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I walked up Simonton, across US 1, and got home just after five. The sun was lightening the sky just a little, but it didn’t do much for me.
A man was sitting on my front stoop when I got to my house. He was scrawny and bald and wore a greasy nylon parka.
He stood up as I approached. “William Knight?”
“Who are you?”
“Are you William Knight?” he insisted.
I pushed past him and got the key in my lock. “That’s right. And you’re trespassing.”
He looked pleased with himself. “Nope, this here is official business.” He stuck a hand inside the soiled jacket and pulled out an envelope. “I’m a process server.” He held out the envelope, looking smug.
I took the envelope. “All right, I’m served. Go take a shower.”
He stood there watching me open the envelope. I looked up at him. He looked back for a moment. I took a step towards him. He flushed and stumbled backwards. He caught himself and turned to walk away.
I read the documents in the envelope. I was being sued by someone named Peter Schlosser. It didn’t make any sense until I remembered Pete, my nightmare charter. He wanted half a million dollars in damages.
Welcome home, Billy.
I went in and fell onto the bed.
Chapter Thirty-One
I woke up late in the afternoon and lay on the bed until dark. After all that had happened, after the way it had ended, there didn’t seem to be any point in getting up and doing anything.
Doyle would walk away from it all. He was probably in better shape than before I had started nosing, because now he knew where his weaknesses were. I had failed.
I had failed with Nancy, too. More than failed. A murderer was smug and untouched, and a wonderful woman had been hurt. Nice going, Billy. With an even hand, I had punished the innocent and rewarded the guilty. All I had really accomplished was to push my-self back into despair.
I lay there with my eyes open until well past midnight. Then I got up and went into the living room. I stood in the middle of the room for a long time, trying not to think about it. I failed at that, too.
Around two-thirty I turned on the television and that seemed to help.
I was home for two days before Nicky found me. There wasn’t much food in the house, but that didn’t seem to matter much. I had a couple of cans of soup, and I hadn’t really gotten beyond that state when Nicky came in on the third day.
There was an old movie on the TV. I’d seen it a dozen times, but that was okay.
I’d heard rustling outside for a half-hour, and once I thought I’d seen Nicky’s chinless, beaked face peering in the window. But it seemed like too much trouble to get up and look. There was a movie on. I was comfortable in the chair. So I ignored the cautious taps and the increasingly energetic pounding on the door until finally he pushed his way in.
“Mate!” he said. His face was lit up with a cautious glow, like a little kid’s on Christmas, not sure whether he was getting a new bike or a bundle of twigs.
“Hi, Nicky.”
“You’re a right sight, you are,” he said. There didn’t seem to be too much to say to that, and not too much point in looking for something. I watched the movie. After a long moment, Nicky sat in the other chair.
“Well, Billy. How’d it go out there?”
“You were right, Nicky.”
“’Course I was, Billy. Goes without saying. They put the wood on you, eh?”
I frowned. It was hard to concentrate on the movie with him talking like that. “What does that mean?”
“You got lumbered, mate. They put you in jail.”
“How did you know?”
