'No, and that's all right. But I want an answer. If I don't get it from you, I'll get it some other way.'
'Hang on one second. If we're going to talk about this, I want to go into the study. It's a little more private there.'
'Fine.'
There was a click as Houston put Billy on hold. He sat in the phone booth, sweating, wondering if this was Houston's way of ditching him. Then there was another click.
'You still there, Billy?'
'Yes.'
'Okay,' Houston said, the note of disappointment in his voice both unmistakable and somehow comic. Houston sighed. 'Duncan Hopley has got a case of runaway acne.'
Billy got to his feet and opened the door of the phone booth. Suddenly it was too hot in there. 'Acne!'
'Pimples. Blackheads. Whiteheads. That's all. You happy?'.
'Anyone else?'
'No. And, Billy, I don't exactly consider pimples off the-wall. You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there, but it's not like that. Dunc Hopley has got a temporary glandular imbalance, that's all. And it's not exactly a new thing with him, either. He has a history of skin problems going back to the seventh grade.'
'Very rational. But if you add Cary Rossington with his alligator skin and William J. Halleck with his case of involuntary anorexia nervosa into the equation, it starts to sound a little like Stephen King again, wouldn't you say?'
Patiently Houston said: 'You've got a metabolic problem, Bill. Cary… I don't know. I've seen some -'
'Strange things, yes, I know,' Billy said. Had this cocaine-sniffing gasbag really been his family doctor for ten years? Dear God, was that the truth? 'Have you seen Lars Arncaster lately?'
'No,' Houston said impatiently. 'He's not my patient. I thought you said you only had one question.'
Of course he's not your patient, Billy thought giddily, he doesn't pay his bills on time, does he? And a fellow like you, a fellow with expensive tastes, really can't afford to wait, can he?
'This really is the last one,' Billy said. 'When did you last see Duncan Hopley?'
'Two weeks ago.'
'Thank you.'
'Make an appointment next time, Billy,' Houston said in an unfriendly voice, and hung up.
Hopley did not, of course, live on Lantern Drive, but the police chief's job paid well, and he had a trim New England saltbox on Ribbonmaker Lane.
Billy parked in the driveway at dusk, went to the door, and rang the bell. There was no answer. He rang again. No answer. He leaned on the bell. Still no answer. He went to the garage, cupped his hands around his face, and peered in. Hopley's car, a conservative cordovan-colored Volvo, was parked in there. FVW 1, the license plate read. There was no second car. Hopley was a bachelor. Billy went back to the door and began hammering on it. He hammered for nearly three minutes and his arm was getting tired when a hoarse voice yelled: 'Go away! Fuck off!'
'Let me in!' Billy shouted back. 'I have to talk to you!'
There was no answer. After a minute, Billy began to hammer again. There was no response at all this time… but when he stopped suddenly, he heard a whisper of movement on the other side of the door. He could suddenly picture Hopley standing there – crouching there – waiting for the unwelcome, insistent visitor to go away and leave him in peace. Peace, or whatever passed for it in Duncan Hopley'sworld these days. Billy uncurled his throbbing fist.
'Hopley, I think you're there,' he said quietly. 'You don't have to say anything; just listen to me. It's Billy Halleck. Two months ago I was involved in an accident. There was an old Gypsy woman who was jaywalking -'
Movement behind the door; definite now. A shuffle rustle.
'I hit her and killed her. Now I'm losing weight. I'm not on a diet or anything like that; I'm just losing weight. About seventy-five pounds so far. If it doesn't stop soon, I'm going to look like the Human Skeleton in a carny sideshow.
'Cary Rossington– Judge Rossington – presided at the preliminary hearing and declared that there was no case. He's developed some weird skin disease -'
Billy thought he heard a low gasp of surprise.
and he's gone out to the Mayo Clinic. The doctors have told him it isn't cancer, but they don't know what it is. Rossington would rather believe it is cancer than what he knows it really is.'
Billy swallowed. There was a painful click in his throat.
'It's a Gypsy curse, Hopley. I know how crazy that sounds, but it's the truth. There was an old man. He touched me when I came out of the hearing. He touched Rossington when he and his wife were at a flea market in Raintree. Did he touch you, Hopley?'
There was a long, long silence… and then one word drifted to Billy's ears through the mail slot, like a letter full of bad news from home:
'Yes . . .'
'When? Where?'
No answer.
'Hopley, where did the Gypsies go when they left Raintree? Do you know?'
No answer.
'I have to talk to you!' Billy said desperately. 'I've got an idea, Hopley. I think -'
'You can't do anything,' Hopley whispered. 'It's gone too far. You understand, Halleck? Too… far.'
That sigh again– papery, dreadful.
'It's a chance!' Halleck said furiously. 'Are you so far gone that doesn't mean anything to you?'
No answer. Billy waited, hunting inside himself for more words, other arguments. He could find none. Hopley simply wasn't going to let him in. He had begun to turn away when the door clicked open.
Billy looked at the black crack between the door and the jamb. He heard those rustling movements again, now going away, back down the darkened front hall. He felt goose flesh scutter down his back and sides and arms, and for a moment he almost went away anyhow– Never mind Hopley, he thought, if anyone can find those Gypsies, Kirk Penschley can, so never mind Hopley, you don't need him, you don't need to see what he's turned into.
Pushing the voice back, Billy grasped the knob of the police chief's front door, opened it, and stepped inside.
He saw a dim shape at the far end of the hall. A door on the left opened; the shape went in. A dim light glowed, and for a moment a shadow stretched long and gaunt across the hall floor, bending to go halfway up the far wall, where there was a framed photograph of Hopley receiving an award from the Fairview Rotary Club, The shadow's misshapen head lay on the photograph like an omen.
Billy walked down the hall, spooked now– no use kidding himself. He half-expected the door behind him to slam shut and lock … and then the Gypsy will dart out of the shadows and grab me from behind, just like the big scare scene in a cheap horror movie. Sure. Come on, asshole, get your act together! But his triphammering heartbeat did not slow.
He realized that Hopley's little house had an unpleasant smell– low and ripe, like slowly spoiling meat.
He stood outside the open door for a moment. It looked like a study or a den, but the light was so faint it was impossible to tell for sure.
'Hopley.'
'Come in,' the papery voice whispered.
Billy did.
It was Hopley's den, all right. There were rather more books than Billy would have expected, and a warm Turkish rug on the floor. The room was small, probably cozy and pleasant under the right circumstances.
There was a blondwood desk in the center. A Tensor lamp stood on it. Hopley had bent the lamp's neck so that the shade was less than an inch from the desk blotter. There was a small and savagely concentrated circle of light on the blotter; the rest of the room was a cold land of shadows.
Hopley himself was a manlike bulk in what might have been an Eames chair.
Billy stepped over the threshold. There was a chair in the corner. Billy sat in it, aware that he had picked the chair in the room which was farthest from Hopley. Nevertheless, he found himself straining to see Hopley clearly. It was impossible. The man was nothing but a silhouette. Billy found himself almost waiting for Hopley to flip the Tensor lamp up so that it glared into his, Billy's eyes. Then Hopley would lean forward, a cop out of a 1940's film noir, screaming: 'We know you did it, McGonigal! Stop trying to deny it! Confess! Confess and we'll let you have a cigarette! Confess and we'll give you a glassa icewadduh! Confess and we'll let you go to the batroom!'
–But Hopley only sat canted back in his Eames chair. There was a soft rustle as he crossed his legs.
'Well? You wanted to come in. You're in. Tell your tale, Halleck, and get out. You're not exactly my favorite person in all the world these days.'
'I'm not Leda Rossington's favorite person, either,' Billy said, 'and frankly, I don't give much of a shit what she thinks, or what you think, either. She thinks it's my fault. Probably you do too.'
'How much did you have to drink when you hit her, Halleck? My best guess is that if Tom Rangely had given you the breathalyzer, that little balloon would have floated straight up to heaven.'
'Nothing to drink, no drugs,' Billy said. His heart was still thudding, but now it was powered by rage rather than fear. Each thud sent a sick bolt of pain through his head. 'You want to know what happened? Huh? My wife of sixteen years picked that day to give me a handjob in the car. She never did anything like that before. I don't have the slightest clue why she picked that day to do it. So while you and Leda Rossington -and probably Cary Rossington as well– have been busy laying it off on me because I was behind the wheel, I've been busy laying it off on my wife because she had a hand inside my pants. And maybe we should all just lay it off on fate or destiny or something and stop worrying about blame.'
Hopley grunted.
'Or do you want me to tell you how I begged Tom Rangely on my knees for him not to give me a breath test or a blood test? How I cried on your shoulder to soft pedal the investigation and kick those Gypsies out of town?'
This time Hopley didn't even grunt. He was only a silent slumped shape in the Eames chair.
'Isn't it just a little late for all these games?' Billy asked. His voice had hoarsened, and he realized with some astonishment that he was on the verge of tears. 'My wife was jerking me off, true. I hit the old woman and killed her, true. She herself was at least fifty yards from the nearest crosswalk and came out from between two cars, true. You soft-pedaled the investigation and hustled them out of town as soon as Cary Rossington slapped a quick coat of whitewash on me, also true. And none of it means shit. But if you do want to sit here in the dark and hand out the guilt, my friend, don't forget to give yourself a. plateful.'
'A great closing summation, Halleck. Great. You ever seen Spencer Tracy in that movie about the Monkey Trial? You must have.'
'Fuck you,' Billy said, and got up.
Hopley sighed. 'Sit down.'
Billy Halleck stood uncertainly, realizing that part of him wanted to use his anger for its own less-than-noble purposes. That part wanted to get him out of here in a manufactured huff simply because that dark slumped shape in the Eames chair scared him shitless.
'Don't be such a sanctimonious prick,' Hopley said. 'Sit down, for Christ's sake.'
Billy sat down, aware that his mouth was dry and that there were small muscles in his thighs which were jumping and dancing uncontrollably.
'Have it the way you like it, Halleck. I'm more like you than you think. I don't give a fart in a high wind for the postmortems, either. You're right ~ I didn't think, I just did it. They weren't the first bunch of drifters I ever busted out of town, and I've done other little cosmetic jobs when some hot-shit townie got involved in a mess. Of course I couldn't do anything if the townie in question made the mess outside the Fairview town limits… but you'd be surprised how many of our leading lights never learned that you don't shit where you eat.
'Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised.'
Hopley uttered a gasping, wheezy laugh that made goose bumps rise on Billy's arms.
'All part of the service. If nothing had happened, none of us -you, me, Rossington– would even remember those Gypsies ever existed by now.'
Billy opened his mouth to utter a hot denial, to tell Hopley that he would remember the sick double-thud he'd heard for the rest of his life… and then he remembered the four days at Mohonk with Heidi, the two of them laughing together, eating like horses, hiking, making love every night and sometimes in the afternoons. How long had that been after it had happened? Two weeks?
He closed his mouth again.
'What's happened has happened. I guess the only reason I let you in at all was that it's good to know someone else believes this is happening, no matter how insane it is. Or maybe I just let you in because I'm lonely. And I'm scared, Halleck. Very scared. Extremely scared. Are you scared?'
'Yes,' Billy said simply.
'You know what scares me the most? I can live like this for quite a while. That scares me. Mrs Callaghee does my grocery shopping and she comes in twice a week to clean and do the washing. I've got the TV, and I like to read. My investments have done very well over the years, and if I'm moderately frugal, I could probably go on indefinitely. And just how much temptation to spend does a man in my position have, anyway? Am I going to buy a yacht, Halleck? Maybe charter a Lear and fly to Monte Carlo with my honey to watch the Grand Prix race there next month? What do you think? How many parties do you think I'd be welcome at now that my whole face is sliding off?'
Billy shook his head numbly.
'So… I could live here and it would just … just go on. Like it's going on right now, every day and every night. And that scares me, because it's wrong to go on living like this. Every day I don't commit suicide, every day I just sit here in the dark watching game shows and sitcoms, that old Gypsy fuck is laughing at me.'
'When… when did he … ?'
'Touch me? Just about five weeks ago, if it matters. I went up to Milford to see my mother and father. I took them out to lunch. I had a few beers before and a few more during the meal and decided to use the men's room before we left. The door was locked. I waited, it opened, and he came out. Old geezer with a rotted nose. He touched my cheek and said something.'
'What?'
'I didn't hear it,' Hopley said. 'Just then, someone in the kitchen dropped a whole stack of plates on the floor. But I didn't really have to hear it. All I've got to do is look in the mirror.'
'You probably don't know if they were camped in Milford.'
'As a matter of fact, I checked that out with the Milford P. D. the next day,' Hopley said. 'Call it professional curiosity– I recognized the old Gyp; no way you're going to forget a face like that, you know what I mean?'
'Yes,' Billy said.
'They had been camped on a farm in East Milford for four days. Same sort of deal as the one they had with that hemorrhoid Arncaster. The cop I talked to said he'd been keeping pretty close tabs on them and that they appeared to have moved on just that morning.'
'After the old man touched you.'
'Right.'
'Do you think he knew you were going to be there? In that particular restaurant?'
'I never took my folks there before,' Hopley said. 'It was an old place that had just been renovated. Usually we go to a dago place way on the other side of town. It was my mother's idea. She wanted to see what they did to the rugs or the paneling or something. You know how women are.'
'You didn't answer my question. Do you think he knew you were going to be there?'
There was a long, considering silence from the slumped shape in the Eames chair. 'Yes,' Hopley said at last. 'Yes, I do. More insanity, Halleck, right? Good thing no one's keeping score, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Billy said. 'I guess it is.' A peculiar little giggle escaped him. It sounded like a very small shriek.
'Now, what's this idea of yours, Halleck? I don't sleep much these days, but I usually start tossing and turning right around this time of night.'
Asked to bring out in words what he had only thought about in the silence of his own mind, Billy found himself feeling absurd– his idea was weak and foolish, not an idea at all, not really, but only a dream.
'The law firm I work for retains a team of investigators,' he said. 'Barton Detective Services, Inc.'
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