Hard News (24 page)

Rune, watching this, was making more noise, and started jiggling around, rocking and swaying back and forth.

The girl then looked into drawers and opened up some pretty-much-unused cookbooks, looking for pictures of ducks, dragons or princesses. The books contained only photos of soups and casseroles and cakes and after five minutes she gave up on them and started playing with the knobs on the stove. They were old and heavy, glistening chrome and trimmed with red paint. Courtney reached up and turned one all the way to the right. Way above her head was a
pop.
She couldn’t see the top of the stove and she didn’t know what the sound came from but she liked it.
Pop.
She turned the second knob.
Pop.
Rune’s voice was louder now though the little girl still couldn’t understand a word of

it. With the third
pop
she got tired of the stove game. That was because something else happened. There was suddenly a red glare from above her head, a hissing sputter, then flames.

Courtney stepped back and watched the juice carton burn. The flaming wax shot off the side of the carton like miniature fireworks. One piece of burning cardboard fell onto the table and set a week-old
New York Post
on fire. A cookbook
(A Hundred Glorious Jell-O Desserts)
went next.

Courtney loved the flames and watched them creep slowly along the table. They reminded her of something ... A movie about a baby animal? A deer? A big fire in a forest? She squinted and tried to remember but soon lost the association and stood back to watch.

She thought it was great when the flames quickly peeled away the Breeds-of-Dog contact paper Rune had painstakingly mounted on the walls with rubber cement. Then they spread up to the ceiling and the back wall of the houseboat. When the fire became too hot Courtney moved back a little farther but she was in no hurry to leave. This was wonderful. She remembered another movie. She thought for a minute. Yeah, it was like the scene where Wizardoz was yelling at Dorothy and her little dog. All the smoke and flames . . . Everybody falling on the floor while the big face puffed and shouted . . . But this was better than that. This was better than Peter Rabbit. It was even better than Saturday morning TV.

26 The tourists, coincidentally were from Ohio, Rune’s home state. They were a middle-aged couple, driving a Winne-bago from Cleveland to Maine because the wife had always wanted to see the Maine coast and because they both loved lobster. The itinerary would take them through New York, up to Newport, then on to Boston, Salem and finally into Kennebunkport, which had been featured in
Parade
magazine a year before. But they’d made an unplanned stop in Manhattan and that was to report a serious fire

on the Hudson River. Cruising up from the Holland Tunnel, they noticed a column of black smoke off to their left, coming, it seemed, right out of the river. They slowed, like almost everybody else was doing, and saw an old houseboat burning furiously. Traffic was at a crawl and they eased forward, listening for the sirens. The husband looked around to find a place to pull off to get out of the way of the fire trucks when they arrived. But none did. They waited four, five minutes. Six. She asked, “You’d think somebody’d’ve called by now, wouldn’t you, dear?” “You’d think.” They were astonished because easily a hundred cars had gone by, but it seemed that nobody had bothered to call 911. Maybe figuring somebody else had. Or not figuring anything at all, just watching the houseboat burn.

The husband, an ex-Marine and head of his local Chamber of Commerce, a man with no aversion to getting involved, drove the Winnebago up over the curb onto the sidewalk. He braked to a fast halt in front of the pier where the flames roared. He took the big JC Penney triple-class fire extinguisher from the rack beside his seat and rushed outside.

The wife ran to a pay phone while he kicked in the front door of the houseboat. The smoke wasn’t too bad inside; the hole in the rear ceiling of the houseboat acted like a chimney and was sucking most of it out. He stopped cold in the doorway, blinking in surprise at what he saw: two girls. One, a young girl, was laughing like Nero as she watched the back half of the houseboat turn into charcoal. The other, a girl wearing a yellow miniskirt, two sleeveless men’s T-shirts and low boots dotted with chrome studs, was tied in a chair! Who’d do such a thing? He’d read about Greenwich Village but this seemed too sick even for a Sodom like that.

He pulled the pin of the fire extinguisher and emptied the contents at the advancing line of flames, but it had no effect on the fire. He carried the little girl outside to his wife and then returned to the inferno, opening his Case pocketknife as he ran. He cut the wires holding the older girl. He had to help her walk outside; her legs had fallen asleep.

Inside the couple’s Winnebago the little girl saw the older one’s tears and decided it was time to start crying herself. Three minutes later the fire department arrived. They had the fire out in twenty. The police and fire department investigators knocked on the door. The girls stood up and went outside and the couple followed.

A huge black cloud hung over the pier. The air smelled of sour wood and burnt rubber - from the tires that had dangled off the side of the boat to cushion it against the pier. The vessel hadn’t sunk but much of the structure on the deck had been destroyed. One of the detectives asked the older girl, “Could you tell me what happened?” She paced in a tight circle. “That goddamn son of a bitch he tricked me he lied to me

I’m going to find him and have his ass thrown back in jail so goddamn fast . . . Shit. Hell. Shit!” “Shit,” Courtney said, and the husband and wife looked at each other. The police asked questions for almost a half hour. The girl was telling a story about a man who was convicted wrongly of murder then got released, only now it was clear he’d done it after all and there was a big fat man named Jack - no last name - and Jack had a gun and wanted to kill them and he was involved in the first killing. The couple lost a lot of the details -just like the cops must have too - but they didn’t really need to hear any more. They had enough of the facts for a good traveling story, which they’d tell to friends and to themselves and to anybody they happened to meet on the way to Maine and which unlike a lot of the stories they’d told didn’t need much embellishment at all. Finally a tall, balding man in a plaid shirt and blue jeans and with a badge on his belt arrived and the girl fell into his arms, though she wasn’t sobbing anymore or hysterical. Then she pushed him away and went into one of her tirades again. “Goodness,” the wife said. When the girl calmed down she told the cop the couple had saved her life and he introduced himself to them and said thank you. They talked about Ohio for a few minutes. Then the cop said that the girls could go to Bomb Squad and stay there until he was off duty and the little girl said, “Can we get another hand grenade? Please?”

And that was when the couple decided not to do what had crossed their Midwestern minds - ask the girls if they would like to stay with them in the camper that night - and figured it would probably be best if they pressed on to the alternate destination of Mystic, Connecticut, which came highly recommended in their guidebook.

At eleven that night, Jack Nestor said he needed a real drink and pulled off the highway at a motel somewhere in Virginia.

“I could use some real
food,
too,” Randy Boggs said. He wanted a steak burnt on the outside and red inside. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about steaks when he first went Inside. Then - as with with most of the things he enjoyed - he forgot about good meat. Or it was more that they became distant. Like facts in a history book. He understood them, he remembered them, but they had no meaning for him.

Now, though, he was out and he wanted a steak. And the way Nestor had said
real drink,
Boggs was now thinking that he’d like his first shot of whisky in three years.

They parked the car and went into the motel office. Nestor gave a fake name and car license then asked for a room in the back, explaining to the young night clerk that he didn’t sleep well; highway noise bothered him. The young man nodded apathetically, took the cash and gave him the key. Boggs was impressed at how smoothly Nestor had handled things. Boggs himself would have been more careless, leaving the car in front. But Nestor was right. The girl had probably gotten free by now and turned them in? Or maybe someone in New York had seen the license plate. He was glad he was with somebody like Nestor, somebody who could teach him to think Outside again.

Nestor lugged his duffel bag into the room and Boggs followed with the paper bag that was his suitcase. He was relieved to see there were two large beds. He hadn’t wanted to spend his first night of freedom in bed with another man. Without commenting on the room, Nestor dropped his luggage onto the bed nearest the door and said, “Food.”

Boggs said, “Hold up. I want to wash.” He disappeared into the bathroom, amused and feeling almost heartsick with joy at how clean it was. At all the sweet smells. At the soap and wrapped glasses and a John behind a door that closed and locked. He ran the water cold, then hot, then cold again, then hot and washed his face and hands as the steam rose up and filled the room. “I’m hungry,” Nestor bellowed over the sound of the running water. “Minute,” Boggs shouted back and dried himself with luxurious towels that seemed thick as down comforters.

The bar-restaurant near the hotel was a local hangout, done up in prefab Tudor - dark beams, plastic windows mimicking stained glass, beige stucco walls. The place was half filled - mostly around the bar - with contractors and plumbers and truck drivers and their girlfriends. The men were in jeans and plaid shirts. A lot of beards. The women were in slacks, high heels and simple blouses. Almost everyone smoked.
The Honeymooners
was showing on a cockeyed TV above one end of the bar.

Nestor and Boggs sat down at a rickety table. Boggs stared at his place mat, which was printed with puzzles and word games. He could figure out the visual ones - “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” - but he had trouble unscrambling letters to make words. He turned the place mat over and looked at the women at the bar.

The waitress came by and told them the kitchen was closing in ten minutes. They ordered four Black Jacks, neat, Bud chasers, and steaks and fries. “That girl,” Nestor said. “Too bad you didn’t fuck her.” “Who?” “The one sprung you.” “Naw, I told you, we was mostly friends.” Nestor asked, “So?” “Well, I only got out a few hours before you showed up.” “It was me, the first thing I woulda done was get me some poontang.” Boggs felt he was on the spot. He said, “Well, she had the baby there.”

The drinks arrived and they poured the shots down without saying anything because neither of them could think of a toast. Boggs wheezed and Nestor laughed. The big guy did his second shot right after. “Don’t get any of that Inside, do you?” Nestor asked him. “There was stuff you could get, depending on what you were willing to do or how much money you had. It was shit, though. Me, I didn’t get any care packages, so I had to settle. Sometimes I’d get me some watered vodka or a joint or two. Mostly I, didn’t get nothing.”

“When I was Inside we had it easy. Fucking country club. A lot of dealers from L.A. There was so much shit.” Boggs, dizzy from the liquor, asked, “You did time?” “Fuck yeah, I was in. Did eighteen months in Obispo. Was fanfuckingtastic. You wanted blow, you got blow. You wanted sess, you got sess. You wanted fucking wine, you could get a good bottle of wine . . .”

Boggs was feeling the liquor sting his lips. They must’ve gotten windburned from the drive. “When were you in Obispo?” “Four, five years ago about.” “I didn’t know you’d done time.” Nestor looked at him, surprised. “Hey, there’s probably a thing or two we don’t

know about each other. Like I don’t know how long your dick is.” Boggs said, “Long enough to keep a grin on
her
face for an hour or two.” His eyes slipped to the bar, where a round-faced young woman, with two-tone hair - blonde returning to black - sat with her elbow on the bar and her hand up, a cigarette aimed at the ceiling like a sixth finger. In front of her was a no-nonsense martini. The way she stared vacantly at the TV he figured the drink was the descendant of a long line of the same. Nestor said, “You can have her. She don’t have tits.” “Sure she does. She’s setting hunched over.” The food arrived and took both men’s attention. Boggs was eating slowly, cautiously, but he’d found his appetite was gone. Maybe the steak was too rich. Maybe the burgers had filled him up or the alcohol had burned out his taste buds. He thought about Rune, about the little girl. He ate mechanically. He looked at the woman, who caught his eye and held it for a minute before she looked back at the TV. He thought a bit more then decided to finish eating. Maybe food would sober him up. Boggs finished while Nestor was still halfway through. “Man,” Boggs said, “that was a meal.” Nestor looked at Boggs’s thin stomach. “You eat that way, how come you ain’t fat?” “Dunno. I just never gain any. Not
my
doing.” Boggs’s voice faded as he stared again

at the girl at the bar. This time she gave him a bit of a smile. Nestor caught it. “Oh-oh.” He smiled. “Prison-boy gonna get laid.” Boggs finished his beer. “You mind if I take the room for about an hour?” “Shit, boy, it’ll take you five minutes, unless you jerked off every night inside the

slammer.” “Well, gimme an hour anyway. Maybe we’ll wanta do it twice.” “Okeydokey,” Nestor said. “But get her butt out by two. I’m tired and I need some

sleep.” Boggs stood up and walked slowly toward the bar, trying to remember how to be cool and slick, trying to remember how to talk to women, trying to remember a lot of things.

27 Boggs and the girl had been gone a half hour when Jack Nestor finished the lousy apple pie and sucked the ice cream off his fork. He took the last swallow of coffee and called for the check.

The bar was pretty empty now and, aside from the waitress, there was nobody who saw him stand and go out to the parking lot. He looked up and saw the light on in his and Boggs’s room. He opened the trunk of the car and took out his pistol. He hid the gun under his jacket and climbed the stairs to the second floor then moved slowly along the open walkway to the room. He’d thought about getting another key from the desk but that would have given the clerk another look at him. He’d decided to just knock on the door and when Boggs opened it shoot him in the gut - his I-dunno-I-just-eat-and-don’t-get-fat gut. Then do the girl, if she was still there.