said, since some remark seemed called for. The image of Rutledge 'letting her fly into the slipstream' flapped briefly in his mind. He dismissed it. At least, he tried.
'And looka here.'
He rolled back his upper lip, revealing the remains of his teeth.
'Ooo see a ho in funt?' Rutledge asked. Leandro saw a good many holes in front, but thought it might not be politic to say so. He simply agreed. Rutledge nodded and let his lip fall back into place. It was something of a relief.
'Teeth never have been much good,' Rutledge said indifferently. 'When I get workin' again and can afford me a good set of dentures, I'm gonna have all of 'em jerked. Fuck em. Point is, I had my two front teeth there on top before I headed up to Haven week before last to check on Gramp. Hell, they wasn't even loose.'
'They fell out when you started to get close to Haven?'
'Didn't fall out,' Rutledge finished his beer. 'I puked 'em out.'
'Oh,' Leandro had replied faintly.
'You know, another brew'd go down good. Talkin's
'Thirsty work, I know,' Leandro said, signaling the waitress. He was over his limit, but he found he could use another one himself.
4
Alvin Rutledge wasn't the only person who had tried to visit a friend or relative in Haven during July, nor the only one to become ill and turn back. Using the voting lists and area phone books as a starting point, Leandro turned up three people who told stories similar to Rutledge's. He uncovered a fourth incident through pure coincidence - or almost pure. His mother knew he was 'following up' some aspect of his 'big story,' and happened to mention that her friend Eileen Pulsifer had a friend who lived down in Haven.
Eileen was fifteen years older than Leandro's mother, which put her close to seventy. Over tea and cloyingly sweet gingersnaps, she told Leandro a story similar to those he had already heard.
Mrs Pulsifer's friend was Mary Jacklin (whose grandson was Tommy Jacklin). They had visited back and forth for more than forty years, and often played in local bridge tournaments. This summer she hadn't seen Mary at all. Not even once. She'd spoken to her on the phone, and she seemed fine; her excuses always sounded believable ... but all the same, something about them - a bad headache, too much baking to do, the family had decided on the spur of the moment to go down to Kennebunk and visit the Trolley Museum - wasn't quite right.
'They were fine by the one-by-one, but they seemed odd to me in the whole bunch, if you see what I mean.' She offered the cookies. 'More 'snaps?'
'No thank you,' Leandro said.
'Oh, go ahead! I know you boys! Your mother taught you to be polite, but no boy ever born could turn down a gingersnap! Now you just go on and take what you hanker for!'
Smiling dutifully, Leandro took another gingersnap.
Settling back and folding her hands on her tight round belly, Mrs Pulsifer went on: 'I begun to think something might be wrong ... I still think that maybe something's wrong, truth to tell. First thing to cross my mind was that maybe Mary didn't want to be my friend anymore ... that maybe I did or said something to offend her. But no, says I to myself, if I'd done something ' I guess she'd tell me. After forty years of friendship I guess she would. Besides, she didn't really sound cool to me, you know
'But she did sound different.'
Eileen Pulsifer nodded decisively. 'Ayuh. And that got me thinking that maybe she was sick, that maybe, God save us, her doctor had found a cancer or something inside her, and she didn't want any of her old friends to know. So I called up Vera and I said, "We're going to go down to Haven, Vera, and see Mary. We ain't going to tell her we're coming, and that way she can't call us off. You get ready, Vera," I says, "because I'm coming by your house at ten o'clock, and if you ain't ready, I'm going to go without you.-
'Vera is - '
'Vera Anderson, in Derry. Just about my best friend in the whole world, John, except for Mary and your mother. And your mother was down in Monmouth, Visiting her sister that week.'
Leandro remembered it well: a week of such peace and quiet was a week to be treasured.