Four Kinds of Rain (25 page)

“No one here will touch this man again,” Bob said.

“Why the hell not?” Wyatt Ratley said. “He’s a goddamn killer.”

“No,” Bob said. “We can’t judge that. And besides, it’s my wedding day and I will not allow mob violence to mar the most important day in my bride’s life.”

The crowd mumbled again. There was a great disappointment. It was rare that a person could feel justified in ripping another human being apart, but if ever there was a moment that cried out for vigilante justice, this surely was it. But nooo … Bob Wells, Mr. Humane, had to go and ruin the whole deal for them. They grumbled and glared at Bob and one another, but once Old Finnegan said, “Well, damn Bob …” and sat down, the rest of the wedding guests capitulated. They sat back down in their pews and tried to concentrate on the original reason they’d dressed in their finery and come to the church.

“Well, if we cain’t kill the son of a bitch,” Old Finnegan yelled, “at least let’s have us the damn wedding!”

“Yeah,” the mob yelled.

“Get the fuck married, why doncha?”

“Come on, for chrissakes. Marry up.”

“Do it, Bob. Get hitched, asshole.”

“We want the wedding!”

“We want the wedding!”

“We want the wedding!”

They stomped their feet and looked up at Bob and Jesse with more than a hint of belligerence in their eyes. This was it. They’d come for a spectacle, goddamn it, and a spectacle they expected to get. In a way, Bob thought, they didn’t really care if he got married or they killed 911. Because the important thing was that something big should happen, something ritualistic that would take them out of their sad, defeated selves, and give them the happy feeling of belonging to a community, and beyond that, a larger spiritual truth.

They wanted significance, Bob thought. And it didn’t matter what kind it was.

“Well,” Bob said, looking at Jesse. “You want to go through with this, hon? I can let your folks there hold onto Barry here until the cops come.”

Jesse looked at him with a cocked eye.

“Sorry, Bob,” she said. “I kinda lost my taste for a wedding today. I’m going home.”

Bob was only semiflabbergasted.

It had, after all, become a most difficult day. Indeed, he felt confused, and as though he lived in a world ruled by hideous whimsy. His friends were dead (had he really done it? It didn’t seem possible), another man was being arrested for the murder, and his marriage was, at least for today, ruined.

He looked out at the crowd who were staring at him hard, their faces tense with anticipation.

“I’m sorry, you all,” Bob said. “The wedding is temporarily postponed. But I want you to go over to the Lodge and drink some beer on me. I mean, we got the kegs, so let’s use them.”

There was a brief moment of silence and then the wedding guests gave a great cheer and headed out of the church like stampeding cattle.

Maybe, Bob thought, as he took 911 by one arm and his bride by the other, maybe they didn’t want significance after all. Maybe they just wanted to get totally fucking drunk.

And in that, he really wanted to join them.

The wedding guests, who had almost stomped a man to death, quickly dispersed and headed over to the Lodge to get drunk, and to discuss the murder of Dave and Lou Anne. Bob and Jesse and Jesse’s relatives stood by the church doorway, watching them go.

“They look kind of happy,” Bob said.

“Yeah, well, they think they caught the criminal,” Jesse said.

“You don’t think he did it?” Chuck asked.

“No, I do not,” Jesse said.

Bob looked away, as if he were suddenly interested in the fascinating roofing shingles on Saint Stanislaus Cathedral.

“Well, we going with ‘em, honey?” Chuck said.

“No,” Jesse said. “I don’t feel like partying any more than I do getting married. You all take the car. I think Bob and I will walk home. We’ll meet you there.”

“You sure, honey?” Diane said.

“Yeah, we’ll be there presently,” Jesse said.

She smiled and kissed her dad and mom and then looked up at Bob.

“Let’s walk through the park, hon,” she said. Her voice made an attempt to be cheery, but Bob could hear the heartbreak in it.

He smiled at her, but inside he felt as if his head was filled with frizzed-out electric wires. He didn’t want to take this walk … though it was through the gloriously budding park, it seemed more like a walk down a long concrete hallway toward a room waiting with a gurney replete with leather straps and an IV drip full of poison.

“Sure, Jess,” he said, offering her his ice-cold hand. “Let’s go.”

They walked through Patterson Park in utter silence. Bob was waiting for Jesse to strike the first blow. In fact, he wished she would stop walking and just stand there in her gorgeous wedding gown and start screaming at him. But she just walked beside him … walked in a stiff and unnatural way, her body filled to the breaking point with tension.

Finally, as they neared the old Chinese pagoda, she tore away from him and threw herself down on a green bench. Her legs were splayed open and her lacy dress rustled in the wind.

Bob approached her carefully, waiting until she was settled before sitting down next to her.

She looked at him and shook her head.

“This could have been the happiest day of my life,” she said.

“I know,” Bob said. “It’s just so terrible. I mean, I knew 911 was violent, but I never thought he would do a thing like—”

Jesse turned and slapped him in the face. Bob’s head snapped back and an old man hobbling past gave them a shocked look and managed to limp quickly away.

“Don’t …” she said. “Don’t even say it.”

Bob felt like a fool. He hated lying to her, and yet now that he had headed down the path he had chosen, it seemed all that he could do.

“What?’ he said. “You don’t think 911 killed them?”

She managed a bitter laugh.

“No, Bob,” she said in a voice ripe with contempt and mockery. “I don’t.”

“Well, who then?’ Bob said. “People who worked with Emile Bardan? I thought of that one, too. I mean, he must have had people lined up to buy the mask. And maybe they thought that Dave knew something, and came around to talk to him. Maybe there was a fight and things got out of—”

“Shut the fuck up, Bob,” Jesse said. “I know who did it. We both know, don’t we, Bob? Just tell me why. Why did you kill our two best friends?”

Bob looked down at his feet. He wanted to tell her. He wanted badly to confess. Never in his life had he wanted anything more, not even the money. The thought that he had gashed his friend’s eye and sliced Lou Anne’s tongue out of her head was … so unlike him, he thought. He was a kind man, a radical humanist, an old revolutionary, wasn’t he? This other guy … this monster who had done these things … well, that was just an aberration. Really … it was like someone had come along, some criminal, some devil … maybe even
the devil,
and shoved themselves inside his body, totally
taking him over,
committed those terrible crimes, and then left him, headed somewhere else to infiltrate some other poor unsuspecting
good person.

He wanted to explain all that to her. His darling, his life …

But he doubted … no, he was positive she wouldn’t be able to understand. No, he thought, ignorance of the devil is no excuse, ha ha ha.

“You’re not answering me, Bob,” she said.

“What can I say?” Bob mumbled. “That you would think that I … I had anything at all to do with these murders … makes me sick. I can’t believe you’d think …”

She said nothing more, but continued staring at him, and he met her gaze in a steadfast way.

“I didn’t do it,” he said. “You know I could never hurt Dave or Lou Anne.”

A tear ran down her cheek.

“You swear it?” she said. “On your life?”

“I swear it,” Bob said. “On my life.”

“On Jesus Christ our Lord?” Jesse said.

“On Jesus Christ our Lord,” Bob said.

“And on your unborn son’s life?” Jesse said.

“On my …
what
?” Bob said.

She nodded her head slowly and Bob felt a bolt of fear and anxiety shoot through his arms.

“I was going to wait until tonight to tell you,” Jesse said. “Until after we were married.”

More tears rolled down her lovely face.

“My God,” Bob said. He was filled with equal parts ecstasy and horror. What kind of father would he make? Christ, he was too old, too burned-out (not to mention a double murderer). The thought of changing diapers, staying up with a sick child … going to school plays. Why, having given himself to the poor—his surrogate children—all those years, he would now have to give the rest of his life to a child. Why, he’d be a slave … all over again. And forever.

He’d have to forget all his dreams, everything he’d struggled and killed for … his pleasures, his life of ease, travel, beauty, art, great dinners, expensive wines, fine cars, the good life he was so close to living. The good life he had sacrificed everything for. No … no … it was all wrong. He couldn’t make this trip, no way.

“A boy?” he heard himself say. And for a second he could see the shining child smiling up at him from a soft blue blanket. Bob Junior would look at him adoringly and say, “Dada.” But no, no, no … he had to resist that shit at once. Pure sentimentality. It was way too late in the day for fatherhood.

“Your own little boy,” Jesse said. “How does that make you feel, Bob?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said carefully, as his emotions ran riot. “It’s just so … unexpected. Are you sure you want this now, Jess? What of our plans? You and me traveling … being together … just the two of us.”

She smiled at him in a shrewd way.

“Going from place to place, Bob? Spending all our time together … living the high life?”

“Well, don’t say it like it’s nothing,” Bob said. “That’s what we dreamed of.”

“No, Bobby,” she said. “That’s what
you
dreamed of. When I met you I thought I’d finally hooked up with a serious person, an intellectual. A man with ideals. The kind of man who, if he just had a few breaks, would make a great husband and father.”

Bob began to rock back and forth a little like a catatonic. He felt sick to his stomach. Dizzy. There were voices in his head … voices of babies crying, screaming … babies, like vampires, sucking the life out of him.

“You never said anything about it before now,” Bob said. “You told me you were on the pill.”

“I was,” Jesse said. “But I began to think about it. I talked to Lou Anne. She and Dave were going to do it, and I just thought how wonderful it would be, how it would be the thing that would finally get you to put it all together. Be the man I knew you could be, instead of this … you know, dreamer.”

Bob felt a wave of nausea pass through him. Well, of course, he thought … of course … in the end it was what they all wanted. A child. It was never about him … never. He began to laugh then, in a crazy way, as he sat there shaking and rocking.

“What’s so funny, Bob?” Jesse said.

Bob could barely speak he was laughing so hard.

“I used to worry,” he said. “I used to worry … this is really funny … that you were only after me for my money … and all along … all along it was the baby you wanted. Oh God … God … I’m such a child.”

“No,” Jesse said. “You’re a man. At least I thought you were. Until today. Bob, you’re getting old … who knows how long you’ll be around? Don’t you want to leave something fresh and pure in this world?”

Bob shook his head.

“Leave something?” he said. “Yeah, I used to want to. See, I wanted to transform the whole world. I wanted peace and love and to tear down the walls, pull down the rich and make all men and women really equal. A humane, loving socialism, a revolution of consciousness. That’s what I wanted.”

Now Jesse began to laugh in a harsh, mocking way.

“Yes, and that was fine, when you were a kid, Bobby. But that was all a thousand years ago. In case you haven’t noticed the world moved on. Vietnam is over. Two of the Beatles are already dead and the other two are billionaires with grandchildren. And you said it yourself, all of your other heroes grew up.”

“No,” Bob shouted. “Not grew up. Sold out! They all sold out!”

“Whatever,” Jesse said. “The point is no one cares anymore. The world you hoped for is long gone. There’s a new war, terrorists have blown up the World Trade Center, and might blow up our city tomorrow. And you? You’re headed into old age. Are you just going to waste the rest of your life like you wasted the first two thirds, living in a fucking dream world?”

Bob felt a bolt of anger shoot through his chest and zap his brain. It was as though someone had stuck a live electric wire inside him.

“Waste my life?” he said. “I’m a hero in this town! I’m the last radical, the only one who never sold out.”

“Ah, Bob,” Jesse said. “Aren’t you forgetting something? The fact that you, Mr. Purity, robbed his own patient? You ought to get over this innocent thing you’re into, honeybun, ‘cause when you caved in, you caved big time.”

Bob felt the same terrible rage he’d experienced at Dave and Lou Anne’s just the other day. He suddenly wanted to rip Jesse’s head off ….

“Don’t bring that up,” Bob said. “Don’t ever bring that up again.”

She shrank back from him, panic in her eyes.

“What are you going to do, Bob?” she said. “Kill me and your son? Is that next on your agenda?”

Bob suddenly realized that his hands were extended in front of his body in clawlike grasp. Jesus, he thought, I might have done it, just then. I might have strangled her … and the thought frightened him so badly that he stood up and willfully made himself put a few feet between himself and Jesse.

“Of course not,” he said, dropping his hands at his side. “Of course not. It’s just that all this is a shock, coming on the death of Dave and Lou Anne. Give me a little time to get used to the idea … of becoming a dad. Yeah … maybe you’re right after all. Maybe being a dad would be the best thing possible.”

Jesse smiled weakly and nodded her head.

“Okay,” she said. “We better get back to the house. Mom and Dad will be wondering where the heck we are.”