Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

“You may,” Desmond shot back, instantly irritated. “Whatever you’ve got that resembles a hamburger... fries... and...” Here he had to watch himself. “And a Coke.” He favored her with a big smile. “And...” She froze in the act of reaching for his menu. “Hurry.”

She snatched up his unopened menu and hesitated for just a moment before turning on her heel and retreating to the kitchen.

Desmond returned his attention to the train, which continued unchanged, it seemed, in its antediluvian progress. There was still no end in sight. Desmond took a sip of his water and grimaced. It had a slightly rusty taste. He set it back down and glanced at the closed doors of the bar at the end of the dining room. He had been ignoring it since he walked in. Desmond could just make out the interior through the frosted glass and pictured himself comfortably situated there with a bourbon on the rocks. He suddenly felt unfairly burdened by the demands of being a family man. To have to deprive himself of a welcome drink at the end of a long day’s drive; a drive, he might add, that was solely to demonstrate that he did, indeed, care for his son and wished to make his wife happy. It was costing him time away from work, and a lot of aggravation. He glanced impatiently around the room for his waitress. She was nowhere to be seen. Outside, the train dragged itself along.

Besides, he queried himself, what was the big payoff for him? Tomorrow morning, when he finally reached his son’s college in Morgantown, would there be the warm greeting and shared laughs of a father-and-son reunion? Desmond knew better. Though he had started this journey in high hopes of an opportunity for exactly that, the exhausting drive and dismal landscape had shorn him of such unrealistic expectations. No, he would find the boy as he had last seen him — sullen, uncommunicative, and evasive, if not openly hostile. Justin had brought in the verdict long ago, with his mother as presiding judge: A father was not allowed to have a few drinks at the end of a long day, and God forbid that he should take a little time out for himself now and then — go on a tear, as it were. How could he expect justice from a mere boy who had never struggled a day in his life — a child, really, who had yet to experience anything like real stress?

As for his wife, didn’t it matter at all that there had never been another woman? Whenever he had taken off, it had always started out as a bar-hopping expedition with the boys from work and progressed from there. He had never hunted skirt, though he could tell her girlfriends a few tales about their “ wonderful” husbands. No, it had just been for fun. He got carried away from time to time, but he always came home... and he always brought home the bacon... most of it, anyway... and certainly enough for their needs. The company knew his worth, even if his fun-loving ways had cost him a few reprimands and suspensions along the way. You can’t keep a good man down, his old man had been fond of saying, and he had enjoyed a thirty-year career with ConRail and never left a bottle standing.

The clatter of his order being slammed down startled Desmond from his reverie and the waitress was already marching away when he realized that silence had descended at last. The mile-long train had completed its passage unnoticed.

Across the tracks, he could now see a row of drab two-story buildings. In front of one, a group of disheveled, unshaven men shifted about in the gathering twilight — some with Styrofoam cups that they sipped gingerly from as they glanced from time to time at the closed door. They all appeared to be waiting. A neon sign above the entrance flickered into life announcing “Rescue Mission.” Next-door stood a liquor store and corner bar.

Desmond finished a mouthful of soggy burger and signaled the waitress. “Bourbon, please!” His voice carried across the room and the other patrons glanced in his direction. He defiantly stared at each in their turn. “I need something to wash this down with,” he informed them, as they now studied their own plates with renewed interest.

“Well, Rip, I’m glad to see you’ve finally joined us.”

Desmond opened his eyes with effort, the light behind the closed Venetian blinds causing his sore orbs to throb with pain. He raised a hand to shield his face and groaned and closed his eyes once more. His throat felt very sore as well. This is not good, he thought. He knew all the symptoms, and as he catalogued them, found each and every one present and accounted for. He was in for it this time. Linda was going to kill him. “What in hell was I thinking about,” he berated himself. “And where in hell am I?”

Then it struck him like a physical blow and he sat up suddenly, only to fall back with a cry from the long silver needle someone had rammed into the back of his skull. “Oh God,” he croaked, “The boy... I forgot the boy.”

“Who’s the boy?” That voice again. The son of a bitch should be shot for shouting.

Desmond’s lips were sticking together, and they parted with an audible smack. “Justin...” was all he could get out.

A merciful saint brought a straw to his lips and he reflexively sucked on it; cool water flooded his parched mouth and cascaded down his arid, constricted throat. A little dribbled onto his chin and was instantly dabbed off with a tissue.

“Sorry,” she whispered, as if it was her fault. Truly a saint.

Desmond tried to open his eyes once more, in order to see this angel of great beauty and kindness, but the room glowed agonizingly in his vision like an overlit stage scene. He wondered for a moment if he were dead. But only the damned in hell would be in this much pain and discomfort, he reasoned, and surely in that place there would be no cool water.

“Lower your voice,” the merciful one instructed the loud, obviously happy man who had spoken earlier.

“Oh... right,” he whispered almost as loudly as before.

There was the painful squeal of a chair being scraped across the floor and Desmond was suddenly looking up into a large, jovial face. The stench of cheap aftershave wafted nauseatingly into his nostrils and a pair of small grey eyes peered down with piggish good humor into his own.

“Hey,” he greeted Desmond with a smile. “I was getting worried that we might never get this opportunity.”

Desmond stared back — his head and ears ringing. He was at a complete loss. He had no idea as to how to respond or what was expected of him.

“Lots of folks have been real curious about you.” He patted Desmond gently on the shoulder with a great paw. “And I gotta admit, I’m not the least of ’em.”

The big man paused and glanced back over his shoulder. Desmond looked beyond him in time to see a white-coated figure nod. The big man resumed. “Yep, you’ve even made the papers a few times... somethin’ of a celebrity, I suppose.” He leaned in confidentially. “They dubbed you ‘Rip Van Doe.’ Ain’t that a crock?” he chuckled good-naturedly.

Desmond’s vision swam and refocused. “Rip?” he murmured to the big face.

“Yeah, you know, like the story — Rip Van Winkle? He went up in the mountains and fell asleep for a buncha years and when he woke up, nobody knew who he was. Remember?”

Desmond felt as if he wasn’t getting enough air. “Doe?” he managed.

“Well, that’s kinda our fault. When we found you, you didn’t have no identification or nothin’, so we listed you as a John Doe. ’Fraid the local rag did the rest... the Rip Van part,” he concluded cheerfully.

Desmond managed to swivel his head to take in his surroundings. Mercifully, the brilliant light was subsiding. It was a hospital room, as clean and generic as his motel suite had been. “How long...” his voice caught, and the question hung in the air like the mountain mist.