Nerve Damage by Peter Abrahams Page A

twice, but he didn’t return her call or any of the others. Instead he dragged the shiny cone to the center of the floor, not far from Delia, and just looked at it for a while. Sometimes he got ideas that way.
    Not now. The blurry image of a delicate, attenuated silence that had been in his mind refused to grow clearer. He pulled up a stool, got out his sketch pad and a soft pencil. Nothing happened at first. Roy was used to that, had learned patience in his work. No hurry: that was what he always told himself.
    The pencil began to move in that way it sometimes did, Roy following more than leading. The first few lines might have had something to do with the cone, attenuation, silence, but then they turned into a fluted pilaster, and another, four in all, with a double door between them and a pediment above. Roy was just finishing a set of broad, shallow stairs,when he realized what he had: the facade of the Hobbes Institute on Constitution Avenue.
    No more sketching happened after that. Silence withdrew completely.
    He went to the phone, called Richard Gold, again ended up in voice mail. Roy was one of those people not bothered by little frustrations, but now he heard his voice rising. “Tom Parish with one r . How hard can this be?”
    After that, he lay on the couch. Snow began to fall; he could see it through the skylights, the flakes appearing dark from that angle, dark and plummeting fast, as though propelled by tiny motors. He got his arm in a comfortable position, almost painless. His eyes closed.
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    â€œThis is fun!” Delia said.
    â€œDidn’t I tell you?” said Tom Parish. “Any more of that champagne, Roy?”
    Plenty, in the cooler on the deck of Bellissima, Tom’s thirty-two-foot powerboat, maybe thirty-five—Roy, an inlander, didn’t know much about boats. He grabbed a couple of cold bottles and went forward. Tom stood at the control console, the breeze ruffling his blond hair; Delia sat on the gunwale, an empty flute glass dangling in her hand. The boat wallowed in the swell, engines idling. Night, Chesapeake Bay, Fourth of July, fireworks erupting every few seconds from many points on the coastline. Roy popped a cork, poured champagne.
    â€œSalut,” said Tom.
    They drank. Delia gazed at the spectacle, all that blooming light reflected in her eyes. “It’s like—what’s it like, Roy?”
    Fireworks went off, pow pow pow, red white blue green, the whole blazing show bobbing on every wave in the water. Roy shook his head; too hard to describe.
    â€œI’ll tell you what it’s like,” said Tom, gazing into his glass for a moment, then draining it: “War at play.”
    Delia glanced over at Tom and laughed. Roy didn’t quite get it, but Tom was a brilliant guy.
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    The phone was ringing. It sent an electric pulse across the room, a pulse aimed directly at the break in Roy’s arm. He got off the couch—the little action making him breathless for some reason—and answered it.
    â€œRoy? Freddy Boudreau here, down at the station. I wake you or something?”
    â€œJust watching TV,” Roy said.
    â€œAnyways,” said Freddy, “this kid here in the tank, says he works for you, and we don’t want to hold him or nothin’ but no one’s come to get him.”
    â€œSkippy?”
    â€œYou got it.”
    Roy drove to the police station. Freddy stood at the counter in his blue uniform, Skippy on a chair behind him, staring at his knees.
    â€œWhat’s with the arm?” Freddy said.
    â€œNicked it last night.”
    â€œIn the game?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhen did that happen?”
    Roy shrugged. “Didn’t notice at the time.”
    â€œYou stud,” said Freddy. He jabbed his thumb back at Skippy. “True this numbnuts works for you?”
    â€œSkippy helps out sometimes,” Roy said.
    â€œHe blew point-one-eight last night. Plus no insurance, and he