His current joint is down to a nubbin. He butts it on the outcrop between BD+GL and MANDY SUCKS. He stores the roach, inspects the contents of his fanny pack, and debates between a skinny jay and a fatty. He decides on the jay. He’ll smoke half of it, eat the Kit Kat bar also stashed in his fanny pack, then putt-putt his way back to his apartment.
He gets lost in the bright images playing out a quarter of a mile away and ends up smoking almost all of it. He hears the John Williams music in his head and vocalizes, keeping it on the down-low in case anyone else is nearby—unlikely at ten PM on a Thursday night, but not impossible.
“Zum-de-dum-dum, zum-de-DAH, zum-de-bum-zum, zum de—”
Cary stops abruptly. He just heard a voice… didn’t he? He cocks his head to one side, listening. Maybe it was his imagination. Dope doesn’t ordinarily make him paranoid, only mellow, but on occasion…
He’s about decided it was nothing when the voice speaks up again. Not close, but not all that far away, either. “It’s the battery, hon. I think it’s dead.”
There’s nothing wrong with Cary’s eyesight, and from his vantage point he quickly spots the location of that voice. Red Bank Avenue will never be in the running as one of the nicest streets in the city. There are the Thickets on one side, crowding the few paths and pushing through the wrought-iron fence. On the other are warehouses, a U-Store-It outfit, a defunct auto repair shop, and a couple of vacant lots. One of those was home to a bedraggled little carnival that picked up stakes after Labor Day. In the other, next to a long-deserted convenience store, is a van with the side door open and a ramp sticking out. There’s a wheelchair next to the ramp with someone in it.
“I can’t stay here all night,” the wheelchair occupant says. She sounds old and wavery, a little irritated and a little scared. “Call for help.”
“I would,” says the man with her, “but my phone is dead. I forgot to charge it. Do you have yours?”
“I left it home. What are we going to do?”
It won’t occur to Cary until later—too late to do any good—that the woman in the wheelchair and the man with her are projecting their voices. Not much, not yelling or anything, but the way actors onstage project for the audience. Later he’ll realize that he was the audience they were playing to, the guy sitting on Drive-In Rock with the joint winking on and off like a locator beacon. Later he’ll realize how often he stops off here for awhile on his way home from the bowling alley, smoking a doob and watching the movie across the way.
He decides he can’t just sit there while the old guy goes off looking for help, leaving the woman alone. Cary is your basic good person, more than happy to do the occasional good deed.
He makes his way down the slope, holding onto branches to keep from going on his ass. He gives his moped—faithful pony!—a little pat as he passes it. When he reaches one of the Red Bank Avenue gates out of the park, he walks down the sidewalk until he’s opposite the van. He calls, “Need a little help?”
It won’t occur to him until later, in the cage, to wonder why they picked that particular place to park; an abandoned Quik-Pik store is hardly a beauty spot.
“Who’s there?” the man calls, sounding worried.
“Name’s Cary Dressler. Can I—?”
“Cary? My goodness, hon, it’s Cary!”
Cary steps into the street, peering. “Small Ball? Is that you?”
The man laughs. “It’s me, all right. Listen, Cary, the battery in my wife’s wheelchair died. I don’t suppose you could push it up the ramp, could you?”
“I think I can manage that,” Cary says, crossing the street. “Indy Jones to the rescue.”
The old lady laughs. “I saw that movie at the old Bijou. Thank you so much, young man. You’re a lifesaver.”
Roddy Harris is telling his wife how he and their rescuer know each other. Cary grabs the wheelchair handgrips and aims the chair for the ramp. Small Ball stands back to give him room, one hand in the pocket of his tweed jacket. Cary is so high that he doesn’t even feel the needle when it goes into the back of his neck.
July 23, 2021
Holly arrives at the Fourth Street municipal parking lot half a block from the Frederick Building and swipes her card. The barrier goes up and she drives in. It’s 8:35 AM, almost half an hour before the appointed time for her meeting with Penny Dahl, but the Dahl woman is also early. There’s no mistaking her Volvo. It has large photos of her daughter taped to both sides and the back. Printed across the rear window (probably a moving violation, Holly thinks) is HAVE YOU SEEN MY DAUGHTER and BONNIE RAE DAHL and CALL 216-555-0019.
Holly parks her Prius next to it, which isn’t a problem. There’s no shortage of spaces in the lot; it used to be packed by nine, with the SORRY FULL sign out front, but that was before the pandemic. Now large numbers of people are working from home, assuming they still have jobs to work at. Also assuming they are not too sick to work. The hospitals emptied out for awhile, but then Delta arrived with its new bag of tricks. They aren’t at capacity yet, but they’re getting there. By August, patients may be bedding down in the halls and snack stations again.
Because Ms. Dahl is nowhere in sight and Holly is early, she lights a cigarette and walks around the Volvo, studying the pictures. Bonnie Dahl is both pretty and older than Holly expected. Mid-twenties, give or take. She guesses it was partly the thing about Dahl riding her bike to and from the Reynolds Library that made Holly expect a younger woman. The rest was how much Penny Dahl’s voice reminded Holly of her late mother. She supposes she thought Bonnie would look sort of like Holly had at nineteen or twenty: pinched Emily Dickinson face, hair pulled back in a bun or ponytail, fake smile (Holly had hated having her picture taken, still does), clothes designed not just to minimize her figure but to make it disappear.
This girl’s face is open to the world, her smile wide and sunny. Her blond hair is short, cut off in front in a shaggy, sun-streaked fringe. The pictures on the sides of the car are full-face portraits, but the one on the back shows Bonnie astride her bike, wearing white shorts with V-cuts on the sides and a strappy top. No body consciousness there.
Holly finishes her cigarette, bends, scrapes it out on the pavement. She touches the blackened tip to make sure it’s cold, then places it in the litter basket outside the swing gate. She pops a Life Saver into her mouth, puts on her mask, and walks down to her building.
Penny Dahl is waiting in the lobby, and even with the mask Holly sees the resemblance to her daughter. Holly puts her age at sixty or thereabouts. Her hair might be pretty with a touch-up, but now it’s rat-fur gray. Neatly kept, though, Holly adds to this first assessment. She always tries to be kind. Ms. Dahl’s clothes are clean but slapdash. Holly is no fashionista, far from it, but she would never put that blouse with those slacks. Here is a woman for whom personal appearance has taken a back seat. Across the requested N95, in bright red letters, is her daughter’s first name.
“Hello, Ms. Dahl,” she says. “Holly Gibney.”
Holly has never liked shaking hands, but she offers an elbow willingly. Penny Dahl bumps it with her own. “Thank you so much for seeing me. Thank you so very, very much.”
“Let’s go upstairs.” The lobby is empty and they don’t have to wait for the elevator. Holly pushes for the fifth floor. To Penny she says, “We had some trouble with this darn thing last year, but it’s fixed now.”