I dropped onto an upended wooden box, popped the top of the beer. Jimmy leaned against the table. There was one spindly chair in the room and he gestured Alice to it with his beer and a tentative smile.
"No," she said, with no smile at all.
So the chair stayed empty as I sat and Jimmy leaned and Alice stood. On the table next to the Stewart's bag was a half-eaten meatball hero, melted cheese and tomato sauce congealing on aluminum foil. "You mind if I finish this?" Jimmy asked me. "I'm starving."
"Go ahead," I said. He scooped up the sandwich, bit into it. Tomato sauce dripped on the floor, kicked up tiny craters in the dust. I asked, "When was the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday," he said, his mouth full of bread and meatballs. "Lunch."
I put my beer can on the floor, went to the table, took the carton of Salems from the bag. I shook out a pack, found a book of matches in the bottom of the bag. I lit a Salem as I sat down again.
Jimmy watched me. "You hate those," he said.
"Damn right," I answered.
I smoked and Jimmy ate. I asked, "Where were you yesterday?"
"Here," he said, wiped his mouth on a wadded-up paper napkin. "Been here for a few days."
"How many?"
He looked uncomfortable. "About a week," he answered. "Since Allie threw me out."
Over by the wall, Alice dropped her arms, turned around to stare out the window at the impenetrable darkness.
"Allie—" Jimmy said.
She shook her head, didn't turn around.
Jimmy looked at me, helplessly. "I come up here sometimes. To think. You know. Nobody comes here, except in summer. When Allie . .." His eyes shifted to her; she didn't move. "Where was I gonna go? I didn't want to crash with nobody. No way I was going back to Tony's. So I came here. I mean, just for a while. Just, you know, to get it together."
I said nothing, tasted the cool taste of menthol, wished for a Kent. Jimmy went on, "I was on my way to work yesterday, in the van. Had the police scanner on just to listen to the cop talk. Heard about Wally. Heard Brinkman was looking for me. Well, no shit, Sherlock!" He grinned, but the grin seemed strained.
"What did you do?"
"Turned the hell around and came back here. What'd you think?"
"Did you talk to anybody?"
"What do you mean, talk?"
"You have a CB in the van, don't you?"
"Oh, yeah, and I said, 'Breaker, breaker, this is Jimmy Antonelli, tell Brinkman I'm up at the quarry.' What're you, fucking nuts?"
"How did Alice know you were here?"
"He called me," Alice said, without turning around. Her voice was strong, but waiting to crack, like spring ice. "In the middle of the night, from someplace closed. He asked me to come after dark, and bring him some things."
I looked around the shack, at the leaning walls, at the cardboard jammed over the missing windowpane, at the sleeping bag spread on the floor, at the dirt and the darkness in the corners.
"How long you figure to be here?" I asked. "A couple of months? A few years, maybe, until everyone forgets?"
"Years? What the hell are you talking about?" Above the grin Jimmy's eyes were confused. "A few days, that's all. Just till the heat lets up a little."
"Then what?"
"Then I'll take off. Time I left this dead-end place anyhow." He crumpled his empty beer can one-handed, flipped it into the Stewart's bag, popped the top on another.
"And go where?"
"What's the difference?" He slurped beer off the top of the can. "New York, Chicago. Hell, L.A.! I hear it's nice out there. You been there?" I didn't answer. "Anywhere. I got a million choices, man. I'm gonna disappear. Change my name. You know." He laughed. "I'm gonna grow a big fuckin' mustache, be a real dago wop, like my grandaddy! Hey, whadda-you a-think?" He looked from Alice's back, which didn't move, to me. His grin was desperate for company.
I dropped my cigarette butt in my empty beer can, listened to the hiss it made. "All right," I said, looking up at Jimmy. "Now listen to me, and hear every goddamn
word." The grin wavered a little. "You don't know shit about life on the run. You'll never get out of the county. If you do you won't last six months. You'll be spotted in Asshole, Texas, by some pork-faced sheriff who sits around reading wanted posters because he's got nothing else to do. And you're a cowboy, aren't you, Jimmy? You'll pull out that Winchester when they come for you in the hole you're hiding in, which'll be just like this one except instead of cold and filthy it'll be hot and filthy and the water'll taste bad. And they'll blow your head off. And that'll be it, Jimmy. That'll be all of it."
He stared at me for a long moment; then he pushed sharply away from the table. He turned away, ran a hand over his hair, turned back. He stood looking at me, his empty hands opening and closing.
"What the fuck you want me to do, man?" For the first time the fear stood out in his eyes. "Brinkman's after my ass, you know he is. He's gonna hang this on me if he can. What am I supposed to do, just let him?"
Alice turned from the window then. Her lip trembled as she looked from him to me and back again.
"Did you kill Wally Gould?" I asked him.
Color drained from his face. He sank down slowly onto the chair.
"You think so, Mr. S.?" he asked quietly. "That what you think?"
I lit two cigarettes, passed one to him. He took it, hunching forward in the chair. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
"Listen," I said, in a voice gentler than the one I'd been using. "Listen, Jimmy. That's not my only question. I've got a lot of questions, and you're going to have to answer them all. Jimmy?" I waited; he looked up at me. "You'll have all of me, either way. Either way, Jimmy. But I want to hear it from you."
He took in smoke, exhaled. He stood, walked around aimlessly, sat down again.
"Wally. That stupid little fuck," he said in a half-whisper. "He was real into making trouble for me. With Frank, with Brinkman, with anyone he could think of. And now check it out: he's fucking wasted and he can't stop!" He laughed shortly, looked up at the ceiling, back at me. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?" He did what I'd done, pushed his cigarette into his beer can, watched it disappear.
He lifted his eyes to mine. "I didn't kill him, Mr. S."
By the window, Alice's hand moved slowly to her mouth, and she started to cry.
Jimmy jumped from the chair, moved to Alice's side. He folded an arm around her shoulders, spoke her name softly, but she pulled away. She wiped her eyes, leaving her face streaked with grime.
"I want to go home," she said, voice quavering. She pulled together her mittens, hat, car keys. "You don't need me now. I can go."
"Baby—" Jimmy reached out a hand; she shrugged it off.
"Alice, wait," I said.
"Why?" she asked unhappily. "Jimmy has you now. You'll know what to do. I just want to go home."
"It's not him I'm thinking about. It's you."
She pulled on her mittens, stood thin-lipped, waiting.
"Remember I said I wasn't the only person looking for Jimmy? One of the other people is Frank Grice. He offered me a thousand dollars."
Jimmy's eyebrows shot up. "What the hell for?"
"You."
They were both silent, digesting that.
I went on, "If I found you, Alice, Grice can too. He's not a nice man."
She threw Jimmy a confused look, then back to me. "I don't understand. What do you want me to do?"
"I don't want you out there in that house by yourself. Is there someone you can stay with?"
"That's ridiculous!" she snapped. "It's my home. I've always lived there. I'm not afraid of those people."
"That's a mistake," I said. "I am."
That stopped her. "Well . . ." She frowned. "Laura and her husband live in Schoharie."
"Good," I said. "Go there tonight. And I don't want you alone during the day. You know Grice by sight?"
She nodded.
"You even think you see his shadow, call the state troopers." I described Arnold to her, and Otis and Ted. "And if anyone does ask you anything, do you think you can lie better than you did to me?"