Nobody's Fool (101 page)

Or maybe it had been the knowledge that he himself had been inside, that he had invaded her home. Contaminate it, was what she'd said.

"There was more to it than you know," Peter said.

"Grandpa went into the hospital this morning. He couldn't breathe, even with the oxygen."

Sully thought about Robert Halsey, the way he'd looked at Thanksgiving, and made a mental note to shoot himself before he ever got like that.

"When he dies, you'll be all your mother's got."

"She's got Ralph."

"She doesn't count Ralph. You know that."

"I do," Peter said.

"Ralph's the one I worry about."

"He doesn't look too good, does he," Sully admitted.

"He's a wreck," Peter said.

"If I ever get my shit together, it'll be for him, not her. He's been a good father."

"And there's Will," Sully ventured.

"Kids are resilient," Peter said.

"Look at me."

"I am looking at you," Sully said to the darkness.

"Well," he said.

"If it'll ease your mind, this isn't anything serious upstairs." Sully nodded.

He'd gathered that much.

Seen it when Peter had smiled at Toby Roebuck's pronunciation of the word "library." Peter had too much of Vera in him, too much educational reinforcement ever to fall in love with someone who said "lie-berry."

"I'm glad to hear it," Sully said, because he was.

"I bet you are," Peter said. Even in the dark. Sully could tell his son was grinning.

Maybe that was all Toby Roebuck meant to him. They'd argued over a woman, and he'd won the argument.

"I was thinking other husband," Sully said, surprised to discover that this was true.

"I'm not sure he'll be able to spare her."

"He's not out of the woods yet," Peter said.

"There's some woman in Schuyler." Sully snorted.

"CCarl's got women everywhere, not just Schuyler."

"It's not Carl I was. talking about." It took Sully a moment, but somehow this knowledge was easier to process in the dark.

The possibility wouldn't have occurred to him in a hundred years, but now that the words had been spoken in the intimate dark, he saw they must be true "Why, then?" he finally said.

"Why what?"

"Why are you doing what you're doing?"

"I have no idea," his son said, and for once it sounded like simple, unadorned truth. No irony, no sarcasm, no anger.

Well, "Sully sighed, opening the door onto the porch.

"It's time I went home." He was on the top step when Peter said, "You going by Bowdon Street tonight?"

"I hadn't planned to. Why?"

"That dog needs to be fed."

"Shit. I forgot all about him," Sully admitted.

"Hold that thought."

"He's not really my dog," Sully said in his own defense.

"Right," Peter said, his usual sarcasm back again.

"Not really your dog.

And the house he's locked up in isn't really your house. You're a free man."

"You're damn right, son," Sully said.

"Don't forget.

Lock the door. " Sully waited to hear the bolt fall into place behind him before he crossed the street to where Carl Roebuck's car idled, a plume of white exhaust trailing off down the street. When he got close, Carl rolled down the driver's side window halfway and said, " Hello, schmucko. "

" You follow me over here? " Sully wondered. " I did," Carl admitted. " I forgot my cigarettes, too. Let me take one.

" Sully shook a cigarette up through the opening in the pack. Carl took it.

"Let me have the whole pack. I'm going to stick around for a while," he said, studying Sully in the pale light of the street lamp.

He tossed the pack of cigarettes onto the dash. There was just enough light for Sully to see that CCarl's jaw was a balloon, his grin hideous.

"You look like a man who's just discovered the cruel truth of life," Carl ventured.

Something stirred inside the dark car, and Carl looked down at his lap.

"It's okay, darling'. Go back to sleep," he said.

"I'll roll up the window in a second." From inside, a murmur and then silence.

"You gotta see this," Carl whispered after a moment, reaching behind him to flip on the dome light.

He left it on for only a second, but that was long enough. At first Sully thought the girl Didi had simply fallen asleep with her head in CCarl's lap, but then saw that she had his flaccid penis in her mouth like a pacifier.

"Isn't that sweet?" Carl said.

"Adorable," Sully said.

"I hope she doesn't have a nightmare."

"You hope."

"I'm going home," Sully said.

"I'm tired, and you're too fucked up to talk to, even."

"Ain't it the truth," Carl said.

"Don't go upstairs," Sully told him.

"Okay," Carl said.

"I mean it," Sully warned him.

"I know you mean it."

"Then don't."

Didi sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"It's cold," she said sleepily, shivering.

"Hi, Sully."

"Now look what you did," Carl said, rolling up the window. Sully would have liked to warn Carl one more time, but he was too exhausted to make him roll down the window again. On the way to Rub's an odd thing happened.

The day's bizarre events unreeling through his mind. Sully missed his turn, went one block too far and turned there, not realizing his mistake and suffering a stunning loss of orientation as a result. This dark street was clearly one he knew, a street in the town he'd lived his entire life, yet despite its familiarity he suddenly had no idea where he was. How had these houses come to be on Rub's street? Where had the house that Rub and Bootsic rented disappeared to? He squinted in the dark at each house he passed, certain that theirs would appear any moment and his sense of equilibrium would be restored. When it didn't he stopped in the middle of the street and just sat, thankful that it was late, that there was no one around to witness this, that he'd be spared the humiliation of rolling down his window and asking someone for directions. In the end there was nothing to do but back up, and so he did, understanding his mistake only when he'd backed all the way to the intersection and saw the street sign. A minute later when he pulled into the driveway next to the small two-family house where Rub and Bootsie lived, he gave the horn three short, light taps, his signal for Rub to come out and get instructions for tomorrow.

Bootsie had made bail by calling her sister in Schuyler, and rumor had it she'd left the courthouse on the warpath.

Sully had no intention of encountering her tonight, if he could help it.

Blessedly, it was Rub's round head that appeared at the window, and a moment later he came out in his undershirt, boot laces flapping, and climbed into the El Camino, where it was warm. He faced away, though, until the dome light went off. Sully opened his door so it would come back on and he saw Rub's swollen eye.

"Jesus, Rub," he said, closing the door again. Rub shrugged.

"What am I supposed to do? Guys aren't supposed to hit girls."

"You aren't supposed to let them hit you, either," Sully pointed out for argument's sake.

"I didn't let her," Rub explained.

"She just did it."

"You're supposed to duck," Sully explained.

"I did," Rub explained.

"She done this with her knee when I did duck."

"Well," Sully sighed.

"I guess you did all you could, then." Rub shrugged.

"Meet me at Hatrie's in the morning. Early. Six-thirty.

We're going to move some shit out of the house on Bowdon first thing.

I wish we'd thought to do it before we took the floor up. " Rub said he wisht they had too. " What are you going to do tomorrow? Say it back to me. "

" Meet you at Hattie's at six-thirty. " He'd be there, too, Sully knew, one of the few things he could count on. " I'll buy your breakfast," he promised. " Good," Rub said. " I don't have any money. "

"I've got a hammer in back," Sully suggested.

"We could go in and whack her on the noggin and bury her in the woods under all those blocks you broke.

They'd probably never find her."

"I wisht we could," Rub said, getting out of the El Camino again.

"She's fat and ugly and mean." When Rub closed the door. Sully started to back out, only to hear Rub rap on the door as if he'd suddenly remembered something. He opened the door again.

"And stingy," he said. Sully, unwilling to get involved for long, checked out The Horse through the beer sign in the front window before entering. It looked like Tiny had only two customers. Wirf, predictably, and, less predictably. Jocko.

Both men rotated on their stools when Sully entered and ducked into the men's room. A moment later Jocko was standing at Sully's side, unzipping before the second of the two wall urinals, making Sully glad that he'd decided, despite his exhaustion, to stand to pee.

"Somebody told me this was your lucky day," Jocko offered, awaiting his urine while Sully dripped toward unsatisfactory conclusion. Sully considered this, supposed it was true, after a fashion.

"It figures your luck would turn around just as the town's went south," Jocko offered.

"The town's luck went south about two hundred years ago, pretty near," Sully observed.

"True," Jocko admitted, still awaiting his water.

"But this'll finish it. A good strong wind'll blow us all away now. I bet half of Main Street will be boarded up within a year."

Sully shrugged, zipped up, flushed. He usually felt at ease talking to Jocko, but this was a strange conversation. Jocko's very presence in the men's room felt not quite right in a way Sully couldn't exactly put his finger on. They'd peed side by side into these same urinals on other occasions. Maybe it was that Jocko wasn't peeing, he decided.

Since he had company, Sully washed his hands, then dried them on a paper towel.

"Should be plenty of work for you if you want it," Jocko offered mysteriously.

"How's that?"

"I know a guy right now who'd pay you a couple grand to torch his store."

Sully let this offer sink in a moment, studying his longtime acquaintance, who seemed less embarrassed by what he'd just proposed than by the fact that he couldn't seem to squeeze even a drop from his dick.

"Where'd this guy get the idea I'm in the arson business?"

Sully finally said.

"Well," Jocko said, giving up the pretense and zipping himself back into his pants.

"No, really," Sully insisted. Jocko shrugged, met Sully's eyes for a moment before looking away.

"He must have heard it somewhere."

"Must've," Sully agreed.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint him."

"He'll get over it," Jocko said quietly.

"He'll be sorry he misjudged you, probably."

"Let's find a new place to drink," Sully said, sliding onto the stool next to Wirf, who was chatting pleasantly with Tiny at the end of the bar. There was a full bottle of beer in front of the stool where Jocko had been sitting.

Wirf, Sully noticed, had switched from club soda to beer.

"What's wrong with this one?" Wirf said.

Tiny had stiffened when Sully approached. In fact, he was glowering at Sully and not bothering to conceal the fact that personally he liked his bar better when Sully wasn't in it. Sully, still unsettled by his conversation with Jocko, studied Tiny before responding.

"Nothing," he said finally.

"This place is perfect. It's so friendly, is what I like best."

"How about one of these?" Wirf said, finking his beer bottle, their regular brand, with his glass.

"Are they good?"

"I like them."

"Will they make this day end peacefully?"

"Let's find out."

"Let's."

Tiny went to the other end of the bar where the cooler was and returned with a beer.

"You want a glass. Sully?"

"Am I entitled to one?"

Tiny gave him a glass. Also a piece of mail.

Sully said thanks and swallowed a second of Jocko's pills, chasing it with a swig of beer from the bottle. The second pill was probably not a good idea, but he figured he was close to home. The mail bore the logo of Schuyler Springs Community College. The address Sully had given at registration had been care of the White Horse Tavern, just to piss Tiny off. The envelope contained his grades for the fall semester. F'sexcept in philosophy, for which his young professor had awarded him an incomplete.

"Good news," Sully said, wadding up the letter and tossing it in the direction of the garbage bucket Tiny kept behind the bar.