junk mail to the kitchen table. It took him a while to get the cabinet clear and dusted, and then he went out to Angie’s Mustang and opened the trunk. He came back in the house, past her on her knees, wearing rubber gloves and scrubbing and humming, and went down the hall.
For a moment he held the old rifle, which Angie had helped him clean that morning. It seemed lighter than it used to. He took its walnut forearm with his gimpy fingers and worked its lever with the other hand, the smooth ratchet sound, smell of gun oil, and admired its craftsmanship, the checkering on its stock, its blueing in which he could see his reflected face, the nearly faded etching of a hunting dog on its forearm. Holding it for a moment he was a boy again, the world the world it had been a long time ago, a world full of unknowns, a world full of future and possibility, but then he reached and set the rifle down stock first in the green velvet oval and fit its barrel in its green velvet groove and it stood there, a thing returned to its rightful place. Silas inhaled, a man now, full of unknowns yet, but, maybe, with some future still ahead. Some possibility. He looked a moment longer, then turned and went up the hall to where his girl was standing up, pushing her hands into the small of her back.
nineteen
SILAS HAD VISITED four days in a row. Larry didn’t know what to say to him so he said nothing. He enjoyed the visits, saw that Silas was nervous but liked that he came so often, liked, in fact, that he was nervous. Not talking was easy when you had no idea what to say and, he supposed, it was his right. Yesterday his mail had included some new books,
On the fifth day after Silas’s release, Dr. Milton came by on his rounds and listened to Larry’s back and chest and examined his wound, looking better, the skin around it less bruised. He shone a light in his eyes and asked questions and poked him here and there and seemed satisfied. He said Larry’s wound looked good, and that his heart sounded decent enough but that he should change his diet, eat less fat and more salad. He should exercise.
“Get up and walk the halls,” Milton said.
“I didn’t know I was allowed.”
“You are,” the doctor said. “You are allowed.” He was frowning. “I want to say congratulations to you, but that’s not right. Not for what’s happened to you. Yours is a unique situation, Mr. Ott, and I can’t imagine what it must have been like. But I’m glad it seems to be over now.”
“When can I go home?”
The doctor turned in the door. “Couple more days? I just want to keep an eye on that gunshot.”
Dr. Milton gone, Larry buzzed the nurses’ station and the one who’d been so cold to him came in.
“He said I can go for a walk.”
She nodded, lowering his rail. His catheter had been removed a couple of days ago, and she set his empty bedpan on the table. She helped him to his feet and took his elbow as he eased off the bed.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome. You need me to go with you?”
He told her he thought he could make it.
He walked the halls in his hospital robe, wondering was the doctor right. If it was really over. When he came to the elevator he rode down. He stepped out and stood for a moment in the lobby, the glass doors across the room filled with news vans and people in suits standing in groups. Waiting for him. None were looking now, none saw him. Women and men both, several with cameras. Silas would’ve already talked to them, given his story, so now they were waiting for him, for Larry. The elevator door began to close and he stepped back in.
THAT NIGHT AT ten, most of the nurses on their break, he slipped out of bed. Winded from dressing, he left his room and walked to the elevator and waited for the doors to open, wondering was this a crime. He didn’t have his keys, wallet, or phone, sorry now he’d not asked French for them.
His pants felt big and he tightened his belt. He came out of the elevator in a warm darkness, an EXIT sign glowing in the distance. He heard someone cough in the dark gift shop and lowered his head and walked as fast as he could past the volunteer at the information desk, the old man putting on his glasses. Then, just as quickly, Larry was outside, over the sidewalk, not looking up, approaching two orderlies lighting cigarettes. He nodded and they nodded and averted their eyes, stepping off the sidewalk, out of his way.
The news vans had shut down, the reporters and cameramen probably at the motel. He put his hands in his pockets and walked as fast as he could across the parking lot, leaves scratching over the cracks and snagging on sprigs of grass. The night wind was cool, him alone with his shadow crazed by the overhead lights, each with its orbit of bugs.
Wishing Silas had brought him a cap, Larry stepped onto the sidewalk that went alongside the highway south toward the center of Fulsom. But that was a good two miles away, past fields and woods, past neighborhood after neighborhood with old-timey gas-burning streetlamps and flower boxes, kids standing in the yards to watch him pass, dogs barking on their leashes. There were no taxi services in Fulsom. Were their rental car places? But how would he pay? If he could just get to his shop he’d be okay. That was beyond the town center, two and a half more miles.
Long walk.
He was out of the flooded light and passing a grove of pine trees, lamps ahead but dark now. He wondered again was it really over. Scary Larry. If anything would really change. Earlier that evening, before he’d busted out, he watched the news where the local anchor announced that Wallace’s death had been ruled a suicide, that Silas “32” Jones was recovering at home, and that local business owner Larry Ott had been cleared of Tina Rutherford’s murder. Wallace Stringfellow was now believed guilty of killing the girl and, possibly, Morton Morrisette, whose body Constable Jones had discovered two weeks before.
Larry limped over the uneven sidewalk in the dark breadth of trees, his legs stiff, holding his hand over his heart. He felt in each beat a labor he couldn’t remember and wondered what that meant. Sweat covered his face and drenched his back. His breathing was harder and he was beginning to feel pricks of pain in his chest.
He went on.
SILAS WAS HOLDING a bottle of pain pills, trying not to take one, when his cell phone buzzed on the counter across the room, its light reflected in Angie’s fish tank. Currently on night shift, she’d been unable to get someone to trade with her and had left him alone for twelve hours. She’d been doting over him so much it reminded him of his mother, which he’d found himself not minding.
Now he heaved off the sofa, muting the television and setting the remote alongside the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Constable Jones?”
“Hey, Jon with no
“How you feeling?”
“I’m not too bad. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I’m looking at my computer here, and it don’t say nothing about his being discharged, but there he went. Just walked out the door. And they make you ride a wheelchair, too. Every time.”
“Wait, Jon. What you talking about?”
“Larry Ott. I think he just checked himself out.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, Silas came down the steps of Angie’s apartment snugging his hat then adjusting his sling, his jacket arm hanging loose. He had a bottle of water in one pocket and a plastic bag in the other. It was awkward opening the Jeep door with his right hand and more awkward getting in. When he turned the key the starter ground a few moments longer than healthy and he smelled gas. He waited a moment and tried again and the engine sputtered to life. He’d discovered he could keep it between the ditches by working the pedals with his right foot, steering with his left knee and shifting with his right hand, a rhythm, like anything else. Soon the
