In other words, there was little to stop a woman turning up with a child in her arms and filing a birth certificate with the clerk of the municipality – unless, of course, the woman was known to the clerk personally, in which case questions might be asked about the sudden appearance of an unexpected child. But Piscataquis, at more than four thousand square miles, was the second-largest county in the state, and also the most sparsely populated, with about seventeen thousand people residing within its borders, a lot of them existing below the poverty line. Those kinds of statistics were conducive to isolation, and places like Piscataquis, and farther north, Aroostook, tended to attract the kind of folks who preferred to be left to their own devices, by and large. This did not make Parker’s task any easier.
The Division of Public Health Systems in Augusta retained most of the information he required. Parker considered taking a trip north the following day, to see what he could discover. He also went through his Rolodex and found the name of a contact at the Maine Town and City Clerks’ Association, which had more than seven hundred members across the state, one of whom might well have unwittingly registered the birth of the dead woman’s child. But he’d hold off on asking for a favor until he’d scoured the vital records available to him in Augusta.
By then his back and sides ached from sitting for too long – a legacy of his gunshot wounds – and his eyes were watering. He knew that his eyesight was getting worse, but he didn’t want to go back to his optometrist for a new prescription. He had somehow managed to convince himself that he required spectacles only for reading and looking at screens, and could get away with not wearing them all the time. He remembered discussing the problem with Angel, who had been noticeably unsympathetic.
‘Vanity,’ was Angel’s conclusion.
‘It’s not vanity. It’s a matter of practicality.’
‘You tell yourself that. The rest of us will go for answer A: you’re too vain to admit you need them. I bet you color your hair, too.’
‘If I was coloring my hair, I’d opt for something other than gray.’
‘Maybe you’re being sneaky, and you’re just going far enough to hide the worst of it.’
‘I don’t know why I talk to you about anything. It’s like arguing with a rubber ball.’
‘Buy the glasses.’
‘Says the man who had to be threatened before he’d see a doctor about the pains in his stomach.’
‘Yeah, and look where that got me.’
At which point Angel had gestured to the hospital room, the bed, and the cannula in his arm. It was the night before the procedure, and the last time Parker would be permitted the pleasure of the old Angel’s company. When next Parker saw him, Angel’s skin would be gray, and he would be missing a length of intestine.
‘I think you just holed your own argument,’ said Parker.
‘No,’ Angel replied, ‘I was just too dumb to listen until it was too late.’
Angel’s voice broke. Parker reached out and held Angel’s right hand.
‘Late,’ said Parker. ‘But not too late.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘I know.’
‘Not just for myself.’
‘I know that, too.’
‘If I die—’
‘You’re not going to die.’
‘What do you know? You can’t even see straight. If I die—’
‘Yes?’
‘I think Louis has always been looking for someone to put him out of his pain, just as you once did.’
‘But you stopped him. He’s different now.’
‘No, he’s not. It’s still sleeping inside him, that desire for an ending. Don’t ever let him use me as an excuse.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘He listens to you.’
‘I don’t think he does. You’re mistaking silence for listening.’
‘Maybe. And you can let go of my hand now.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
They were quiet for a time.
‘If you die—’ said Parker.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m not going to date Louis just to make him feel better. That hand-holding, it was only me being comforting.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Get out of here.’
Parker stood. He paused at the door.
‘Angel?’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘No dying, you hear?’
‘Yes,’ said Angel, ‘I hear.’
46
Louis sat by Angel’s bedside. Some ruddiness had returned to Angel’s cheeks, or perhaps this was simply wishful thinking on the part of his partner: Angel was still pumped full of the kind of medication that left the world a blur, and made arduous all but the simplest and shortest of endeavors. Now Angel was sleeping while the night laid claim to the world beyond his window.
Two hours went by, during which Louis read. Reading had not previously consumed much of his time, but here in this hospital room he had begun to find in books both an escape from his cares and a source of solace when their avoidance proved impossible. Uncertain of where to start, he had sourced a number of lists of the hundred greatest novels ever written, which he combined to create his own guide. So far in the course of Angel’s illness, Louis had read The Call of the Wild, Lord of the Flies, and Invisible Man – both the Ellison and Wells titles, due to a mix-up at the bookstore, but Louis didn’t mind as both were interesting in their different ways. He was currently on The Wind in the Willows, the inclusion of which had initially appeared to represent some form of cataloging error, but the book had grown pleasantly strange as his explorations of it progressed.
‘Why are you still here?’ asked a voice from the bed.
‘I’m trying to finish a chapter.’
Angel sounded hoarse. Louis put down the novel and fetched the no-spill water cup with its flexible straw. He held it until Angel waved a hand to signal he was done. Angel’s eyes seemed clearer than they had been since before the operation, like those of a man who has woken after a long, undisturbed rest.
‘What are you reading now?’ Angel asked.
‘The Wind in the Willows.’
‘Isn’t that for kids?’
‘Maybe. Who cares?’
‘And after that?’
Louis reached for his coat and removed a folded sheet of paper. He examined the contents of the list.
‘I might try something older. You ever read Dickens?’
‘Yeah, I read Dickens.’
‘Which one?’
‘All of them.’
‘Seriously? I never knew that about you.’
‘I read a lot when I was younger, and when I was in jail. Big books. I even read Ulysses.’
‘Nobody’s read Ulysses, or nobody we know.’
‘I have.’
‘Did you understand it?’
‘I don’t think so. Finished it, though, which counts for something.’
‘You still read now. You always have a book by the bed.’
‘I don’t read the way I used to. Not like that.’
‘You ought to start again.’ Louis waved his paper. ‘I got a list you can use.’
‘The Wind in the Willows, huh?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So read me something from it.’
‘You mean out loud?’
‘You think I’m psychic, I’m gonna guess the words?’
Louis glanced at the half-open door. He had never read aloud to anyone in his life, nor had he been read aloud to. He could recall his mother singing to him as a child, but never reading stories, not unless they were from the Bible. He thought of Angel’s bodyguards. He didn’t want them to return and find him voicing rats and toads.
‘You’re too embarrassed to read to me?’ asked Angel. ‘If I die, you’ll be—’
‘Okay!’ said Louis. ‘Not the dying again. You want me to go back to the beginning?’
‘No, just from where you’re at.’
With one final check of the door, Louis began.
‘“The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky,”’ he read, ‘“and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces – meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognized again under it …”.’
All was still.
Angel was once again asleep. Louis stopped reading.
‘That,’ said Tony Fulci, from his seat on the floor, ‘was fucking beautiful.’
Beside him, his brother Paulie – fellow bodyguard and now, it appeared, literary critic – nodded in agreement.
‘Yeah, fucking beautiful …’
47