Nothing.
He stood down below again, taking a breath, and then he jumped up the left wall, hit the wire again. And again, nothing. There was a metal post atop the section where the wall met, and Teddy took three runs at the wall before he got a grip. He held tight and climbed up to the top of the wall and his shoulders hit the wire and his knees hit the wire and his forearms hit the wire, and each time, he thought he was dead.
He wasn't. And once he'd reached the top, there wasn't much to do but lower himself down to the other side.
He stood in the leaves and looked back at Ashecliffe.
He'd come here for the truth, and didn't find it. He'd come here for Laeddis, and didn't find him either. Mong the way, he'd lost Chuck.
He'd have time to regret all that back in Boston. Time to feel guilt and shame then. Time to consider his options and consult with Senator Hurly and come up with a plan of attack. He'd come back. Fast. There couldn't be any question of that. And hopefully he'd be armed with subpoenas and federal search warrants. And they'd have their own goddamned ferry. Then he'd be angry. Then he'd be righteous in his fury.
Now, though, he was just relieved to be alive and on the other side of this wall.
Relieved. And scared.
IT TOOK HIM an hour and a half to get back to the cave, but the woman had left. Her fire had burned down to a few embers, and Teddy sat by it even though the air outside was unseasonably Warm and growing clammier by the hour.
Teddy waited for her, hoping she'd just gone out for more wood, but he knew, in his heart, that she wasn't going to return. Maybe she believed he'd already been caught and was, at this moment, telling the warden and Cawley about her hiding place. Maybe - and this was too much to hope for, but Teddy allowed himself the indulgence - Chuck had found her and they'd gone to a location she believed was safer. When the fire went out, Teddy took off his suit jacket and draped it over his chest and shoulders and placed his head back against the wall. Just as he had the night before, the last thing he noticed before he passed out were his thumbs.
They'd begun to twitch.
DAY FOUR
The Bad Sailor
Chapter 20
ALL THE DEAD and maybe-dead were getting their coats. , They were in a kitchen and the coats were on hooks and Teddy's father took his old pea coat and shrugged his arms into it and then helped Dolores with hers and he said to Teddy, "You know what I'd like for Christmas?"
"No, Dad."
"Bagpipes."
And Teddy understood that he meant golf clubs and a golf bag.
"Just like Ike," he said.
"Exactly," his father said and handed Chuck his topcoat. Chuck put it on. It was a nice coat. Prewar cashmere. Chuck's scar was gone,.but he still had those delicate, borrowed hands, and he held them in front of Teddy and wiggled the fingers.
"Did you go with that woman doctor?" Teddy said.
Chuck shook his head. "I'm far too overeducated. I went to the track."
"Win?"
"Lost big."
"Sorry."
Chuck said, "Kiss your wife good-bye. On the cheek." Teddy leaned in past his mother and Tootie Vicelli smiling at him with a bloody mouth, and he kissed Dolores's cheek and he said, "Baby, why you all wet?"
"I'm dry as a bone," she said to Teddy's father.
"If I was half my age," Teddy's father said, "I'd marry you, girl." They were all soaking wet, even his mother, even Chuck. Their coats dripped all over the floor.
Chuck handed him three logs and said, "For the fire."
"Thanks." Teddy took the logs and then forgot where he'd put them.
Dolores scratched her stomach and said, "Fucking rabbits. What good are they?"
Laeddis and Rachel Solando walked into the room. They weren't wearing coats. They weren't wearing anything at all, and Laeddis passed a bottle of rye over Teddy's mother's head and then took Dolores in his arms and Teddy would have been jealous, but Rachel dropped to her knees in front of him and unzipped Teddy's trousers and took him in her mouth, and Chuck and his father and Tootle Vicelli and his mother all gave him a wave as they took their leave and Laeddis and Dolores stumbled back together into the bedroom and Teddy could hear them in there on the bed, fumbling