Nehalem (Place People Live). Hap TiveyЧитать онлайн книгу.
don’t know his reasons, but even if he made a bad choice there, why would that stop him from helping us find the people responsible for this?”
“He doesn’t give a shit about people here, especially fishermen. He’s in some other universe. And me and Sammy aren’t in it.”
Responding to Glass’ emotional pain, Murphy dropped the problem of Amato’s attitude and turned to face him. “I expect Sammy’s fine wherever he is. And I would like to see you stick around my universe. I don’t want to miss seeing you in perfect overhead tubes off north jetty. You’re the best we have in this town.”
“That’s over.”
“This is a bad time Rich.” Murphy stood up and looked out at the harbor. “Maybe you should wait for Billy down on Hecate. I know he wanted to talk to you, thank you for saving his ass.”
Glass looked up. “Did he say that?”
Murphy turned and offered Glass a hand. “Just talked to him at the clinic. Crash aboard Hecate. You look like you could use some sleep.”
Glass accepted the hand up. “I probably can’t get my camper out till tomorrow. Is it cool sitting on the jetty all night?”
“Keys in it?”
“On the tire.”
“No problem. If I have an emergency I’ll move it.”
Glass started for the harbor and Murphy called after him. “What about the board?”
Glass stopped and thought for a moment. “If Maggie doesn’t want it, trash it.”
Murphy called after him. “Lester’s coming by later.”
Without looking back Glass muttered. “Screw Lester.”
2 PM: Lester’s Trailer
Thirty years of derelict pickups had accumulated along the driveway, some with missing engines or transmissions, most up on blocks and all rusting into the blackberries and ferns. Ten acres of third growth timber surrounded the trailer. Except for fresh tire tracks and the mailbox lying in the gravel beside the county road, the drive looked like any abandoned logging track that hunters maintained for seasonal camps. The front of the trailer developed into a large screen porch with attached woodshed and recently repaired steps. A neat vegetable garden with flowers was the only island of order in a chaotic jumble of useless machinery, broken appliances and dead chain saws. The shape of the chain link fence surrounding it suggested that it might have once served as a dog run, but morning glory and sweet pea transformed the galvanized links into colorful texture and the borders of gladiolas and hollyhocks contributed to the startling effect of measured care surrounded by compulsive collections of ordinary objects worth little more than faint memories they might rekindle.
Lester scanned his garden of precious junk, crushed his empty beer can and hurled it at an old truck. He lifted Sammy’s board from the bed of his new truck and walked to the garden, where he drove the nose violently into a bed of lettuce. The stairs presented a coordination problem and he failed to make it up and through the screen door on his first try. “Maggie! I’ve decided where to plant Sam. Get your ass out here. I want you to see where.”
Inside the trailer a similar chaos prevailed. A tidy kitchen afforded Maggie safe haven, because food somehow remained a domain Lester respected or had learned to accommodate. When he lurched through the door, she stood over the sink starring through the window at her garden, awaiting the familiar storm she heard approaching. She wore jeans and running shoes. She had tucked her jet-black braid into her sweatshirt.
“I’m talking to you Maggie.”
Her voice remained calm. “Lester, not today.”
“What not today? What day do I decide to bury my only son?”
“Don’t start this Lester. I can’t do this today. I can’t take any more today.”
Lester pushed her against the stove and opened the refrigerator. He took out a can and slammed the door, which bounced back open. He slammed it shut. “Yes. Yes you can, because that’s all you do - is take. You think you’re so patient and generous, but all the time you’re just taking. Taking my time, taking my money, taking my son.
He popped the top off the beer and dropped it. “Your devil spirit communion with the sea crap. Being a sea creature crap. Well now my son’s a dead fish boy. All because of all the crap you taught him.”
“Our son Lester.”
“What? What did you say?”
Maggie turned to face him and looked directly into his eyes. “Our son Lester. I taught Sammy - our son - to respect the sea. He loved the sea and it wasn’t the sea that killed him.”
Lester’s eyes narrowed and his face redden as he squared off, trapping her between the sink and the refrigerator. “I know what killed my son – Sam – your doper fisherman friends and your junkie surfer hippie attitude and your devil spirit crap. That’s what killed my son.”
As he began his tirade, Maggie turned back to the window and slid her right hand onto the stovetop, hunched her shoulders and waited.
Lester stood behind her yelling at the back of her head. “Admit it! If he was up in the woods with me, he’d be fine. He’d be fine. ADMIT IT! He’d be a man instead of a dead fish boy.”
She knew that sooner or later the explosion was inevitable, so she took control and lit the fuse. “Better dead than a drunken log trucker.”
Lester grabbed her shoulder and spun her around as he cocked his arm for the blow, but as she turned, she brought with her the iron frying pan from the stove and his fist landed in metal. The round house that would have broken her jaw broke Lester’s hand instead, but the force of the blow smashed the skillet into her shoulder and she went down. Lester screamed in pain and momentarily doubled over with his fist in his left hand. Maggie knew this battle had only two possible outcomes. She had warned him and she came up swinging. She aimed the skillet at his head and missed, but it caught his shoulder hard enough to knock him aside, allowing her to push for the door, but his left hand got a grip on her sweatshirt and he slammed her to the floor on her back. Standing over her he tried to bring his boot down on her chest, but his drunken balance allowed her to roll aside and spring up. He threw a wide backhand that sent her sprawling down the trailer past the front door and crashing into the television stand, which came down in an explosion of lamps and figurines. He walked toward her, head lowered, determined by hate and pain to change the score of one dead, two surviving.
The door opened between them. Billy stepped into the living room providing Maggie a path to the doorway behind him. He calmly surveyed the damage. Maggie had not allowed tears since the news had arrived, but this bizarre interlude into the moment in which she had prepared herself to kill or die diverted her resolve and the flood released. Without a sound she proudly walked past Billy and ignoring Lester’s glare stepped out onto the porch.
Screaming, as if he could force his voice through Billy, he yelled after her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Instantly, his homicidal anger refocused on Billy and in low vicious tones spat out his greeting. “And what the hell are you doing in my house?”
Billy spoke like a concerned friend arriving to comfort his neighbor. “I came to say I was sorry about how things happened and that I talked to Murphy about some stuff that I think you should know about.”
Lester started for the door, but Billy stepped in front of him. “Let her go Lester. It won’t help anyone to hurt her.”
Lester squared off with him. “You don’t know dick about helping people. Do you? But if you don’t move your own skinny ass, you’re going to help yourself to a hell of a lot of trouble.”
Billy didn’t move. Lester swung a left hook. Billy caught his wrist as it passed and with a simple twist sent Lester face first down into the rug, where he pinned him with pressure on the wrist and a sandal in his armpit. Lester