Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

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IT WAS MOST LIKELY a waste of time, and Sully, suddenly feeling unequal to the task he’d set for himself, thought about just letting it go. If Roy Purdy was here at the Sans Souci, the half-purple, half-yellow beater most likely would be in the lot. Still, it was possible he’d just had the Cora woman drop him off, so Sully took the tire iron just in case. The hotel’s delivery door was locked tight, and there was no sign of forced entry, so he methodically surveyed the perimeter, checking doors at various entry points and looking for broken windows. It took him close to half an hour, and by the time he returned to the lot, exhausted, another vehicle was there, a late-model Lincoln Town Car. Its owner was a large, soft-looking man who appeared to be in his early to midsixties. He wore reflecting sunglasses and a dark, carefully trimmed beard, probably to disguise his weak chin. Bald on top, he’d let his hair grow long on the back and sides and gathered it in a ponytail. He was bending down to scratch Rub’s ears, causing the dog to emit tiny, euphoric blasts of urine.

He straightened up when he saw Sully approaching with a tire iron and looked relieved when he tossed it into the truck. “Cute little mutt,” he said. “Shame about his…”

“Dick?”

“Yeah. How’d it get like that?”

“He chews on it.”

“You can’t make him stop?”

“I haven’t tried,” Sully said, opening the driver’s door. “It’s his dick.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Let’s go, Dummy,” Sully said, stepping aside so Rub could scrabble up onto the seat.

“I’m thinking about buying this place,” the man said, taking off his dark glasses.

It was on the tip of Sully’s tongue to say, Bully for you, but he held it.

“Well, not for myself,” the man added, as if Sully had challenged his statement. Without the glasses he looked vaguely familiar. “I represent a developer.”

“Right,” Sully said, getting into the truck to signal his complete disinterest in whatever the hell this guy was doing there.

“Time-shares,” he continued, apparently oblivious. “You’re familiar with the concept?”

“Not really,” Sully said, turning the key in the ignition. The man’s disappointment made him look even more familiar. “Do I know you?”

Was that a smile? The man’s beard shifted, so maybe. Or was it a grimace?

“You might’ve seen me in town. I’ve been around a couple days, talking to people. Getting the lay of the land, so to speak. You live around here?”

Sully nodded.

“You like it?”

He shifted into reverse, determined to make his getaway. “Never really thought about it,” he said. “It’s home, is all.”

“Home,” the man repeated, as if Sully had said something profound. “Right.”

Sully backed up, did a three-point turn and returned to the service road, where he glimpsed the man in his rearview. Shifting into reverse, he backed into the lot. The man strolled over and said, “Hi, Sully.”

He extended his hand through the open window. “Hello, Clive.”

THOUGH NOW HALF its former size, the section of Hill sitting in the middle of the road looked only slightly less bizarre under the bright afternoon sun than it had under last night’s full moon. The partially exposed caskets had been dug out of the turf and loaded onto a flatbed, presumably to be interred again somewhere else. Raymer recognized Sully’s odd friend Rub Squeers among the men hacking away with pickaxes and spades at what remained of the wandering hill, no doubt searching for other caskets. Overseeing this work were Mayor Gus Moynihan; the town manager, Roger Graham; and Arnie Delacroix, from Public Works, who was in charge of Hilldale’s day-to-day operations.

Gus was talking on his cellular telephone but was the first to notice Raymer’s approach. He quickly hung up, slipping the phone into its pretentious little holster. “Here he is,” he proclaimed, “our man of the hour.”

Unsure how sarcastic this was, Raymer simply said “Here” and handed Gus the envelope that contained his resignation. The other two men were staring at him, slack jawed, so he said, “What?”

“You look…,” Roger began, then paused, apparently stumped for the right word.

“Demented?” Arnie suggested.

“Yes, that’s it,” Roger confirmed.

Dougie, Raymer figured, staring out at these men. As if Raymer had given him permission to make his presence known and felt.

“Is that blood on your forehead?” Arnie wanted to know. “And in your hair ?”

“Not to mention on your shirt?” Roger said, pointing at the rust-colored smudges on Raymer’s sleeve.

Gus was now examining Raymer’s envelope with distaste, because it, too, bore traces of blood.

“Sorry,” said Raymer, reluctantly showing them the palm of his right hand.

“Whoa!” All three men stepped back.

“What is that?” Roger demanded. “A gunshot wound?”

Raymer couldn’t blame him for thinking so. That’s what it looked like. The swelling was worse than the last time he looked, the skin an angrier red. His fingers looked like overcooked sausages, and the wound itself was oozing. “It’s sort of a burn,” he told them. “It itches.”

“It’s infected, is what it is,” Gus said, horrified. “Go to the emergency room and have it looked at. That’s an order.”

“Aren’t you going to read that?” Raymer asked, proud of his perfect if tiny rhetorical triangle.

“No need,” Gus said, folding the envelope and putting it in his jacket pocket. “Charice already told me. You can’t quit. Okay, it’s true. This morning when I saw that picture in the newspaper I was ready to carve out your gizzard with a butter knife, but since then you took out a major bad guy single-handedly. Saved a bunch of people on that bus from being snakebit.”

Raymer, though pleased by the positive spin Gus was putting on those events, was all too aware that the truth was different. William Smith, or whatever his real name might be, was at best a minor bad guy who’d taken himself out. Nor had Raymer really saved anybody from being snakebit. If he hadn’t tried to arrest Smith, the snake would’ve remained safely in the box.

“And it looks like that man you found out in the woods is going to make it. Joe Whatever. That was first-rate police work. You saved his life.”

“I’m still quitting, though.”

If Gus heard this he gave no sign, and before Raymer could prevent him he reached up and put a hand on his forehead. “Jesus, Doug, you’re burning up. Go to the hospital and get on antibiotics for that hand. And eat some ibuprofen. Then go home and make yourself presentable. You can’t go on television looking like Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“Television?”

“The evening news shows.”

“Not a chance. You have my resignation in your pocket.”

“Never happened. You never wrote it.”

“I can’t go on TV. I’ll look like a fool.”

“I’ll be right there with you.”

“Then we’ll both look like fools.”

“It’ll be a piece of cake. They’ll ask you what happened and you tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“The truth.”

“And when they ask me about the photo in the Dumbocrat ?”

“They won’t. I just got off the phone with one of the producers. All they care about is the bus station. They want you to be a hero.”

“What if they ask me about digging up the judge?”

“They won’t, I’m telling you.”

“Wait,” said Arnie. “Somebody dug up Judge Flatt ?”

“Of course not,” Gus told him. “Doug’s just exhausted and confused. Look at him. The man’s hallucinating.”