Mercy Street(59)

Claudia handed back the pipe.

“So Frank spends two months in the hospital.” Timmy took a long drag. “The doctors say he’s going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. By the time he gets out of the hospital, his wife is long gone, and he spent all his life savings on the stripper, so he has to live off his daughter. Who, go figure, still idolizes him.”

He handed Claudia the pipe.

“The daughter—my cousin Bridget—married some rich douchebag and lives in a fancy housing development, a bunch of McMansions around a man-made lake. And of course Uncle Frank hates it there. So one night he’s had enough, he’s at his fuckin limit, and he drives his chair straight into the lake.”

“No!” said Claudia.

“He waits until the middle of the night, when the daughter and her husband are sleeping, so they won’t hear him if he changes his mind and starts screaming for help. Which he does.” A long pause. “Finally one of the neighbors hears him and goes in after him, but it’s too late.”

They sat in silence. Claudia studied the piranhas darting across the screen.

“Jesus,” she said finally. “That’s a depressing story.”

“Wait, there’s more. They find the chair a week later,” said Timmy. “They have to drag the lake.”

Why tell her this story? Was there even a reason? It didn’t occur to her to ask. She inhaled deeply, his words washing over her like water—a warm rinse of received experience, not to be questioned. Train Wreck had done its work.

Timmy went to the window and peered out from behind the tapestry at the silent street. “Where is everybody? It’s like a bomb went off out there.”

This was briefly confusing, until Claudia remembered that she’d left her house after midnight.

“It’s late,” she said. “I should go.”

“Not yet.” Timmy jangled his keys in his pocket. “Let’s go for a ride.”

IN RETROSPECT—CLAUDIA KNOWS THIS—HER BEHAVIOR RAISES certain questions. What was she thinking, getting into a car in the middle of the night with a known drug criminal? Was she aware that she was engaging in high-risk behavior?

She was aware.

And yet, in her gelatinous state, it didn’t feel risky. She felt safer than she had in weeks or months or possibly ever; safer, certainly, than she felt showing up for work each morning. Timmy’s hugeness was comforting, a powerful visual deterrent to any Dateline-type predator. Walking down a dark alley with Timmy, she would not be messed with.

With Timmy she would be perfectly safe, unless he decided to kill her himself.

Washington Street was deserted, the traffic lights flashing. As they crossed the street, Claudia noticed the lightness in her pocket.

“Shit. I left my phone in your apartment.”

She could picture exactly where she’d left it, beside her on Timmy’s couch.

“Get it later. You won’t need it,” Timmy said.

More high-risk behavior: without her cell phone, her GPS coordinates could not be traced. A stern male voice—the voice of Dateline—whispered this in her ear.

They walked several blocks to somebody’s garage. Inside it, the Barracuda was draped with a canvas cover, like a giant toaster. Timmy rolled back the cover and unlocked the passenger door. “Madam,” he said, opening it with a flourish.

She got into the car. They were both beaming like idiots, flush with excellent weed, the magnificence of the car, the sheer unlikeliness of the moment.

“It’s beautiful,” Claudia said.

It wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t the wrong word either. The dashboard was set with round dials that looked vaguely nautical. The bucket seats, dark green leather, felt smooth and cold. The sleek cockpit was a psychic time capsule, a sacred artifact of a lost tribe. Encoded in the design were all its secrets: the collective unconscious of an extinct people, its unspoken, unspeakable beliefs.

The interior was spanking clean. The chrome ashtray shone like a mirror. Claudia found herself babbling about Street Rodz, her early career cleaning cars for Uncle Ricky.

“I always do my own detailing,” said Timmy. “There’s no one else I can trust.” He glanced at her sideways. “You, maybe. Because you were a professional. I could maybe trust you.”

They sat in silence, their breath fogging the windshield.

“I can’t believe you’re selling it,” she said.

“It’s already sold. Sight unseen. The guy is coming tomorrow.” Timmy stroked the steering wheel with unabashed tenderness, as though petting a cat. “This is the final ride.”

“But why?” Claudia was filled with an inexplicable anguish. “I don’t get it.”

“I need the cash. I have obligations; it’s a long story. Anyway,” he said, “I bought another car.”

Claudia could make no sense of this explanation.

“There is no other car,” she said, with emphasis. “What could you possibly?”

Timmy grinned broadly. “A Honda Civic.”

It was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. Claudia and Timmy laughed until suffocation was a real danger. They laughed to the point of physical pain.

Timmy turned the key in the ignition. A thrill in her stomach as the engine roared to life. Claudia felt the vibration all through her, as if she’d been dancing near the speakers at a loud concert, her body a blind antenna picking frequencies from space.