“Sure. What time should I-?”
“Well, if we get there by seven-thirty, we’ll have plenty of time to eat and everything.”
“Do you know a place?”
“To eat? No, I mean right there at the drive-in, silly.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Haven’t you ever done that? Eat dinner at a drive-in?”
“I’ve never been.”
“In your whole life?”
“Not even once.”
“Oh, you’ll love it. It’s so much nicer than in a movie theater. Like having the show playing just for you.”
“If you like it so much, how come you don’t go more?”
“It’s really for kids. Or people with kids. For the teenagers around here, the drive-in’s just another place to make out. They wouldn’t care if the screen was blank.”
Dett was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “That tuna was delicious, Tussy. The best I ever had.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not. I don’t do that. Just say things, I mean. Every time I have tuna salad, from now on, I’m going to ask for basil on it. And a little piece of parsley on the side.”
“Well, most places have parsley. We serve it at the diner with certain dishes. Like it always comes with the meatloaf. But basil, I don’t know.”
“I can just buy some. In a store, I mean. And take it with me.”
“Oh, people do do that. One old man, he’s a regular, a real sweetheart, flirts with all the girls, he always brings his own bottle of sauce. I don’t know what’s in it, but he puts it on everything. Meat, fish… even eggs. I don’t know if the basil would stay fresh, though.”
“It would if you bought it that same day.”
“I guess it would. But it seems like a lot of trouble.”
“No,” Dett said. “That isn’t trouble.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:56
“Do a lot of people know you live out here?” Ruth asked.
“I’m… not sure. My mail comes to the post office; I’ve got a box there. But this place, it’s not a secret.”
“It doesn’t look like you get a lot of visitors. Or else you have a woman come in and clean for you.”
“I never have visitors,” Sherman said.
“Until me,” Ruth said.
“You’re not a visitor.”
“What am I, then?”
“What you’ve been for a long time,” Sherman Layne said. “The person I trust. The only one.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:57
“You ever get tired of all this?” the man behind the binoculars asked the rifleman.
“This?”
“Waiting. Waiting all the time.”
“Any job there is, there’s always some waiting in it,” the rifleman said.
“You never get bored, just sitting around, doing nothing?”
“What we do, it only takes a couple of seconds,” the rifleman said. “But waiting to do it, that’s part of doing it right.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:04
“Would you like to see my garden?” Tussy asked. “You couldn’t have seen much in the dark, last night.”
“Yes,” Dett said, getting to his feet.
Tussy led him out the back door. She pointed to a neat square of plowed and furrowed earth. “My mother started it,” she said, “before I was even born. That parsley you had? I grew it right here. I’ve got fresh carrots, onions, radishes, all kinds of vegetables. Better than anything you could buy in the store. My dad always said he was going to put a beehive back there. One of those you build yourself. We’d have fresh honey then, too. But Mom said she wasn’t going to have a bunch of bees buzzing around her every time she went outside.”
Fireball left the house, moving slowly and purposefully.
“He’s playing like he’s stalking a bird,” Tussy said. “He hasn’t caught one since my thirteenth birthday. He brought it home. For me, like a present. I cried and cried. My dad explained it was just him being a cat-he couldn’t help himself. But I think he-Fireball, I mean-I think he understood how upset he’d made me, because he never brought one home again.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:09
“Is there a basement?” Ruth asked.
“Well… no. The foundation is really just some big pieces of rock I hauled myself.”
“Oh. And the garage, it doesn’t have heat, does it?”
“The garage? No. It’s all wired, for when I have to see what I’m doing when I work on my car, or put some project together, but you wouldn’t want to go out there in the winter without your coat.”
“It’s all so… open in here.”
“You don’t like it, Ruth?”
“I love it. It’s beautiful, Sherman. I was just looking for a place where you could… build me something?”
“Build you… I don’t understand.”
“Like in my blue room,” she said, looking him squarely in the face. “Only right here.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:11
“You sure I’m the man you want with you for this, Mickey?”
“Ah, Brian, how many times is it I’m to be telling you the same thing? Now, just drive, boyo. You be the pilot; I’ll be the navigator,” Shalare said.
“Not to drive the bloody car, Mickey. I mean that other thing you said.”
“All you have to do is use your eyes, Big Brian. Make them into little cameras. Whatever you see, it’s gold for us. I don’t know if they’re going to let you in, keep you outside, stash you someplace else… but it doesn’t matter. Wherever they take you, wherever they let you be, it’s going to be someplace we’ve not ever seen before.”
“Why is that so important, then?”
“Because we may have to come back someday, Brian. Only without the invite.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:16
“Why?” Ruth demanded.
“Why what?” Sherman said. Knowing he was evading her question; knowing she knew.
“Why can’t you trust me the way you say you do?”
“I do trust you, Ruth. You know my… you know things about me nobody else does.”
“That’s not trusting, Sherman. That’s trusting not to tell. There’s a big difference.”
“What would be trusting you?” the detective asked. A wave of depersonalization washed over him. He could see himself, seated across from Ruth. Lean back to invite a confidence; lean forward to intimidate; work the middle distance to assure the suspect that whatever he’s about to say is going to stay between us. His shoulders trembled as he shook off the wave. Sherman Layne knew how to do that. He had been practicing since he was a child.
“Building me what I asked you for would be a start.”
“Ruth, I don’t think of you like that.”
“But you said… I mean, when I said I’d do anything for you, I meant it. And when you asked me out here, I thought…”
“You don’t understand,” he said, in the hushed tone used for sharing secrets. “What you… think I do… out at your place? You’re wrong.”
“But I don’t care what you-”
“Just listen, okay?” Sherman said. “Please?”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:55
“Damn, I’d hate to find this place after dark, Mickey. Are you sure we’re going right?”
“If the directions he gave us are true, we are,” Shalare said.
“Are you thinking…?”
“Ambush? No, Brian. I’m not saying Beaumont’s not capable of it, mind. But he’s too smart for such a stunt now.”
“Now?”
“He’ll be wanting to hear what we’ve got to say first,” Shalare said. “That’s what I’d be doing myself.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:03
“You got a call, Rufe. On the pay phone, down in the kitchen. Man say you should call home. Hope nothing’s wrong, bro.”
“Thanks, Earl. Probably just one of my dumb-fuck cousins. Got a couple of them staying at my crib. Probably can’t figure out how to turn on the stove or something. Country boys, you know?”