Night Shift(65)

'No one says dad any more, Vinnie. It's not cool. Like cool's not cool. It's as dead as Buddy Holly.'

'I talk the way I want,' Vinnie said.

'Where's the other one? The guy with the funny red hair.'

'Split, man.' But under his studied unconcern, Jim sensed a wariness.

'He's alive, isn't he? That's why he's not here. He's alive and he's thirty-two or three, the way you would be if -'

'Bleach was always a drag. He's nothing'.' Vinnie sat up behind his desk and put his hands down flat on the old graffiti. His eyes glittered. 'Man, I remember you at that lineup. You looked ready to piss your little old corduroy pants. I seen you lookin' at me and Davie. I put the hex on you.'

'I suppose you did,' Jim said. 'You gave me sixteen years of bad dreams. Wasn't that enough? Why now? Why me?'

Vinnie looked puzzled, and then smiled again. 'Because you're unfinished business, man. You got to be cleaned up.'

'Where were you?' Jim asked. 'Before.'

Vinnie's lips thinned. 'We ain't talkin' about that. Dig?'

'They dug you a hole, didn't they, Vinnie? Six feet deep. Right in the Milford Cemetery. Six feet of -'

'You shut up!'

He was on his feet. The desk fell over in the aisle. 'It's not going to be easy,' Jim said. 'I'm not going to make it easy for you.'

'We're gonna kill you, dad. You'll find out about that hole.'

'Get out of here.'

'Maybe that little wifey of yours, too.

'You goddamn punk, if you touch her -' He started forward blindly, feeling violated and terrified by the mention of Sally.

Vinnie grinned and started for the door. 'Just be cool. Cool as a fool.' He tittered.

'If you touch my wife, I'll kill you.'

Vinnie's grin widened. 'Kill me? Man, I thought you knew, I'm already dead.'

He left. His footfalls echoed in the corridor for a long time.

'What are you reading, hon?'

Jim held the binding of the book, Raising Demons, out for her to read.

'Yuck.' She turned back to the mirror to check her hair.

'Will you take a taxi home?' he asked.

'It's only four blocks. Besides, the walk is good for my figure.'

'Someone grabbed one of my girls over on Summer Street,' he lied. 'She thinks the object was rape.'

'Really? Who?'

'Dianna Snow,' he said, making a name up at random. 'She's a level-headed girl. Treat yourself to a taxi, okay?'

'Okay,' she said. She stopped at his chair, knelt, put her hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes. 'What's the matter, Jim?'

'Nothing.'

'Yes. Something is.'

'Nothing I can't handle.'

'Is it something. . . about your brother?'

A draught of terror blew over him, as if an inner door had been opened. 'Why do you say that?'

'You were moaning his name in your sleep last night. Wayne, Wayne, you were saying. Run, Wayne.'

'It's nothing.'

But it wasn't. They both knew it. He watched her go. Mr Nell called quarter past eight. 'You don't have to worry about those guys,' he said. 'They're all dead.'

'Is that so?' He was holding his place in Raising Demons with his index finger as he talked.

'Car smash. Six months after your brother was killed. A cop was chasing them. Frank Simon was the cop, as a matter of fact. He works out at Sikorsky now. Probably makes a lot more money.'

'And they crashed.'

'The car left the road at more than a hundred miles an hour and hit a main power pole. When they finally got the power shut off and scraped them out, they were cooked medium rare.'

Jim closed his eyes. 'You saw the report?'

'Looked at it myself.'

'Anything on the car?'

'It was a hot rod.'

'Any description?'

'Black 1954 Ford sedan with "Snake Eyes" written on the side. Fitting enough. They really crapped out.'

'They had a sidekick, Mr Nell. I don't know his name, but his nickname was Bleach.'

'That would be Charlie Sponder,' Mr Nell said without hesitation. 'He bleached his hair with Clorox one time. I remember that. It went streaky-white, and he tried todye it back. The streaks went orange.'

'Do you know what he's doing now?'

'Career army man. Joined up in fifty-eight or nine, after he got a local girl pregnant.'

'Could I get in touch with him?'

'His mother lives in Stratford. She'd know.'

'Can you giye me her address?'

'I won't, Jimmy. Not until you tell me what's eating you.' 'I can't, Mr Nell. You'd think I was crazy.'.

'Try me.'

'I can't.'

'All right, son.'

'Will you -' But the line was dead.

'You bastard,' Jim said, and put the phone in the cradle. It rang under his hand and he jerked away from it as if it had suddenly burned him. He looked at it, breathing heavily. It rang three times, four. He picked it up. Listened. Closed his eyes.