The shot blew his leg out from under him, and at the same time blew him backward, out of the room. He rolled himself into a ball in the hallway and felt for his knee, but there was an empty, warm place where it had been. He moved his hand to the side, feeling the tear in his pants, looking for his kneecap, and then in fact came across part of it, lower than it should have been, beneath the material, and it moved when he touched it, and then moved again when he put his hand back into the wound itself.
There wasn’t much pain— the blood was all over, but not much pain— and he moved the hand above the wound, trying instinctively to hold the parts of his leg together, pressed into the wound with his other hand, and rocked his forehead back and forth into the cool wall, barely moving. He wasn’t dying— it wasn’t that, not yet— but he was hurt in a way that couldn’t be fixed.
It hadn’t been a mistake. She had seen who it was. “I just wanted your attention,” she said, so quietly that he was not even sure she said it.
Now he heard her dialing the phone. “My husband’s been shot,” she said, and then he felt her watching him. It felt like whatever was wrong between them, they’d talked it over now. He was paying attention.
And then he was pulling away— an old, familiar detatchment sliding into the picture from as long ago as he could remember— and he moved away until he could see it all clearly, from a distance, from behind her, looking over her shoulder from the window. As if he were outside looking in.
He looked and saw himself on the floor, holding off the bleeding, holding his ruined leg together, feeling a rush of fear, and not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
She was speaking into the phone slowly, clearly, repeating herself. “My husband’s been shot. Could you please pay attention?”
If they know what’s good for them, they will, he thought.
She gave the police the address twice, and then said thank you and hung up the phone.
The room was quiet and ringing at the same time, and in the silence, the familiar, ringing silence, he heard something else. Packard was weeping. Weeping and bleeding in his own hallway. Knowing he couldn’t stop one any more than the other.
He watched from the window and understood that it was all out of his hands.
May 20, 2003
Whidbey Island, Washington
Also by Pete Dexter
The Paperboy
Brotherly Love
Paris Trout
Deadwood
God’s Pocket
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Random House, Inc.
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dexter, Pete, 1943–
Train : a novel / by Pete Dexter.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Police— Pennsylvania— Philadelphia— Fiction. 2. Beverly Hills (Calif.)— Fiction. 3. African American men— Fiction. 4. Philadelphia (Pa.)— Fiction. 5. Caddies— Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.E95T73 2003
813'.54— dc21
2003051946
eISBN o-385-50401-2
Copyright © 2003 by Pete Dexter
All Rights Reserved
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