Insomnia (4 page)

‘You’re damn tooting,’ Heavyset said, but he sounded relieved. He stretched the plastic-coated tarpaulin back into place and tied it in a series of quick, efficient gestures. Watching him, Ralph was struck by what a sly thief time was. Once he could have tied that same sheetbend with that same dextrous ease. Today he could still tie it, but it would take him at least two minutes and maybe three of his best curse-words.

Heavyset patted the tarp and then turned to them, folding his arms across the substantial expanse of his chest. ‘Did you see the accident?’ he asked Ralph.

‘No,’ Ralph said at once. He had no idea why he was lying, but the decision to do it was instantaneous. ‘I was watching the plane land. The United.’

To his complete surprise, the flushed patches on Heavyset’s cheeks began to spread.
You were watching it, too!
Ralph thought suddenly.
And not just watching it land, either, or you wouldn’t be blushing like that . . . you were watching it taxi!

This thought was followed by a complete revelation: Heavyset thought the accident had been his fault, or that the cop or cops who showed up to investigate might read it that way. He had been watching the plane and hadn’t seen Ed’s reckless charge through the service gate and out to the Extension.

‘Look, I’m
really
sorry,’ Ed was saying earnestly, but he actually looked more than sorry; he looked dismayed. Ralph suddenly found himself wondering how much he trusted that expression, and if he really had even the slightest idea of

(
Hey, hey, Susan Day
)

what had just happened here . . . and who the hell
was
Susan Day, anyhow?

‘I bumped my head on the steering wheel,’ Ed was saying,‘and I guess it . . . you know, it rattled my cage pretty good.’

‘Yeah, I guess it did,’ Heavyset said. He scratched his head, looked up at the dark and convoluted sky, then looked back at Ed again. ‘Want to make you a deal, friend.’

‘Oh? What deal is that?’

‘Let’s just exchange names and phone numbers instead of going through all that insurance shit. Then you go your way and I go mine.’

Ed looked uncertainly at Ralph, who shrugged, and then back at the man in the West Side Gardeners cap.

‘If we get into it with the cops,’ Heavyset went on, ‘I’m in for a ration of shit. First thing they’re going to find out when they call it in is I had an Operating Under the Influence last winter, and I’m drivin on a provisional license. They’re apt to make problems for me even though I was on the main drag and had the right-of-way. See what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ Ed said,‘I guess so, but the accident was entirely my fault. I was going much too fast—’

‘The accident part is maybe not so important,’ Heavyset said, then looked mistrustfully around at an approaching panel truck that was pulling over onto the shoulder. He looked back at Ed again and spoke with some urgency. ‘You lost some oil, but it’s stopped leakin now. I bet you could drive her home . . . if you live here in town. You live here in town?’

‘Yes,’ Ed said.

‘And I’d stand you good on repairs, up to fifty bucks or so.’

Another revelation struck Ralph; it was the only thing he could think of to explain the man’s sudden change from truculence to something close to wheedling. An OUI last winter? Yes, probably. But Ralph had never heard of such a thing as a provisional license, and thought it was almost certainly bullshit. Old Mr West Side Gardeners had been driving without a license. What complicated the situation was this: Ed was telling the truth – the accident
had
been entirely his fault.

‘If we just drive away and call it good,’ Heavyset was going on, ‘I don’t have to explain all over again about my OUI and
you
don’t have to explain why you jumped out of your car and started slapping me and yelling about how I had a truckload of dead bodies.’

‘Did I actually say that?’ Ed asked, sounding bewildered.

‘You know you did,’ Heavyset told him grimly.

A voice with a wispy French-Canadian accent asked, ‘Everyt’ing okay here, fellers? Nobody urt? . . . Eyyy, Ralph! Dat you?’

The truck which had pulled over had Derry Dry Cleaners printed on the side, and Ralph recognized the driver as one of the Vachon brothers from Old Cape. Probably Trigger, the youngest.

‘That’s me,’ Ralph said, and without knowing or asking himself why – he was operating purely on instinct at this point – he went to Trigger, put an arm around his shoulders, and led him back in the direction of the laundry truck.

‘Dem guys okay?’

‘Fine, fine,’ Ralph said. He glanced back and saw that Ed and Heavyset were standing by the truckbed with their heads together. Another cold spatter of rain fell, drumming on the blue tarpaulin like impatient fingers. ‘A little fender-bender, that’s all. They’re working it out.’

‘Beauty, beauty,’ Trigger Vachon said complacently. ‘Howdat pretty little wife of yours, Ralph?’

Ralph twitched, suddenly feeling like a man who remembers at lunch that he has forgotten to turn off the stove before leaving for work. ‘Jesus!’ he said, and looked at his watch, hoping for five-fifteen, five-thirty at the latest. Instead he saw it was ten minutes of six. Already twenty minutes past the time Carolyn expected him to bring her a bowl of soup and half a sandwich. She would be worried. In fact, with the lightning and the thunder booming through the empty apartment, she might be downright scared. And if it
did
rain, she would not be able to close the windows; she had almost no strength left in her hands.

‘Ralph?’ Trigger asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I got walking and lost all track of time. Then this accident happened, and . . . could you give me a ride home, Trig? I’ll pay you.’

‘No need to pay nuttin,’ Trigger said. ‘It’s on my way. Hop in, Ralph. You t’ink dose guys gonna be all right? Ain’t gonna take after each udder or nuttin?’

‘No,’ Ralph said. ‘I don’t think so. Just one second.’

‘Sure.’

Ralph walked over to Ed. ‘Are you okay with this? Are you getting it worked out?’

‘Yes,’ Ed replied. ‘We’re going to settle it privately. Why not? A little broken glass is all it really comes down to.’

He sounded completely like his old self now, and the big man in the white shirt was looking at him with something that was almost respect. Ralph still felt perplexed and uneasy about what had happened here, but he decided he was going to let it go. He liked Ed Deepneau a lot, but Ed was not his business this July; Carolyn was. Carolyn and the thing which had started ticking in the walls of their bedroom – and inside her – late at night.

‘Great,’ he told Ed. ‘I’m headed home. I make Carolyn her supper these days, and I’m running way late.’

He started to turn away. The heavyset man stopped him with an outstretched hand. ‘John Tandy,’ he said.

He shook it. ‘Ralph Roberts. Pleased to meet you.’

Tandy smiled. ‘Under the circumstances, I kinda doubt that . . . but I’m real glad you showed up when you did. For a few seconds there I really thought him and me was gonna tango.’

So did I,
Ralph thought but didn’t say. He looked at Ed, his troubled eye taking in the unfamiliar tee-shirt clinging to Ed’s stalk-thin midriff and the white silk scarf with the Chinese-red figures embroidered on it. He didn’t entirely like the look in Ed’s eyes when they met his; Ed was perhaps not all the way back after all.

‘Sure you’re okay?’ Ralph asked him. He wanted to go, wanted to get back to Carolyn, and yet he was somehow reluctant. The feeling that this situation was about nine miles from right persisted.

‘Yes, fine,’ Ed said quickly, and gave him a big smile which did not reach his dark green eyes. They studied Ralph carefully, as if asking how much he had seen . . . and how much

(
hey hey Susan Day
)

he would remember later on.

The interior of Trigger Vachon’s truck smelled of clean, freshly pressed clothes, an aroma which for some reason always reminded Ralph of fresh bread. There was no passenger seat, so he stood with one hand wrapped around the doorhandle and the other gripping the edge of a Dandux laundry basket.

‘Man, dat look like some strange go-on back dere,’ Trigger said, glancing into his outside mirror.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Ralph replied.

‘I know the guy drivin the rice-burner – Deepneau, his name is. He got a pretty little wife, send stuff out sometime. Seem like a nice fella, mos usually.’

‘He sure wasn’t himself today,’ Ralph said.

‘Had a bug up his ass, did he?’

‘Had a whole damn ant-farm up there, I think.’

Trigger laughed hard at that, pounding the worn black plastic of the big steering wheel. ‘Whole damn ant-farm! Beauty! Beauty! I’m savin dat one, me!’ Trigger wiped his streaming eyes with a handkerchief almost the size of a tablecloth. ‘Look to me like Mr Deepneau come out dat airport service gate, him.’

‘That’s right, he did.’

‘You need a pass to use dat way,’ Trigger said. ‘How Mr D get a pass, you tink?’

Ralph thought it over, frowning, then shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It never even occurred to me. I’ll have to ask him next time I see him.’

‘You do dat,’ Trigger said. ‘And ask him how dem ants doin.’ This stimulated a fresh throe of laughter, which in turn occasioned more flourishes of the comic-opera handkerchief.

As they turned off the Extension and onto Harris Avenue proper, the storm finally broke. There was no hail, but the rain came in an extravagant summer flood, so heavy at first that Trigger had to slow the panel truck to a crawl. ‘Wow!’ he said respectfully. ‘Dis remine me of the big storm back in ’85, when haffa downtown fell inna damn Canal! Member dat, Ralph?’

‘Yes,’ Ralph said. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.’

‘Nah,’ Trigger said, grinning and peering past his extravagantly flapping windshield wipers, ‘dey got the drainage system all fixed up now. Beauty!’

The combination of the cold rain and the warm cab caused the bottom half of the windshield to steam up. Without thinking, Ralph reached out a finger and drew a figure in the steam:

‘What’s dat?’ Trigger asked.

‘I don’t really know. Looks Chinese, doesn’t it? It was on the scarf Ed Deepneau was wearing.’

‘Look a little familiar to me,’ Trigger said, glancing at it again. Then he snorted and flapped a hand. ‘Listen to me, wouldja? On’y t’ing I can say in Chinese is
moo-goo-gai-pan
!’

Ralph smiled, but didn’t seem to have a laugh in him. It was Carolyn. Now that he had remembered her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her – couldn’t stop imagining the windows open, and the curtains streaming like Edward Gorey ghost arms as the rain poured in.

‘You still live in dat two-storey across from the Red Apple?’

‘Yes.’

Trigger pulled in to the curb, the wheels of the truck spraying up big fans of water. The rain was still pouring down in sheets. Lightning raced across the sky; thunder cracked.

‘You better stay right here wit me for a little bit,’ Trigger said. ‘She let up in a minute or two.’

‘I’ll be all right.’ Ralph didn’t think anything could keep him in the truck a second longer, not even handcuffs. ‘Thanks, Trig.’

‘Wait a sec! Let me give you a piece of plastic – you can puddit over your head like a rainhat!’

‘No, that’s okay, no problem, thanks, I’ll just—’

There seemed to be no way of finishing whatever it was he was trying to say, and now what he felt was close to panic. He shoved the truck’s passenger door back on its track and jumped out, landing ankle-deep in the cold water racing down the gutter. He gave Trigger a final wave without looking back, then hurried up the walk to the house he and Carolyn shared with Bill McGovern, feeling in his pocket for his latchkey as he went. When he reached the porch steps he saw he wouldn’t need it – the door was standing ajar. Bill, who lived downstairs, often forgot to lock it, and Ralph would rather think it had been him than think that Carolyn had wandered out to look for him and been caught in the storm. That was a possibility Ralph did not even want to consider.

He hurried into the shadowy foyer, wincing as thunder banged deafeningly overhead, and crossed to the foot of the stairs. He paused there a moment, hand on the newel post of the banister, listening to rainwater drip from his soaked pants and shirt onto the hardwood floor. Then he started up, wanting to run but no longer able to find the next gear up from a fast walk. His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, his soaked sneakers were clammy anchors dragging at his feet, and for some reason he kept seeing the way Ed Deepneau’s head had moved when he got out of his Datsun – those stiff, quick jabs that made him look like a rooster spoiling for a fight.

The third riser creaked loudly, as it always did, and the sound provoked hurried footsteps from above. They were no relief because they weren’t Carolyn’s, he knew that at once, and when Bill McGovern leaned over the rail, his face pale and worried beneath his Panama hat, Ralph wasn’t really surprised. All the way back from the Extension he had felt that something was wrong, hadn’t he? Yes. But under the circumstances, that hardly qualified as precognition. When things reached a certain degree of wrongness, he was discovering, they could no longer be redeemed or turned around; they just kept going wronger and wronger. He supposed that on some level or other he’d always known that. What he had never suspected was how long that wrong road could be.