“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.
“wordless The Carolyn inside his head responded to this idea with incredulity.
Never mind, he told her as he started up the walk. I’m dolg ihi, for me, not for him. Or for you, as far as that goes.
He was amazed and amused to discover how guilty that last thought made him feel-almost as if he had committed an act of sacrilege. But that didn’t make the thought any less true.
He was feeling around in his pocket for his latchkey when he saw a note thumbtacked to the door. Ralph felt for his glasses, but he had left them upstairs on the kitchen table. He leaned back, squinting to read Bill’s scrawling hand: true, Dear Ralph/Lois/Fave/Whoever, I expect to be spending most of the day at Derry Home.
Bob Polburst’s niece called and told me that this time it’s almost certainly the real thing,-the poor man has almost finished his struggle. Room 313 in Derry Home I.C.U. I’s about the last place on earth I want to be on a beautiful day in October, but I guess I’d better see this through to the end.
Ralph, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time this morning.
You came to me for help and I damned near clawed your face off instead. All I can say by way of apology is that this thing with Bob has completely wrecked my nerves. Okay? I think I owe you a dinner.
… if you still want to eat with the likes of me, that is.
Faye, please please PLEASE quit bugging me about your damned chess tournament. I promised I’d play, and I keep my promises.
Goodbye, cruel world, Ralph straightened up with a feeling of relief and gratitude. If only everything else that had been happening to him lately could straighten itself out as easily as this part had done!
He went upstairs, shook the teakettle, and was filling it at the sink when the telephone rang. It was John Leydecker. “Boy, I’m glad I finally got hold of you,” he said. “I was getting a little worried, old buddy.”
“Why?” Ralph asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Maybe nothing, maybe something. Charlie Pickering made bail after all.”
“You told me that wouldn’t happen.”
“I was wrong, okay?” Leydecker said, clearly irritated. “It wasn’t the only thing I was wrong about, either. I told you the ’judge’d probably set bail in the forty-thousand-dollar range, but I didn’t know Pickering was going to draw judge Steadman, who has been known to say that he doesn’t even believe in insanity.
Steadman set bail at eighty grand. Pickering’s court-appointed bellowed like a calf in the moonlight, but it didn’t make any difference.”
Ralph looked down and saw he was still holding the teakettle in one hand. He put it on the table. “And he still made bail?”
“Yep. Remember me telling you that Ed would throw him away like a paring knife with a broken blade?”
“Yes.”
“Well, score it as another strikeout for John Leydecker. Ed marched into the bailiff’s office at eleven o’clock this morning with a briefcase full of money.”
“Eight thousand dollars?” Ralph asked.
“I said briefcase, not envelope,” Leydecker replied. “Not eight but eighty. They’re still buzzing down at the courthouse. Hell, they’ll be buzzing about it even after the Christmas tinsel comes down.”
Ralph tried to imagine Ed Deepneau in one of his baggy old sweaters and a pair of worn corduroys-Ed’s mad-scientist outfits, Carolyn had called them-pulling banded stacks of twenties and fifties out of his briefcase, and couldn’t do it. “I thought you said ten percent was enough to get out.”