Riverview Youth Detention, and doubtless how heâd ended up here. Wherever here was.
Hijinks.
Fucking hijinks.
Morris hoped it had been a good old-fashioned bar fight and not more breaking and entering. Not a repeat of his Sugar Heights adventure, in other words. Because he was well past his teenage years now and it wouldnât be the reformatory this time, no sir. Still, he would do the time if he had done the crime. Just as long as the crime had nothing to do with the murder of a certain genius American writer, please God. If it did, he would not be breathing free air again for a long time. Maybe never. Because it wasnât just Rothstein, was it? And now a memory did arise: Curtis Rogers asking if New Hampshire had the death penalty.
Morris lay on the bunk, shivering, thinking, That canât be why Iâm here. It canât .
Can it?
He had to admit that it was possible, and not just because the police might have put him together with the dead men in the rest area. He could see himself in a bar or a stripjoint somewhere, Morris Bellamy, the college dropout and self-proclaimed American lit scholar, tossing back bourbon and having an out-of-body experience. Someone starts talking about the murder of John Rothstein, the great writer, the reclusive American genius , and Morris Bellamyâdrunk off his tits and full of that huge anger he usually kept locked in a cage, that black beast with the yellow eyesâturning to the speaker and saying, He didnât look much like a genius when I blew his head off.
âI would never ,â he whispered. His head was aching worse than ever, and there was something wrong on the left side of his face, too. It burned . âI would never .â
Only how did he know that? When he drank, any day was Anything Can Happen Day. The black beast came out. As a teenager the beast had rampaged through that house in Sugar Heights, tearing the motherfucker pretty much to shreds, and when the cops responded to the silent alarm he had fought them until one belted him unconscious with his nightstick, and when they searched him they found a shitload of jewelry in his pockets, much of it of the costume variety but some, carelessly left out of madameâs safe, extraordinarily valuable, and howdy-do, off we go to Riverview, where we will get our tender young buttsky reamed and make exciting new friends.
He thought, The person who put on a shit-show like that is perfectly capable of boasting while drunk about murdering Jimmy Goldâs creator, and you know it.
Although it could have been the cops, too. If they had IDâd him and put out an APB. That was just as likely.
âI need a lover who wonât drive me cray-zee !â
âShut up!â This time it was Morris himself, and he tried to yell it, but what came out was nothing but a puke-clotted croak. Oh, his head hurt. And his face , yow. He ran a hand up his left cheek and stared stupidly at the flakes of dried blood in his palm. He explored again and felt scratches there, at least three of them. Fingernail scratches, and deep. What does that tell us, class? Well, ordinarilyâalthough there are exceptions to every ruleâmen punch and women scratch. The ladies do it with their nails because more often than not they have nice long ones to scratch with.
Did I try to slap the make on some twist, and she refused me with her nails?
Morris tried to remember and couldnât. He remembered the rain, the poncho, and the flashlight shining on the roots. He remembered the pick. He sort of remembered wanting to hear fast loud music and talking to the clerk at Zoneyâs Go-Mart. After that? Just darkness.
He thought, Maybe it was the car. That damn Biscayne. Maybe somebody saw it coming out of the rest area on Route 92 with the front end all bloody on the right, and maybe I left something in the glove compartment. Something with my name on it.
But that didnât seem likely. Freddy had purchased the
Hijinks.
Fucking hijinks.
Morris hoped it had been a good old-fashioned bar fight and not more breaking and entering. Not a repeat of his Sugar Heights adventure, in other words. Because he was well past his teenage years now and it wouldnât be the reformatory this time, no sir. Still, he would do the time if he had done the crime. Just as long as the crime had nothing to do with the murder of a certain genius American writer, please God. If it did, he would not be breathing free air again for a long time. Maybe never. Because it wasnât just Rothstein, was it? And now a memory did arise: Curtis Rogers asking if New Hampshire had the death penalty.
Morris lay on the bunk, shivering, thinking, That canât be why Iâm here. It canât .
Can it?
He had to admit that it was possible, and not just because the police might have put him together with the dead men in the rest area. He could see himself in a bar or a stripjoint somewhere, Morris Bellamy, the college dropout and self-proclaimed American lit scholar, tossing back bourbon and having an out-of-body experience. Someone starts talking about the murder of John Rothstein, the great writer, the reclusive American genius , and Morris Bellamyâdrunk off his tits and full of that huge anger he usually kept locked in a cage, that black beast with the yellow eyesâturning to the speaker and saying, He didnât look much like a genius when I blew his head off.
âI would never ,â he whispered. His head was aching worse than ever, and there was something wrong on the left side of his face, too. It burned . âI would never .â
Only how did he know that? When he drank, any day was Anything Can Happen Day. The black beast came out. As a teenager the beast had rampaged through that house in Sugar Heights, tearing the motherfucker pretty much to shreds, and when the cops responded to the silent alarm he had fought them until one belted him unconscious with his nightstick, and when they searched him they found a shitload of jewelry in his pockets, much of it of the costume variety but some, carelessly left out of madameâs safe, extraordinarily valuable, and howdy-do, off we go to Riverview, where we will get our tender young buttsky reamed and make exciting new friends.
He thought, The person who put on a shit-show like that is perfectly capable of boasting while drunk about murdering Jimmy Goldâs creator, and you know it.
Although it could have been the cops, too. If they had IDâd him and put out an APB. That was just as likely.
âI need a lover who wonât drive me cray-zee !â
âShut up!â This time it was Morris himself, and he tried to yell it, but what came out was nothing but a puke-clotted croak. Oh, his head hurt. And his face , yow. He ran a hand up his left cheek and stared stupidly at the flakes of dried blood in his palm. He explored again and felt scratches there, at least three of them. Fingernail scratches, and deep. What does that tell us, class? Well, ordinarilyâalthough there are exceptions to every ruleâmen punch and women scratch. The ladies do it with their nails because more often than not they have nice long ones to scratch with.
Did I try to slap the make on some twist, and she refused me with her nails?
Morris tried to remember and couldnât. He remembered the rain, the poncho, and the flashlight shining on the roots. He remembered the pick. He sort of remembered wanting to hear fast loud music and talking to the clerk at Zoneyâs Go-Mart. After that? Just darkness.
He thought, Maybe it was the car. That damn Biscayne. Maybe somebody saw it coming out of the rest area on Route 92 with the front end all bloody on the right, and maybe I left something in the glove compartment. Something with my name on it.
But that didnât seem likely. Freddy had purchased the
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