Night Train полностью

Another thing I do, before I leave, is spend about an hour in the bathroom with the concealer. And the contour powder and the lip-liner. And the tweezers for Christ’s sake. Too, I’d washed my hair the night before, and had an early one. I guess a person will sometimes do this, no real reason attaching except for herself, to feel at her best around a man she likes. Another expla­nation may be that I have a crush on Trader. Well? So? It doesn’t mean anything. Say only this: If he wants comfort, I will give it to him. On my way out the door Tobe looked at me oddly. Tobe’s okay. He’s a gentle giant. As opposed to a violent one. As opposed to Deniss, Shawn, Jon, Duwain.

Long ago I learned that I cannot get the good guys.

I am one of the good guys, and I go out there and get the bad guys. I can get the bad guys.

But I cannot get the good guys.

I just cannot get the good guys.

It was a long evening, and it went in drifts.

Trader has moved back into the apartment. My death scene has been destroyed: It’s been redecorated. The chair in the bedroom—the same chair?—sits swathed in a white sheet. A stepladder still stands in the corner. Trader says he hasn’t yet slept in there. He ends up on the couch. Watching TV.

“Hey. A TV. You got a life at last,” I said. Innocent words were proving difficult to find. “What’s it like, being here?”

“It’s better being here than not being here.”

Again: Taken generally, this was not an opinion that Jennifer Rockwell would have shared.

I stood around in the kitchen while he fixed me a soda. Ice and lemon. Trader’s body was always slow-moving. This night his face, too, seemed to bear the shadow of ponderousness. If it wasn’t for the math and everything, at odd moments you might almost have figured him for one of those morons in a matinee mask—one of those guys given good looks for no good reason. Except to spread a little more grief. But then the light of intelligence would return to the brown softness of his eyes. I tried to remember if he’d always had this frown, this shadow. Or did he pick it up a month ago, on March fourth? The birthdate of so much stupefaction. He was drinking. He drank steadily all evening. Jack Daniel’s. Rocks.

Raising his glass, he turned to me and said, “Well,

Mike?”

But he never turned to me and said, What have you got? What did you learn? I wanted to know what he knew. He didn’t want to know what I knew.

At times, our talk was very—what shall I say?—orderly:

How about children, Trader? I guess I’m still looking for a precipitant that’s the right shape and size. Might she have had anxiety about that?

There was no pressure on her. I was pretty keen but I’d never push it. If she wanted none—fine. If she wanted ten—also fine. It’s like abortion. It’s the woman’s call.

This is left-field: How did she feel about abortion?

It was about the only agenda-type issue she was interested in. Libertarian, but with great qualms. Me too. That’s why I goof off on the subject and hand it over to the women.

At times, not so orderly. At times, our talk tended toward the not so orderly:

“Look at this.”

He was in the armchair, his reading chair, next to a round table on which books were stacked—also lamp, glass, framed photographs. Now he reached for a certain ruffled paperback, saying,

“It was in the shelves with its spine to the wall. I can’t believe she actually read it.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s so lousily written.”

A small-press publication, called Making Sense of Suicide. By some doctor with two middle initials. I flicked through it. Not one of those how-to guides that have recently been getting a lot of play. Written more from the counseling end of the operation—crisis cen­ter, help-line, talk-down.

“She made marks,” I said.

“Yeah. Habit. She always read with a pencil in her hand. I don’t know when she bought it. Could have been anytime in the last ten years.”

“She signed it.”

“But she didn’t date it. And her signature—her handwriting settled down pretty early. Why don’t you nuke it, Mike? With your forensic arsenal. The boron-activation test. Wasn’t that it?”

I sat back. I couldn’t quite get a take on his mood. I said, “That was Colonel Tom, Trader. The guy was down to his last marble. I had to do it for Tom.”

“Hey, I got one for you. Tom did it.”

“Did what?”

“Killed Jennifer. Murdered Jennifer.”

“Come again?”

“He’s the least likely guy. So it has to be him. Come on, we can cook this shit up. All you need is a little irre­sponsibility. It’s like redecorating the bedroom—you can do it a hundred ways. Miriam did it. Bax Denziger did it. You did it. But let’s stick with Tom. Tom did it. He waits till I leave. Then he sneaks in and does it.”

“Okay. Then why doesn’t he let it sleep? Why’d he crank me up? What am I doing sitting here tonight?”

“That’s a blind. That’s just a diversion. So the truth would never occur to anyone sane.”

“Motive?”

“Easy. I got it. Jennifer recalled a terrible secret from her past. A memory she tried to suppress. With drugs.”