“Yes.” Her small smile-a thing more in the eyes than of the mouthsuggested that they might do a little more than just talk, if Ralph was bold… and at that moment he felt quite bold, indeed. Not even Mr. Chasse’s stern gaze from his place atop the TV affected that feeling very much.

CHAPTER 14

It was quarter to four by the time Ralph crossed the street and walked the short distance back up the hill to his own building.

Weariness was stealing over him again; he felt as if he had been up for roughly three centuries. Yet at the same time he felt better than he had since Carolyn had died. More together. More himself Or is that maybejust what you want to believe? That a person can’t feel this miserable without some sort of positive payback? It’s a lovely idea, Ralph, but not very realistic.

All right, he thought, so maybe I’m a little confused right now.

Indeed he was. Also frightened, exhilarated, disoriented, and a touch horny. Yet one clear idea came through this mix of emotions, one thing he needed to do before he did anything else: he had to make up with Bill. If that meant apologizing, he could do that.

Maybe an apology was even in order. Bill, after all, hadn’t come to him saying, “Gee, old buddy, you look terrible, tell me all about it. “No, he had gone to Bill. He had done so with misgivings but that didn’t change the fact, and-Ah, Ralph, j’eez, what am I going to do with you? It was Carolyn’s amused voice, speaking to him as clearly as it had during the weeks following her death, when he’d handled the worst of his grief by discussing everything with her inside his head.

… and sometimes aloud, if he happened to be alone in the apartment.

Bill was the one who blew his top, sweetie, not you. I see you’re just as determined to be hard on yourself now as you were when I was alive.

I guess some things never change.

Ralph smiled a little. Yeah, okay, maybe some things never did change, and maybe the argument had been more Bill’s fault than his.

The question was whether or not he wanted to cut himself off from Bill’s companionship over a stupid quarrel and a lot of stiff-necked horseshit about who had been right and who had been wrong. Ralph didn’t think he did, and if that meant making an apology Bill didn’t really deserve, what was so awful about that? So far as he knew, there were no bones in the three little syllables that made up I’m sorry.

“wordless The Carolyn inside his head responded to this idea with incredulity.

Never mind, he told her as he started up the walk. I’m dolg ihi, for me, not for him. Or for you, as far as that goes.

He was amazed and amused to discover how guilty that last thought made him feel-almost as if he had committed an act of sacrilege. But that didn’t make the thought any less true.

He was feeling around in his pocket for his latchkey when he saw a note thumbtacked to the door. Ralph felt for his glasses, but he had left them upstairs on the kitchen table. He leaned back, squinting to read Bill’s scrawling hand: true, Dear Ralph/Lois/Fave/Whoever, I expect to be spending most of the day at Derry Home.

Bob Polburst’s niece called and told me that this time it’s almost certainly the real thing,-the poor man has almost finished his struggle. Room 313 in Derry Home I.C.U. I’s about the last place on earth I want to be on a beautiful day in October, but I guess I’d better see this through to the end.

Ralph, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time this morning.

You came to me for help and I damned near clawed your face off instead. All I can say by way of apology is that this thing with Bob has completely wrecked my nerves. Okay? I think I owe you a dinner.

… if you still want to eat with the likes of me, that is.

Faye, please please PLEASE quit bugging me about your damned chess tournament. I promised I’d play, and I keep my promises.

Goodbye, cruel world, Ralph straightened up with a feeling of relief and gratitude. If only everything else that had been happening to him lately could straighten itself out as easily as this part had done!

He went upstairs, shook the teakettle, and was filling it at the sink when the telephone rang. It was John Leydecker. “Boy, I’m glad I finally got hold of you,” he said. “I was getting a little worried, old buddy.”

“Why?” Ralph asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something. Charlie Pickering made bail after all.”

“You told me that wouldn’t happen.”

“I was wrong, okay?” Leydecker said, clearly irritated. “It wasn’t the only thing I was wrong about, either. I told you the ’judge’d probably set bail in the forty-thousand-dollar range, but I didn’t know Pickering was going to draw judge Steadman, who has been known to say that he doesn’t even believe in insanity.

Steadman set bail at eighty grand. Pickering’s court-appointed bellowed like a calf in the moonlight, but it didn’t make any difference.”

Ralph looked down and saw he was still holding the teakettle in one hand. He put it on the table. “And he still made bail?”

“Yep. Remember me telling you that Ed would throw him away like a paring knife with a broken blade?”

“Yes.”

“Well, score it as another strikeout for John Leydecker. Ed marched into the bailiff’s office at eleven o’clock this morning with a briefcase full of money.”

“Eight thousand dollars?” Ralph asked.

“I said briefcase, not envelope,” Leydecker replied. “Not eight but eighty. They’re still buzzing down at the courthouse. Hell, they’ll be buzzing about it even after the Christmas tinsel comes down.”

Ralph tried to imagine Ed Deepneau in one of his baggy old sweaters and a pair of worn corduroys-Ed’s mad-scientist outfits, Carolyn had called them-pulling banded stacks of twenties and fifties out of his briefcase, and couldn’t do it. “I thought you said ten percent was enough to get out.”

“It is, if you can also escrow something-a house or a piece of property, for instance-that stacks up somewhere near the total bail amount. Apparently Ed couldn’t do that, but he did have a little rainy-day cash under the mattress. Either that or he gave the toothfairy one hell of a blowjob.”

Ralph found himself remembering the letter he had gotten from, Helen about a week after she had left the hospital and moved out to High Ridge. She had mentioned a check she’d gotten from Ed-seven hundred and fifty dollars. It seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities, she had written. Ralph wondered if Helen would still feel that way if she knew that Ed had walked into the Derry County Courthouse with enough money to send his daughter sailing through the first fifteen years of her life… and pledged it to free a crazy guy who liked to play with knives and Molotov cocktails,”

“Where in God’s name did he get it?” he asked Leydecker.

“Don’t know.”

“And he isn’t required to say?”

“Nope. It’s a free country. I understand he said something about cashing in some stocks.”

Ralph thought back to the old days-the good old days before Carolyn had gotten sick and died and Ed had just gotten sick.

Thought back to meals the four of them had had together once every two weeks or so, take-out pizza at the Deepneaus, or maybe Carol’s chicken pot-pie in the Robertses’ kitchen, and remembered Ed saying on one occasion that he was going to treat them all to prime rib at the Red Lion in Bangor when his stock accounts matured. That’s right, Helen had replied, smiling at Ed fondly. She had been pregnant then, just beginning to show, and looking all of fourteen with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a checkered smock that was still yards too big for her. Which do you think will mature first, Edward?

The two thousand shares of United Toejam or the six thousand of Amalgamated Sourballs? And he had growled at her, a growl that had made them all laugh because Ed Deepneau didn’t have a mean bone in his body, anyone who had known him more than two weeks knew that Ed wouldn’t hurt a fly. Except Helen might have known a little different-even back then Helen had almost surely known a little different, fond look or no fond look.