“Okay, I’m curious. What were you going to tell me?”

“When?”

“Your housekeeper just now asked me if you’d told me something, then said you’d better tell me.”

The priest paused, chuckled tolerantly. “I don’t know, tell the truth. I’ll have to ask her. How’s your case coming?”

“That’s kind of why I hoped you had something for me. There isn’t any case anymore. It’s gone south.”

There was a longish pause. “What do you mean?”

“You mentioned a drink, and I could use one. Can I meet you somewhere? Tell you all about it then.”

“You want to come over here?” Cavanaugh asked.

“Anywhere’s fine.”

“No, forget here. We might keep someone up.”

“You name it.”

Cavanaugh took a minute, then named a fern bar on Irving about midway between them. Hardy knew the place. He could get there in ten minutes.

These drugs were funny. One minute it’d be as though you were dead-no dreams, no memory of sleep even. And then, bingo, you were wide awake. Then you had somewhere between a half hour and an hour before the pain got you again.

The foot was the worst. It felt as though it was continually being crushed in a car door. Steven had done that the summer before with his thumb. He couldn’t believe the next day how bad it had felt. It had affected his whole body, with a headache and throwing up and everything. He’d lost the nail.

But that was nothing next to now when the painkiller wore off. He had tried toughing it out this afternoon. He hadn’t wanted to sleep anymore. There were too many things to think about- Eddie and the investigation.

But it hadn’t worked. The foot had been the worst, but he was already beginning to feel his collarbone, and his head was throbbing. He hadn’t been able to keep the tears back when Mom had come in. It was just from the pain, the water forming in his eyes and falling out over his cheeks.

The bad thing about the painkiller was you woke up so thirsty every time, which made you drink a lot of water, which then meant you had to pee like crazy, and since you couldn’t move, that meant Mom had to come in with the bedpan.

You think crying’s embarrassing, try a bedpan.

But this night it was Pop. He took care of it with a minimum of hassle, then poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table by the bed and sat down right up next to him, hip to hip. He reached out his rough hand and touched Steven’s forehead where it wasn’t bandaged, very businesslike. He nodded to himself.

“So how’s my boy?”

“Okay.” That was always the answer. Now Pop would say “Good” and go out to the garage and do something.

But instead he said, “Really? Really okay?” Steven blinked a couple of times, and his dad continued, “ ’cause that’d make you the only one.”

“Well, you know,” Steven said.

“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

There was a small light on by the door and another out in the hallway, but Steven could tell it was pretty late. Everybody else was probably asleep. His dad loomed up in front of him, blocking out most of everything else. No wonder they called him Big Ed.

Steven had no idea how to answer. “I don’t know. Not great, I guess.”

“Me neither. Just general?”

Steven tried to shrug, but wound up making a face. Shrugging with a broken collarbone wasn’t recommended. “You know. Eddie, I guess, mostly. Mom, a little.”

Big Ed lifted a leg onto the bed and shifted to face him more.

“You know,” he said, “I can’t say a damn thing.” He put his hand out, resting it heavily on Steven’s chest, and just sat there.

“What do you want to say?”

“I really don’t even know that.”

Well, that was okay, but it got uncomfortable. Steven, to say something, asked for another sip of water.

“How’s the pain?” Big Ed asked. “You need some more pills?”

“No, okay?”

“You’re the boss.”

The room got blurred up slightly. He leaned his head back against the pillow. “What’s in those things? The pills, I mean.”

Ed picked up the little brown plastic bottle. He said: “It’s called Percodan. ‘Extremely addictive. Use only under the direction of a physician.’ Well, we’re doing that.”

Steven said: “I don’t think I’m addicted. I really don’t want it, except for the pain. It makes me too tired.”

Ed put the bottle back down. “Well, that’s what it’s for.” He shifted again on the bed, as though he were thinking about getting up. But this was one of the longest conversations Steven had ever had with him, and he wanted to keep him there without being too nerdy about it.

“You know, drugs aren’t that cool,” he said, then blurted ahead. “I smoked some weed with the guys that beat me up.”

His dad simply nodded, taking it in. “How’d you like it?”

“You’re not mad?”

“I’ll get mad later. Right now I’m still just glad you’re alive. You mind if I have some of your water?” He poured half a glass and downed it in a gulp. “The pitcher’s almost empty,” he said.

He got up, blocking the light from the door as he passed through it, and left Steven alone. He heard a clock ticking somewhere, then some water running in the bathroom down the hall. He looked around the dark room at the rock-and-roll posters. Suddenly he didn’t like them very much. They seemed kind of phony and stupid. They were one of the few things he and Eddie hadn’t agreed on, but Steven had always felt that he had to have something that set him apart at home so they’d know he was alive.

His father returned with the pitcher filled up and sat back down where he’d been, on the side of the bed. Steven’s foot was beginning to throb slightly.

“You want to do me a favor?” his dad asked.

“Sure.”

“You want to try those things, try ’em at home.”

“I don’t think I-”

But Big Ed interrupted. “Look, there’s going to be lots of things like marijuana. Beer, for example. Or maybe cigarettes or cigars or something, although God forbid you get into that. Sex…”

Steven almost jumped at the word.

“Sex, no, don’t bring that home.”

Was Pop, grinning at him like they were friends, saying this stuff out loud to him? It blew him away. “But the other stuff- you want to experiment, even with some other guys, you bring ’em around and go out to the garage and check it out. But do it here, okay? So we can be sure you’re all right.”

“You’d let me smoke weed?”

“I wouldn’t be too thrilled about it. I wouldn’t want it to become a habit, but it probably wouldn’t kill you. It didn’t last weekend, did it?”

“Almost.”

Steven hung his chin down to the cast, but Big Ed lifted his head with a finger. “You’re gonna do things we don’t like. Hell, I’m sure we do things you hate. But we’re living together here, and everybody cuts everybody else a little slack so we can get along. The main thing is we’re a family, we stick together. Sound like a deal?” He punched him lightly under the chin.

That hurt a little, jerking the collarbone around, but obviously Big Ed hadn’t meant it and Steven would take a lot more physical pain than that if his dad would talk to him like this once in a while.

“But what about Mom?” Steven asked.

“What about her?”

“What if she doesn’t, uh, want to let me do stuff? Or even want me around?”

Ed slumped. His face clouded over. “Of course your mother wants you around.”

Steven tried a response, but it didn’t work. Big Ed sighed deeply. “Your mother is having a hard time, Steven. We’re all having a hard time.”

“You don’t think I wish Eddie were still here?”

“No, I know you do. It’s not that. It’s just your mother… she’s…”

“She wishes it would have been me instead of Eddie.”

Ed shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. Not on any level. She loves you, too, just like she loved Eddie.”

There wasn’t any use arguing over that one.

“She’s just having a hard time accepting it. Her world’s all turned around, and maybe she’d doesn’t know where to put things so well for a while. Haven’t you ever felt like that?”