Russell Banks - Affliction

“Maserati. One of those hundred-thousand-dollar wop cars you can’t even get your feet into. Must be like driving in a condom.”

Jack laughed and folded his arms over his chest and turned to face LaRiviere. “Well, Gordon,” he said. Then, suddenly serious, he sighed. “You heard the news,” he said.

“Some. I heard some. I heard Twombley got shot.”

“He did,” Jack said somberly, but almost as if he were merely announcing the man’s departure, Wade thought. Though there was a slight note of regret in Jack’s voice, it was as if Twombley had left early for lunch or a meeting in town before they had a chance to get their deer this morning. It was a serious event they were discussing: men from this region, when something disastrous happens and the thing must be spoken of, talk aslant and sometimes even joke in order to talk about it at all.

“Fuck,” LaRiviere said. He exhaled loudly and looked off toward his cabin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Wade reached down and patted the German shepherd on its wide head. “How you been?” he asked the tall black-haired trooper, a captain, Asa Brown, whom Wade had dealt with before. Wade did not particularly like Brown, and he was sure that Brown did not much like him, either. Actually, Wade thought Brown a dishonest braggart, and he believed that Brown thought Wade incompetent.

“Not bad, Wade. Not bad. Had me a run-in the other day with one of them Kennedy types. I was just telling Jack here. Watch the dog, Wade. He takes a mind to, he’ll tear your fucking hand off.”

“Oh, he likes me,” Wade said, but he withdrew his hand and shoved it into his coat pocket. “Doncha?”

Still regarding the view, LaRiviere said, “Twombley shot bad?”

“I’d say so,” Jack said.

“Thirty-thirty at close range,” Brown said.

“Jesus.” LaRiviere whistled.

The men were silent for a few seconds. Then Wade said, “Will he make it?”

“Nope,” Brown answered. “DOA. Dead on arrival.”

The trooper with the dog, a burly blond kid in his early twenties wearing a pimply shaving rash on his throat like a pink ruff, said to Brown, “You want me to head on back now?”

“Yeah, might’s well. Get started on the paperwork. I got to talk to the next of kin, I suppose.”

LaRiviere looked at Jack. “You see it?”

“Nope. Heard it, though. We wasn’t very far apart. I’d spotted this big buck, and then I heard the gun go off and turned around, and Twombley was gone. Disappeared. Then I looked over the little cliff we was using for a stand, and there the fucker was, deader’n shit.”

“Blew the poor bastard wide open,” Brown said. “Thirty-thirty. Soft-nosed bullets. He had a bigger hole in back than in front, hole you could put your head in. And he had a pretty big hole in the front too. You could’ve put your fist in that one.”

“Well,” LaRiviere said. “Well.” He paused. “Think the snow’s done?”

“Looks like it to me,” Brown said, and he peered up at the creamy sky. “For today.”

Jack looked straight ahead and at no one in particular. “It’s a real early winter,” he offered.

Wade said nothing. He was staring into Jack’s impassive face, catching glimpses of light in the darkness there, flashes and glints of heated metal whirling in a blackened pit. The bits of light that he saw, the heat that he felt, he had never seen or felt in Jack before, and they surprised Wade. He had known the tall angular youth since the boy first showed promise as an athlete in grade school, that one summer Wade coached the Lawford Pony League team and, thanks to Jack, they went all the way to the state semifinals down in Manchester.

The trooper with the dog and his partner with the camera crossed the road and got into the lead cruiser, turned it around carefully and headed back down the mountain. The third trooper stood at ease a short ways behind Brown, as if awaiting further orders.

LaRiviere looked at his watch and said, “Well, shit. This’s gonna be one fucking mess to clean up. Twombley’s son-in-law and I suppose his daughter are up for the weekend. Didn’t you say you seen him already this morning, Wade?”

“Yeah. I did. I seen them.”

“You know where they’re staying?” Brown asked LaRiviere.

“The family’s got a place on the lake, out on the point on Agaway. Nice place. They come up summers and during the winter on weekends for skiing. You know, they go to Water-ville mainly, and over to Franconia and Loon, for skiing. Nice place. Sauna, hot tub, the works. Cost a fucking penny, I’ll tell you. Fellow from Concord built it for him. I dug the wells.”

“I dug the wells,” Wade said. “Over three hundred feet apiece, fourteen gallons a minute each.”

LaRiviere stared at Wade with obvious irritation and opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

“You know the place?” Brown asked the trooper behind him, ignoring Wade.

“I don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t think you do, either,” Brown said. “You want to talk to them, Gordon?” he asked. “Tell them about the old man’s tragic demise? You know them. You knew the old man.”

“Sure. What the fuck. My day’s already ruined,” he said. “Gimme the keys,” he said to Wade. “You can go back with Jack.”

Wade said okay and handed over the keys. Then he said, “I’m still going to give that bastard a summons, you know.”

LaRiviere looked at him hard and was silent. His stare said, What the hell are you telling me now, you dumb stubborn bastard?

“I mean, it’s too bad about Twombley and all, but shit, right’s right,” Wade said. He turned to Jack. “The fucking son-in-law, whatzizname, Mel Gordon, practically ran me over this morning, passed a stopped school bus and everything. In front of the school. He’s goddamned lucky he didn’t kill somebody’s kid.”

Jack didn’t respond. He seemed to see straight through Wade to the snowy woods beyond.

Brown smiled his thin smile, like a garter snake. “I didn’t know you was such a hardass, Wade,” he said. “Give the guy a break. If you want, I’ll tell him that by the way the local sheriff’s pissed off, but because of the circumstances and all, he’s letting this one go.”

“I’m not a sheriff, Asa.”

“I know.”

LaRiviere said, “You still got a shitload of plowing to do, Wade.”

“It ain’t done, if that’s what you mean.”

For a few seconds everyone was silent. “Something bugging you, Wade?” LaRiviere said.

“A few things. Yeah.”

“A few things. Well, right now we’re not too interested. And as for a few things, there’s a few things need taking care of first. Then you can be bugged all you want. On your own time, though, not mine.”

LaRiviere wheeled and started across the road toward his truck. Brown and the other trooper followed, heading for the cruiser.

When LaRiviere had got his truck turned around, he drew it up next to Wade; he reached across the seat and cranked down the window. “I expect I’ll see the grader gone by the time I get back to the shop, Wade. And for Christ’s sake, forget giving a fucking ticket to Mel Gordon. His father-in-law’s just killed himself. Use your fucking head,” he said.

Wade said nothing.

In a low almost whispered voice, Jack asked, “You want me to do anything in particular at the shop?”

LaRiviere hesitated a second, then said, “You might’s well take the rest of the day off. You look sort of fucked up to me. Which I can understand. You’ve already been paid for the day anyhow, right?”

“Well, not exactly. I mean, he never paid me.”

“You’ll get your money,” LaRiviere said. “I’ll see you get your money. Go on home. Get drunk or something. Start over tomorrow,” he said. “And don’t talk to any newspapers about this,” he added. “Twombley’s a big deal down in Massachusetts, you know.”