“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe something did use Dorrance as an errand-boy. But why?”
“And what do we do now?” she added.
Ralph could only shake his head.
She glanced up at the clock squeezed in between the picture of the man in the raccoon coat and the young woman who looked ready to say Twenty-three skidoo any old time, then reached for the phone.
“Almost three-thirty! My goodness!”
Ralph touched her hand. “Who are you calling?”
“Simone Castonguay. I’d made plans to go over to Ludlow with her and Mina this afternoon -there’s a card-party at the Grangebut I can’t go after all this. I’d lose my shirt.” She laughed, then colored prettily. just a figure of speech.”
Ralph put his hand over hers before she could lift the receiver.
“Go on to your card-party, Lois.”
“Really?” She looked both doubtful and a little disappointed.
“Yes.” He was still unclear about what was going on here, but he sensed that was about to change. Lois had spoken of being pushed, but to Ralph it felt more as if he were being carried, the way a river carries a man in a small boat. But he couldn’t see where he was going; heavy mist shrouded the banks, and now, as the current began to grow swifter, he could hear the rumble of rapids somewhere up ahead.
Still, there are shapes, Ralph. Shapes in the mist.
Yes. Not very comforting ones, either. The), might be trees that only looked like clutching fingers… but on the other hand, they might be clutching fingers trying to look like trees. Until Ralph knew which was the case, he liked the idea of Lois’s being out of town just fine. He had a strong intuition-or perhaps it was only hope masquerading as intuition-that Doc #3 couldn’t follow her to Ludlow, that he might not even be able to follow her across the Barrens to the east side.
You can’t know any such thing, Ralph.
Maybe not, but itfelt right, and he was still convinced that in the world of the auras, feeling and knowing were pretty nearly the same thing. One thing he did know was that Doc #3 hadn’t cut Lois’s balloon-string yet; that Ralph had seen for himself, along with the joyously healthy gray glow of her aura. Yet Ralph could not escape a growing certainty that Doc #3-Crazy Doc-intended to Cut it, and that, no matter how lively Rosalie had looked when she went trotting away from Strawford Park, the severing of that cord was a mortal, murderous act.
Let’s say you’re right, Ralph,-let’s say he can’t get at her this afternoon if she’s playing nickel-in, dime-or-out in Ludlow.
What about tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?
What’s the solution? Does she call up her son and her bitch of a daughter-in-law, tell them she’s changed her mind about Riverview Estates and wants to go there after all?
He didn’t know. But he knew he needed time to think, and he also knew that constructive thinking would be hard to do until he was fairly sure that Lois was safe, at least for awhile.
“Ralph? You’re getting that moogy look again.”
“That what look?”
“Moogy.” She tossed her hair pertly. “That’s a word I made up to describe how Mr. Chasse looked when he was pretending to listen to me but was actually thinking about his coin collection. I know a moogy look when I see one, Ralph. What are you thinking about?”
“I was wondering what time you think you’ll get back from your card-game.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not we stop at Tubby’s for chocolate frappes.”
She spoke with the air of a woman revealing a secret vice. “Suppose you come straight back.”
“Seven o’clock. Maybe seven-thirty.”
“Call me as soon as you get home. Would you do that?”
“Yes. You want me out of town, don’t you? That’s what that moogy look really means.”
“Well…”
“You think that nasty bald thing means to hurt me, don’t you?”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
“Well, he might hurt you, too!”
“Yes, but…” But so far as I can tell, Lois, he’s not wearing any of my fashion accessories. “But what?”
“I’m going to be okay until you get back, that’s all.” He remembered her deprecating remark about modern men hugging each other and bawling and tried for a masterful frown. “Go play cards and leave this business to me, at least for the time being. That’s an order.”
Carolyn would have either laughed or gotten angry at such comicopera macho posturing. Lois, who belonged to an entirely different school of feminine thought, only nodded and looked grateful to have the decision taken out of her hands. “All right.” She tilted his chin down so she could look directly into his eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing, Ralph?”
“Nope. Not yet, anyway.”
“All right. just as long as you admit it.” She placed a hand on his forearm and a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the corner of his mouth. Ralph felt an entirely welcome prickle of heat in his groin. “I’ll go to Ludlow and win five dollars playing poker with those silly women who are always trying to fill their inside straights. Tonight we’ll talk about what to do next. Okay?”
“Yes.” Her small smile-a thing more in the eyes than of the mouthsuggested that they might do a little more than just talk, if Ralph was bold… and at that moment he felt quite bold, indeed. Not even Mr. Chasse’s stern gaze from his place atop the TV affected that feeling very much.
CHAPTER 14
It was quarter to four by the time Ralph crossed the street and walked the short distance back up the hill to his own building.
Weariness was stealing over him again; he felt as if he had been up for roughly three centuries. Yet at the same time he felt better than he had since Carolyn had died. More together. More himself Or is that maybejust what you want to believe? That a person can’t feel this miserable without some sort of positive payback? It’s a lovely idea, Ralph, but not very realistic.
All right, he thought, so maybe I’m a little confused right now.
Indeed he was. Also frightened, exhilarated, disoriented, and a touch horny. Yet one clear idea came through this mix of emotions, one thing he needed to do before he did anything else: he had to make up with Bill. If that meant apologizing, he could do that.
Maybe an apology was even in order. Bill, after all, hadn’t come to him saying, “Gee, old buddy, you look terrible, tell me all about it. “No, he had gone to Bill. He had done so with misgivings but that didn’t change the fact, and-Ah, Ralph, j’eez, what am I going to do with you? It was Carolyn’s amused voice, speaking to him as clearly as it had during the weeks following her death, when he’d handled the worst of his grief by discussing everything with her inside his head.
… and sometimes aloud, if he happened to be alone in the apartment.
Bill was the one who blew his top, sweetie, not you. I see you’re just as determined to be hard on yourself now as you were when I was alive.
I guess some things never change.
Ralph smiled a little. Yeah, okay, maybe some things never did change, and maybe the argument had been more Bill’s fault than his.
The question was whether or not he wanted to cut himself off from Bill’s companionship over a stupid quarrel and a lot of stiff-necked horseshit about who had been right and who had been wrong. Ralph didn’t think he did, and if that meant making an apology Bill didn’t really deserve, what was so awful about that? So far as he knew, there were no bones in the three little syllables that made up I’m sorry.