Part 15 (1/2)

”But what if I get caught?”

He laughed. ”You won't get caught.”

I didn't like being laughed at. ”In the event that I did get caught, what would happen to me, legally speaking?”

”First of all, I wouldn't be asking you if I thought you'd be caught. This happens all the time, illegally, and no one's getting caught. What's more, no one's even looking. That's my job, remember, and I'm giving you the green light.” The laugh again, a chuckle that was a little easier to take. ”But in the unlikely scenario that something unforeseeable did go that wrong, you'd be up s.h.i.+t creek for a while. I'm not going to bulls.h.i.+t you. You'd be arrested and charged. I'm almost one hundred percent sure that I'd be able to disclose proof of your partic.i.p.ation to the prosecutor's office before any trial and get those charges dismissed, even though that might put this investigation and all my time here at risk. But I can't be one hundred percent sure you'd get your job back. So there you go. That's the parameter of worst-case scenario, as best as I can configure it. I'd put the odds of catastrophic failure at five percent.”

”Thank you for not bulls.h.i.+tting me,” I said.

”You're right. I'm sorry I didn't lay it out there from the beginning.”

And it might have been because of that apology that I agreed to do it. There's a self-destructive part of me, a vortex of negative attraction I find difficult to dampen, no matter my better instincts.

”I'll do it,” I said. ”I'll try it.”

”It has to be someone that matters, though, someone whose connections and influence will lead us to others.”

”And who would that be?” I asked.

”You tell me,” he said.

It was as obvious to me as it was to him.

”Billy Fenton,” I answered.

”You see?” he said. ”I told you you had a knack.”

I didn't like that paternalistic tweak, and right then and there had my first serious G.o.dd.a.m.n misgiving.

27.

Crowley had said that time crawled slowest when your head was crowded with bad thoughts, and it dragged now. Five days went by, and Roy kept Josh's files. He wouldn't allow Josh to see them, but whenever they talked, Roy mentioned some of the legal details he was pondering. He seemed enlivened by his efforts, cheerful.

Josh didn't like to visit Roy in the intensive care unit because the continued emptiness of Elgin's bed was an indictment, a finger pointed his way. The lack of any questions about what had happened, the lack of any CO poking around made Josh wonder if what happened had been a dream. Instead, Roy visited Josh a few times every day, his arrival always announced in advance by the tap tap tap of his peg leg on the hallway floor. It got so Josh didn't even look up when Roy appeared in his cell doorway, just lay there staring at the ceiling trying to pretend Roy wasn't even there.

”Who died?” Roy asked.

It wasn't funny, but Roy snorted at his own joke anyway. He hobbled in to sit on the edge of Josh's cot, and Josh rose up and squirmed aside to make room for the heavy man and avoid touching him.

”You still don't trust me, do you, Joshy?” Roy said. ”The best f.u.c.king friend you got.”

Josh asked what he meant, suspicious of all overtures for more intimacy.

”I'm doing all this work for you, digging through your case files. They're pretty f.u.c.king boring, I have to say. Who the h.e.l.l did you p.i.s.s off so bad to get thrown in here? I seen this reference to something you drew, but I ain't seen no drawings. You offend someone's artistic sensibilities?”

Josh shrugged. He didn't want to talk about the drawings. He didn't want to talk about any drawings. He tried not to even think of where he'd hidden them. He knew that Roy could read his mind.

”I need some quid for my quo, Josh. I need some inspiration. Tell me about the things you drew with Crowley. Bore the s.h.i.+t out of me. I want to know more.”

”I've told you everything,” Josh said. He'd told Roy about the Beggar and the city and the tower and the demons, and Roy had asked him every possible detail. How many horses were there? What did the tower look like? How many windows did it have? What did the Beggar say to the demons when they tortured him?

”Every time you tell me, you seem to remember a little bit extra.”

”Maybe I'd remember a lot extra if I knew why it was important.”

That shut Roy up, and Josh feared he'd crossed a line. If you tell me more, I'll tell you more was a proposal, and an implication that he was holding back. It wasn't true. He just felt pushed into las.h.i.+ng out.

”What do you want to know?” Roy asked. He said it so seriously, so drily, that Josh wished he'd never asked. He just wanted it all to go away.

”What does the story mean?” Josh said, needing to say something.

A long wait while Roy leaned back against the wall and stared at the other side of Josh's cell, as if looking out at distant places.

”You ever read Treasure Island when you were a kid?” Roy asked.

Josh nodded. ”I remember it.”

”Well, Crowley's story is about another pirate, sailing a different kind of high seas. And this pirate had a crew, and the crew worked hard for him, partly because he was a scary son of a b.i.t.c.h and partly because he promised to make all of them rich. And that's what happened right here in Ditmarsh. There was this pirate, we'll call him the Beggar, and he sailed the high seas and collected a lot of treasure over the years.”

”What do you mean treasure? How do you collect treasure in prison?”

A belly laugh.

”How? Everything you want to do in here costs gold. You want to get high? You pay. You want to survive? You pay. You want to visit some sister, take out a brother, or get a jack off your back? You pay. Little bits of that, call them transaction fees, go here and there. But if an organized bunch of pirates happens to control all that buying, selling, and servicing, the gold acc.u.mulates. The Beggar got rich, Joshy, inside a f.u.c.king prison, and other people got jealous, so he hid that treasure good, buried it deep before he went away, and all the rest of us are dying to find out where.”

”How can you hide a treasure in prison?” The story was ridiculous to Josh, another bundle of Roy's lies.

Roy rapped his peg leg on the floor. ”There's tunnels here, Joshy. Caverns. We got demons down below us and elder G.o.ds and a lost civilization. Every bit of it mapped out in Crowley's comic book. You help me find the treasure, I'll give you a little taste. Polly want a cracker?”

He laughed hard, and maybe that's why neither of them heard the footsteps in the hall until an inmate stood in the doorway of Josh's drum. Josh had never seen him before. A bald man in his forties, a spike of orange goatee below his mouth, no mustache. He cradled his left hand in his right, and there was blood soaked into a dirty cloth.

Roy looked p.i.s.sed off.

”What the f.u.c.k you doing here, Cooper?”

”I cut my hand, Roy,” the man said, ”doing your kitchen work. We're all wondering when you're going to come home.”

”I bet you are,” Roy said. ”You did that to yourself to check in on my friend here, didn't you. Well, you can't, so get the f.u.c.k out, and tell Fenton he wants any more of our time, he talks to me first.”

Lewis unfolded his middle finger on his good hand and let it remain extended for ten seconds before slowly walking away.

Josh's heart went all pitter-patter to hear himself talked about. Roy met his eyes.