September 10th, 2016. 4:30PM
Burlwood, Indiana
By the time the oil-starved lifters of Jake's Malibu fired up again and he pulled away from Clyde Rambo's home, his head was spinning just as frenetically as the worn down vehicle's crank shaft. His throat was dry and his voice was hoarse, thanks to the old man's lack of anything palatable to drink. Even his water was foul, tasting of rust and hard minerals. With nothing to soothe his vocal chords and old wounds objecting to being exposed after so much time wrapped in bandages, the sixty five minute dissertation he gave was particularly unpleasant.
Jake expected the session that followed their discussion of The Butcher to be like an interrogation, but the former sheriff surprised him by simply listening quietly as he told his tale about the misdeeds and chicanery of Deputy Ron Boudreaux. Occasionally, Rambo would make note of a particular tidbit on a pad of paper or record a specific date that Jake mentioned in his deposition, but he largely just absorbed and digested with a hint of intrigue in his countenance. He did ask a few questions, but they were generally just requests for elaboration or for a more detailed account of a portion of his story.
Once his narrative of the period between 1994 and 1997 had been told, Rambo just ran his hands through his beard and nodded contemplatively.
"Very good, son," he said praisefully, offering no clues as to whether or not he intended to take action on anything he'd learned. "I must admit, I'm a bit impressed at how thorough you were with your investigation! Makes me wonder how you didn't end up wearing a badge, like Louie."
"I thought about it," Jake had replied. "But life just kind of ran away with me once I left Burlwood behind. Tracy was pregnant by the time we were nineteen, that didn't exactly leave much opportunity for me to pursue an education. A criminal justice degree or military experience is just about a requirement to get your hands on one of those badges anymore, and the salary it gets you..."
That made Clyde laugh, as he was well aware of the pittance that his son was earning in exchange for putting his life on the line for the citizens of Elsmere every day. They conversed briefly about how much of a shame that was, denouncing the state of the economy and the country on the whole for a couple of minutes in lighthearted banter. Even depressive topics like the consequences of recession and the dupery of trickle-down economics seemed to resonate with lighter notes than the melancholy baritone of the rhapsody that had been the meat of their dialogue in the hours prior.
With each of them exhausted at the conclusion of their file-swap, they began to close the session with well-wishes, the exchange of phone numbers and a firm handshake. It was then that Rambo asked how long Jake intended to be in town and where he planned to stay for the duration. Jake answered the questions honestly, saying until it's settled and in the backseat of my car, the latter of which brought a grimace to the old man's face.
"You're welcome to stay here, I think you'd be more comfortable." he'd suggested.
Jake politely declined, noting that Rambo's estate was on the far side of town -- the part the boys had called Bumfuck Burlwood, back in the day -- and that he felt he needed to be closer to The Meadows, closer to where everything went down. Clyde held up a finger to beg a moment at that, looking as though a lightbulb had just flickered on above his head, like a character in an old comic strip. He walked out of the kitchen and disappeared deeper into the house for a few seconds, then returned with a key. It was a solitary Kwikset, complete with a large rubber Our Mother Of Sorrows fob dangling from it.
"What's that?" Jake asked.
"It's the key to Chucky's trailer," Rambo explained. "His mother gave me a spare so that I could keep an eye on him, make sure he wasn't letting the place fall apart or living in squalor and filth once she was gone. I don't think he'd mind if you stayed in it, considering you're working on his behalf."
"Is that even okay?" he wondered in reply. "I mean, I know they served a few search warrants on it... are you sure I'm allowed to do that?"
"Unless they've got a padlock on it and crime scene tape up, they're done with it," the old man declared. "A search warrant isn't an open invitation to come and go as they please, it's a finite license. Somebody's gonna have to look after the place anyway, it's not like Chuck will be around to cut the grass or anything. I have enough on my plate trying to kill that fucking tree, I certainly don't want to deal with it!"
Not looking forward to anything beyond a day or two crammed into the back of his Malibu, Jake took the deal and they bid each other goodbye. The trailer park was about fifteen minutes east of Rambo's place, down Route 4, and the drive would quite literally take him through the entirety of the rural township. He would pass all of the old landmarks as he crossed from the historically wealthy end of Burlwood to the perpetually poor side of town. The Downs, Butcher's Lane, the high school, the K-8 school, Our Mother and the ruins of the old Super Socket Fasteners building.
The SSF factory -- at which Garrett Gigu?re and many of the residents of Burlwood Meadows served as wage-slaves, subsisting on the cusp of poverty -- had been abandoned by the company when they transferred operations overseas in 1993. As Clyde Rambo was now aware, it hadn't been entirely vacated until 1996, but that ball was in his court, now. Exposing the truth about what happened there in the past had essentially erased it from Jake's mind, he was no longer the superintendent of those secrets. Nineteen years of blight had probably seen it crumble to the ground by now, but Jake wasn't planning on scoping it out this afternoon anyway. The crimes committed in that building weren't related to what happened to Billy Marsh, and that case was his sole concern.
In fact, the physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted grownup version of Darkwing didn't plan on surveying any of the sights en route to eighteen-seventy Maplewood, because none of them were of consequence to the matter at hand. Having slept like shit the night before -- thanks to the night terrors and still nagging alcohol withdrawal -- and subsequently exerted so much effort in both talking and listening at Rambo's house, he was just too tired to relive the past. His tank was almost as empty as that of his vehicle, and the orange needle on the dashboard was teetering just above the E. Consequently, he was not compelled to allow himself to be swept up in the antipathy of his less than triumphant return to what was surely a dilapidated skeleton of his old hometown.
Determined to escape the deluge of memories and feelings, black and white alike, that he would eventually have to face in his homecoming, he tried to develop a self-induced tunnel-vision by focusing his eyes and his attention straight ahead. He locked his pupils on the faded yellow line that split Route 4 in two ahead of him, and simply pressed forward. Lighting a cigarette, he held his neck fixed and willed himself to resist the temptation to let his head swivel and survey the landscape around him as he drove on. It was easy enough to do on the open road, but that would likely change when he hit Woodstock Boulevard... when he drove along the backside of Booger Woods, the southern border of Burlwood Meadows.
Reviewing the map of the trailer park in his mind, he tried to plot out the best course to avoid as many of his old haunts as was possible on the way to Chucky's place. Staying clear of Ashwood wouldn't be a problem, and he knew for a fact that the trailer he'd grown up in had been removed and replaced with a new one anyway. The challenge, though, would be planning a route to avoid fourteen-thirty Applewood... where there may or may not still stand a particular pink double wide, which was one that he wanted to circumnavigate at all costs.
He would have to travel Oakwood to Tikiwood, turn right and follow the curve around to Ledgewood, where he would veer left. Ledgewood would dump into Ravinewood, which he could ride until it intersected Oakwood near the back of the park. If he was careful, he could approach Maplewood in such a way that he didn't have to look down towards Applewood at all. He could park in one of the spots designated for Chucky's trailer, and climb out of his car without looking to the left... without looking toward the former Swete household.
br /> As he cruised ever closer to those familiar landmarks he didn't want to face just yet, he puffed heartily at his smoke. It was the first he'd had in several hours, and it fucked him up royally. He felt as high as a kite, and it was kind of nice.
Comfortable in the arms of nicotine and menthol, he dialed Donnell's number. The conversation would serve as both a distraction and an inquest of sorts, so it was a win/win as the ringing sounded out through The Malibu's speakers and Launchpad answered straight away.
"What's up, Jake?" he asked, sounding more relaxed than he had since their reunion.
"Plenty," Jake replied. "I'm back in Burlwood and just had a crazy conversation with Clyde. He talked, so that's good, but he gave me a lot to work on. I guess I'm calling to ask how much help I can expect in dealing with it from you."
"I'll do what I can, man, just keep in mind I have a lot on my plate. Give me the Reader's Digest version of the shit you figure I can do from a distance, and I'll tell you how reasonable it is to expect that I can work it in."
Jake had prepared a mental checklist of the things he felt he needed help with, so he rattled them off concisely and in rapid succession, hoping not to scare his friend off with the breadth of the assistance he would need to wrap things up with haste.
"I need a contact number for an old cop," he began. "Guy's name was Blake, he was the sheriff in Indy back around the time The Butcher was at work."
"Okay," Donnell replied succinctly.
"I need full criminal records, if there are any, on Rusty Parker, Jack Morris and Daryl Lane."
"Got it."
"I need current addresses for all of those people as well."
"Right."
"I need details about the Our Mother van -- at least a plate number, preferably a VIN."
"Check."
With all of the easy ones out of the way, Jake took a deep breath and prepared to potentially touch a nerve. "I need a list of every 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham in the state. If possible, I need that list to include not only vehicles actively registered now, but all of them that were around in the nineties as well."
"Sure." Donnell replied with no noticeable change of inflection.
"This one might be a little hard to swallow, Don," he continued, "but I also need a copy of your old man's record and his contact information, too. Are you still in touch with him?"
"Yeah," he replied, "and if you think it's a surprise to me that you're looking into him, it's not. I did grow up in the man's house, I heard the stirrings. I saw The Feds following him, saw Gomez questioning him, I know the lay of the land."
"Great," Jake said, relieved. "I was hoping the idea wouldn't be a shock, I know it's a hell of a thing to consider."
"Is there anything else you need?"
Running over his mental checklist, he thought for a moment before answering. "No, I think I'll be good with those things for now. I'm sure more will come up, but it'll all just flow with the investigation."
"Perfect!" Donnell exclaimed. "Now, are you ready for the bad news?"
"What bad news?" Jake wondered.
"The news that I probably can't get you any of that shit!" Donnell answered quickly, though not angrily, not spitefully. He presented it as a matter of fact, not a matter of contention.
"Why not?" Jake asked, confused.
"Because I'm not a fuckin' cop!" Launchpad laughed. "I don't have some all-knowing database I can dial into, man, all I've got is the exact same shit that you've got! Google, Yahoo, Bing -- that's it! I mean, I'll try... but don't hold your breath, bro! If it's not readily available as public record, I can't get it! If you want shit like that, you're gonna have to get Louie on the case."
Jake rolled his eyes, irritated with himself again for not thinking of that before being told. Louie was a cop for fuck's sake, he could peek behind the curtain. Since he didn't have a number for him, he asked Donnell to text it when they were finished, and they continued their conversation.
"So far as my Pops goes," Donnell continued, "I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree if you think for even a second that he was The Butcher. First of all, the man was toasted out of his mind ninety-nine percent of the time, and he wasn't the type that could function well while he was toasted. Had he tried some shit like cutting a body up, the damned fool probably would've taken his own arm off in the process!"
"What do you remember about The Brougham, though?" Jake inquired.
"That it always smelled like weed," Launchpad chuckled again. "Whomever he sold it to probably got their money's worth just by scraping up the crumbs in the upholstery, shit was like something that Cheech & Chong should've been driving! I can tell you without hesitation that I don't believe my Pops had anything to do with the old murders, even if the car did. He really sold it -- gave it away, more accurately -- in exchange for a fix. Any link between him and The Butcher ended there, take that on my word. He definitely didn't have anything to do with Billy Marsh's death, that much I can promise is irrefutable."
"You can say that as a fact? How?"
"Because the old fuck flipped his lid in 2009, right after my mother died. He's crazy as a loon, they keep him under lock and key at the West Winds nursing home, in the Alzheimer's ward. Old bastard didn't cost me enough back in the day, I guess, that joint milks me of twenty-five hundred bucks a month beyond what Medicare covers."
"Oh shit, Donnell, I'm sorry," Jake said in consolation. He was feeling more disappointment in the fact that Evander would likely be of little help in tracking down the Cadillac than he was true sympathy for what the man's condition meant for Donnell, but he tried not to let it show in his tone.
"About his illness or the money?" Launchpad quipped. "His sanity wasn't a big loss, he's not much different in his condition than he was when he was under the influence. You know as well as I do that he was under the influence constantly, so..."
"Still, I know what it's like to see your father in a bad way," he replied and swirling, swirling...
Swirling memories of how his father's death had affected him, how the lack of a male role model that was anything near decent had shaped his life. Swirling sympathies and premonitions, precognition of what his own son would go through when double indemnity came to pass. What would Garrett Jacob Gigu?re the second think, what would he feel when he found out that his father was never coming home again? When he was told that daddy was never going to hug him, to read him a bedtime story, to tuck him in again?
For him, the processing of what lay ahead wouldn't be so terrible. He was very limited in his ability to feel and reason due to the severe nature of his Autism. At 13, he was emotionally stunted far worse than even Chucky had been. He would probably notice that his father wasn't around, but he wouldn't understand... wouldn't appreciate the permanence, the finality. Perhaps there was solace in that... or perhaps there was merely delusion, perhaps there was only selfishness in not acknowledging what the loss would mean to him. Maybe he would feel the sting when the time came... maybe he would suffer the pain, as Jacob had suffered it himself.
Jake thanked Donnell this time, even though he hadn't proved to be of much more use on this occasion than the last, when there was a compulsion to thank him for nothing. He got Louie's number out of the deal, as well as the name of the facility at which Evander Hughes could be tracked down... that had to count for something.
Hoping for better luck with the man who had been the final addition to the Burlwood Boys crew, he dialed up the junior Rambo and listened to ringing for a long, long time. Eventually, his call was dumped into Louie's voicemail, forcing Jake to think very carefully about how to proceed. With Ron Boudreaux's order to keep far away from Burlwood echoing in his ear, he left only a simple message. Name, number, time of call, request for a call back... the standards.
By the time he hung up, the Malibu had sped passed Butcher's Lane without Jake even realizing. With that landmark blowing by unnoticed, he nearly missed his turn onto
Woodstock Boulevard -- the road that would take him into The Meadows. He punched the brakes a little harder than he would've liked, but made the turn without incident. Once inside the park, he followed his route exactly as devised. As he drove, he tried to focus his thoughts on the tasks at hand to keep the memories and observations of the neighborhood's decay at arm's length.
He couldn't tune all of the stimuli out, though, there was an unexpected intrusion as soon as he pulled passed the Welcome To Burlwood Meadows sign that proved inescapable. It was a terrible malodor, redolent of shit and sewage, that permeated the air and poured into his vehicle through its vents and the seams around his doors and windows. It was foul, repugnant and strong, turning his stomach and nearly causing him to gag.
Christ, he thought, has it always smelled like this?
It was possible, of course, that it had. Those foreign city folk of the nineties might've been able to smell it all along, The Burlwood Boys and their families could've simply been nose blind to it from the beginning. Nearly nineteen years removed from his last visit, the palate of his olfactory system would surely have been cleansed of it, by now. That was just as likely an explanation of his revulsion at it as was the idea that it was something new, some problem that had sprung up in the days since his departure.
The more he thought about it, the more he came to believe that it had always been around... that he used to be immersed in it, that it used to cling to him and his clothing wherever he roamed in the blissful ignorance of his youth. It probably traveled with him, like the indelible mark of Cain, until he strayed from the beaten path and tried to find his own way in life -- a path beyond Burlwood, to bigger and better things.
If he was right, if that were the case, the fact that he could smell it now must mean that he had left it behind. If only the other shadows of Burlwood had been so easy to step away from... if only everything else had been so easily shirked off when he crossed the line into adulthood... if only he had remembered to help pull his best friend, Chucky, free of its grasp when he left... if only he didn't have to come back now, under these circumstances -- with his life in this condition... if only he hadn't lost sight of the road, hadn't taken his hands off of the wheel... if only he hadn't wrecked it all... if only he could start over, appreciating what he had to lose this time.
Fuck, his mind was running away from him... he was falling into the abyss... he was descending into the familiar depths of dark waters, the rolling sea of depression, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Fuck, he was losing control...
Shifting his focus to avoid looking left when he parked beside eighteen-seventy Maplewood, Jake's body felt numb with avoidance and exhaustion as he grabbed the oh shit handle and pulled himself out of his car. The Murphy family trailer looked much the same as it had in the past, excusing a few minor signs of neglect and the ravages of time. Its yellow siding could use a new coat of paint, the bushes in front of it could use a shearing and the roof had seen better days, but all in all the condition of the place was reasonable... but it looked menacing, looked foreboding... because he was in the haze, in the fog of a depressive episode.
The porch seemed smaller than he remembered as he slowly climbed the steps, swirling, swirling... binoculars and tears, hugs and black sedans... comedy and tragedy, humor and horror, the flood gates barely holding. Still forbidding his eyes to look down the road, he fought a desperate urge to glance over his left shoulder in the hope of seeing a little blonde girl unloading a U-Haul truck in the distance. Maybe if he looked, she would be there... maybe it would all have been a bad dream,
It was hard to not look, hard to not wish that Rod Serling would round the corner of Chucky's trailer and make his introductory announcement, as only he could make it.
"Submitted for your approval," he would say, "a story of regret filed under F for failure. A harrowing tale of two decades that never were. A saga of days that could've been but transpired, instead, only in the imagination of one Jacob Gigu?re. A little boy lost, in the miasma of stranger aeons... in the murky pit of nothingness that is... The Twilight Zone!"
He couldn't be so lucky, couldn't be fortunate enough to have fallen from the porch before the original three Burlwood Boys set off in search of Nathan Dawson. Nothing would've made him happier than to wake up in the past, at that very moment, having struck his head on the pavement while gawking at an eleven year old Tracy through his father's binoculars. Having been subjected to a post-concussive nightmare, he would take the terrible experience as a warning from The Gods about how not to play his cards... if he could just wake up in those bushes, if he could just catch a break like that...
Shit, he would've been happy to wake up suspended from the ceiling, feeling the tightness of a chain wrapped around his ankles. He would've been happy to realize that what he presumed to be his life was really only a series of horrific hallucinations, brought on by the influence of Xylazine. Under those circumstances, he would likely smile as The Butcher drew close with his blade concealed, preparing to slice his throat from ear to ear... preparing to put an end to it all.
Bismillah! The Butcher would shout, pressing his hallaf against Jake's jugular. Bismillah! and it's over! In the name of God, and it's over! It was all an illusion, and it's over!
Even that seemed preferable to what he was facing as he slid the key Rambo gave him into the lock of Chucky's door. Sadly, this was not the key of imagination... beyond it was not another dimension, a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight and of mind... he was, however, moving into a land of both shadow and of substance, of things and of ideas... he was in a place that lie between the pit of his fears and the summit of his imagination... but he had not crossed over into The Twilight Zone.
This was his life, as it was now...
This is where he'd made himself an appointment to be...
This is how he'd fucked it all up, and this is what he had to do before he made his exit, stage left.
There was no young Tracy playing in the yard up the road, there was no young Chucky waiting inside to go out and hang with his best and most treasured friend, he was not eleven years old, Janet Gigu?re was not half way to the moon on the boosters of benzodiazapines, it was not March 16th, 1992, and he did not have a chance to make everything right by taking another run at it.
It was September 10th, 2016, he was about to turn 35, his mother was dead, his wife hated his guts, he was bankrupt, his business had failed, he was bound for divorce, Chucky was in prison and fuck it all, he wanted to swallow a bullet NOW, wanted to close the book NOW, wanted to get it over with NOW and let the rest go to Hell NOW, let it go back where it came from and fucking rot!
As the door of eighteen seventy Maplewood swung open, it wasn't the foul smell inside that made him wince... it was the white-hot sting of the cold Beretta steel smoldering against his ribs. The gun was cocked, locked and ready to rock, there was one in the chamber and one is all it would take. One step inside the trailer he never thought he would see again, one motion to retrieve the weapon from under his shirt, one flick of the safety, one pull of the slide, one shot, one kill, one case closed definitively, one life over, and finally... finally...
But that option was no option at all...
It wasn't viable, wasn't feasible... wasn't fair...
Double indemnity was fair, that's the way it would have to go...
But he was obliged to do this one last thing, first... he had to take care of this thing first, so he fought the longing, fought the desire, fought the fight he'd been fighting since he was thirteen fucking years old and resolved to hold on for just a few more rounds... just a few more seconds, a few more minutes, a few more hours, a few more days, a few more weeks at the most.
Then he could do it... then he could get it over with, the right way... the way that paid off for his wife and for his son, even if they did loathe him, even if they didn't care, he owed them that much. The sooner the better, though, so h
e needed to get to work... but he needed sleep first. Just the temporary kind, for now, just the type that lasts an hour or two and refreshes the body, the spirit.
Before he could sleep, he was going to have to clean... literally, that is. The terrible funk in the air of Chucky's trailer was coming from dishes in the sink, that much he could tell, but the entire place was a total disaster. It looked like a bomb -- like several bombs -- had gone off in the single-wide, but these were the sort of bombs that wore badges... the sort that carried a warrant to lay ruin and walk away. The cops had trashed the place, dug every loose bit of junk out of the recesses of every drawer and every crevice of every piece of furniture throughout the home.
Since he stepped into the living room first, he started there. He put the cushions back on the couches, restored some semblance of order to the knick-knacks that Chucky's Momma would roll in her grave if she saw as disheveled as they were, hung the framed photos back up on the nails protruding from the walls and just cleaned everything he could in general.
Once the living room was settled, he moved into the hallway. The search team had pulled up much of the carpet, presumably looking for blood stains or something of the like, and had left it bunched up in a ball against the bathroom door. Jake spread it back out, using only his foot to press it back down on the tack strips -- he wasn't a contractor, for Christ's sake.
Pressing on, he surveyed the bedrooms. This particular trailer had two, one each for Chucky and his Momma, when she was alive. He stuffed all of the clothes back into the closets and drawers of the dressers in each of them, put all of the scattered jewelry back in the dead woman's broken open safe, put the box-springs and mattresses back on the bed frames and just tossed the linens on top of them, not bothering to actually make the beds properly because he wouldn't be sleeping in either of them. A person's bed is sacred ground, Jake would be sleeping on the couch for the duration... that was a tenet he'd held for quite some time, one he wasn't going to break now for the sake of his personal comfort.
The next area off the hall was the bathroom, which was the most daunting mess thus far. The raiders had completely emptied the medicine cabinet and the vanity, casting all sorts of a electronic devices and boxes of medications from hither to yon. Having brought his own self-care paraphernalia, he gathered the hair dryer, the electric shaver, the beard trimmer, the curling iron, the straightening iron and all of the other corded implements in one big bundle, which he then stuffed into the cabinet under the sink unceremoniously. When it came to the toiletries and medications, though, he realized he wasn't prepared for any physical ailment that might arise, so he took more care in packing those back into the medicine cabinet. He neatly arranged the shelves with the Tylenol, the Advil, the Benadryl, the Tums, the Pepto, the Kaopectate, the Ex-Lax, the Immodium -- and Christ, Chucky has a lot of stomach issues -- the Carters, the Trojans, the Visine, the hydrogen peroxide, the rubbing alcohol, the bandaids, the Epsom salt, the Neosporin, the tweezers, the nail clippers. Closing the door once everything was situated, he realized that the mirror was filthy, but he wasn't concerned with it at the moment... he didn't care to look at himself anyway.
With that room set, he tackled the kitchen. It wasn't too horribly bad in there, excusing the disaster that was the sink. Putting the silverware away went quickly, as did the pots and pans and cooking implements. A quick glance at that horrific sink left him feeling that the plates, bowls, forks and spoons in it were just about unsalvageable, so he weighed the option of simply throwing them all in the trash for a moment. With further consideration, he decided that Chucky probably wouldn't have the money to replace everything if he did. Having just over three hundred bucks to his name, Jake could offer no financial assistance to him. That meant he would have to endure washing the mold and grease from the used dishes with the ever-formidable power of Dawn detergent and a firm sponge, as much as the idea disgusted him.
He gagged a few times in the process, but managed to get it all taken care of in decent time. As he was drying the last of the bowls with a dishrag, he heard a distinctive clink and felt the vibration of the porcelain throughout his left hand. Turning the ugly 80's style crock around, he realized the sound was that of his wedding band catching a chip around the rim of the dish. Gazing into the titanium, he reflected on his marriage to Tracy Swete. The tale was bitter, now, a mental film as depressing as any he'd ever seen on the silver screen, from beginning to end. When the curtain fell and credits rolled, it left him feeling as hollow and empty as the bowl he'd just washed.
As an epilogue, he remembered the events of the night before... remembered sitting at the sticky table at Uncle Jim's Pancake House and feeling the ring alight with the fire of Nikki's gray-eyed stare. He remembered how he felt when she saw it, how he realized it was silly that he continued to wear it -- not because he was on the market, but because the thing was a relic, now. It used to stand for something invaluable, used to represent his love for and his vows to the woman who was his wife. It used to stake her claim on him, used to reflect her affection and dedication to him, the man who was her husband.
It didn't stand for anything anymore, wasn't worth an equally sized ball of shit... it was a symbol of a broken bond, of a lost cause and resignation under duress. With those things in mind, he took advantage of the lingering lubrication of the grease he'd rinsed away from Chucky's dirty plates and slid the token of their love off of his finger. It was the first time he'd taken it off for any reason, other than to clean it, since he was eighteen years old.
His first thought was of putting it in his bag, tucking it away until he figured out exactly what to do with it. Maybe he would hock it, maybe he would will it to Garrett, maybe he would just give it away to a stranger in the street, he didn't know.
In the end, though, he decided there was only one thing to be done with it... there was only one place that it truly belonged. Having made his decision, in light of everything that had transpired since Tracy spoke the words with this ring and slid it on him, he walked directly to the trash can. Stepping on the lever, opening the lid, he dropped the worthless thing on top of wadded paper towels sinking into the congealing gravy of a Salisbury steak TV dinner tray.
With nothing left to do for the moment, with no energy left to expend anyway, he reported to the couch and laid down to take a nap. If he woke before the evening was up, he would get right down to business. If he slept all the way through to the morning, that was just as well. It was just a matter of time, it was all coming to a head. As he closed his eyes and the fog of this depressive episode started to dissipate, he realized that he could slow the pace just a little, if that's the way he needed to do it... he could relax, just the slightest bit.
He needed to relax... if he wanted to keep that bullet in the chamber.
TWENTY-FIVE