In the Mood - [Millennium Quartet 02]
Page 33
And he has a feeling he doesn’t understand—that he and Mag won’t talk much anymore.
* * * *
3
Arn Baer just wants to go home. For the past six or seven days he has snapped and snarled at everyone who’s walked into his office, including the mayor; he’s had a couple of really dumb fights with his wife, who doesn’t want him to go to work in case that Gillespie scum has accomplices lurking out there; he’s talked to reporters from papers he’s never heard of and networks he wouldn’t watch on a bet; he’s filled out more paperwork than the entire U.S. Army; his shoulder is killing him; and the goddamn newspaper dispenser across the street still won’t give him back his money.
Worse; Rafe Schmidt is treating him like he’s learned to walk on water.
Jesus, what a way to live.
Thankfully, the only thing left to do is go over the signed statement from that old man who killed that other old man out at the Bannock place, then get hold of the city prosecutor to find out if that woman is going to be charged as an accessory. Or maybe Patty Bannock’s killer. She claims it’s an accident, because of that wind, but he still isn’t sure.
The weird thing is, neither of them seems to give a damn.
Gillespie he can understand. Sort of.
But the old man’s daughter? Standing there doing nothing, while her father cuts some guy’s throat? Maybe even shoving Patty down the steps? Then just waiting around until the police show up?
“What the hell’s going on around here?” he asks his empty office.
“You call?” Rafe says anxiously, sticking his head in.
“No. I did not call. And aren’t you supposed to be on the road or something?’’
“Paperwork, Chief,” the deputy says, snaps his gum, grins, and vanishes, and reappears a moment later.
“What?” Arn snarls, then apologizes with a grimace that was supposed to be a smile.
“Patty Bannock,” Rafe says hesitantly.
“What about her?”
“Well... didn’t they have a kid? Her and her husband?”
Arn opens his mouth to snarl again, closes it when he realizes the deputy is right. All this stuff going on, nobody’s thought to ask about the kid. Which, he thinks, is funny, since neither Bannock or the old man or the woman in the cell have said a word about him.
He feels like a jerk.
“Sorry, Chief,” says Rafe miserably. “I feel like a jerk for not thinking of it before.” He shrugs. “The thing is, nobody has seen him. Maybe he’s with a relative or something.”
Right. Arn thinks; like this mess is all that easy.
Rafe waves the clipboard, his tone dropping into his own official mode. “But he’s probably with his old man, right?”
“You think maybe?” he answers, not worrying about the sarcasm because Rafe seldom took the bait.
“Stands to reason, Chief. The mother’s dead, his aunt and grandfather are in jail, if he’s here he’s got to be with the father.”
“We haven’t seen him there, have we? It’s been a week and we haven’t seen him.”
“Well.. .no.”
“We don’t have an extra body floating around, do we?”
Rafe studies the ceiling. “Okay. No.”
Arn sees the disappointment, though, and figures this could be a good way to get some peace. He clears his throat. “Look, do me a favor, take some time off from all that paper crap, take a ride out there, have another look around. Ask about the kid.” He tries to look sincere as he taps the folder on his desk. “I’m so swamped, maybe I’m wrong.” He adds a heavy sigh. “Loose ends, Rafe. Loose ends.”
Rafe salutes, leaves, and returns, his face creased in a frown. “Suppose he’s not there? The kid, I mean?”
“Don’t,” Arn warns. “Do not even think it. Just go. Come back. Bring me good news.”
“Sure, Chief,” says Rafe. And blows a big blue bubble.
* * * *
4
Dory sits on the cot in her cell, knees drawn up to her chest, hands around her ankles. She ignores her father, in the cell on her left, stretched out and snoring. She ignores the guards who stroll by now and then, sneaking looks at her and the old man, looking away guiltily when she catches them at it.
Something has been missing since they brought her and Pop in, and she can’t quite figure out what it is. It’s important, that much she knows, and it probably has something to do with getting her out of here and back home to Philly, but she’ll be damned if she can figure it out.
It’ll come to her, though, she’s sure of it; it’ll come to her.
Meanwhile, she’s bored, and she decides it’s time to wake Pop up so they can talk. She wishes he would say something about what he did out there, at least listen to her as she tries to figure out how the thing with Ari Lowe can be fixed not to look like murder.
“Hello.”
A man in an expensive suit stands at her cell door, briefcase in one well-manicured hand. “Ms. Castro?” he says. When she nods warily, he smiles broadly and tells her, “I’m your attorney.” He looks toward Tony. “Both of you. I just stopped by to tell you not to worry, that as soon as I can I’ll have you, at least, out on bail.”
“How can you do that?” Dory demands, not bothering to ask where he came from.
“Because I’m good,” the man replies simply. “So how are you doing?”
“Like shit,” she complains. “How do you think? And where the hell have you been? I’ve been rotting here for days.”
The attorney studies her for a moment before he says, “Listen, Ms. Castro, I realize you’ve been through a lot. You may not realize just how much you’ve suffered. Your father and sister and all.” The smile turns sympathetic. “What I’m saying is, now is not the time to build walls around your trauma. You can talk to me. You can tell me anything. But I need to know the truth. You need to be honest with me.”
Dory sighs a martyr’s sigh, and nods reluctantly. “You want the truth, I wish I had my piano. It would make me feel a whole lot better.” She stares at her knees. “I miss my music.”
She feels it stir then, the something that’s eluded her.
Not quite here, yet, but closer.
“I can’t help you there, but that’s what I mean. I need to know what’s in your head. So,” and he reaches through the bars, and she reaches out and takes his hand. “So, Dory, tough talk aside, how do you really feel?”
She stares at him, not knowing how to respond, not understanding what he really wants, until she hears a whisper in her ear:
“Aunt Dory ... cry.”
And she does.
* * * *
2
I
n the spare room of George Trout’s house there is a steamer trunk, brand-new, its brass trim and corners and lock gleaming and as yet untouched. Inside is a stack of papers and two briefcases filled with cassettes that John stares at for a long time before he closes the lid and turns the heavy brass key over. He sniffs then, and stands, and uses his foot to shove the trunk across the bare floor and into the closet. He doesn’t look at it again before he slams the door.
“You know,” says Lisse from the doorway, “that ain’t going to make it go away. Just tucked under for a while.”
“I know.” He faces her, and smiles. “But I think I deserve a little tucking now and then, don’t you?”
Her eyes narrow. “You talking dirty to me ... Prez?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” he tells her, taking her arm, turning around. “I want to live, thank you.”
She mutters and leads the way downstairs, out to the porch where they stand at the rail and watch the rain drip from the eaves and fill the dry marsh across the road. Although the air is damp and chilled, neither wears a sweater or a jacket; it feels good on their skin, and they want it to last.
She folds her arms across her stomach, one hand cupping her elbow. “That policeman called while you were upstairs. The chief?”
“Oh.”.
“He says he’s sending somebody out again, to check on the whereabouts of the boy. Loose ends, he said. He’s clearing up loose ends.”
John smells the rain and the damp earth and the wet grass. Good smells. It’s been a long time.
“Are we packed?”
She looks over, and he’s not sure about her expression, not until he sees the set of her jaw, the way the fingers of that cupped hand drum slowly, deliberately, on her elbow.
“Lisse, I’m sorry.” The rasp is clear in his voice. “I just don’t have a whole lot of time all of a sudden. I am not taking you for granted. Believe me, I’m not.”
A reluctant nod. “All right. I’m sorry, too. So what’s the plan? We can’t stay here forever.”
“We’re leaving. Now. I’ll drop you off wherever you want.” He hesitates. “If you want.” No reaction, and he checks the road, and the rain. “But. I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t have a lot of time.”
Without waiting for a response, he returns inside, lifting an eyebrow when he spots the suitcase at the foot of the stairs.
“We gonna walk?” she asks smugly from the door.
“George’s car is in the garage. We’ll take that. He won’t mind.”
“Probably smells like whiskey.” A joke, and a comment.
And a caution.
Suddenly there’s too much to do, and suddenly there’s nothing to do, which depresses him because the last time he left Vallor, it had taken him weeks to get everything in order, make all the necessary arrangements for an extended time away.
Now it will only take minutes.
And he wishes he had a drink.
* * * *
Within five minutes, the house locked up and swift goodbyes said to George, his presence still connected to his home, they’re on the road, not speeding but moving steadily, the suitcase in the backseat, John driving, checking the rearview mirror and seeing nothing but the smear of gray rain.
“What are you thinking, Prez?”
“I like Yank better.”
“Too bad.”
Vallor fades, and vanishes, as if, he thinks, it had never been.
“Patty,” he admits. “And Joey.”
“Are we still crazy?”
“God, I think so.”
“Then that means he was one of them, right? The ones Momma told me about.”
He nods.
“He’s not dead, though.”
“No, I don’t think so. Stalled, that’s all. I hope, anyway.”
Illinois fades and vanishes, the Ohio taking them to Kentucky. Then it fades as well, as if it had never been.
* * * *
“Here,” she says, tapping his arm. “Take this.”
“Take...?” He opens his right hand, and into it she drops a small wooden cross on a thin leather thong. The surprise of it shakes his concentration, and she hisses to remind him to watch the road, it’s slippery.
“When he left,” she explains, “he gave it to me. He said, he was going home, do some praying, write some sermons, try to figure out where he went wrong.” She shakes her head, traces a finger around a bruise on her neck. “I must be nuts, because sometimes, now, I think maybe he ain’t so bad.”
Trask was gone before dawn, he and his giants, no word of farewell. But they had returned a few days later, for George Trout’s funeral, a simple and sad affair, no one there but John and Lisse, and Kyle and Mag. A prayer had been said by the TV preacher, whose hair, John noticed, wasn’t quite so white anymore, and John hadn’t bothered to wipe away the tears. Nor had he addressed the lingering fear he had seen in the giants’ faces when he offered to shake their hands.
Whatever he might have said, they wouldn’t have believed; whatever explanation he conjured, and conjuring it would be, they wouldn’t have believed; and they certainly wouldn’t have believed any protests he might have made about being anything but an ordinary man.
That he no longer believes himself.
“So what are we going to do, probably being fugitives and all.”
“Well, the first thing I’m going to do is figure out that damn English of yours.”
She scowls, then smiles, then shrugs and says, “You wish.”
“The next thing is, when we get to Tennessee...” He waits a moment, making sure. “I think maybe we ought to go east, try to find Casey Chisholm.”
“We’re done,” she snaps. “Done with it, John. I don’t want anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” he tells her softly. “I can still take you home. But I think I have to do this. I don’t know for sure, but I really think I do.”
“Well, damnit, then I’ll have to go, too.”
“No,” he says. “It’s all right. You don’t.”
She growls and smacks the dashboard. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, John Bannock. You don’t know jack about some stuff, and you’re gonna need me.” She rubs her forehead, rubs her face. “Momma was right. I was born under a bad sign.” She gives him a sour look. “Probably the Sign of the Eternal Dope.”
“Why, Lisse Gayle,” he drawls, “I do believe you’re blushing.”
“Shut up and drive, Prez, before I have your scalp.”
* * * *
They stop between Nashville and Knoxville, at a motel near a tiny stream. The rain’s been left behind, and in the floodlights that drive the shadows from the parking lot, John sees a garden beside the entrance.
It’s late, from what he knows of such things, which isn’t very much, but it pleases him to see something green growing there. Lisse sees as well, lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t smile. Instead she pokes him until they go inside, rent a room, and grab some supper in the coffee shop.
“So this is what it’s like,” Lisse says, “from the other side of the fence.”
They talk of nothing, and that’s all right with him.
There’s some laughter, and playful teasing, and that’s all right with him.
Later that night, lying in bed with Lisse snuggled in his arms, and he finds himself smiling, and that’s all right, too. A reward, he hopes, for things he still can’t understand.
And as he drifts and holds her closer, she murmurs something in his ear, and he can’t help but grin and whisper, “Yeah, me, too, hon, me, too.”
* * * *
3
I
n his dreams he’s floating.
And Joey whispers, “You’re gonna die.”