if I got a line on the stuff, and of course I said yes, but this is my deal. Besides, there might not be ten thousand tabs. There might only be eight thousand. Or eight hundred.”
She cocked her head, then shook it. As if arguing with herself.
“There’ll be a couple thousand. A couple thousand at least, got to be. Probably more. Donnie’s executive bonus for doing a good job of supplying his New York clientele. But if you start splitting that, pretty soon you’re stuck with chump change, and I’m no chump. Got a little bit of a drug problem, but that doesn’t make me a chump. You know what I’ll do, Jamie?”
I shook my head.
“Make it out to the west coast. Disappear from this part of the world forever. New clothes, new hair color, new me. I’ll find someone out there who can broker a deal for the Oxy. I may not get eighty a pill, but I’ll get a lot, because Oxy is still the gold standard, and the Chinese shit is as good as the real stuff. Then I’m going to get myself a nice new identity to go with my new hair and clothes. I’ll check into a rehab and get clean. Find a job, maybe the kind where I can start making up for the past. Atonement is what the Catholics call it. How does that sound to you?”
Like a pipe dream, I thought.
It must have showed on my face, because the happy smile she’d been wearing froze. “You don’t think so? Fine. Just watch me.”
“I don’t want to watch you,” I said. “I want to get the hell away from you.”
She raised a hand and I cringed back in my seat, thinking she meant to give me a swat, but she only sighed and wiped her nose with it again. “How can I blame you for that? So let’s make it happen. We’re going to drive up to his house—last one on Renfield Road, all by its lonesome—and you’re going to ask him where those pills are currently residing. My guess would be in his personal safe. If so, you’ll ask him for the combination. He’ll have to tell you, because dead people can’t lie.”
“I can’t be sure of that,” I said, a lie which proved I was still alive. “It’s not like I’ve questioned hundreds of them. Mostly I don’t talk to them at all. Why would I? They’re dead.”
“But Therriault told you where the bomb was, even though he didn’t want to.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but there was another possibility. “What if the guy’s not there? What if he’s wherever his body went? Or, I don’t know, maybe he’s visiting his mom and dad in Florida. Maybe once they’re dead they can tele-port anywhere.”
I thought that might shake her, but she didn’t look upset at all. “Thomas was at his place, wasn’t he?”
“That doesn’t mean they all are, Liz!”
“I’m pretty sure Marsden will be.” She sounded very sure of herself. She didn’t understand that dead people can be unpredictable. “Let’s do this. Then I’ll grant you your fondest wish. You’ll never have to see me again.”
She said this in a sad way, like I was supposed to feel sorry for her, but I didn’t. The only thing I felt about her was scared.
58
The road ran upward in a series of lazy S-turns. At first there were some houses with mailboxes beside the road, but they were farther and farther apart. The trees began to crowd in, their shadows meeting and making it seem later than it was.
“How many do you think there are?” Liz asked.
“Huh?”
“People like you. Ones who can see the dead.”
“How should I know?”
“Did you ever run into another one?”
“No, but it isn’t exactly the kind of thing you talk about. Like starting a conversation with ‘Hey, do you see dead people?’ ”
“I suppose not. But you sure didn’t get it from your mother.” Like she was talking about the color of my eyes or my curly hair. “What about your father?”
“I don’t know who he is. Or was. Or whatever.” Talking about my father made me uneasy, probably because my mother refused to.
“You never asked?”
“Sure I asked. She doesn’t answer.” I turned in my seat to look at her. “She never said anything about it…about him…to you?”
“I asked and got what you got. Brick wall. Not like Tee at all.”
More curves, tighter now. The Wallkill was far below us, glittering in the late afternoon sunshine. Or maybe it