The Waking Moon

Chapter Thirty Nine

It was late in the day when we reached my house. With great effort, Rhodes and I helped Jack up the front steps of the porch and led him inside. He was conscious and tried to smile a couple times, but they came off more like grimaces. As we lowered him onto my bed he hissed in pain. With deep, labored breaths he let his head collapse back against the cushions. I stroked the hair away from his face and he sighed at my touch. His breath was cold against my skin, and it smelled of mud.

Rhodes pulled the blinds, but light crept through the slats and through the gaps at the sides. I sent him into the kitchen for black garbage bags to tape over the windows. While he was out of the room, I crawled onto the bed and huddled close to Jack’s heavy, motionless body.

 “Jack,” I said quietly, moving my mouth toward his lips. “Take what you need. Take my G. I don’t mind.”

He pressed his fingers to my lips and gently pushed me away. “No,” he whispered. “If I stole your G now it would kill you.”

I stared at him. “What are saying? That there’s no way back from this?”

He closed his eyes. “I’m not going to kill someone.”

“You mean, you’re just going to let yourself…” I looked away. My breaths grew quick and shallow. “There has to be something…” But my voice faded into the silence.

Rhodes stood beside me, his face grave. Jack began to shiver in the cold.

“I’ll look for more blankets,” Rhodes said.

“Hall closet.” My voice sounded far away. I fetched the space heater from the garage and set it on the floor of the room, blasting it as high as it would go. Then I wandered like a somnambulant into the living room and stood looking out the window. The sun had just set and the sky looked anemic and cold. The bare branches shivered in the breeze. Tears slid down my face.

“I’m sorry, Paulie.”

I turned to find Rhodes standing in the dark beside me. He was staring blankly into the yard, his jaw clenched with emotion.

“I should’ve believed you,” he said. “If I had, none of this would’ve happened. He came to help you. Because of me.”

“You would’ve been crazy to believe,” I murmured. Then I let out a shuddering sigh. “I have to help him. There has to be a way.”

He was silent. I turned away from the window and went to the phone. I dialed information and asked for the number of the Albion Hotel. When I called the reception desk and asked for Sampson, I expected them to give me a hassle. But they simply told me that he’d gone out. I put on my coat and hat. Rhodes was sitting in the dark living room, looking down at his hands.

“I have to go downtown,” I said.

“I’ll drive you.”

I nodded. Even though I would’ve preferred to be on my own, it was his car. We left silently and got into the Volvo. Rhodes started the engine, and then turned to me with urgent eyes.

“If there’s anything I can do, Paulie…”

I gave him a weary, but grateful, smile. The streetlights were on downtown, and the dinner crowd was beginning to converge. I led Rhodes into Cafe Amsterdam, but Sampson wasn’t there.

“Wait for me here,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. But I need to do this alone.”

I searched for Sampson like a stalker, walking the downtown streets, scanning the sidewalks obsessively, filtering out of my sights anything that wasn’t bearded and scraggly. Just when I was ready to give up, I found him sitting on the top step of the bandstand in the park, hunched against the wind. He sat alone smoking his pipe, squinting out at the dark sky hanging low over the city.