“The ’Stang,” he said, pointing at his car.
“The snake’s in there?” Raymer said, pleased to have his original narrative confirmed. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad cop after all. He just needed to trust his intuitions. Except Jerome was now regarding him like he was some Asperger’s patient introducing a random subject into a normal conversation. As if snakes had no bearing upon these proceedings at all.
“There,” he said, his face a rigid mask of revulsion and also, unless Raymer was mistaken, sheer rage. Sighting along Jerome’s index finger, he patiently waited for the snake to make its next move and reveal itself. Why the hell couldn’t he see it? The vehicle sat on a slant, just as they’d left it, athwart two spaces. Except now, he noticed, the bright red paint bore a deep silver furrow that ran the length of the car.
He stood up and went over for a closer look, approaching cautiously, since his mind was still fixed on the cobra. There was an identical gash along the other side, and the cloth roof was in tatters. When he bent over to peer inside, he was greeted with a powerful scent of urine. Swatches of foam stuffing had exploded out of the slashed leather seats.
Jerome was still on his knees, glaring at him now. “The ’Stang,” he muttered. “Why?” As if Raymer owed him an explanation.
“Who knows…,” he started, but when he put a hand on his shoulder, Jerome slapped it away with surprising violence and snapped, “You crazy bastard.” Was it possible that he was somehow blaming him? “I should’ve known,” he said. “You were in there too long.”
“In where?”
“The men’s room.”
Was the man insane? “Jerome,” he said, “why would I want to damage your car?”
“Why would I want to damage your car?” he mimicked, as if there was a reason and they both knew perfectly well what it was.
Raymer gave up trying to figure it all out. Maybe Jerome wasn’t snakebit, but he seemed to have surrendered his rationality completely. “Look,” he said, “I can’t stand here and reason with you. I’ve gotta go find that snake.” (It was unlikely, it occurred to him, that he’d ever again have reason to utter these two statements sequentially.)
“I hope it sinks its fangs right in your buttocks,” Jerome said.
“You mean bites me in the ass?”
“You take my meaning perfectly.”
Heading back to the Morrison Arms, Raymer again called Charice on the radio. “Come see to your brother.”
“I thought you said he’d gone back to Schuyler.”
“Somebody vandalized the ’Stang,” he explained. “Don’t ask me why, but he’s got it into his head that I did it.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”
For some reason this assurance occasioned in Raymer an unexpected wave of relief. Which was beyond nuts. He was drunk on duty and his headache had returned with a vengeance and he was about to confront a venomous reptile. What possible difference could it make that Charice was on her way? And why, he wondered, did he at this particular moment find himself picturing the butterfly tattooed on her backside? Hadn’t he expressly forbidden himself to do this very thing? Okay, so the brain was a strange, unruly organ. His own probably stranger than most. Though not, thankfully, as strange as Jerome’s. Something about Charice’s reaction a moment ago suggested she wasn’t entirely surprised by her brother’s irrationality. He made a mental note to ask her about that.
At the curb he paused, looked in both directions, and then, because it was, at least for the time being, still his job to serve and protect, he moved forward.
Impulse
HANGING UP the pay phone in the hospital lobby, Roy Purdy went outside to wait for his mother-in-law in the bruising heat, his neck immobilized in a stiff brace, one arm in a sling. He was in better spirits than might’ve been predicted for someone who’d just escaped a freakish death. Some people might have been chastened by the experience, or at least unnerved enough to seriously contemplate their mortality. A religious man might even have considered the possibility that God had hand-delivered him a warning: that his act needed cleaning up right quick, before the real boom got lowered.
Roy, however, was neither religious nor easily chastened. If any deity meant to communicate with him, it would need to speak louder and more clearly. Because if a person was to attach meaning to that collapsing wall, might not he conclude just as sensibly that God, or luck, or the cosmos, or whatever was out there deciding shit, was disposed in his favor? Maybe even had his back? Had his best interests at heart? His mouthy mother-in-law had expressed the view that bad luck trailed him, but then she’d always held him in low esteem, so naturally she’d think so. But no, sir. The more Roy thought about it, the more inclined he was to agree with the hospital staff, which to a person had marveled at his good fortune. Not only was he alive when he could’ve been dead, but there was every indication he was going to come out of this smelling like the proverbial rose. According to the ER doctors, he’d be good as new in no time. Meanwhile, he’d find himself a lawyer willing to work on spec and sue everybody connected with that renovation, as well as the whole town. At the very least he’d end up with a new vehicle to replace the piece-of-shit beater the wall had pancaked. Add to this his pain and suffering. Who knew? There might be a huge pile of cash waiting for him. Better yet, the pretense of looking for work could now be safely dispensed with. He’d be on the workmen’s-comp gravy train for the foreseeable future, living the life of Riley, whoever the fuck he was. Maybe he’d find out. See if he could do ole Riley boy one better.
Moreover, though painful, the present was almost as gratifying to contemplate as the future. Everything in the ER was free. The bastards had known it was going to be, too, the moment he was wheeled in. The woman who’d typed his information into her computer had given him the hairy eyeball. No insurance. No job. No prospects. Residing at the Morrison Arms. Sure as shit, somebody else would be picking up the tab on this one. That did Roy’s heart good. Hell, they hadn’t even charged him for the pain pills. They were good ones, too, the kind he’d be able to sell for top dollar, not that generic shit. Yessiree, a man inclined to look on the bright side — and Roy was one — had plenty to look at. Nobody wanted a fractured collarbone, but once you had one, why not make it to your advantage? Sure, it represented a short-term setback. For the next few weeks he’d be a sore motherfucker with a limited range of motion from the shoulders up, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. He’d been of a mind to start crossing names off his list but, really, where was the hurry? Cooling his jets and thinking things through might not be such a bad idea.
Say what you want about the joint, incarceration did afford you time to reflect. On Roy’s most recent stay, working in the prison laundry, he’d come to recognize — with the help of a grizzled old con by the name of Bullwhip — that he had a problem with impulse control. Oh, Roy was capable of sound, careful planning, but then he’d glimpse an unexpected opportunity and all his preparation would sail right out the window. Next thing he knew he was being cuffed and shoved into the backseat of a squad car. “Impulse control,” Bullwhip assured him knowingly. “I know whereof I speak. You and me’s cut from the same bolt of cloth.” Normally Roy didn’t like anybody identifying flaws in his character, but Bullwhip appeared so sorrowful and sympathetic that he decided to give the man a pass. Because even Roy had to admit there was some truth in the man’s reluctant diagnosis. If Roy continued to allow himself the luxury of acting on every passing whim, the best he could hope for was to square up with one or two people on his list, whereas he was determined to get even with every single one of them. And Bullwhip was right. That was going to require patience.