Twilight (27 page)
“Nice work,” Cal told him and sat down. He baited his hook. “Mind casting for me?”
Ray took Cal’s pole and sent the hook out into the water. “What’d you do to your arm?”
“Banged up the shoulder some.” If Mildred and Cissy had kept mum, he saw no reason to worry Ray with prowlers in the yard. After all, the attack had been personal and posed no threat to anyone but him. Cal took the pole back and willed the tension away. He could think of nothing if he just tried hard enough.
Ray cracked sunflower seeds between his teeth and spit the hulls on the ground. The sky hung low, a milky mass that matched the gunmetal water. Nothing was biting. Nothing cared. Cal blew on his gloved fingers. “Got anything going these days?”
Ray turned. “Like what?”
“Like … work.”
Ray shook his head. “Nah. I helped Fred with a tractor last week. He paid me good.”
“You do good work.” Cal shifted his seat on the log.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Ray looked at him as though making sure he really meant it, then smiled. “Say, Cal, you know any women who might … like to go out sometime?”
Cal shook his head, laughing. “I’m as bad on my luck there as you, right now.”
“You got Laurie.” Ray’s eyes could have been those of a ten-yearold.
His words sank in and bored a hole right through him.
No, Ray,
I do not have Laurie
. Cal shook his head. No point telling him the crazy ins and outs of it all. He looked out over the pond, the water dull and unattractive. “You ever wonder what it looks like to the fish looking out? What do they do under there all year?”
Ray shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s something for you to chew on.”
“Yeah. I think a lot about things.”
“Like what?”
He hunched his shoulders and played with his line. “Like why people are good at some things and not at others. And why some people are good at lots of things and some …” He shrugged.
“You know, Ray, you have a lot going for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, Cissy and Mildred are just crazy about you. I bet you were always their favorite nephew.”
Ray grinned, nodding.
“And you get to live in this great place, go fishing with me, work with Fred … You just need to see the good things.”
“My mother used to say that.”
“Isn’t it amazing how smart mothers turn out to be after all?”
Ray laughed as though it was the greatest joke. Then he sobered. “You’re a good friend, Cal. I don’t have too many friends.”
“It’s not about numbers, Ray. Just being real with the ones you have.” Cal made a note to include him more often. Standing, he pulled his line from the water. “That does it for me.”
“You didn’t catch anything.”
“Nope. But that’s not always what matters.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope.” Cal gathered his things and started back for the house, hoping Ray wouldn’t sit there until he froze. A thirty-one-degree day was not the time to lose oneself on the banks of Miller’s Pond. Glancing back, he called, “Don’t stay long, Ray. It’s too cold.”
Ray nodded and waved. Annie rode Cal’s heels as he walked, and he reached to stroke her head. If someone came to claim her now, they’d have to fight him to the death. Snow flecked the air as he walked, not quite able to make up its mind to fall for real.
Digging for his keys, he got into the jeep and drove across town, as Danson had known he would, to a neighborhood he rarely visited. He sauntered into the Blue Note and ordered an O’Douls. That alone should mark him, drinking a non-alcoholic beer in a blue-collar bar. Rita would be proud.
The place was rough even by his standards, but he could sense the camaraderie in the joined stares that turned his way. A handful of men circled the pitted, scuffed pool table, and a corner TV spit out the hockey game. The walls were the color of greenish sludge, but not much of them showed around the hodgepodge of neon signs and booze posters, some dating back to his dad’s time—and not for nostalgia, but because they’d been added to and not replaced.
He sipped through the foam on his beer and waited while the bartender served rotgut to a man twice Cal’s size with tree limbs for arms. The man glanced his way, then took the stool beside him. “Haven’t seen you before.”
“Nope.”
The man downed his shot and chased it with half a beer. “Aren’t from this end, are you?”
“No.”
“There’s a surprise.” The man laughed, revealing the space for an incisor and eyetooth. Cal guessed the tooth fairy hadn’t rewarded their loss.
“So what do you do, mister?”
“Magic.”
“What?” He pressed his hammy palm to the bar.
“Magic.” Cal pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and shuffled. “You have a name?”
“Brady. You?”
“Cal.” He fanned the deck face up for Brady to see, then flipped it over and shuffled again. “Cut the deck, Brady.”
Brady cut.
“Now take a look at that top card. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Cal put the deck together and fanned it toward Brady. “Okay, slip it in anywhere.” He slid the deck closed and laid it on the bar, then swigged his drink. “You a gambling man, Brady?”
Brady snorted. “I might be.”
“Ten bucks says I know your card without looking.”
Brady sat a moment. “You’re gonna tell me my card without looking in the deck?”
“That’s right.”
Brady reached into his pocket and unrolled a ten-dollar bill. “Let’s see yours.”
Cal pulled a ten from his wallet.
“Okay, what’s my card?”
Cal clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a big guy, Brady. Got some meat on your bones.”
“So?”
“So …” Cal reached into Brady’s collar and brought out the card, laying it face up on the bar. “That it?”
Brady blew through his lips and swore, then slid his ten Cal’s way with a grin. “But now I’ll be watching you.”
“You come here a lot?”
“Every day.”
“Then you knew Flip Casey.”
Brady sobered. “Everyone knew Flip.” He nodded to the bartender who’d joined them. “This is Burt. He’s the one told the sergeant something wasn’t right. Flip hadn’t missed a night in years.”
Burt placed a second fake beer before him. “How do you know Flip?”
“I was the EMT on the scene.”
Brady reevaluated him, then shook his head. “Heck of a way to go.”
“It was quick.” Cal gulped the drink. “Any idea why he was out there?”
Brady shook his head. “Never knew him to leave the neighborhood. You, Burt?”
“He didn’t have a car. Didn’t even own a bicycle.”
Cal straightened. “Did you see him with anyone new? Someone you didn’t recognize?”
Brady squinted. “You think he was killed on purpose?”
“No. As far as I can tell it was a hit-and-run. But I can’t figure what he was doing out there.”
Brady eyed Burt, who shrugged. “He was a crazy old coot, but we miss him around here. He could tell a tale.”
Brady grinned. “Like the one on how he got his name. Mother asks what should we name him? His dad says, I don’t know, flip a coin. Mother says, I ain’t namin’ him heads or tails, so his dad said, name him Flip.”
Cal laughed, wishing he’d known the old man before he found him in the ditch.
Burt swished Brady’s shot glass in the wash water just behind the bar. “He could pull your leg into tomorrow.”
“Kinda like you.” Brady slammed his palm into Cal’s shoulder.
“Aah!” The pain screamed through him. He’d removed the sling before going in, and now seriously wished he hadn’t.
Brady frowned at his reaction, no doubt taking him for a lightweight.
“Had a run-in with a baseball bat.” He gritted his teeth, gripped the shoulder, and willed the pain into a small part of his brain.
“Something to do with Flip?”
“I don’t know. Have you seen a black Firebird around?”
Brady narrowed his eyes and nodded. “A short time back. Parked across the street there.” He waved out through the front window. “That’s a car you don’t see much around here.”
The pain was diminishing, and Cal rotated his arm. He’d have to see the doctor. Probably should have already, but he didn’t want to do any more explaining. “Flip mention any baseball players?”
Both men laughed. “One or two, maybe.” Brady swallowed the rest of his beer and turned. “Flip ever talk about anything else, Burt?”
“Oh, football, hockey, basketball—”
Cal interrupted, “I mean recently. Did he mention meeting a ball player?”
Brady turned. “The man with the bat?”
“Maybe.”
Burt shook his head. “I don’t know. But I guarantee you, if a ball player came in sight, Flip’d know him.”
“Minor leagues?”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe.”
“Did he follow the Padres?”
“He followed everyone, sat here from open to close and watched everything that came in on satellite. Mind like a trap for faces and stats.”
Cal tossed both tens on the bar and stood. “Can you tell me where he lived?”
Burt leaned both hands on the bar. “I let him stay in my shed out back, end of the alley. It’s not much of a place, but better than what he had, which was zilch.”
Cal glanced toward the back door.
“You can look if you want. Won’t find much. Police didn’t.”
“Thanks.”
Cal pulled his collar up around his chilled neck as he made his way between the sooty brick buildings. At the end of the alley, he found the shed. He reached a knuckle to the door, then realized no one would answer his knock. He tried the knob, and the door all but fell open.
He went in. Against the back wall stood an army surplus cot with what looked like a packing blanket crumpled at one end. Some small comfort for a drunken man to sink into. Cal rubbed his chin and surveyed the rest of the room: a camp stove propped up on one leg and a brick looked as though it could burn down the whole place, a Formica-topped table yellowed with age, no latrine or sink. Flip must have used the Blue Note’s or the alley.
Cal toed a pile of rubbish along the wall. He doubted a forensics team had been sent in. No one had any reason to suspect foul play. Flip was a worn-out drunk who got careless.
Cal kicked aside a bottle of Beam and a rotting newspaper. It wasn’t the sports page, and he guessed it had served a different purpose than reading. Warmth, maybe. He slid his foot through the rest of the debris, then glanced around the room again. He didn’t know what he had expected to find. Brian Prelane’s calling card?
He strode back to the jeep and went home. The comfortable clutter of his own place surrounded him, but he was suddenly aware of the loneliness. He, like Ray, like Flip—each in his own little world. Islands of nothingness. He sank into the recliner.
At least if he or Ray were wiped out, there would be people who missed them. Then again, the men at the Blue Note missed Flip. Maybe everyone had someone, even if it wasn’t anyone important.
He was tired. His shoulder ached. Brady’s pounding hadn’t done it any good. Leaning his head back into the chair, he probed the shoulder. It was sore all right, but not as bad as it might have been. He closed his eyes. The warm drowsiness was a welcome succor, and he sank into it.
Then he was crawling on his belly, the effort wearing him out. He could hardly drag himself across the floor, his movements slow and exaggerated as though he were weighed down with lead sleeves and pant legs. His breath was tight, strained, but no, he was keeping it shallow on purpose, stretching the air.
Where were they? He knew they were there. But he couldn’t see through the smoke. He wished he had his ax handle to reach farther, but he’d lost it somewhere. Or left it behind. With his left hand he pulled out more empty hose. It caught, and he tugged against it, but no more came. He’d reached its limit. He could go no further.
But he had to. He saw them now, huddled together under the chairs, Laurie and Luke and Maddie. The smoke swirled around them in black gusts. Luke and Maddie were crying, but Laurie just sat there, looking away. If she was aware of him, she didn’t show it.
He tried to call but had no voice. He yanked again on the hose, but it didn’t give. All his training said don’t let go. His hand felt frozen to the nozzle. He sensed the air in his SCBA thinning. He was running out of time. He called again, this time forcing the sound from his lips. Laurie didn’t turn.
Wrenching his hand from the hose, his lifeline, his way out of the darkness, he stood, lunged forward toward them, calling, then dropped to his knees. Horror spread through his chest as the charcoal air took on the shades of hell, the ghastly orange glow in the moment before the room reached ignition temperature. Flashover.
No!
Their screams reached him piercingly clear. He only hoped this time he wouldn’t be blown free.
Cal opened his eyes, sweat stinging them as he blinked at the room. His chest was heaving, his hands clenched and damp. He didn’t move, other than to scan the space around him. The sun had come out from the clouds, and the rays slanted across the room. Not much time had passed, but he felt as sluggish as Rip Van Winkle.
His throat ached with emotion, but he still didn’t move. His limbs were useless weights hanging from his body. His mind was dull, damaged. He was glad Laurie was lost to him. What good was he to her and her kids? What good was he to anyone?
W
HAT A MAN IS ASHAMED OF IS
ALWAYS AT BOTTOM HIMSELF; AND HE IS ASHAMED
OF HIMSELF AT BOTTOM ALWAYS FOR BEING AFRAID.
R. G. Collingwood
C
AL STOOD UNDER THE SHOWER in the late afternoon, letting the water wash away the residue of sweat and fear. This latest episode had left him stiff and shaky. And tired. Tired of it all. Rita had recommended the clown act.
“Do something positive to counteract the guilt.”
And together with Frank they’d brainstormed Spanner the Clown as a training tool for fire safety at the schools and community events. It was valid. Cal had to believe that. Making kids fire-smart had value. The inspections had value, and the training of the volunteers. But it didn’t change things for him.