Full Dark, No Stars

back into the closet. There were two hatboxes on the top shelf. In the first one I found nothing but a hat—the white one she wore to church (when she could trouble herself to go, which was about once a month). The hat in the other box was red, and I’d never seen her wear it. It looked like a whore’s hat to me. Tucked into the satin inner band, folded into tiny squares no bigger than pil s, were two 20-dol ar bil s. I tel you now, sitting here in this cheap hotel room and listening to the rats scuttering and scampering in the wal s (yes, my old friends are here), that those two 20-dol ar bil s were the seal on my damnation.

Because they weren’t enough. You see that, don’t you? Of course you do. One doesn’t need to be an expert in triggeronomy to know that one needs to add 35 to 40 to make 75. Doesn’t sound like

much, does it? But in those days you could buy two months’ worth of groceries for 35 dol ars, or a good used harness at Lars Olsen’s smithy. You could buy a train ticket al the way to Sacramento… which I sometimes wish I had done.

35.

And sometimes when I lie in bed at night, I can actual y see that number. It flashes red, like a warning not to cross a road because a train is coming. I tried to cross anyway, and the train ran me down.

If each of us has a Conniving Man inside, each of us also has a Lunatic. And on those nights when I can’t sleep because the flashing number won’t let me sleep, my Lunatic says it was a conspiracy: that Cotterie, Stoppenhauser, and the Farrington shyster were al in it together. I know better, of course (at least in daylight). Cotterie and Mr. Attorney Lester might have had a talk with Stoppenhauser later on

—after I did what I did—but it was surely innocent to begin with; Stoppenhauser was actual y trying to help me out… and do a little business for Home Bank & Trust, of course. But when Harlan or Lester—

or both of them together—saw an opportunity, they took it. The Conniving Man out-connived: how do you like that? By then I hardly cared, because by then I had lost my son, but do you know who I real y

blame?

Arlette.

Yes.

Because it was she who left those two bil s inside her red whore’s hat for me to find. And do you see how fiendishly clever she was? Because it wasn’t the 40 that did me in; it was the money between that and what Cotterie demanded for his pregnant daughter’s tutor; what he wanted so she could study Latin and keep up with her triggeronomy.

35, 35, 35.

I thought about the money he wanted for the tutor al the rest of that week, and over the weekend, too. Sometimes I took out those two bil s—I had unfolded them but the creases stil remained—and

studied at them. On Sunday night I made my decision. I told Henry that he’d have to take the Model T to school on Monday; I had to go to Hemingford Home and see Mr. Stoppenhauser at the bank about a

shortie loan. A smal one. Just 35 dol ars.

“What for?” Henry was sitting at the window and looking moodily out at the darkening West Field.

I told him. I thought it would start another argument about Shannon, and in a way, I wanted that. He’d said nothing about her al week, although I knew Shan was gone. Mert Donovan had told me when

he came by for a load of seed corn. “Went off to some fancy school back in Omaha,” he said. “Wel , more power to her, that’s what I think. If they’re gonna vote, they better learn. Although,” he added after a moment’s cogitation, “mine does what I tel her. She better, if she knows what’s good for her.”

If I knew she was gone, Henry also knew, and probably before I did—schoolchildren are enthusiastic gossips. But he had said nothing. I suppose I was trying to give him a reason to let out al the hurt

and recrimination. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but in the long run it might be beneficial. Neither a sore on the forehead or in the brain behind the forehead should be al owed to fester. If they do, the infection is likely to spread.

But he only grunted at the news, so I decided to poke a little harder.

“You and I are going to split the payback,” I said. “It’s apt to come to no more than 38 dol ars if we retire the loan by Christmas. That’s 19 apiece. I’l take yours out of your choring money.”

Surely, I thought, this would result in a flood of anger… but it brought only another surly little grunt. He didn’t even argue about having to take the Model T to school, although he said the other kids made fun of it, cal ing it “Hank’s ass-breaker.”

“Son?”

“What.”

“Are you al right?”

He turned to me and smiled—his lips moved around, at least. “I’m fine. Good luck at the bank tomorrow, Poppa. I’m going to bed.”

As he stood up, I said: “Wil you give me a little kiss?”

He kissed my cheek. It was the last one.

He took the T to school and I drove the truck to Hemingford Home, where Mr. Stoppenhauser brought me into his office after a mere five-minute wait. I explained what I needed, but declined to say