The Duration (13 page)

Unsie and I carried Chick out to the Escalade and deposited him in the passenger seat.

“Don't overdo it,” Uns said, patted me on the shoulder, and headed off on a fast walk down Housatonic. I wasn't sure what he meant.

Chick was snoring by the time I started the truck. I drove him through town, past the library, rounding away from the police station. We headed toward the long rise up to the Church-on-the-Hill. At the bottom, I heard evening bells, like vespers, but not from the hill. They were from the tower of St. Barney's, just on my right, silent and dark on a weekend night.

When the shit with Bill Trivette went down, people didn't know what to do. He was some sort of youth leader, young and engaging and relatively new, on loan from an archdiocese out East. He hung out with the altar boys and the Scouts, organized picnics and just-say-no-to-drugs stuff. One Sunday after Mass, Chick and I were up in the bell tower, killing time before basketball practice, passing copies of
Sports Illustrated
and
Victoria's Secret
back and forth. We weren't supposed to be there. Bill Trivette caught us, took our magazines, told us to go home or he'd tell our parents. Then, at the last second, he called Chickie back. I waited outside for a half-hour.

Chick's mom was a regular at the 8
A.M.
service, and she didn't want to believe that anything bad had happened. Chick was dramatic, everybody knew that. Bill Trivette swore it was some sort of misunderstanding, but my mom pushed it with Chief Winston and threatened to go to the
Franchise
if something wasn't done.

Bill Trivette left soon after that. We never heard where, just that St. Barney's had sent him away. Events receded. Trivette's departure became another local mystery, its gaps filled with whispers. For his part, Chick just stopped going to church. Me too, come to think of it. That's when we took to the woods. But of course people treated him differently. At least for a while. The tenor changed when he walked into a room. Something had happened, something bad, maybe, though nobody knew details. It just became part of the fabric, like a fire scar on a tree trunk, a cross on the side of a highway, a memory of a thing that became the thing itself. There was plenty of stuff like that in childhood.

Chick snored on, and I turned the Escalade onto a side street, unwilling yet to face the garishness of the Knotsford-Gable Road. I drove down Old Normanton Road, past Elm Court, looped back around Tanglewood and the big summer houses on the hills. I wound the truck up toward Richmond, sliding below Saranac and the Apple Tree Inn, above the cow pasture where one summer night Unsie had been getting his first hand-job (allegedly!) from a mildly intoxicated junior named Yolanda Sepulveda and they'd stumbled into an electrified fence. Then above the other pasture where, that same summer, a feeble local kid named Billy Glib got a flat tire on his Mustang, and we were so drunk we jacked up the wrong side of the car. Billy Glib's Mustang was a stick shift with only four gears, but he didn't drink and it was the only regular ride in our high school class. He used to say, “Nowhere you can't get around here in fourth gear.”

I pulled the Escalade into an overlook at the top of Richmond Road, empty on a frigid March night, and got out of the truck. From the overlook, you could look down onto Normanton Bowl. The big lake was limned with moonlight and I watched the clouds roll past the dim distant swell of hills. Lights blinked in the surrounding hillsides, homes and barns and bars, furtive headlights. The hopes and sins of our forebears. My breath floated up into the speckled galaxy. In summer, the woods would be humming with insects, but right then there was no sound, just a sea of stars, an ambient glow, all the dark curves of the majestic nighttime county.

In the parking lot of the Horse Head, the only other car was a purple Trans Am. I pulled up next to it. It was empty, but the lights in Chick's room were on.

I left him asleep in the truck and crossed to the door. It was open a crack. A quick scan of the lot suggested that we were the only guests staying at the Horse Head, which, I guess, was hardly surprising since it was March, and the Horse Head.

I pushed open the door.

Inside, the overhead light was unflattering. A short, scruffy guy in jeans and a hoodie was sitting at the desk, and a longer, balding guy with a potbelly was lying on Chick's bed. The longer guy was wearing a Danny Ainge replica Celts jersey under a tracksuit. Fucking Ainge. They were watching the Bruins on NESN.

“What's up, gentlemen?” I asked.

The smaller guy looked up quickly, his eyes darting around for exits and weapons. The longer guy was more languid. Sloth-like. He looked familiar.

“Oh, hey,” said the scruffy character. “Uhh, Chick with you?”

He stood up, stuffed his hands in his pockets.

I shook my head no.

“Haven't seen him. I thought he was with you guys.”

I looked at the smaller one.

“You LaBeau?”

He looked at me nervously, then nodded.

I nodded back and turned toward the other one, who was still lying on Chick's bed.

“Feet off, please,” I said, pointing to his boots.

Dude said, “Oh hell yeah, sorry,” and swung himself up to a sitting position. A fat Beantown Buddha. Then I recognized him.

“You're Robbie Golack,” I said.

Dude nodded.

“I know you?”

I shook my head.

“Naah. But I just had a beer with your brother.”

He tilted his head, not so much thinking as trying to remember.

“Well, you must mean Tim-Rick, because ain't no beer where Ronnie's at.”

The scruffy guy gave a courtesy laugh.

“Yeah,” I said. Whatever. “Tim-Rick. Down at the Heirloom.”

Robbie looked almost wistful.

“Yeah? I haven't seen that kid in forever. How's he doing?”

I shrugged.

“You all must be excited about the baby. Gonna be an uncle, huh?”

Robbie looked up, semi-sharp, a butter knife of attention.

“No shit?”

He looked bewildered and, for the briefest of moments, hurt.

“Little fucker never calls anymore. When I see him, I'm gonna kick his ass.”

Well, that should fix it.

LaBeau checked his pager even though it hadn't buzzed. Dude had a pager.

“Yo, we gotta go,” he said.

Robbie shook his head.

“I ain't leaving until that motherfucker shows up with the money.”

LaBeau blew air out of his cheeks.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Robbie Golack.

“You guys got something for him?” I asked.

LaBeau didn't say anything but Robbie Golack did because he was dumb as a stump.

“Shit yeah, we got something for him,” he said, looking me over. Seemed like he was doing it more for my benefit than his own, like he wanted me to know I was dealing with a seriously bad dude. “And he already owes us from this afternoon.”

“How much does he owe you?”

Robbie shrugged.

“Fuck.”

He gestured to LaBeau without the decency to look at him.

“All in? Two fifty,” said LaBeau.

“Goddamn,” I said. “For what?”

This was one Golack could handle.

“For this,” he said, taking a small plastic pill jar out of his tracksuit pocket and rattling it. “Yahtzee.”

He put the jar back in his pocket.

“And for lunch.”

“Easy, Rob,” said LaBeau.

I thought for a minute.

“Okay,” I said. “You guys going anywhere?”

“Fuck no,” said Robbie Golack, swinging back onto the bed. “And I'm gonna put my boots up until that piece of shit comes back.”

LaBeau sank down into the desk chair but kept his hands on the sides, as if, should an opportunity present itself, he might get right back up. Any opportunity at all. Elvis LaBeau did not want to be there, which made two of us.

“Give me five minutes,” I said.

Golack shrugged. “Give you all night, fuck I care.”

I cut through the parking lot, stealing a glance at the Escalade's interior. It was dark and still. I jogged across the Knotsford-Gable Road to the gas station, where there was an ATM. I took out $300 and slushed a large cherry Slurpee into a cup. I stuck a straw in it but left the lid on the counter. The attendant, a pockmarked woman in her early thirties, barely looked up.

On the way back, I could see LaBeau in the parking lot, peering into the passenger side of my truck.

I walked up.

“Who's that?” he asked.

“Don't worry about it.”

He looked at me, and then whistled back toward the room.

“Hey, Robbie!”

“Give me the stuff for Chick,” I said.

LaBeau just fidgeted. Cars went by, and they were making him nervous.

Robbie Golack appeared at the door of the room, looked around, and did a fat-man jog across the parking lot, all shoulders and tiny, shuffling steps.

“Give me the stuff for Chickie,” I said, when he got to us. He was about my height, but slouchy and balding already.

LaBeau pointed to the truck.

“Chick's in there.”

“He's passed out,” I said. “From lunch.”

Robbie Golack looked at me, then peered into the passenger seat.

“Look, here's three hundred dollars,” I said, taking the money from my pocket. “Give me the stuff. I'll make sure Chickie gets it.”

I made a point of looking around the parking lot, like we might be under surveillance. Prodding them toward a decision.

LaBeau focused on the money. Robbie Golack kept peering into the truck.

“Rob,” said LaBeau.

Golack kept looking, but reached into his pocket for the vial. He gestured toward LaBeau.

“Fuck it. Give him the money.”

I handed LaBeau the wad. He counted it, the new bills both slick and sticky.

“Three hundred,” he said.

Robbie Golack gave me the vial. I stuffed it into my pants pocket.

“He nodded out, huh?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Stuff must be good,” I said.

It seemed like a thing to say in a situation like this. Vaguely complimentary.

Robbie looked at me.

“Well, next time we ain't waiting around. You tell him to get his shit together or I'm going to kick his ass.”

It had been a long day. I felt like I'd made good choices for most of it.

“Cool,” I said. “But let's do it this way instead.”

I took a sip from the Slurpee and handed it to LaBeau.

“Hold this,” I said. “Don't spill.”

He looked at me for a second, then took the Slurpee in his right hand.

“Two hands,” I said. “Please.”

Robbie Golack smiled.

“Hold up,” he said. “Why he gotta hold that shi—”

When LaBeau put his left hand on the bottom of the cup, I coldcocked Robbie Golack—bam!—caught him right where his jaw line would've been if he wasn't such a saggy turtle-headed fuck.

I hadn't punched anybody in a long time. But it's sort of like riding a bike. You don't really forget how to do it, and when you finally get a chance, you remember how much fun it is.

The punch made a noise like a ball hitting a glove. Robbie Golack made a noise like “Guunh” and went down hard on the tail of the Trans Am. Something flew out of his mouth—a tooth, spit, part of his tongue, I didn't really care. I could see it in the neon from the Horse Head. While he was down, I kicked him once in his midsection, not super hard but hard enough to lay him low for a minute.

I turned to LaBeau. It seemed like he might initially have felt obligated to jump in, albeit reluctantly, if he hadn't been trying not to spill a Slurpee, but now that it was just the two of us he sort of froze. I was a pretty big guy.

“Here's the deal,” I said to him, getting right up close. “I see you anywhere near Chick again, two things are going to happen. First, I'm gonna kick your ass. Like bad. Second, I'm gonna turn you all in to the cops.”

LaBeau still had two hands on the Slurpee.