Which was maybe why those fantasy guys didn’t satisfy Jon anymore. Nolan was everything they were and more: he was real, both perfect and imperfect, everything. A superhero couldn’t come up to Nolan’s standards.
Did it matter that Nolan was a thief? Not really, Jon thought, his opinion shaded by the fact that he, too, was a thief of major proportions, since that bank job a year and a half ago. It wasn’t what the heroes stood for, it was the way they stood for it that mattered. Jon remembered seeing the film White Heat, where the so-called good guy Edmund O’Brien double-crossed Jimmy Cagney. Cagney was a psychopathic murderer, but he had style. When they showed White Heat at the U of I student union last month, every-body in the house had booed that son of a bitch Edmund O’Brien.
He was picking out one of the “Vault of Horror” issues to read when he heard the phone ringing out in the store. He had the urge to jump off the bed and run out there and see if it was Nolan calling, but he repressed the urge. He’d made up his mind that he was not going to jump up and down like a spastic puppy for the chance to talk to Nolan. Besides, Jon had nothing to say, really, and Nolan just about never had anything to say.
No. This was business between Nolan and Planner (even though Jon was up to his ass involved in that business) and Jon would stay cool, the way Nolan would expect him to.
“Hey, Jon boy!”
The sound of Planner’s rough voice made Jon’s heart leap. Nolan had asked to talk to him! Imagine that.
Jon joined Planner out in the store and Planner said, “It’s for you... it’s that woman.”
Jon didn’t let the disappointment show in his voice. “Karen,” he said, “Good morning, honey.”
“Morning my ass, Johnny. It’s two-thirty. Did you just wake up?”
“Yeah, ’bout half an hour ago.”
“Me, too. I’m hung over as hell.”
“Me, too. Did we have a good time last night, Kare? I can’t remember it too clear.”
“We had a couple good times. You had breakfast?”
“I slept through it, just like you did.”
“We missed lunch, too, you know. Come on over to the apartment and I’ll fix you some eggs.”
“And sausage?”
“You drive a hard bargain. And sausage.”
“That sounds good.”
“Then maybe a little later I can refresh your memory about last night.”
“That sounds better.”
“Get your cute little ass over here, Johnny.”
“Will do.”
Jon hung up and noticed Planner’s reproving gaze. Jon grinned and said, “I know, I know, she’s too old for me.”
“She’s old enough to be your mother.”
“Oh, bull. You’re old enough to be my grandmother. And I don’t hold it against you, do I?”
“No, but I’ll bet you hold it against her,” and now Planner, too, was grinning.
“What would you do in my place?”
“The same damn thing, nephew. The same damn thing.”
“Thought so. All this time you’ve just been jealous.”
“Sure, kid. That broad’s just about the right age for me.”
Jon walked over to the row of penny candy Planner kept along the counter for the school kids from across the street. He took a piece of bubble gum from one of the glass bowls and unwrapped the gum and tossed the pink square into his mouth. He chewed it up good and walked back to Planner and blew a healthy bubble and popped it at his uncle.
“Smartass kid,” Planner said, trying not to smile.
“See you later, unc,” Jon said, and went out the back way.
4
The older man took his time eating the ice cream cone. It irritated Walter that his father could be so calm, just sitting there eating that goddamn ice cream as if they were at the beach or something. He was irritated enough to speak, and in a tone more harsh than he generally dared use when he spoke to his father. He said, “How can you just sit there and eat that goddamn stuff?”
The older man said, “What?”
“I said... nothing. Nothing, Dad.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Now what did I tell you? I told you don’t be nervous. We’re going in and do it and we’ll be out and done in nothing flat. So don’t be nervous, understand?”
“I’m not nervous.”
The older man studied his son’s face carefully. The boy was naturally pale, but he seemed to be even whiter than usual. But aside from shaking his foot on the leg crossed over one knee, the boy was showing no overt signs of tension.
“It’s not going to be hard,” the older man said. “I’ll handle all the hard stuff. All you have to do is back me up and keep your damn wits about you.”
“I know, Dad.”
“But I won’t lie to you. It won’t be pleasant in there.”
“You told me.”
“It won’t be pleasant in there because that’s the way it has to be.”
“You told me a hundred times, Dad.”
“Don’t smart-mouth me.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t. And I’m just telling you this because I look at you right now and you know what I see? I see a kid, I see a goddamn college kid who’s liable to go in there and crap his pants, and I can’t afford that, understand, and you can’t afford it either.”
“Dad...”
“You didn’t have to be part of this. I didn’t want you to be part of this, remember. But you wanted to help. You begged me to help. Fine, that’s fine talk, but this is now, this is right now and we’re about to go across that street and do the kind of thing they don’t teach you in school, understand, so if you want out now, say so, for Christ’s sake.”
“Dad...”
“I’ll drive you back to the lodge. Right now. I’ll drive you back to the goddamn lodge and come back down here tomorrow and do it alone.”
“Dad, you couldn’t do it alone...”
“I could. It wouldn’t be no goddamn picnic, but I could.”
“I’m not nervous, Dad.”
He looked at his son and saw resolve in the young face. He smiled briefly and squeezed his son’s arm, reaching over the box with the newspapers and guns in it to do so.
He felt better now, now that he could have confidence in his son again. But that ice cream, which had gone down so smooth, so easy, so cool and refreshing, the damn stuff was churning in his stomach, making him feel queasy. All of a sudden he was nervous, and it almost made him laugh. Worrying about his son being nervous had got him that way.
Funny, Walter thought, where the hell did that outburst come from? His father had been sitting there for an hour, looking so calm it was unnatural, as though he were on pot or something. And then out of nowhere the old man had let go with this practically hysterical lecture. Walter was stunned; he never would have suspected that his father’s placid surface was hiding such turbulent undercurrents.
Not that he hadn’t had the notion that something was (how should he put it?) wrong with his father. Right now he was wishing he could summon courage to look at his father, to study him, observe his behavior. (Walter was a business major, but he’d taken several psychology courses as electives.) He wondered now, as he’d wondered more than once in the past few weeks, if his father was, well, sane.