'I've heard of them.'
'They are supposed to be the best in the business. I… That is to say . . .'
He felt Hopley's impatience radiating off the man in waves, although Hopley did not move at all. He summoned what dignity he had left, telling himself that he surely knew as much about what was going on as Hopley, that he had every bit as much right to speak; after all, it was happening to him too.
'I want to find him,' Billy said. 'I want to confront him. I want to tell him what happened., I… I guess I want to come completely clean. Although I suppose if he could do these things to us, he may know anyway.'
'Yes,' Hopley said.
Marginally encouraged, Billy went on: 'But I still want to tell him my side of it. That it was my fault, yes, I should have been able to stop in time– all things being equal, I would have stopped in time. That it was my wife's fault, because of what she was doing to me. That it was Rossington's fault for whitewashing it, and yours for going easy on the investigation and then humping them out of town.'
Billy swallowed.
'And then I'll tell him it was her fault, too. Yes. She was jaywalking, Hopley, and so okay, it's not a crime they give you the gas chamber for, but the reason it's against the law is that it can get you killed the way she got killed.'
'You want to tell him that?'
'I don't want to, but I'm going to. She came out from between two parked cars, didn't look either way. They teach you better in the third grade.'
'Somehow I don't think that babe ever got the Officer Friendly treatment in the third grade,' Hopley said. 'Somehow I don't think she ever went to the third grade, you know?'
'Just the same,' Billy said stubbornly, 'simple common sense -'
'Halleck, you must be a glutton for punishment,' -the shadow that was Hopley said. 'You're losing weight now– do you want to try for the grand prize? Maybe next time he'll stop up your bowels, or heat your bloodstream up to about a hundred and ten degrees, or -'
'I'm not just going to sit in Fairview and let it happen!' Billy said fiercely. 'Maybe he can reverse it, Hopley. Did you ever think of that?'
'I've been reading up on this stuff,' Hopley said. 'I guess I knew what was happening almost from the time the first pimple showed up over one of my eyebrows. Right where the acne attacks Always started when I was in high school– and I used to have some pisser acne attacks back then, let me tell you. So I've been reading up on it. Like I said, I like to read. And I have to tell you, Halleck, that there are hundreds of books on casting spells and curses, but very few on reversing them.'
'Well, maybe he can't. Maybe not. Probably not, even. But I can still go to him, goddammit. I can stare him in the face and say, "You didn't cut enough pieces out of the pie, old man. You should have cut out a piece for my wife, and one for your wife, and while we're at it, old man, how about a piece for you? Where were you while she was walking into the street without looking where she was going? If she wasn't used to in-town traffic, you must have known it. So where were you? Why weren't you there to take her by the arm and lead her down to the crosswalk on the corner? Why -'
'Enough,' Hopley said. 'If I was on a jury, you'd convince me, Halleck. But you forgot the most important factor operating here.'
'What's that?' Billy asked stiffly.
'Human nature. We may be victims of the supernatural, but what we're really dealing with is human nature. As a police officer– excuse me, former police officer – I couldn't agree more that there's no absolute right and absolute wrong; there's just one gray shading into the next, lighter or darker. But you don't think her husband's going to buy that shit, do you?'
'I don't know.'
'I know,' Hopley said. 'I know, Halleck. I can read that guy so well I sometimes think he must be sending me mental radio signals. All his life he's been on the move, busted out of a place as soon as the“good folks” have got all the maryjane or hashish they want, as soon as they've lost all the dimes they want on the wheel of chance. All his life he's heard a bad deal called a dirty gyp. The “good folks” got roots; you got none. This guy, Halleck, he's seen canvas tents burned for a joke back in the thirties and forties, and maybe there were babies and old people that burned up in some of those tents. He's seen his daughters or his friends' daughters attacked, maybe raped, because all those “good folks” know that gypsies fuck like rabbits and a little more won't matter, and even if it does, who gives a fuck. To coin a phrase. He's maybe seen his sons, or his friends' sons, beaten within an inch of their lives … and why? Because the fathers of the kids who did the beating lost some money on the games of chance. Always the same: you come into town, the “good folks” takewhat they want, and then you get busted out of town. Sometimes they give you a week on the local pea farm or a month on the local road crew for good measure. And then, Halleck, on top of everything, the final crack of the whip comes. This hotshot lawyer with three chins and bulldog jowls runs your wife down in the street. She's seventy, seventy-five, half-blind, maybe she only steps out too quick because she wants to get back to her place before she wets herself, and old bones break easy, old bones are like glass, and you hang around thinking maybe this once, just this once, there's going to be a little justice … an instant of justice to make up for a lifetime of crap -'
'Quit it,' Billy Halleck said hoarsely, 'just quit it, what do you say?' He touched his cheek distractedly, thinking he must be sweating heavily. But it wasn't sweat on his cheek; it was tears.
'No, you deserve it all,' Hopley said with savage joviality, 'and I'm going to give it to you. I'm not telling you not to go ahead, Halleck– Daniel Webster talked Satan's jury around, so hell, I guess anything's possible. But I think you're still holding on to too many illusions. This guy is mad, Halleck. This guy is furious. For all you know, he may be right off his gourd by now, in which case you'd be better off making your pitch in the Bridgewater Mental Asylum. He's out for revenge, and when you're out for revenge, you're not apt to see how everything is shades of gray. When your wife and kids get killed in a plane crash, you don't want to listen to how circuit A fucked up switch B, and traffic controller C had a touch of bug D and navigator E picked the wrong time to go to shithouse F. You just want to sue the shit out of the airline … or kill someone with your shotgun. You want a goat, Halleck. You want to hurt someone. And we're getting hurt. Bad for us. Good for him. Maybe I understand the thing a little betterthan you, Halleck.'
Slowly, slowly, his hand crept into the narrow circle of light thrown by the Tensor lamp and turned it so that it shone on his face. Halleck dimly heard a gasp and realized it had come from him.
He heard Hopley saying: How many parties do you think I'd be welcome at now that my whole face is sliding off?
Hopley's skin was a harsh alien landscape. Malignant red pimples the size of tea saucers grew out of his chin, his neck, his arms, the back of his hands. Smaller eruptions rashed his cheeks and forehead; his nose was a plague zone of blackheads. Yellowish pus oozed and flowed in weird channels between bulging dunes of proud flesh. Blood trickled here and there. Coarse black hairs, beard hairs, grew in crazy helter-skelter tufts, and Halleck's horrified overburdened mind realized that shaving would have become impossible some time ago in the face of such cataclysmic upheavals. And from the center of it all, helplessly embedded in that trickling red landscape, were Hopley's staring eyes.
They looked at Billy Halleck for what seemed an endless length of time, reading his revulsion and dumbstruck horror. At last he nodded, as if satisfied, and turned the Tensor lamp off.
'Oh, Christ, Hopley, I'm sorry.'
'Don't be,' Hopley said, that weird joviality back in his voice. 'Yours is going slower, but you'll get there eventually. My service pistol is in the third drawer of this desk, and if it gets bad enough I'll use it no matter what the balance is in my bankbook. God hates a coward, my father used to say. I wanted you to see me so you'll understand. I know how he feels, that old Gyp. Because I wouldn't make any pretty legal speeches. I wouldn't bother with any sweet reason. I'd kill him for what he's done to me, Halleck.'
That dreadful shape moved and shifted. Halleck heard Hopley draw his fingers down his cheek, and then he heard the unspeakable, sickening sound of ripe pimples breaking wetly open. Rossington is plating, Hopley's rotting, and I'm wasting away, he thought. Dear God, let it be a dream, even let me be crazy… but don't let this be happening.
'I'd kill him very slowly,' Hopley said. 'I will spare you the details.'
Billy tried to speak. There was nothing but a dry croak.
'I understand where you're coming from, but I hold out very little hope for your mission,' Hopley said hollowly. 'Why don't you consider killing him instead, Halleck? Why don't you… ?'
But Halleck had reached his limit. He fled Hopley's darkened study, cracking his hip hard on the corner of his desk, madly sure that Hopley would reach out with one of those dreadful hands and touch him. Hopley didn't.
Halleck ran out into the night and stood there breathing great lungfuls of clean air, his head bowed, his thighs trembling.
Chapter Thirteen
He thought restlessly for the rest of the week of calling Ginelli at Three Brothers– Ginelli seemed like an answer of some kind -just what kind, he didn't know. But in the end he went ahead and checked into the Glassman Clinic and began the metabolic series. If he had been single and alone, as Hopley was (Hopley had made several guest appearances in Billy's dreams the night before), he would have canceled the whole business. But there was Heidi to think about … and there was Linda – Linda, who truly was an innocent bystander and who understood none of this. So he checked into the clinic, hiding his crazy knowledge like a man hiding a drug habit.
It was, after all, a place to be, and while he was there, Kirk Penschley and the Barton Detective Services would be taking care of his business. He hoped.
So he was poked and prodded. He drank a horrid chalky-tasting barium solution. He was given X rays, a CAT-scan, an EEG, an EKG, and a total metabolic survey. Visiting doctors were brought around to look at him as if he were a rare zoo exhibit. A giant panda, or maybe the last of the dodo birds, Billy thought, sitting in the solarium and holding an unread National Geographic in his hands. There were Band-Aids on the backs of both hands. They had stuck a lot of needles in him.
On his second morning at Glassman, as he submitted to yet another round of poking and prying and tapping, he noticed that he could see the double stack of his ribs for the first time since… since high school? No, since forever. His bones were making themselves known, casting shadows against his skin, coming triumphantly out. Not only were the love handles above his hips gone, the blades of his pelvic bones were clearly visible. Touching one of them, he thought that it felt knobby,like the gearshift of the first car he had ever owned, a 1957 Pontiac. He laughed a little, and then felt the sting of tears. All of his days were like that now. Upsy-downsy, weather unsettled, chance of showers.
I'd kill him very slowly, he heard Hopley saying. I will spare you the details.
Why? Billy thought, lying sleepless in his clinic bed with the raised invalid sides. You didn't spare me anything else.
During his three-day stay at Glassman, Halleck lost seven pounds. Not much, he thought with his own brand of gallows joviality. Not much, less than the weight of a medium-sized bag of sugar. At this rate I won't fade away to nothing until… gee! Almost October!
172, his mind chanted. 172 now, if you were a boxer you'd be out of the heavyweight class and into the middleweight… would you care to try for welterweight, Billy? Lightweight? Bantamweight? How about flyweight?
Flowers came: from Heidi, from the firm. A small nosegay came from Linda– written on the card in her flat, sprawling hand was Please get well soon, Daddy – Love you, Lin. Billy Halleck cried over that.
On the third day, dressed again, he met with the three doctors in charge of his case. He felt much less vulnerable in jeans and a MEET ME IN FAIRVIEW T-shirt; it was really amazing how much it meant to be out of one of the goddamn hospital johnnies. He listened to them, thought of Leda Rossington, and suppressed a grim smile.
They knew exactly what was wrong with him; they were not mystified at all. Au contraire, they were so excited they were damned near making weewee in their pants. Well… maybe a note of caution was in order. Maybe they didn't know exactly what was wrong with him yet, but it was surely one of two things (or possibly three). One of them was a rare wasting disease that had never been seen outside of Micronesia. One was a rare metabolic disease that had never been completely described. The third – just a possibility, mind you! – was a psychological form of anorexia nervosa, this last so rare that it had long been suspected but never actually proven. Billy could see from the hot light in their eyes that they were pulling for that one; they would get their names in the medical books. But in any case, Billy Halleck was definitely a rara avis, and his doctors were like kids on Christmas morning.
The upshot was that they wanted him to hang in at Glassman for another week or two (or possibly three). They were going to whip what was wrong with him. They were going to whip it good. They contemplated a series of megavitamins to start with (certainly!), plus protein injections (of course!), and a great many more tests (without a doubt!).
There was the professional equivalent of dismayed howls -and they were almost literally howls– when Billy told them quietly that he thanked them, but he would have to leave. They remonstrated with him; they expostulated; they lectured. And to Billy, who felt more and more often lately that he must be losing his mind, the trio of doctors began to look eerily like the Three Stooges. He halfexpected them to begin bopping and boinking each other, staggering around the richly appointed office with their white coats flapping, breaking things and shouting in Brooklyn accents.
'You undoubtedly feel quite well now, Mr Halleck,' one of them said. 'You were, after all, quite seriously overweight to begin with, according to your records. But I need to warn you that what you feel now may be spurious. If you continue to lose weight, you can expect to develop mouth sores, skin problems . . .'
If you want to see some real skin problems, you ought to check out Fairview's chief of police, Halleck thought. Excuse me, ex-chief.
He decided, on the spur of the moment and apropos of nothing, to take up smoking again.
'. . . diseases similar to scurvy or beriberi,' the doctor was continuing sternly. 'You're going to become extremely susceptible to infections– everything from colds and bronchitis to tuberculosis. Tuberculosis, Mr Halleck,' he said impressively. 'Now if you stay here -'
'No,' Billy said. 'Please understand that it's not even an option.'
One of the others put his fingers gently to his temples as if he had just developed a splitting headache. For all Billy knew, he had– he was the doctor who had advanced the idea of psychological anorexia nervosa. 'What can we say to convince you, Mr Halleck?'
'Nothing,' Billy replied. The image of the old Gypsy came unbidden into his mind– he felt again the soft, caressing touch of the man's hand on his cheek, the scrape of the hard calluses. Yes, he thought, I'm going to take up smoking again. Something really devilish like Camels or Pall Malls or Chesterfoggies. Why not? When the goddamn doctors start looking like Larry, Curly,and Moe, it's time to do something.
They asked him to wait a moment and went out together. Billy was content enough to wait– he felt that he had finally reached the caesura in this mad play, the eye of the storm, and he was content with that … that, and the thought of all the cigarettes he would soon smoke, perhaps even two at a time.
They came back, grim-faced but looking somehow exalted -men who had decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. They would let him stay free of charge, they said: he need pay only for the lab work.
'No,' Billy said patiently. 'You don't understand. The major medical coverage pays for all of ^that anyway; I checked. The point is, I'm leaving. Simply leaving. Bugging out.'
They stared at him, uncomprehending, beginning to be angry. Billy thought of telling them how much like the Three Stooges they looked, and decided that would be an extremely bad idea. It would complicate things. Such fellows as these were not used to being challenged, to having their gris-gris rejected. He did not think it past possibility that they might call Heidi and suggest that a competency hearing was in order. And Heidi might listen to them.
'We'll pay for the tests too,' one of them said finally, in a this-is-our-final-offer tone.
'I'm leaving,' Billy said. He spoke very quietly, but he saw that they finally believed him. Perhaps it was the very quietness of his tone that had finally convinced them that it was not a matter of money, that he was authentically mad.
'But why? Why, Mr Halleck?'
'Because,' Billy said, 'although you think you can help me… ah … gentlemen, you can't.'
And looking at their unbelieving, uncomprehending faces, Billy thought he had never felt so lonely in his life.
On his way home he stopped at a smoke shop and bought a package of Chesterfield Kings. The first three puffs made him feel so dizzy and sick that he threw them away.
'So much for that experiment,' he said aloud in the car, laughing and crying at the same time. 'Back to the old drawing board, kids.'
Chapter 14. Linda was gone.
Heidi, the normally tiny lines beside her eyes and the corners of her mouth now deep with strain (she was smoking like a steam engine, Billy saw– one Vantage 100 after another), told Halleck she had sent Linda to her Aunt Rhoda's in Westchester County.
'I did it for a couple of reasons,' Heidi said. 'The first is that… that she needs a rest from you, Billy. From what's happening to you. She's half out of her mind. It's gotten so I can't convince her you don't have cancer.'
'She ought to talk to Cary Rossington,' Billy muttered as he went into the kitchen to turn on the coffee. He needed a cup badly– strong and black, no sugar. 'They sound like soulmates.'
'What? I can't hear you.'
'Never mind. Just let me turn on the coffee.'
'She's not sleeping,' Heidi said when he came back. She was twisting her hands together restlessly. 'Do you understand?'
'Yes,' Billy said, and he did… but it felt as if there was a thorn lodged somewhere inside of him. He wondered if Heidi understood that he needed Linda too, if she really understood that his daughter was also part of his support system. But part of his support system or not, he had no right to erode Linda's confidence, her psychological equilibrium. Heidi was right about that. She was right about that no matter how much it cost.
He felt that bright hate surface in his heart again. Mommy had driven his daughter off to auntie's house as soon as Billy had called and said he was on his way. And how come? Why, because the bogey-daddy was coming home! Don't run screaming, dear, it's only the Thin Man…
Why that day? Why did you have to pick that day?
'Billy? Are you all right?' Heidi's voice was oddly hesitant.
Jesus! You stupid bitch! Here you are married to the Incredible Shrinking Man, and all you can think to ask is if I'm all right?
'I'm as all right as I can be, I guess. Why?'
'Because you looked… strange for a minute.'
Did I? Did I really? Why that day, Heidi? Why did you pick that day to reach into my pants after all the prim years of doing everything in the dark?
'Well, I suppose I feel a little strange almost all the time now,' Billy said, thinking: You've got to stop it, my friend. This is pointless. What's done is done.
But it was hard to stop it. Hard to stop it when she stood there smoking one cigarette after another but looking and seeming perfectly well, and…
But you will stop it, Billy. So help me.
Heidi turned away and stubbed her cigarette out in a crystal ashtray.
'The second thing is… you've been keeping something from me, Billy. Something to do with this. You talk in your sleep, sometimes. You've been out nights. Now, I want to know. I deserve to know.' She was beginning to cry.
'You want to know?' Halleck asked. 'You really want to know?' he felt a strange dry grin surface on his face.
'Yes! Yes!'
So Billy told her.
Houston called him the following day, and after a long and meaningless prologue, he got to the point. Heidi was with him. He and Heidi had had a long chat (did you offer her a toot for the human snoot? Halleck thought of asking, and decided that maybe he had better not). The upshot of their long chat was simply this: they thought Billy was just as crazy as a loon.
'Mike,' Billy said, 'the old Gypsy was real. He touched all three of us: me, Cary Rossington, Duncan Hopley. Now, a guy like you doesn't believe in the supernatural I accept that. But you sure as shit believe in deductive and inductive reasoning. So you've got to see the possibilities. All three of us were touched by him, all three of us have mysterious physical ailments, Now, for Christ's sake, before you decide I've gone crazy, at least consider the logical link.'
'Billy, there is no link.'
'I just -,
'I've talked to Leda Rossington. She says Cary is in the Mayo being treated for skin cancer. She says it's gone pretty far, but they're reasonably sure he's going to be okay. She further says she hasn't seen you since the Gordons' Christmas party.'
'She's lying!'
Silence from Houston . . . and was that the sound of Heidi crying in the background? Billy's hand tightened on the telephone until the knuckles grew white.
'Did you talk to her in person, or just on the phone?'
'On the phone. Not that I understand the difference that makes.'
'If you saw her, you'd know. She looks like a woman who's had most of the life shocked right out of her.'
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