Heard one, I almost said. What I did say was 'Nothing.'
'You sure? You jumped.'
'Goose walked over my grave, I guess. I'm okay.'
'So what's the story on the car? Who owns it?'
What a question that was. 'I don't know,' I said.
'Well, what's it doing just sitting there in the dark? Man, if I had a nice-looking street-custom like that - and vintage! - I'd never keep it sitting in a dirty old shed.' Then an idea hit him. 'Is it, like, some criminal's car? Evidence in a case?'
'Call it a repo, if you want. Theft of services.' It's what we'd called it. Not much, but as Curtis himself had once said, you only need one nail to hang your hat on.
'What services?'
'Eleven dollars' worth of gas.' I couldn't quite bring myself to tell him who had pumped it.
'Eleven dollars? That's all?'
'Well,' I said, 'you only need one nail to hang your hat on.'
He looked at me, puzzled. I looked back at him, saying nothing.
'Can we go in?' he asked finally. 'Take a closer look?'
I put my forehead back against the glass and read the thermometer hanging from the beam, as round and bland as the face of the moon. Tony Schoondist had bought it at the Tru-Value in Statler, paying for it out of his own pocket instead of Troop D petty cash. And Ned's father had hung it from the beam. Like a hat on a nail.
Although the temperature out where we were standing had to be at least eighty-five, and everyone knows heat builds up even higher in poorly ventilated sheds and barns, the thermometer's big red needle stood spang between the fives of 55.
'Not just now,' I said.
'Why not?' And then, as if he realized that sounded impolite, perhaps even impudent: 'What's wrong with it?'
'Right now it's not safe.'
He studied me for several seconds. The interest and lively curiosity drained out of his face as he did, and he once more became the boy 1 had seen so often since he started coming by the barracks, the one I'd seen most clearly on the day he'd been accepted at Pitt. The boy sitting on the smokers' bench with tears rolling down his cheeks, wanting to know what every kid in history wants to know when someone they love is suddenly yanked off the stage: why does it happen, why did it happen to me, is there a reason or is it all just some crazy roulette wheel? If it means something, what do I do about it? And if it means nothing, how do I bear it?
'Is this about my father?' he asked. 'Was that my dad's car?'
His intuition was scary. No, it hadn't been his father's car . . . how could it be, when it wasn't really a car at all? Yes, it had been his father's car. And mine . . . Huddie Royer's . . .
Tony Schoondist's . . . Ennis Rafferty's. Ennis's most of all, maybe. Ennis's in a way the rest of us could never equal. Never wanted to equal. Ned had asked who the car belonged to, and I supposed the real answer was Troop D, Pennsylvania State Police. It belonged to all the Troopers, past and present, who had ever known what we were keeping out in Shed B. But for most of the years it had spent in our custody, the Buick had been the special property of Tony and Ned's dad. They were its curators, its Roadmaster Scholars.
'Not exactly your dad's,' I said, knowing I'd hesitated too long. 'But he knew about it.'
'What's to know? And did my mom know, too?'
'Nobody knows these days except for us,' I said.
'Troop D, you mean.'
'Yes. And that's how it's going to stay.' There was a cigarette in my hand that I barely remembered lighting. I dropped it to the macadam and crushed it out. 'It's our business.'
I took a deep breath.
'But if you really want to know, I'll tell you. You're one of us now . . . close enough for government work, anyway.' His father used to say that, too - all the time, and things like that have a way of sticking. 'You can even go in there and look.'
'When?'
'When the temperature goes up.'
'I don't get you. What's the temperature in there got to do with anything?'
'I get off at three today,' I said, and pointed at the bench. 'Meet me there, if the rain holds off. If it doesn't, we'll go upstairs or down to the Country Way Diner, if you're hungry. I expect your father would want you to know.'
Was that true? I actually had no idea. Yet my impulse to tell him seemed strong enough to qualify as an intuition, maybe even a direct order from beyond. I'm not a religious man, but I sort of believe in such things. And I thought about the oldtimers saying kill or cure, saying give that curious cat a dose of satisfaction.
Does knowing really satisfy? Rarely, in my experience. But I didn't want Ned leaving for Pitt in September the way he was in July, with his usual sunny nature flickering on and off like a lightbulb that isn't screwed all the way in. I thought he had a right to some answers. Sometimes there are none, I know that, but I felt like trying. Felt I had to try, in spite of the risks.
Earthquake country, Curtis Wilcox said in my ear. That's earthquake country in there, so be careful.
