exactly on the fast track.”
“Shit, Nicky.” She shook her head slowly. I hadn’t meant to go for sympathy, but her news had made me bitter.
We sat for a while without speaking. I listened to the tick of my watch.
“You look good,” I said, cutting the silence. We had often sat like this without awkwardness.
“Thanks. But I’ve put on a few.”
She leaned forward to stand. I looked down her loose T-shirt guiltlessly. Karen had truly beautiful breasts. I remembered waking before her some mornings and admiring them, slightly flattened as she lay sleeping on her back.
I turned down her offer for more coffee. She washed the cup, and with her back to me said, “What are you going to do now?”
“I’ve got a couple of grand in my retirement account. That will get me through the bills for a while. In the meantime, I was hired by this old guy to find his missing grandson.”
“That why you got beaten up?”
“Yeah.”
“A detective now,” she stated flatly, though she might as well have told me jhav“ ust to grow up. I must have looked pathetic, sitting on the floor wearing my little adhesive nose mask. She rubbed her hands dry with a paper towel. Looking down at her feet, she said, “I’m sorry, Nick. But I’ve got an awful lot to do today, with moving and all.”
“Sure, Karen,” I said, laboring to my feet. “I should get going too.”
As she walked me to the door, I felt unsteady, as if another piece of my youth was being torn away. She faced me. The edge in her eyes, the dark side of her that had attracted me, was gone.
“Take care of yourself, Nicky,” she said. “I’ll write from Philly when I get settled.”
“So long,” I said, and kissed her mouth. I felt her warm exhale on my face when she withdrew.
I stepped out and down the walkway. The sound of her door closing behind me was final, like that of a vault.
I crossed the river via Chain Bridge and took Nebraska Avenue through to Connecticut, where I turned right and headed south a few blocks to Pence’s building. One look at my battered face convinced him that I was indeed “on the case”; he stroked me an expense check without flinching.
“Good luck, son!” he shouted, as I bolted out the door.
I spent the remainder of my day doing laundry, listening to music, and taking codeine siestas. By evening I had spoken to my landlord as to the location of the cat food and litter box, and packed my knapsack and overnight bag. When I was done, I phoned McGinnes at his apartment.
“What’s going on, Johnny?”
“I’m on vacation till the weekend.”
“Brandon give you a few days off to think about things?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but the little prick wants me back on the floor by Saturday, so he can make his numbers. How’s your early retirement going?”
“Keeping busy. Some guys tried to warn me off the Broda thing yesterday. One of them put a boot to my face to make his point.”
“What now?”
“I’m leavi ng town for a couple of days to check out a lead. I could use some company.”
He thought it over. “It beats sucking down draughts in the Zebra Room.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at eight, tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll pack the cooler,” he said.
“Fine. And bring a swimsuit.”
“Now you’re talkin’. Where we headed?”
“Elizabeth City,” I said. “North Carolina.”
EIGHTEEN
By the time we neared Richmond, traveling south on 95, we had listened to Green on Red’s Gas, Food, Lodging, and on the other side of the tape, Lou Reed’s Coney Island Baby. I slid in a fresh cassette, an instrumental mix from the Raybeats, Love Tractor, and the Monochrome Set, and turned off onto 64, heading east towards Norfolk.
“Jesus Christ, man,” McGinnes pleaded, “pull over! I gotta pee like a racehorse.”
“I’ll pull over when your bladder’s ready to burst.”
“It’s ready now. Anyway, I didn’t know we were being timed on this trip. What is this, the fucking Cannonball Run?”
I found a Stuckey’s on one of the turnoffs. He was out of the car before I stopped, running through the pounding rain across the parking lot to the store and rest area. I pumped gas into my Dodge under the sheltering overhang.
“Nice weather,” I said to the attendant, an old guy who stood expressionless in his uniform, shoulders hunched up, hands in his pockets.
“For ducks,” he said.
McGinnes trotted back to the car, a paper bag in his hand, and got in the passenger side. I pulled back onto the highway, turning up the volume on my deck to cover the scraping of my wipers.
“Man, that felt good,” McGinnes said. “I’m ready now.” He was pulling assorted candies and pecan logs from the bag.
“Careful. You might have bought something healthy. By mistake, I mean.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “You want a beer?”
“No.”
But an hour later there was a cold can of Bud between my legs and McGinnes was working on his third one.
As we approached the Tidewater area, traffic increased and we crossed several small bridges. McGinnes rolled a joint, which we smoked while driving over and through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. We had been on the road for just under four hours.
At Route 17 I headed south along the Dismal Swamp Canal. The leaves on the trees had not yet begun to turn here. The rain had stopped and steam rose off the asphalt up ahead. We rolled our windows down. Jonathan Richman was on the stereo, telling his girl to “drop out of BU.”
I looked over at McGinnes, who was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt with three pens in the breast pocket, a pair of twills, and Chucks. I had never seen him in sneakers.
“I like the shirt,” I said.
“I’m on a holiday,” he›
“Yeah, I fancy it. But what are the pens for? You plan on writing some business while we’re down here?” We crossed the state line into North Carolina, and McGinnes tapped my can with his.
“Just a habit,” he said.
“Hey, maybe you could get some work. Nathan Plavin’s got a brother in the business down here, has a few retail stores of his own.”
“Yeah, I know. Ned Plavin. Ned’s World, it’s called. Jerry Rosen worked for him before he worked for Nathan. But his stores are in South Carolina, smartass.”
“Nutty Nathan’s and Ned’s World. Their parents must be proud.”
“Anyway,” he said, “you’re the one out on his ear. I’ve still got a job.”
“Thanks.”
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “I talked to Andre, told him the whole deal. Let’s just say he’s more familiar with the types of people you’re dealing with now. He says the guys who worked you over aren’t
