Читать книгу Comanche - Brett Riley - Страница 10

Chapter Four

October 7, 2014—New Orleans, Louisiana

Rennie Roark sobbed. The sound seemed to imbue Darrell LeBlanc’s Samsung with physical weight. He had just told her that Raymond had refused professional help again. It had been about eighteen months since her brother had admitted his drinking problem, but in that time, he had fallen off the wagon twice. Whenever LeBlanc found Raymond unconscious under the tree or face down on the floor or slumped over the toilet, the agency had to close while they played cards or checkers or watched television cooking competitions. Raymond shook and trembled and groaned and sometimes upset the board or threw the remote at LeBlanc’s head and dashed for his car, intending to find the nearest liquor store and drink himself into a stupor. LeBlanc tackled him, fought him hand to hand, and sat on his chest until the fit passed. Today Raymond slept in his easy chair, an old episode of Gilligan’s Island on TV, as LeBlanc gave Rennie the details. She wept and offered to fly out and beat Raymond’s ass like their momma should have done. LeBlanc told her it would be all right.

When they hung up, Raymond still slept, his brow furrowed, his nails digging in to the armrests. He was coming to the worst of it again. LeBlanc might be forced to restrain him, which could technically be called kidnapping. That, or try to have him committed.

No. Underneath his grief, he’s still strong. I hope.

LeBlanc sat on the couch, the springs creaking under his six-foot-three, 260-pound defensive end’s muscular frame, and changed the channel to ESPN. Soon a game of some sort would come on, and for as long as Raymond slept, he would watch a lower-stakes contest play out according to a set of defined rules and a clear time limit, a moment in which everyone would know it was over and who had won.

In the easy chair, Raymond twitched and groaned, his unkempt dark hair sweaty and plastered to his forehead. He was probably six inches shorter than LeBlanc but only thirty pounds lighter. The booze had gone to his belly, which distended over his belt. A graying, three-day, patchy beard covered his sallow cheeks and chin. Hard living made you old. Nightmares did not help either.

The dream never changed. Raymond tried to save Marie. He failed.

Marie had been driving on the Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge when a truck tried to change lanes and clipped her rear bumper. She spun and crashed into the railing, the grille crumpling all the way into the back seat, crushing her. The truck had never been found, and for a long time, Raymond wept and thought about the vanished vehicle and its faceless operator and drank himself to sleep. It was as if God himself had plucked the driver and the truck off the earth. Witnesses could not even agree on whether the truck had been maroon or navy blue or black, brand-new or an early ’90s model. Raymond had no one to punch, no one to shoot, so he dove into every bottle of booze he could find. He took cabs to Armstrong Park at 2 in the morning and sat against the statues, watching the ebb and flow of forgotten people with no place else to go. Friends told him it was just a matter of time before he joined Marie in the family mausoleum.

Well, yeah, he thought. That’s the point.

Still, no matter how blackout drunk he got, the dream visited him at least three times a week. In it, he stood on the bridge as traffic zipped by. He leaned against the railing, the same one that would drive the engine block through Marie’s abdomen. The winter wind screamed off the water. The night sky was pitch black. When Marie’s Pontiac shimmered into view, Raymond recognized the truck that would kill her, even though it was never the same one—sometimes a Ford, sometimes a Chevy, sometimes an amorphous blob. He tried to warn her, but nothing ever worked. His feet were lead, fused to the bridge, and his arms might have weighed three tons each. His voice disappeared, too. No matter how he tried to shout, nothing came out except a shrill whine.

Tonight, as he stood on the dream bridge again, Marie’s car appeared just as the truck, dark green this time, struck it. She spun and careened straight for Raymond, her face floating above the steering wheel. Just as she was about to run him down, she opened her mouth and said, Ray.

When he jerked forward, awake and roaring, tears on his face, LeBlanc had already reached him. The big man gave him a bottle of water and rubbed his shoulders and held him as he wept, until he fell asleep again.

A week later, after Raymond returned to work, he studied some financial documents at his desk. LeBlanc goofed around on the computer. It was nearing five o’clock. They would have to grab dinner soon, or LeBlanc might start eating the drywall.

Raymond dropped the papers on his desk and sighed, rubbing his bleary eyes.

I can’t look at this shit anymore, he said.

LeBlanc did not look up. You called Rennie lately?

Raymond stood up and stretched. Not since the last time you made me.

Reckon you better in the next day or two.

She’s still callin you.

Don’t get mad. She’s worried.

That’s an understatement. She’s been scared half to death. I reckon C.W.’s gonna punch me in the nose the next time I see him.

Raymond and his brother-in-law used to call each other twice a week. They fished the Louisiana waters and Texas rivers and ponds, hunted squirrel and duck and deer, made idiotic wagers every time the Saints played the Cowboys—loser must dye his hair the winner’s team colors for a week—that sort of nonsense. But once Raymond’s drinking spiraled out of control and Rennie cried herself to sleep enough times, Roark’s phone calls ceased. The few times he answered the phone, his responses were curt, bordering on hostile, and when Rennie came to the phone, she sounded tense.

I need to check my email one more time, LeBlanc said.

Do it on your phone, Raymond said. I got a hankerin for a catfish po’ boy. I’m buyin.

LeBlanc grinned. He shut down the computer and stood up. Now you’re talkin my language. I could eat a horse.