Ignoring the congratulatory shouts of the fans, Sam headed for the nearest exit, needing all of his will to avoid collapsing to the littered cement.
On the rink below, the havoc continued.
After changing and stowing his gear, Sam slunk quietly out of the arena. He had no idea how the game had turned out, nor did he care. Tessaro had been right: he should have stayed out of it.
But in many ways tonight had been inevitable for Sam. The tension had been building inside him like steam in an unvented pressure cooker, and if he hadn't cracked tonight, it would have come some other time, some other place. He was glad it was out. He was hurting—his mouth was still slick with the taste of blood, and his tooth was so loose he could wiggle it with his tongue—but he felt good, purged somehow.
The air was balmy on this mid-January eve, and a cheerful snow was falling. After a few minutes' walk, Sam unzipped his parka. The air felt good against his neck and abraded face. He could not remember having been so tired, but even that felt agreeable. The fatigue lay inside him like a gentle narcotic, and he lost himself in the easy pace of his stride. A block up from the arena, he crossed the street to cut through the parking lot of the Ledo Hotel. Behind him, headlights flickered on and a car crunched out of the lot, the low grumble of its engine receding into the night.
As he reached the crest of the Paris Street bridge and the hospital came into view, it occurred to Sam to stop in and see Peter. . . but more and more often of late when he visited his brother after dark Sam found him sleeping—or rather, off in one of his "trances." It was weird. In the two weeks since their mother's death Peter had been almost manically cheerful—although Sam sensed something counterfeit and distracted in this cheerfulness—reporting to Sam each day of his increasing ability to leave his body. They'd set up the computer ten days ago—the morning after their mother's interment—and already Peter had mastered the word processing software. Yesterday Sam had walked in to find him busily tapping the keys with the mouth-held striker one of the occupational therapists had rigged for him. . . but when Sam tried to sneak a peek, Peter had scrolled the screen blank.
Sam picked up his pace. On his way past the hospital, he glanced up and noticed that Peter's window was dark.
Suddenly his weariness didn't feel so good anymore. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to fall into bed, though he didn't relish the thought of that empty apartment. He still hadn't touched any of his mother's things, and he didn't know if he ever would. Maybe he'd have the Neighborhood Service people come by and fish through the litter. The reel-to-reel was still on the coffee table where she'd left it. There were even a few of her empties left scattered about.
Christ, that godforsaken tape. . .
Sam turned down the last dark street before his building, thinking that maybe in the spring he'd give up the apartment and find a room in residence. Yeah, that'd be better. Maybe even meet a few girls. He chuckled at this thought, barely mindful of the big champagne-colored Caddy that drifted past him from behind, high beams blazing. It rolled to the end of the street, the tarnished chrome of its bumpers gleaming as it glided beneath each mellow streetlight, then U-turned at the end of the block. Now it motored slowly back, its snow tires reeling up the tracks it had laid down during its first pass along the street. Sam squinted in the glare of the headlights.
Accelerating a little, the Caddy swerved into the curb ahead of Sam and then braked suddenly, its rear deck fishtailing. The hood, a large circle of which had been cleansed of snow by the heat of the Caddy's big motor, seemed to go on forever, and Sam wondered why a sane person would expose such a cherry antique to a northern Ontario winter. This baby was at least thirty years old.
Assuming its owner to be in need of directions, Sam started around the hood to the driver's side.
The Caddy lunged forward like a skittish horse, then nosedived as the driver stomped on the brakes. The front bumper buckled Sam's knees and he nearly fell. Angry and a little afraid, he whanged the hood with his fist, then got quickly out of the way. Cautiously he proceeded to the driver's side window, which was slowly humming down.
"Hey, man," Sam warned. "You ought to be more careful—"
The words died in his throat. He was looking into the inebriated face of Rhett Kiley. Underlit by the swampy green glow of the dash lights, Kiley resembled none other than Satan himself. And there were at least three other ape-size heads in there with him. The familiar reek of whiskey wafted out on a bank of cigarette smoke.
"Hey, boy," Kiley crooned. "You're the one who ought to be careful."
Roaring with laughter, Kiley flicked on the dome light, killing that wicked green shine but revealing a frightening convention of psychos. Sam recognized all but one of them.
Next to Rhett sat Jerry Jeter (and wasn't that a tire iron in his grease monkey's paw?). In the back on the far side slouched a still-grinning but subdued Bobby Kiley. The other guy, a barrel-chested giant with the big-boned features of a half breed, Sam had never laid eyes on before. But of the lot of them, this guy looked the meanest.
Sam decided to shin it.
"Get 'im!" Kiley squawked, and threw open his door. Sam leaned into a sprinter's stride, swinging his gym bag at the half-breed who popped out of the back with an almost magical swiftness. He'd managed barely a step before he lost his footing in the light dusting of snow. As he scrabbled for purchase, the opening door clipped him in the Achilles tendon, spinning him around and flipping him to the pavement.
He looked up into a circle of sneering faces.
A boot shot out and caught him in the ribs, Rhett Kiley's boot, and Sam felt something splinter inside him.
"Hit a man when he's down," Kiley roared. "How's it feel, fucknuts? You like it?" He lashed out again, grazing Sam's upper arm. "Eh, you gutless little spider?"
"Yeah!" Bobby cheered from the backseat. "Cave his fuckin' head in, Rhett."
Sam tried to get up, and the half-breed kneed him in the chest. "This the way you homos fight?" Sam rasped, clasping his damaged ribs. He was in a world of trouble here and he knew it. Tanked as they were, there was every good chance these crazies would kill him. "Three on one?"
"Fuckin' A!" Jeter crowed, and hammered Sam's kneecap with the tire iron.
Unable to help himself, Sam cried out.
"Listen to the piggy squeal," Rhett chanted in the merry tones of the brain-dead. "Why don't you call your bowling-ball brother? He'll come save ya. Just like he al—"
Lightning quick, Sam sprang up onto one bent leg like a Russian dancer and drove a boot into Rhett Kiley's nuts, doubling the big man over. Kiley's air rushed out in a whoosh, and he puked up a bellyful of booze.
Sam was almost standing when the tire iron tagged him on the side of the head.
Under the force of the blow, the commotion around him receded into a high-pitched pinging sound, like an approaching outboard heard from deep underwater. Drifting snowflakes turned into violent pinpricks of light, brilliantly coruscating, then faded to yawning black holes. Sam swung a fist that connected with nothing, registered a distant, hollow laugh, then collapsed in a boneless heap.
"Pick him up," he heard someone say. Far away.
(the half-breed)
Now he was rising effortlessly through space.
Floating. . . ?
Billy Moon, a half Cree Indian who owed Rhett a favor, drove a fist into Sam's exposed vitals, then kicked him in the face.
Sam free-fell into unconsciousness, the blows against his body perceived only as a patter of raindrops on a rooftop overhead.
Rhett tramped on the go-pedal, causing the Caddy to torpedo dangerously over the greasy snowfall. He grinned at the throb of aging pistons, imagining his dear departed daddy twisting miserably in his grave. The Caddy had been the old man's pride and joy. This would be the first winter it'd seen since Gord Kiley drove it new off the lot back in 1951, eleven years before Rhett was even born.
Ignoring the stop sign at the top of the street, Rhett careened through the po
orly lit intersection, narrowly missing an elderly woman in a green Volkswagen Rabbit. Whooping in spite of the ache in his balls, he reached over the seatback and grabbed the bottle of Jim Beam, which had begun making the rounds again as soon as they'd piled back into the car. He guzzled a liberal dose, then handed it over to Jerry.
In the backseat, Bobby was enthusiastically recapping the trouncing they'd given Sam Gardner. When he got to the part where Jerry had popped him with the tire iron, Jerry grabbed the heavy twist of iron from the floor mat and cracked himself on the bean with it. This struck Bobby as hilarious, and he howled until he almost puked.
A few minutes later, swinging onto Paris Street, Rhett spotted a cop car in the lot fronting the Plaza 69 pharmacy.
"Stash the bottle," he barked, and Jerry stowed it under the seat. Cruising at a respectable thirty, Rhett rolled past the lot and away. The cop didn't bat an eye.
Rhett sighed, sobriety trying hard to reclaim him. His brain was beginning to work again, and deep down, even though the jacked-up little cunt had really creamed his kid brother, Rhett felt a stab of guilt over the Gardner kid. They'd left him in the middle of the street, bloody and unmoving, and if that porch light hadn't come on when it did. . . well, Rhett guessed they might have killed him. Maybe he should've left the half-breed out of it. After all, vegetable or not, Peter Gardner had once been his best friend. . .
Rhett leaned a little harder on the accelerator, an unwelcome cloak of remembrance settling over him.
Yeah, those had been the days. As far as Rhett was concerned high school could've gone on forever, especially the senior years. Those had been Rhett Kiley's glory days, though it had taken him a few extra semesters to get there. Quite a few, actually. Football, chicks galore, that special breed of companionship you just couldn't find outside of a team sport. . . and Gardner had been the best of them. Poetry to watch him play ball. Utter fucking poetry.
But they were dead days, Rhett reminded himself. And the intervening years—six of them, although it might just as well have been sixty—had worked on him hard. At twenty-seven, Rhett looked like a man twice that age. Uncountable gallons of beer had slung an apron of fat around his middle, three packs a day of unfiltered Players had played hell with his lungs, and a total lack of exercise, combined with an atrocious diet of sweets, french fries, and burgers, had given him the bloated, puffy look of an aging Elvis. Bearing grease and engine oil had worked their way into his skin, and there was the permanent dank odor of sweat, smoke, and internal combustion about him.
Dead days, all right.
Unmindful of Rhett's ruminations, Jerry jabbed him in the ribs with the bottle. "'Nother hit, Rhe—"
Rhett batted the bottle aside, sloshing some of its contents onto Jerry's grease-spotted jeans. "I told you stunned fuckers to stow that!"
Jerry, who'd always admired Rhett Kiley—and feared him—stuffed the bottle out of sight. They were downtown now, rolling past the City Center.
In the backseat the big Indian said, "Let me out here," and Rhett swerved into the taxi lane fronting the shopping concourse. He was glad to see the back of Billy Moon. The guy was a psycho.
As they merged back into traffic, a gloomy silence settled in the car. Rhett had remembered something else about Peter Gardner, and now his knitted brow darkened with an old, undying grudge.
Gardner had stolen Kelly Wheeler from him. Rhett had never dated the girl, but he'd seen her first, had even pointed her out to Gardner in the halls. The greedy prick could've had any other pussy he wanted, but no, he had to go for the Wheeler bitch.
High-pockets whore thinks her shit doesn't stink.
Rhett's grip tightened on the wheel, and he tramped down spitefully on the gas, bulleting through the intersection at Elm and Lorne on the yellow, fishtailing dangerously. A city bus gave him the horn and Rhett leaned hard on his own, flipping the driver the bird. They were headed for Highway 144 now, and the lunar plains of the Copper Cliff mines.
There'd been some bullshit scuttlebutt about the bitch asking Gardner to the Sadie Hawkins dance, but Rhett had never bought it. That wasn't how it had played. His fucking friend had gotten a sniff of that sweet little stinkhole, and he'd just had to have her for himself.
Well, Rhett thought, uttering a stunted chuckle. Not only can the sorry schmuck not get it up, he doesn't even know where to find it anymore!
It served him right. Too smart. Just too fucking smart. But another, smoldering part of Rhett Kiley knew that Peter had quite simply been a better man, in every respect. No one had offered Rhett a football scholarship, but Gardner had turned down three of them. Kelly Wheeler would never even have given him the time of day if he hadn't been a friend of Peter's. Christ, the one time he'd gotten up the nerve to call her after the accident, hoping to catch her on the rebound, the snotty bitch had chewed him out over the phone, told him he had a lot of nerve and what kind of friend was he anyway?
Yeah, Kiley thought now. What kind of friend?
"Fuck it," he said aloud, bringing the Caddy to a sidelong halt on the roadside. They'd left the city behind, a faint parabolic glow in the congested night sky. Now, ice-scabbed Precambrian rock stretched out for miles on either side of them.
"Yeah," Jeter mimicked. "Fuck it."
Rhett smiled, showing a shiny gold tooth. "Let's get shitfaced," he said.
All and sundry agreed.
THIRTY
The intruder is still around. And she's wearing his ring. Oh, fuck, that makes me furious! And what's worse, I can't seem to touch her anymore. Not since Xmas. Trying to only makes me crazy. As melodramatic as it sounds, I think her feelings for the guy are protecting her somehow, insulating her.
It isn't fair. Kelly's mine.
But I'll get her back. It's just a matter of time. I'll get back inside. Then we'll see who she really loves. . .
Peter stopped typing and listened, his heart suddenly triphammering in his chest. The sound he'd heard came again—a voice, drawing nearer—and Peter tapped the Save button, exited his secret file, and switched the computer off. He tasted bile as he let the key striker drop from his mouth.
It was Dr. Lowe, marching toward Peter's room with his usual entourage, and the sound of his voice—cool, dry, imperious—gave Peter an unexpected shock; it was the first time he'd heard it in three weeks. Lowe had been away on his annual vacation in Florida—in previous years Peter had looked forward to this break almost as much as Lowe did—and in the delirium of the past weeks Peter had almost forgotten his feelings for the man.
From the sound of it, the time off hadn't diminished Lowe's enthusiasm for torment. Stationed outside Peter's door, he slipped automatically into his pre-visit sermon, modulating his voice so that to his students he appeared a paragon of discretion, but to Peter his words were plainly audible. He rambled on about Peter's "increasingly frequent bouts of torpor, characterized by deathlike paleness, near total cessation of autonomic functions, and a decrease in blood pressure which, under normal circumstances, would barely be compatible with life."
Peter let the words rattle the chains of his rage.
Turns you on, doesn't it, Lowe.
"His body temperature drops precipitously," the doctor lectured, "and his respirations become undetectable. Were one to fail to examine him minutely—his pupils continue to react, albeit sluggishly, and he does maintain a recordable blood pressure—a diagnosis of death might result."
Peter tuned the man out. In another few minutes he'd come flouncing in with his followers, oglers on a medical midway, fresh from eyeballing a cirrhotic liver and hungry for a glimpse of the talking head.
If the stupid little shits only knew what he was really capable of—
Why don't you show them? a persuasive voice cut in. Eh, bonebag? Why the hell don't you?
"Maybe I will," Peter answered with a whispered savageness that startled him. "Maybe I will."
Without knocking, Lowe strode into the room, students in tow. His smug smile slipped when his eyes met Peter'
s—the impotent anger he'd expected to find there had been replaced by something else, an amused secret light that danced gleefully—and the doctor looked away, giving the impression to his students of a child who has accidentally intruded on his copulating parents. The doctor tried to shift back into academic mode, but the transition was sloppy, and now the students looked ashamed, too.
"Come ahead in," Peter said, bugging his eyes. "I'll see if I can't go all catatonic for you."
Lowe stood silent, crimson creeping into the bronze of his Florida tan.
"I think we've picked a bad time," said one of the students, an attractive young woman in a starched white intern's jacket. Her gaze met Peter's with an open but compassionate frankness. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gardner," she said. Then she turned and walked out of the room. The others followed.
Still off balance, Lowe only stood there, his gaze flicking from his feet to the door and back again. Words perched on the runway of his tongue, but he seemed unable to get them airborne. In the silence, Peter realized this was the first time in years that he'd been alone with his doctor.
"I know about you," Peter said with a taunting half smile.
Lowe's doughy face jittered up—and now he was the child again, only this time caught with both hands stuffed deep in the cookie jar. A thin shine of sweat broke out on his brow. His pupils telescoped madly.
"What do you mean?"
"I know about you, Harry," Peter said again. "I know what you're into." His head levered up like the business end of a catapult. "And I am going to kick your lardy white ass!"
Lowe clutched the foot rail in a shoddy display of indignation. The doctor wanted very badly to dismiss Peter's words, to sling them back in the cripple's smug face. . . but he'd been caught so completely off guard by them that any meaningful response eluded him. Paranoia was like that.
He stood there a moment longer, gaping like a fish out of water. Then he scuttled out of the room.
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