Halfway Home (39 page)

"Wait a minute," my brother demanded, bridling now. "What's Reno got to do with it? Yesterday you said Tulsa. Look, I have to talk to Nigrelli."

Evans smiled, enjoying himself. "Nigrelli doesn't work for you anymore, Brian. You just got blown away. In Reno." The three of us must've drawn the identical blank, like a row of dullards on "Jeopardy." Evans chuckled at our perplexity. "See, we got a fresh kill up there. Some local punk. And we're going to put your wallet in his pocket, and the tag on his toe's going to read Shaheen."

His padded shoulders gave a brief shrug, casual as Nat Cole. A piece of cake, as Daniel would say. "So then you can disappear for real," he went on, "without all that looking over your shoulder. Our little present to you."

Honestly, I could've saluted the flag. At last, my tax dollars at work. I grinned at Evans, eager to pump his hand in gratitude—but careful to make no sudden move, because he was a tricky fucker. I turned to share the moment with my brother, and the grin curdled on my face. For Brian was still bristling with suspicion. He jutted his chin defiantly.

"So my wife's gonna think I'm dead?"

"Don't worry, she knows it's a setup. She'll
act
like you're dead."

There was a rustle behind him as his partner came in from the kitchen, dragging what looked like a black tarp. Agent Dana was as underdressed as before, another bilious Hawaiian shirt, and the lack of sleep hadn't made his tuberous face any prettier. As he came abreast of Evans I saw that the tarp had a long zipper: a body bag. I guess they kept one in the trunk beside the spare. Preparedness to the max, I thought, even as I recalled Mike Manihan and Teddy Burr being hauled away, the rattlesnake finality of that zipper. It was the last sound I would never hear, the day they came for me.

I don't know what Gray saw in my face, but he glided up next to my elbow, ready to prop me. "I don't understand any of this," he protested, just short of a huff. "Why is
that
one going?" Meaning Jerry, as if the fat man had been so rude and vulgar as to have forfeited all free rides.

Evans watched as Dana laid out the bag on the floor next to the fireplace. "Listen, for months he's been saying the Mob's out to hit him. Well"—he held up the rosy palms of his hands—"they just caught up with him in Reno. Two hits for the price of one. Brian, you better be getting your stuff."

At last my brother roused himself, tearing his gaze from his dead partner. He moved past us without another word and headed upstairs. Meanwhile Dana had straddled the body and was rocking

Jerry's shoulder, getting ready to roll him, taking care not to step in the blood.

"You got it?" asked Evans, who made no move to assist, lest he sully the spit-shine on his own wingtips.

The body came away from the stone with a sucking sound, heeling over onto the bag. I tottered and bumped against Gray, who caught my elbow firmly. Dana dragged at the zipper. I hated to look so seasick all of a sudden, for the corpse was nothing, a hunk of meat. It was all in the memory, the sound of the zipper like nails on a blackboard.

"Go on up," murmured Gray, pushing me toward the stairs. "See if he needs any help."

Any excuse to get out of there, as Evans stepped gingerly forward to help with the actual stuffing of arms and legs in the bag, the loose ends. I bounded up to the first landing, Gray calling after me: "Easy—easy!"

Oh of course, that twenty-four hours without any excitement. I slowed for his sake, a step at a time, but laughing inside at the rules of convalescence.
And avoid all stress,
as Robison would always advise with a straight-faced flourish, patting my shoulder and sending me out to do a little more dying. I turned at the top of the stairs and smiled at Gray below. With a hula bump I flipped the corner of the towel, flashing the family jewels. His face flushed crimson, turning automatically to check if the agents had seen. My hopeless unreconstructed WASP.

I headed for Cora's room. The body bag notwithstanding, at the moment I was feeling pretty irrepressible. Had anyone done a study, I wondered, on radical convalescence. Instead of the blinds drawn and a cold cloth over the eyes, you evened an old score. The revenge cure. This was bravado mostly, a pagan taunt to the pieties of Chester. But I was also acutely aware, stepping into my brother's room, that something had changed because of the swoop of death in the parlor below. I wasn't afraid to say good-bye.

"Sorry about those pancakes," I said.

He hunkered at the foot of the bed, stuffing his sweat pants into a backpack, blue with white piping like Daniel's. He'd changed into jeans and his Fordham sweat shirt, no more chances to catch him naked. As he stood and turned to face me, slinging the pack to his shoulder, he looked remarkably unencumbered, nothing more complicated in the offing than a day's hike up the beach. And an unmistakable air of impatience, as if he couldn't wait to be on his way. I think it had finally sunk in, how free he would be once the bodies were found.

"You all right?" he asked tentatively. He was in the lamplight, I in the shadow of the door.

"Oh, very," I assured him, stepping forward with open arms. "I just need to give you a hug."

He laughed. "Time out," he said, and for an instant I felt the slap of rejection, a clang of disbelief, that all our coming together had been just another mirage. What if the past didn't die after all? Even when you killed it.

But now he was reaching to grab my hand and tugging me into the bathroom, laughing still as he flipped on the light. Side by side we blinked in the mirror. The blood was everywhere: matted in my hair and splashed in rusty gouts across my torso and arms, an expressionist fantasia. The white towel at my waist was livid, a serial killer's dropcloth. Not exactly dressed to kiss.

"Get over here," said Brian, slipping off the backpack and propping it on the sink. He nodded for me to stand in the tub, and as soon as I stepped in he tugged the towel free. I felt about six years old—not a bad feeling at all. Then he bent to open the ancient moss-green faucets, flipping the porcelain crank to engage the hand shower.

He lifted hose and nozzle off the curlicue hook and swept it toward me, spraying my belly. I looked down to see the blood flash red again as it washed away. The white hull of the tub swirled like the drain in
Psycho.
Brian widened the field of the spray to my chest, cold as well water. He slapped a hand across my breastbone, smearing me clean, while I shook like a seal.

"You think he would've killed us?"

Brian nodded, gesturing for me to duck so he could do my hair. I bowed toward him, clamping shut mouth and eyes. Brian rubbed my scalp as the water streamed down my face. "I figured if he could just shoot me and get out of there," he declared, shrugging his own death. "Then
you
come down. And I'm thinking, fuck"—he tilted my chin and ran the water full on my face till I gasped and sputtered—"I can't just die, I gotta save Tommy. But I don't have a clue. Lucky for me, my brother's a wild man."

Abruptly the drum of the spray left my face, as he bent to hose my legs. I gurgled, water running out of my nostrils, and managed to choke out one word: "Teamwork."

Brian swung around and wrenched the faucets shut, which produced a grinding shudder in the prewar pipes. He didn't protest the chivalry of my characterization. Indeed we had worked together to overpower the beast, but we both knew who'd been quarterback. I stood unmoving as he grabbed a towel from behind the door. He caped it about my shoulders and started rubbing my torso vigorously, no nonsense, as if he was my trainer. Though I'd never won a game before, I understood that this was the treatment a hero got.

"I'll write the address, it's simple," I said, ducking once more as he moved to dry my head. "Just care of Baldwin—Route One—Trancas." I stuttered each phrase like a telegraph, my head pummeled by the furious buff of the towel.

"Sure," said Brian, whipping it off my scalp. Then he girdled it around my waist and tucked in the end at the hipbone. Through all these ablutions he hadn't ever touched my privates or dried me below the navel. And yet, as I stood there squeaky clean, the whole ritual seemed an exquisite balance of intimacy and modesty. It reminded me of the way Gray made love.

"And how about if you call the phone at the Chevron?" I proposed in a rush of eagerness. "We could plan it like Tuesday nights at ten—I don't know what that is in Tulsa. But I could wait down there, and you could call. Not
every
Tuesday—"

"Sounds good to me," he replied softly. "You ready for that hug?"

Well, yes and no. He opened his arms and made the first move, engulfing me about the shoulders. Because I was still standing in the claw-footed tub I towered two inches above him for once. But the hug itself was no problem—easy, unforced, without any clutch of desperation. Nevertheless, in the middle of it I had to swallow hard, knowing my bid to stay in touch had just been vetoed.

Not in so many words, and for all I knew with a nod of good faith, meaning to follow through. But he wasn't the type, my brother, to write his letters in longhand, and especially not to stand in the dark by a phone booth. He was only saying yes so he could leave with less good-bye. And I didn't blame him a bit, or even try to prolong the embrace to compensate.

"Brian!" Evans's voice echoed through the stair hall, brooking no further delay.

We pulled apart, effortlessly, no lingering messy feelings, no

Camille.
Brian turned and scooped his pack, slinging it over one arm as he strode out through Cora's room. I caught a glimpse of me bloodless in the mirror above the sink, and could've sworn I'd put on some muscle through the shoulders. Brian waited in the doorway into the hall, with that crease between his eyes that said there was one more thing. My face lifted expectantly, prepared to give him whatever he needed. No didn't exist.

"Make sure you write Daniel," he said with a fluster of urgency. "You got that address?" I nodded. "'Cause he'll just be with his mother and he's gonna need..." One hand floundered the air, unable to think of the word.

"Piece o' cake," I retorted, smiling. What he couldn't quite say was
a man.

"Brian!"

We were on our way. I walked behind my brother around the stairwell, feeling a new sort of mirror image—as if I were as burly as he, the same unconscious swagger. This was how straight boys learned to be men, mimicking and preening, stimulating the butch gene. As I trotted down in Brian's wake, I thought about Daniel following him and following me. Somewhere there had been a tradeoff, gentling my brother and toughening me. Brian stopped at the bottom of the stairs while I hovered a step above him, four inches taller now. And I prayed to the nothing I didn't believe in:
Let the kid have it both ways.

The body was gone. Gray knelt on the hearth like an Irish housemaid, bucket of water beside him, scrubbing the stone with a stiff brush. The ratchet scrape of the brush filled the parlor. Dog's work, the sort of stain that would never come out.

"Gray," said Brian politely, and the brushing stopped as Gray looked around. "Thanks for putting us all up."

Gray blushed. "Don't be silly. You'll come in the summer sometime. Daniel can sail."

Brian nodded, another of those necessary fictions. Then he crooked a thumb over his shoulder. "And keep an eye on this guy, huh? He's a terror."

"Oh, don't worry. He's on a
very
short leash, that one."

We all laughed. Gray had to restrain himself mightily not to leap up and shake Brian's hand. But he understood his place exactly in this business of saying good-bye, and so contented himself with a nodding smile. My brother and I turned away in relief and made our way through the dining room. Almost there, and no thin ice in sight. The will to get on with it—he to his life, I to mine—superseded all.

The kitchen door stood wide, the rumble of idling engines echoing in from the yard. The counters were bare of food, no muffins to tuck in his backpack. Brian stepped outside, and I almost followed but pulled up short, deciding to leave it there. The two cars were waiting in caravan, a stone's throw off. Please—no last words in front of the agents.

I put both hands to the doorframe, leaning out. "So... some Tuesday, huh?"

He half turned, the light from the kitchen throwing a glint in his eye. "Yeah. And tell Miss Jesus I'll see her in church."

He winked. Then we made a gesture toward each other, something between a nod and a bow, both at the same time, but not another word. Brian strode through the grass to the lead car and climbed in front next to Evans. I stayed in the doorway—I even waved. It wasn't breaking the rules as long as it went unspoken. I waved in the dark where no one could see me, the two cars trundling away down the drive, till the red lights turned on the coast road. Waved at the blue night sky like a wild man, wishing my brother safe passage wherever it took him, as long as it brought him home.

I
WONDER IF MY MOTHER EVER DREAMS OF WEST HILL ROAD.
Though she lives in the house at 210 still, her waking life these days is a fog of untouched soup and too many pills and a grim cushion of geriatric diapers. Mostly she lives nowhere now, following the sharp commands of Mary Alice Lynch, probably thinking, if she thinks at all, that she's a boarder in the nurse/companion's house.