Lights Out Page 18
She thought. He could feel her thinking, feel her giving up. “The details are sketchy, like all details. Why not ask the cook? Or should I say aks?”
“The cook in this place?”
“What would he know? I’m talking about JFK.”
“That’s a good idea. Where is he?”
“Don’t take that patronizing tone.”
“Where is he?”
“Around. He showed up for money, like a lot of jetsam in the aforementioned’s glory days.”
“Around where?”
“Try the hospices.”
“What hospices?”
“In the city. Or ask the aforementioned.” She laughed the harsh laugh again. “On second thought, don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Footsteps sounded outside the door. Eddie froze. Evelyn smiled at him, moonlight gleaming on her teeth. “You’re gonna get it,” she said.
Eddie put his finger to his lips. She grew solemn, then quickly pressed something into his hand. Eddie dropped down on the floor, rolled against the wall.
The footsteps came closer. The nurse said: “Can’t sleep, dear?”
“Yes, I can. I’m very good at it.”
“Then why don’t you, instead of talking to yourself?”
“I’m not talking to myself.”
“I could hear you all the way down the hall.”
“That doesn’t prove your insinuation in all its particulars.”
“And how do you expect to sleep with your curtains open?”
“I like the moonlight in Vermont, or anywhere in the lower forty-eight, for that matter.”
Footsteps. The snick of the curtain string being sharply tugged. Then darkness.
Footsteps, back to the bed. “I’m going to give you just a little something to help you sleep.”
“I don’t want a little something. I want to get intimate with manny-man.”
“A little something will help.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m Winnie-the-Pooh.”
A rustling of sheets. “This won’t hurt,” said the nurse.
Pause. “It did.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Footsteps retreated. The door closed. Footsteps faded away.
Eddie rose, sat on the bed, felt across the covers, found Evelyn’s hand, took it. She groaned.
“Evelyn?”
“Get me out of here.”
Eddie didn’t know what to say. He’d made the same plea to Jack, long ago.
“Get me out,” she said again. There was a long pause before she added, “of here.” The words came slow and sleepy.
She squeezed his hand, much harder than he would have thought she could. “I’ve done that puzzle …” Another long pause. Her hand relaxed, fell away. When she spoke again her voice was weaker. “A thousand times. Can you grasp that?”
“Yes.”
“So get me out.” Silence.
“Evelyn?”
“So get me out.”
“I’ll try, but first I want to talk to you.”
No response.
“Evelyn?”
She was asleep.
Eddie rose, shoes in hand, and left the room. He walked down the carpeted corridor, down the stairs. The desk in the hall was deserted. He followed the parquet to the library. The fire in the grate was almost out, but there was still enough light to see the puzzle. Eddie went to it. He knew what Evelyn had put in his hand. He took it now and fitted it in place: the red base of the Titanic’s lead stack.
Eddie slipped on the tassel loafers and climbed out of the casement window, closing it behind him.
20
Quietly, because of the possibility that Karen and the mustached man might be inside, Eddie let himself into Jack’s suite. Someone was slouched on the sofa watching a James Bond movie, but it wasn’t Karen or the mustached man. The man on the sofa had a beer in his hand, and there were empties all around. Bond said something funny and shot an Oriental gentleman in the balls. The man on the sofa laughed, unaware that he was no longer alone until Eddie stepped in front of him. The sight displeased him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he said. He was a broad, thick-necked man of about Eddie’s age and reminded Eddie of someone, although he couldn’t think who.
“I’m not in the mood,” Eddie said.
“Not in the mood for what?” The man rose, to show Eddie how big and tough he was.
“Any bullshit.” Bond climbed into bed with a big-breasted blonde. He stuck his gun under the pillow. She purred.
The thick-necked man stepped forward, close enough to jab his finger in Eddie’s chest. He jabbed his finger in Eddie’s chest. “The bullshit’s all coming from you, pal,” he said.
Then the man was on the floor with a bloody face and a nose that wasn’t quite straight.
Bond said something insouciant. Eddie said: “Who are you?”
“I asked you the same question,” answered the man, getting up and dabbing his face with his sleeve.
“But not politely.”
The man gave him a hard look but kept his mouth shut. How familiar, thought Eddie, that sudden violence. He got the funny feeling that the thick-necked man had spent some time inside. His mind skipped a few steps and he said: “Out on a pass, Raleigh?”
The man frowned. “Do I know you?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that,” said Eddie. “I’m Ed Nye.”
There was a pause. Then Raleigh Packer said: “You could have mentioned that a little earlier.”
“We’d have missed the benefit of all this exercise.”
Raleigh dabbed at his face again, sat down on the sofa. Eddie noticed his anklet. Raleigh saw that he noticed. “Not a pass,” he said. “Parole.” He raised his pant leg a little more, revealing the lightweight plastic ankle bracelet with the box transmitter that allowed a computer to monitor him. “I’m on a beeper, just like the gofers on Wall Street.”
“Could be worse,” Eddie said.
Raleigh gave him a long look. “Where were you?”
Eddie named the prison.
“For ten years or something?”
Eddie corrected him.
“How did you stand it?” Raleigh wasn’t a tough guy: Eddie had known that from moment one.
“You can get used to anything.”
Raleigh dabbed at his nose again. “Bullshit,” he said, but not in a challenging way.
“Why don’t you go clean up?”
Raleigh went into the bathroom. Water ran. James Bond’s parachute failed to open. He pretended to look scared but there was a twinkle in his eye. Eddie noticed that the $350 was no longer on the coffee table.
Raleigh came back into the room, holding a towel to his nose. “I think it’s broken.”
“Noses are vulnerable,” Eddie said. “Where’s the three-fifty?”
“Huh?”
“Do I have to go to a whole lot of trouble to find it?”
“Is it yours?”
“It’s Jack’s.”
“Then consider it a down payment on what he owes me.”
“What does he owe you?”
“That depends on my billing rate, but the hours are twenty-four times three sixty-five.”
“Just the same,” said Eddie, “I’d better hang onto it till he comes back.”
Raleigh handed over the money in the resigned way an inmate would after the pecking order had been established. “You’re just like him.”
“Like who?”
“You know who. Where is he?”
“Out of town.”
“Out of town where?”
Eddie didn’t answer.
Raleigh glanced around the room. “Maybe he’s not coming back.”
“Of course he is,” Eddie said; but he wondered.
Raleigh touched his nose delicately with the tip of his finger.
“Let me see that,” Eddie said, went close to Raleigh, examined his nose, saw that he was making a fuss about nothing, saw too how much he
resembled his father, the way Eddie remembered him. “You’re going to live,” Eddie said.
Raleigh snorted. That started the bleeding again. “On what?” he said.
“Your inheritance.”
“Is that a joke?”
“I thought your parents were rich.”
“What do you know about my parents?”
“Not much,” Eddie said, thinking of the Titanic plowing through the night. “How are they doing?”
“Just great. Dad’s dead and Mom’s in the nuthouse.”
“See much of her?”
“I’ve been out of circulation,” Raleigh said; almost his mother’s exact words about her own condition.
Eddie said: “Did you go to Groton and Yale and all that too?”
“What do you mean, ‘too’?”
Eddie didn’t answer.
“My grandfather went to Groton and Yale, if that’s what you’re referring to. But how did you know that?”
“Lucky guess.”
Raleigh studied him for a few moments in a way that again reminded Eddie of Brad Packer: not quite smart enough. “Groton yes, Yale no,” said Raleigh. He picked up his beer, drank.
Eddie went to the sideboard, got the Armagnac bottle, poured himself a glass. “Ever had Armagnac?”
“Of course.”
“Every night in the dining halls of Groton,” Eddie said.
“If you want to think in stereotypes.”
“I wouldn’t want to do anything like that.” Eddie was starting to feel manic, as though something exciting were about to happen and he couldn’t wait. He raised his glass.
“Here’s to USC,” Eddie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a toast, to a fine institution.”
Raleigh took a sip. “That’s where I went to college.”
“I almost went there myself.”
“Did you?” Raleigh took another sip, bigger this time.
“Things didn’t work out. There was a whole chain of events, if you follow me.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Would it help if I said that the first link in the chain was something that happened between you and Jack?”
Raleigh was still. “What do you mean?”
“You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What happened between you and Jack.”
Raleigh took a big drink. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“I told you-out of town.”
“Out of town where?”
Eddie was silent.
“Why are you covering for him? You should be on my side. He’s such a bastard.”
“Watch it.” The warning came from Eddie’s own lips, but it took him by surprise.
Raleigh looked surprised too. “Watch what?”
“Watch what you say about him.”
Perhaps this time he didn’t say it with enough conviction. Raleigh started to laugh. He was still laughing when the door opened and Jack walked in.
He had on a long coat of somewhat Western cut-the kind a rich cattleman might wear-and he was smoking a cigar. “What convention is this?” he asked.
“Convention?” said Raleigh.
Eddie wasn’t sure what the remark meant either, but if the reference was to ex-cons he didn’t like it. Jack took off his coat. Underneath he wore faded jeans, a polo shirt, and Topsiders with no socks.
“Been away, Jack?” said Raleigh.
Jack didn’t answer the question. Instead he eyed Raleigh’s face and said, “What the hell happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
Jack’s gaze went from the pink-stained towel on the table to Eddie. Eddie smiled a noncommittal smile.
“Been away?” Raleigh repeated.
“Away?”
“Your brother here mentioned you were out of town.”
“You said that, Eddie?”
Eddie nodded.
Jack puffed his cigar. “Does Brooklyn count?”
Raleigh stood up. “I want to talk to you, Jack.”
“Talk.”
“In private.”
“How ill bred.” Jack smiled around his cigar. Eddie could see he was in a good mood. Jack came over to him, gave his shoulder a little squeeze. “You don’t mind, bro?”
Eddie shook his head. Bond peered doubtfully at a glass of red wine. Jack picked up the remote and switched him off.
Jack and Raleigh went in the bedroom. The door closed. They talked in low voices for a few minutes. They came out. Now Raleigh was smoking a cigar too.
“How about a celebration?” said Jack.
“Of what?” Eddie asked.
“You being here. Good enough?”
“Isn’t it a little late?”
“In this town? Let’s show him the kind of fun you can have in the city that never weeps.”
“Whatever you say,” said Raleigh.
“As long as we don’t leave your ankling area,” Jack added. Eddie saw that his brother was a bit manic too.
Raleigh almost managed a smile. He drained his glass and said: “Let’s go.”
“This is supposed to be the latest,” said Jack, as they entered a club; so new that the sign was still clad in protective canvas.
Inside was a world of light, without fixed boundaries or dimensions. Floors, walls, ceilings didn’t exist; there were only curves, rounding into one another. And everything had a glow: pearly in the lower regions, shading up through greens and blues to indigo above.
A man dressed in a silver space suit greeted them. He spoke through a speaker in his helmet. “Welcome to Brainy’s,” he said. “Fifteen-dollar cover, two-drink minimum. The official opening’s not till tomorrow, so please bear with us.”
He led them to a table with a translucent surface that flickered in black and white, like snow on a TV screen. They sat in almost invisible clear-glass chairs. Mounted on the tabletop were concave viewers, the size of a human head. “Look in those,” said the man in the space suit. “Maneuver by sticking your right hand in those slots and experimenting. The waiter will be around to take your orders.” His gaze lingered on Eddie for a moment before he left.
“What the fuck is this?” said Raleigh.
“Five million dollars’ worth of software,” Jack replied.
Eddie put his face in the viewer. It was more than a viewer; it wrapped around his ears as well, covering them with perforated foam pads. He was in a place of total darkness, total silence. Nothing happened. He felt for the slot in the side of the table, stuck his hand inside a hand-shaped hole that felt like rubberized plastic. He fitted his fingers in the right openings. Something happened.
First came a strange noise, an eerie whine, like interstellar wind. It filled his head. Then the sun rose, so bright it hurt his eyes. He moved his fingers. That turned him slowly around, and away from the glare of the sun. Now he was soaring through a blue sky. He tried pressing his thumb on the rubberized plastic. That tipped him forward, made him look down, down at a green jungle. He fell toward it with sickening speed. He moved his hand again, pressed with different fingers. That slowed his descent. He drifted down, closer and closer to the trees, then right into them, through a gap, down, down. Below was an emerald-green pond with a waterfall cascading into it. It roared in his ears. He fell into the emerald-green water; the roaring turned to pounding. He fell deeper and deeper, down to the gurgling dark bottom, toward a pool of light. In the pool of light was a bare-breasted mermaid. She smiled and said, “May I take your order, sir?” He shifted his hand to try to get a little closer. Everything went black.
Eddie drew back from the viewer. The mermaid was talking to Jack: “Heineken, Beck’s, Beck’s Light, Corona, Sam Adams, Moosehead, Bass, Grolsch-”
“New Amsterdam.”
“We don’t carry it.”
“Bass, then.”
“And you, sir?” she said, turning to Eddie.
Not the mermaid, of course, and not bare-breasted and fishtailed, but the woman who had played the mermaid, if played was the word, down in the emerald-green pond. She wore a tiny silver space dress but no helmet.
“I’d like water,” Eddie said, wanting all at once to be sober.
“Evian, Perrier, Volvic, Contrexeville, Saratoga, San Pellegrino, Ramlosa, Poland Spr-”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She went away. “Mine was the wild west,” said Raleigh. “What was yours?”
“Skiing in Zermatt,” said Jack. “Eddie?”
“Falling.”
Jack glanced into his viewer. “There’s a pissload of money to be made in this, if you knew who to back.”
“To be made in what?” asked Raleigh.
“Virtual reality.”
The words almost triggered a memory in Eddie’s mind. He came close to dredging it up, a worrisome, champagne-drenched memory, but Raleigh broke his concentration by getting up to go to the bathroom. Eddie found himself gazing at his brother.
“Something on your mind, bro?”
“I don’t know. Does an albatross have a mind?”
Jack smiled; that flashing smile, but his eyes were blank. “Run that by me again.”
“I’ve got lots on my mind,” Eddie said.
“Like what?”
Where to begin? Karen? Evelyn? JFK? Galleon Beach? Grand Cayman? It all began at USC, didn’t it? Eddie rose. “Tell you in a minute.” He went off in the direction Raleigh had gone.
The bathroom was part of the experience. It was all pearly light and rounded surfaces. For a moment, Eddie thought it was supposed to be a giant urinal. There was a female attendant, dressed in a little space skirt and halter top. Eddie, trying to take her presence in stride, said, “All it needs are holes in the floor.”
“Everyone says that,” said the woman, toying with the change on her plate.
Eddie found Raleigh soaking his nose on a wet towel. Their reflections studied each other in the mirror.
“Now would be a good time,” Eddie said.
“For what?”
“For telling me what happened at USC.”
Raleigh zipped up. “Ask Jack. Didn’t I say that already?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“No can do.” He faced Eddie. “You’re going to beat me up in here, aren’t you? That would be the inmate thing.”
It was true, both parts. Eddie backed away. “You did something and Jack took the blame.”