The Terror of Living by Urban Waite

eyes.
        Eddie didn't say anything. He was trying to decide if he should leave. If he should just get out now, if he could leave the two of them, leave them like he'd left the kid, waiting in the cell, waiting to get his head smashed in. Eddie couldn't do it. Not to Nora, at least. He couldn't leave her. All she had done to be wrapped up in this was love Hunt. Eddie couldn't punish her for something like that. There would be punishment enough.
        "You ever think what would happen if you lost your vision?" Eddie said. He hadn't meant it to sound threatening, but it had, like he was going to do it. "You know what I mean, go blind. You ever think of that?"
        "Doesn't seem like a very nice question."
        "It's not."
        "Not a question, or not nice?"
        "Not a question. Forget it, Nora. I'm just thinking out loud, that's all."
        "Well, then no. No, I'd expect it doesn't feel very good."
        "I'm saying I feel like that. I feel like I've gone blind, and I have everything I went into it with but I can't see the walls, and I reach out to touch them and I'm just feeling my way along. That's how I feel. That's where we are, just feeling the walls, and I don't like it, but it's the best thing for us, for you and me, and Hunt. The best way we know how to go on and the only way we're ever going to find our way."
        
        
        IN THE EARLY EVENING, SHERI ANSWERED THE PHONE and, after a quick greeting, handed it across the table to Drake. They were playing Scrabble and drinking red wine out of the water glasses from the bathroom. "Yes," Drake answered. He listened for a time, then got up from the chair and wrote down an address.
        When they arrived at the restaurant, they realized they were underdressed. And immediately Drake wanted to get back in the taxi and leave. Agent Driscoll was sitting there, and when they approached, he stood up and greeted them, holding his tie back as he leaned and shook their hands. "No hat today?" Driscoll asked.
        "No. I got tired of wearing it. Everyone wanted to know when the rodeo came to town."
        "That's funny. Though I'm not that surprised. You look the part."
        "This is a very nice place," Sheri said.
        "Don't let it fool you," Driscoll said. "Company card."
        Drake made the bad joke: "Crime does pay." And immediately he was sorry he'd said it. He felt like a fool. But Sheri laughed to be nice, and Driscoll smiled, though Drake got the impression he'd heard it a few times before.
        After they'd taken seats, Driscoll asked about the paper.
        "I picked up a copy from the lobby," Drake said.
        "Front page of the local section. Not so bad, eh?"
        "I didn't read it," Drake said.
        "Why not? It's not every day you get to be a hero."
        "Is that what they're saying?"
        Driscoll turned and spoke to Sheri. "How does it feel to be married to a man like this?"
        "Dreamy," Sheri said.
        "I bet," Driscoll said. He turned back to Drake. "You didn't read it?"
        "There was a lot of that when my father went away. It burned me out."
        "Sheri," Driscoll said, "you must have read it? "
        "I peeked at it a little."
        "And?"
        "I just want to know if my husband has anything to worry about," Sheri said.
        "No," Driscoll said. "Nothing."
        They ordered their food, and when it came, Driscoll dropped the news about the kid.
        "That's horrible," Sheri said.
        "In the cell? With the guards standing by?"
        "No one seems to have seen it."
        "There were ten men in that cell last I saw it."
        "There's nine now," Driscoll said dryly. "Not one of them says he saw anything or heard anything. Nine men in a cell that's fifteen by fifteen."
        "How could that happen?" Sheri asked.
        "Unless the kid had a heart attack, it couldn't."
        "Did he?"
        "Not unless his heart