After Midnight

I sighed and shook my head.

She held the paper toward me.

“You might as well keep it,” I told her. On my way back to the sofa, I stuffed Tony’s wallet into my pocket.

“What made you think this was his address?”

“I found it in his wallet. I just assumed it was where he lived. Pretty stupid, huh?”

From the look in Judy’s eyes, she seemed to agree. But she didn’t make any sort of crack about it. All she said was, “You should’ve checked his driver’s license.”

“He didn’t have it with him.”

“He didn’t?”

“He’d gotten it revoked.”

She gasped. “You’re kidding!”

“No. They took it away from him about a week ago. For drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident.”

“My God! An accident?”

“It wasn’t anything serious. Nobody got hurt. But Tony sped off, afterward. He got caught about a mile away. He was lucky he didn’t end up in jail.”

“Poor Tony,” Judy said.

“Yeah. He’s been having a hard time of it, lately. He just can’t get over losing you.”

“Jeez.”

“Anyway, that’s why he didn’t have a license. When I found the address in his wallet, I just automatically figured it must be where he lived. So here I am. Guess I would’ve figured out something was wrong when none of his keys fit the door.”

“I heard you trying them,” Judy explained.

Trying to look embarrassed, I asked, “Did I wake you up?”

“No. I wasn’t asleep. I’d been asleep, but then I had this horrible nightmare that woke me up. Really freaked me out.”

“I hate nightmares.”

“Me, too. I think they’re scarier than real life.”

“Think so?”

“Sure,” she said. “Nightmares just give you raw fear. If the same stuff happened in real life, you’d still be scared, but you’d also be thinking rationally and trying to figure things out. How to get away, that sort of stuff. In nightmares, all you have is the fear. Just fear, and nothing else. That’s what makes them so terrible.”

“But you wake up from nightmares,” I pointed out.

“I sure woke up from this one tonight. And then I wasn’t very eager to fall asleep again. If you go back to sleep too soon, you know, you can wind up back inside the same nightmare. So I got up and went to the bathroom.”

“That gives me the creeps,” I told her. “Going to the john in the middle of the night. I always think I hear things.”

“I heard you trying to unlock the door.”

“Oh, wow. That must’ve freaked you out.”

“I didn’t think it was my door. I thought it might be the one across the hall. But the sounds went on a lot longer than they should’ve, so I looked out the peephole.”

“And there I was.”

“There you were.”

“You sure scared the hell out of me, opening the door like that.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Judy said. “I just thought you looked like you needed help.”

“You were right about that.”

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just looked at me like maybe she was worried about hurting my feelings or making me mad. Then she said, “Now it’s Tony who needs the help.”

“What?”

“I don’t blame you for what you did to him,” she said. “I’m sure he deserved it. Maybe even worse. But…I owe him. If I hadn’t dumped him, none of this bad stuff would’ve happened tonight.”

Funny, but she was absolutely right about that.

Then she said, “It sounds as if he’s…come apart at the seams.”

“He really has,” I said.

13

RINGING UP THE DEAD GUY

“I just can’t leave him out there,” Judy told me.

“He’s probably on his way home, by now.”

“But he was still unconscious when you drove off and left him, wasn’t he?”

“Dead to the world.”

“So for all we know, he might still be out cold.”

“I guess it’s possible,” I admitted. “Look, I have an idea. Why don’t you give him a call?”

It seemed like a fine idea. Judy didn’t know that he’d moved to a new apartment. She would obviously dial his old number and get a recorded message explaining that Tony’s phone was out of service.

“Maybe he’s already home by now,” I added.

“It’s worth a try.”

Judy leaned forward in the big, old chair and stood up. Her phone was on the lamp table near the end of the sofa. As she walked over and picked it up, she said, “I can’t imagine he’s home, though. Not if he had to walk.” She picked up the handset and started to tap in a number. “It’s an awfully long way from Miller’s Woods to his place.”

“Especially if you’re bare-ass naked,” I said.

Which made her laugh. “You’re terrible,” she said.

“Yep.”

Listening at the earpiece, she suddenly frowned. “His number’s been changed,” she muttered. “They’re going to…” She stopped to listen.

They’re giving her the new number! I couldn’t even begin to figure out the ramifications of that.

While I sat there, stunned, she tapped in a series of numbers.

A moment later, she met my eyes and said, “It’s his machine.”

“Maybe you’d better hang up.”

“He might be monitoring.”

Should I stop her?

Maybe not. This could be a good deal.

Or a disaster.

“Hi, Tony,” she said. “It’s me, Judy. Are you there?” She stopped talking. She waited.

Leave it at that! Don’t say another word!

“I guess you’re not home. Okay. Well, I just called to see how you’re doing. Give me a call back if you want to. I’m still at the same number. So long.”

She hung up.

“We’ll probably get to him before he even hears it,” she said.

“I imagine so,” I said.

“It’s funny that he changed his number. Do you know why he did that?”

I couldn’t come up with a good lie right off the bat, so I just said, “No idea.”