Benchley, Peter - Novel 07 (39 page)

 
          
 
When Chuck was cleaned up, they took him into
the bedroom and sat him on Twist's bed. Marcia offered him a cigarette. As he
reached for it, his hand trembled so badly that he shook his head and clasped
his hands together and dropped them into his lap. She lit the cigarette for him
and put it between his lips.

 
          
 
He smiled bitterly and said, “You know what I
am? A-"

 
          
 
“A human being," said Marcia. “And it's
no damn bargain."

 
          
 
Chuck talked then, unprompted and
uninterrupted. As much as Preston wanted to edit him, wanted to urge him to cut
to the chase and tell them what he knew about Natasha and Banner and about the
details of the award ceremony, he knew that Chuck had to talk in his own way,
at his own pace (perhaps with some gentle guidance if he strayed too far into
the backwaters of his childhood), if he was to resolve his conflicts and come
to the conviction that he would help them.

 
          
 
And need him they did, for without him they
would be helpless to bring Banner down.

 
          
 
Chuck recited the familiar facts about his
career in the NFL and his discovery of the ephemeral joys of cocaine.

 
          
 
Preston
was
smoking a cigarette and barely listening when, at the end of that chapter,
Chuck said, "Nobody knows this, but I was s'posed to go on trial when I
got outa here, possession with intent. Stone said he could do a deal with the
court if I'd come work for him, stay under his supervision. What did I want,
serve three-to-five or drive a car for him? Shit, that was an easy
choice."

 
          
 
For the first year, there were no problems.
About halfway through the second year, he asked Banner how long he'd have to
work for him, thought he'd like to move back to the Philadelphia area and get
an outdoors job in construction or something, he didn't really like the desert.
Banner blew up at him and said he was to stay until Banner decided he didn't
need him anymore and if he took a hike he ought to keep in mind that Banner
could have the charges revived anytime, the indictment was still valid and he
was a friend of the judge. Chuck was a prisoner.

 
          
 
He figured, well, he shouldn't piss and moan
too much, he had been in possession and he had had intent, so his conviction
was as sure as sunrise, and three-to-five in the desert wasn't half as nasty as
three-to-five in “Q” or someplace.

 
          
 
Then Banner began to lean on him for more than
just driving, like getting some inside information from some of his old NFL
buddies that Banner could pass on to his friends, and taking Banner to Tahoe
and Reno and other places and dealing with a bunch of Eye-Ties in shiny suits
about cleaning up after Banner and keeping it quiet, and, over the past few
months, ferrying girls and shit—and sometimes just the shit itself, hidden in
Pringle's potato-chip cans—up the hill to Xanadu.

 
          
 
Even that he could deal with, could
rationalize, because recovery is a one-man job, and no matter what Banner was
doing to himself, he—Chuck—was keeping himself clean one day at a time, and
that was all that counted. He tried to talk to Banner a couple of times,
offered to help him, even be his private sponsor and get him clean again, and
Banner just kissed him off like he was a worm. So Chuck figured. Fuck him.
Every man for himself.

 
          
 
Then came the Natasha business.

 
          
 
She had heard talk about Banner, maybe she
overheard one of Don Ciccio's parasites bragging at a prizefight or some
showbiz stand-around, and she decided to pay him a visit. No warning, no
nothing.

 
          
 
First thing Chuck heard about it was when she
called him at home and asked him to pick her up at the airport and drive her up
to Xanadu.

 
          
 
It was in the car that she told him she had
heard bad news, and she asked him if it was true.

 
          
 
“I didn't say dick," Chuck said,
"and I told her why I wasn't about to. She accepted that real nice. She
was in fine shape, all pretty like in the pictures, in control. Said she was
gonna lay it out for Stone, plain and simple: He cleaned up his act or she was
gonna blow the whistle. She wanted him to go back into treatment, said she’ll
even go with him if he wanted."

 
          
 
Chuck stopped.

 
          
 
"Then what?"
Preston
said.

 
          
 
“Don't know. Don't know if I ever will. I
parked the car and went 'round to the slaves' quarters to get Cook to make me a
sandwich. 'Bout an hour later, I was there havin' coffee and a smoke. Stone
came in and said he had to see me. He looked bad, all shaky and shitty.

 
          
 
''We get back in the main house and he says,
Something's wrong with Natasha, she up and run away. He musta seen in my eyes
that I had trouble swallowin' that, 'cause he started off on how he could tell
the minute she walked in the door she was on somethin', she was all frazzled
and didn't make sense. When I didn't chime in right away and agree with him, he
said. Of course, it would've been hard for you to know because you were in the
front of the limo and she was alone in the back and she never was a big talker to
... He couldn't bring himself to say what he meant—servants or the masses or
something—so he let it tail off. I made a mistake and told him right then that
she sat in the front seat, not the back, and she talked the whole way. If I had
a brain in this fuckin' coconut of mine, I woulda saved that for the sheriff.

 
          
 
“I wanted to go outside and have a look for
her, and he told me not to bother, she had called a cab. Then he said. No, she
had run out and said she was gonna call a cab. He didn't know what he was
talkin' about. When I said I had to look for her, he brought up the indictment
crap again. So I never did see the hole in the fence, not till . . . after.

 
          
 
“
Five o'clock
the next day, the motherfuckin’ German
whore of a flame-red car shows up outside my condo.”

 
          
 
Chuck put his head in his hands.

 
          
 
Marcia said, “How did you deal with that?”

 
          
 
Chuck looked up at her and smiled. “Shit, you
the one found me.”

 
          
 
Preston
said, “What do you think happened?”

 
          
 
“Gun to my head, I guess he fed her somethin’,
like you say he did Priscilla, and she prob'ly had no tolerance—I mean, she’d
been clean for damn near a month—and she went apeshit. Maybe she run outside
and fell over the edge. Maybe he got scared and followed her. Maybe he pushed
her. Strikes me, it don’t matter. One way or other, he did her.”

 
          
 
Marcia lit another cigarette and handed it to
Chuck. “What now?" she said.

 
          
 
“I made my deal," Chuck said after he had
sucked half an inch off the cigarette, “and I lived up to my end. But that
prick, he gone and changed the rules. What you told me, he's not just a sick
fucker anymore. He's dangerous. What you got in mind?"

 
          
 
Preston
asked about the award ceremony. Chuck said he knew about it, that Banner was
real excited, had had invitations engraved and sent to just about the whole of
Who's Who.

 
          
 
“You're driving him?"

 
          
 
“ 'Spect so.”

 
          
 
“He hasn't fired you?"

 
          
 
“I don't guess he'd dare. We got each other by
the short and curlies."

 
          
 
Preston
told him what they had in mind.

 
          
 
Chuck thought about it, got up and walked to
the window. After a moment, he turned around, and there was a big grin on his
face.

 
          
 
“That would be real nice," he said.

 
          
 
“Clarisse'll kill me," Duke said.
"She'll kill me, and then she'll cut me up in little pieces and feed me to
the buzzards."

 
          
 
“You were the one wanted to napalm the place
when Marcia was fired," said
Preston
.
"You were all for—"

 
          
 
"Yeah ..." Duke was squirming,
embarrassed. "But that was talk. Now you're serious.''

 
          
 
"It's up to you."
Preston
didn't want to push him. "If we're
careful, there's no way we'll get caught."

 
          
 
Duke's meeting with Clarisse had gone better
than he had dared dream it could. If he graduated, she'd take him back. "I
don't know what love is," she had said. "You're a slippery bastard,
but I miss you." She might even consider having kids. But if he got thrown
out, forget it. She'd take the house, the cars, the furniture and the bank
accounts and leave him with nothing but the payments on the home equity loan.

 
          
 
"I can't do it," Duke said, looking
wretched. "I just can't." He had a cigarette going, but he lit
another one anyway.

           
 
“Fair enough.”

 
          
 
Hector said, “Me too. I got my future to think
about. Pretty soon they gonna make me graduate. Couple weeks on the streets, I
find me another joint, no sweat. But they throw me outa here, somethin' like
this, I'm blackballed every joint in
America
. Haveta find me a joint in fuckin'
Canada
. Who needs that shit?"

 
          
 
"Okay," said
Preston
. He wasn't surprised. This was pretty much
the way he had thought it would go. Hoped it would go. Too many players could
screw up the game. But everybody had to be given a chance. "That leaves me
and Puff and Twist and Clarence. I think to protect-"

 
          
 
"I'm out," said
Crosby
, ripping blades from a patch of grass in
the exercise area where they sat. "They'll never let me play again, not in
the bigs. My boy'll never see me stroke another one. I can't handle that. He's
only six."

 
          
 
"Right." That's the core. No more
defections. Please. He looked at Lupone.

 
          
 
"I made the call," Lupone said.
"Raffi still wants to whack him, but he'll give you your shot."

 
          
 
Before
Preston
could turn to Twist, Twist said,
"Chuck's set. He makes the pickup at the deli, same as always, swings by
the place you told him, then goes to get Stone at six-thirty.''

 
          
 
Preston
nodded. He smiled at Twist. "How you feeling?"

 
          
 
"Not too nasty. But I got that funny
feeling, y'know, like"—Twist grinned—"like I'm comin' down with
somethin' bad.''

 
          
 
"Me too."

 
          
 
* * *

 
          
 
They planted the seed after lunch.
Preston
and Twist went to Gwen and begged off the
afternoon lecture and group, both claiming to feel nauseous, sweaty and
strange.

 
          
 
She looked from one to the other, like an
avenging angel imagining deeds so vile as to defy description, and said sternly,
“What have you been doing?"

 
          
 
“Breathing each other's air," said
Preston
.

 
          
 
“In your room, both of you," she said. “I
want you fit as fiddles for tonight's affair."

 
          
 
“Absolutely," said Twist.

 
          
 
''Wouldn't miss it," said
Preston
.

 
          
 
They slept until
five o'clock
. Twist laved his eyes with soapy water,
then rinsed them and looked in the mirror.

 
          
 
“Nice,"
Preston
said. "You look good in pink."

 
          
 
They went to see Gwen again.

 
          
 
Preston
coughed noisily and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

 
          
 
“I don't know what this is,"
Preston
said. ''Plague, maybe. There've been cases
out here."

 
          
 
Gwen said, "If you didn't smoke so
much—"

 
          
 
"I keep tellin' him," said Twist.
"Sucker's poisoned me." He made a hideous sound into a tissue.

 
          
 
"We're going tonight,"
Preston
insisted. "I just wanted your
permission to get some cough medicine."

 
          
 
"And infect Liza Minnelli? Maybe even
Mary Tyler Moore? The only place you're going is to see Nurse Bridget. Perhaps
she'll take you with her and isolate you in the back of the hall."

 
          
 
Oh-oh.

 
          
 
They went into the common room, to the coffee
brewer, and while
Preston
stood watch, poured coffee into two small
specimen containers he had clipped from the bathroom next to the infirmary.

 
          
 
“Is it hot?"
Preston
said. "It's got to be hot."

 
          
 
''Hot?" said Twist. "Shit's like to
melt the plastic."

 
          
 
They stood outside Nurse Bridget's office.
Preston
raised his hand and popped one finger, then
two, then three. On three, they poured the coffee into their mouths and buried
the containers in the sand of a standing ashtray.

           
 
Preston
felt the roof of his mouth begin to sear, like when hot pizza cheese sticks up
there and clings.

 
          
 
Nurse Bridget was hanging up her phone.
"Speak of the devil," she said, and she reached into a beaker of alcohol
and pulled out two thermometers.

 
          
 
Preston
swallowed.

 
          
 
Twist's eyes watered, and he moaned.

 
          
 
Nurse Bridget slipped the thermometers into
their mouths, and she pushed the stopwatch button on her watch.

 
          
 
For three minutes, she recorded data in a
patient's file. Then her watch beeped at her, and she pulled the thermometers
out of their mouths and looked at them.

 
          
 
"Gracious!" she said. "Let me
take some blood, then off to bed with you. As soon as Doctor gets back from the
ceremony, I'll ask him to look at you."

 
          
 
By then,
Preston
thought, he'll be too busy to care if we're
dead.

 
          
 
He rolled up his sleeve.

 
          
 
I hope.

 
          
 
The bus came for the patients at
six o'clock
.

 
          
 
Before she left, Gwen looked in on
Preston
and Twist, who lay in their beds, covered
with blankets, shivering.

 
          
 
“What’s that for?'' Gwen pointed to the
wastebasket Twist had placed on the floor beside his bed.

 
          
 
“Just in case," Twist said weakly.

 
          
 
At
6:05
, when they heard the bus pull away from the
roundabout,
Preston
and Twist got out of bed and tried to yank
the wrinkles out of their jackets.
Preston
wore his lightweight suit, a white shirt and a dark blue tie.

 
          
 
Twist wore
Preston
's blue blazer, blue shirt and striped tie,
a pair of his own black jeans and black motorcycle boots. He couldn't button
the collar of the shirt, and the sleeves of the jacket rode so high that his
huge forearms made the brass buttons stand at attention, like shiny warts.

 
          
 
“Nobody gon' believe me," he said.

 
          
 
Preston
thought Twist looked like a commercial for anabolic steroids. “Nobody who
values his life will challenge you."

 
          
 
At
6:08
, they climbed out their window.

 
          
 
Twilight still came early, so the shadows were
already long, giving them cover to the farthest comer of the building.

 
          
 
At
6:12
, they stepped out of the shadows and
sprinted to the drainage ditch that bordered the road. They ran in the ditch,
skidding and tripping in the loose sand, trying to keep their heads below the
surface of the road.

 
          
 
They had ten minutes to cover the half mile to
the abandoned gas station.

 
          
 
Preston
hadn't run half a mile in twenty years, and Twist, with his long legs and easy
lope, quickly pulled far ahead.

 
          
 
The trunk of the limousine was already open
when
Preston
arrived. Chuck, wearing a white shirt, black
tie and black chauffeur's trousers, had removed the spare tire and was helping
Twist curl up in the trunk.

 
          
 
Preston
leaned against the car and caught his breath. “Any problems?" he said when
he could speak.

 
          
 
“Not a one," said Chuck. "Smooth as
silk."

 
          
 
"What is it, you know?"

 
          
 
"I don't hafta know. I just hafta know
where to put it."

 
          
 
Preston
entered the car head-first, and Chuck folded him into the niche on the floor
before the front seat. He covered
Preston
with a dark gray blanket, then put his chauffeur's jacket atop the blanket and
his hat atop the jacket.