Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

Before she could bring things into focus, Roy was on his knees himself, straddling her, and when he drew back his fist, she closed her eyes and thought, Fine. He was punching her, not Janey. If he beat her to death, well even that was okay. He’d finally be put away for good, and Janey and Tina would at last be shut of him. Perhaps because the roaring in her head sounded like surf, she thought again about that gleaming white bathroom in the Aruba brochure, how pristine and perfect it was. Maybe heaven was like that. A clean place, with pure sunshine streaming down from an unseen skylight, the cleansing surf so near you could hear individual waves breaking.

When Roy’s next punch didn’t arrive and she could no longer feel him astride her, she was suddenly frightened. Had he turned his attention to Janey, or maybe even to Tina? But no. When she opened her eyes, Roy was sitting across from her, his back up against the foot of the bed, looking as dazed and confused as she felt. There was a bright bloom of blood on one ear. Where he’d been standing a minute earlier Sully had magically appeared, holding a skillet. Ruth began to cry, she was so happy. Not because Roy wasn’t going to be punching her anymore or that Janey had been delivered as well, but because Sully was alive. Whatever that blue flame on the roof of the shed had been about, it wasn’t him. She’d been mean to him yesterday, telling him to quit coming by the restaurant so much, to find someplace else, but he’d come anyway. Nor was this the ghost who’d been haunting her lunch counter lately, a geezer staring morosely into his empty coffee cup, his shallow breath an audible rasp. A dying man, it now occurred to her. The man who stood before her here was the Sully of old, fearless, game as hell, fully committed in this necessary moment to the murder of Roy Purdy, fuck the consequences.

But then he remembered her and their eyes met and he dropped the skillet, no longer interested in Roy. She must’ve drifted away for a moment, because when she returned he was kneeling next to her. When she tried to say his name, he said, “Shhh,” then took her face between his hands, holding her head still, so there was no place to look but at this man she’d taken up with so long ago because she was lonely, lonelier than she’d known a human being could be. She had understood how wrong it was, how doing what they were doing might open the door to some bad things down the road. Had they just now got there? She would’ve liked to ask Sully if he thought that the present scenario could be traced back to what they’d done those many years, because, if so, then Roy was right — it was all her fault. But her mouth refused to work, and whenever she tried to speak Sully kept shushing her. It was all over, he was saying, she was safe now and so were Janey and Tina, that there was nothing to worry about, she was going to be okay and at the hospital they’d fix her up as good as new. She was glad to hear all of this because in truth everything felt very wrong, the kind of wrong you couldn’t ever make right. But then again, what did she know? What the hell had she ever known, really, about anything, even as a girl, when that first boy had touched her breast and she’d let him, because it felt good and she felt good, when most of the time she didn’t. It had taken her years and years to understand that most other people didn’t feel good, either, that the world’s work was to make you feel like it was disappointed in you, that you’d never measure up, not really. But Sully said no, it was all going to be fine, and somewhere in the distance there was a siren that was getting closer, so Ruth closed her eyes and stopped trying to speak and allowed herself to believe every word that Sully was saying.

MR. HYNES WAS ALREADY at the curb in his folding chair, waving his tiny American flag at passing cars, when Raymer, freshly showered, emerged from the Morrison Arms. As he ducked under his own crime-scene tape, it occurred to him that he, the white chief of police, and Mr. Hynes, an improbably patriotic old black man, were the only two residents who had scoffed at the law. Of course the other tenants, an eclectic assortment of derelicts and petty thieves and deadbeats, were taking advantage of the relatively luxurious accommodations offered by the Holiday Inn at the town’s expense, but still.

Seeing Raymer approach, Mr. Hynes started to rise, but Raymer motioned for him to remain seated. “How many varieties you got today, Mr. Hynes?”

He grinned broadly, enjoying their long-running joke. “Fifty-seven. Same as always.”

“Well, that’s sure a lot of varieties to come up with day after day. How do you manage it?”

“Hard work. Just have to keep after it when other people quit.”

Quit, Raymer thought. That was today’s first order of business: write his resignation letter, give his two weeks’ notice. Without the garage remote, his chances of discovering the identity of Becka’s boyfriend were now officially nil. If that asshole Dougie didn’t like it, too bad. After the Hilldale fiasco, he was all done listening to Dougie, who had proven unreliable. But since he probably didn’t exist in the first place, this was like saying that Raymer himself was unreliable, which wasn’t exactly news.

“How’d you make out with that pretty black gal I seen you with last night?” the old man wanted to know.

“She works for me, Mr. Hynes. We didn’t make out at all.”

“Send her on over here, then. You don’t want her, I’ll take her. She could be my fifty-eighth variety, you know what I mean.”

“I’ll mention you’re available.”

“I like the look of her. Not all skin and bones like some of ’em. I thought it was her you was talkin’ to earlier.”

Raymer had no idea what this was in reference to. “Talking to when?”

“Hour ago, when you come in. I hear you goin’ on about this and that, so I go over to the window thinkin’ it might be her you was talking to, but instead it’s just you arguin’ with your own self.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, Mr. Hynes. I might have been mumbling, is all.”

“You need to get you a real person to talk to, is what I’m sayin’. How’d you get all filthy like that?”

“Grave robbing.”

“Awright, don’t tell me. See if I care. I got secrets, too. Everybody got secrets.”

“Anyway,” Raymer said, “I’m glad to see that snake didn’t get you.”

“Not yet,” he cackled. “I’m too quick for it. Time it stands up, I’m gone. You ’member Satchel? I’m quick like him.”

“Do me a favor,” Raymer said, resting a hand on the man’s bony shoulder, “and don’t sit out in the sun too long today. It’s nice now, but it’s supposed to get hot again.”

Mr. Hynes promised he wouldn’t. As he was getting into the Jetta, his radio barked, followed by Charice’s voice: “Chief?”

He glanced at his watch. Her shift didn’t begin for another hour. This didn’t bode well. “I’m sorry, Charice,” he told her. “But I don’t want to talk about last night, okay? Can you respect my wishes on this? If I offended you—”

“You seen the paper?”

“Which?”

“The Dumbocrat. ”

“No, why?”

“You made the front page.”

So someone had seen them out at Hilldale. This boded even worse. “Charice,” he said. “We put him back just like he was.”

“What? Who’re you talking about?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“The photo of you climbing down off my porch. On the front page of the damn newspaper. The man that lives in the flat below me? He’s a photographer. Works for the Dumbocrat. Must’ve run to the printer with that photo in time to make the morning edition.”