by Rex Bolt
At least not in current time.
Now that was another idea, an obvious one, and he was surprised he just thought of it . . . Could you go back, and maybe do something borderline illegal, and just get the heck out of there?
Or would the same law enforcement dude, a few years older but with the same chip on his shoulder, track you down the normal way anyway? Especially since you look exactly like you did 5 or 10 or whatever years ago in travel time, and you stand out like a sore thumb?
Pike tried to project out various scenarios. If you went back and strong-armed the idiot with a threat, to never, ever set foot in Palm Springs . . . and even if you got away with it, would that do the trick?
It might or might not. Probably no. The Minnesota guy might find his way there anyway, maybe just by accident, which wouldn’t be surprising, given quirky the way these alternate-reality deals had been playing out.
Even so, it could still be worth taking the chance, and confronting him in the past . . .
Except for the minor fact that Dani was still going to drown Chuck in the three feet of water in that hot tub.
Then you’d have someone else staying at the resort, who maybe developed a stomach ache and just happened to step outside for some air and saw something . . . or Chuck himself might have made a comeback after Dani pulled him out and was getting ready to perform fake CPR, forcing her to grab him by the throat in broad daylight to finish the job.
Not to mention . . . you had the issue of Pocatello PD sharing their suspicions with Palm Springs.
Pike said to Dani, “If I tell you to hang in there--does that help?”
“Not really,” she said. “But you’re a good kid. Thank you for checking on me.”
“Oh come on . . . Kid.”
“Well is that so bad? Every day simple and carefree? You should embrace it, while you can . . . You know I’m right.”
She was wrong, but forget that. What he knew . . . unfortunately . . . was he might actually have to go back and somehow deal with Chuck.
Hopefully not, but it was sure shaping up that way.
Chapter 5
The plan Monday was to talk to Henry after school. Pike was putting it off, didn’t want to get involved in it ever, much less this soon after going through the Chico ordeal. But he’d told Henry at the gas station, before he’d had to bend down and crank the side of his SUV off the ground to make his point, to tell his brother to hold on.
The brother of course, according to Henry, had been paralyzed many years ago in a high school football game, as about the most unlucky kid in the world, since it happened in the first game he ever played. Henry said it was in San Francisco, that now the brother was living in Monterey, and after putting up a good fight, was losing his will pretty bad. From hearing Henry tell it when he ran into him at that gas pump, Pike had the sense the brother wasn’t going to be around much longer.
That was another thing--if you waited until a guy died, could you then effectively do anything about it in the past, or did you have to take care of it while the guy was still hanging on?
Then it dawned dawned on Pike . . . Oh my God. What am I talking about? Mrs. Milburn died, that was the whole point . . . And Chuck, who he had plans for, was currently dead as a doornail himself.
That was the thing . . . There were so many complications to the travel, details and quirks were legitimately hard to keep straight, that you’d get mixed up on the most basic stuff . . . Unbelievable.
At any rate it sure seemed like forever since that little encounter with Henry, but Pike realized it was only a week ago, last Monday evening. He’d been cruising around sort of killing time, and Henry was too, while his daughter was playing a basketball game she didn’t want him to watch.
Come to think of it, about an hour before that was when Hannamaker told him, guess what, he was going out with Cathy now. Pike had no good reason to have a problem with that, but he did anyway, though it wore off.
Meanwhile . . . he had to deal with a normal school day before anything else. One class he was taking that he shouldn’t have was advanced algebra. The reason was, on the slim chance that he ended up in a decent 4-year college, most of them required it.
The teacher Mr. Hendock graded tough, and Pike was limping along in the class and had lost points a couple times for being absent when he had to travel. Plus he cut class once or twice which didn’t help.
But forgetting all that, the interesting thing, in the aftermath of Chico, was you had the same teacher, the same period, 4th, the same classroom, but the seating was different . . . (also the textbook was different, but that was no big deal).
The way it worked before though, you came in and you could sit wherever you wanted, and Pike usually sat next to Amos Stillman from football. Hendock learned your names pretty quick, and could call on you no problem wherever you were sitting.
The deal now was there was a seating chart, and you had to abide by it. Pike figured teachers used seating charts when they needed help figuring out who everyone was . . . That was another thing, Mr. Hendock had glasses now, which he didn’t pre-Chico, and he had to keep taking them on and off for stuff, such as reading the seating chart before he called on someone.
Pike took his new permanent seat in the second row, and at some point the girl next to him was called up to the blackboard to work out a problem. Pike hadn’t noticed her before, and he tried to place her, and he couldn’t, but it wasn’t the way she looked so much as her mannerisms that reminded him of Audrey.
As they shuffled out of there at the end of class Pike said excuse me and asked her her name, and she said Andrea, and without thinking too hard he asked for her number, and she shrugged her shoulders and gave it to him.
Pike was alarmed but also intrigued by this, the name similarity on top of the familiar-gestures part. He ran into Amos Stillman a couple periods later and asked about Andrea, and Stillman said he’d seen her around, and that was about it. Not much reaction from Hannamaker either when he asked him, though Jack said he was pretty sure she’d only showed up this year.
School got out and Pike weighed touching base again with Andrea, but unfortunately he had Henry on his plate. It wasn’t automatic that he could even find the guy, since he didn’t have any information on him, not even his last name, but he knew Henry lived in Uffington, and worst scenario Pike supposed he could get in touch with that kid Anthony who he’d visited in the hospital over there after he injured him in the game.
Anthony’s sister was friends with one of Henry’s daughters and supposedly one thing led to another and someone recognized Pike sticking his stumb out on Meade Street that day and the dad, Henry, stopped and picked him up. One minor thing Pike remembered now, Henry said his brother’s name was Jeff, and they’d grown up in the Marina District of San Francisco.
This stuck in his mind only because when the Giants won their first World Series a few years back, Pike and a couple other kids went up there to try to get some autographs, and the word was some of the players lived in the Marina District. They banged on a few doors but didn’t get anywhere, and the final house they tried, the guy, who definitely wasn’t a player, threatened them with a pit bull.
But coming back to right now . . . did he really have to find Henry today?
Hmm . . . Pike took out his phone and hesitated for a second, and then texted this Andrea girl.
He gave it ten minutes and she didn’t reply so he figured he’d try to find Henry after all and got in his truck and headed northbound toward Uffington. Halfway there was a hot dog stand that had been at that spot forever. The dogs weren’t much but it was sort of a local landmark, the place set up like a Hawaiian thatched hut, and they had fresh lemonade for free if you got the three dog special, which Pike did, and as he wolfed it all down he noticed Andrea had returned his message.
So he called her direct. “You know, the guy from class today,” he found himself saying, slightly embarrassed to be calling her, since he himself didn’t exactly know why he was.
“Okay, I know you now,” she said.
“So . . . what’s up?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” she said. This wasn’t off to the greatest start. She didn’t sound suspicious exactly, but more like irritated.
“No big deal,” Pike said, “I just want to ask you a couple questions . . . How would that be?”
“I don’t know . . . abnormal comes to mind,” she said. She didn’t laugh, but it sounded like she was lightening up just a little, probably more out of curiosity than anything else.
Pike checked the time. “Good . . . so when would work?”
“Well, I have about five minutes right now, before I get picked up,” she said.
Pike said, “Nah, I was thinking, you know, sit down or something . . . You like ice cream?” The ice cream theme had been popping up more regularly lately. Meanwhile he’d been listening to her carefully, in case anything she said reminded him of Audrey. He wasn’t getting that vibe so far, but it was hard to tell.
“I do,” Andrea said, “but I have to be careful. I dance.”
“So?”
“So . . . I’m cognizant of healthy eating. Is there a problem with that?”
Gee, fancy way of saying it. “Who’s picking you up?” Pike said.
She delayed a moment and then said, “My boyfriend, if you don’t mind . . . Do you have an issue with that now as well, I suppose?”
“Not at all. What’s his name?”
“Anthony DiVincenzo.”
Unreal. That was the same Anthony kid, who Pike tackled and knocked out of the game, way back on that Friday night in September when the whole shebang started.
He said, “Wait a second . . . he goes to Bellemeade . . . correct?”
“My, you’re quite nosy, aren’t you?” Andrea said, though the edge was coming off and she was more friendly.
“I’m just saying . . . I think I know him, but he . . . didn’t used to go to our school.” Not entirely surprised at another possible post-Chico wrinkle. Which would also mean he probably didn’t injure the guy in the game now, because Anthony would have been on his team.
“I have to go,” she said, it sounding like Anthony himself was pulling up.
“Meet me at 7 at the ice cream place downtown,” Pike said. He hadn’t intended it that way, but there was an authority to how the words came out that was different than the rest of their conversation.
“And . . . if I don’t?” she said.
“Then I’ll be sitting there twiddling my thumbs like an idiot,” he said, and she hung up.
Pike wiped the excess mustard from the three dog special off his hands and got back in his pick-up. Now what?
One way might be continue to Uffington as normal and find Henry, or at least ask around and get a bead on where he lived. That would mean if Andrea did show up at the ice cream place, which Pike gave about 25 percent odds of, he’d be stiffing her after inviting her.
Sometimes stiffing folks could work out in your favor. Mr. McMillan in History, who liked to get off-topic a lot and tell stories, told one that cracked up the class and resonated with Pike. Before he became a teacher Mr. McMillan partnered up with another guy and tried flipping houses . . . It occurred to Pike now that Mr. McMillan could have bought a how-to course off some late night guru, such as Dani’s ex-husband, but that was beside the point.
They had this one house fixed up and ready to go, and to save on a broker’s commission they put it on CraigsList and tried to sell it themselves. They held an open house but by accident neither of them showed up, both thinking it was the other guy’s turn to show the place. A few people called up real angry, that’d they’d gone to the open house but couldn’t get in.
A lightbulb went on for Mr. McMillan and his partner, that the best strategy was never show up, since even though you’d continue to make people mad, the serious buyers would get in touch with you regardless, and they almost wanted the place worse now because the sellers didn’t seem to care.
It was definitely an instructive little story, and Pike filed it away because you never knew, but in this case showing up at the ice cream place seemed the right thing to do, even if meant taking your lumps when she stood you up.
So forget heading over to Uffington for now and opening the can of worms with Henry’s brother, and Pike turned around from the hot dog place and went back home and down to The Box to kill an hour.
Hannamaker was in there with headphones on, playing drums to music. Pike got comfortable and Jack finished off whatever he was playing to with a buzz roll and a cymbal crash and he took off the head stuff.
“Darn good,” Pike said, “at least to my untrained ear. Don’t stop on account of me, I’m fine with the noise level.”
“Man, women,” Jack said.
“Oh yeah? You already got a new variation on a theme, it seems like.”
“Speak English there bro, I’m not in the mood,” Jack said.
“Why don’t you speak English? I’m mean last time I’m here, you got something with some new babe, that seemed obvious.” It wasn’t obvious but there was something up, and Pike was testing him.
“Now when was that?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I drop in to make a phone call, and there’s this serious perfume going on.”
Jack shook his head. “Had to help my old man all day yesterday,” he said. “Yard work and dump runs.”
“Oh,” Pike said. Thinking, could it have been his little sister in there, or something? . . . But that didn’t add up.
“So you imagining the shit, or what?” Jack said.
Pike was wondering if maybe he really was. “That’s weird,” he said.
“Who were you making your big phone call to anyway, where you needed the incredible isolation of The Box?” Jack was half-smiling, giving him the look.
“Ah, that Dani person again.” Pike felt himself going too far, but what could it hurt, another set of ears. “She’s in some trouble, it sounds like.”
Jack didn’t pick up on it like Pike sort of wanted. He said, “Well yeah? . . . I mean you could say they all are.”
Pike said, “I can’t a hundred percent disagree with you there . . . But getting back to yesterday, I don’t think I’m insane . . . Anyone else possibly have a key or something?”
Jack said, “Yeah, Foxe does. You gave it to him . . . what’s wrong with you?”
“I did? Heck . . . when would I have done that?”
“A couple, three weeks ago, when we finished constructing the thing . . . We had that little get-together. You and Jocelyn, me and Alicia, Foxe and Cathy Carlisle . . . Jeez, come on.”
“And I went out and got pizza?” Pike said.
“I did,” Jack said. More variation on the original, where it had been Cathy and Audrey coming over, awkward for various reasons including the fact that Pike and Jack had had alternating histories with both of them. In that reality, pre-Chico, Pike had gone for the pizza to let Jack have to deal with settling things down, if required.
Pike said, “Fine . . . Except why on earth would I give that son of a bitch the key to the basement?”
Jack’s face compacted and he took a hard look at Pike. “You made a big deal about it. How the guy’s been through a lot, and to please make himself comfortable any time . . . ‘Free reign’ was how you put it, I think.”
“He’s been through a lot . . . what?” Pike was afraid he might know part of the answer, and he realized with some alarm that he hadn’t followed up yet as to what the current story was with Foxe’s dad.
“You know,” Jack said, “the mom all screwed up. The DUI’s, losing her license, embarrassing the family.”
“Wait . . . what about the dad?”
“What about him?”
“Everything . . . cool . . . with him then?”
“Far as I know,” Jack said, eyeballing Pike suspiciously again.
“The mom,” Pike said, “she ever, like hurt anybody? . . . With the car, or some other way?”
&nb
sp; “Almost, this last time. That was the thing. She rode up on that center divider on Highland, where they jog and bike and shit. The bike guy lands on her windshield . . . Dude honestly, if I didn’t know you better I’d say for sure you got Alzheimer’s.”
“But the guy was okay?”
“Like I said, lucky.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Aw come on . . . couple months.”
“And she lost her license, for how long?”
“Six months, what they said . . . I’ve been giving Foxe rides when he needs ‘em. So have you, for God sakes.”
Pike took a minute to process all this. Jack started playing drums again. When he stopped Pike said, “And Cathy? Did I ever date her?”
“Not unless it was under-the-table secret,” Jack said, trying to joke about it but clearly still wondering about Pike’s mental state.
This was one good thing then. That meant Cathy wouldn’t know about his super-strength, which he never should have laid on her back then. It was a relief that she wasn’t burdened by that surreal secret anymore.
“So . . . bottom line then,” Pike said, trying to bring everything current, confusing as it was, into the here-and-now, “it was Foxe and Cathy hanging out in The Box yesterday.”
“Pardner, your guess is as good as mine,” Jack said. “But who else is there?”
One thing Pike was learning was these days you could never close the door on a Who else could or What else could type question, but it was as good an answer as any, he supposed, and he’d have to try to get along with Foxe now, even though it killed him to have Cathy hanging out in his basement with the guy.
Chapter 6
Pike waited until 7:15 rolled around and figured that was it on this Andrea girl, it had been a shot in the dark . . . But not to let the effort be a total waste he ordered a black and tan sundae which took the edge off slightly.
He was in the middle of it when surprisingly a text came in, that she couldn’t leave her house tonight, but he was welcome to stop by.
