"No need to pay nuttin," Trigger said. "It's on my way. Hop in, Ralph. You tink dose guys gonna be all right? Ain't gonna take after each udder or nuttin?"
"No," Ralph said. "I don't think so. just one second."
"Sure." Ralph walked over to Ed. "Are you okay with this? Are you getting it worked out?"
"Yes," Ed replied. "We're going to settle it privately. Why not? A little broken glass is all it really comes down to." He sounded completely like his old self now, and the big man in the white shirt was looking at him with something that was almost respect. Ralph still felt perplexed and uneasy about what had happened here, but he decided he was going to let it go. He liked Ed Deepneau a lot, but Ed was not his business this July; Carolyn was.
Carolyn and the thing which had started ticking in the walls of their bedroom-and inside her-late at night.
"Great," he told Ed. "I'm headed home. I make Carolyn her supper these days, and I'm running way late."
He started to turn away. The heavyset man stopped him with an outstretched hand. "John Tandy," he said.
He shook it. Ralph Roberts. Pleased to meet you."
Tandy smiled. "Under the circumstances, I kinda doubt that... but I'm real glad you showed up when you did. For a few seconds there I really thought him and me was gonna tango."
So did I, Ralph thought but didn't say. He looked at Ed, his troubled eye taking in the unfamiliar tee-shirt clinging to Ed's stalk-thin midriff and the white silk scarf with the Chinese-red figures embroidered on it. He didn't entirely like the look in Ed's eyes when they met his; Ed was perhaps not all the way back after all.
"Sure you're okay?" Ralph asked him. He wanted to go, wanted to get back to Carolyn, and yet he was somehow reluctant. The feeling that this situation was about nine miles from right persisted.
"Yes, fine," Ed said quickly, and gave him a big smile which did not reach his dark green eyes. They studied Ralph carefully, as if asking how much he had seen... and how much (hey hey Susan Day) he would remember later on.
The interior of Trigger Vachon's truck smelled of clean, freshly pressed clothes, an aroma which for some reason always reminded Ralph of fresh bread. There was no passenger seat, so he stood with one hand wrapped around the doorhandle and the other gripping the edge of a Dandux laundry basket.
"Mandat look like some strange go-on back dere," Trigger said, glancing into his outside mirror.
"You don't know the half of it," Ralph replied.
"I know the guy driving the rice-burner-Deepneau, his name is.
He got a pretty little wife, send stuff out sometime. Seem like a nice fella, enos usually."
"He sure wasn't himself today," Ralph said.
"Had a bug up his ass, did he?"
"Had a whole damn ant-farm up there, I think."
Trigger laughed hard at that, pounding the worn black plastic of the big steering wheel. "Whole damn ant-farm! Beauty! Beauty! I'm savin dat one, me!" Trigger wiped his streaming eyes with a handkerchief almost the size of a tablecloth. "Look to me like Mr. Deepneau come out dat airport service gate, him."
"That's right, he did."
"You need a pass to use dat way," Trigger said. "How Mr. D. get a pass, you tink?" Ralph thought it over, frowning, then shook his head. "I don't know. It never even occurred to me. I'll have to ask him next time I see him."
"You do dat," Trigger said. "And ask him how dem ants doing." This stimulated a fresh throe of laughter, which in turn occasioned more flourishes of the comic opera handkerchief. As they turned off the Extension and onto Harris Avenue proper, the storm finally broke. There was no hail, but -the rain came in an extravagant summer flood, so heavy at first that Trigger had to slow his panel truck to a crawl. "Wow!" he said respectfully. "Dis remine me of the big storm back in '85, when haffa downtown fell inna damn Canal! Member dat, Ralph?"
"Yes," Ralph said. "Let's hope it doesn't happen again."
"Nah," Trigger said, grinning and peering past his extravagantly flapping windshield wipers, "dey got the drainage system all fixed up now. Beauty!" The combination of the cold rain and the warm cab caused the bottom half of the windshield to steam up. Without thinking, Ralph reached out a finger and drew a figure in the steam: "What's dat?"