It was a very old and very battered black wallet. It flapped open and closed like a toothless mouth with each wave of his right arm.
“Don’t worry,” Ralph said, slowing the Olds down.
“I don’t know what he wants, but I’m pretty sure it’s not trouble.
At least not yet.”
“I don’t care what he wants. All I want is to get out of here and eat some food. If he starts to show you his fishing pictures, Ralph, I’ll step on the gas pedal myself,”
“Amen,” Ralph said, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t fishing pictures Trigger Vachon had in mind. He still wasn’t clear on everything, but one thing he knew for sure: nothing was happening by chance. Not anymore. This was the Purpose with a vengeance. He pulled up beside Trigger and pushed the button that lowered his window. It went down with an ill-tempered whine.
“Eyyy, Ralph!” Trigger cried. “I t’ought I missed you!”
“What is it, Trig? We’re in kind of a hurry-”
“Yeah, yeah, dis won’t take but a second. I got it right here in my wallet, Ralph.
Man, I keep all my paperwork in here, and I never lose a ting out of it.”
He spread the old billfold’s limp jaws, revealing a few crumpled bills, a celluloid accordion of pictures (and damned if Ralph didn’t catch a glimpse of Trigger holding up a big bass in one of them), and what looked like at least forty business cards, most of them creased and limber with age. Trigger began to go through these with the speed of a veteran bank-teller counting currency.
“I never t’row dese tings out, me,” Trigger said. “They’re great to write stuff on, better’n a notebook, and free. Now just a second… just a second, oh you damn ting, where you be?”
Lois gave Ralph an impatient, worried look and pointed up the road. Ralph ignored both the look and the gesture. He had begun to feel a strange tingling in his chest. In his mind’s eye he saw himself reaching out with his index finger and drawing something in the foggy condensate that had appeared on the windshield of Trigger’s van as a result of a summer storm fifteen months ago-cold rain on a hot day.
“Ralph, you ’member the scarf Deepneau was wearin dat day?
White, wit some kind of red marks on it?”
“Yes, I remember,” Ralph said. Cuntlicker, Ed had told the heavyset guy. Fucked your mother and licked her cunt. And yes, he remembered the scarf-of course he did. But the red thing hadn’t been just marks or a splotch or a meaningless bit of pattern; it had been an ideogram or ideograms. The sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach told Ralph that Trigger could quit rummaging through his old business cards right now. He knew what this was about. He knew.
“Was you in da war, Ralph?” Trigger asked. “The big one? Number Two?”
“In a way, I guess,” Ralph said. “I fought most of it in Texas.
I went overseas in early ’45, but I was rear-echelon all the way.”
Trigger nodded. “Dat means Europe,” he said. “Wasn’t no rearechelon in the Pacific, not by the end.”
“England,” Ralph said. “Then Germany.”
Trigger was still nodding, pleased. “If you’d been in the Pacific, you woulda known the stuff on that scarf wasn’t Chinese.”
“It was Japanese, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, Trig?”
Trigger nodded. In one hand he held a business card plucked from among many. On the blank side, Ralph saw a rough approximation of the double symbol they had seen on Ed’s scarf, the double symbol he himself had drawn in the windshield mist.
“What are you talking about?” Lois asked, now sounding not impatient but just plain scared.
“I should have known,” Ralph heard himself say in a faint, horrified voice. “I still should have known.”
“Known what?” She grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “Known what?”
He didn’t answer. Feeling like a man in a dream, he reached out and took the card. Trigger Vachon was no longer smiling, and his dark eyes studied Ralph’s face with grave consideration. “I copied it before it could melt off a da windshield,” Trigger said, “cause I knew I seen it before, and by the time I got home dat night, I knew where.
My big brother, Marcel, fought da las year of the war in the Pacific.
One of the tings he brought back was a scarf with dat same two marks on it, in dat same red. I ast him, ’us to be sure, and he wrote it on dat card.” Trigger pointed to the card Ralph was holding between his fingers. “I meant to tell you as soon as I saw you again, only I forgot until today. I was glad I finally remembered, but looking at you now, I guess it woulda been better if I’d stayed forgetful.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Lois took the card from him. “What is it? What does it mean?”
“Tell you later.” Ralph reached for the gearshift. His heart felt like a stone in his chest. Lois was looking at the symbols on the blank side of the card, allowing Ralph to see the printed side.
R. H. FOSTER, WELLS amp; DRY-WALLS, it said. Below this, Trigger’s big brother had printed a single word in black capital letters.
Part III
THE CRIMSON KING
We are old-timers, each of us holds a locked razor.
CHAPTER 20
There was only one conversational exchange between them as the Oldsmobile rolled up Hospital Drive, and it was a brief one. “Ralph?” He glanced over at her, then quickly back at the road. That clacking sound under the hood had begun again, but Lois hadn’t mentioned it yet. He hoped she wasn’t going to do so now. “I think I know where he is. Ed, I mean. I was pretty sure, even up on the roof, that I recognized that ramshackle old building they showed us.”
“What is it? And where?”
“It’s an airplane garage. A whatdoyoucallit. Hangar.”
“Oh my God,” Ralph said. “Coastal Air, on the Bar Harbor Road? “Lois nodded. “They have charter flights, seaplane rides, things like that.
One Saturday when we were out for a drive, Mr. Chasse went in and asked a man who worked there how much he’d charge to take us for a sightseeing hop over the islands.
The man said forty dollars, which was much more than we could have afforded to spend on something like that, and in the summer I’m sure the man would’ve stuck to his guns, but it was only April, and Mr. Chasse was able to dicker him down to twenty. I thought that was still too much to spend on a ride that didn’t even last an hour, but I’m glad we went. It was scary, but it was beautiful.”
“Like the auras,” Ralph said.
“Yes, like…” Her voice wavered. Ralph looked over and saw tears trickling down her plump cheeks. like the auras.”
“Don’t cry, Lois.”
She found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her eyes. “I can’t help it, That Japanese word on the card means kamikaze, doesn’t it, Ralph? Divine Wind.” She paused, lips trembling. “Suicide pilot.”
Ralph nodded. He was gripping the wheel very tightly. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what it means. Suicide pilot.”
Route 33-known as Newport Avenue in town-passed within four blocks of Harris Avenue, but Ralph had absolutely no intention of breaking their long fast over on the west side. The reason was as simple as it was compelling: he and Lois couldn’t afford to be seen by any of their old friends, not looking fifteen or twenty years younger than they had on Monday.
Had any of those old friends reported them missing to the police yet?
Ralph knew it was possible, but felt he could reasonably hope that so far they had escaped much notice and concern, at least from his circle; Faye and the rest of the folks who hung out in the picnic area near the Extension would be in too much of a dither over the passing of not just one Old Crock colleague but a pair of them to spend much time wondering about where Ralph Roberts had gotten his skinny old ass off to.
Both Bill and jimmy could have been waked, funeralled, and buried by now, he thought. we’ve got time for breakfast, Ralph, find a place as quick as you can-I’m so hungry I could eat a horse with the hide still on!”
They were almost a mile west of the hospital now-far enough away to allow Ralph to feel reasonably safe-and he saw the Derry Diner up ahead. As he signalled and turned into the parking lot, he realized he hadn’t been here since Carol had gotten sick… a year at least, maybe more.
“Here we are,” he told Lois. “And we’re not just going to eat, we’re going to eat all we can. We may not get another chance today.”
She grinned like a schoolkid. “You’ve just put your finger on one of my great talents, Ralph.” She wriggled a little on the seat.
