Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

“He said he was going to Albany?”

“Yeah, and then somewheres else, Chicago or Denver, someplace like that.”

“He volunteered this, or you asked him?”

“He said to come look him up when they let me leave the county, like I could just show up in Chicago or Denver and there he’d be. You gonna arrest me?”

“Not today.”

“Thanks, dude,” Andy said, clearly relieved, but then alarmed again because Raymer had allowed his hand to slip back into view. “You know, you might really be a holy man. You got the mark, dude. It’s right there, plain as day.”

“You think so?”

“That’s what my mother would say. She’s real religious.”

“Okay, then I got a message for you.”

“From who? Like God or something?”

“Or something,” Raymer said, holding out his stigmata. “Lay off the weed.”

“Okay, I will,” the kid said. “I mean it, too.”

Back in the SUV, Dougie said, Are you understanding all this, or do I need to paint you a fucking picture?

I get it, Raymer told him.

—

THE TRAIN STATION IN Schuyler Springs was little more than a brick hut and a concrete platform. The small indoor waiting room was empty. A couple sat on the bench outside, the woman asleep with her head on the man’s shoulder. Four trains a day ran between Albany and Montreal, two north, two south. The first of the Albany-bound trains had departed an hour ago and the next wasn’t until late afternoon.

Raymer showed his badge at the ticket window. “Nice likeness of you in the paper this morning,” the man said.

Sensing that Dougie was about to offer a rude rejoinder, Raymer closed his mouth and swallowed hard, which seemed to do the trick. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m looking for a guy who might’ve bought a ticket to Albany this morning. Medium height and build. Wearing a white T-shirt, stretched and yellowing at the collar. Eyes kind of heavy lidded, like he’s half asleep. Probably wearing a backpack, possibly carrying a small box or Styrofoam cooler.”

“Sorry. Not ringing a bell. You can buy tickets from the machine, though,” he said, pointing at one just inside the door.

“Does it take cash?”

The man shook his head. “Plastic only.”

“Could I get a readout? Names on the credit cards? That sort of thing?”

“You’d have to call the manufacturer, get them to open it up.”

Raymer went over the machine, and it looked like some asshole had scratched off the company’s contact info and etched in its place a generic suggestion.

Think, Dougie said.

I am thinking, Raymer told him.

Oh. I’ll wait, then.

The kid said the guy had a thing about trains.

And you believe him?

Why come here if he wasn’t taking a train?

I wonder, what’s nearby?

—

RAYMER PULLED IN TO the bus station just as the coach bound for Montreal was backing out of its bay. The man Raymer was after had told both Harold and Andy about his Albany destination, but…

Which direction was he heading when he ran over Gaghan?

North, said Raymer.

Right. So get moving.

Crashing through the depot’s double doors, Raymer flashed his badge at a uniformed female employee who, not noticing it and seeing where he was headed and assuming he was late and trying to catch the departing bus, held up both hands and stepped right into him. He heard her grunt at the impact but kept going, having no time to apologize.

About the last thing the bus driver expected to see was someone darting right in front of him, so he was slow to brake and rocked to a halt inches from Raymer’s knees.

“Put it in park,” Raymer told him when the door whooshed open, then climbed the three steps, holding out his badge so the driver could see. The bus was surprisingly full, with just a few empty seats. “Don’t open the doors unless I tell you to.”

To his surprise, the man did exactly what he was told without a fuss, looking at Raymer as you would at somebody you knew better than to fuck with. Had anyone ever reacted to him like that before — respect tinged with fear? Not the sort of response anyone should enjoy, Raymer thought, having already enjoyed it.

You see him? Dougie wanted to know.

I sure do.

Last row, by the window. Next to him was one of the few empty seats, which made Raymer smile. Wherever this guy went, people just naturally gave him a wide berth.

You positive?

I just said so.

“Who’s he talking to?” Raymer heard a woman ask the fellow she was seated next to.

The bus’s air-conditioning was on full blast, and Raymer noted that the man was now wearing a long-sleeved shirt, though the dingy collar of his T-shirt was visible at the neck. The clerk at the market hadn’t recognized the circular logo on his hat, and neither did Raymer at first, until he looked more closely and saw it was a stylized snake eating its tail. The eyes beneath the bill were as described — sleepy looking, heavy lidded, bored. He was looking out the window — feigning nonchalance? — but Raymer sensed from the cant of his head that he was completely attuned to his approach. Only when Raymer reached his row did the man turn to regard him lazily, a thin, obscene smile playing at his lips.

Don’t, Dougie advised, but Raymer sat down next to him anyway. “William Smith, I presume?” he heard himself say at the precise moment he understood this to be true. Because here was not just the hit-and-run driver but also the dealer in poisonous reptiles. Miller had glimpsed him when he was staking out the Morrison Arms last night, the van speeding away once the driver saw the crime-scene tape. A better cop would’ve given pursuit and pulled the asshole over, and in so doing probably saved the Gaghan man from being run over a few short minutes later. But Miller would have been no match for the guy sitting next to Raymer, and it would’ve been his body that got dragged into the woods instead of Spinmatics Joe’s. The young woman at Kreuner’s store and old Harold Proxmire had dimly sensed how lucky they were to have stood so close to this man and still be alive. Even when drunk, Boogie Waggengneckt had understood through his alcoholic fog that the roomful of snakes he was babysitting were a stand-in for something far more deadly. The very thing Raymer was suddenly sitting next to.

Though certain of all this, he knew even better that he wouldn’t unholster and point his weapon. If the gun discharged in the crowded bus, who knew how many innocents would fall?

William Smith was grinning at him more broadly now. He’d turned so that his back was flush against the side of the bus. The box in his lap had several small holes punched along its top and sides, and Raymer recognized their purpose.

“Hey, neighbor,” the man said.

“I’m going to need you to come with me,” Raymer told him. “Quietly, so we don’t scare all these folks. Do you understand?”

Smith’s smile faded. “Ain’t me that needs to understand,” he said, releasing the metal clasps on both sides of the box.

“Must be a valuable one,” Raymer said, “if you didn’t want to leave it behind.”

“Oh, it is,” he said, raising the lid. “This little fella come all the way from Africa just to make your acquaintance.”

It was, Raymer thought, one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. Sleek black, with bright red and yellow markings, a lovely coil with no end or beginning, at least until it opened its eyes, which seemed as sleepy as those of its owner. Then it raised its head for a better look at Raymer, who would have liked to move but found he could not. It was as if the law governing cause and effect had been temporarily suspended. Though he hadn’t been bitten, the venom was already coursing through his veins, paralyzing him. The good news was that Dougie wasn’t similarly constrained. To Raymer’s astonishment, he said, in his odd, parrotlike croak, “You’re holding an empty box, dumbfuck.”