Reality Check

by Peter Abrahams

  “Yeah. The thing is, she’s from Little Bend, too.” Cody glanced at Brand. “Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  Was he lying? Not that Cody could see. And why would he? Cody couldn’t think of a reason, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. “You’re not working on the disappearance?”

  “I wasn’t,” Brand said.

  277

  But now he was? A special agent from the state attorney general—how could that hurt? “We used to go out, me and Clea,” Cody said. “So when I heard the news, I came.”

  “Simple as that.”

  “Yeah. And when Sergeant Orton found out, he thought I’d make a good mole.”

  “Mole?”

  “Like a spy. But Colorado plates would have blown my cover, so he gave me the Vermont ones.”

  “Got it,” Brand said. “And what did the mole dig up?”

  Did Cody hear a little sarcasm in his tone? “Her cell phone, for one thing.”

  “Yeah?” said Brand; no sarcasm now. “Go on.”

  Cody told his story: the cell phone, what was on it, Bud getting shot, Sergeant Orton’s theories. It grew more and more disorganized, all these details mixing in—like his job at the barn, the “Bending” poem, Clea’s trust fund, the ownership of Midnight getting transferred and how he’d figured out that LB Corp. had to be the Westons—but Brand just listened, not once opening his mouth.

  Cody came to the end; maybe not the end, but he stopped talking. They sat in silence. After a while Brand said, “LB Corp.—Little Bend. Very clever on your part.” He took out his wallet, peeled off some bills. “Here.”

  278

  “What’s this?” said Cody, not taking the money.

  “Five hundred bucks,” Brand said. “We have a fund for situations like this. Call it traveling money.”

  “Traveling money?”

  “Time to go home,” Brand said. “Back to Little Bend.”

  “Huh?” said Cody. That made no sense.

  “The mole thing is over—and I’m talking tonight,” Brand said. He switched off the recorder. “Right now, this minute, we’re going to the barn, pack up your stuff, change those plates back, and then I’ll escort you out of town.”

  “No way.”

  Brand gazed at him for a moment, his face suddenly not quite so round and friendly, the hard bone structure somehow showing through. “I know it’s tough,” he said. “You’re a brave kid, and a competent one. But I can’t risk you getting caught in the switches.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means you’re in danger, Cody. I can’t protect you, so you can’t stay.”

  “Protect me from who?”

  “I’m not at liberty to get into that.”

  Cody shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Don’t turn this into a power struggle.”

  “I’m not turning it into anything. I’m staying, that’s all.”

  279

  Brand sighed. “The last thing I want to do is arrest you, lock you up, start getting complicated with the Colorado State Police.”

  “Arrest me for what?”

  “Attaching illegal plates, underage drinking, a few others I’ll think up if I have to.”

  So much for honesty and playing by the book. Anger awoke in Cody, turned hot very fast. “But I told you about the plates.”

  “That you did. You can stay in a cell while I check out the story.”

  Cody’s voice rose. “And you can’t prove I had anything to drink—you were outside.”

  “First,” said Brand, “I can smell it on your breath. Second, Phil is on my payroll.”

  “Phil?”

  “The substitute bartender.”

  Cody went silent. Very slowly, things began to realign in his mind, possibilities rising and falling, but nothing locking into place. He tamped down his anger.

  “Be reasonable,” Brand said, holding out the money. Could Brand really make all that trouble, locking him up, bringing in the Colorado State Police? Cody had no reason to doubt it. “Okay,” said Cody. “But I don’t want the money.”

  “Take it, please,” said Brand. “Otherwise you’ll just be 280

  handing me a nasty accounting problem.”

  Cody took the money—ten times what Sergeant Orton had given him, if that meant anything. Phil—fat old drunk at the end of the bar and part-time bartender—was on the payroll of the attorney general’s office. If nothing was what it seemed, then he, Cody, had to be like that too.

  Brand followed Cody to the parking lot by the barn, waited while he got his things. Cody went up to his little room, threw everything into his duffel, walked down the narrow stairs and back outside. Ike was standing by the door, his face yellow under the overhead light.

  “Goin’ somewheres?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like where?”

  “I’m leaving town.”

  “How come? You just started.”

  “It didn’t work out. Not because of you.”

  “Because of the academy people? Don’t pay no attention to them—off in the clouds.”

  “That’s not it either,” Cody said. A snowflake wafted down between them.

  “Suit yourself,” Ike said. “Don’t think Ike can’t manage on his own.”

  281

  “I know you can,” Cody said. He started moving away, paused. “Do you know Len Boudreau?”

  “Know to stay clear of him,” Ike said.

  “What is it he does, exactly?” Cody said. “Besides owning that bar.”

  “What don’t he do, more like it.” Ike spat in the snow; then his head jerked up abruptly, as though he’d been struck by a thought. “Don’t tell me you’re in shit with Big Len.”

  Cody shook his head.

  “’Cause if you are,” Ike said, “then best leave town for sure.”

  “Does he lend money? Is that it?”

  “Lend? He don’t lend nothin’.”

  But something to do with money, because Deirdre’s boyfriend was into him for over six grand. “Is he a gambler?”

  “Hell, no,” said Ike. “He don’t gamble. Bein’ a bookie’s a sure thing.”

  All that talk about point spreads, overs and unders, eight and a half, three and a half: The realignment that was going on inside Cody’s head sped up a little. “He’s a bookie?”

  “Big-time,” said Ike.

  “Big-time? In a small town like this?”

  Ike’s eyes narrowed; he looked offended. “Plenty of money in North Dover, goin’ back to earliest days.”

  282

  “Enough to support a big-time bookie, just from football bets?”

  “Football, basketball, whatever—lots of folks got a sickness, case you ain’t heard.” From the barn came the faint whinnying of a horse. Ike went still for a moment or two, then said,

  “Nothin’ to worry about—just Dusty havin’ a bad dream.”

  Cody carried his duffel down the path to the barn. He remembered that strange line from Clea’s letter: It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes. Like rolling the dice—a cliché that turns out to have real meaning. For a moment he thought he was about to put everything together, total understanding just seconds away; but it didn’t happen. A wind rose, very light; Cody felt a snowflake touch his face, and then another.

  Agent Brand was waiting by Cody’s car; he’d changed the plates, held the Vermont ones in his hand. “What happens with them?” Cody said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Agent Brand, opening the door for Cody. Cody tossed in the duffel. “Just follow me,” Brand said.

  “I’ll lead you as far as Route Two. After that it’s a straight shot across the state line to the Thruway.”

  “I can find my own way,” Cody said.

  “This is better,” Brand said. “Don’t worry—I’ll be in touch.”

  283

  “About what?”

  “Clea Weston. The moment we find anything, you�
�ll hear from me.”

  The wind rose a little higher, rattled the treetops. “Do you think she’s okay?” Cody said; a stupid, childish question, but Brand was smart, worked for the attorney general of the whole goddamn state, and Cody couldn’t keep it in.

  “Every case is different,” Brand said.

  “No bullshit,” said Cody, his tamped-down anger suddenly bursting out. “Tell me the truth.”

  “The truth in disappearances like this,” said Brand, his voice still mild, “the statistical truth, is that after the first twenty-four hours the odds go way down. After forty-eight, they go down some more, and then it’s pretty much a flatline situation.”

  Cody nodded. There was at least one similarity between Brand and Big Len: They worked the odds. He got in the car. Brand led him down the road, past the tennis courts and the hockey rink, to the Dover Academy gates. Cody’s headlights swept across a figure leaning against one of the stone pillars. Was it—yes, Townes DeWitt. Townes glanced at his watch, perhaps waiting for someone, as Cody drove by. Cody checked the rearview mirror, thought he saw Townes putting his cell phone to his ear. Then he rounded a corner and Townes was gone.

  284

  A few minutes later they crossed the town line, Brand’s sedan first, Cody four or five car lengths behind. They drove south, winding through dark hills, snow falling but still light, almost not present at all. A crossroads appeared: Route 2. Brand pulled over, stuck his hand out the window, waved Cody on. Cody passed him, hung a right onto Route 2, headed west. Brand flashed his lights. Cody sped up, drove over a long rise and around a corner, came to a lookout. He turned in and stopped the car.

  Going back right away? Probably not smart: Brand might be waiting, just in case. Cody sat there, lights off. After a while he took out the letter he’d lifted off the men’s-room wall at Big Len’s, the one from the Christmas parade committee. He switched on the interior light, read it a few times. Then he found a pen on the floor, went over the letter one last time: the letter to Len Boudreau, promising to send his corporation a charitable contribution report for tax purposes. Cody lowered the pen to the paper, circled the L in Len, the B in Boudreau, the corp in corporation. LB Corp. Nothing to do with Little Bend, Clea, or the Westons. Big Len now owned Midnight. Cody had jumped to a conclusion. Who had warned him against that? Sergeant Orton; Sergeant Orton, who had enlisted Cody’s help, while Agent Brand had tried to get rid of him. Did that make Sergeant Orton the one to trust? 285

  Cody wasn’t sure. He just did what he’d been intending anyway—had never even considered anything else. Headlights off, he swung the car around and headed back, east on Route 2. No one waited at the crossroads. Cody switched on the headlights and kept going. 286

  CODY DROVE BACK into North Dover. Everything looked different—Spring Street, the Rev, the village green, all changed. Crazy, but for the first time in his life he was really seeing, seeing the way things were. For example, the man-made part of the visual world—buildings, lights, roads—was no more than a pitiful veneer, could all be gone in a flash. For some reason that made him feel powerful, as though he were connected inside to the might of the great dark earth itself. His stickingplace: some deep anchor in the bedrock. He was the loner, the stranger, as Alex had said, who rides into town. A good feeling, and Cody took some moments of enjoyment from it before he returned to normal. “Get a grip, boy,” he said aloud, and turned up Mountain Road, the gateposts of Dover Academy two dark verticals up ahead.

  Cody drove through, his headlights sweeping over two figures standing near some bushes off to the side. Twenty or thirty yards ahead, he pulled to the side, cut the engine and got out. Snow still fell, still very light, like a dry mist. A voice—

  Simon’s voice—cut through the night.

  “He said no. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

  Cody walked back toward the bushes. No moon or stars, but the sky held a lot of reflected light from the town, much brighter than usual, maybe because of all those fine snowflakes. Two figures by the bushes—about an arm’s length apart—easily recognizable: the shorter, thinner one, Simon; the big one, Townes.

  “You whine a lot,” Townes said. “Anyone ever bring that up?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Simon said, with a firmness in his tone that Cody admired. “I was trying to do you a favor.”

  “You fucked it up.”

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “Ten grand? Bullshit.”

  “But enough so he asked questions.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “What we agreed—our plucky little start-up tale, those 288

  file-sharing widgets, whatever the hell it was.”

  “‘Plucky little start-up tale’? Do you ever listen to yourself?”

  “No. I haven’t reached your heights of solipsism.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Look it up.”

  Cody—maybe there was something in this new way of seeing after all—knew what was coming next, but Simon did not. “You flamer,” Townes said, throwing an overhand punch square at the middle of Simon’s face. Simon fell straight back in the snow.

  “Hey!” Cody said, coming forward.

  Townes whirled around. He looked surprised, but no more than that, and only for a second or two. “Get the hell out of here,” he said.

  Cody went right by him, bent over Simon. Back in Little Bend, he’d been in a fight or two, and witnessed some others, seen guys knocked cold by a sucker punch, but Simon’s eyes were open. “You all right?” Cody said. Simon didn’t say anything, just moved his hand gingerly over his face. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth. Cody reached down to help Simon up; at the same moment a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Cody turned.

  “You a little slow?” Townes said. “I told you to go—this is 289

  none of your business.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cody said.

  “The fuck I don’t.”

  An idea, a really good one, popped into Cody’s head. “Let’s see your wrists.”

  “Huh?” said Townes.

  “The left one. Pull up your sleeve.”

  “Are you on drugs or something?”

  “I’m going to have a look at your wrist, one way or another.”

  “In that case,” said Townes, “I’ll make it easy for you.” His gaze suddenly shifted, aiming over Cody’s shoulder. But Cody knew a little about fighting, was at least partly ready for the sucker punch that came next, and it glanced off his temple instead of smashing him in the face. A glancing blow, but still powerful; Cody staggered sideways. Townes was strong—

  maybe not as strong as Junior, but much quicker. Cody didn’t even see the second punch, left-handed, which caught him flush on the jaw. A bell-ringer; but Cody had had his bell rung before, more than once on the football field. The important thing was not to panic. Even if you were getting the shit kicked out of you, panic was bad. Junior had kicked the shit out of Cody plenty of times when they were little. Boys who grew up in Little Bend—boys like Cody, anyway—learned to take some 290

  hits. Cody backed away, shrugged off the pain—you could do that literally with pain, up to a point—and got his hands up. Townes came barreling in, a big strong guy, throwing punches with both arms; big, strong, and aggressive, but maybe not that knowledgeable about fighting. Cody took most of the punches on his shoulders and upper arms, kept his gaze on Townes’s enraged face, saw an opening, and threw a punch of his own.

  Townes’s head snapped back. For an instant he looked shocked, and then came fury, his lips jutting out, spit spray flying and a whirlwind of flailing blows. Some landed and some did not, but none did much damage: It was all a wild attack designed to induce panic, surrender, flight. Cody didn’t flee, moved the other way, in the unexpected direction, stepping inside and driving his left fist right into Townes’s gut. Townes doubled over. From down under, twisting up with all his strength—he hated
Townes, no doubt about that—he caught Townes on the point of the jaw with his right fist. But maybe not quite that accurate, Townes turning his head at the last instant, then falling forward, or diving, or some combination, a move that ended with Townes tackling Cody and falling on top of him.

  Townes clawed his way up to a straddling position on Cody’s chest. Panting, bleeding, he glared down at Cody, then 291

  grabbed a big double handful of snow and mashed it into Cody’s face. Cody squirmed, tried to move, to get out from under, could not. He couldn’t even breathe, felt like he was going to drown: panic time now. Townes pressed down on Cody’s face with all his weight and power, shoving snow up his nose, into his mouth. Cody tried to wriggle away, got his head averted just a bit. Townes made a growling sound, changed the angle of his arms slightly to keep the heavy pressure on Cody’s face. That little movement allowed Cody to jerk one arm free, strike Townes in the neck with the side of his hand. Townes grunted in pain and all at once didn’t feel quite so strong and heavy. Cody sliced up at his neck again, this time hitting him right on the windpipe. Townes made a choking, gagging sound and sat up straight, clutching his own neck. Cody twisted out from underneath, scrambled to his feet. Townes rose too, panting harder—they were both panting—his breath whistling in his throat. Cody saw rage in his eyes, murderous rage, and was sure his own eyes looked the same. He raised his hand, made a little gesture with his fingers, meaning Let’s go. Townes cocked his right fist, charged forward, threw a tremendous punch at Cody’s head. Cody ducked, just a few inches—actually feeling the breeze as Townes’s fist flew by—and hit Townes with just about all he had left, this time right on the button for sure. Townes went down and stayed down.

  292

  Cody bent over him, fumbled back Townes’s left sleeve, and found no shark tattoo on his wrist, no tattoo of any kind. Just in case Sergeant Orton and Vin the tech guy had made a mistake, Cody checked the right wrist, too, also sharkless. He let Townes’s arm go. It flopped back in the snow, limp; but Townes was breathing all right.

  From behind came a groan. Cody turned, saw Simon getting to his feet. His nose was bleeding and crooked; his eyes were wide.

  “Did you kill him?” Simon said.