“People,” he snapped. “Men and women. Every year you learn to live with something else, some failing or limitation, some sickness, some sin. They hang around your neck like chains, like weights. But you go on. If you’re strong, you go on.”
He tried to shift his position slightly, displaying the plastic teeth again, and his head twisted impatiently, trying to pull his weakened body with it. He gave up and looked at me out of the corners of the long eyes. “It’s bearable to be alone when you’re young,” he said. “When you’re old, it’s death. No one should be alone when he’s old. Max wouldn’t return my calls. I gave up. I’m old. I’m sick. I was ready to die. The chains were too heavy for me to carry any more. Then Darryl Wilder came through my gate.”
“Killing Max kept you alive?”
“You can never question what keeps someone alive. You’ll find that out sooner or later.”
“It would have been better if you’d died,” I said.
He gave me the familiar half smile. “As I’m sure you’ll allow, that’s a matter of perspective.”
“They probably won’t kill you for this,” I said. “Not at your age.”
“ Heek heek. Excuse me for laughing in your face, but with your face, you’re probably used to it. Heek heek. We’ve just been talking, that’s all. You’ve been entertaining a sick man. You told me a story and I improvised a coda for it. It was a good story, too, except for the letters. But you can’t prove anything, not anything at all.”
“No,” I said. “But he can.”
I stepped aside and Henry came through the door.
Hanks’s eyes widened briefly and then narrowed again. “Where have you been?”
“You sposed to say, ‘ Et tu, Brute,’ ” Henry said.
Hanks lifted his head an imperious two inches. “Get rid of this man.”
“No way, Ferris,” Henry said. “I cut a deal.”
“You ignorant jungle bunny,” Hanks said. “No one can prove-”
“Maybe, maybe not. If they couldn’t, I made a mistake. If they could, though, I got to think about old Henry.”
“What about me?” Hanks demanded. “What about loyalty?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Ferris,” Henry said, “but you don’t inspire much loyalty.”
“I’ll leave you two to chat,” I said.
“What Henry tells them isn’t worth anything,” Hanks said to me, raising his voice. “He’s trying to protect himself. No jury will believe him.”
“You could be right,” I said. “They’ll believe you, though. I’m wired, Ferris. Every word we said was recorded in a Sheriffs’ van parked in the street. They’ll be up any minute now. Oh, and let me give you a tip. The one with the awful sport coat is named Ike Spurrier. I wouldn’t get too cute with him. Bye, Henry.”
I passed Spurrier and three deputies in the living room. It seemed like a lot of force for one old man with two bullet holes in him. Spurrier brushed past me as though the room were too small for the two of us, which I suppose it was.
Sitting in the car, I lifted my arms to the steering wheel. They weighed eighty pounds apiece, and I let them drop to my lap. Getting old, I thought. Too old for the likes of Ferris Hanks, anyway.
Two more deputies came through the gate, toting a stretcher between them. I didn’t want to see any more. I started Alice and turned her around, and the two of us put-putted down Sunset Plaza to Sunset and headed toward the Pacific. Alice wasn’t young any more, either.
At the Pacific Coast Highway I sat at the light and looked out at the flat black expanse of the sea. When the person behind me hit his horn I turned right, to the north, toward home. Toward my house and my view and my life. Toward everything I’d built for myself, intentionally and accidentally. I’d built it the way some mollusks build their shells, picking up pieces of debris here and there on the seafloor, and fitting them together to create a suit of armor that’s too rigid to be crushed, too spiky to be swallowed, and virtually impossible to shed. Collector shells, they’re called. Some of them are beautiful.
At Topanga Canyon I pulled over to the side of the road and waited until the traffic had passed so I could make the U-turn that would take me south. Toward Eleanor. Maybe she’d let me in.