The medicinal scents of the emergency room brought back memories of the three times I’d spent in the hospital. I’d had my tonsils out, I’d broken my leg falling off the top of the garage, and I ran a fever the doc thought might affect my brain and heart. All this before I was nine years old. There were bonuses for being in the hospital. I got all the comic books I wanted, and I didn’t have to pay for them with my own allowance. I remember especially a certain issue of Hawkman teaming up with Batman. I also got chocolate malts and a radio that seemed to play only the shows I wanted to hear. Sometimes being in the hospital is within pissing distance of being outright fun.
I had time for a cigarette and a cup of hospital coffee before Sue appeared with her arm around Kenny’s waist. They wore contrasting expressions. Sue appeared to be ready for his funeral; Kenny smiled at me. He had blood all over his short-sleeved blue shirt.
She got him into the seat next to me and said, “You make sure he doesn’t move, Sam. He’s in pretty bad shape.” Then she was off to fill out forms so that Kenny could see a doc.
“The bastard was good, McCain. He must have come up from the creek behind my trailer and waited me out. I came out of the trailer to take a break-you know how I walk around sometimes because I get stiff sitting at the typewriter?-and he got me as soon as I got on the ground. Just came right up behind me and wham! I was out.”
“You didn’t get a look at him?”
“Nothing.” For the first time his face crosshatched with pain. “I may have a little concussion. But man, Sue has gone batshit.”
“She loves you.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“Lots of people are asking the very same question.”
“What the hell was he looking for at my place?”
“I may be wrong, but I think this has something to do with the fire that killed Karen Shanlon. You’ve been asking around about Lou Bennett and so have I. And I’ve been to the library reading up on the fire. Somebody thinks we either know something or are about to find something out. He can’t be sure which it is, so he has to make sure we don’t already have something. He trashed my office, too. Knocked out Turk.”
“Well, then he can’t be all bad.” But his face twisted up when he tried to laugh. Up close he looked pale and shaken. The blood on his shirt was lurid, like blood in a crime-scene photo.
“I promised Sue we’d pull back on this. Just forget about it.”
“Are you crazy? Now I really want to go after him.”
“Sorry. I promised Sue. I can break my word to her, but you can’t break yours.”
“I didn’t give her my word. You gave her my word. So that doesn’t count.”
“You want to tell her that? You remember what happened the last time you broke your word to her?”
“Yeah. Spam the whole week.”
“Right. And you’re lucky she didn’t leave the goop on when she served it to you.”
“She had steak every night and I had Spam. She’s a lot meaner than she looks.”
Sue came back with a smiling nurse pushing a wheelchair. “Right in here, Mr. Thibodeau.”
“I can walk.”
“I’m sure you can. But these are hospital rules.” The nurse was middle-aged and had learned how to be sweet while she was slapping you around with rules.
When he was safely seated, Sue bent over and kissed him on top of his head. Then she looked at me: “You gave your word, Sam.”
“I did.”
“And I expect you to keep it. Both of you.”
“Maybe we could talk about that a little, honey.”
“Are you ready, Mr. Thibodeau? We’re going right down the hall and get you all fixed up. You may come with us if you like, Mrs. Thibodeau.”
Sue had elevated herself to wife status. I glanced at her and smiled. She scowled. Kenny should never have said that “maybe we could talk about that a little, honey.” The “honey” hadn’t helped at all. It was clear there’d be no talking about it. Not with Sue. Not ever.
I saw a doctor and another nurse go into the room where Kenny had been wheeled. Sue appeared about fifteen minutes later. The hospital coffee was withering my vital organs.
She came over and sat down next to me. “I feel stupid, Sam. I really overreacted.”
“You were worried.”
“I still should have been able to control myself.” She reached over and put her hand on mine. “I want to be a good mother.”
“I’m sure you will be. You got upset. So what? We all get upset. We just get scared.”
“Kenny doesn’t know this yet, Sam. I’m pregnant. Six months from now, I’ll be a mother and Kenny will be a father.”
So there you had it. The best news that Kenny would receive in his life. Better even than selling “Sex Sirens of the Watery Deep” to Real Balls Adventure.
“Wow.”
“I guess when I saw him there on the ground, all I could think of was that our baby wouldn’t have a father. And I’d be devastated if anything happened to him. He’s my life. You know how I always say that living with him is good practice for raising a kid? It’s true. And that’s what I love about him. He’s so vulnerable. He doesn’t worry about all the crap most men do.” Then: “A baby. Pretty good news, right, Sam?” She looked like a kid herself just then. A very happy kid.
“The best news of all.”
“Well, I’d better get back in there. No concussion and just four stitches.” She took her hand from mine. “So now it’s more important than ever that you two stay out of this thing-whatever it is.”
I almost told her. I almost said, Here’s the deal, Sue. I’m going to tell Kenny that I’m honoring my promise, that I’m giving this thing up completely. But I’ll be working on it on the sly. He won’t know, so he won’t be tempted to help me. Is that a fair deal, Sue?
But I didn’t. This was her moment. Her news, her baby, her joy. And I was going to tell her that I was going to break my word?
She kissed me on the cheek and then walked back to the room where Kenny was being patched up. I wondered where and when she’d tell him. I could feel myself grinning. In six months, the world would have one more soft-core porn writer.
Fire Chief DePaul lived in a new housing development on the east edge of town. The houses were painted in pastels. His was eggshell white. The lots here were about twice the size of the town’s other developments and the construction appeared to be considerably better. A new Ford sedan and a new Chrysler sat in the drive. As I walked up to the front door, I noticed that many of the drives had new cars in them. This was a prosperous part of town.
The girl who came to the door was likely around fifteen. She was tall, bony, blonde, and pretty in a flawed sort of way. She’d probably be a beauty when she got older. Right now, her thick glasses and her pimples weren’t helping. And neither was the T-shirt with the ketchup stain on it. “Yes? May I help you?”
“I wondered if your father was home.”
“He’s in the back yard.” From her right hand dangled a copy of The Great Gatsby. “What’s your name, please?”
When I told her, she jerked back as if I’d slapped her. “Sam McCain?” Disbelief made her gulp. Her father had obviously told her all about me. “Sam McCain,” she said again as if she’d just seen a spaceship land. “I’ll go tell him, but I’m not sure what he’s going to say.”
“Oh, I’ve never seen your father at a loss for words yet. I’ll bet he has plenty to say when you tell him.”
She shrugged thin shoulders and said, “Just wait here.” She paused: “This is my favorite book. I can’t decide if I’m more like Daisy or more like Gatsby.” Then she was gone into the shadows of the house. All the drapes had been drawn to keep the sun from scorching the interior. Somewhere a radio played “Love Me Do.” Hearing the Beatles reminded me of Reverend Cartwright standing there in his burned robes. Every once in a while, justice really does prevail.
He looked sporty in the white tennis shorts and Hawaiian shirt. Even the drink in his hand looked jaunty in its tall narrow glass. He didn’t open the screen door. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I saw his daughter materialize in the shadows behind him. I didn’t want to insult him for her sake. “Look, I just need to ask you a few questions.”
“This is neither the time nor the place. And I’d think you’d be putting together another one of your so-called peace marches. You managed to get Lou Bennett killed. Maybe next time you can get me or some other patriot killed, too.”
“I want to know more about the fire that killed Karen Shanlon. You know this doesn’t have anything to do with patriotism. This could be a criminal investigation.”
He angled his head and said, “Nina, you go help your mother hang wash in the back yard.”
She left without a word.
He said, “I’ve heard that you’ve been talking to people about it. I have a friend in the library who tells me you’ve been reading up on it.”
I knew it wasn’t Trixie Easley. She hated the chief as much as I did. She’d been one of his targets many times when he wanted to have a certain book purged from the library.
“I’m curious about it. There’s no chance you could have been wrong? That it wasn’t accidental after all?”
“You want to know how many diplomas I have? They signify all the courses I’ve taken in various aspects of being not just a chief but an inspector as well. I don’t claim to know everything, but I’m not lazy. I keep up with my subject. I try to learn everything new that comes down the pike. And so my answer to your question is no, I did not make a mistake. Karen was smoking in bed. The house was old. There were a lot of books and papers around. I can’t tell you why, but she didn’t wake up in time. The working theory is that she was overcome by smoke before she even got out of bed. We’ll never know for sure. But she did die in an accidental fire. And it was too bad. From everything I’ve heard about her, she was a very decent young woman.”
And with that he closed the door. Didn’t slam it. Just closed it quietly. I felt like an encyclopedia salesman who’d just been rejected for the sixteenth time that afternoon.
I walked back to my ragtop. Lawn mowers roared. You could smell the heat.
I’d just slid in behind the wheel when Nina came around from the back of the house and walked up to me.
“This is a neato car.”
“Thanks.”
“He give you grief?”
“Not really. He was probably nicer to me than I would have been to him under the circumstances.” I hadn’t believed him, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“He’s not my real father. My real dad died in a plane crash. He flew cargo planes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was little, but I remember him.” She nodded to the house. “We don’t get along very well. My mom always takes his side.” Then: “I thought you were maybe the guy coming back.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who came late last night. They were near the garage arguing. My bedroom window’s right next to the drive. They woke me up.” She ran her fingers along the chrome trim of the windshield.
“Did you see who it was?”
“Huh-uh. I got kind of scared, because he said that my stepdad was going to be in trouble if he screwed this up.”
“You’re sure that’s what he said?”
“It’s exactly what he said, because he said it a couple of times.” She buffed some dust off the hood with her fingers.
“So you didn’t get a look at the other man at all?”
“He was past the point where I could see from the window. My mom takes pills. I don’t think she woke up. I couldn’t sleep after that. So I finally got up and went downstairs to get some milk, and my stepdad was down there. In the kitchen. Alone. He had a drink. It was a pretty strong one. I can tell by the color. It was real dark, which means he’d poured a lot in.”
“He say anything to you?”
“Not much. We don’t talk that much. I’m not real popular at school. That bugs him a lot more than it bugs me. I read a lot of science fiction. That’s what I want to do someday. Write science fiction. You know, like Robert Heinlein.”
“Double Star’s my favorite.”
“Hey, really?” The smile made her pretty. “You really like him?”
He came around the corner armed with intent. In this case, the intent was to get me off his property and to get his stepdaughter to shut up. He was big and burly and red-faced from heat and liquor. The festive colors of the Hawaiian shirt seemed to fade.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, McCain?”
“I was just talking to him. It’s my fault. He was ready to leave.”
“You get inside.”
He and Roy Davenport were good at ordering females inside. Leave the real business to the menfolk. Sounded like an episode of Gunsmoke.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. McCain.”
She didn’t do either of us any favors with that remark. She’d hear about it when he found her later. I was hearing about it now.
“You ever heard of jailbait, McCain?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You really going to try some horseshit like that on me?”
“She’s fourteen years old. That’s jailbait age. That’s also prison age for anybody who goes near her. She’s not much to look at, but it’s my duty to protect her and that’s what I damned well plan to do. So how would you like it if I started telling people you’ve been sniffing around my innocent little stepdaughter?” The sun was turning his forehead into the texture of new leather.
“Wouldn’t work, DePaul. We were talking about science fiction. And she’d testify to that.”
“Science fiction.” His lips twisted into a particularly ugly frown. “That’s why she doesn’t have any friends. Sits in her room and reads that crap. No wonder other kids don’t want to hang around her.” He’d lost his place in the book. Now he went back to the right page. “But that doesn’t make her any less vulnerable to some creep like you trying to get to her.” He slammed a big hand flat on my hood. He was strong enough to dent it. I scanned the impression his hand had left in the light dust. No dent. “Now you get the hell out of here and don’t try to contact her in any way. I don’t ever want to see you again. Because if I do, I’m going to file a complaint against you. And how’ll that look for you and that fancy-ass judge you work for? Accused of statutory rape.” He was suddenly delighted with the idea. “I can see her face now when she’s trying to explain it.”
“It’d never stick. And she’d know better.”
“It might not stick, McCain. But it’d be in the paper. And people wouldn’t forget it even if the charges got dropped. Tryin’ to pick up an innocent fourteen-year-old girl. See how many clients you get then.”
I wanted to ask him who his late-night visitor had been. I wanted to ask him why he was so afraid of what I’d find out about the fire and his role in assessing it. I wanted to ask if he’d taken money for his trouble, or had somebody blackmailed him into calling it an accident.
But I couldn’t ask him any of these things. If I brought up his visitor, he’d know that his stepdaughter had told me. And if I asked him the other two things, he’d just sputter and stammer and threaten me.
I turned the engine on and dragged the gearshift into reverse. “I’m sure we’ll be talking again sometime, Chief. Whether you want to or not.”
“Try me, McCain. Try me and see what happens.”
But by then I was backing up and turning on the radio. “Wooly Bully” was the perfect exit music.
I thought about my conversation with Nina DePaul as I sat across the living room from my father an hour later. He’d fallen asleep in his easy chair, his chin touching his chest, his snoring soft and gentle. Telepathy had always been one of my favorite themes in the science fiction Nina and I had discussed. The dramatic use was to pluck earth-shattering secrets from the minds of enemy agents. But what I wanted to do was share my father’s life through his eyes. His early years on the farm, his father crushed in a tractor accident. His trek with his brother to Black River Falls looking for work. Their mother virtually deserting them by marrying a man who didn’t want them. The worst of the Depression and then the death of his brother from influenza. Settling in a shack along the river and meeting my mother one day when she was out picking vegetables from her family’s small garden. Their courtship that always sounded glamorous despite all the poverty. The years apart during the war. And the war itself that still sometimes troubled my father’s sleep. And then coming back to enough prosperity to escape the Hills, only to see my brother Robert die. And now his final years, this smaller man in the old chair where he’d watched his sacred football games every Saturday and Sunday; where he’d ranted against the GOP; and where he tried to make his peace with cultural changes as different as Elvis Presley, civil rights, and yet another war.
There were times I’d resented him, times I’d even hated him, I suppose; but these times were always forgotten in the respect I had for what he’d been through and the love I felt for all the patience and encouragement and love he’d given me. Hell, I’m sure there were times when he’d hated me.
So I sat there now in the flurry of the fans in the windows and the faint kitchen sounds of my mother making a cold meal for this hot day and his rerun of Maverick playing unseen on the TV set-I sat there once again thinking the unthinkable. That he was going to die and die soon. And then I thought of my mother and my sister in Chicago and how we’d never quite be the same again.
I eased off the couch and went into the kitchen.
The way she looked at me, I knew she knew. She wiped her hands on her apron and came over to me and with a single finger dabbed away the tears on my cheek. Then she slid her arms around me and hugged me.
I went over to the refrigerator and got a can of Hamm’s and sat down at the table.
“I put extra mayo in the potato salad the way you like it.”
“Thanks.”
She was using a wooden spoon to mix up the contents in a green glass bowl. She didn’t look up when she spoke. “We want to be happy for him when we eat.”
“I know.”
“I try to do my crying in the morning when he takes his first nap. Isn’t that crazy? It’s like making an appointment. But he needs me to be happy because he’s afraid.”
“I know he is. I see it in his face sometimes.”
“He believes, but he doesn’t believe.” This time she did look at me. “He’s like you in that respect.”
“Yeah, I guess he is.”
“I wish you two could believe the way I do. Then it wouldn’t be so bad. I really believe that God will take him to heaven. And I don’t mean angels and harps and all that stuff. That’s for children. But to a place where he’ll know real peace. You know he’s never gotten over his brother dying. Or your brother dying, either. All our lives I’d see him sitting alone sometimes, and he’d have the same kind of tears you just had in your eyes. And I always knew who he was remembering. In the days when it would get real bad with him, I’d hold him and rock him the way I used to hold you and your sister and brother. And rock you the same way. And I never felt closer to him than I did then. Because I’d never felt so needed or useful.” She wrenched away without warning and moments later was sobbing into the hands covering her face.
I went over and held her. Her entire body shook. I remembered doing this when I was twelve years old. My father had fallen on the ice and cracked his skull. For several hours, the docs wondered if he’d live. I’d never seen my mother cry like that. I hadn’t known what to do. I just stood still and let her cling to me. Finally I put my arms around her and patted her back the way I would pat a dog. It was stupid, the way I handled it, but I could tell it helped her.
“And here I’m the one telling you we need to be happy,” she said, pulling her apron up from her waist to pat the tears from her eyes. She took a deep breath. “Potato salad and cold cuts and slices of fresh melon and iced tea. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great.”
“There should be a vegetable, but he hates them as much as you do.”
“I learned from the master.”
“I’m going to run to the bathroom and freshen up. Would you mind setting the table, and then we’ll be ready to eat?”
“Fine.”
There were the everyday dishes and the special dishes. I used the former. Paper napkins, too, not the cloth ones. I used to get an extra quarter a week on my allowance if I set the table every night. I decided not to charge her this week.
When we were all set, when my mother was placing the food on the table, I went in and woke my father. Or tried to. This was one of those terrifying times when he didn’t respond right away. One of those terrifying times when I was almost certain that he was dead.
But then his head raised and his eyes opened and he gazed up at me with blue eyes that were both innocent and ancient. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned down and gave him an awkward hug and kissed him atop his freckled bald head.
Then we went in and ate, and he got to telling some of his favorite war stories, and the happiness my mother wanted came pure and natural to each of us. There was even laughter in the McCain household.
I was pushing open the back door when the phone rang. Wouldn’t be for me. Didn’t live here any more. All grown up. More or less. For her last birthday, my mother was the recipient of a yellow wall phone for the kitchen. She was as proud of that phone as I would have been of a 1939 Ford Woody. I had one foot on the rear steps when she said, “It’s for you, Sam.”
When I was just a few steps away she covered the phone and said, “It’s a woman.”
“A woman?” my father smiled. “Did you hear that, Sam?”
“It’s fun to be back in seventh grade,” I said. “Our little Sam has a girlfriend.”
My mother swatted me on the arm and winked at my father.
“Hello.”
“My mother always told me that boys didn’t like girls who called them,” Wendy said. “Too forward. The boys lost all respect.”
“I think she was right. I’m so disgusted I’m going to hang up. By the way, we have an audience. My folks. They just told me I have to be in by ten.”
“Well, I’m hoping I can keep you out a little later than that. I’d like to see you, and I also have a little bit of information about Lou Bennett you might find interesting.”
“I’d like to take a shower and change clothes.”
“I was thinking the same thing myself. How does eight sound?”
“Sounds just about right. I’ll pick you up.”
“I really enjoyed seeing you, Sam. That’s all I’ve been thinking about all day. It’s just so weird how things happen sometimes. Good things and bad things.” Then: “By the way, let’s go someplace where we can dance. It’s been a long time for me.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Well, I’m no ballerina, so we’re even up. See you at eight.”
After I hung up and peeked around the kitchen door into the dining room, I saw my folks sitting there with their after-dinner coffee smiling at me. They’d seen me forlorn ever since Jane departed.
“And may a mother ask who that was?”
“Wendy Bennett.”
She glanced at my father. “A cheerleader and one of the prettiest girls in the whole high school.”
“Well, Mom, we’re ten years out of high school, so I don’t think stuff like that matters any more.”
But yeah, it still did to immature guys like me. I wanted to call up all the popular boys I’d gone to high school with and say, “Guess who’s got a date with Wendy tonight?” Eat your hearts out.