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“Which is one more fucked-up thing in a fucked-up world,” Allard says. “You bet I will.”
That night Jalbert goes out to Bullwinkles and gets drunk for the first time in twenty years. He does not count steps, which is a relief. Counting steps and running chairs is hard work. So many numbers to keep track of, so easy to lose count. He supposes nobody would believe that, but it’s the truth. If you lose count, you have to start over.
While Jalbert is drinking his second whiskey and soda, Allard calls again. Jalbert has to shout because of the combined roar of the TV, the jukebox, and a bunch of unwinding KU summer students. “Is he dead?”
“No! Serious condition! Shot in the stomach!”
Jalbert first feels disappointed, then happy. Isn’t that better than life in prison, where Coughlin would get three meals a day, a TV in his cell, and time in the exercise yard? It hurts to get shot in the gut. The pain is excruciating, so Jalbert has heard, and it’s the sort of wound that Coughlin might not—depending on the caliber of the slug—ever come back from.
“Maybe that’s good!” he shouts.
“I get where you’re coming from, buddy,” Allard says. “And from the sound of it, I get where you are. Have one for me.”
“I’ll have two,” Jalbert says, and laughs. It’s the first real laugh to come out of him in a long time, and the hangover he wakes up with the next day feels entirely justified. He takes a long walk without counting his steps, simply hoping—almost praying—that Coughlin will live, but get some sort of serious infection. Possibly need to have his stomach removed. Was it possible to live if that happened? Would you have to be fed through a tube? If so, wouldn’t that be an even greater punishment?
Jalbert thinks yes.
By noon his hangover is gone. He eats a hearty lunch and doesn’t even think about going into the dining room to work on his Classic Movie Posters puzzle. He is contemplating the idea of sending Coughlin flowers (with a card reading Don’t get well soon) when his phone rings. It’s his ex-partner.
“Frank, I have some fantastic news.”
“I already know. Our boy Coughlin took one in the belly. He’s in the hosp—”
“They caught him!”
Jalbert shakes his head, not sure he’s following her. “Do you mean Yvonne Wicker’s brother, or did you uncover some evidence about Coughlin? Did you? Is that it?” He could hope. Gutshot and going to prison, how beautiful that would b—
“The man who killed her! They caught him in Iowa! His name is Andrew Iverson!”
Jalbert frowns. His headache is creeping back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Coughlin killed poor Miss—”
“Iverson was trying to take another one! She stabbed him and got away!” Davis pours out the whole story, saving the best for last: two of the charms from Yvonne Wicker’s bracelet in Iverson’s kill-bag.
“We hounded an innocent man for nothing,” she finishes. “Because we couldn’t believe.”
Jalbert sits up straight. His headache is worse than ever. He will have to do something about it. Take some aspirin. Then run the chairs. “We didn’t hound him, Ella. We pursued him. Given what we knew, we had every right. Every duty.”
“Stop with the we stuff, Frank.” Now she just sounds weary. “I didn’t give his name to that free newspaper and I didn’t plant dope in his truck. You did those things on your own. And I didn’t get him shot.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“That’s you, not me. I told him I went to Mass and prayed for him, and do you know what he said? ‘It helps if you believe.’ I’m going to keep that in mind going forward.”
“Then you better quit police work and get a job as a… a voodoo priestess or something.”
“Do you not feel the slightest shred of guilt, Frank?”
“No. I’m going to hang up now, Ella. Don’t call me again.”
He ends the call. He runs the chairs. He puts ten pieces in his jigsaw puzzle and then counts steps in his backyard: 81 down to 1. A total of 3,321. A good number, but his head still aches.
62
Danny’s supper following Edgar Ball’s visit is green gluck that looks like liquified snot and tastes a little like V8. If, that is, V8 tasted nasty. He gets it all down anyway, because for the first time since waking up in the hospital he’s actually hungry. In truth for the first time since his trip to Gunnel, in Dart County. Things have changed. He feels saved.
At nine o’clock a nurse comes in with a couple of pain pills. He tells her he doesn’t need them, at least not yet. She raises her eyebrows. “Really? Will you be able to sleep?”
“I think so. Leave them on the night table, in case I want them later.”
