Nobody's Fool (88 page)

"Listen.

Tell The Bank I'll get out upstairs as soon as I can. My lawyer says I could get out as soon as tomorrow, though he's been known to be mistaken."

"I'll handle Clive," she said, then to Wirf, "Just don't let him punch the judge."

"You want to ride with us?"

"No, I'm going with Mrs. Gruber," Miss Beryl told him.

"Alice knew Hattie?"

"Not to my knowledge," she admitted.

"She just hates to miss anything."

Outside on the porch, Sully noticed the corner of the envelope Miss Beryl had given him sticking out of the pocket of WirPs overcoat.

"She finally signing the house over to Clive?" he asked.

"None of your business," Wirf said, not unexpectedly, pushing the envelope out of sight.

"You sure are a secretive prick, you know that?" Wirf shrugged.

"You ever hear of confidentiality?"

"Here I've known you all these years and today I find out your name is Abraham."

"You didn't know that?" Wirfsaid.

"It's on the door of my office."

"You have an office?"

"Sully, Sully, Sully." Wirfput his gloves on and grabbed the porch railing, which wobbled at the base where Carl Roebuck, the rat, had removed the screws. Sully made a mental note to fix it as soon as he got out of jail, lest Miss Beryl kill herself and he find himself responsible for the death of two old women. Organ music, vaguely religious, was being played throughout the funeral home at a volume designed, it seemed to Sully, to get just under the skin.

It was slightly louder in the tiny bathroom he'd been shown to so he could change his pants and put on the socks he'd bought at the men's store. The cramped room was about the size of a closet, containing a commode, a tiny sink, a warped mirror. Above, in one corner, was a small speaker from which the organ music leaked. When Sully sat on the commode, his knees nearly touched the door he'd closed behind him when he entered. His knee, defying logic as usual, seemed to have gotten worse in jail, and changing his pants and putting on the new socks proved a slow, awkward, painful task. He'd worked up a full sweat when the door he'd forgotten to lock opened, catching him sitting on the commode in his undershorts, one sock on, one sock off.

"Jesus Christ," Jocko said, going scarlet and quickly closing the door again.

Then, just his voice through the door, "Didn't anybody ever tell you that you don't have to take your pants completely off to relieve yourself?"

"Don't go away," Sully said to the door.

"I want to talk to you."

Sully pulled on the second sock, then the suit pants that matched his jacket. The dry cleaner, one of two in Bath, was located right next door to the men's store where he'd bought his socks, so he had talked Wirf into stopping in on the off chance.

"That's them, right there, "Sully pointed when the pants came by, recognizing them among the first batch of items that creaked past them on the overhead chain.

"Unbelievable." Waf had muttered. The girl blinked when she read the date on the ticket.

"Nineteen eighty-two?" she read.

"You brought these in two years ago?"

"Don't tell me they're not done yet, either," Sully warned her.

"I need them right now."

Jocko was still standing guard outside when Sully finally emerged, zipping his fly for emphasis.

"I thought you were in jail," Jocko said.

"I was," Sully admitted.

"I've been given a three-hour furlough. Since I'm a bearer." Jocko snorted at this.

"God, I love small towns," he said.

"You even been arraigned?"

"Tomorrow," Sully told him.

"Didn't I tell you to watch out for that cop?"

Jocko said.

"I don't know, did you?" Jocko made a gurgling sound in his throat.

"How are you going to plead?"

"Temporary insanity," Sully told him.

"We're going to contend that those pills of yours made me crazy." All the blood drained out of Jocko's face.

"Speaking of which" --Sully grinned at him"--I'm almost out again."

"You're a bad man. Sully."

"So people say," Sully conceded.

"I don't really believe it, though."

"I looked all over for you yesterday," Jocko recollected.

"I didn't know you were in jail."

"Then you were the only one who didn't," Sully said. His assault of Officer Raymer had achieved wide notoriety even before a detailed account had appeared in the North Bath Weekly Journal, accompanied by a strong editorial that decried what the writer perceived to be a new spirit of lawlessness threatening not just their community but the very foundations of civilization. Coming, as this most recent episode had, on the very heels of the last, when a crazed deer hunter, not content to precipitate carnage in nearby forests, had come into town and begun shooting out windows along Upper Main Street.

The editorial suggested that a trend was emerging and warned against the temptation to discount the earlier incident because the perpetrator resided in Schuyler Springs, a community with many undesirables, where such atrocities might be expected. No, there was in reality a series of subtle connections linking these two events if anyone cared to look for them.

Indeed, there were families right in their own communities that had a documented history of violent behavior (the Sullivans, father and two sons, were not named), perhaps even, it was hinted, a genetic predisposition toward violence. The editorial ended on this ominous scientific note.

"I was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, visiting my ex," Jocko explained apologetically.

"We reenacted the famous battle all week. Anyway, your exploits were not carried there."

"Good," Sully said, then frowned at Jocko.

"How come you were looking for me?"

"I saw your crazy-ass triple ran the day before, and I wanted to make sure you knew and didn't toss the ticket." Sully just stared at him.

"Sorry," Jocko said.

"I thought you knew."

"It ran when I was in jail?"

Jocko adjusted his thick bifocals, looking genuinely worried now.

"You wouldn't strike a man with glasses?" Sully would not have hit Jocko.

Had God Himself been there (surely this was the same perverse deity he'd so long expected the existence of), however, he might have taken a swing.

"I thought you knew," Jocko repeated.

"Do me a favor," Sully said.

"Anything," Jocko said.

"Just don't punch me."

"Don't tell me what it paid," Sully said.

"Ever. No matter how I beg you."

"Hey," Jocko said, stepping into the bathroom Sully had just vacated.

"You got it."

Sully heard the door lock. Some people, he reflected, were just careful.

Generally, God did not toy with them. The room where old Hatrie lay in her casket was empty except for the other bearers and one or two employees of the funeral home. The old woman had outlived all of her contemporaries and was survived only by Cass. Which had made rounding up the requisite number of bearers difficult. Peter had been dragooned, and Sully, from jail, had recruited Carl Roebuck and Jocko and Wirf. Otis, who felt responsible, volunteered. Ralph, good-hearted as always, had offered too, until Vera un volunteered him, claiming he shouldn't be lifting after his operation. Rub had been briefly considered, then rejected out of respect for the deceased.

Carl and Wirf and Otis were now huddled in the far corner of the room, speaking softly below the organ music. Cass, dressed in black, stood near the casket, conversing quietly with one of the funeral home employees. Peter leaned against the opposite wall, looking stylish in a tweed jacket, button-down oxford shirt and narrow knit tie. Sully joined him there.

"What are you doing over here by yourself?" Peter shrugged.

"Waiting for you?"

"You don't like these other people?" Peter shrugged again, infuriatingly.

"Do you believe in luck?" Sully asked him.

"Not really," Peter said.

Sully nodded, suspecting as much.

"You know what? I do." Peter smiled, also apparently suspecting as much.

"You know that triple I've been betting for the last two years?" Sully asked.

"It ran while I was in jail."

"When?"

"Yesterday. The day before yesterday," Sully said, trying to recall what Jocko said.

"Really."

"That doesn't strike you as bad luck?" Sully said.

"Luck didn't have much to do with you being in jail," Peter pointed out.

"How about you?" Sully asked him.

"Have you ever been unlucky?"

"Never," Peter said, grinning.

"Not once."

"Not even in your choice of fathers?"

"Ralph's been a terrific father."

"Smart-ass." Neither man said anything more for a few moments. It was Peter who finally broke the silence.

"I've got to go to West "Virginia tomorrow, settle things there. Get the stuff" from my office, whatever's left at the apartment. I'm going to leave as soon as we're done here. "

" Can you handle that by yourself? " Peter surrendered his maddening half smile.

"I have a friend that's going to help."

"If you can wait till I get out, I'll help. Wirfsays it won't be more than another day or two."

"I better do it now," Peter said, without, apparently, feeling any need to explain why.

"Suit yourself," Sully said.

"Okay."

"How come you didn't bring Will?"

"Grandma wouldn't allow it," Peter said.

"It's probably just as well."

"I guess," Sully conceded, though he realized he'd been hoping to see his grandson.

"Is she any better?"

Peter had been to see him twice in jail, and while he was his usual reticent self, he didn't bother to deny that Vera was making life miserable for everyone.

There had been more phone calls from Peter's woman in West Virginia, and Robert Halsey's health had taken another rum for the worse. Peter nodded in the direction of the casket.

"I think they're going to close that," he said. In fact, the casket's lid had been lowered by the time Sully managed to limp up the aisle. When the funeral home employees noticed Sully, they managed to convey that raising it again might be a violation of the rules.

"Everybody's waiting," they said.

"She's my mother," Sully told them.

"No, she's not," one of the young men said.

"Well," Sully conceded, "not by blood."

"Haifa minute." The young man raised the lid.

"We'll be late at the church." Old Hattie stared up at him with the same expression of grim, unfocused willfulness that she'd borne in life. If anything, she looked even more determined now. Sully, still reeling from the knowledge that his triple had finally run, albeit without him aboard, contemplated whether he'd swap places with the dead woman if he were offered the opportunity. It was tempting.

"She doesn't look finished even now, does she," Cass said at his elbow.

"She is, though," Sully said.

"I guess it wasn't such a great idea to move the cash register after all. How're you feeling?"

"Hypocritical," Cass admitted.

"I wished her dead a dozen times a day. Sully."

Together they stared down at the old woman, Cass weeping quietly.

"With her alive and making everything impossible, all I could think of was all the places I could go, all the things I could do if only she'd die.

Now I'm not so sure it was her. "

" Give yourself time," Sully said for something to say. Actually, he shared her doubts. He'd imagined the world would be a better place when it was rid of Big Jim Sullivan, but it had remained pretty much the same place, with just one less person to blame things on. Though Sully had solemnly pledged to keep blaming things on him anyway. " Did I hear you sold the restaurant? " " Shhh " Cass whispered, nodding at her mother, who, to judge from her fierce, frozen expression, might well have been not only listening but plotting intricate retribution.

" To a friend of yours, actually. "

" I heard a rumor," Sully said.

It had been more than a rumor, actually. It was Wirfwho was handling the details of the sale, and he'd told Sully that Vince and Ruth would be partners, Vince putting up the money with the understanding that Ruth would buy him out when she could. " She'll make a go of it if anybody can. Ruth knows restaurants.

And she's a hard worker. Now she'll be working for herself. She promised she'd keep the name, which should please the dead. " They both looked again at Hatrie, who, if she was pleased, didn't show it.