And despite himself, despite all that he knew about how to approach people like Jack Lucas-people who, as Lucas had put it, believed that "everything's got a logical explanation … if you can't touch it or smell it or taste it or fuck it, then by God it doesn't exist!"-Ryerson had answered, "An evil entity." Which elicited a half minute's worth of hooting laughter from Lucas-laughter so loud and uncontrolled, in fact, that one of the detectives in the outer office had stuck his head in and said, "Is everything okay here?"
But evil entity fit, Ryerson thought now, as he maneuvered the Woody down Minerva Street on his way to Eddy Street, then to Frank's Place, where, he was sure, he'd find Captain Lucas.
But there was this, too; if each of those obscenely pulsating dark gray smudges on a field of soft, pretty pale blue represented an evil entity-or, as Joan preferred it, a demon-then each of those smudges had to signify a person, too. Ryerson knew this as certainly as he knew that the sun would set, though it had taken Joan to make him see it clearly. "I don't know where they come from," she'd told him. "I guess they come from the same place that all suffering and loneliness and pain comes from. From us. From all of us."
He stopped for a red light at the corner of Minerva and Eddy streets. He looked first right, then left, hoping to see a sign that said "Frank's Place," but he saw only a succession of tattered two- and three-story brick buildings in both directions. Near the center of the block to his left there was a sign that read GREYHOUND PACKAGE EXPRESS, and beyond it a neon sign was flashing the word "EAT" in green. On impulse, he turned right.
Upon reflection now, he thought that Jack Lucas had had good reason to toss him out of his office, because he'd handled the whole thing badly. He'd let the grotesque and deadly scenario developing in Buffalo overcome his good sense. Because while "evil entity" had elicited a half minute's worth of hooting laughter from Captain Lucas, "demons" had gotten a full minute's worth of stony silence. Angry and unreadable silence. "I don't believe in demons!" he had said finally. "And I think that anyone who does is a child."
"Yes," Ryerson nodded, "I agree-that is, of course, if we're talking about the archetypal demon that climbs out of hell to take possession of us. And I'm not talking about that at all, Captain. I'm talking about the demons we create." That, Ryerson remembered, had clearly touched a raw nerve with Lucas.
"Whatever . . . problems any of us have, Mr. Biergarten," he'd begun, "are ours to deal with in our own way."
"You don't understand; I'm sorry, Captain, you don't understand. I'm not talking about psychic demons; I'm not talking about behavior, I'm talking about things we can touch, and feel, and taste-they're your criteria, after all. I'm talking, for instance, about this woman-"
And that's when Lucas had thrown him out.
~ * ~
Ryerson saw a small, weathered, handmade sign just ahead-dark blue letters on a white background: FRANK'S PLACE it read. He pulled over to the curb, locked all the Woody's doors, glanced about. There were a couple of haggard-looking men on the sidewalk, and, as Ryerson watched, they went into Frank's Place. Moments later he followed.
~ * ~
Benny Bloom knew that most of the kids at Buffalo Pierpont High School thought he was a nerd. But that was okay, because a nerd, by definition, was different, and different was usually better. It was all a matter of perception. Being thought of asa nerd was one thing, but actually being a nerd was something else entirely. Being a nerd was a privilege and an honor. If you were a nerd, it meant that you were above average, it meant that you were superior.
Or so Benny told himself.
In practice, Benny thought, being a nerd was a damned lonely business. The only people who wanted to hang around nerds were other nerds, and nerds as a group were boring.
Nerds didn't get any girls, either. Unless they were girl nerds.
And Benny Bloom wanted girls. Not girl nerds. He wanted the cheerleader types, the foxes with creamy white thighs and huge breasts and softly sculpted necks. The trouble was, the only ones who got those girls were jocks-the guys with meat for brains and tree limbs for arms, and pants three sizes too small at the crotch. The guys who could say "Hi, baby" and get away with it (Benny had said "Hi, baby" once, just to try it out, because he'd heard the jocks say it. "Baby?" asked the particular cheerleader type he was talking to. "What do you mean?" Benny shrugged. "Jeez, I don't know," he answered. "Just that, I guess? 'Hi, baby.' I was just trying to be friendly. I didn't mean anything by it. I'm sorry." "Don't mention it," said the girl, smiling to herself, and walked off).
And Benny had wondered more than once what it would be like to be a brainy jock, the kind of guy who could say "Hi, baby," and quote T. S. Eliot in the same breath.
"Hi, baby," he said now (at approximately the same time that Ryerson Biergarten, Creosote in his arms, was sitting down at the bar at Frank's Place), and Nurse Carlotta Scotti answered, "Sorry, Benny, but did you just say something?"
And turned away from her, his buttock exposed for yet another shot, he said again, "Hi, baby," and added in the same breath, "In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo."
"What woman is that, Benny?" Nurse Scotti asked.
"Hi, baby," he said again.
And she said, half scoldingly, "No, Benny, please don't flex your buttock, it only makes it harder to get the needle in."
But Benny wasn't flexing his buttock. Benny was changing.
~ * ~
The bar at Frank's Place had a high sheen from too much varnish and was streaked with beer. When the bartender asked, "What's your poison?" he looked like he really meant it.
"Ginger ale," Ryerson answered.
"Uh-huh," said the bartender, raising a very thick and bushy eyebrow. "One tall ginger ale coming up."
"Actually," Ryerson said, as Creosote strained mightily to lick his chin, "I was looking for someone." He glanced about. Frank's Place was all but empty. At the rear the two haggard men who'd come in before him were seated at a small wooden table playing cards. At the opposite end of the bar a buxom woman in a tight green dress sipped at what looked like a water glass full of whiskey. As he glanced at her, she glanced at him, grinned, looked away. Ryerson repeated, "I was looking for someone, but I-"
"Her name's Doreen," said the bartender, and nodded at the woman in the green dress.
Ryerson said, "No, you don't understand. I was looking for a man."
"Not here you don't look for no man," the bartender growled.
"I'm afraid you still don't understand," Ryerson said. He stopped. An image had shot from the bartender's mind to his. "Have you got a back room?"
"A back room? What for?"
Ryerson shrugged. "For whatever."
"Yeah?" said the bartender, leaning over the bar. "What kind of whatever?"
Creosote finally found Ryerson's chin and gave it a long, loving lick.
The bartender nodded. "You talkin' about something with that dog? Is that what you're talking about, mister? If it is-"
Ryerson decided it was time to change the subject. "Do you know a man named Lucas?"
The bartender shook his head immediately. "Don't know no one named Lucas."
And from the opposite end of the bar the woman drawled, “Ah do."
Ryerson looked at her. She had the water glass full of whiskey poised at her lips. "Whatchoo want with old Lucas?" She took a slug of the whiskey, put it down hard. "You a friend a his? You don't look like no friend a his."