By the time Dill turned off all the lights, made sure the windows were closed, and went down the stairs and out the door, it was 8:33 P.M. and dark. The temperature had dropped 31 degrees in the past thirty-five minutes and was now down to 64. The north wind was beginning to gust. There was the smell of rain. Dill shivered in the sudden chill and found it to be a curious sensation. But then, he thought, so is any cold day in August.
Dill cut diagonally across the old brickyard that had been transformed into a park. Just as he reached the municipal pool where he and Jake Spivey had learned to swim and Dill had taught himself to dive, the rain began — big fat splattering drops that hit the dust and sent up a sweet clean smell. Dill stopped and turned his face up to the rain. The pleasant sensation lasted only a few seconds before the chill set in. Dill hurried through the rain, trotting now. He got wet, then drenched, and by the time he came out of the park near Eighteenth and TR Boulevard, he was soaked, shivering, and wishing it would stop.
There had been a drugstore on the corner of Eighteenth and TR Boulevard for years, Dill recalled. He wondered if it was still there. The King Brothers, he remembered. We Deliver. It had kept its soda fountain even after all the other drugstores got rid of theirs. The King brothers had said they didn’t think a drugstore was really a drugstore without a soda fountain. When Dill came out of the park he spotted the old neon sign with its economical abbreviation: King Bros Drugs. He trotted down the sidewalk and ducked into the store out of the rain.
It was a place that still offered a little of everything and the first purchase Dill made was a bath towel. He used it to dry himself off as he wandered down the aisles looking for a small tape recorder-player. He found one, a Sony Super Walkman, jammed in between the Mr. Coffee cartons and the sets of chrome socket wrenches. Dill took the Sony over to the counter. A man of about sixty stood behind the cash register. Dill thought he might be one of the King brothers, but wasn’t sure, and blamed his faltering memory on approaching senility.
The man took the Sony, looked at its price, nodded his appreciation, and said, “Can’t beat those Japanese,” when Dill handed him a hundred-dollar bill.
The man put the Sony in a sack and slid it across the counter along with ninety-nine cents change. “I put it in an ice-cream sack,” he said. “It’ll keep the rain out.”
“Thanks,” Dill said. “Have you got a pay phone? I need to call a cab.”
“You can call one, but it won’t ever come. Not on a night like this.”
“Then I’ll call somebody else,” Dill said.
“Phone’s right back there,” the man said, nodding toward the rear of the store. He stared at Dill for a moment. “Say, didn’t you used to come in here when you were a kid? — hell, it must be twenty-five, thirty years ago — you and your buddy, who was kinda chubby back then.”
“He still is,” Dill said.
“I remember your nose,” the man said. “Haven’t seen you around lately, though. What’d you do, move out of the neighborhood?”
“Moved a little north and east,” Dill said.
The man nodded. “Yeah, a lot of folks are moving out that way.”
Dill dropped a dime into the pay phone and called Anna Maude Singe at her office. She answered on the second ring. He told her where he was stuck and she said she would come get him. Dill’s second call was to Jake Spivey.
After Spivey said hello, Dill said, “It’s on.”
“Clyde say he’d be there?”
“He said he’d think about it.”
“That means he’ll be there. Who else?”
“Just me,” Dill said. “Better make it nine-thirty instead of ten.”
“Well, it’s gonna be one real interesting night,” Spivey said, and hung up.
Dill moved back to the front of the drugstore and took a stool at the soda fountain. He wondered if they still called them soda jerks. Whatever they called them, Dill asked the one behind the counter for a cup of coffee. While he waited, he checked the Sony to see if it had batteries. It didn’t, so he bought some, put them in, inserted the end of the earplug into its proper socket, slipped in the cassette, held the earplug up to his ear, and pressed the play button.
The first thing he heard was “Sixty-nine is very fine, testing, testing. Ten, niner, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and we’ve got ignition. Testing… testing… testing… and fuck you, Dill.” It was the voice of the dead Harold Snow, sounding very much alive. There was a brief silence. Then Dill heard Tim Dolan’s voice: “Don’t you wanta take your coat off?” And his own reply: “I’m not all that warm.” This was followed by the voice of Harley saying: “Just the three of you?” And again Dilclass="underline" “Just the three of us.” Thank you, Harold, Dill thought, and pushed the button for stop and then the one for fast forward.
With a judicious amount of backing and filling, Dill soon found the place on the tape he wanted — the one where the conversation between Senator Ramirez and Tim Dolan took place while Dill was walking Clyde Brattle down the stairs of the carriage house. Afterward, Dill could never remember the conversation without one word popping unbidden into his mind: illuminating.
Dolan spoke first: He gone?
Then the senator: Yes.
DOLAN: Jesus.
SENATOR: You understand it now?
DOLAN: Sure I understand it now. A kid could understand it.
SENATOR: I want those four guys, Tim.
DOLAN: Christ, I don’t blame you. You’ll get all the ink for handing Brattle and Spivey over to Justice, and those other four guys will be forever asking how high when you say hop.
SENATOR: There’s Dill though.
DOLAN: You could fire him.
SENATOR: Not smart.
DOLAN: Find him a cushy job in Rome or Paris or somewhere. Make him grateful.
SENATOR: Better. I think I’ll start easing him out tonight. Just follow my lead.
DOLAN: He’s coming back.
SENATOR: Right.
There was the sound of the door being opened and closed and then Dolan asking, “D’you think he swallowed it?” and Dill replying: “Brattle?” After that, Dill pushed the stop button and then the one for rewind. He put the tape recorder and the earplug back into the ice-cream sack. Remembering his coffee, he picked up the cup and tasted it. He’d forgotten the sugar, so he put some in. He sat there at the marble soda-fountain counter, the same counter he had spent hours at as a child, and thought about the hole he had dug for himself. He marveled at its depth, and at the slipperiness of its sides, and wondered how he would ever climb out of it.
Chapter 36
Back in his room at the Hawkins Hotel, Dill showered and changed into his seersucker jacket and gray pants while Anna Maude Singe listened to the tape on the Sony. The tape was almost over when Dill slipped the jacket on, moved to the writing desk, and started putting coins, keys, airline ticket, and wallet into his pockets. The last item was the.38 revolver. He again shoved it down into his right hip pocket. She watched, but made no comment, and went on listening to the last words on the tape as they came over the earphone. When the words ended, she punched the stop button, then the rewind one, and said, “It’s dynamite.”
“I know.”
“Have you got a copy?”
“No.”
“You should have copies made.”
“I’ll let Spivey do that.”
“You’re giving it to him?”
“I think so.”
She nodded slowly. “Then you’ve made a pretty big choice, haven’t you?”
“Have I?”
“Sure. You’ve had to choose between your friend and your government, and you’ve chosen your friend.”