Part 51 (1/2)
She's still here in town.”
”Only for as long as it takes me to crawl back to the f.u.c.king car,” Maledicta says. ”But. . .” -- her gla.s.s is full again; she tosses it back -- ”A-a-a-ah!. . . you're not going to f.u.c.king bother her anymore.
And you're definitely not going to tell her what I f.u.c.king told you about her stepfather.”
”No, of course not, I wouldn't. . . at least not unless she. . . but I would like to talk to her one more time before you go. Not to bother her, just. . . hey, are you all right?”
”f.u.c.king fine,” Maledicta says, but she's not. The last shot of vodka hits her brainstem hard -- she drops the gla.s.s, and has to grab the edge of the bar to steady herself.
”You don't look fine,” Officer Cahill observes. ”You look green.”
Maledicta doesn't answer; her stomach's rolling over.
”. . . ten thousand dollars,” Chief Bradley was saying, his voice slightly m.u.f.fled by the closed door between us. ”I know that may not sound like much, but you understand, the cottage is almost surely a loss. I would love to save it if I could, if there were some way to fix the foundation, but my sense is I'm going to have to tear the whole place down and build new. And there's also the matter of the maintenance work I've done over the past two years -- I know you didn't ask for that, but I did pay for it out of my own pocket and I believe it deserves some consideration. . . So what are your thoughts, Andrea?”
”I think it sounds. . . fair.” I kept my head raised as I spoke, so he'd be able to hear me. ”It's just, I'm still not really ready to make a decision about this.”
”Well, and I don't want to rush you,” Chief Bradley said, ”but from what you've told me it sounds like you're pretty set against staying on in Seven Lakes yourself.”
”That's true. But --”
”Right, and I don't imagine you'd be visiting much either. . .”
”That's true, too.”
”Right! So there you go -- it seems like a waste to leave a perfectly good property abandoned, if you have no intention of using it yourself. And you know. . .”
But the rest of his words were lost as another wave of nausea gripped me, and I bent my head once more to the bowl.
I was tempted to blame my current distress on Chief Bradley's chili: a mostly bland hamburger stew spiked here and there with chunks of incredibly hot pepper. But I'd eaten very little of it -- I could see, gazing into the toilet, that I'd eaten very little of it -- maybe five or six spoonfuls in all.
The beer was a more likely culprit. I wasn't sure how much I'd drunk. I'd only become aware that I was drinking at all when we were about to sit down at the table, and Chief Bradley, pointing to the bottle in my hand, asked if I wanted another. Startled, I told him no, and yet only moments later, as I hurried to wash down a bite of chili, I found myself tipping up a fresh Budweiser, still cold from the fridge. And then a little while after that, when a sliver of jalapeno got stuck on the way down and started spot-welding the back of my throat, I reached coughing for what I thought was a water gla.s.s, only to taste still more beer as I swallowed.
That was when I'd started to feel ill. The jalapeno, though safely extinguished, left an after-impression that was like a finger pressing down on my gag reflex. As the feeling rapidly grew worse, I stood up and asked where the bathroom was. I barely made it in time.
At least Chief Bradley didn't seem offended that I'd lost his lunch. Indeed, he hardly seemed to have noticed at all.
”. . . and if you'd like to get a better sense of the local property values before you make up your mind, of course I understand. I want you to be comfortable about this, Andrea. But what I think you'll find. . .”
My nausea seemed to have run its course. I waited another minute just to be sure, then got up to use the sink. I was dizzy from being hunched over so long, so after rinsing my mouth out, I plugged the drain and let the basin fill with water. As I splashed my cheeks and forehead, I heard a creak of hinges and felt someone come up behind me. ”I'm OK, Chief Bradley,” I said, but when I looked up into the mirror the bathroom door was still closed, and the face peering over my shoulder wasn't the chiefs.
”h.e.l.lo again, figment,” Gideon said.
A plastic cup on the back corner of the sink held a toothbrush and a steel-pointed dental pick. I made a grab for the pick, but my left hand got there first and knocked the cup away. Then the hand was at my throat, and the bathroom walls faded into open sky as I was dragged from the body. I looked down and saw the lake far below me, its dark waters swirling around the gray dot of Coventry.
”Andrea?” Chief Bradley called, his voice echoing with distance. ”What just fell?. . . Andrea, are you all right in there?”
”I'm fine,” Gideon replied. ”I'll be right out.”
There's a soda machine outside the grocery store on Main Street. Mouse is hoping it's the kind of soda machine that offers bottled spring water as a selection -- that's what she really needs right now, fresh water -- but this is Seven Lakes, not Seattle, and the machine is stocked only with pop. She could go into the store to buy water, but the idea of waiting in a long checkout line, trying not to pa.s.s out or faint from shame as the cas.h.i.+er and the other customers catch a whiff of her, is more than she thinks she can stand.
Soda pop it is. She puts coins in the machine and punches the b.u.t.ton for ginger ale. The can comes out of the machine warm, and the ginger ale tastes like something you'd clean dentures with, but Mouse forces herself to drink it anyway. She needs the fluid.
She looks across the street to where the Centurion is parked. Andrew has still not reappeared.
Mouse tells herself that she can't blame him for wandering off, but the truth is she does blame him. He should have waited. He should have come after her. All right, no, he shouldn't have come after her -- Maledicta was being abusive, and if he'd followed her to the bar it would have just made a bad situation worse -- but he should have waited.
Mouse leans back against the soda machine and slides down until she is sitting on the sidewalk with her knees up under her chin. She drinks warm ginger ale and feels wretched. People coming in and out of the grocery store give her funny looks, as if she were a homeless person.
She feels homeless. She's got no motel room, no safe place in this town where she can go to sleep for a few hours. And she can't go somewhere else, because even if she were willing to abandon Andrew -- the way he abandoned her, she thinks petulantly -- she can't drive. A lot of the vodka that Maledicta drank got left behind in the bar, but enough of it is still in Mouse's system that she doesn't dare get behind the wheel.
The only remotely good thing about her current circ.u.mstance is that she's pretty sure Officer Cahill won't be bothering her again. When Mouse ran out of the bar he was still in the men's room, cleaning himself up, but that was just a temporary measure -- he's going to have to go home and change, and probably take a long hot shower. Mouse knows she shouldn't be happy about this -- she should be disgusted with herself, and furious with Maledicta -- and she is -- but at this point anything that cuts down the number of obstacles between her and a clean getaway from this town is a welcome occurrence.
”Come on Andrew,” she says. ”Come back. Let's get out of here.”
But it's a while yet before Andrew comes back. The sound of his voice rouses Mouse from a drunken doze; she wakes confused, needing a swallow of warm ginger ale -- it's gone flat now too, yuck -- to remind her where she is.
Andrew is across the street, shaking hands with Chief Bradley through the window of the chiefs police car. ”Seven-thirty tonight,” Mouse hears Andrew say; then he steps back, and the chief drives off.
Mouse gets up from the sidewalk. ”Andrew!” she calls.
He turns towards her, caught off guard, in his surprise looking almost hostile. . . but then he smiles. ”Hey there, Penny!” he greets her. ”How's it going?”
Mouse waits for another car to pa.s.s and crosses the street. ”Andrew,” she says, drawing near him. ”Where were you?”
”Chief Bradley's house.” Belatedly picking up on her mood: ”Gosh, Penny, I hope you weren't worried.”
”I was,” says Mouse. ”But never mind that now. Are you ready to go?”
”Well, actually,” he says, ”that's kind of what I came back to tell you: I can't leave yet.”
”What?”
”I've decided to sell the cottage to Chief Bradley,” Andrew explains. ”It won't be official until I can establish clear t.i.tle to it myself, of course, but we've agreed to do the deal, and he's even going to give me a down payment. I'm going back to his house tonight to pick up the money.”
”Tonight? So we have to stay here?” Please, no.
”We don't have to stay,” Andrew says. ”I have to, but there's no reason for you to hang around.
In fact, if you wanted to head back to Seattle on your own. . .”
”No,” says Mouse. ”I can't do that.”
”Sure you can. Don't worry about me, I --”
”No, I mean I can't do that. Maledicta got us drunk, got me drunk. I can't drive.”
”Oh.” He leans forward, sniffs. ”Wow! Gee, Penny. . .”
”So I need you to do it.” Mouse shoves her car keys into his hands before he can refuse. ”Please.