“I wanted to see what you had on her. She thinks you’re trying to blame her for Sara and Egan.”
“You mean Rita?”
The forest animals were enjoying this. It was Tv for them. I could hear them scurrying, sliding, slithering to get closer. Two human beings talking. Life didn’t get much better than that.
“I love her, McCain. I don’t want to see her go to the gas chamber.”
“That’s one you don’t have to worry about, Donny. In Iowa, we hang people. There isn’t any gas chamber.”
“Really? Hang people?”
“I don’t like it, either. But that’s what we do.
No liquor by the drink because that’s against God’s law. But hang as many people as you want. That’s just fine.”
“Please, McCain. Please help me. I think gangrene’s setting in.”
“Listen, Donny, I’ve got a saw in my car. I’ll go get it and we’ll have that gangrene cut away in no time.”
“McCain, I’m not kidding. I saw this Western once where the guy died of gangrene.
He was foaming at the mouth and everything.”
“That’s rabies, Donny. Not gangrene.”
“He had rabies? I didn’t think cowboys could get rabies.”
God only knew what that meant.
So I went down there, of course. And helped him, of course. And all the time I was doing my best to examine his leg he was bitching, of course. He was going to tell his dad how long I’d taken getting down here to help him. And his dad was going to sue me. And possibly give me rabies.
His leg was broken. I tried to feel sorry for Donny but you just can’t. Maybe if he really did have rabies you could. But short of rabies, it was real, real hard to feel sorry for Donny under any circumstances.
The shin bone of his right leg was now snapped in two, the ragged upper part of it having torn through the flesh.
I said, “I have to say something, Donny. If my leg were busted like that, I’d do a lot more yelling than you have.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s get you to my car and get you to the hospital.”
“Do you have a comb?”
That was Donny. A comb. Sure he was ugly, sure he was short, sure he was mouthy, but dammit he had great hair. Just like Elvis’s.
Just ask him.
His hot rod, he told me, was parked over near the ranger cabin.
“You know what he’ll do, don’t you, McCain?” he said.
“Who?”
“The park ranger.”
“What’ll he do?”
“Take my car for a spin.”
“Yeah, I can see that. He’s in his late forties, he lives in that small cabin with his wife and three kids, he’s probably already in bed and asleep. And he’s gonna get up and take your car for a spin.”
“People resent the fact that my old man has all that money.”
“No, they don’t, Donny. They resent the fact that you’re an asshole.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. Not consciously, anyway. It was like I was on automatic pilot except this was automatic insult.
“I’m sorry I said that, Donny.”
“It’s all right, McCain.”
“No, it isn’t, Donny. I apologize.”
“I know what people think of me. The only one who really gets me is Rita. I bought her those boots, she wore them once, and now she says they hurt her feet and she can’t wear them. That’s the one that hurts, McCain.
Rita.”
“Gifts aren’t going to get you anywhere with a girl like Rita, Donny.”
“Then what the hell is, McCain? I’ve tried everything.”
I helped him stand on his good leg. “If I had the answer, Donny, I’d be happily married and have three or four kids.”
Getting up the side of the ravine was no fun.
He wanted to do it on his own. I didn’t blame him. Men should always try and look manly even if it means damn near killing themselves in the process.
Trip to the car, trip to the hospital, uneventful. He just talked about how much he loved Rita. It got tiresome. But then I remembered how tiresome I must have been back in the days when I still held out hope for me and the beautiful Pamela Forrest. Sometime, somewhere, everybody in his or her lifetime gets tiresome over somebody. That’s as certain as death and taxes.
“I tried to make her jealous once,” he said as we approached the hospital.
“What happened?”
“She told me she thought this other girl and I made a cute couple.”
“I could see where that would piss you off.”
“Then I tried not paying any attention to her.”
“How’d that one go?”
“Well, after three weeks and four days, I went up to her said, “Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t been paying any attention to you?” And she said, “Oh, Donny, I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy. So you really haven’t been paying any attention to me?””
“That mst’ve hurt.”
“That’s when I started buying her stuff, McCain. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
As we were wheeling into the emergency end of the hospital, he said, “My folks think I’m a fool.”
“You are a fool, Donny. And so am I and so is everybody else.”
I took him inside and they got to work fixing up his broken leg. He was a lot more concerned about Rita than he was his broken bone.
Linda said, “I guess I’m pretty tired, Sam.”
“So maybe I’d better not pop in, huh?”
A hesitation. “Sam.”
There are a lot of ways you can say “Sam,” but when it’s said the way she had just said it, it’s never good news.
“Yes.”
“Sam, I-”
“You’re not ready for this.”
Another hesitation. “It’s so confusing, Sam.
And I feel I sort of-used you, you know.”
“I like being used that way.”
I was in a phone booth outside a noisy bar. The red neon of the place lent the night a gaudy humanity. People getting together to get drunk. Some staggering their way in, some staggering their way out. The happy ones were the ones who had girls to stagger out with him. If they had a girl, their grins made them look like kids, no matter how old they were.
“I just need some more time alone, I guess.”
“I probably rushed things, Linda. I’m sorry.”
“No, Sam. I rushed things. I had to find out how a man would react to- So I wouldn’t think all men were like my ex-husband.”
“I had a good time, Linda. I hope I can see you again.”
“There’s this shrink I see in Iowa City. I think I need to start seeing her again. I guess she’s an expert at dealing with women who’ve had -y know, the kind of operation I’ve had. And I’m not going to drink, either. Liquor just confuses me.” Then, “I’m really sorry, Sam. If it were some other time in my life-” Then, “G’night, Sam.”
I drove around. I couldn’t tell you where. I wasn’t in love with her. That wasn’t it. But it had felt good to be with her. Dating around had turned me into a pretty superficial guy. You said what you were expected to say on dates. There wasn’t much genuine contact. But with Linda-Easy for me to say, I finally realized as I slipped into bed that night. She’s the one with the mastectomy. She’s the one who has to beat the cancer odds. All I have to do is show up on dates wearing clean underwear.
Twenty-two
I slept. It was escape sleep. Sometimes you sleep because you’re tired, sometimes you sleep because you’re bored. I slept because I didn’t want to think anymore. Not about three murders, not about Linda.
In the morning I got up and burned myself a decent breakfast, showered, got into a fresh suit and tie, and got to the office half an hour earlier than usual.
Molly came along soon after.
God had sent her from on high. She’d brought two cardboard containers of steaming hot coffee from the caf@e down the street.
“I just thought you might like some coffee.”
She waited patiently while I took a couple of calls from the courthouse about two of my trials being postponed. She looked wan and worn but somehow that only enhanced her kind of coltish beauty.
When I was done, she said, “I just wanted to see how things were going.”
“Not well. Mostly running into walls.”