“That’s good,” Hodges says. “That’s really good.”
They sit in silence for a little while, looking at the trunk. There are footfalls on the path, and men’s voices. The two guys who appear are wearing almost identical plaid shirts and jeans that still show the store creases. Hodges has an idea they think this is how everybody dresses in flyover country. One has a camera around his neck; the other is toting a second light.
“How was your lunch?” Pete calls as they teeter across the creek on the stepping-stones.
“Fine,” the one with the camera says. “Denny’s. Moons Over My Hammy. The hash browns alone were a culinary dream. Come on over, Pete. We’ll start with a few of you kneeling by the trunk. I also want to get a few of you looking inside.”
“It’s empty,” Pete objects.
The photographer taps himself between the eyes. “People will imagine. They’ll think, ‘What must it have been like when he opened that trunk for the first time and saw all those literary treasures?’ You know?”
Pete stands up, brushing the seat of jeans that are much more faded and more natural-looking. “Want to stick around for the shoot, Mr. Hodges? Not every eighteen-year-old gets a full-page portrait in The New Yorker next to an article he wrote himself.”
“I’d love to, Pete, but I have an errand to run.”
“All right. Thanks for coming out and listening to me.”
“Will you put one other thing in your story?”
“What?”
“That this didn’t start with you finding the trunk.” Hodges looks at it, black and scuffed, a relic with scratched fittings and a moldy top. “It started with the man who put it there. And when you feel like blaming yourself for how it went down, you might want to remember that thing Jimmy Gold keeps saying. Shit don’t mean shit.”
Pete laughs and holds out his hand. “You’re a good guy, Mr. Hodges.”
Hodges shakes. “Make it Bill. Now go smile for the camera.”
He pauses on the other side of the creek and looks back. At the photographer’s direction, Pete is kneeling with one hand resting on the trunk’s scuffed top. It is the classic pose of ownership, reminding Hodges of a photo he once saw of Ernest Hemingway kneeling next to a lion he bagged. But Pete’s face holds none of Hemingway’s complacent, smiling, stupid confidence. Pete’s face says I never owned this.
Hold that thought, kiddo, Hodges thinks as he starts back to his car.
Hold that thought.
CLACK
He told Pete he had an errand to run. That wasn’t precisely true. He could have said he had a case to work, but that isn’t precisely true, either. Although it would have been closer.
Shortly before leaving for his meeting with Pete, he received a call from Becky Helmington at the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic. He pays her a small amount each month to keep him updated on Brady Hartsfield, the patient Hodges calls “my boy.” She also updates him on any strange occurrences on the ward, and feeds him the latest rumors. Hodges’s rational mind insists there’s nothing to these rumors, and certain strange occurrences have rational explanations, but there’s more to his mind than the rational part on top. Deep below that rational part is an underground ocean—there’s one inside every head, he believes—where strange creatures swim.
“How’s your son?” he asked Becky. “Hasn’t fallen out of any trees lately, I hope.”
“No, Robby’s fine and dandy. Read today’s paper yet, Mr. Hodges?”
“Haven’t even taken it out of the bag yet.” In this new era, where everything is at one’s fingertips on the Internet, some days he never takes it out of the bag at all. It just sits there beside his La-Z-Boy like an abandoned child.
“Check the Metro section. Page two. Call me back.”
Five minutes later he did. “Jesus, Becky.”
“Exactly what I thought. She was a nice girl.”
“Will you be on the floor today?”
“No. I’m upstate, at my sister’s. We’re spending the weekend.” Becky paused. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about transferring to ICU in the main hospital when I get back. There’s an opening, and I’m tired of Dr. Babineau. It’s true what they say—sometimes the neuros are crazier than the patients.” She paused, then added: “I’d say I’m tired of Hartsfield, too, but that wouldn’t be exactly right. The truth is, I’m a little scared of him. The way I used to be scared of the local haunted house when I was a girl.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. I knew there were no ghosts in there, but on the other hand, what if there were?”
???
Hodges arrives at the hospital shortly after two PM, and on this pre-holiday afternoon, the Brain Injury Clinic is as close to deserted as it ever gets. In the daytime, at least.
The nurse on duty—Norma Wilmer, according to her badge—gives him a visitor’s pass. As he clips it to his shirt, Hodges says, just passing the time, “I understand you had a tragedy on the ward yesterday.”
“I can’t talk about that,” Nurse Wilmer says.
“Were you on duty?”
“No.” She goes back to her paperwork and her monitors.
That’s okay; he may learn more from Becky, once she gets back and has time to tap her sources. If she goes through with her plan to transfer (in Hodges’s mind, that’s the best sign yet that something real may be going on here), he will find someone else to help him out a little. Some of the nurses are dedicated smokers, in spite of all they know about the habit, and these are always happy to earn butt-money.
Hodges ambles down to Room 217, aware that his heart is beating harder and faster than normal. Another sign that he has begun to take this seriously. The news story in the morning paper shook him up more than a little.
He meets Library Al on the way, pushing his little trolley, and gives his usual greeting: “Hi, guy. How you doin?”
Al doesn’t reply at first. Doesn’t even seem to see him. The bruised-looking circles under his eyes are more prominent than ever, and his hair—usually neatly combed—is in disarray. Also, his damn badge is on upside-down. Hodges wonders again if Al is starting to lose the plot.
“Everything all right, Al?”
“Sure,” Al says emptily. “Never so good as what you don’t see, right?”
Hodges has no idea how to reply to this non sequitur, and Al has continued on his way before he can think of one. Hodges looks after him, puzzled, then moves on.
Brady is sitting in his usual place by the window, wearing his usual outfit: jeans and a checked shirt. Someone has given him a haircut. It’s a bad one, a real butch job. Hodges doubts if his boy cares. It’s not like he’s going out boot scootin’ anytime soon.