Shutter Island

“I won a few bucks.”

“Your daddy was a gambler, that it?”

“My daddy was a prick.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Not your fault. Yours?”

“My daddy?”

“No, your uncle. Of course, your daddy.”

Teddy tried to picture him in the dark, could only see his hands, welted with scars.

“He was a stranger,” Teddy said. “To everyone. Even my mother. Hell, I doubt he knew who he was. He was his boat. When he lost the boat, he just drifted away.”

Chuck didn’t say anything and after a while Teddy figured he’d fallen asleep. He could suddenly see his father, all of him, sitting in that chair on the days there’d been no work, the man swallowed by the walls, ceilings, rooms.

“Hey, boss.”

“You still up?”

“We really going to pack it in?”

“Yeah. You surprised?”

“I’m not blaming you. I just, I dunno…”

“What?”

“I never quit anything before.”

Teddy lay quiet for a bit. Finally, he said, “We haven’t heard the truth once. We got no way through to it and we got nothing to fall back on, nothing to make these people talk.”

“I know, I know,” Chuck said. “I agree with the logic.”

“But?”

“But I never quit anything before is all.”

“Rachel Solando didn’t slip barefoot out of a locked room without help. A lot of help. The whole institution’s help. My experience? You can’t break a whole society that doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. Not if there’s only two of us. Best-case scenario—the threat worked and Cawley’s sitting up in his mansion right now, rethinking his whole attitude. Maybe in the morning…”

“So you’re bluffing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I just played cards with you, boss.”

They lay in silence, and Teddy listened to the ocean for a while.

“You purse your lips,” Chuck said, his voice beginning to garble with sleep.

“What?”

“When you’re holding a good hand. You only do it for a second, but you always do it.”

“Oh.”

“’Night, boss.”

“’Night.”

6

SHE COMES DOWN the hallway toward him.

Dolores, karats of anger in her eyes, Bing Crosby crooning “East Side of Heaven” from somewhere in the apartment, the kitchen, maybe. She says, “Jesus, Teddy. Jesus Christ.” She’s holding an empty bottle of JTS Brown in her hand. His empty bottle. And Teddy realizes she’s found one of his stashes.

“Are you ever sober? Are you ever fucking sober anymore? Answer me.”

But Teddy can’t. He can’t speak. He’s not even sure where his body is. He can see her and she keeps coming down that long hallway toward him, but he can’t see his physical self, can’t even feel it. There’s a mirror at the other end of the hall behind Dolores, and he’s not reflected in it.

She turns left into the living room and the back of her is charred, smoldering a bit. The bottle is no longer in her hand, and small ribbons of smoke unwind from her hair.

She stops at a window. “Oh, look. They’re so pretty like that. Floating.”

Teddy is beside her at the window, and she’s no longer burned, she’s soaking wet, and he can see himself, his hand as he places it on her shoulder, the fingers draping over her collarbone, and she turns her head and gives his fingers a quick kiss.

“What did you do?” he says, not even sure why he’s asking.

“Look at them out there.”

“Baby, why you all wet?” he says, but isn’t surprised when she doesn’t answer.

The view out the window is not what he expects. It’s not the view they had from the apartment on Buttonwood, but the view of another place they stayed once, a cabin. There’s a small pond out there with small logs floating in it, and Teddy notices how smooth they are, turning almost imperceptibly, the water shivering and gone white in places under the moon.

“That’s a nice gazebo,” she says. “So white. You can smell the fresh paint.”

“It is nice.”

“So,” Dolores says.

“Killed a lot of people in the war.”

“Why you drink.”

“Maybe.”

“She’s here.”

“Rachel?”

Dolores nods. “She never left. You almost saw it. You almost did.”

“The Law of Four.”

“It’s code.”

“Sure, but for what?”

“She’s here. You can’t leave.”

He wraps his arms around her from behind, buries his face in the side of her neck. “I’m not going to leave. I love you. I love you so much.”

Her belly springs a leak and the liquid flows through his hands.

“I’m bones in a box, Teddy.”

“No.”

“I am. You have to wake up.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m not. You have to face that. She’s here. You’re here. He’s here too. Count the beds. He’s here.”

“Who?”

“Laeddis.”

The name crawls through his flesh and climbs over his bones.

“No.”

“Yes.” She bends her head back, looks up at him. “You’ve known.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have. You can’t leave.”

“You’re tense all the time.” He kneads her shoulders, and she lets out a soft moan of surprise that gives him a hard-on.

“I’m not tense anymore,” she says. “I’m home.”

“This isn’t home,” he says.

“Sure it is. My home. She’s here. He’s here.”

“Laeddis.”