Summer Cool

19

When the telephone rang, Paine was in the bad dream, searching for Rebecca between the stars. But she was not there. He was calling for her, his voice loud on a dark, lonely hillside, but the stars were mute until he heard a voice that he thought was hers. But it was the telephone, and he woke up.

"Jack," a voice on the other end of the receiver said when he put it to his ear. He looked at the red digital numbers on the clock next to his bed. It was 3:04 in the morning.

The voice made Paine come fully awake.

"Bobby."

"How are you?" There was something in the voice Paine had never heard in Petty's voice before, a hard calm laced with something that sounded like spite.

"I've been waiting for you to call, Bobby."

Petty chuckled dryly. "I bet you have. I've had you hopping, haven't I?"

"You have, Bobby." Paine was searching for something truly false in the voice-the effects of alcohol, coercion, drugs-and found only chilling, clean directness.

Again Petty chuckled.

"What the fuck is going on, Bobby?"

"Nothing special, Jack. I've just made a change in my life. That's all." Chilling, spiteful directness.

"Why?"

"You were a cop, Jack. You know there are always reasons."

"What are they?"

"That's not something I want to get into. But I think you should forget about finding me. It would be better for everyone."

"Why?"

"Reasons, Jack." Calm, cold. "I realize that you're too fucking stupid to do that, though."

"Terry wants me to quit, but I don't want to."

"Why not? She told you, I'm telling you. It's none of your fucking business."

"It is."

Passion tempered spite. "Because we were friends? Grow up. That was another fucking life. People die. Sometimes they die while they're still alive. And when they get reborn, they're somebody else."

"I don't believe that."

"Believe it. I'm not the Bob Petty you knew, Jack. He's dead and buried." The voice became wishful. "I don't know if he ever existed. I think a long time ago he did. . " Petty paused. "I know he did. He was a little boy, and he believed in a lot of things, and that was me, Jack. That was the me you knew." The voice had hardened again. "So give it up, Jack."

"I won't."

"Because we were friends? Because Terry wanted you to? How is Terry, Jack?"

Paine said nothing.

"I want to tell you some things, Jack. And these are no lies. I despised you for a longtime, and didn't even know why. But now I do. It's because you're weak, Jack. You were weak when you drank, and you were weak when you tried to kill yourself. You were weaker when you couldn't do it. You know damn well what I'm saying is true. A lot of other people told you these things, but I never did because I felt sorry for you. You were the puppy the kid brings home and hides in his room. Nobody wanted you, Jack, so I took you on.

"Well, I was weak to do that. Your old man put a bullet in his head because he couldn't take what he did, what he felt he had to do, and you're just like him, Jack. Only you don't even have the guts to take yourself out. And I despise you for that.

"When all that shit came down before you got suspended, I was the only one who stood up for you because I knew you couldn't gut it out yourself. That wasn't friendship, Jack. It was pity!'

"You're hitting some good buttons, Bobby, but I still don't understand why you left."

"You still don't get it?" Petty's voice rose. "I'm dead, Jack. Dead and gone. There isn't any more Bob Petty like you knew him. That fucking family of mine, you, that job, it's all dead. None of it is alive for me anymore."

"What does the word 'tiny' mean, Bobby?"

There was a pause. "You get that from Coleman?"

"Yes."

Petty laughed, the sound of a man who doesn't care. "It doesn't matter."

"Where are you now, Bobby?"

"Listen to me." Petty's voice had softened a little. "I want you to know that I don't care about Terry. I mean that. Whatever happens with her is fine with me. The girls, too. They can do whatever they want. If Terry and you-"

"Tell me where you are."

Petty laughed harshly. "All right, Jack. Sure. If that's what you want."

Petty laughed again, and then the phone went dead in Paine's ear.

Paine called a number, got nothing, called another and let it ring a long time. Finally, someone picked it up. Paine could almost hear the cold stars singing to him.

"Billy?"

"Jack, I tried your office before, left another message."

"You have something?"

"Sure. He's in Tucson. Left New York this morning. No connecting flight."

"I need you for something else. You got anybody who can get armed forces records?"

"What do you need?"

Paine told him about the picture of Paine, Coleman, and Johnson. "There was one other, they looked like a unit. Everything you can get."

"Sure." Rader paused. "Tell you what. I'll meet you tomorrow at a special place in Tucson. You know where I mean?"

"I know where, Billy. Two o'clock?"

"Let me get back to the scope, Jack. Never should have put a phone in here."

"See you tomorrow, Billy."