“I hope not,” Jerome says. In the glare of the Sno-Cat’s headlights, his face is a stone.
For a long moment the only sounds are the rumble of the snow machine’s big engine and the rising wind of winter storm Eugenie.
Holly says, “Oh God. His finger’s not even on the trigger. One of you needs to help me, I don’t think I can—”
Then, a gunshot.
“Brady’s last trick,” Jerome says. “Jesus.”
36
There’s no way Hodges can make it back to the Expedition, but Jerome is able to muscle him into the cab of the Sno-Cat. Holly sits beside him on the outside. Jerome climbs behind the wheel and throws it into gear. Although he backs up and then circles wide around the remains of Babineau’s body, he tells Holly not to look until they’re at least up the first hill. “We’re leaving blood-tracks.”
“Oough.”
“Correct,” Jerome says. “Oough is correct.”
“Thurston told me he had snowmobiles,” Hodges says. “He didn’t mention anything about a Sherman tank.”
“It’s a Tucker Sno-Cat, and you didn’t offer him your MasterCard as collateral. Not to mention an excellent Jeep Wrangler that got me out here to the williwags just fine, thanks.”
“Is he really dead?” Holly asks. Her wan face is turned up to Hodges’s, and the huge knot on her forehead actually seems to be pulsing. “Really and for sure?”
“You saw him put a bullet in his brain.”
“Yes, but is he? Really and for sure?”
The answer he won’t give is no, not yet. Not until the trails of slime he’s left in the heads of God knows how many people are washed away by the brain’s remarkable ability to heal itself. But in another week, another month at the outside, Brady will be all gone.
“Yes,” he says. “And Holly? Thanks for programming that text alert. The home run boys.”
She smiles. “What was it? The text, I mean?”
Hodges struggles his phone out of his coat pocket, checks it, and says, “I will be goddamned.” He begins to laugh. “I completely forgot.”
“What? Show me show me show me!”
He tilts the phone so she can read the text his daughter Alison has sent him from California, where the sun is no doubt shining:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY! 70 YEARS OLD AND STILL GOING STRONG! AM RUSHING OUT TO THE MARKET, WILL CALL U LATER. XXX ALLIE
For the first time since Jerome returned from Arizona, Tyrone Feelgood Delight makes an appearance. “You is sem’ny years old, Massa Hodges? Laws! You don’t look a day ovah sixty-fi’!”
“Stop it, Jerome,” Holly says. “I know it amuses you, but that sort of talk sounds very ignorant and silly.”
Hodges laughs. It hurts to laugh, but he can’t help it. He holds onto consciousness all the way back to Thurston’s Garage; is even able to take a few shallow tokes on the joint Holly lights and passes to him. Then the dark begins to slip in.
This could be it, he thinks.
Happy birthday to me, he thinks.
Then he’s gone.
AFTER
Four Days Later
Pete Huntley is far less familiar with Kiner Memorial than his old partner, who made many pilgrimages here to visit a long-term resident who has now passed away. It takes Pete two stops—one at the main desk and one in Oncology—before he locates Hodges’s room, and when he gets there, it’s empty. A cluster of balloons with HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD on them are tethered to one of the siderails and floating near the ceiling.
A nurse pokes her head in, sees him looking at the empty bed, and gives him a smile. “The solarium at the end of the hall. They’ve been having a little party. I think you’re still in time.”
Pete walks down. The solarium is skylighted and filled with plants, maybe to cheer up the patients, maybe to provide them with a little extra oxygen, maybe both. Near one wall, a party of four is playing cards. Two of them are bald, and one has an IV drip running into his arm. Hodges is seated directly under the skylight, doling out slices of cake to his posse: Holly, Jerome, and Barbara. Kermit seems to be growing a beard, it’s coming in snow-white, and Pete has a brief memory of going to the mall with his own kids to see Santa Claus.
“Pete!” Hodges says, smiling. He starts to get up and Pete waves him back into his seat. “Sit down, have some cake. Allie brought it from Batool’s Bakery. It was always her favorite place to go when she was growing up.”
“Where is she?” Pete asks, dragging a chair over and placing it next to Holly. She’s sporting a bandage on the left side of her forehead, and Barbara has a cast on her leg. Only Jerome looks hale and hearty, and Pete knows the kid barely escaped getting turned into hamburger out at that hunting camp.
“She went back to the Coast this morning. Two days off was all she could manage. She’s got three weeks’ vacation coming in March, and says she’ll be back. If I need her, that is.”
“How are you feeling?”