Phantom (29 page)

"You want to call the doctor again?"

"I already did."

"And?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes."

Michael gaped. "You're kidding. A doctor who
makes house calls? I don't believe it."

Linda nodded. "We're lucky. Small town
doc."

Lucky, yes, Michael thought, but there
wouldn't be anything small about the bill, when it came. He tucked
his shirt in and went to the bathroom to gargle a capful of
mouthwash.

Dr. Melker was tall and well dressed. He had
a wreath of Grecian Formula hair around a shiny bald spot that
looked as if it had been hot-waxed. He might have been a
middle-aged insurance executive, a lawyer or an accountant, Michael
thought. He didn't look the part, but he tried to be a local family
doctor in a way that had passed out of fashion years ago. Perhaps
that explained the reliable but somewhat doleful air the man
projected. House calls—imagine! Dr. Melker spent about fifteen
minutes with Ned and directed a few questions to Linda.

"I don't think it's anything serious, but
you're going to have to watch him carefully tonight. Especially the
temperature. Check that every quarter of an hour or so, if you can.
It's one-oh-one point six now and may rise some more. Don't be
alarmed if it even reaches one-oh-three, but phone me immediately,
regardless of what time it is, if the temperature edges past
one-oh-four. Meanwhile, keep giving him fluids, as much as he can
take, and I hope the fever will break during the night."

"Doctor, what is it?" Linda asked.

"The main thing is,
it's
not
scarlet
fever or rheumatic fever," the physician said. "And that's good
news. As to what it is, I'd say a flu of some sort. There are so
many strains going around these days, it's hard to keep up with
them. With any luck, that's all it is, and he'll be over it in a
day or two, when it runs its course."

"Aren't some flu strains very dangerous,
though? Even—?"

Dr. Melker smiled comfortingly. He had dealt
with more than a few frantic mothers over the years. "Yes, but a
flu is likely to be a real threat only in special cases—old folks
with no one to take care of them, for instance, or persons with
complicating conditions. A healthy young fellow like your son
should weather it with no trouble. If the fever hasn't broken by
morning we'll put him on antibiotics right away. But it may not
even come to that."

"It was good of you to come, doctor," Linda
said at the door.

"Perfectly all right, Mrs. Covington."

To Michael, Dr. Melker's smile all but
confirmed that a double-time fee would follow. Just to find out
that their son "probably" had the flu. The price of small
assurance—nothing you could do about it but pay.

Dr. Melker left and Michael went downstairs
to watch television. Ned, who had never woken up during the
doctor's visit, was locked again in a deep sleep. Linda settled
down to keep watch over her son. She was going to read, but then,
on a sudden impulse, she picked up the bedside telephone and dialed
Washington. Janice answered after the first ring.

"I hope I'm interrupting something hot and
heavy," Linda said.

"Not tonight." Janice laughed. "Tonight is
hair-washing and-setting night. How're you? What's new?"

"Oh, nothing much. Ned is pretty sick,
though."

"Oh, no, what is it?"

"Just a flu, I guess.
I
hope
."

"Ah, well, he'll be over it in a day or
two."

"Carry a black bag and you can get paid for
saying things like that."

They talked for almost thirty minutes, and
it was the easiest, closest talk they'd had in some time. Linda
felt much better, and just before they finished she said: ''I'm not
going to get in to Washington in the near future, so you have to
come out and see us here. You have to, that's all there is to it.
Now, what I want to hear from you is: when?"

"Okay .... Let's see ... not next Saturday,
but ... how about the one after that?"

"You're on."

Linda smiled as she hung up the telephone. I
still have a friend out there, she thought.

Ned's temperature nudged one hundred and
two, and held steady for the next few hours. Shortly before
midnight Michael went upstairs again. Linda was on her seat by the
side of the bed, leafing through a pile of old magazines.

"Any change?"

“
No."

"Want me to take over?"

"No, that's okay. You sleep in Ned's room
tonight."

''I'll spell you, honey, I don't mind. Get
some rest."

"You have to work in the morning. Besides, I
wouldn't be able to sleep."

"You can't stay up all night, Lin."

"I'll catnap on and off. Anyway, the doctor
said the fever might peak and start to go down."

Michael hugged his wife. "Well .... If you
get too tired and find yourself nodding off all the time, don't be
afraid to wake me."

Linda nodded.

"I mean it," Michael said. "I can always
take tomorrow off, if necessary."

"Michael?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think I've been silly?"

"No, of course not. You worry too much, but
most mothers do. I'll tell you if it gets out of hand, have no
fear."

Linda forced herself to cheer up and smile.
"Was there anything good on TV tonight?"

"Mom ... 'The Battle of the Las Vegas
Showgirls.'"

"Lucky you." "Jiggle, jiggle."

"And now you have to sleep alone in Ned's
room, poor guy."

Michael grinned.

"I hope it's just for one night. I'll
live."

* * *

26. Into the Night

"We drank all the sour mash last night,"
Peeler said. "What'll you have—beer, or beer?"

"Maybe I shouldn't have nothin' at all."

"Bullticky. Here, have a beer."

"Oh ... " Cloudy accepted the can. "Hey, you
hear about what Jake Hinman went and did?"

While Ned's father was watching "The Battle
of the Las Vegas Showgirls," Peeler and Cloudy were in the
baithouse. Outside, the night was still. The shed was illuminated
by a single 60-watt bulb, hanging on an extension cord over the
zinc workbench. Aside from the voices of the two old men, the only
sound was the trickle of water in the tanks.

"Bein' in town, you hear all the news before
I do," Peeler said. "What's Jake done now-got hisself killed at
last?"

"Nope. His wife up and left him."

"Is that all? I've only been expectin' that
for twenty years or so."

"Yeah, me too. Well, now she finally went
and done it."

"I mean," Peeler went on, "Nellie ain't no
bundle of brains neither, but you always did see them bite marks on
her. They don't call Jake old Nip 'n' Fuck for nothin'."

"Wasn't his bites she minded, way I heard
it," Cloudy said.

"She got fed up with them snakes of
his?"

"Right you are. I guess he says to her one
day, 'Don't you go usin' the garage no more.' And she says, 'What
d'you mean, my car goes in the garage. I got to use it.' And Jake
says, 'No you don't, not no more. I got some new rattlers in there.
Son of a gun, he'd gone off and brung back another dozen snakes—big
ones—and he just let 'em go in the garage."

Peeler laughed and shook his head. "How
many's he got now?"

"Must be close to a hundred. He probably
lost count a long time ago. They're in the cellar, the barn, under
the porch, all over the place. Anyhow, Nellie, she wouldn't take no
more, so she throws her stuff in the car and drives away."

"Took her long enough."

"She wouldn't mind, but every one of them
snakes is poisonous."

"Oh, yeah," Peeler agreed. "Copperheads,
rattlers and water moccasins. You give Jake a garter snake,
somethin' harmless, hell, that guy'll just throw it away."

"Good-bye, out the door, and gone." Cloudy
sipped his beer. "Took the car and all."

"Can't blame her. He's a looney tune, like
his father was."

"Yeah, he loves them snakes. Talks to 'em
all the time."

"He'll be happy now," Peeler said. "Just him
and his snakes, with no wife to get in the way or bother him any. I
expect he'll let the snakes have the run of the house too."

"A wonder he ain't got killed."

"Oh, he's probably got so much snake bite
poison in him now that it don't do no harm no more. He's
immune—that's what he is."

"Yeah, I guess," Cloudy said. "He's sure
been bit enough times. You know, once I run into him outside the
barber shop in town, and his hand was all red and puffed up to
twice its regular size. I says, 'Oh, boy,' and Jake says, 'Yep,
went and got bit again.' I asked him if he didn't have to get
hisself to the hospital, and he says, 'Yeah, that's why I'm goin'
to get a haircut. '"

Peeler cackled. "Had time to get a
haircut."

"Yeah, that's right," Cloudy continued. "I
says to him, 'Man, you're gonna die.' But he just looks at his
watch, real calm like, and he says, 'No, I got time.”

"Jake don't know a whole helluva lot, but I
guess he sure does know his snakes."

"That he does. I wonder what Nellie's up
to."

"Long's she don't come around here," Peeler
said.

"Oh, listen to that," Cloudy joked. "You're
safe, don't you worry, boy. She ain't gonna leave one old no-good
to go runnin' off to another."

"She was handsome once," Peeler allowed.

"Everybody was."

"How would you know?"

"I remember, I remember," Cloudy insisted.
"I used to have me a red-hot mama when I was in New York City."

Peeler, who was fishing another can of beer
out of the cooler, raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "You ain't
even never been to New York City, what're you talkin' about."

"Sure I was. Way back when I was just outta
the service."

"Oh, Lord, we need a shovel here."

"I don't care if you don't believe me,"
Cloudy said with a mock-hurt look on his face. ''I'm tellin' you, I
know. Goodness me, I ought to know."

"Off your rocker."

"Hey, I was all over the country, out west,
up north, down south. I had a full youth before I got stuck here
and had to settle down to the quiet life."

"The quiet life, ha." Peeler hawked a gob of
spit on the dirt floor to show what he thought.

"What was you doin' back then?"

"Same as always—not a damn thing."

"You shoulda had your own boat, Peeler, you
know? You knew how to be a good fisherman."

"The hell with that."

"A good woman to take care of you. Not one
of them skinny ones, but a good fat mama with plenty of meat and
potatoes to keep you warm and—"

"Oh, shut up, for Jesus' sake," Peeler said,
but without anger. Then he added, "I had enough women without
havin' too much of anyone of 'em, and I don't reckon you can do
better than that."

"You mean nobody never put a ring through
your nose."

"Damn right."

They drank some more and talked on. Later,
about the time Michael Covington was going upstairs to sleep in his
son's room, the two old men went outside for a breath of fresh air.
The night sky was dark and featureless.

"Overcast," Peeler observed. "Maybe we'll
get some rain."

"There's a hurricane down south. They say
it's comin' up the coast, this way."

"Could be, this is the season for 'em and we
ain't had one yet this year."

"But it could blowout to sea before it gets
here. I hope it does that. We don't need no hurricane. The one in
'Fifty-five was bad enough."

"Real quiet out, ain't it?"

"Bugs' night off, I guess," Cloudy said.

They sat down on the front end of the old
Studebaker.

"You ever know Snuffy Hagstrom?"

"Snuffy Hagstrom." Cloudy gave the name some
thought. "No, I don't believe I ever did."

"Now there was a real funny bird. He used to
sing all the time."

"Lotsa folks do."

"No, no," Peeler said. "I
mean he used to sing
all
the time. You ask him how he was, he'd answer you
by singing—I'm very well today, I wouldn't have it any other
way—just like that:'

"All the time?"

"All the time." Peeler
nodded, smiling at the memory. "If he got mad at somebody he'd
sing, son of a
bitch
. Like funeral music: da da da
dummm
."

"That's the silliest thing I ever heard,"
Cloudy declared.

"It's the truth, so help me. And I don't
know of nobody that heard him talk normal. All he ever did was
sing."

"Yeah, so what happened to him, anyway?"

"Beats me. I was gonna ask you that." Peeler
looked around, and then shouted at the night sky, "Snuffy! Where
are ya?"

"Ain't here," Cloudy said. "Thank God for
that."

The air began to chill them, so they moved
back into the baithouse to carry on drinking.

''I'm gettin' into the swing of this again,"
Cloudy said as he opened another can of beer.

"Might as well, now that you ain't got no
red-hot mama no more," Peeler said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but this is bad for me." Cloudy
drained the can, then belched. "Real bad." He reached for
another.

It may have been the recollection of Snuffy
Hagstrom, or simply the beer. Peeler suddenly began to sing in a
loud voice.

"Won't you go home, Bill Butler, won't you
go home .... "

"Hey, hey, cut that out," Cloudy protested.
"Anyway, I think it was Bill Bailey."

"I didn't know no Bill Bailey, but I did
know Bill Butler."

"Yeah, well ... Leave him alone. These here
are mighty fragile ears I got."

"Bill Butler," Peeler mused. "Talk about
watery eyes. You look at him, you'd swear you was watchin' Slide
Creek go by. He was never too steady on his pins, but he was okay
.... "