“Christ, let me move this wreck out front of that damn fool sailor’s delight!”
He drove fast, then slow, eyes half-shut, teeth gritted. “Well?”
I swallowed hard and said, “You’re a boy soprano. You made your dad and mom proud at midnight mass. Hell, I’ve seen the ghost under your skin, in movies where you pretended your eyes weren’t wet. A Catholic camel with a broken back. Great sinners, Crum, make great saints. No one’s so bad they don’t deserve a second chance.”
“Rattigan’s had ninety!”
“Would Jesus have kept count?”
“Damn, yes!”
“No, because some far-off late night, you’ll call a priest to bless you and he’ll carry you back to some Christmas night when your dad was proud and your ma cried and as you shut your eyes you’ll be so damned glad to be home again you won’t have to go pee to hide your tears. You still haven’t given up hope. Know why?”
“Why, dammit?”
“Because I want it for you, Crum. Want you to be happy, want you to come home to something, anything, before it’s too late. Let me tell you a story—”
“Why are you blabbing at a time like this? You just barely got away from a tribe of lunatics. What did you see in that flood channel?”
“I don’t know, I’m not sure.”
“Ohmigod, wait!” Crumley rummaged in the glove compartment and with a cry of relief un-corked a small flask and drank. “If I have to sit here with the tide going out and your hot air rising—speak.”
I spoke: “When I was twelve a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, came to my hometown. He touched me with his flaming sword and yelled, ‘Live forever!’ Why did he tell me that, Crumley? Was there something in my face, the way I acted, stood, sat, talked, what? All I know is somehow, burning me with his great eyes, he gave me my future. Leaving the carnival, I stood by the carousel, heard the calliope playing ‘Beautiful Ohio,’ and I wept. I knew something incredible had happened, something wonderful and nameless. Within three weeks, twelve years old, I started to write. I have written every day since. How come, Crumley, how come?”
“Here,” said Crumley. “Finish this.”
I drank the rest of the vodka.
“How come?” I said quietly again.
Now it was Crumley’s turn: “Because he saw you were a romantic sap, a Dumpster for magic, a cloud-walker who found shadows on ceilings and said they were real. Christ, I don’t know. You always look like you’ve just showered even if you rolled in dog doo. I can’t stand all your innocence. Maybe that’s what Electrico saw. Where’s that vodka? Oh yeah, gone. You done?”
“No,” I said. “Since Mr. Electrico pointed me in the right direction, shouldn’t I pay back? Do I keep Mr. Electrico to myself, or let him help me save her?”
“Psychic crap!”
“Hunches. I don’t know any other way to live. When I got married friends warned Maggie I wasn’t going anywhere. I said, ‘I’m going to the Moon and Mars, want to come along?’ And she said yes. So far, it hasn’t been so bad, has it? And on your way to a ‘bless me, Father,’ and a happy death, can’t you find it in your heart to bring Rattigan?”
Crumley stared straight ahead.
“You mean all that?”
He reached over and touched under my eyes and brought his fingers back to his tongue.
“The real stuff,” he murmured. “Salt. Your wife said you cry at phone books,” he said quietly.
“Phone books full of people lost in graveyards, maybe. If I quit now, I’d never forgive myself. Or you, if you made me stop.”
After a long moment Crumley shifted out of the car. “Wait,” he said, not looking at me. “I got to go pee.”
Chapter Forty-Two
He came back after a long while.
“You sure know how to hurt a guy,” he said as he climbed back into the jalopy.
“Just stir, don’t shake.”