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9
I stared at him with my mouth open. Somewhere in the distance there was a rattle of pops as some Halloween miscreant set off a string of firecrackers. Kids were shouting their way up and down Witcham Street. But here it was just the two of us. Christy and her fellow alcoholics called themselves the Friends of Bill; we were the Enemies of Frank. A perfect team, you would say . . .
except Bill “No Suspenders” Turcotte didn’t look like much of a team player.
“You . . .” I stopped and shook my head. “Tell me.”
“If you’re half as bright as you think you are, you should be able to put it together for yourself. Or didn’t Chazzy tell you enough?”
At first that didn’t compute. Then it did. The little man with the mermaid on his forearm and the cheerful chipmunk face. Only that face hadn’t looked so cheerful when Frank Du
Before that, while Frank was still telling jokes at the Tracker brothers’ bullshit table at the back of The Lamplighter, Chaz Frati had filled me in about Du
“Is somethin comin through on the radio waves, Commander Cody? Looks like it might be.”
“Frank Du
“Well there. The man says the secret woid and wins a hu
“Mr. Frati said she took the baby and ran out on him. Because she got enough of him turning ugly when he drank.”
“Yeah, that’s what he told you, and that’s what most people in town believe—what Chazzy believes, for all I know—but I know better. Clara n me was always close. Growin up it was me for her and her for me. You probably don’t know about a thing like that, you strike me as a mighty cold fish, but that’s how it was.”
I thought about that one good year I’d had with Christy—six months before the marriage and six months after. “Not that cold. I know what you’re talking about.” He was rubbing at himself again, although I don’t think he was aware of it: belly to chest, chest to throat, back down to the chest again. His face was paler than ever. I wondered what he’d had for lunch, but didn’t think I’d have to wonder for long; soon I’d be able to see for myself.
“Yeah? Then maybe you’d think it’s a little fu
“You need to sit down,” I said. “You’re sick.”
“I never get sick. I ain’t even had a cold since I was in sixth grade.” If so, that bug would blitzkrieg him like the Germans rolling into Warsaw.
“It’s stomach flu, Turcotte. I was up all night with it. Mr. Keene at the drugstore says it’s going around.”
“That narrow-ass ole lady don’t know nothin. I’m fine.” He gave his greasy clumps of hair a toss to show me how fine he was. His face was paler than ever. The hand holding the Japanese bayonet was shaking the way mine had until noon today. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Sure.” I snuck a glance at my watch. It was ten past six. The time that had been dragging so slowly was now speeding up. Where was Frank Du
Only that wasn’t the plan. He was in a bar somewhere, and not The Lamplighter. That was where he went for a single beer, two at the most. Which he could handle, although—if my wife was a fair example, and I thought she was—he would always leave dry-mouthed, with his brain raging for more.
No, when he felt the need to really take a bath in the stuff, he’d want to do it in one of Derry’s down-and-dirty bars: the Spoke, the Sleepy, the Bucket. Maybe even one of the absolute dives that hung over the polluted Kenduskeag—Wally’s or the scabrous Paramount Lounge, where ancient whores with waxwork faces still populated most of the stools at the bar. And did he tell jokes that got the whole place laughing? Did people even approach him as he went about the job of pouring grain alcohol onto the coals of rage at the back of his brain? Not unless they wanted impromptu dental work.
“When my sister n nephew disappeared, them n Du
“I think he snapped. I think he came home drunk and she said the wrong thing, maybe something completely i
“Inocku- what?”
I peered through the hedge into the backyard. Beyond it, a woman passed the kitchen window and was gone. In casa Du
with Dream Whip? Ritz cracker pie? I thought not. Who needs dessert on Halloween night? “What I’m saying is that he killed them. Isn’t that what you think?”
“Yeah . . .” He looked both taken aback and suspicious. I think obsessives always look that way when they hear the things that have kept them up long nights not just articulated but corroborated. It has to be a trick, they think. Only this was no trick. And it certainly wasn’t a treat.
I said, “Du