“ARNIE HIT HIM WITH HIS FLASHLIGHT!” Bobby is screaming.
He grabs Dale’s blind uncle by the shoulders and whirls him in a delirious circle. A thick aroma of Aqua Velva descends toward Henry, who knows Bobby’s going to kiss him on both cheeks, French style, a second before Bobby actually does this. And when Bobby’s narration resumes, he sounds as transported as George Rathbun on those rare occasions when the local sports teams actually buck the odds and grab the gold.
“Can you believe it, the Mad Hungarian hit him with his ever-lovin’ flashlight and . . . GREEN’S DOWN! THE FUCKIN’ HUNGARIAN HAS PUT EVERYONE’S FAVORITE ASSHOLE REPORTER ON THE MAT! WAY TO GO, HRABOWSKI!”
All around them, cops are cheering at the tops of their lungs. Debbi Anderson starts chanting “We Are the Champions,” and other voices quickly lend support.
These are strange days in French Landing, Henry thinks. He stands with his hands in his pockets, smiling, listening to the bedlam. There’s no lie in the smile; he’s happy. But he’s also uneasy in his heart. Afraid for Jack.
Afraid for all of them, really.
“That was good work, man,” Beezer tells Jack. “I mean, balls to the wall.”
Jack nods. “Thanks.”
“I’m not going to ask you again if that was the guy. You say he’s not, he’s not. But anything we can do to help you find the right one, you just call us.”
The other members of the Thunder Five rumble assent; Kaiser Bill gives Jack a friendly bop on the shoulder. It will probably leave a bruise.
“Thanks,” Jack says again.
Before he can knock on the door, it’s opened. Dale grabs him and gives him a crushing embrace. When their chests touch, Jack can feel Dale’s heart beating hard and fast.
“You saved my ass,” Dale says into his ear. “Anything I can do—”
“You can do something, all right,” Jack says, pulling him inside. “I saw another cop car behind the news trucks. Couldn’t tell for sure, but I think this one was blue.”
“Oh-oh,” Dale says.
“Oh-oh is right. I need at least twenty minutes with Potter. It might not get us anything, but it might get us a lot. Can you hold off Brown and Black for twenty minutes?”
Dale gives his friend a grim little smile. “I’ll see you get half an hour. Minimum.”
“That’s great. And the 911 tape of the Fisherman’s call, do you still have that?”
“It went with the rest of the evidence we were holding after Brown and Black took the case. A trooper picked it up this afternoon.”
“Dale, no!”
“Easy, big boy. I’ve got a cassette copy, safe in my desk.”
Jack pats his chest. “Don’t scare me that way.”
“Sorry,” Dale says, thinking, Seeing you out there, I wouldn’t have guessed you were afraid of anything.
Halfway up the stairs, Jack remembers Speedy telling him he could use what had been left in the bathroom twice . . . but he has given the flowers to Tansy Freneau. Shit. Then he cups his hands over his nose, inhales, and smiles.
Maybe he still has them after all.
17
GEORGE POTTER is sitting on the bunk in the third holding cell down a short corridor that smells of piss and disinfectant. He’s looking out the window at the parking lot, which has lately been the scene of so much excitement and which is still full of milling people. He doesn’t turn at the sound of Jack’s approaching footfalls.
As he walks, Jack passes two signs. ONE CALL MEANS ONE CALL, reads the first. A.A. MEETINGS MON. AT 7 P.M., N.A. MEETINGS THURS. AT 8 P.M., reads the second. There’s a dusty drinking fountain and an ancient fire extinguisher, which some wit has labeled LAUGHING GAS.
Jack reaches the bars of the cell and raps on one with his house key. Potter at last turns away from the window. Jack, still in that state of hyperawareness that he now recognizes as a kind of Territorial residue, knows the essential truth of the man at a single look. It’s in the sunken eyes and the dark hollows beneath them; it’s in the sallow cheeks and the slightly hollowed temples with their delicate nestles of veins; it’s in the too sharp prominence of the nose.
“Hello, Mr. Potter,” he says. “I want to talk to you, and we have to make it fast.”
“They wanted me,” Potter remarks.
“Yes.”
“Maybe you should have let ’em take me. Another three-four months, I’m out of the race anyway.”
In his breast pocket is the Mag-card Dale has given him, and Jack uses it to unlock the cell door. There’s a harsh buzzing as it trundles back on its short track. When Jack removes the key, the buzzing stops. Downstairs in the ready room, an amber light marked H.C. 3 will now be glowing.
Jack comes in and sits down on the end of the bunk. He has put his key ring away, not wanting the metallic smell to corrupt the scent of lilies. “Where have you got it?”
Without asking how Jack knows, Potter raises one large gnarled hand—a carpenter’s hand—and touches his midsection. Then he lets it drop. “Started in the gut. That was five years ago. I took the pills and the shots like a good boy. La Riviere, that was. That stuff . . . man, I was throwing up ever’where. Corners and just about ever’where. Once I threw up in my own bed and didn’t even know it. Woke up the next morning with puke drying on my chest. You know anything about that, son?”
“My mother had cancer,” Jack says quietly. “When I was twelve. Then it went away.”
“She get five years?”
“More.”
“Lucky,” Potter says. “Got her in the end, though, didn’t it?”
Jack nods.
Potter nods back. They’re not quite friends yet, but it’s edging that way. It’s how Jack works, always has been.
“That shit gets in and waits,” Potter tells him. “My theory is that it never goes away, not really. Anyway, shots is done. Pills is done, too. Except for the ones that kill the pain. I come here for the finish.”
“Why?” This is not a thing Jack needs to know, and time is short, but it’s his technique, and he won’t abandon what works just because there are a couple of State Police jarheads downstairs waiting to take his boy. Dale will have to hold them off, that’s all.
“Seems like a nice enough little town. And I like the river. I go down ever’ day. Like to watch the sun on the water. Sometimes I think of all the jobs I did—Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois—and then sometimes I don’t think about much of anything. Sometimes I just sit there on the bank and feel at peace.”
“What was your line of work, Mr. Potter?”
“Started out as a carpenter, just like Jesus. Progressed to builder, then got too big for my britches. When that happens to a builder, he usually goes around calling himself a contractor. I made three-four million dollars, had a Cadillac, had a young woman who hauled my ashes Friday nights. Nice young woman. No trouble. Then I lost it all. Only thing I missed was the Cadillac. It had a smoother ride than the woman. Then I got my bad news and come here.”
He looks at Jack.
“You know what I think sometimes? That French Landing’s close to a better world, one where things look and smell better. Maybe where people act better. I don’t go around with folks—I’m not a friendly type person—but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel things. I got this idea in my head that it’s not too late to be decent. You think I’m crazy?”
“No,” Jack tells him. “That’s pretty much why I came here myself. I’ll tell you how it is for me. You know how if you put a thin blanket over a window, the sun will still shine through?”
George Potter looks at him with eyes that are suddenly alight. Jack doesn’t even have to finish the thought, which is good. He has found the wavelength—he almost always does, it’s his gift—and now it’s time to get down to business.
“You do know,” Potter says simply.
Jack nods. “You know why you’re here?”
“They think I killed that lady’s kid.” Potter nods toward the window. “The one out there that was holdin’ up the noose. I didn’t. That’s what I know.”
“Okay, that’s a start. Listen to me, now.”
Very quickly, Jack lays out the chain of events that has brought Potter to this cell. Potter’s brow furrows as Jack speaks, and his big hands knot together.
“Railsback!” he says at last. “I shoulda known! Nosy goddamn old man, always askin’ questions, always askin’ do you want to play cards or maybe shoot some pool or, I dunno, play Parcheesi, for Christ’s sake! All so he can ask questions. Goddamn nosey parker . . .”