Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (i am reading a book TXT) 📕

“I don’t think so. Why don’t you just shoot through the locks?”

“You’ve been watching too many late shows. That’d be dangerous. Anyway, go find a screwdriver and we’ll take off the hinges.”

The three of them went back down into the basement, pulled the pins out of a set of hinges, and with amazing difficulty pulled away the door, flipped on the light inside and went in. There was nothing but cardboard boxes. Bailey immediately began looking through them, but they turned out to be all empty. The next room they got into had boxes containing everything imaginable, except a lava light, much to the disappointment of Bailey, who was hoping to be able to confiscate one as evidence and put it on the main desk in the station.

“Here, look at this,” said Murphy, and roughly shoved one of the boxes into July’s hands. July looked down into it, resentfully wondering why he was supposed to be looking into it at all: old watches with some of the gold worn off, pieces of jewelry, an electric sander, a radio, fishing tackle, an ornate keepsake box—things taken out of homes, not offices. He set it down and pushed it away.

“So what?” he said.

“You remember taking any of that stuff yourself?”

“No.”

“Ever been arrested?”

“No.”

“Ever been in trouble?”

“No.”

“Ever been to Boston?”

“No . . . I mean yes.”

“Slipped up, didn’t you? It was Chelsea, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“We can check, you know.”

“Go ahead.”

“I think he’s clean, Murphy,” said Bailey. “He doesn’t look like a bad kid. Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

“Too bad. How long?”

“Over ten years.”

“Traffic accident?”

“Yes. How’d you know?”

“Happens all the time. Both parents dead, young kid, almost always a traffic accident. Really, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, level with us, what do you know about all this?”

“Nothing.”

“OK. Murphy, let’s take ’im down to the station.” And they went upstairs. But as it happened, after another police car arrived, and then a van to take away the stolen goods in thebasement, they decided against it and told him not to leave the city and that they’d come to check on him from time to time, and after Carroll was picked up he’d be notified and probably there’d be some things to talk over by then. But in the meantime the store would be closed and he was advised to look for another job, as was the salesman. Both of them, they were told, were eligible for unemployment benefits. The salesman followed them out to their car asking questions. July heard the heavy wooden door in the basement shut and the van pull out of the lot. He went to the front door and locked it, put out the closed sign and felt the silence envelop him. He went to the office, opened the desk drawer and took two green tranquillizers from a bottle with Mrs. Franklin Carroll written across the prescription label.

These were the first pills, other than aspirin, that he’d ever taken, and he had no idea what to expect. Trying to anticipate their effect kept his thoughts closely centered on himself and away from the reasons he’d taken them. Upstairs, he ran a bath, watching the tub fill up with the clear water. He undressed and got in. The light drained from the room as the afternoon wore out, and he remained immersed in the dark, thinking about why it might be that Freud never really addressed himself to the reason why there should be such a distortion between the dream, dream material and dream thoughts. First he thought it would’ve been too difficult and mere speculation. Then he thought perhaps it was for that very reason that the book was extraordinarily profound—because he refused to say anything he couldn’t justify. Then he changed his mind and decided there were a lot of things Freud said that couldn’t be reasonably justified; he began thinking half of Wittgenstein and half of getting married to someone he’d never seen before, as part of a bet, and began to fall pleasantly asleep. Only then, just as he was letting some of the lukewarm water out and was running in a fresh supply of hot, did it occur to him that he was under the influence of the tranquillizers, and that his serenity of mood was entirely attributable to tiny dust particles of green chemicals in his brain.

July was not the kind of person to greet new things with perfect ease, and this was no exception. What could life mean if the grains of a common chemical, manufactured crudely and with almost no effort, could have such an effect on one’s mind? With horror, he saw this had awful implications. Good feelings—happiness, compassion, even well-being and reverence—had no more solidarity than a whiff of menthol, and were no more worthy of praise than drunkenness. It seemed like a rotten, insensitive world in which that was true; but because of the tranquillizer, he couldn’t get very worked up about it. They’ve got you coming or going, he thought: it leaves you wanting to say, I won’t take any pills because that’s false emotion, to which they can parry, Don’t then, who cares? Go ahead and worry. One of those endless situations where a fool can be made to look like a fool. He got out of the tub, turned on the light, dressed and set about fixing himself something to eat.

About this time a knock came from the door to the fire escape, and guessing who it might be, he opened it to Carroll, who immediately rushed into the room, bringing in a blanket of cold air from outside. One elbow of his jacket was ripped out.

“You took a chance coming back here,” said July.

“They have somebody downstairs?” His voice was nearly inaudible.

“I don’t think so, but maybe on the street.”

“That’s OK. I came down from the roof.”

July turned off the overhead light and lit a small table lamp next to the fire-exit door. Carroll collapsed into a chair. “Quite a day,” he said. His face and hands were gray, his eyes