Summer of Night (51 page)

But it wasn't meals that Mink worried about; his goal was knowing where the next bottle was coming from. The guys at Carl's Tavern often bought him a drink-although the owner wouldn't allow Mink on the premises to drink it-but usually their kindness quickly turned mean, with Mink at the butt of whatever joke they were pulling.

Mink didn't seem to mind, as long as he got the drink. No one in town seemed to know how old Mink Harper was, but he had served as an object lesson for mothers to hold up to their sons for at least three generations. Mike guessed that Mink was in his early seventies, at least, which would make him just the right age. And while Mink's status as town drunk and occasional handyman made him invisible to much of the population for much of the time, it was that very invisibility that Mike hoped to cash in on now.

Mike's problem was that he didn't have a bottle as currency: not even a can of beer. Despite the fact that Mike's father worked at the Pabst brewery and liked nothing better than bending an occasional elbow with the boys, Mrs. O'Rourke allowed no alcoholic beverages in the house. Ever.

Mike stopped in front of the barbershop between Fifth Avenue and the railroad tracks, looking down the heat-mi-raged Hard Road at the cool shade of the park and thinking hard. If he'd had any brains at all, Mike knew, he could have had Harlen cadge some booze for him before he left with Dale. Harlen's mom kept gallons of the stuff around and, according to Jim, never seemed to notice when some of it disappeared. But now Harlen was off somewhere with Dale, trying to complete the mission that Mike had sent them on, and Mike-the fearless leader himself-was left literally high and dry. Even if he found Mink, he couldn't get the agreeable old wino to talk without a bribe.

Mike let a truck roar past, not even slowing for Elm Haven's electrically timed speed limit, and then he pedaled across the Hard Road, cutting through the back of the tractor dealership, going south around the small park, and cutting back into the narrow alley behind the Parkside Cafe and Carl's.

Mike parked his bike against the brick wall and stepped to the open back door. He could hear the laughter of the half dozen or so guys in the dark front room and the slow turning of the big fan there. Most of the men in town had once signed a petition demanding that Carl's be provided with an air conditioner-it would have been the only public building in town to have one except the new post office-but according to the rumors Mike had heard, Dom Steagle had just laughed and said who the fuck did they think he was, some politician or something? He'd keep the goddamned beer cold and anybody who didn't want to drink there was welcome to go to the Black Tree.

" Mike ducked back as a toilet flushed, a door opened a few feet down the back hallway, and someone walked heavily into the front room shouting something that caused the permanent residents there to laugh loudly. Mike peered in again: two restrooms-one saying stags and the other one does-and a third door that said stay out. Mike knew that this last and closest door was the way to the cellar: he'd helped carry crates down to earn some money.

Mike slipped in, opened the door, stepped onto the top of the cellar stairs, and closed the door softly behind him. He expected to hear shouts, footsteps, but the front-room noise barely made it back here and its tone and timbre did not change. He moved down the dark stairs carefully, blinking in the darkness. There were windows along the high stone ledge, but they'd been sealed with boards decades ago and the only light was the slight amount filtering through splintered wood and the layers of dust on the outside glass.

Mike paused at the bottom of the stairs, seeing the stacks of cardboard cartons and the large metal kegs farther into the long cellar. Beyond a partial brick wall, there appeared to be tall shelves and Mike vaguely remembered that this was where Dom kept the wine. He tiptoed across the wide space.

It wasn't a wine cellar-not like the ones he'd heard Dale describe from books where the dusty old bottles were lying in their own little cradles in the shelves-this was just a bunch of shelves where Dom had dumped his cartons of wine. Mike felt his way to the right, finding the cartons as much by touch as sight, listening for the first sound of the door opening and breathing in the rich malt and hops smell of beer. A cobweb caught in his face and he batted it away. No wonder Dale hates basements.

Mike found an open carton on a back shelf, felt around until he had his hand around a bottle, and then paused. If he took this, it would be-quite simply-the first time in his life that he had ever knowingly stolen anything. Somehow, of all the sins that he knew of, thievery had always struck him as the worst. He'd never spoken about it, not even to his parents, but someone who stole was below Mike's contempt-the time Barry Fussner had been caught stealing other kids' crayons in second grade had meant only a few minutes in the principal's office for Barry, but Mike had never spoken to the fat kid again. Looking at him made Mike sick.

Mike thought about having to confess the theft. The back of his neck burned with embarrassment until he saw the whole scene: kneeling in the darkened confessional, the small screen having slid aside so that he could see just Father C."s profile through the mesh, then Mike whispering, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned," telling how long it had been since his last confession and then launching into it… But suddenly the bent and sensitive head of Father Cavanaugh would lurch against the mesh, Mike would see the dead eyes and funneled mouth pressed against the wood, and then the maggots would begin streaming out, tumbling out, falling over Mike's prayer-cupped hands and raised arms and waiting lap, covering him with writhing brown slugs…

Mike took the damn bottle and got the hell out of there.

Bandstand Park was shady but not cool. The heat and humidity lay lurking in the shadows as surely as in the sunnier patches, but at least the sun wasn't burning through Mike's crew cut into his skull here. There was someone-or something-under the large gazebo bandstand. Mike crouched at the broken opening in the trellis and peered in: the wooden support ran down only three feet or so from the raised floor to the concrete foundation rim, but the 'basement' under the bandstand was dirt and for some reason it had been scooped out at least a foot below the level of the surrounding soil. It smelled of wet dirt and loam and the soft perfume of decay. Mike thought, Dale hates basements, I hate these darn crawlspaces.

It wasn't really a crawlspace. Mike could have stood up in there if he had hunkered over with his head lower than his shoulders usually were. He didn't; he crouched in the opening and tried to make out the slightly moving lump of darkness on the far side of the low space.

Cordie says there are other things that helped to kill Duane-things that burrow.

Mike blinked and resisted the urge to get on his bike and go. The lump on the far side of the bandstand crawlspace looked like an old man in a raggedy trench coat-Mink had worn that coat in winter and summer for at least six years-and, perhaps more importantly, it smelted like Mink. Along with the strong scent of cheap wine and urine, there came a peculiarly musky scent that was the old panhandler's alone, and may well have been the cause of his nickname so many decades earlier.

"Who's there?" came the cracked and phlegmy voice.

"It's me, Mink… Mike."

"Mike?" The old man's tone was that of a sleepwalker being awakened in a strange place. "Mike Gernold? I thought you was killed at Bataan…"

"No, Mink, Mike O'Rourke. Remember, you and I did some lawn work together up at Mrs. Duggan's place last summer? I mowed and you trimmed the bushes?" Mike slipped through the hole in the latticework. It was dark in here, but nothing like Carl's basement. Little diamonds of sunlight touched the ruffled soil on the west side of the circular pit, and Mike could see Mink's face now: the rheumy eyes and stubbled cheeks, the reddened nose and peculiarly pale neck, the old man's mouth-Mike thought of the description Dale had given of Mr. McBride the day before.

"Mike," rumbled Mink, chewing on the name as if it were another tough piece of meat he couldn't quite get through with so few teeth. "Mike… yeah, Johnny O'Rourke's boy."

"You got it," said Mike, moving closer but stopping about four feet from Mink. What With the old wino's wrinkled and oversized trench coat, the litter of newspapers around him, a can of Sterno, the glint of empty bottles-well, there was a territorial sense to this part of the handstand's circle. Mike didn't want to invade the old guy's space.

"Whatcha want, kid?" Mink's voice was tired and distracted, not the usual banter he managed with children.

Maybe, thought Mike, I'm getting too old. Mink likes to tease the younger kids.

"I've got something for you, Mink.” He brought the stolen bottle from behind his back. He hadn't taken time to read the label out in the sunlight, and now it wasn't quite light enough. Mike hoped that he hadn't picked up the only wine-bottle-shaped jar of cleaning fluid in Carl's basement. Not that Mink would notice the difference too much.

The red-rimmed eyes blinked quickly when they saw the shape of Mike's offering. "You brung that for me?"

"Yeah," said Mike, feeling guilty as he pulled back with the offering just a bit. It was like teasing a puppy. "Only I want to trade it for something."

The old man in the ragged coat breathed alcohol fumes and halitosis at Mike. "Shee-it. Always somethin'. OK, kid, whatcha want? Want OF Mink to go buy some smokes for ya in the A and P? Getcha some beer in Carl's?"

"Uh-uh," said Mike, going to his knees in the soft dirt. "I'll give you the wine if you'll tell me about something."

Mink's neck extended a bit as he squinted at Mike. His voice was suspicious. "Wha's that?"

" "Tell me about the Negro they hung in Old Central right after New Year's in 1900," whispered Mike.

He expected the old wino to say that he couldn't remember-God knows the old guy had destroyed enough brain cells to support that statement-or that he wasn't there, he would've been only ten or so at the time-or just that he didn't want to talk about it-but instead there was nothing but raspy breathing for a while, and then Mink held out both arms as if ready to receive a baby. "Awright," he said.

Mike gave him the bottle. The old man wrestled with the top of it for a minute-'What the hell is this, some sort of cork or somethin'?"-and then there was a loud pop, something hit the roof a foot above Mike's head, and he threw himself sideways into the soft dirt as Mink cursed and then laughed his peculiar phlegmy, coughy laugh. "Gbddamn, kid, you know what you brung me? Champagne! Genuine Guy Lombardo sody pop!"

Mike couldn't tell from Mink's voice whether this was good or not. He guessed good as Mink took a tentative gulp, spluttered once, and then began drinking it down in earnest.

Between swallows and small, polite belches, Mink told his story.

Dale and Harlen stared past C. J. Congden's greasy head and through a tall iron gate at the mansion of Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague. Dale realized that it was the first real mansion that he'd ever seen: set back on uncountable acres of lawn, bordered by thick green woods, perched right on the edge of the bluff overlooking the Illinois River, the Ashley-Montague place was a Tudorish tumble of bricks and gables and diamond-latticed windows, all held together by the riot of ivy growing to the eaves and beyond. Beyond the gate, the circular asphalt driveway-in much better repair than the patched concrete of Grand View Drive-curved gracefully up the slight incline to the house a hundred yards or more away. Built-in sprinklers watered different areas of the expanse of lawn with a lulling swik-swik-swik.

There was a speaker box and grid set onto the brick column anchoring the left side of the gate. Dale got out and went around the back of the black Chevy. The hot air rushing in during the drive had been like invisible sandpaper rasping against Dale's skin, but now that they were stopped, the dead-air heat and terrible weight of sunlight was worse. Dale felt his t-shirt soaking through. He tugged his baseball cap lower, squinting at the glare and leaf-dapple of the road behind them.

Dale had never been on Grand View Drive before. Everybody in this part of the state seemed to know about the road that wound along the bluffs north of Peoria, and about the big homes where the few millionaires around here lived, but Dale's family had never driven here. Their trips to the city tended to focus on the downtown-what there was of it-or the new Sherwood Shopping Center (all six stores of it), or Peoria's first and only McDonald's, out on Sheridan Road just off War Memorial Drive. This steep and leafy road was strange; hills of this size were strange to Dale. His life had been lived on the flatlands between Peoria and Chicago, and anything larger than the hills near Calvary Cemetery or out Jubilee College Road-small, wooded exceptions to a world that stretched away flat as a tabletop-were strange.

And the estates, each set back in its leafy privacy, the larger ones perched along the bluffs like Mr. Ashley-Montague's place, were like something out of a novel.

Harlen yelled something from inside the car and Dale realized that he'd been standing out here on the driveway like an idiot for half a minute or more. He also realized that he was scared. He leaned closer to the black grid of the speaker box, feeling the tension in his neck and stomach, having no idea how to activate the thing, when suddenly the speaker erupted in sound. "May I help you, young man?"

It was a man's voice, vaguely accented in the clipped way Dale associated with British actors. He remembered George Sanders in the "Falcon' movies on TV. Suddenly Dale blinked and looked around. There didn't seem to be a camera on the pillar or gate; how did they know who was here? Was somebody watching through binoculars from the big house?