Nerve Damage (17 page)

“Why?”

“I saw a silver one going up the mountain road when I was coming down.”

 

Roy drove
up the mountain road. The last rays of sunshine glowed on the upper trails, glazing the chairlifts, now still; everything else lay in deep shadow. Skiing all done for the day, but lights still shone in the bars and restaurants of the base lodge, and the parking lot was about one-quarter filled. Roy went up and down the rows, saw many different kinds of cars and trucks, but no Porsches. He tried Skippy's number again.

“Yo. This is the Skipster. Leave a message or not. Up to you. Buh-bye.”

Roy drove back down, but instead of turning at the bottom, toward town, he went the other way, down valley, and stopped at Murph's yard. Murph was alone in the office, pouring Jack Daniel's into a paper cup when Roy walked in.

“Roy,” he said. “Hey, what happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Roy said. “Have you seen Skippy?”

“What's he done now?” said Murph.

Maybe if that arm pain hadn't picked this moment to send out one of its jolts, Roy would have reacted some other way. But it did. He lashed out with his good arm, sweeping papers off the desk, knocking the paper cup from Murph's hand, splashing whiskey everywhere. Murph rose in alarm.

“What the hell?”

“There's no time for this,” Roy said. “Just answer the question.”

“Jesus, Roy, I haven't seen him. Not for days. Isn't he with you now?”

 

Skippy's mom lived
in Ethan Lower Falls, three miles farther down the valley. It wasn't exactly a shack, but close—plastic sheeting on the windows, tarp on the roof; and out front, dog turds in the snow, twenty or thirty, and rusty shapes poking up through the white. Roy scooped up a clean cold handful and washed his face.

He knocked on the door. It opened and Skippy's mom looked out. For a moment—eyes narrowing—she couldn't place him, then—eyes narrowing some more—she did. Behind her, the boyfriend with the bushy white mustache lounged on the couch, a big mongrel beside him and TV light flickering on their faces. No Skippy. The room was full of cigarette smoke.

“Have you seen Skippy?” Roy said.

“Me?” said Skippy's mom.

“In the past few hours,” Roy said.

Skippy's mom scanned Roy's face. “He take a swing at you or somethin'?”

Roy came close to taking a swing at her. “Yes or no?”

“Not so easy, is it?” said Skippy's mom.

“Just answer.”

“Haven't seen him,” Skippy's mom said.

“Most likely out dealin' dope,” said the boyfriend, eyes still on the TV. Skippy's mom nodded.

Taking a swing at the boyfriend: that was another story. Roy stepped inside. The smoke got to him right away. He started coughing, couldn't stop. Pain from his chest, right where the heart was, linked up with the pain from his arm. He backed away, coughing and coughing. The dog growled. The door closed.

“Thing is, Roy,” said Freddy Boudreau, rocking
back on the unpadded wooden chair behind his desk, “you've been in the Valley for a long time and everybody likes you, but you're not from here.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Roy said. When the cough had finally lost interest in him, Roy had driven to the station and told Freddy his story: editing it down to the insurance-scam/robbery version that Turk was basing Skippy's defense on and keeping the murky part—Hobbes Institute; Wine, Inc.; Tom Parish—to himself.

“No offense,” Freddy said, holding up his hand. “Likes and respects, I maybe should have said. More than any flatlander I can think of.”

“Flatlander?” said Roy. “I come from Maine. Ever hear me talk?”

“You talk like a flatlander, Roy.”

“The hell I do,” Roy said. “And what's any of this got to do with Skippy?”

“Everything,” Freddy said, shaking a cigarette out of a pack on his desk. “Take someone like me. I was born here, went to Ethan High. So did my dad, and later on he was the gym teacher. My mom taught kindergarten, retired three years ago.”

“Did she have Skippy?”

“Possible,” said Freddy. “But see where I'm going with this?”

“No.”

Freddy patted his pockets the way people did searching for matches.

Roy thought:
Don't smoke
. He thought it very hard, hoping the idea might jump across the desk. Freddy's hands went still.

“What I'm trying to tell you,” he said, “is that I've got this town in my blood. How the folks are deep down, what really goes on, who did what to who.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you can kiss your ten grand good-bye,” Freddy said.

“What ten grand?” said Roy.

Freddy laughed. “The bail money. But I guess it's chicken feed to you, Roy.”

Roy got angry. “Bullshit,” he said; although the truth was, he'd forgotten about the ten grand. “What are you saying?”

Freddy's face hardened. “The kid jumped bail. He's in the wind.”

“That's not what happened,” Roy said. “I told you—he saw the woman who set him up. He may be in danger. We need to get out there and—”

“Whoa. Stop.” Freddy rocked forward; his chair squeaked. “You really believe this woman was willing to part with an untraceable gun just to get in your house? What kind of a thief does that?”

“Some of the art's a bit valuable,” Roy said.

“But it's all huge, Roy. And nothing's missing but one little sketch that you yourself said isn't worth anything. Besides, in my experience, that kind of scammer never packs a gun—raises the sentence big-time if they're caught.” Freddy sat back. “One of the first things you learn in this job—when there's two stories, one simple, one complicated, pick A, ninety-nine percent of the time. The kid knows I got him cold.” Freddy started patting his pockets again. This time he found matches, lit up. “What comes next,” Freddy said, inhaling deeply, “one of the conditions being he stayed with you till court date, is the D.A.'ll move to revoke bail. After that we get a warrant, and before you know it someone'll
bring him in.” A plume of smoke curled across the desk toward Roy. “That's the way it happens, ninety-nine percent of the time. I'll do what I can about the ten grand, but don't count on nothin'.”

Roy felt a cough coming on.

 

He went home.
Late now, most of the houses on the higher slopes dark, including his. Roy went in.

“Skippy?” he called. “Skippy?” No answer.

He checked his messages. Just one: “Krishna here. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

He called Skippy's number. “Yo. This is the Skipster. Leave a message or not. Up to you. Buh-bye.”

Roy went to bed. Sleep moved in fast, was almost there, almost had him, when a last wakeful thought came to him: When had he last eaten? He couldn't remember. Nor was he the least bit hungry.

Roy rose, went down to the kitchen, stuffed in more ice cream. He stood by the window, gazed out. Way up on the mountain, the lights of the snowcats swept back and forth across the summit trails.

He lay in bed. Sleep was waiting, welcomed him again, so reliable, so accommodating. Sleep felt good. Our little life is folded in a sleep. Where did that line come from? Or was it rounded in a sleep? Delia would know—she had a real college education, not the hockey-player version. Folded and rounded, both so nice. An idea for
Silence,
the right idea—a kind of basket of curves—came to him at last. Even the best ideas could disappear overnight, as Roy knew well, which was why he kept a sketch pad on the bedside table. But now he was too folded and rounded in to switch on the light, to take up a pencil, even to open his eyes.

 

A partly eaten
chocolate doughnut lay on a Formica table. Delia sat down. As she reached for the doughnut, Skippy appeared with a dispenser of sprinkles and started sprinkling them. Mostly red sprinkles; in fact, all. He sprinkled them on Delia's head and then on his own. Not
in a goofy way, like it was some prank or youthful rebellion. This was more ceremonial.

Whap-whap-whap
.

 

Roy woke up,
burning hot. Burning hot and the sheets soaked with sweat. He got up, went into the bathroom, saw his body in the mirror: red splotches all over. He took a long cold shower, cooled down. His breath came easier and easier. He felt better. Maybe all he had to do was stay in the shower.

He got out, dried himself. The body in the mirror didn't look so splotchy now. Roy realized it was daytime. He looked out the window.

The bathroom window faced the backyard. Roy owned almost three acres, most of it upsloping, but near the top it flattened into a high meadow, a wildflower extravaganza in the spring, but now all white. In the middle of the meadow sat a helicopter, white with green letters on the side:
VRAI TRANSPORT
.

For a minute or so nothing happened, and Roy wondered if maybe the helicopter had crashed and for some reason he just couldn't see the damage. Then he caught a movement in the cockpit, made out the form of a man, possibly two. A moment later the cabin door opened. A steel ladder swung down. A man appeared in the doorway—tall, suntanned, white-haired. He wore a cowboy hat and a long duster, maybe suede.

The man climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the snow. He sank to his knees, no surprise to Roy. But it surprised the man. He looked up, into the cabin. Another man appeared, a big man in a black suit. The man in the cowboy hat said something to him—breath clouds rising in short bursts—and made angry gestures. The man in the black suit made apologetic gestures. He extended his hand. The man in the cowboy hat smacked it away and climbed the ladder. The cabin door closed. The top rotor started turning, then the rear one. The helicopter rose, hovered, banked and flew away.

It was like a dream: a helicopter dream. He'd had helicopter dreams before, a few he remembered, many more he did not, other than the odd
fragment, dark and uneasy. So close to a dream, but the tracks left in the snow by the helicopter's skids were real. Weren't they?

Roy got dressed, put on his ski jacket and hiking boots, went outside. Very cold, the kind of cold that freeze-dried the insides of your nostrils. Roy liked that feeling. His snowshoes stood by the wood box. He strapped them on, walked around the house, climbed toward the high meadow.

Roy loved being on snowshoes; that high-lifting way of walking on unfirm ground, the rhythm of it, the sounds made by different kinds of compressing snow. This snow, on the slope behind the house on this particular day, was actually kind of strange: under his feet, it made the soft thumps of light, dry snowpack, but he was only sinking in an inch or two, as though it were wetter and heavier; or the load were lighter. He climbed the slope, his breathing slow and easy—back to normal—and crossed the high meadow.

Two parallel tracks lay in the snow, each about twelve feet long and a foot wide. There was also a shallower indentation where the base of the ladder had rested, and two round holes made by the man in the cowboy hat. All real. Roy glanced up at the empty sky, that beautiful silvery blue that went with the coldest days. Not long after Delia's drugstore pregnancy test came up pink—meaning yes—Roy had looked up the scientific explanation of what made the sky blue so he'd be ready when his kid asked. But it turned out to be complicated, too hard for him to simplify; and in fact he still didn't know.

Roy followed his tracks back down to the house, breathing free and easy; he made a mental note to snowshoe every day from now to mud season. Inside, he dialed Skippy's number.

“Yo. This is the Skipster. Leave a message or—”

Roy checked the clock. Lunchtime already? He opened the fridge, saw the two steaks Dickie Russo had wrapped in butcher's paper. Menu: steak and ice cream, the two biggest treats of his childhood. He stuck one of the steaks in the broiler. The other was for Skippy. And just as he had that thought, someone knocked on the door, not loud and forceful, just a light
tap-tap
—the way Skippy would knock.

Roy hurried to the door, opened it. Not Skippy. Instead it was the man in the long duster—yes, suede—and cowboy hat. A taxi—one of two in the whole town, both owned by Dickie Russo's brother—idled in the driveway, the man in the black suit sitting in back.

“Roy Valois?” said the man in the cowboy hat.

“Yes?” said Roy.

“Sincere apologies for busting in on you like this.” He held out his hand. “Cal Truesdale.” He smiled a rueful smile. “What can I tell you? I just had to come see
Delia
.”

Roy gazed at Calvin Truesdale, gazed up a little, Calvin Truesdale standing several inches taller. He had a prominent nose, the skin on its tip damaged by the sun, and eyes the exact silver blue of today's sky.

His hand was still extended. “I'm a fool for art,” he said. “Great art, that is. And great sculpture in particular.”

Roy shook his hand—a long hand with long fingers; cold, but it was cold outside. “Come in,” he said.

“Much obliged,” Truesdale said.

Roy stepped aside. Truesdale wiped his boots on the mat—cowboy boots, the leather glowing—and entered, taking off his hat. He had a tiny, flesh-colored hearing aid in one ear.

“My, my,” he said. “So bright and airy. Must be an artist's dr—” He spotted
Delia,
went silent. Then, slowly, he crossed the kitchen and entered the big room, trailing damp cowboy-boot tracks on the hardwood floor.

Truesdale circled
Delia,
head turned up, eyes suddenly moist, unless that was a trick of the light. “Your dealer's photos don't do her justice,” he said. “Not even close.”

A voice inside Roy said,
Hey, it's not that good
.

“I trust he informed you of my offer,” Truesdale said.

“He did.”

“Worth every penny.” Truesdale moved closer to the piece. “Every detail ugly and yet a thing of beauty,” he said. “May I touch?”

Roy nodded.

Truesdale reached out, touched
Delia
with the tips of his long fin
gers. “What is it about sculpture?” he said. He turned to Roy. “What is it?”

“I don't know,” Roy said.

Truesdale's eyebrows—wild white overhangs—went up. “You must have some idea. You're the artist.”

“I really don't, Mr. Truesdale,” Roy said.

“Cal, please. Everyone calls me Cal. And may I call you Roy?”

“Of course.”

“Then tell me, Roy—with the greatest respect—how can you create something like this and not know what makes it so powerful?”

“It's not the way I work,” Roy said.

“No?” said Truesdale. “How do you work?”

“It's hard to describe,” Roy said. “And not very interesting to talk about.”

“Oh, but I am interested, Roy,” said Truesdale. “Interested in your art. Interested in you. And as anyone who knows me would affirm, I'm a terrier when something interesting comes along. So if you'll indulge an old collector, possibly over a cup of coffee…” He gave Roy a big, encouraging smile; he had nice even teeth, very white, except for one of the incisors, somewhat yellower.