Phone tag time.
When I reached the gate I tapped the horn, prompting the woman to hit the button and open it without so much as looking up from her crossword puzzle.
Sean could have been lying about a Griffon cop pulling him over. But then, if the incident never happened, what kept Sean from getting to Patchett’s in time to pick Claire up and deliver her to Iggy’s? The kid, at least in the short time I’d spent with him, didn’t impress me as a very good liar, or a killer.
But they’d found Hanna’s missing clothing in his truck. Not good. Not good at—
I blame distraction for what happened next. I pulled out of the police station parking lot and nearly hit a black Escalade. Hard to miss, given that the thing was big enough to have orbiting moons. The truck swerved and the man behind the wheel shot me the finger.
I slammed on the brakes, hard enough to make the tires squeal.
I should have seen it. But I just didn’t.
I took a second to collect myself and let the Escalade get a block ahead. Gave the brake pedal a couple of soft, reassuring taps, then continued on my way.
There was someone I’d been meaning to pay a visit to, but just hadn’t had a chance to get around to it. I had a feeling this person was not going to be very happy to see me.
I figured there was a good chance he wasn’t even out of bed yet.
When I got to the house I was looking for, I found a red Mustang convertible, top up, parked in the driveway. There was no BMW there, which told me Annette Ravelson was at work.
Just as well. I didn’t want her around when I talked to her son, Roman. I could still feel the dull thud in my head where he’d hit me at Patchett’s.
I rang the bell. After ten seconds, I rang it again. Then I banged on the door. When a minute had gone by, I tried the doorbell again, but this time I held my thumb on it. Inside the house, the chime rang relentlessly.
I could hold out as long as he could.
After about five minutes of this, I heard someone inside the house shout groggily. “Okay, okay! Fuck! I’m coming.”
I kept my thumb on the button. I heard a dead bolt turn. The second the door swung open, I got my foot in, thinking that once Roman saw me, he’d try to slam it shut.
He did.
The door hit the side of my shoe, bouncing back and catching Roman’s toes.
“Shitfuckshitfuckshitfuck!” he screamed, hopped, and stumbled backward.
I stepped into the house and closed the door behind me. Roman, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts with little red hearts all over them, was collapsed on the broadloom, holding his left foot in both hands, whimpering.
“Hi, Roman,” I said. “How’s it hanging?”
Forty
The man wonders who was at the door. He’s always curious when he hears a knock, or the doorbell upstairs. It’s been so long since he’s had a chance to talk to anyone. At least, anyone other than his wife and their son.
The man sits up in bed to listen. Maybe he’ll be able to hear voices. He doesn’t even have a radio or a TV down here. There haven’t been any unfamiliar voices in so long.
Well, other than that one visitor, just the other week. But he’d had so few words to say. Ran off in such a hurry. Scared to death, probably.
The man barely had time to ask for help. Or toss over his notebook. He figured if his visitor needed proof, the book would do it.
But all this time’s gone by, and no one’s come. Still, anytime he hears someone at the door, he wonders, and hopes.
In the meantime, he spends most of his time in bed. Sometimes he gets himself into the chair, wheels himself around. But where’s he going to go? What’s the point?
So he just stays in bed and reads magazines.
And sleeps.
And dreams.
About going out.
Forty-one
“You fucking broke my toes, man!”
I knelt down and had a look. “Try to wiggle them.”
Roman Ravelson wiggled his toes.
“I don’t think they’re broken,” I said. “But then again, I don’t hold a medical degree.”
I offered my hand to help him get up, but instead he crawled two feet over to the stairs and used them to pull himself to a standing position. His skin was milky white, like he’d spent the last few years in a cave. Maybe he only came out at night. There was a little roll of fat over the elastic of his boxers, and sheet creases in his pudgy cheeks.
“Did I get you up?” I asked.
“I was out late,” he said. “You should leave. If you don’t leave, I’m gonna call my mom.”
I got out my cell. “Want to use my phone? You can tell her how you practically knocked me out last night.”
“That Sean— Jesus— I was trying to help him and he gives me up just like that. My mom told me you said to say hi. You wanted to fuck with my head, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Your dad home?” I recalled Annette saying Kent Ravelson was out of town.
Roman blinked a couple of times, like he was kick-starting his eyes. “He’s — my dad’s away or something.”
“When’s he coming back?”
The young man shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of him.”
“You want to put on a shirt or anything? I’ve got a few questions.”
Roman sighed. “Fuck. Follow me.”
He started trudging upstairs. I followed him to the second floor, down the hall, and into his bedroom. Bumping his toes with the door appeared not to have crippled him for life.
His room was decorated hurricane-style. Bed unmade, clothes all over the floor. Magazines, video games, everything arranged helter-skelter. The walls were plastered with movie posters. 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Dance of the Dead, Zombieland, Dawn of the Dead.
I was definitely picking up a theme here.
On the floor next to the bed, atop a pile of clothes, was an open laptop. Roman picked it up, looking for something to wear. The motion made the screen, which had been asleep, come to life. I caught a glimpse of text, arranged in what looked like play format.
A script.
He tossed the laptop on the bed, found a black T-shirt he liked, and pulled it on. It was a couple of sizes too small and just barely covered his stomach. Across the front it read.
I pointed to it. “I don’t know that place. It’s not from around here.”
He gave me a “duh” look. “It’s the pub where they’re trapped in Shaun of the Dead. You’ve seen it, right? It’s only one of the best zombie movies ever made. It’s scary, but it’s also funny as fuck.”
“Sorry,” I said. Now I pointed to the laptop. “You writing a zombie movie?”
“Maybe,” Roman said.
“What’s it about? Haven’t zombies been, forgive me, kind of done to death?”
“You just have to find a new angle. I’ve got one.”
I waited.
Roman took a breath. “Okay, most zombies, it happens because of a plague or an experiment or something like that. But what if people were turned into zombies by aliens? A mash up of two different genres. My hero is this guy named Tim who knows what the aliens are doing and tries to stop them.”
I nodded. It sounded dumb to me, but when had dumbness ever kept an idea from being turned into a movie?
“You might have something there,” I conceded. “You got a regular job, Roman?”
“This is my job. I’m a screenwriter.”
“So, then, how much do you make, I don’t know, on a weekly basis, writing your scripts?”