Four
He knew he should never have come back, knew it was a disaster in the making, knew that the forces ranged against him-Gina, her fuck-head father, Stuart Yan, the cops, the lawyers-were still in place, merciless and unyielding, and that they'd strip him down to nothing if they had the chance, but it was his choice, wrong or not, and he would have to live with it. Could Dudley be trusted? No, he couldn't, though he'd try his best to be cool about it and that would last all of maybe forty-eight hours or until he ran into somebody from the old days and had his first drink and smoked his first number and started laying out his disconnected version of life under the sun. “Hey, man, this is for your ears only, and don't tell anybody because it's supposed to be like a secret or whatever, but guess who I ran into the other day?”
But he had come back. And he liked the feeling and he liked the house and all that went with it, the shopping and settling in, the smell of the grass as he traced one row after the other on the riding mower that came with the place, the contented squeak and release of Madison's swings pulling hard against their chains, the propulsive thrust of Natalia's figure as she lined the couch up under the picture window or slid the astrakhan rug into place in front of it. And there was Sandman too. Geoff. Geoffrey R. He'd missed him, missed having a buddy, a confidant, somebody he could hang loose with without having to worry about slipping up, because there were times when he looked in the mirror or slapped a credit card down on a waitress' tray and didn't know who he was. William, Will, Billy, Peck, Frank, Dana, Bridger-and the new one, a winner worth something like fifty million Sandman had sniffed out, M. M. Mako, as in Michael Melvin. The name was so ridiculous it had to be real.
All right. Fine. He'd made his choice and he wasn't concerned, not particularly. Even if he got pulled over, the cops had no way of knowing who he was. All they knew was what the license told them: he was Bridger Martin, with a pristine driving record and no outstanding warrants, solid, fiscally responsible, and he was just passing through on his way to Nantucket, a little vacation, and thank you, Officer, yes, I'll be sure to watch my speed. Still, as he carried his mug of coffee and the newspaper down to the office he'd set up in the basement, he couldn't help feeling the smallest tug of uneasiness when he thought of Dudley and Dudley's big mouth and whose ears might be cocked in anticipation. What he wanted-and it came home to him more than ever as he settled in behind his desk, folded back the financial section and looked out on the woods and the river and the pair of squirrels chasing each other across the lawn in quick darting loops-was to live quietly, anonymously, to live in this house with this car and this woman and not have to put up with any shit from anybody ever again. Go north. Go south. Stay invisible. Establish a base in the city, maybe get a little apartment in the Village or TriBeCa, an efficiency, anything, just to have a place to spend the night, because if they were going to go out, if they were going to party, have a nice meal, that was the place to do it. Not that Westchester didn't have plenty of fine dining-and Putnam and Dutchess too-but the real life was down the line, in New York, and nobody would recognize him there. Running into Dudley was a fluke, that was all, and it could happen again or maybe never, not for years. He lifted the paper to the light, took a sip of coffee. Yeah, and what if it was Gina? What if it was Gina he ran into?
It was then-just then, just as he was holding that thought-that there was a rap at the door behind him, the door that gave out onto the lawn. This was a French door, eight panes and a grid of painted mullions. A flimsy thing, old and unsteady on its hinges, a door anybody could see through, anybody could enter. He started-he couldn't help himself-and when he swung round in the chair, a little lariat of coffee sloshed out of the mug to spatter the front of his shirt.
“Hey, man, I didn't mean to startle you”-it was Sandman, the door cracked open, his hand on the knob, his face hanging there in the void, and he was grinning, his eyes winnowed down to two sardonic points of light-“and I wouldn't want to be the one to criticize, but maybe you've had enough caffeine for one morning. I mean, you practically launched out of that chair.”
He felt a tick of irritation. He'd been caught unawares, his guard down, caught fretting and worrying and wringing his hands like some paranoiac, some loser. He managed a tight smile as he reached for a wad of Kleenex to dab at the stains on his shirt. “Yeah,” he said, “you're right-too much caffeine, who needs it?”
Sandman crossed the room, his big shoulders bunched under a theatrically ducking head, as if he were afraid he'd scrape the ceiling-and it “was” low, only six and a half feet from the floor to the exposed pipes overhead, but this was all exaggerated, all for show-and then settled one haunch down on the corner of the desk. “Right, but I wouldn't mind a cup of mud myself, if you could spare one. Or Natalia. If the pot's full, I mean. If you've got coffee, some of that Viaggio mocha maybe, maybe with real cream and brown sugar? Two lumps. Or honey. I could do honey.” He lifted one eyebrow, stroked the strip of fur beneath his lip. “Because you know me, I wouldn't want to be the one to impose-”
He was doing his Sandman thing, always just this side of sincere. Everything a joke and every line delivered with a smile, as if he couldn't just walk upstairs and pour himself fifty cups of coffee if that was what he wanted, or move in permanently or borrow the car and take it to Maine or ask for a pint of blood and get it without stint or question. He was testing. Just testing to see if you were still with the program. And sometimes, like in Greenhaven, the program could be brutal. That smile, that Sandman smile, could freeze you at a hundred paces.
“Shit,” Peck said, ignoring him. “I ruined my shirt.”
“So buy another one.”
“If you didn't come creeping around like some fucking meter reader or something-”
“Me? I'm not creeping. Shit, I just rolled over here with the top down because it is one fucking day out there, and then I slammed the door and “stamped” down that driveway like Paul Bunyan… look”-he raised one leg-“I'm wearing my boots, see that? I've been stomping and stamping all morning, man.”
Peck was still in the chair, still dabbing at his shirt. He reached for a new wad of Kleenex. “I ran into Dudley,” he said.
Sandman gave him a puzzled look.
“This guy I used to know, this kid-he used to work at the restaurant. I saw him over in Newburgh-he's waiting tables at a place over there.”
Sandman let out a sigh. “Is that what it is? Is that what's bothering you?”
There was the whine of a motorbike going by on the road out front, the blat-blat-wheeze of a two-stroke engine shifting gears, some geek on his way to carve figure eights in the dirt down by the railroad tracks. They both looked up to follow the sound. “I don't know,” Peck said. “I just don't want any hassles, that's all. Don't want any talk, you know?”
“You didn't give him your business card, did you? Your home phone? E-mail? Your bank account number?” Sandman pinched his shoulders and flashed both palms for emphasis. “No worries, come on, man-he doesn't even know your name.” A long beat. He patted distractedly at his pockets, as if he were looking for a smoke, but since he didn't smoke anymore he let his hands drop to his lap. “So what did you tell him?”
“What do you think I told him?”
“All right, all right. Fuck it.” Sandman got up from the corner of the desk and made a show of shaking out his legs, as if he'd been cramped in the middle seat of a jetliner for the last six hours. “What I wanted to know is, number one, where's my coffee? And number two, do you want to take a ride on the most beautiful day in the history of mankind with the top down and the breeze in your hair?”