'," he read, and opened the cover. He'd read ten pages when Mary startled him.

  "Hey, I'm ready to go. Help me carry this stuff out." In the kitchen, she'd packed t
wo cardboard boxes of papers. She took one, he the other, and they carried them out to her car, a five-year-old Honda.

  "Your ride still in the shop?" Knowles asked. The floor in the rear was littered with candy wrappers and Styrofoam coffee cups.

  "Yeah, supposed to get it back two days ago. I see you put that book in your back pocket. Hope you're not going to appropriate it for your personal use." She took the carton from him and loaded it into the trunk next to her own.

  "I'll put it back before I leave. Don't worry about it." She smiled, he scowled, and she drove off.

  .

  If he hadn't had the dome light on in the car, he might have seen Joey before Joey saw him, and Joey might not have gone down a driveway further down the street to approach his home from the rear. As it was, he was trying to read and watch the street at the same time. At first, he tried to look up after every paragraph, but then he was remembering to pull out of the book every three pages or so. This was not good police work, he decided. Also, the sky was completely dark and the dome light didn't put out enough light to read by. He turned off the light and the car's engine and got out of the car, the index finger of his right hand keeping his place in the book. He walked down the driveway to the rear of the house.

  Joey froze next to the garage at the rear of his property. He watched as Knowles came down his driveway, unlocked the rear door, and entered his home. A light went on in the kitchen. He'd been hoping to enter the house himself and pick up a sweater and another hat. He was getting chilled by the cold wind that continued to blow. The walking had kept him warm for a while, but having not eaten all day, he had run out of fuel and the cold was getting to him. Also, all of his walking and thinking, turning things over and over again in his mind had come to naught. He needed something to eat, some place to get warm, and someone to talk to. That left Louis. He would go there.

  .

  The room in Joey's house, which he referred to as the sitting room, corresponded to the room in Louis' house called the t.v. room. And that was a good name for it, because the room was dominated by a fifty-inch television set. The t.v. was the focal point of an entertainment center that covered the wall space between the room's entrance and a small corner closet. Shelving above and to both sides of the set was packed tightly with sound equipment, videotapes and cd's. There were reel-to-reel and cassette players, a VCR, a DVD player, and a phonograph. For his viewing and listening comfort, Louis had matching, black leather-covered reclining chairs set up opposite his system. They flanked a small refrigerator stocked with beer, so that he wouldn't have to go all they way out to the kitchen for a brew. Atop the fridge lay four remote controllers, lined up in a row. These material comforts had been his only personal choices in the furnishing of his home. The rest, including the room's beige wall-to-wall carpet and its color-coordinated, floral print wall paper, had been the selections of his late wife.

  In Louis' own small corner of the universe, he liked to sit and listen to music, as he did now, with headphones on and the only light being supplied by the tiny, multicolored indicators on his sound equipment. Coming through a quiet passage of one of Ellington's sacred compositions, he heard a tapping noise. He removed the headphones and directed his attention to the cd player, thinking the sound originated from that machine. It came from the window behind him, in sets of three. Taptaptap, taptaptap. He pulled aside the shade with one finger and peered out, leaning over the armrest of his chair. He recognized Joey in the faint moonlight. Joey stopped tapping and waved to him.

  When the porch light come on over him, Joey jumped. He opened the storm door quickly and slipped in. "Turn off the light, turn off the light," he whispered urgently.

  Louis complied and regarded Joey in the light from the kitchen. Joey's teeth were chattering. "Good god, Joey, your lips are blue. Where you been?"

  "E-everywhere." Joey peered around him to see that the kitchen shades were drawn and stepped into the room. "Jeez it's getting cold out there. I'm froze to the bone. What do you got to eat?" He rubbed his hands together, shoulders hunched.

  "Chili." Louis watched him.

  "Corn bread?"

  "Yeah, I got corn bread." Still watching, waiting.

  "Oh, man. It still warm?" Joey was smiling now, and blowing on his hands.

  "It's still in the oven. What you been doing?"

  "I knew it." Joey was ecstatic. "Wednesday night. Chili night. I can smell it. I can feel that hot chili warming up my insides right now. Louis, you can save my life with a bowl of chili and some hot corn bread. Will you do that for me?"

  "Yeah, I'll do that." Louis tried to temper his curiosity. "I'll trade you three bowls of chili for some explanations. How's that?"

  "Anything, man, anything. Food first, okay?"

  "Deal. Grab a bowl and help yourself."

  Joey knew where everything was, a veteran of many help-yourself meals with Louis. Louis had had to learn the science of cooking all over again, when Kat had passed away. He had served on an aircraft carrier while in the navy, and the physics of cooking for five thousand men did not apply to making meals for one or two persons. Kat had enjoyed feeding him when he was home on leave, but when she was gone, necessity had caused him to relearn his trade.

  Joey's first bowl of the spicy chili burned his tongue, spooned in hot off the stove. The second, accompanied by buttered corn bread, put the warmth back in his bones. And the third brought beads of sweat out on his forehead. Louis' chili was so spicy hot it made your nose run and numbed your lips. Joey loved it. "Now I could use a beer," he said.

  Louis had eaten one small bowl of chili and a small square of corn bread while Joey ate, watching him quietly. "There's some stout in the fridge. You're not supposed to drink, are you?"

  "What's chili without beer? One can't hurt." Joey got up from the table and helped himself. "Want one?"

  "Yeah."

  Joey went to the window over the sink, carrying a can of Guinness in each hand. He peeked behind the shade. He didn't see any light in his windows. "What time is it?"

  Louis looked at his watch. "Six o'clock." The black cat appeared by the door and mewed.

  "Hey, Kat, you want to go out?" Joey asked. "Alright if I let her out?"

  "I guess. You want to sit down now and tell me what's going on?"

  Joey opened the door enough to let the cat out and then returned to sit at the table after checking the pot on the stove to make sure that it was empty. Louis got up to get two pint beer glasses from a cupboard. Both men opened their cans and poured slowly.

  Joey took a sip. "Good chili," he said.

  Louis shook his head. "Don't see how a man can eat three pounds of chili and a tray of corn bread and stay as skinny as you. But that's beside the point. Who the hell is Joseph Wojciehowski and why are you using his name." Louis sipped, lining his upper lip with foam.

  "Long story, Lou."

  "I got time. Let me have it." Both men drank.

  "Well, you know that I was born at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. I understand Jimi Hendrix was on stage at the time. What you probably don't know is that my parents never bothered with things like birth certificates and marriage licenses and other bureaucratic niceties. My old man was rebelling against the system. A hippie and a yippie and member of the Weather Underground. Draft card burner. War protester. Admirer of Che. You seen the picture of him in his beret?" Joey had slipped off his shoes and leaned back in his chair, stockinged feet resting on another.

  "Yeah, one of the ones on the bookcase. I didn't know about the other thing, though. How'd you manage to get into school?"

  "Don't jump ahead. Let me get us another beer." He retrieved two, set one before Louis who was only half finished with his first, and poured his own. "Mom was a good little hippie girl, just happy to hitchhike around the country with dad and be a part of the love generation. One weekend they hitched out to Akron, Ohio to a Sly and the Family Stone concert, got a ride in a VW microbus, of course, and the driver fell asleep at the wheel. They cras
hed into a tree and I was made an orphan at the age of two. Aunt Helen didn't get the news for three weeks, until a friend of mom's called with condolences. Aunt Helen just kept on babysitting.

  As to how I got into school without any birth certificate, I suppose I just slipped through the cracks in the system. I went to school and grew up as Joseph Warnecki without any problem until I was about to turn eighteen. I made do without a driver's license, but at eighteen you have to register with selective service. Didn't have a social security card, either.

  "And this is where Joe Wojciehowski enters the picture. You don't remember him?"

  Louis opened the second can. "Can't say as I do. Name rings a bell though."

  "Joe moved here with his father in January, in eighty-seven. He sat behind me in home room and we became friends. He used to hang out at my aunt's house all the time, because she fed him and stuff. His old man was a drunk. Beat him up. Wojie would do about anything to keep from having to go home."

  Louis interrupted him. "You know, I think I do remember him now. I had a thirty-day leave around then and he came around, asking me about being in the navy. Had a wacky look to him, like he was on dope or something. Made me nervous."

  "He was a little bit crazy, did all kinds of dumb stuff, joy riding, starting up the heavy equipment at the sand pits. I went with him doing some of this stuff, but I always managed to avoid getting caught. Plus, I was with Sharon a lot of the time back then, and she tried to keep me away from the really crazy stuff." Joey stopped talking for a while, thinking about those times.

  "So anyway," Joey abruptly returned to his story. "Wojie planned to join the military at the end of the summer after graduation. He talked me into going camping for a few weeks in July. We went into the Allagash. Hitched into it until we ran out of road and then backpacked for a day, following a river. No map or anything, just followed the river. Figured we could just follow it back out when we'd had enough.

  "It was a really nice river, too. Cold and clear and fast. Most places it ran about ten feet wide or so. Full of brook trout. But after a week, we were about out of food, and sick of eating fish. One more day in the woods, and we were going to pack out of there.

  "Just past where we were camped, a bigger river joined our river, and just a ways beyond that, there was a falls that fell about thirty feet into a round pool, big as the pool at the Boy's Club. Real pretty spot, hemlocks and ferns and moss all around this pool that was white where the water fell in, boiling out to the sides, and brown around the white, and then the green banks. The rock face behind the falls was cut out and you could stand back there and watch the water roar past, but you couldn't see through it.

  "That last afternoon, we went swimming there. From the top of the falls you could see a rainbow coming up off the pool like magic. Wojie would jump from the top of the falls into the pool, but I wouldn't do it, even though I couldn't touch bottom in the middle of the pool. When Wojie saw the rainbow, he said, 'There's a pot of gold at the bottom. Let's dive and get it.' I said no thanks, let it stay there. 'Uh,uh, I'm gonna get it, drag it on out of here and buy a ranch in Texas.' And he dove in, head first. I waited for him to come up. And waited and waited. And he didn't come up and I ran down to the bottom and jumped in and groped around for him for what seemed like forever and never got him." Joey took a deep breath and let it out. "That was about the worst time of my life."

  "That's a terrible thing to happen, Joey. You never found him?"

  "No. The water shot out of that pool through a narrow channel, three or four feet wide. I figure he must have washed out of there while I was looking for him, or maybe while I was waiting for him to come up. I spent two more days there, hiking downstream and looking for him. After that, I packed up everything I could carry, left the rest, and hiked out."

  "I suppose you must have been in pretty bad shape after all that. Don't believe I got back here at all that summer. Med cruise, I think. I sure would have gotten word from Kat about it, though. Did you go to the police?"

  Joey spoke into his lap. "No, never. I was so wiped out after hitching home, I ate everything in the house and slept for a day and a half." He paused, and then returned his eyes to Louis. "I went to see his old man. Found him drunk at ten in the morning. They lived in that trailer park in the west end. Place was a mess. Dirty dishes everywhere, maggots in the sink, bottles piled up in the trash. If Wojie wasn't around to pick up, nobody did."

  "No mom?"

  "Wojie told me she left when he was ten, couldn't take the old man anymore. Anyway, I told the story, expecting the guy to break down, blame me, anything. But all he said was ask who was going to clean up around there, now. I asked him did he want Wojie's stuff, sleeping bag and wallet and stuff. He said to burn it all. Damn."

  "Unbelievable, Joey, just unbelievable." Louis shook his head in wonderment. "So, I guess you didn't burn it anyway, not the wallet."

  "Nope, I kept it. Wojie's driver's license picture looked enough like me that when it came time to renew it, I went down to the motor vehicle and got my own picture taken. I used his I.D.'s to set up a bank account, file my taxes, everything. Came close to getting caught once or twice, but I've been traveling under two names for almost half my life now."

  "Anybody else know about this, your aunt?"

  "No. Well, Sharon knew. Didn't much care for the idea, either. We were gonna get married, you know, and she wanted me to straighten everything out beforehand. 'Course I don't blame her for that. Who'd want to start a marriage with someone who used two names? She died one month later, end of August. I just kept on with it, seemed like the easiest thing to do." Joey rubbed the tips of his fingers along the knots of the sutures on his scalp. "I suppose Aunt Helen would have found out sooner or later, but she got sick the next year and died in 'ninety, at her sister's place in Aroostook County, near the border."

  The two men sat quietly at the table, Joey lost in his memories, Louis considering the tale and how to advise Joey. "Everybody's gonna know now, Joey," Louis said quietly.

  Joey smiled ruefully. "Cat's out of the bag now, that's for sure."

  "So what are you going to do? You gotta think, not only are you going to have to deal with the name thing, but you still got someone out there who took a shot at you. I'm having a hard time trying to connect the two things."

  "I can't connect the two, either. I wish I could figure out what to do with even one of them. I don't feel like running away, and I don't want to face them, either. What would you do in my place?"

  Louis spoke thoughtfully. "Joey boy, I ain't gonna pretend to have been anywhere near the spot you're in. One thing I do know, running ain't gonna buy you much time. The police are looking, and they'll find you, sooner or later. My opinion is that you ought to get to them before they get to you. The longer it takes, the madder they'll be when they find you."

  "Damn. I suppose you're right, but it's hard to let go after all this time."

  "You know that cop Sims seems like a decent man. If you have to pick someone to go to, I'd pick him."

  "Yeah?" Joey was reluctant.

  "Yeah, that's my advice." Louis seemed warily sure of himself.

  "Okay, I'll do it. Tomorrow morning." Joey assumed Louis' attitude. Two beers made the decision easier. "You mind if I crash here tonight? I'll call that cop first thing in the morning."

  "Sure. I think you're making the right decision. Let's go sit in the t.v. room and talk some more." And they did.

  .

  Knowles was the last to arrive at the conference room on the second floor of the police department building. Sims had arranged with everyone to meet at six o'clock, and when Knowles hadn't arrived by five past, he'd paged him. Knowles had lost track of time, sitting in Joey's kitchen, and entered the room fifteen minutes late.

  The conference room was large enough to hold a gray metal table and eight metal folding chairs. The floor was green, indoor/outdoor carpet; the ceiling perforated acoustic tile around a fluorescent ceiling fixture that cast a ghoulish l
ight. The walls, where not covered by cork-board and papers, were painted an institutional green. In one corner stood an ancient coffee maker on a stained, once-white, plastic table. All in all, it was not a pleasant room, and it pretty much reflected the other spaces in the 'sixties-era building.

  Mary was holding forth from the center chair, opposite the entrance, when Knowles entered and closed the door behind him. She paused for Knowles to take a seat across from her. To her left sat Sims and next to him at the table's end, Lieutenant Waters. Chief Sloan sat alone at the other end of the table, Brulick behind him in a chair against the wall.

  "Nice of you to join us, Charlie." She smiled at him, he didn't respond. "As I was saying, Warnecki-slash-Wojciehowski has been writing checks on two accounts held in the Atlantic Bank in Camden since nineteen-ninety. He's been paying his taxes on the business account: state and federal income, self-employment, and property. That account is also used for what appear to be business related entries and all income shown has been dumped into that account. His living expenses seem to have been paid through his personal checking account. He uses an ATM card for cash in town, drawn from the personal account, and records all draws from the business account to the other checking account. In short, unless we find another stash, Joseph Wojciehowski has been paying his taxes and keeping good records. I've got everything: tax returns, bank statements, everything going back to the beginning balances in the accounts. If I were doing an audit, using this paper, I'd have to give Wojciehowski a gold star for clean record keeping." She looked around the table. "And, so far, if I had to find Warnecki by following a paper trail, I'd have to conclude that he existed as a schoolboy, and nowhere else." Sims was frowning, looking down at the table. The lieutenant looked interested. Knowles looked inscrutable, as usual. Sloan had an expression of irritation and impatience, as usual. She paid no attention to Brulick, as though he were merely a shadow behind Sloan.

  Waters stated the obvious question. "So why use an alias to conduct legitimate business? It's backwards. We're missing a bunch."

  "Now I get to the interesting part." Mary raised her eyebrows. She seemed to be enjoying her part. "There's a sheet on Joseph Wojciehowski, beginning in February, 'eighty-seven, and ending five items later, in May of that same year. Trespassing; malicious mischief, two counts; and two moving violations - reckless driving and speeding. Nothing since. Tomorrow I'll extend the search elsewhere, doesn't seem such a career would stop so abruptly."

  "Maybe they switched identities. Look for Warnecki's name out of state. Military, too. Still doesn't make sense." Waters didn't like anything about this case. "Get the inquiries out on the wire this evening."

  "Right." Mary thought about her cat. She'd run home and feed her and come back.

  Sergeant Clarkson chose that moment to burst into the room. Everyone except Knowles started when the door banged against the wall. He glowered at them. "Somebody leaked," he said. "Big-mouth Bronki just broke the news about cocaine being found at the scene." He looked hard at Mary.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth opened and closed. Then her eyes narrowed. "You go to hell, Sarge."

  Taking her insubordinate retort for what it was, he looked around the room, barely glancing at the lieutenant, lingering at the chief and longer at Brulick, who always had a guilty look, anyway. His look at the chief approached insubordination itself, but such was his reputation and value to the department, he could walk where others might fear to tread. The chief knew that the sergeant did the best part of his job for him. It could be supposed that there was a line that could not be crossed with impunity, but only the sergeant and the chief might know where it lay. Between the sergeant and the lieutenant, there were definite boundaries, well established and recognized. There existed a good working relationship between them. To everyone else in the department, Sergeant Clarkson was a cipher. Little was known about his personal life, even his first name was a mystery to some. The safest way to deal with him was to do exactly as he said, ask no questions but for the essential, and do your job.

  "What did she say, exactly?" Sims said.

  The sergeant's attention steadied at Sims. "She said, and I quote, 'an undisclosed source with the police has reported that a substantial amount of cocaine was discovered at the home of the victim of Monday night's nearly fatal shooting of Joseph Warnecki, a resident and local carpenter in Rock Harbor.' She also said that the slugs found at the scene were thirty-eight caliber. Anybody care to guess how she got that information?" No one spoke. The silence in the room was uncomfortable.

  Waters broke it. "As far as I know, Sergeant, no one is privy to the details but the people in this room, and people at the state lab. Anyone here speak to anyone else about it?" He paused a moment for someone to speak. No one did. "I guess that's all for now, Sergeant, we'll go into it later." Clarkson nodded to the lieutenant without speaking and left the room. People stirred in their seats.

  "Sarge doesn't care for the media, huh?" Mary tried to break the tension.

  "I have it on good authority that he doesn't even trust the comic section to get it right," Waters said, letting a more relaxed air into the room. "Okay, let's get back. Why run a legitimate business under an assumed name."

  The chief spoke for the first time: "It's obvious. Wojciehowski's an escape alias. Clean i.d., access to funds, probably has cash in a safe deposit box somewhere."

  "Then why were all his records in such an accessible location?" Mary asked.

  "Well," said Sloan, "If he starts to feel the heat, he can grab everything and head south."

  "Rock Harbor carpentry is linked directly to him under the name Warnecki. Those accounts and the other identity would be linked to him very quickly." Mary tapped the papers before her with a pencil.

  "He may even have another identity, like those welfare queens, I don't know." Sloan looked at his wrist watch.

  "Check the banks for other accounts and safe deposit boxes under either name." Waters was addressing Mary.

  "He could have his money under a rock, for all we know," interjected Brulick. No on at the table made any response to his comment. It was as though he hadn't spoken at all and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  "What eludes me so far, is any connection to the shooting that initiated all this," Sims said. "The paper trail to the alternate i.d. is substantial, but we're getting nothing that would lead to a suspect from that."

  "Move on what you know. Let the rest follow." Sloan was being impatiently gruff.

  "Okay," Waters said, "We'll need a response to the t.v. revelations."

  "Get an arrest warrant," said the chief.

  Sims stiffened. "I think that would increase the risk of flight. We need to get him in here for questioning. And for his own protection."

  "Let's announce that he's wanted for questioning, and not comment on the drugs," Waters said.

  The chief appeared to consider this. "Alright, do it." He looked again at his watch. "I've got another meeting." He pushed back his chair and left the room, followed closely by Brulick.

  The room was silent until they could no longer hear the retreating footsteps. Waters broke the silence. "Anything else? Anyone not clear on what to do?" He waited for comment. "Okay. Mary, you're following the paper. Sims, you and Knowles are working to pick up Warnecki and investigate the shooting angle. I guess we're done here for the moment." Three chairs scraped back. Mary gathered her papers. "Sims, hang back for a minute," Waters said and Sims sat back down.

  After the others left the room, Waters said," John, I wrote a memo to cover you in not writing up a report last night. Now's the time for you to do a report on everything to date. Don't worry about it, I won't leave you hanging." His gaze was direct.

  "Okay, Loo, thanks." And both men rose, Sims to write his report, Waters to prepare a statement for the press.

  Mary, following Knowles down the stairwell noticed the paperback in his back pocket. "How far'd you get?"

  "Far what?" he retorted. He stopped and turned on th
e first landing.

  "In the book, Charlie. Finish it?"

  "Oh, I guess I forgot to put it back. Naw, I lost interest after the first few pages," Knowles scoffed.

  "Want me to see that it gets returned? I've got all the other stuff, I could just keep it all together. You know?" Sincerity in her words and expression.

  Knowles clumped away down the stairs. "No, that's okay, you got enough to keep track of. I'll take care of it." He disappeared through the fire door, leaving Mary smirking to herself on the landing. Her expression faded as she realized that she would have to work late into the evening.

  .

  Having talked Joey's problems to death over beers in Louis' t.v. room, both men were silent, listening to Brubeck's 'Time Further Out', playing on a scratchy l.p. record. The recliners were fully extended and a line of empty beer cans spanned the width of the small refrigerator between them.

  "I got to pee," Louis said, and pulled the handle on the side of the chair that allowed him to sit up and then stand. He left the room and Joey heard the back door open and close. After a minute, Joey heard the word 'damn' come faintly through the closed window beside him. He got up to investigate.

  Louis was outside, muttering. "What's the matter?" Joey asked, hunching his shoulders against the chill.

  "Damn cat ran in front of me," Louis said.

  "Oh." Joey paused, then, "Better not let her in."

  "Guess not. She likes to go up on the bed."

  "Cold out, though."

  "Yeah, maybe we should try to catch her. Bring her in, clean her up."

  They wandered the yard, calling for the cat in lowered voices. Joey started to walk up the driveway and stopped when he saw the police cruiser parked on the street before his house. He walked backwards, bumping into Louis.

  "Where the hell you going?" Louis said.

  "Sssh, there's a cop car out front."

  "Oh." Louis tried to peer around him and Joey pushed him back behind the house.

  "I don't want to be found, just yet," Joey explained to Louis, who might have an attitude about being pushed. Louis didn't respond. He merely glowered at Joey. Joey, attempting to deflect Louis' attention, pointed to the sky. "Hey," he said, you know the stars and things, don't you? Being in the navy and all?"

  Louis continued to look hard at Joey for a few seconds before following Joey's pointing arm to the heavens above. "Well, sure," he said. "All us sailors know the stars and constellations and stuff." Both men were weaving slightly, dizzy from looking up after several beers. A long, straight line of clouds, stretching across the northeastern end of the heavens had just swallowed the moon. Louis raised his arm to point as Joey lowered his. "There," Louis said, "you see that line of three stars, all the same brightness?"

  Joey sighted along Louis' arm. "Yeah, what's that?"

  "That's Orion's belt." He moved his arm. "Now, follow that line up, say about ten times its length, and you see a little cluster of six or so, not quite so bright. Those are the Pleiades."

  "Neat," Joey said. He looked back to see Orion, but the clouds had overtaken the hunter to past his belt. "Show me another one."

  "Okay." Louis looked around the western sky. "There. There's a group of five, all about the same brightness, about as wide as your hand with your fingers spread out. See it?"

  "I think so. What's that called?"

  "That's the Big W," Louis said proudly.

  "Big W? Looks a little lopsided to be a W, don't it? That really what it's called?" Joey sounded doubtful.

  "Sure it is. Look at those clouds move." Louis shivered. "Let's go in. I'm getting cold." He headed for the door, Joey following.

  Louis checked his watch, returning to the t.v. room. "Ten o'clock. Let's check the weather." He sat down and clicked the television on with the remote, turning to the Channel 26 Action News Report.

  Joey looked at him quizzically. "Hey. Was that some kind of petty revenge for me pushing you, telling me that line about the Big W?" Louis just looked at him before turning his attention to the television, where Tina Bronki was beginning her anchor spot.

  "Leading the news tonight," she said, "the police are still looking for Joseph Warnecki, victim of Monday night's near-fatal shooting. As reported earlier, the home of the Rock Harbor carpenter was searched following the shooting and a quantity of cocaine was discovered. Police Lieutenant Lawrence Waters would not confirm this earlier report, saying only that Mr. Warnecki is wanted for questioning. In other news..." Neither man heard what followed. Joey stared at the screen, his mouth gaping. Louis turned to look at his profile.

  Joey shut his mouth, turned to Louis. "No," he said, shaking his head, "no cocaine. No cocaine, no nothing." Color rose in his face. "What the hell is that all about? What are they trying to do?" His voice rose. "Shit, shit, shit!"

  Louis was convinced. He'd seen Joey under stress. He'd seen Joey smash his finger with a twenty-ounce framing hammer and will away the pain, smiling in embarrassment at his ineptitude, not blaming the hammer for his own crime. He'd seen Joey deal with unreasonable clients. The ones who expected the contractor to read their minds when even they couldn't discern what was wanted. Joey would slough it off, redo the work, and bill for less than would be thought reasonable by any other contractor. He'd say he was just building up good Karma. And in Joey's reaction to the newsreader's words, Louis saw a man unjustly accused of a felony; Billy Budd in sawdust instead of salt water. At least Billy'd had someone to hit. Joey had to pound the leather of his chair, which he did with each imprecation.

  "Alright, alright, alright, hold on a minute, let's figure this out." Louis held up his hands and Joey stopped hitting the chair, but kept swinging his head from side to side in denial.

  "What? What are we going to figure out?" Joey stopped moving his head and looked directly at Louis. "Someone shot me, I don't know why, and now the police think I'm selling cocaine, or something. This on top of me using Wojie's name and who knows what else. Next thing they're gonna accuse of of shooting the president." He flipped his legs over the side of the reclined chair, ejected, and began to pace about the small room. Two strides and he had to change direction. "Shit. I don't have enough room here. I gotta get out." He headed for the doorway.

  Louis struggled with the handle to straighten his chair, gave up and tumbled over the side, following Joey into the kitchen. "Wait up a minute," he said, "whoa, don't be running out now, let's work this out." Joey was putting on his jacket. "Where you gonna go? It's cold out. It's gonna snow or something."

  Joey didn't seem to hear him. He was looking for the cap he'd left at Emily and Doris's. Realizing that fact, he said, "shit," again and bolted outside, leaving Louis standing in the kitchen, staring after him with the door wide open and the warm air of the house flowing out into the November night. The black cat slipped by him into the house without his noticing.

  .

  Mary got home just in time for the ten o'clock news, a freezing rain beginning to fall as she parked her car in the driveway. She hustled inside to the warmth of her home and the meowing of the cat she hadn't had time to feed. She snapped on the television and listened as she opened a new can of turkey with giblets and scooped a third of it into the bowl on the floor. Her cat had definite priorities, immediately abandoning its purring and ankle-circling to devote its attention to the food and Mary walked into her living room, can and fork in hand, to watch Tina deliver the news. She set the fork in the can, put them on the floor beside her and sat down on a footstool to idly roll the cat fur from the legs of her trousers, disregarding the second report on the news. She decided to leave the television on until the weather report and walked on her knees to the bookcase, where she compared the titles in her collection to the ones in Warnecki's. Many were the same, and some of the serial works that were missing in his collection were evident in hers, and vice versa. She wished that she had borrowed a couple of Travis McGee stories that she hadn't seen before. What the hell, she thought, they're just paperbacks, he wouldn't mind.r />
  .

  Sims didn't get home until after the ten o'clock news. The freezing rain was mixing with sleet and snow, making the streets treacherous, since the town road crews had not yet gotten out to sand. He hoped, as he pulled into his driveway, that June and the girls were all home and not out on the roads. The lieutenant had told him to leave the Volvo wagon and drive home in the patrol car. Nothing's worse on a slippery road than a Volvo wagon, he'd said, after Sims gave him his typed report. Unstated was the fact that Sims would probably be called in early, or in the middle of the night, to deal with accidents or whatever else can happen on a night of bad weather. Sims was one of those police officers who were always on call, simply because of their competence.

  June was in the kitchen, scrubbing out a roasting pan that had held lasagna at one time, but had been languishing in the sink for two days, the adults too busy, the children too lazy to clean it. She was in her pajamas and robe, both flannel, both pink, both wet to the elbows in tomato-stained dishwater. "Hi, honey," she said, and turned from the sink to grab him by the cheeks with her sudsy hands and plant a wet kiss on his mouth. Sharing the dishwashing experience.

  "Thanks," he said, grabbing the lapel of her robe and wiping off his face. "Kids home?"

  "Yeah, bad night to be out, huh?"

  "Yup. You catch the weather?"

  "Supposed to turn to all snow. Lots of wind. Maybe a foot by morning." She turned back to her work.

  "Great. Anything to eat?"

  "What's left of a bucket of chicken in the fridge. I got home late, sent Carrie out for it. Should be almost enough left for you. There's coleslaw, too. Knock yourself out." She chuckled. Dinner was never a sure thing at their house. "By the way, a Louis Armstrong called. Said he tried at the station, but you had already left. Said to call anytime you got home. That's the neighbor from the shooting thing, isn't it?"

  Sims had been at the refrigerator, pulling out what appeared to be a gallon cardboard bucket. He pulled of the lid, looked inside and said, "Yeah. Guess I'll nuke this stuff and call him back."

  Louis answered on the first ring. "Sims," he said, "what's with the cocaine thing? It was on the news tonight, Joey about freaked out."

  "Is Warnecki there?" Sims spoke excitedly.

  "Naw. He was here earlier. I had him convinced to call you in the morning. He was almost comfortable with the idea. And then the news came on and he panicked, ran out of here. Damn. What's going on?"

  Sims thought about it. "I can't tell you that the cocaine being there isn't a problem, 'cause it is. But I'm not convinced it's Warnecki's problem. He's got other problems, though, and‐"

  "No shit."

  "‐and it's very important that I get ahold of him. Do you know where he is?"

  "No," Louis said resignedly. "I don't know where he went. I don't think he knows himself. Like I said, he just flew out of here."

  "What is he wearing?"

  "Same stuff he's had on all day, only wetter, now. Tell me about the cocaine."

  "I can't talk about it now. Do you talk to him about Wojciehowski?"

  Louis waited a few beats before answering. "Yeah, some. Tell me about the cocaine."

  Sims waited a few more beats, calculating. "Tomorrow. I'll get over to you tomorrow, early. We'll talk."

  "Meanwhile, that's boy's out in a blizzard. May be no tomorrow for him." Louis hung up.

  Sims called the department, alerted the lieutenant to the visit with Louis, then patched through to the officer parked in front of Warnecki's and waited on the phone while he checked the house and grounds. The policeman reported no sign of Warnecki and no evidence of his walking in the snow that had recently begun to fall and blow around.

  .

  By the time the officer was looking for tracks in the snow around Joey's house, Joey was walking up the access road in the state forest that led to Meredith Adams' second home. Though there was as yet only a scant inch of snow on the ground, visibility was nil. He was able to stay on the road surface only by feel, and had a difficult time staying out of the ditches that ran on either side of the single-lane, tarred road. The wind swirled and blew in fits and starts, further confounding his sense of direction. And the snow fell so heavily that the heat from his body, passing through the thin denim jacket, couldn't melt it fast enough to keep it from accumulating on his shoulders and back. The temperature had plummeted to fifteen degrees and even Louis' five-alarm chili wasn't sufficient to keep Joey warm. He was soaked through and shivering.

  Halfway up the hill, Joey slipped and fell into the right-hand ditch. Since his hands were stuck in his jean pockets, he was unable to break his fall, and he fell hard, splitting several of the stitches on his head and reopening his wound. It took him several minutes to regain his feet and, once up, he lost his sense of direction and took the fire road that led around the hill. He stumbled a mile along that road before realizing his mistake and turning back.

  As to his state of mind, Joey was on autopilot. Simple survival took over the reins, banishing all concern over lesser matters. Joey put one foot in front of the other for three hours, until he fell over the heavy chain stretched across the road at the entrance to the hilltop estate. The rimed fabric of his jacket cracked like a peanut shell when he hit the ground, his legs hung up over the ice-stiffened chain. Part of his mind voted to stay where he lay. A deeper part, holding the controlling vote, somehow caused him to disentangle himself, rise, and stumble forward toward the dark house which sat some fifty yards further along. The two-story brick house stood as a darker mass in the almost lightless world that surrounded Joey Warnecki. He stood hunched over at the foot of the two granite steps before the black, paneled door. A lighted doorbell button beside the door drew his focus and he struggled to remove his right hand from where the denim of his jeans pocket had frozen around it. He managed to extricate it and it was like a claw, foreign to him. He mashed it against the yellow spot of the button and heard faint chimes ring from inside the house. He took heart from this, but from the darkness of the house's windows, it was evident that no one was at home there to answer his summons. He then used the club that was his hand to smash the sidelight window closest to the door handle. His hand was torn in the process but since there was no feeling in this extremity, he paid it no mind. Instead he stuck his arm through the broken window and fumbled with the door's inside hardware, trying to flip the deadbolt latch. His fingers wouldn't work, but he managed to knock the lever over and then clubbed the thumb latch inside, allowing the door to open into the house. He fell through the opening door onto the threadbare Persian rug inside and, after a few seconds, pulled his stiff legs inside and pushed the door closed with his foot.

  He melted on the floor by the door. Though the furnace thermostat was set to a frugal sixty degrees, it was still forty-five degrees warmer than the outside air, not even considering the chill factor imposed by the howling wind. In fifteen minutes, his shivering, given up as a useless stratagem by his body some time ago, began again. His reptile brain, still in control, accessed the part of his mind that remembered a bathroom at the top of the stairway before him. He had worked on this house several times over the preceding years. That part of his brain dragged him up the straight stairway, using his chin to pull him up as much as any limb.

  In the bathroom, an ancient claw-footed tub squatted in its majesty on a white tiled floor. With his chin hanging onto the curled edge of the tub, he reached into it and inserted the rubber plug, hanging from a brass chain, into the drain. He knocked the porcelain hot-water handle open and a rush of water forced through the small hole of the brass spout. He held his hand in the spray, but couldn't tell by feel whether the water coming out was hot or cold. After a bit, he could smell the steam, so he removed his hand before it cooked and opened the cold water tap halfway. He watched the water fill the tub to the level of the overflow drain, inhaling the warm, moist air. He leaned into the tub and tested the temperature with his tongue. As far as he could tell, it seemed a reasonable temp
erature. He climbed over the edge of the tub and plopped inside, clothes, shoes, and all. Water splashed onto the floor and he settled in, his head against the sloping end, above water only from the nose up. His shivering stopped after a few minutes and he turned on the hot water again with his shoe, letting the excess water flow into the overflow drain. A torpor overcame him in the warmth of the water and he shut off the running water before he fell into sleep.

  The little light of the doorbell button went out ten minutes later when an ice-laden pine branch fell from the top of a tree overhanging the road-side power line, carrying its lower neighbors with it and bringing the wire to the ground. Joey woke up, cold again, around four a.m. There were no lights, the window above the tub a dim rectangle of dark gray, perceived only in slight contrast to the blackness that otherwise surrounded him. He awoke confused as to his location and condition. Since sight was denied him, he had to rely on his other senses to moor himself in the universe. His body felt almost weightless, backside and feet lightly anchored to the smooth bottom of the porcelain tub, hands floating palm down, knuckles broaching the water's surface slightly. He became aware of pain in his right hand, and this pain drew him to further awareness. The water had grown cool, but his face above the waterline was feverish, sweaty. He pushed with his shoes against the end of the tub and rose above the surface to the level of his shirt pockets. Hearing joined the sense of feeling as his back and bottom squeaked and rumbled against the smooth surface and the water sloshed. The thousand car freight train of the storm roared by outside. With full consciousness came awareness of his discomfort. His teeth were chattering again. How could he feel hot and cold all at the same time, he wondered, rising to his feet and feeling for the edge of the tub in a sudden dizziness. The sodden jeans clung to his legs as he lifted each leg out of the tub and onto the floor, holding as tightly as he could to the tub rim. Then he sat down in the pool he was creating on the tile floor and laboriously stripped off his clothing, which resisted his efforts as though they were glued to him. Regaining his feet, he found a rack of towels and dried himself as well as he could with shaking hands, dropping the towels onto the mess of clothing at his feet.

  Naked, hands outstretched before him, he stepped forward, feeling for the invisible doorway, and walked into the door's edge, which dealt him a sharp blow to his nose and forehead. Now, another sense returned to him: his sense of the absurd. He giggled. With that giggle, he was again fully human for the first time since his mental retreat to the rear of his brain in the storm outside. He was damaged and possibly ill, but now could consciously decide to find a bed and blankets, to crawl under them, and wait out the storm. This he managed to do.

 

‹ Prev Next ›