Travelers Rest (3 page)

A
re you going to finish that?” he asked Dewey, pointing at a half-eaten strip of bacon.

Dewey considered it, wanted to eat it, of course, to
claim
it at least—
my bacon
—but he had stuffed himself silly with pancakes, Tonio knew.

“All right?” Tonio said, reaching over to Dewey's plate, and Dewey nodded reluctantly.

He ate the cold, gristly bacon, sipped his weak coffee, the waitress brought the bill. He looked out the window through the falling snow—
Jesus
what a storm—and tried to figure out which window on the hotel's face was his. It was an extraordinary old place, really. Check out the window lattices, the cornices, the marble steps. It was like an old, sepia-toned photograph, a reminder of bygone days. Maybe Julia was right: Good Night, Idaho—it had a familiar ring to it.

“Dad,” Dewey said, “are you a degenerate?”

Tonio wiped his mouth with a napkin and reached for his wallet. “Dooze,” he said, “you don't know what that word means.”

“Do too.”

“Nope. Do not. Do you need to go to the restroom before we leave?”

They could leave real quick, provided Julia was up and ready. Hopefully Robbie was back in the room by now—where else would he be, for Christ's sake, except there in the room with Julia alone, which was exactly the situation he'd probably been trying to create from the outset, the asshole. When Robbie wasn't in the room in the morning, Tonio had figured that he'd be at the diner, but obviously not, he had probably gone out for a walk in the snow and was now there in the room chitchatting with good old Julia, shooting the breeze, ha ha ha Robbie you're so funny, such a card.

It would be rough out there on the interstate, but Tonio was ready to give it a try in the daylight, even though they'd be driving east, moving in the same direction as the storm. And the snow had to let up sometime.

“I know what it means,” Dewey said.

“Dooze Man, you don't. You're ten years old. Let's go.” He stood up first and waited for Dewey to follow suit and they walked up to the cash register near the front.

“I'll go,” Dewey said, “but I do know.”

“You might know the
definition
of the word,” he said, “but you don't know what it
means.
”

The cook was over at the grill and the waitress was who knew where. He searched around for a bell to ding. Dewey had his eye on the pie behind the glass counter, but Tonio could see the wheels were still turning. “That's what you call one of those other things you told me about. That other word.”

“A paradox.”

“Right. That's a paradox.”

Tonio reached in his coat pocket for his glasses. “Okay,” he said, “but not really.”

“Anyway, I heard you talking about it before,” Dewey said. “I just don't know if Uncle Robbie is one.”

“Yeah, well, that's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” He put on the glasses and opened his wallet and…something not right. His wallet. His money. Wallet empty. “Son of a bitch,” he said quietly.

“Don't kill the magic, Dad,” Dewey said. This was just one of their funny little expressions. There were others.

“Not killing the magic here, Dooze, not killing the magic.” He put his hand up to his forehead and squeezed hard, closing his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that Dewey had wandered over to the gumball machine. “You didn't happen to take any money out of Dad's wallet, did you, bud?”

“Nope,” Dewey said. “Can I have a quarter?”

He fished in his pocket and found one and tossed it and Dewey caught it. He had excellent coordination for a ten-year-old. People were always remarking on it.

“Sure about that, Dooze?”

“Yep.”

The guy behind the counter stared at them. He had stubbly hair and bloodshot eyes and he appeared to be clenching a guitar pick between his teeth. Tonio smiled and handed over a credit card.

So he hadn't left this morning at all. It had been last night. He had gotten up during the night and stolen all the money, and if he hadn't reappeared by now it was likely he wasn't going to. Tonio was relieved, actually. He pictured Robbie on a bus back to Portland, where he supposedly lived now when he wasn't mooching off their parents or drying out in detox. He would have spent most of the money on booze and drugs, but Tonio would bet that Robbie had just enough of his wits about him to slide out of whatever situation he'd gotten himself into with enough money left for bus fare.

Dewey asked him for another quarter.

“You don't need another quarter,” he said.

“I do, Dad,” Dewey said. “See? It's a game. The quarter makes the gumball go around…what would you call this thing?”

He looked over. “It's like a maze, or a labyrinth,” he said.

“The quarter makes the gumball go around the maze or labyrinth.”

Tonio reached in his pocket and tossed over another quarter. He shook his head and peered out at the snow falling, settling into drifts along the street. Well, he could just about kiss the idea of getting out of town today goodbye. Julia wasn't going to let him leave without at least trying to find out where Robbie had gone.

“You from out of town?” the guy behind the counter said.

Tonio looked at the buzz cut, the bloodshot eyes, the greasy T-shirt. “Wow,” he said. “How'd you know?”

The guy gave him a twisted smile. “Lucky guess,” he said. He looked at Dewey and at Tonio and back to Dewey again, and then handed Tonio his credit card. “We don't take these.” Tonio stared at him for a second and then started to thumb through his wallet for another card. The guy held a hand up to stop him. “It's on me,” he said.

T
he snow was two feet deep at least and piling up by the second and still no plow in sight. The world was absolutely silent when you observed it through the window, the silent wind blowing hard through the treetops, the snow cascading from the branches in a thick swirl that funneled into town. The entirety of heaven seemed bent on dumping snow on this little street.

“You guys in the market for a snowplow operator? Seriously,” he said.

Some guy at the table laughed. “Kids aren't in school today,” he said. “Nobody gives a shit.”

Robbie took a sip from the beer can on the table. Warm and nasty. There was a keg around somewhere with cold beer. He was sure of it. And somebody had a bottle of something. He could tell by the thick taste on his tongue.

Near as he could figure he was in the back room of a bar or store or restaurant. The place was obviously closed right now, so one of the people at the table must have had a key. Again he looked out the window and took a deep breath and watched the snow fly in great buzzing sheets. His teeth hurt. Why? No telling. All right all right all right. Where were we, he wondered, where were we now? We were in a town off the interstate in Idaho. It was snowing like a motherfucker, and the wind was blowing like a motherfucker, too. He was with Tonio and Julia and Dewey, on the way to South Carolina, where they would all have a cheery family visit. And that crazy hotel, where the owner had given them a fistful of candles and sent them to their room. Jesus. He remembered showing the Dooze Man card tricks by candlelight—I, the amazing Fartamundo, hold the very card you selected right here in my hand. Then he'd been lying in bed and he'd been thinking or dreaming of Julia and then he'd started wanting a drink so bad it made him itch and hurt. And then, right, the money. Damn. And they were supposed to be on the road again now and they would be looking for him, that unreliable irresponsible son of a bitching Robbie, who'd gone and fucked everything up again. Should have known. Should have planned ahead for it. He could see Tonio seething, fuming, apoplectic, blood exploding from his eyeballs. That's what you got for being the levelheaded sibling, the college professor, the professional douche bag.

Well.

“Did I sleep here?” he said. “Where'd I sleep?”

One of the guys at the table pointed to a booth against the wall.

“Ooof,” Robbie said. More laughter.

Okay, now—what was the situation, what were the possibilities. Around the table sat six guys—all younger than Robbie except maybe the one guy who talked about the snowplow—and two women, the brunette clearly with the big blond guy with the buck teeth and the tiny ears—was he slightly mongoloid? The dude over there with the long hair, the glasses, he was the bass player in that god-awful band, good God how long would it take to get the sound of that shit out of his head. The blonde sitting next to Robbie was the bartender. She had nice tits, which was why he'd wandered over here with these people in the first place. It was all coming back to him. They weren't much of a bunch, but sometimes you had to work with what you had. Goodbye Tonio, goodbye Doozer, goodbye sweet Julia.

He pointed at the guy to his left, dude wearing a black cowboy hat, sideburns, jean jacket. “Glenn,” he said. Glenn raised his beer can. Robbie went on around, pointing. “Tyler. Rusty. Cheryl. Ray. You,” he said, “you call yourself Double Dog, for some reason. You,” he said, “are Lance.”

“Fuck, dude, that's awesome,” Lance said. “How did you remember all that?”

“I'm a smart motherfucker,” Robbie said. Someone opened him a beer and set the can in front of him. “What's on the agenda for today?”

“What about me?” the blonde said. “What's my name?”

“You're,” he said, and pointed at her, not actually knowing her name while he pointed but trusting it would come to him when he opened his mouth, “Stephanie.”

She smiled.

“Stephanie,” he said, “scoot over here.”

A
re you sure you've got all your things together?” she asked Dewey.

“How many times have you asked me?” Dewey said.

“Don't answer me like that,” she said.

“Because that's how many times I'm sure,” Dewey told her. “However many times you asked me.”

She made one more dab with her lip gloss and dropped it and the hand mirror into the makeup bag and dropped the makeup bag into the suitcase and zipped the suitcase closed, pressing down vigorously on a pair of knee boots to get the zipper around.

“I don't even know why you're bothering,” Tonio said. He looked out the window, scanning the street in either direction. It was still snowing. “It's almost ten already. Obviously we're not going anywhere today.”

“Don't blame me,” she said. “I tried to call him. It's not my fault my cell phone doesn't want to work here. Besides, he could show up any minute.” She sat at the foot of the bed with her hands on her knees, as if she were ready to spring up, suitcase in hand, at a second's notice if Robbie suddenly materialized there in the doorway. By assuming that pose she could almost convince herself this was an actual possibility.

“That's ridiculous,” Tonio said. “Where would he be if he were just going to show up all of a sudden?”

“Taking a walk,” she said. “Getting something to eat.”

“Oh, of course. How many diners do you see open out there, Dewey?” Dewey had gone over and joined Tonio at the window, examining the street the same as his father.

“I see one,” Dewey said.

Tonio nodded. “That's the only one I see, too, big guy. Grand total of one diner. At least it has electricity. And who was not at that diner when we were there half an hour ago eating breakfast?”

“There were a
lot
of people not at that diner,” Dewey said.

Tonio nodded. “Yeah, and one of them was Robbie,” he said.

“You're right,” Dewey said. “Robbie's a degenerate.”

“Where does he get this stuff?” she asked. “You're
ten,
” she told him.

“But I have ears,” he said. “I hear things.”

Tonio moved away from the window and started pacing back and forth. “So clearly he stole my fucking money and went to that bar across the road.” He put his hands in his jeans pockets and shrugged his shoulders and scowled at her, as if he was daring her to refute this. She felt perfectly calm.

“Excuse me?” she said, nodding toward Dewey, who now sat on the window ledge where she'd watched Robbie cross the street.

“Oh, right,” Tonio said. “He stole my
frigging
money. He stole my
frigging
money, Dewey.”

“I hear you, Dad,” Dewey said.

“He stole my
frigging
money, the asshole, and he went to that bar and spent it, and from the looks of the few people who
were
at that diner, I'll bet one or two of them probably
helped
him spend it, but naturally they'd be on Robbie's side, everyone's always on Robbie's side, including you, because if you weren't you would just admit that what we ought to do is pack up and leave him.” Tonio rocked on his heels, his mouth pooched up. “
If
he's still around here, which I doubt.”

“Please,” she said. “He's your brother. You're not just going to run off and leave him.”

“Right,” Tonio said. “Like he'd wait around for me.”

“How are you so sure that's what happened to him?”

“Why? Do you know something I don't?”

“No,” she said.

“Are you sure you don't know something I don't?” he said. “Because if it turns out you're covering up for him or making excuses for him in some way…” He tilted his head back subtly, and then he glanced over at Dewey to let her know what he wasn't saying, that this was it, the last straw, the one that broke the camel's back, blah blah, etc.

“Why would I do that?” she asked. She stared at him from the foot of the bed.

He kept his eyes locked on her for a second or two, then he looked down and away. “Come on, Dooze,” he said. “Let's go see what the deal is with staying another night.”

“Okay,” Dewey said.

“Maybe if this town has a frigging store of some kind we can buy a frigging sled while we're at it.”

“That'll be fun,” Dewey said. “I bet they've got one. A store. There must be one somewhere.”

They walked out and she heard them talking on the stairs. She unzipped the suitcase and started to unpack.