Dennis Lehane - Shutter Island

“We’re going to gut it out, aren’t we, boss?”

“Damn straight.”

Teddy removed his hat and Chuck followed suit and then their slickers came off and they draped them over their arms and walked in the specks of rain. The same guard was waiting for them, and Teddy said to Chuck, “Let’s not even slow down.”

“Deal.”

Teddy tried to read the guy’s face. It was dead flat and he wondered whether it was impassive from boredom or because he was steeling himself for conflict.

Teddy waved as he passed, and the guard said, “They got trucks now.”

They kept going, Teddy turning and walking backward as he said, “Trucks?”

“Yeah, to take you guys back. You want to wait, one just left about five minutes ago. Should be back anytime.”

“Nah. Need the exercise.”

For a moment, something flickered in the guard’s face. Maybe it was just Teddy’s imagination or maybe the guard knew a whiff of bullshit when he smelled it.

“Take care now.” Teddy turned his back, and he and Chuck walked toward the trees and he could feel the guard watching, could feel the whole fort watching. Maybe Cawley and the warden were on the front steps right now or up on the roof. Watching.

They reached the trees and no one shouted, no one fired a warning shot, and then they went deeper and vanished in the stand of thick trunks and disrupted leaves.

“Jesus,” Chuck said. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

Teddy sat down on a boulder and felt the sweat saturating his body, soaking his white shirt and pants, and he felt exhilarated. His heart still thumped, and his eyes itched, and the back of his shoulders and neck tingled, and he knew this was, outside of love, the greatest feeling in the world.

To have escaped.

He looked at Chuck and held his eyes until they both started laughing.

“I turned that corner and saw that fence back in place,” Chuck said, “and oh shit , Teddy, I thought that was it.”

Teddy lay back against the rock, feeling free in a way he’d only felt as a child. He watched the sky begin to appear behind smoky clouds and he felt the air on his skin. He could smell wet leaves and wet soil and wet bark and hear the last faint ticking of the rain. He wanted to close his eyes and wake back up on the other side of the harbor, in Boston, in his bed.

He almost nodded off, and that reminded him of how tired he was, and he sat up and fished a cigarette from his shirt pocket and bummed a light off Chuck. He leaned forward on his knees and said, “We have to assume, from this point, that they’ll find out we were inside. That’s if they don’t know already.”

Chuck nodded. “Baker, for sure, will fold under questioning.”

“That guard by the stairs, he was tipped to us, I think.”

“Or he just wanted us to sign out.”

“Either way, we’ll be remembered.”

The foghorn of Boston Light moaned across the harbor, a sound Teddy had heard every night of his childhood in Hull. The loneliest sound he knew. Made you want to hold something, a person, a pillow, yourself.

“Noyce,” Chuck said.

“Yeah.”

“He’s really here.”

“In the flesh.”

Chuck said, “For Christ’s sake, Teddy, how?”

And Teddy told him about Noyce, about the beating he’d taken, about his animosity toward Teddy, his fear, his shaking limbs, his weeping. He told Chuck everything except what Noyce had suggested about Chuck. And Chuck listened, nodding occasionally, watching Teddy the way a child watches a camp counselor around the fire as the late-night boogeyman story unfolds.

And what was all this, Teddy was beginning to wonder, if not that?

When he was done, Chuck said, “You believe him?”

“I believe he’s here. No doubt about that.”

“He could have had a psychological break, though. I mean, an actual one. He does have the history. This could all be legitimate. He cracks up in prison and they say, ‘Hey, this guy was once a patient at Ashecliffe. Let’s send him back.’”

“It’s possible,” Teddy said. “But the last time I saw him, he looked pretty damn sane to me.”

“When was that?”

“A month ago.”

“Lot can change in a month.”

“True.”

“And what about the lighthouse?” Chuck said. “You believe there’s a bunch of mad scientists in there, implanting antennas into Laeddis’s skull as we speak?”

“I don’t think they fence off a septic processing plant.”

“I’ll grant you,” Chuck said. “But it’s all a bit Grand Guignol, don’t you think?”

Teddy frowned. “I don’t know what the fuck that means.”

“Horrific,” Chuck said. “In a fairy-tale, boo-ga-boo-ga-boo-ga kind of way.”

“I understand that,” Teddy said. “What was the gran-gweeg-what?”

“Grand Guignol,” Chuck said. “It’s French. Forgive me.”

Teddy watched Chuck trying to smile his way through it, probably thinking of a way to change the subject.

Teddy said, “You study a lot of French growing up in Portland?”

“Seattle.”

“Right.” Teddy placed a palm to his chest. “Forgive me .”

“I like the theater, okay?” Chuck said. “It’s a theatrical term.”

“You know, I knew a guy worked the Seattle office,” Teddy said.

“Really?” Chuck patted his pockets, distracted.

“Yeah. You probably knew him too.”

“Probably,” Chuck said. “You want to see what I got from the Laeddis file?”

“His name was Joe. Joe…” Teddy snapped his fingers, looked at Chuck. “Help me out here. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Joe, um, Joe…”

“There’s a lot of Joes,” Chuck said, reaching around to his back pocket.

“I thought it was a small office.”

“Here it is.” Chuck’s hand jerked up from his back pocket and his hand was empty.

Teddy could see the folded square of paper that had slipped from his grasp still sticking out of the pocket.

“Joe Fairfield,” Teddy said, back at the way Chuck’s hand had jerked out of that pocket. Awkwardly. “You know him?”

Chuck reached back again. “No.”

“I’m sure he transferred there.”

Chuck shrugged. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Oh, maybe it was Portland. I get them mixed up.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Chuck pulled the paper free and Teddy could see him the day of their arrival handing over his gun to the guard in a fumble of motion, having trouble with the holster snap. Not something your average marshal had trouble with. Kind of thing, in point of fact, that got you killed on the job.

Chuck held out the piece of paper. “It’s his intake form. Laeddis’s. That and his medical records were all I could find. No incident reports, no session notes, no picture. It was weird.”

“Weird,” Teddy said. “Sure.”

Chuck’s hand was still extended, the piece of folded paper drooping off his fingers.

“Take it,” Chuck said.

“Nah,” Teddy said. “You hold on to it.”

“You don’t want to see it?”

Teddy said, “I’ll look at it later.”

He looked at his partner. He let the silence grow.

“What?” Chuck said finally. “I don’t know who Joe Whoever-the-Fuck is, so now you’re looking at me funny?”

“I’m not looking at you funny, Chuck. Like I said, I get Portland and Seattle mixed up a lot.”

“Right. So then—”

“Let’s keep walking,” Teddy said.

Teddy stood. Chuck sat there for a few seconds, looking at the piece of paper still dangling from his hand. He looked at the trees around them. He looked up at Teddy. He looked off toward the shore.

The foghorn sounded again.

Chuck stood and returned the piece of paper to his back pocket.