about things that didn’t matter, and it was exactly what I wanted to hear. Those things that didn’t matter were really good conversation right then. I knew Leonard thought I was bad off because he even asked me if I would tell a joke. He hates my jokes.
I didn’t have a joke. I was too weak to have a joke. I could see he was actually relieved, and so was Brett.
“Did Leonard tell you I wanted to put you down, but he insisted you were going to be all right? I was about to call the vet and have it done, and he showed up.”
“There was a moment there when I would have invited it.”
She pushed my hair off my forehead and kissed my cheek.
Right then I loved her more than I had ever loved her.
I was sipping on my coffee when I had a flash as clear as daylight. I said, “Bert’s dead.”
“Bert?” Brett said.
“Mini’s stepfather,” Leonard said.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“You just have a psychic vision or something?” Leonard asked.
I put my cup of coffee on the tray. “No,” I said. “I saw him dead. Last night.”
I told them what I had seen.
Leonard said, “Maybe you never left the chair. Maybe you thought you saw what you saw. You told me vampires were after you.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“It all seems like a dream. I think I remember thinking I’d call the police, then Marvin, then you, Leonard.”
“Was I on the list?” Brett asked.
“You were next.”
“But you didn’t call,” Leonard said.
“I guess not.”
“It was a kind of trigger, Hap, you seeing Bert’s body, or thinking you did, or dreaming you did. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And in case you’re not following my cliche, you’re the camel.”
“You really think you saw a dead man?” Brett said. “Or are you screwed in the head, honey?”
“Sympathy like that,” Leonard said, “is why you’re a nurse.”
“I’m just sayin’,” Brett said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t. I’d have a hard time trying to remember my shoe size right now. But it seemed real. I had this feeling that things weren’t right, and I went out there. He called, see, and I went to sleep, and I woke up feeling like it wasn’t right.”
“But you don’t know for a fact you went to see him?” Brett said.
I shook my head.
“You been kind of goofy lately,” Leonard said. “I saw this coming, but I wasn’t expecting it to be like this.”
“What were you expectin’?” I asked.
“It didn’t involve you shittin’ yourself while sittin’ in a big armchair,” Leonard said. “That much I can tell you.”
“Which, by the way,” Brett said, “I have disposed of the chair. I took it to the dump. You owe me a chair, Hap.”
“I’ll get right on that,” I said.
Leonard got up and started for the door.
I said, “Where are you goin’?”
“To get Bert’s Camp Rapture address from the folder, then I’m going to go see if you’re nuts.”
28
Sometime later, Leonard came through the bedroom door. Brett and I were snuggled up together under the covers.
“Glad I didn’t come back fifteen minutes later,” Leonard said. “Or was it fifteen minutes earlier?”
“Whatever time you came in, it would have been the same situation,” Brett said. “His little friend is as tired as he is.”
I said, “Do we need to get me sized for a straitjacket?”
“It was just like you said, including the devil drawing on the sheets. The place was thrown about, maybe just to look like a robbery. He was tortured good. His tongue was cut out. Air conditioner was running, which might have muffled screams and it would keep the body from going to rot too fast. That happened, you could smell that stink for a mile. And maybe Bert just liked it cold. Bottom line, though, is he’s dead.”
“Jesus,” Brett said.
“Good to know I’m not going to be spending Christmas in a rubber room. But, on the other hand, bad to know Bert really is dead.”
“Yeah, with his passing, the world has really lost a big bit of charm. As for you, you’re not off the nut hook yet. I think you need to stay where you are for a while. Get your marbles back together.”
“Yeah, you’re kind of fucked up,” Brett said. “You boys want more coffee?”
“That would be nice,” Leonard said.
“Well,” Brett said, “I want some too, so I’m going to do what any good domesticated woman does, I’m going to have Leonard make it.”
“Hell with that,” Leonard said. “I’m going to the coffee shop.”
“You know what?” Brett said. “I think I was just bitten by a ghost of women past. I’ll go down and make the coffee. You two visit.”
When Brett was downstairs, Leonard pulled his chair closer to me. “You feelin’ better, brother?”
“I think so. I’m just not entirely certain what’s real and what isn’t, but more and more things are coming back to me.”
“Do you remember that five hundred dollars you owe me?”
“Nope. That isn’t coming back.”
Leonard grinned and gave my hand a pat. He said, “Now, while you’re weak, I can smother you with a pillow.”
“Way I feel, you could smother me with a thought.”
We sat silent for a few moments.
“Sometimes in war,” Leonard said, “there are soldiers who killed too much and saw too much, and they have nervous collapses. Sometimes they have it right there, right after they killed someone, or lost a buddy, but mostly they come home and have it years later.”
“And you never had any of that?”
“Once I woke up in a sweat remembering that I had lost a harmonica in the war.”
“A harmonica?”
“My uncle gave it to me, and I had it over there. I never played it. He gave it to me when I was a kid. That and a cap gun and cowboy bandanna. I lost the cap gun, and once when I was in the woods, hunting, and had to shit, I wiped my ass on the bandanna and lost my sentimentality toward it. But I had that harmonica, and though I couldn’t play a lick, I took it to war with me. It was kind of like a charm.”
“So, you’re telling me I lost my harmonica and had a nervous breakdown? I don’t own a harmonica, Leonard.”
“In a way, I am telling you that you lost your harmonica. There were guys went over there to war and came back and went along fine for years. I was once told by an army buddy that anyone killed someone had some kind of hole in them, even if they felt the person killed needed to be killed. Because on some level, human beings identify
