“So,” Ruth had said on the way home. “I always said you were nobody’s fool. But I wouldn’t have guessed you were smarter than God if you hadn’t told me.”
“Just on this one subject,” said Sully, who could tell Ruth was ready to start a fight he’d just as soon have avoided.
They’d driven the rest of the way in silence, though Ruth had tried once more when they got back to town. “What does it say about a grown man who won’t forgive his father?” she wanted to know.
“I have this feeling you’re going to tell me,” Sully sighed.
“You’re just like him, you know,” Ruth offered.
“No, I don’t know that.”
“It’s true. I look at him and see you.”
“I can’t help what you see, Ruth,” Sully told her when she pulled over to the curb to let him out. “But you can be thankful you aren’t married to him.”
“I’m thankful I’m not married to either of you,” she said, pulling away from the curb.
They’d “been good” for quite a while after that.
His father’s house was in far worse condition than Miles Anderson’s. Sully could tell that even from outside the gate. The whole structure seemed to tilt, and the wood had gone gray with weather. Black tar paper was visible in patches where the shingles had come free and slid off the pitched roof and into a disintegrating heap on the ground below. Which meant that the weather had probably penetrated the interior, though without going inside it was hard to tell how badly. There was an attic to act as buffer between the roof and the two floors below. But there were probably other problems. Nobody had lived in the house in a long time. For all Sully knew, the cellar might be flooding every time it rained. The house might be rotting from the ground up even as it ruptured from the top down. Probably there were termites, maybe even rats. Ruth had been after him for years to fix up and sell the property, not understanding that he got more pleasure out of its gradual decay than he would out of the money from its sale, which would disappear so completely that a year later he wouldn’t be able to remember what he’d spend it on. Whereas if he held onto the property it was always right there, visibly worse than the last time he’d looked. He didn’t even want to think about changing his mind or to contemplate what it would cost to reverse the long process of decomposition. There were piles of dog shit everywhere, and the first thing he’d have to do was shovel all that into a wheelbarrow and cart it off. A job for Rub, actually.
Speaking of whom. From where he stood he could see that Rub had returned from Hattie’s and discovered Sully missing. The El Camino was still there, though, presenting Rub with a puzzle he wasn’t likely to solve on his own. He was peeking into the windows of Miles Anderson’s house when Sully returned to the intersection and called to him. “What’re you looking for?”
Rub stood, looking relieved. “You.”
“You know what I’m looking for?” Sully wondered. “My hamburger.”
Rub looked stricken. “I forgot.”
Sully motioned for Rub to get into the car. “Good,” he said. “The whole time you were gone I was wondering whether you’d forget the ketchup or the pickle or the relish or the fries. Instead you just forgot the whole thing.”
“I told you you should have come with me,” Rub said, playing the only card in his hand. “That guy never showed up, did he.”
“He never did,” Sully admitted, turning the key in the ignition. He didn’t pull away from the curb, though.
“Where we going now?” Rub asked, hoping he’d deflected the razzing.
“No place,” Sully told him. “You’re still forgetting something.”
“What?”
“The three dollars I gave you for the hamburger you didn’t get me.”
Rub found the money, handed it over, settled in for more razzing, probably an afternoon’s worth.
“You want to know the good news?” Sully asked him.
Rub didn’t but said yes anyway.
“I wasn’t hungry,” Sully told him, making a U-turn.
Ruby’s mascara was on the move again. It had been running all morning. Every time she quit crying, she went into the tiny bathroom, washed her face with the gradually graying yellow washcloth and reapplied the eye shadow. No sooner was this accomplished than she started crying again, thinking about what a rat Carl Roebuck was and how desperately she loved him anyway. It had not occurred to her until this morning that a man who would cheat on his wife would also cheat on his secretary, and the realization made her bitter. More than bitter. Angry. In the bathroom mirror she’d just noticed that her mascara had stained the neckline of her favorite blouse, the expensive one, the pearl white, semitransparent one she liked to wear under her scarlet bolero. The bolero was made of thick wool, and with it on you couldn’t tell that she was wearing no brassiere beneath the pearl white blouse. Ruby was light skinned, and she possessed a perfectly matched set of small dark nipples that showed through the semitransparent blouse to intoxicating effect. Naturally, she kept the bolero buttoned when Carl’s construction workers were in the office, but when she and Carl were alone she let the bolero swing open.
Now the collar of this prized blouse was ruined with mascara, and Ruby was ruined too, right back where she’d been throughout her entire life, crying her eyes out about yet another man who wasn’t even worth it. A man who’d make all kinds of promises and then not deliver. Ruby had never known a man who’d ever told her the truth about anything, and the ones she gravitated to, like a moth to a flame, were the biggest liars of all.
And if all this wasn’t rotten enough, if her day wasn’t as completely ruined as her pearl white, semitransparent blouse, now she was going to have to deal with Sully. She could hear him stumping slowly up the three flights of stairs, grumbling every step of the way. It wasn’t bad enough that Carl Roebuck, who’d told her once that his only desire was to spend the rest of his mortal life—no, of all eternity, he’d said—in Ruby’s arms, was the biggest rat of all; now she was going to have to listen to Sully’s I-told-you-so.
“Ruby,” he said from the doorway where he’d stopped to catch his breath, “are those your nobs staring at me or what?”
Ruby quickly threw on the bolero, having forgotten, in her distress, that she’d taken it off to examine the extent of the damage to her blouse. The last person on earth she wanted to show her nipples to was Sully.
“He’s not in,” she sneered.
“That’s what you always say,” Sully pointed out, plopping down in one of the outer-office chairs and taking a deep drag on his cigarette.
“Sometimes it’s true,” Ruby told him.
“Did he leave a message?”
“Why would he leave you a message?”
“Because he had a job for me, which I could do, maybe, if he’d tell me what it is and where.”
“Your ash is going to fall on the carpet,” Ruby observed.
Since this was true, Sully stubbed out the cigarette in a tiny ashtray on the magazine-strewn coffee table. “He’s not worth crying over, you know.”
“How do you know who I’m crying over?” Ruby said.
“I know Carl has half the female population of Bath in tears at any given moment,” Sully said. “Why is a mystery, I admit.”
“He understands women, is why,” Ruby said defiantly.
“Well,” Sully said, “if that’s true, he deserves them all. Any idea where he’s at?”
“Probably with his perfect wife that he won’t divorce,” Ruby guessed bitterly. “The one he buys brand-new cars for. The one who lives in the mansion on Glendale while I live in a studio apartment and drive an eight-year-old car I bought secondhand.”
“life’s unfair,” Sully said to keep from smiling.
“It’s a blow job is what it is,” Ruby agreed seriously. “I always get the slimy end of the dick, too.”
“The other end’s attached,” Sully pointed out.
“Oh, buzz off, Sully. Can’t you see I’m all upset?”
“Okay, dolly,” Sully said, getting to his feet again. “Tell him I was here and I’ll be at The Horse if he wants me to do that job. And Ruby—”
“What?”
“Don’t take your love to town.”
Sully parked Carl’s El Camino outside the OTB in the middle of the diagonally striped no-parking zone. A young cop named Officer Raymer, whom Sully’d had run-ins with before, was bending at the knees in the doorway. “You got two minutes to move that,” he told Sully, not unreasonably. “Or you get a ticket.”
“Go ahead,” Sully said. “It’s not my car.”
Inside, Otis was among the other yellow windbreaker men, several of whom called out, “Sully!”
“Get away from me, you,” Otis warned. “You gave me a nightmare.”
“Good,” Sully said.
“I dreamed an alligator crawled up the stairs and got in bed with me. Woke up kicking and screaming. My wife’s got a big bruise on her thigh.”
“And you believe that’s how she got the bruise, Otis?” Sully said. He considered giving Otis the rubber alligator he’d bought from Mrs. Harold, but decided the occasion was not right.
Except for Otis, this remark struck the windbreaker men as pretty funny. Several offered other explanations for the bruise. Sully watched Officer Raymer grow impatient through the OTB’s front window.
“I’ll have you know my wife’s been faithful to me for forty years,” Otis said indignantly.
Sully nodded. “That’s pretty near the whole time you’ve been married, isn’t it?”
“Go bet your sucker triple,” Otis advised. “Before you give me another nightmare.”
Sully held up his hands in self-defense. “I never meant to give you bad dreams, Otis. In fact, I think Florida’s a good place for you. I just wanted you to be careful of alligators, is all.”
“Get away,” Otis said, swatting at him. “Just get away from me.”
“I think you should move to Florida,” Sully went on. “If you’re careful, you’ll probably be safe.”
“Go. Get lost.”
“Just one little word of advice,” Sully insisted. “When you wake up in the morning?”
“He won’t go away,” Otis said, appealing to the others.
“Just peek under the bed,” Sully said, demonstrating. “A quick peek. If you see teeth, stay in bed.”
“I’ll dream about this all night now,” Otis said miserably.
Sully bet his triple, shot the breeze for a minute with the ticket seller and sauntered out just as Officer Raymer finished writing the ticket.
Sully took it with good grace, opened the passenger side door and tossed it into the glove box. “Who do you like in the game Saturday?” he said genially.
The policeman looked suspicious, but this particular topic was too tempting, Sully too convincingly interested in his opinion. “Ah, Schuyler,” he said sadly. “They’re too damn big.”
Sully nodded. “You played for Bath, didn’t you?”
“Varsity, three years,” Office Raymer said proudly.
“I’d sure like to see our kids win one,” Sully said, starting around the El Camino. “Maybe then they’d go out into the world and make something of their lives.”
Officer Raymer started to agree, then caught a whiff of something. His nose actually wrinkled.
“The losers all stay around here and become cops.” Sully grinned, opening the door of the El Camino.
When the policeman actually rested his hand on the butt of his revolver, Sully laughed out loud.
“I heard a great joke,” Wirf said, pivoting on his bar stool when Sully came in off the street, having given up entirely on work for the day. There was a certain degree of aggravation beyond which Sully would not go, and today he’d reached it. There were days when the world set up more than its usual phalanx of obstacles, and when Sully sensed this principle in action he hung it up. “You’ll appreciate it, too, since it’s the story of your life,” Wirf said.
“I bet I don’t laugh,” Sully said, winking up at Birdie, the day bartender, who had climbed up onto a stool to adjust the focus on her soap channel. The picture came in fine as long as she stood there.
“This guy wants to get on the freeway,” Wirf began.
“Stop a minute,” Sully told him. “I like to concentrate when I look up Birdie’s skirt.”
Birdie fiddled with the fine tuning, unconcerned. “There’s nothing up there anymore,” she said. “How come the only channel we don’t get worth a sour old dog turd is the channel my soaps are on?”
“I see something up there,” Sully said, leaning forward. “But I’m not sure what.”
“This guy’s heading up an off ramp by mistake,” Wirf said. “Off to the side there’s this sign that says ‘Wrong Way.’ ”
“I swear to God I’m going to quit if Tiny doesn’t spring for cable,” Birdie said, finally climbing down. “Look at that. You can’t tell who’s in bed with who.”
“They all look alike to me anyhow,” Sully said, craning his neck to see the TV. “And I don’t think that’s a bed.”
“You gotta watch every day,” Birdie said. “Otherwise soaps don’t make sense.”
“So the guy keeps going anyway,” Wirf continued. “And pretty soon there’s another sign. This one’s all in capital letters. It says ‘YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY.’ ”
“You had a call about half an hour ago,” Birdie said.
“Miles Anderson?” Sully guessed.
“Woman,” Birdie said. “Said she’d reach you at home tomorrow morning.”
“So the guy keeps going up the off ramp,” Wirf continued. “Now there’s a great big sign with huge red letters that says ‘DANGER! TURN AROUND!’ ”
Sully fished around in his pocket for change that wasn’t there. He handed Birdie a dollar bill. “How about some quarters?” he said. Birdie was squinting at the set intently.
“Anyway,” Wirf said. “The guy ignores the sign and keeps going the wrong way, and just before he hits the oncoming traffic there’s a tiny sign on the shoulder that says ‘What the hell, you’ve come this far.’ ”
Birdie slapped four quarters onto the bar in front of Sully.
Wirf picked his money off the bar and stood up. “I don’t know why I even come in here,” he said.
“To be among friends?” Sully guessed.
“That must be it.” Wirf nodded. “Vaya con huevos, amigos.”
“That was a pretty terrific joke, Wirf,” Sully called to Wirf’s retreating figure. “Laugh, I thought I’d die.”
“All you people should treat me better,” Wirf said over his shoulder. “When I’m gone, you’ll discover how hard it is to find another one-legged attorney who’s always in a good mood.”
“He’s right, too,” Birdie said seriously when the door closed behind Wirf. “I don’t know how we’ll replace him.”
Sully frowned. “Why would we want to? He’s right there on that bar stool about eight hours a day.”
“I hear he’s a sick man,” Birdie said.
Sully considered this possibility. “I don’t think so,” he said. “He just drinks too much.”
“My cousin works up at the hospital,” Birdie said ominously. “According to her, his liver’s about gone. He’s been peeing blood for months.”
“Wirf?” Sully said. Hell, he started to say, they’d been standing together side by side peeing into the trough in The Horse’s men’s room every night for the past ten years. Except that this wasn’t true, Sully realized. Lately, though he couldn’t recall when it had started, Wirf had been peeing in the single-stall commode. “He doesn’t look sick,” Sully said weakly.
Birdie shook her head. “He looks sick as hell. When was the last time you really looked at him?”
“He’d have said something,” Sully said.
“No,” Birdie said. “He wouldn’t.”
She was right, too, Sully was suddenly sure. Wirf wouldn’t have said shit if he had a mouthful.
“I hope you’re wrong, Birdie.”
“Me too,” she said. “Go make your phone call.”
Ruth picked up on the first ring. “Hi,” Sully said. “That you that called The Horse?”
“It was,” she said. “I’ve got exactly an hour and a half if you feel up to some love in the afternoon.”
“There is nothing in this wide world I’d like more,” Sully said quite honestly. “Except a new truck.” More honestly still. A new truck and an assurance that what he’d just heard about Wirf wasn’t true.
“Did he say, ‘Go with eggs’?” Birdie wondered when Sully returned.
“Who?” Sully said.
“Wirf,” Birdie said. “He said, ‘Vaya con huevos.’ ”
“I wasn’t paying any attention,” Sully admitted.
“No kidding,” Birdie said.
“You’re just all discombobulated,” Mrs. Gruber explained in response to Miss Beryl’s announcement that she was not in the best of spirits. Discombobulated was one of Mrs. Gruber’s favorite terms, and when she used it over the phone, she did so unself-consciously, as if it were common, a word you’d hear half a dozen times in conversations everywhere, regardless of demographics. “I’m all discombobulated myself,” she told Miss Beryl. “I just can’t help thinking it’s Monday.” She went on to explain why. Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, they’d gone out for dinner at the Northwoods Inn, a place they seldom visited except for Sunday dinner. So yesterday had become Sunday in Mrs. Gruber’s mind, which meant that today had to be Monday.
“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Miss Beryl told her friend irritably. It wasn’t as if Mrs. Gruber now had to look forward to a workweek instead of a weekend. “Let it be Monday if it wants to.”
Mrs. Gruber considered this lunatic advice. “Well,” she said after a brief pause. “I see somebody’s grumpy today.”
This was true enough. The dreadful Joyce woman was gone at last. She’d finally emerged groggily from the guest bedroom at eleven o’clock in the morning, having finally been awakened by the telephone. Clive Jr. had called three times between nine and eleven to check on her. It was his plan to finish up at the bank and take her to lunch in Schuyler Springs, there being no suitable place in Bath. Proximity to Schuyler was a good way to sell Bath, Clive Jr. had long ago discovered. His usual strategy was to put visitors up in a plush Schuyler Springs hotel, wine and dine them there, take them to the races or to a concert in the summer and thereby impress them that all this was only ten minutes from where the money’d be spent. When he could avoid it, he never took potential investors to Bath at all.