Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [12]
“Great,” Tom said, feeling about fifteen years old. “That’s just great, Ty. Wow, Ruth Anne. I can’t believe it.”
They drove across Kirk Avenue, past City, Tommy’s old high school. He remembered hanging out there on the stone wall outside the school, listening to the black guys singing acappella harmonies, and knowing even then that nothing would sound purer or better than that, no matter where he went or how long he lived. And he’d been right, nothing ever had. They drove by a hair salon at Kirk and 33rd Street, the place that had once been Doc’s Drugstore where he’d hung out with the City guys, eyeing the Eastern girls, of which Ruth Anne was number one. If he could have talked to her, he felt now, maybe his whole life would have been different. Maybe he would have married her and stayed in town and had four or five kids, and been happy and satisfied with a normal job and taking care of his family. Maybe his mother wouldn’t be so angry with him for leaving her behind.
They drove down Loch Raven Boulevard, then down the Alameda, and he suddenly felt that maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he and Ruth Anne would see one another and they would instantly understand that they were meant to be together. Maybe he’d invite her out to Los Angeles, and after a few visits she’d move out there with him but they’d keep a place here in town, too.
That was crazy, but why not? It happened all the time, didn’t it? Old acquaintances meet and fall head over heels in love, and after all he wasn’t the scared little kid from Govans anymore. No, he was a successful screenwriter, knew all the stars, all the directors. God, a guy like him was a catch for her … and yet it didn’t feel that way. Thinking of her, he still felt scared, breathless, unsure of himself. He didn’t want to come off like a Hollywood phony, dropping names, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to impress her either.
Let her know that he was the new Tommy Weeks now, not some goof who mumbled into his SpaghettiOs, like he used to back in junior high school whenever she came around …
He looked up and noticed that they were heading right down Winston Avenue, his old street. The single Victorian houses flashed by, old man Greengrass’s place, the balding old coot who never let them come into his yard to retrieve their pinkies, and there was the little store that Pop Ikehorn used to own. Right there on the corner at Craig and Winston, where he used to buy sodas and horror comics, and hang out with his little friends, Danny and David Snyder, and Eddie Richardson … and … then Ty was pulling over, parking his Mercedes.
There was someone huge standing on the corner, a guy at least six-foot-five, but he was cloaked in shadow.
“What’s up?” Tom said, looking across the seat at Ty. “I thought we were going around the corner to Chateau.”
“We are,” Ty said. “But I’d be a poor host dragging you out for just one surprise. Hop out. There’s an old pal of yours standing right there. He wants to welcome you back.”
Ty raised his left eyebrow and looked exactly like a demon, Tom thought. In spite of his best efforts to hop gamely out and face this unexpected visitor, Tom found his stomach jumping with butterflies. Who the hell could it be standing there on that corner at 10:30 in the cold?
He took a step toward the huge hulking figure, and then, even before the guy lit a cigarette revealing his long, haggard face, he knew.
The man was none other than Crazy Louis Wetzel, and the shock of seeing him here, right here where it had happened so long ago, made Tom break out in an icy sweat.
“Hey, look who it ain’t,” Wetzel said, spraying some spittle in Tom’s direction.
He smiled a weird, gap-toothed grin at Tom, and reached out to shake hands. Tom hesitated. He didn’t want to shake this jerk’s hand. He had spent years in therapy because of him, and now the guy was offering him his hand in a gesture of friendship? Fuck that.
And yet, if he refused to shake hands with him, then Wetzel would know how much pain he’d caused Tom, which would make him happy, the sadistic son of a bitch. More