Part 49 (2/2)
”Because they can't go fuck themselves” Deasey tossed the bill onto the bar ”The way you can Nohy don't you?”
”Say,” the bartender said, ”I don't have to take that kind of talk”
”Then don't,” said Deasey, abruptly losing interest in the discussion He climbed up onto the stool beside Sammy's and patted the seat that Sauished for a few seconds in the cold of the sudden conversational void that Deasey had left hilasses from the back bar
”Sit down, Mr Clay,” Deasey said
Sae Deasey, as ever
”Yes, I was there, to answer your question,” Deasey said ”I happened to be in town for a feeeks I saw you were on the bill”
George Deasey had left the co the war, never to return An old school chuence work, and Deasey hadthere after the as over, doing things with men like Bill Donovan and the Dulles brothers, which, the few tireed to discuss He was still dressed quaintly, in one of his traderay flannel with a parson collar and a clocked bow tie For a fewthem their drinks-he took his sweet ti Finally, ”It's a sinking shi+p,” he said ”You ought to be grateful that they just threw you overboard”
”Only I can't swihtly He finished his drink and signaled to the bartender for another ”Tell me, has my old friend Mr Kavalier truly returned? Can the fantastic tale I heard possibly be accurate?”
”Well, he wasn't really going to jump,” Sammy said ”If that's what you heard And he didn't write the letter It was all- in my house now,” Sammy said ”Actually, I think that he and my wife-”
Deasey held up a hand ”Please,” he said, ”I've heard enough unsavory details about your private life today, Mr Clay”
Saue with that
”It really was soht, I suppose But I found the pornographer extre” Deasey turned to Saht to drop the bantering tone ”How are you holding up?” touching” Deasey turned to Saht to drop the bantering tone ”How are you holding up?”
Sa
”When I' to want to kill myself?'
”Status quo for lass of rye in front of hiht to feel really bad
Asha what that asshole there”-he jerked a thuuess is what I'vefor the last ten years of my life”
”But you don't”
”No, I don't I feel-I don't knohat the word for it would be Relieved, Relieved, I guess” I guess”
”I have been in the secrets business for a long time now, Clay,” Deasey said ”Take it from me, a secret is a heavy kind of chain I don't cotton very well to these proclivities of yours In fact, I find the, particularly when I picture you personally indulging in them”
”Thanks a lot”
”But I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out in the end that Senator C Estes Kefauver and his pals just handed you your own golden key”
”My God,” Saht”
”Of course I'ine what it would feel like to live through a day that was not fueled or deforeles?”
”Once I sensed that I could be extreo back?”
”I'm much too old to be happy, Mr Clay Unlike you”
”Yeah,” Sammy said ”LA”
”And ould you do out there, I wonder?”
”I don't know Try to get work in television, maybe”
”Television, yes,” Deasey said with a show of distaste ”Yes, you'd be very good at that”
19
There were a hundred and two after all; theco the last of theside the crate that contained the pearly residue of the Golen for everything; he looked a little funny to To, red in the face His shi+rttails were untucked, and he jumped from foot to foot in his socks Tommy's mother watched from the front door She had taken off all of her city clothes and returned to her bathrobe Joe signed and initialed the forot into their truck and drove back to the city Then Joe and To around at the boxes After a while, Joe sat down on one and lit a cigarette
”Hoas school?”
”We watched Dad on TV,” Toht his TV into the class”
”Uh-huh,” Joe said, watching Toe expression on his face
”He ell, he eating a lot,” Tommy said
”Oh, he was not”
”The kids all said he looked sweaty”
”What else did they say?”
”That's what they said Can I read your comic books?”
”By all means,” Joe said ”They're yours”
”You mean I can have have them?” the at the crates stacked like ave the boy an idea; he would build hi's Nest[20][20] When Joe went back into the house, To the stacks here and there, and after an hour he had succeeded in transferring space fro out a shelter for hian of splintery, knotholed pine, open at the top to let in light froe whose uised with an easily moved stack of three crates When it was done, he dropped to his hands and knees, and scrah the Secret Access Tube to the Inner on a pencil, reading coloo of solitude, to the ice tunnels in which his father had once corief When Joe went back into the house, To the stacks here and there, and after an hour he had succeeded in transferring space fro out a shelter for hian of splintery, knotholed pine, open at the top to let in light froe whose uised with an easily moved stack of three crates When it was done, he dropped to his hands and knees, and scrah the Secret Access Tube to the Inner on a pencil, reading coloo of solitude, to the ice tunnels in which his father had once coed netic ache in the filling of anoticed that one of the crates that made up the walls of his Nest was different somehow from the others: ti than the other crates in Joe's hoard He rolled onto his knees and inched toward it He recognized it He had seen it a thousand ti under a canvas tarp at the back of the garage, with a bunch of other old stuff-a fabulous but sadly defunct Capehart self-changing record player, an inexplicable box full of ed with loops of thick wire, and a clasp of the sa French words and the name of France were stauessed it had once held bottles of wine
To any boy, but in particular to one whose chronicle was contained in the sound of a roo silent all at once, the contents of the wine crate, ossified by dust and weather into a kind of solid unit of oblivion, would have seeist,back just as he had found it, he prized apart the layers, one by one, inventorying the chance survivals of his prehistory