From a Dead Sleep (12 page)

Bailey was left standing outside on the steps, and Sean knew the man had his arms crossed in front of him. It was his signature pose, and he could hear him breathing heavily the entire time.

“What is this? What is this?” Bailey snorted turbulently as Sean returned and padded his palm with the disorganized bills.

Sean nodded to the money.

Bailey shuffled the wad in his hands. A light breeze ruffled the gray, wiry hairs sprouting from his ears, but it did nothing to cool his temper. “This ain’t even sixty bucks. You owe me two-fifty!”

“Two hundred fifty?” Sean feigned confusion.

“Wipe that
stupid
off your face, boy. You know what you owe me. Where’s the rest of it?”

“Listen . . . I’ve got some stuff I’m going to take over to Bernard’s first thing Monday. I’m going to get the rest of your money—”

Before Sean could continue, Bailey snarled and slammed his fist hard against the doorframe. Rocco yelped.

“Monday? Monday? I gave you ‘til today! Two month’s rent! Right now!”

“You’re not listening! I’ll have it on Monday!” Sean shouted grudgingly over the yap of the fiery ex-soldier. “I just need a day! Just gotta make it to the pawn shop. It ain’t open ‘til then.”

Sean knew he couldn’t come up with the rest of the money by Monday. He had nothing left to pawn but cheap junk. Still, the disingenuous words kept flowing naturally from his mouth. He had become a five-star bull-shitter when it came to buying himself time. He had plenty of practice, but it wasn’t working this time.

Bailey was at his wits’ end. “Whatcha got to pawn, Sean? Empty beer bottles?”

He slid his head in through the doorway, looking at the musty disaster of a living space inside. Broken glass on the floor. Clutter everywhere. Sean navigated his body to block Bailey’s view.

“You’ve got money to fork over to Moses Jones, but none for the Big Boy!” Bailey sometimes referred to himself as
the Big Boy.

Sean clenched his fist at the reference to Friday night’s pool game. He pictured his hands clasping the neck of Roy Hughes at
The Winston Beacon
and not letting go. The kid had made Sean’s life an open book of folly for the entire town. The fact that Bailey knew about the money he lost to Jones was particularly infuriating.

Bailey launched his body inside the apartment, his stout frame firing past Sean like a cannon ball. Sean was surprised by the landlord’s quickness and angered by the imposition.

“Whatcha got? Whatcha got?” Bailey repeated, his head flipping from side to side like a tetherball. “I wanna see what you’re gonna sell. If you’ve got it all figured out, I wanna see what you’re gonna sell.”

The tenacious landlord clearly wasn’t buying Sean’s story. His bluff had been called. Sean’s mouth opened, but the words didn’t flow. He looked like a fish snagged by a hook.

Bailey threw up his hands in the air, waiting impatiently for a response with arched eyebrows and wild eyes.

Ding-ding!

Sean’s body almost collapsed to the floor. The loud chirp of Toby Parker’s bike bell from outside the open front door pierced Sean’s skull like a bullet. As always, the kid’s timing was impeccable. Sean clenched his fists, and his eyes lost their focus. He felt himself off-balance, the room spinning.

“What the hell is that?” Bailey asked, his own attention seemingly redirected.

Sean’s shoulders hung low, like a wire clothes hanger supporting a heavy coat. “The Parker kid,” he muttered in a glazed tone, shaking his head a little.

“No.
That!
”

Clearing some cobwebs, Sean’s eyes went to Bailey’s hand, which was now pointing to the distinctive, black goggles resting on the kitchen table.

“Um. Goggles.”

With an intrigued elevation in his voice, Bailey asked, “Night-visions?”

“Yeah.”

The sound of footsteps could be heard creeping carefully up on Sean’s short front porch. Neither man paid the noise any attention.

Bailey’s tongue slid along his lower lip. His hands rose to his hips and his anger seemed to turn to curiosity before Sean’s very eyes. A glimmer of light flicked on in Sean’s head.

“Bernard wants those,” asserted Sean, gauging Bailey’s reaction.

A creak of a floorboard at the front door caused Bailey to crane his neck over Sean’s tall shoulder. There stood the buoy-shaped silhouette of Toby Parker, silently standing at the doorway, waiting to be noticed. He was wearing a tight, yellow t-shirt with black horizontal stripes along with black sweats and his trademark black high-top sneakers. He somewhat resembled a portly bumblebee.

Sean didn’t turn around. Bailey gazed back at the goggles.

Sean continued. “He offered me a hundred, but I think he’s trying to lowball me. We’ll get it straightened out tomorrow.”

“A hundred?” The wrinkles along Bailey’s forehead deepened. “And he’s already seen ‘em?”

“Yeah,” replied Sean, trying hard to sound convincing. “But you know Bernard—always trying to get something for nothing. I walked away.”

Bailey
did
know Bernard, and he knew the pawnshop owner to be as shrewd as a snake. If he was offering a hundred for an item, it was certainly worth more. Bailey’s left hand went to his chin, and his right snatched the goggles up off the table. He held them up to the beam of light that was shining in through the doorway, turning the contraption in his hand and studying it.

Sean could hear the gears turning in his landlord’s head. He was buying the story, and Sean knew it. Sean bit the inside of his cheek to conceal the curls that were forming at the end of his lips.

“Hey, Sean . . .” Toby whispered from behind.

Sean turned his head to the boy, angling his eyebrows and waving him off with his hand. He was reeling in Bailey and he feared Toby would find a way to cut the line. When he turned back to his landlord, he was struck by the awkward sight of two thick, black, long-scoped eyes glaring straight up at him. Bailey was now wearing the goggles. A large, thirsty grin of uneven teeth decorated his round face, making him look like a villain from a Mad Max movie. Bailey snapped his head to the side and stomped over to the open door of Sean’s bathroom, where it was dark with no windows.

“What’s he wearing on his face, Sean?” Toby asked, now standing beside Sean. The boy’s wide eyes glowed in awe of Bailey’s creepy appearance and erratic movements.

Sean didn’t answer the boy’s question but shared in the bemusement of the spectacle. He had only hoped to convince Bailey that he had the means to make a rent payment. He wasn’t expecting a personal interest in the item. But it suddenly made sense to him; Bailey had often bragged about technological advances in the Marine Corps that either weren’t around or weren’t standard issue when he served. Now, he had one of those advances laced around his head like a turban, and he was acting like a kid in a candy store.

Bailey let out an enthusiastic whistle and howled, “This is high-quality shit! Slick as you know what!”

He raised the goggles to his forehead and looked out the doorway. “Where’d you get these babies? They’re not hot, are they?”

Sean shook off the assertion and claimed that he won them from a Super Bowl bet with a friend up in Lakeland. Bailey asked if the friend was in the Corps. Sean claimed that his friend knew someone who was.

“I’ll take a hundred off your rent for these,” stated Bailey after slipping the headgear up off his shiny head as he marched back to Sean. “That matches Bernard’s offer, and it saves you a trip.” His eye twitched as he stared up at his tenant.

Sean’s mind raced. The goggles were evidence of what he had seen on Meyers Bridge the previous morning, but they weren’t enough to prove anything to anybody. He also knew Bailey didn’t intend on reselling them right away, so they’d be right downstairs if they needed to be acquired later.

“Two hundred,” Sean said with a straight face.

“Two hundred?” Bailey crowed. “Yah kidding me? That’s double what you could get from Bernard!” His teeth were showing, nostrils wide in indignation.

“A hundred was his
first
offer. We both know he’d go higher than that.”

Bailey knew Bernard all too well. “One-twenty!” he barked.

“One-seventy!” Toby shouted excitedly.

Sean grunted and turned to Toby, displaying an annoyed glare. “Don’t,” he snarled, before twisting his head back to Bailey and saying, “One-seventy-five, and I get ‘til Wednesday to get you the rest of the rent.”

Bailey folded his arms in front of him, breathing heavily. “One-thirty,” he said in a tone that felt final.

“One-fifty!” Toby shouted.

“Toby!” Sean snapped angrily after his head flipped back to the child’s smiling face. “Do you
have
a hundred and fifty dollars?”

“No.”

“Then shut up!”

Toby’s eyes went to the floor.

“Yeah, shut up,” added Bailey.

The two men haggled for another minute before reaching a deal at a hundred and fifty dollars, plus a three-day grace period for the rest of the rent. Bailey triumphantly strutted his way out the front door with the goggles still suctioned to his forehead, sure of himself that he had gotten a bargain. Before he even made it outside, Sean noticed that Bailey had left the original fifty-eight dollars behind on the table, having placed the crumpled up bills there when reaching for the goggles. The landlord had forgotten about it in all of the excitement. Sean quickly snatched up the wad and jammed it deep into his pants pocket. If Bailey came back later to retrieve the money, Sean would insist he’d left with it.

“I heard about the dead fella,” said Toby with wide, shiny eyes, looking up at Sean.

The child’s words were spoken loudly enough to prompt Sean to hurry to shut his door, not wanting Bailey to catch any of the conversation.

“Who told you about that? Milo?” he quickly asked.

“No. It was in the paper this morning. Mom read it to me while I was eating Lucky Charms. I like that cereal, but I am a far bigger fan of the marshmallows than the oats. The oats just don’t have much of a taste. I suppose you need the oats though, or else it wouldn’t be cereal. At least with Count Chocula, you get the chocolate corn bits along with the marshmallows, so—”

“Stop!” Sean interrupted. “It was in the paper?”

“Yeah. I know you’re telling the truth, Sean. Mom thinks you’re making it up, but I told her you wouldn’t do that.”

“Jesus,” Sean whispered.

“Did he really have bright blonde hair, Sean?”

Sean guessed it had to be either Milo or Jefferson who squealed to Roy Hughes of the
Beacon
. Lumbergh wouldn’t have done it. It probably would have violated some policy, and the chief followed policy like it was gospel. Not that it mattered. The news was out, and soon the whole town would start giving him strange looks again. Bailey must not have read the morning’s paper; otherwise, he’d have said something for sure.

Sean lifted an eyebrow. “Why are you here, Toby?”

“I want to help you find that dead guy.”

At least someone believes me
, Sean thought.
Too bad that someone was
a mixed-up kid.
“We aren’t gonna find him, kid. His body could be halfway to Santa Fe for all I know.”

“Guess what, Sean?”

“What?”

“The river doesn’t flow all the way to New Mexico.”

“I know. It’s a figure of . . . Oh, forget it.” Sean crossed the room and collapsed back down into the recliner. He leaned back, placed his hand to his head, and gazed up at the ceiling.

“What are you doing, Sean?” asked Toby.

“Thinking.”

“About what?”

Sean turned his head to the boy, uncertain where to begin. Toby was now leaning back on a wooden kitchen chair with his own hand pressed to his own head, emulating Sean. A soft thunk could be heard from Rocco conking his head up against the kitchen pantry.

“I’m thinking that Rocco needs breakfast,” Sean said with a sigh. “Want to give him some?”

“Sure!” The boy rose from his seat in excitement. “What do you feed him?”

Sean motioned to the same pantry that Rocco had just bumped up against.

“Bottom shelf.”

Toby went to work while Sean glanced out a window. It was a beautiful day; the sun was strong and encouraging.

“We should look for that dead guy,” Toby stated after returning the bag of dog food to the pantry.

“We’d never find him, Toby.”

“We should still look. You never know. He might turn up—maybe get hung up on a branch or something. If he has bright blonde hair, he might stick out.”

Sean shook his head.

“Did you already throw away the comic section?” Toby asked, picking up the scrap of newspaper from the kitchen table.

“No. That ain’t even our paper,” Sean answered, marveling at how spontaneously the boy’s attention pivoted.

The boy’s eyes darted along the scrap’s wording like the print head of an old dot matrix. Toby then said, “Who do you know in Traverse City, Michigan?”

Sean’s face displayed puzzlement. “No one. What are you talking about?”

Toby looked up at the big man with a mischievous grin draped across his full face. “You sent a big letter to someone in Traverse City, Michigan. I saw it.”

Sean leapt up from his chair and pressed Toby to clarify. Toby pointed to the written notes in red ink on the newspaper and slyly boasted that he recognized Sean’s handwriting. Sean quickly snatched the paper from Toby and re-read it.

“I didn’t write this, dumb-ass! Someone else did!”

Toby’s shoulders lowered and his expression turned to one of puzzlement. “So then . . .” he started. “You know someone who knows someone in Traverse City, Michigan.”

“Toby, you’re starting to piss me off. What are you saying?”

Toby retold the story he had told Sean the previous day, about running into the town’s postal carrier with his bike, resulting in a bag of letters spilling out over the sidewalk. While helping the angry mailman pick up his letters, Toby’s eye had taken notice of a large envelope with the address labeled in red ink.

“One-fourteen Bluff Walk Road,” Toby added.

The boy explained that the handwriting on the envelope was the same as on the newspaper before him. Typically, Sean would have disregarded such a claim as nonsense or a child’s imagination, but Toby’s statement triggered a not-so-distant memory. At Toby’s birthday party months earlier, Sean had watched in awe as the boy successfully identified the giver of each gift by matching the handwriting on the outside of each card with his memory of the returned RSVP cards. Though he knew that Toby’s autism came with mental gifts that he couldn’t understand, Sean was initially convinced the display was some sort of trick. However, some of the other boys and a couple adults continued testing him by each writing a few words on scrap paper. Toby had then rattled the correct names off without hesitation.