Smoke Page 31

  Living in New York, Peter and David had no need of an automobile of their own. In the normal course of events, an automobile would merely be a constant hassle and expense, with garaging and insurance and repairs and all the rest of it. On those rare occasions, mostly in the summer, when they had need of a car, they simply ordered up a shiny clean air-conditioned sedan from Hertz, using the deep discount arranged for them by Dr. Archer Amory. (So much would be lost if they severed their relationship with NAABOR; it didn’t bear enumeration.)

  Peg and Freddie and the van left Bay Ridge not long after ten on Friday morning, maneuvering through city streets over to the Brooklyn—Queens Expressway, then taking that road all the way up through Brooklyn and Queens to the Triborough Bridge, avoiding Manhattan entirely. Just as their van was crossing from Brooklyn to Queens, David received a phone call from Martin, of Robert and Martin, saying, since they hadn’t been able to come up last weekend because of that ridiculous funeral, about which Martin wished to hear everything, why not come up this weekend instead, to which David said yes, without even consulting Peter, and then called Hertz. Then he told Peter, who was delighted as he was, and they both passed the good news on to Shanana, giving her the phone number where they’d be over the weekend, and telling her she could shut up shop and send home the two lab assistants—borrowed from NYU Medical Center, after a generous contribution to that worthy health-care institution from NAABOR—at the same time. Then they phoned their cat-sitter person, packed their ditty bags, and cabbed up to their nearest East Side office of Hertz, where today’s magic carpet was a bright red Ford Taurus, with a sunroof, which turned out later to be a mistake, since the opaque sliding panel to shield them from the sun was broken; fortunately, they’d both brought caps. In any event, by eleven they were in their shiny newish car, and they were headed north on the FDR Drive up the eastern shore of Manhattan Island when Peg was paying the toll on the Triborough Bridge to a toll-keeper who kept trying to look past her at the Ayatollah Khomeini.

  Shortly afterward, Peter and David passed the exit for the Triborough Bridge, but they weren’t going that way, and continued on up the Harlem River Drive, did a jog east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, then headed north again on the New York State Thruway. Peg and Freddie, somewhat farther north and a bit to the east, had taken the Bruckner Expressway to the Bronx River Parkway, and left the actual City of New York, crossing the invisible line from the Bronx into the city of Yonkers, about fifteen minutes before Peter and David had a similar experience on the Thruway, just a bit to the west.

  With Yonkers to the left of them and Mount Vernon to the right of them, Peg and Freddie drove north, and the Bronx River Parkway became the Sprain Brook Parkway with no discernible change in the road at all. The Sprain, however, at first angled northwest, and soon tangentially touched the Thruway, before curving northward again. Ten minutes later—Peter and the Ford traveled slightly more rapidly than Peg and the van—Peter and David reached the same tangent, where they switched from the Thruway, which would soon cross the Hudson River and be of no further use to them, to the Sprain Brook, and now both cars were on the same road, heading in the same direction.

  Peg waited until they were on the Sprain, where the traffic was lighter, now that they were well beyond the city, to start the dread conversation. “Freddie,” she said, “we have to talk.”

  “Sure,” he said. The Ayatollah face gave nothing away.

  “You know I love you, Freddie.”

  “Uh-oh,” he said.

  There went the first half hour of her planned speech. Flipping ahead a lot of pages in her mind, feeling miserable now that she’d started, she said, “I just can’t go on this way. You know that yourself, Freddie.”

  The Ayatollah’s cheeks filled with air, as Freddie sighed. He looked as though he might either start praying or declare a holy war, hard to tell. “I know it’s been hard on you, Peg,” his voice said, slightly muffled as usual by the mask. “I’ve done my best to make it as easy as I could.”

  “I know you have, Freddie, that’s the only thing that’s kept me going this long. But the strain of it, you know? I mean, you know, you’re not really there, Freddie. I mean, you are, and you aren’t.”

  “Dinner at that restaurant,” he said.

  “That’s one thing,” she agreed.

  He sighed again, giving the Ayatollah mumps, then curing them. “Let me think about this,” he said.

  “I already did think about it, Freddie.”

  “Well, let me think about it a minute, okay?”

  “Okay. Sure.” And she concentrated on her driving.

  In the red Ford Taurus, David was saying, “A part of me, Peter, you know, a part of me doesn’t want to go back at all.”

  “I know,” Peter said.

  “Just keep going, not even stop at Robert and Martin’s, just drive right on up into Canada and just . . . go.”

  Peter smiled, ironically. “Into the north woods?” He sang, “I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Before this,” David explained, even though Peter did know what he meant, “we didn’t have to think about tobacco at all, did we?”

  “Charles Lamb wrote,” Peter quoted, “‘For thy sake, tobacco, I/Would do anything but die.’”

  “Well, so would we, apparently,” David said bitterly. “Do anything.”

  “But smoke the stuff.”

  “We’re living on the stuff, Peter. We never had to think about that before, but we have to think about it now. The American Tobacco Research Institute is nothing more nor less than a public relations piece of puffery for NAABOR. Before this, I never even thought about NAABOR, never thought we had anything to do with NAABOR, not really.”

  “I know,” Peter said.

  “But now, this new fellow, Merrill Undertaker, or whatever his name is.”

  “Fullerton, as you well know.”

  “He’ll always be Merrill Undertaker to me. Peter, even if we never give him what he wants, we’ve agreed to do his bidding. We’re selling out to him.”

  “I’m afraid, David, we sold out long ago, if truth be told.”

  “But we never had to notice before!”

  “David,” Peter said, becoming just the slightest bit irritated, “what do you want to do? Do you want to pay full price for this rental?”

  “No, of course not. Isn’t there anywhere else we can go, anyone else we could work for?”

  “Maybe the government,” Peter suggested, “falsifying evidence of cancers downwind from nuclear test sites. Or the insulation industry, struggling to unprove the effects of asbestos. Or a chemical compa—”

  “Stop!” David shrieked, clapping his hands to his ears. “Isn’t there anybody good in this world?”

  “You,” Peter told him, “and me. And possibly Robert and Martin, I’m not sure.”

  David stared out the windshield, trying not to think, and thought.

  Eight miles ahead, Freddie broke a long silence in the van. “You want to leave me, don’t you, Peg?”

  “In a way,” Peg admitted. “Kinda.”

  “I saw you start up the refrigerator, in the apartment.”

  “You did?” Exasperated and embarrassed all at once, she cried, “Do you see? Do you see, Freddie? How can I live like that? I never know where you are, and when I do know where you are, it’s because you look like something in a horror movie.”

  “Aw, it isn’t that bad, is it?”

  “Sometimes. I’ve gotta admit it, Freddie, sometimes it’s very very hard to open my eyes in the morning.”

  “Ah, hell, I suppose it is,” Freddie said. “Jeez, Peg, I do wish sometimes this thing, this, whatever it is, invisibility—”

  “The disappearing act,” she suggested.

  “Up in smoke,” he agreed. “I wish it was over.”

  “Boy, so do I, Freddie.”

  “I mean,” Freddie said, “it was just th
at one shot they gave me, and the antidote that wasn’t worth a good goddam, but how long before it wears off? With the hundred grand from Jersey Josh, and the stuff from before, we’re set now for a good long time, we could take life easy, travel, go out together, have some fun.”

  “Not with you like this, Freddie. Believe me.”

  “I know. I know.” The Ayatollah brooded out the windshield, as the straight highway beneath their wheels changed its name again, this time to the Taconic Parkway.

  Peg drove, the speed slackening a bit because she was trying to think. “We can talk on the phone a lot,” she said. “And I can come up and see you sometimes. Watch you swim. Stay over, go home in the morning.”

  “Go home where?” Freddie asked. “Back to the apartment?”

  “Sure,” Peg said. “Why not?”

  “Because that cop is still looking for me. And the lawyer. And they know about the apartment.”

  “They also know we’re not there,” Peg objected. “They know we came upstate.”

  “If I was that cop,” Freddie said, “I’d keep an eye on the apartment sometimes, just in case one of us came back for a clean shirt. He’s got to know you’re still paying the rent on it.”

  Peg hadn’t considered that possibility, but now she did, and she didn’t like it. Not have her apartment back? Get chased around by those bad people? She said, “They can’t watch an empty apartment every second, Freddie. I already fixed it so I’ll go back to work for Dr. Lopakne—”

  “You did, huh?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t listen to the call.” But then she realized they were both getting irritable, which they shouldn’t do, and she said, “It’s just part time, just for a while, till I figure out what I’m doing.”

  “Sure,” he said, also making the effort to be reasonable. “Makes sense.”

  “So I’ll stay over tomorrow night, I can take that much of a risk, and go in to Dr. Lopakne Monday, and then find a new place after that. I mean, I got nowhere else to spend tomorrow night.”

  “Well, you do, if you think about it.”

  “Come on, Freddie,” she said. “I have to make this change, I just do. And I have to be in the city tomorrow night so I can go over to Dr. Lopakne Monday morning, I already promised I’d be there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Listen,” Peg said, “it won’t be as bad as you think, it really won’t. It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

  “With me up here, and you down there.”

  “Mostly. It’ll make life a lot easier, Freddie, it really will. For you, too. If you want to walk around in just shorts and sneakers, there wouldn’t be anybody there to scream when you walked into the room. You could relax.”

  Freddie seemed to think about that for a few minutes, and then he said, “At least you don’t want to call it off completely.”

  “Oh, no, Freddie, absolutely not. We’re still together, only just not so much anymore.”

  “I know you tried, Peg,” Freddie said. “I know you did your best.”

  “Thank you, Freddie. We need gas.”

  “Take the exit at Route Fifty-five, there’s that good gas station there.”

  Seven miles south, Peter and David were traveling now in their caps, having learned what a mistake they’d made in accepting the sunroof. David said, “Peter, I could not be more thirsty. I feel like we’re in one of those Foreign Legion films.”

  “There’s that convenience store and gas station at the exit by Fifty-five,” Peter said. “I’ll pull off there.”

  “You don’t need gas?”

  “No, Hertz fills it right up.”

  Peg and Freddie didn’t discuss their situation any more before they reached the Route 55 exit, where she swung off the Taconic and across the state road to the large gas station. “Sit back, kind of,” she advised Freddie, and got out of the van to pump gas.

  Freddie, sitting back, reflected on the complexities of life. The same thing that’s a boon and a benefit is also a bane and a complete drag. “If I had it to do over,” he muttered inside the Khomeini head. But what was the point? He didn’t have it to do over.

  The van took eighteen gallons of gasoline. Peg waited while a red Ford Taurus crossed her path, then walked over and into the convenience store to pay, where she had to wait behind two other customers.

  David and Peter got out of the Ford, stretching and bending. David glanced at the old man slumped in the passenger seat of the van over by the pumps, but hardly registered him at all. They went into the convenience store and Peter got a Diet Pepsi while David chose a lemon-lime seltzer. They stood on line behind a young woman paying for gasoline, then paid for their drinks.

  Peg went back out to the van, got in, and started the engine. “It’ll be okay, Peg,” Freddie told her. “Don’t worry.”

  She smiled at that frowning madman mask. “Thank you, Freddie,” she said, touched, and put the van in gear.

  Peter and David came out of the convenience store, backed the Ford out of its parking place, then had to wait while the van with the old man in it went by in front of them, the young woman at the wheel. They followed the van out of the station, to the right, under the Taconic, and then right again. Peter, impatient, wished the van would move a little faster. The two vehicles came up the curving ramp, back toward the Taconic northbound, and at the merge the van put on its left blinker and slowed to a crawl, while the young woman checked for oncoming traffic.

  “Get on with it,” Peter muttered.

  First the van, then the Ford, rejoined the light traffic flowing northward. For a couple of miles, the Ford stayed behind the van, but then Peter pulled out and passed it, just at a moment when Peg had slowed again, because she was saying, “Freddie, can I tell you what I think we ought to do?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Peg watched the red Ford pull back into the right lane. He didn’t really want to go that much faster than her, she could tell. She said, “When we get to the house, I think we should collect some cash and then go to a used-car lot, and buy you a car. Maybe one with the smoky side windows.”

  “Because you want the van?”

  “Because people know about the van,” Peg said. “The cop that followed me up here to the railroad station, and the police chief in Dudley. I think you’re better off, driving around in the country, if you’re not in the van.”

  “You may be right about that,” Freddie admitted.

  “I think we should do it this afternoon,” Peg went on. “Soon as we get there, so they can do the paperwork and the insurance and the license plate and all that.”

  “Why? Peg? When do you want to leave?”

  “To . . .” She’d been going to say tonight, but at the last second she found herself stumbling, and saying instead, “Tomorrow.”

  Another sigh from Freddie. “I’m really gonna miss you, Peg.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, Freddie,” Peg said. “But, truth be told, I’ve already been missing you for quite a while now.”

  Up ahead, David said to Peter, “Peter, what if they find the invisible man?”

  “Our Freddie? What if?”

  “They want us to enslave him, don’t they? Into their own nefarious designs.”

  “Well,” Peter pointed out, “he’s fairly nefarious to begin with.”

  “Not their way. Not our way, Peter.”

  Peter gave him a long hard look, before once again checking the road out front. (The van remained well back in the rearview mirror.) “David,” he said, very cold, “do you intend to be a sodden sack of guilt the entire weekend?”

  “No. I intend to forget my troubles the instant we get there.”

  “With drink?”

  “I’m not going to be sodden, Peter, all right?”

  “Thank you,” Peter said.

  They drove for a minute or two in silence, and then David said, “And they want us to lie to him.”

  “Well, David,” Peter said, “I must admit I’m not looking forward that much t
o telling him the truth.”

  In the van, Freddie said, “What if I call the doctors?”

  “What?”

  “When we get there. You go off to a used-car lot, you don’t need me along anyway, you’ll be more comfortable if I’m not there—”

  “Are you sure? You don’t want to pick out what you’re gonna drive?”

  “You know my taste, Peg. Smoky glass, that’s nice, but maybe not too flashy after that. Not something the cops automatically look at. I trust you to pick the right thing, we know each other that good.”

  Peg thought it over. “Okay,” she said. “Then we can go back to the place together in the van, later today or tomorrow, whenever they got it ready, I’ll get out of the van a block or two away, go pick it up, drive it back to the house.”

  “Perfect,” Freddie said. “And today, when we get there, while you’re off to get the car, I’ll call the doctors.”

  “You won’t tell them where you are, will you?”

  “Of course not. I’ll just say I’m ready to discuss a deal, and do they by any chance know when this thing is gonna wear off. And then play it by ear.”

  “Anytime you need me, Freddie, any help, drive you places, pick things up, whatever . . .”

  “I know that, Peg. I appreciate it.”

  Four miles ahead, David broke a long silence in the Ford by saying, “A great weight has been lifted from me.”

  Peter glanced at him. “Good.”

  “You don’t have to worry, Peter, I will not be a wet blanket all weekend. Or any of the weekend.”

  “Very good.”

  “I just had to say it, that’s all, get it off my chest. And now it’s gone. Look how beautiful it is up here.”

  Peter looked. Green trees, blue sky, gray road. It was beautiful. “Yes, it is,” Peter said.

  “I’ve left the cares of the city behind me,” David said, as they drove on by Freddie and Peg’s exit, their own exit to North Dudley being some miles farther north.