sooner or later he would have said something, Probably it was the Colombians. Crazy fuckers.'
'I don't get you. And it's not my business, I suppose.'
He looked at me, grinned, and winked. 'It was Vietnam,' he said. 'At least, it was supposed to be. There was a guy named Henry Buck. He was supposed to rat on me. I was supposed to rat on Will. And then - the big casino - Will was supposed to rat on the people down South that were selling him the dope and the fireworks and cigarettes and booze. Those were the people Ju - the cops really wanted, Especially the Colombians.'
'And you think they killed him?'
He looked at me flatly. 'Them or the Southern Mob, sure. Who else?'
I shook my head.
'Well,' he said, 'Let's have another beer and then I'll give you a lift home. I enjoyed this, Dennis, I really did.' There was a ring of truth in that, but Arnie would never have made a dorky comment like 'I enjoyed this, I really did.' Not the old Arnie.
'Yeah, me too, man.'
I didn't want another beer, but I took one anyway. I wanted to put off the inevitable moment of getting into Christine. This afternoon it had seemed a necessary step to sample the atmosphere of that car itself . . . if there was any atmosphere to sample. Now it seemed a frightening and crazy idea. I felt the secret of what Leigh and I were becoming to each other like a large, breakable egg in my head.
Tell me, Christine, can you read minds?
I felt a crazy laugh coming up my throat and dumped beer on it.
'Listen,' I said. 'I can call my dad to come and get me, if you want, Arnie. He'll still be up.'
'No problem,' Arnie said. 'I could walk two miles of straight line, don't worry.'
'I just thought - '
'Bet you're anxious to be able to drive yourself around again, huh?'
'Yeah, I am.'
'There's nothing finer than being behind the wheel of your own car,' Arnie said, and then his left eye slipped down in a bleary old rouĉ³'s wink. 'Except maybe pussy.'
The time came. Arnie snapped off the TV and I crutched my way across the kitchen and worked into my old ski parka, hoping that Michael and Regina would come in from their party and delay things a while longer - maybe Michael would smell beer on Arnie's breath and offer me a ride. The memory of the afternoon I had slipped behind Christine's wheel, when Arnie was in LeBay's house, dickering with the old sonofabitch, was all too clear in my mind.
Arnie had gotten a couple of beers from the fridge - 'for the road', he said. I considered telling him that if he got picked up DWI while he was on bail, he'd probably go to jail before he could turn around. Then I decided I better keep my mouth shut. We went out.
The first early morning of 1979 was deeply, clearly cold, the kind of cold that makes the moisture in your nose freeze in seconds. The snowbanks ringing the driveway glittered with billions of diamond crystals. And there sat Christine, her black windows cauled with frost. I stared at her. The Mob, Arnie had said. The Southern Mob or the Colombians. It sounded melodramatic but possible - no, more; it sounded plausible. But the Mob shot people, pushed them out of windows, strangled them. According to legend, Al Capone had disposed of one poor sucker with a lead-cored baseball bat. But to drive a car over some guy's snow covered lawn and slam it through the side of his house and into his living room?
The Colombians, maybe. Arnie said the Colombians are crazy. But that crazy? I didn't think so.
She glittered in the light from the house and the stars, and what if it was her? And what if she found out that Leigh and I had our suspicions? Worse yet, what if she found out that we had been fooling around?
'You need help on the steps, Dennis?' Arnie asked, startling me.
'No, I can handle the steps,' I said. 'You might have to give me a hand on the path.'
'No problem, man.'
I got down the kitchen steps sidesaddle, clutching the railing in one hand and my crutches in the other. On the path, I set them under me, got out a couple of steps, and then slipped. A dull thud of pain rumbled up my left leg, the one that still wasn't worth