It was a few days before we heard about Jimmy Hoffa going missing that the car turned up on the side of my field. It was at the edge of a field that I almost never go into, but I was sure I noticed it the first day it was there. Now, I’m not saying that Jimmy Hoffa’s body got parked on my field out in the middle of the Bible belt. But I’m not saying that it wasn’t put there either.
The fact of the matter is, I left it alone. People’s cars do tend to break down in the most inconvenient places, and the edge of my field would probably qualify as one of them. If my fights weren’t on up at the house, I could see where someone might walk clear into town before they’d find a place with a phone. So I just left it there, thinking a tow truck would show up for it in the next day or so.
After about a week, I guess, I started asking people if they had seen anyone come around the night the car was dropped off. Then I would describe it if they hadn’t been by my place in the past week. It was a light blue Ford with some big old fins on the back. No one remembered any strangers, and in our neck of the woods people remember strangers. So my mystery got a little bit bigger.
“A car just doesn’t appear by itself on the edge of a cornfield,” Harold said. He was the best friend I had although I didn’t care for his attitude on a lot of things. But it’s like my mama always told me, beggars can’t be choosers. And when it came to friends, I had always been a beggar. Me and Harold stood up on my back porch looking across the land at the blue hunk of junk. “Why don’t you just go over and bust the window and see what kind of registration it has in it?”
“Break into someone’s car?”
“Someone’s abandoned car.”
“Can’t do it.”
Harold stared at me, wheels in his mind turning. “You haven’t even gone over to see if it’s unlocked, have you?”
I shook my head, looking down at the ants crawling on my porch.
“Why the heck not?”
“Don’t seem right somehow.”
“I can go take a look if you want me to.”
“Don’t you dare, Harold!” I said with a quick snap of my head. “I want you to leave my car alone.”
He chuckled. “Your car? So now it’s your car, is it? Walter, you sure are a queer son of a bitch.”
“Don’t touch the car, Harold,” was my only response as I walked off the porch and away from the Ford. Truth is, I liked having the car around. It gave my mind something new to work on. Not knowing gave me cause to speculate. Not a lot happens around these parts, so when something new like this comes along, my mind just grabs hold and doesn’t want to let go. I didn’t want Harold ruining it by telling me the car belonged to some traveling salesman who lived over in Wichita. I wanted the imaginings to last as long as possible. And I still figured the tow truck would show up any day to pick it up.
It was only after the third news story I saw on Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance that my mind started to wander in that direction. Sure, we were a long way away from this Hoffa guy’s stomping grounds, but that don’t mean nothing. I mean, those mob types could take someone like that all the way to India if they really put their minds to it. Let New York’s finest try to find him over there, in the big city. Of course, they would have just as much trouble finding him around here. People not from the area often complain that we don’t have any street signs, say they can’t find their way around. Folks here say if you don’t know where you are you really don’t have any business being here. So to me it made perfect sense that Hoffa could be in the trunk of that car out there. I made the mistake of telling Harold my new theory.
“Hoffa? You have got to be kidding me, Walter.” We were on the porch again, watching the sun set off to the west. “They wouldn’t just plop him in the trunk and leave him on a farm somewhere. They would finish the job. They would bury that sucker.”
“Well, maybe they hit car trouble like I thought before and just got as far away as possible. That way, when the police do find the body, they’ll be back in their own neck of the woods.”
“Only one way to find out for sure,” Harold said, and he began to stride directly toward the Ford.
I jumped down after him and ran to block his path. “Don’t you touch that car, Harold. I mean it.”
He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the darkening sky. “You are such a dreamer, Walter. You think up these crazy scenarios, but you don’t want to prove or disprove them. You just want to go on thinking up these crazy ideas until another one comes along. Next week you’ll be saying that it’s really one of them flying saucers and the little green men left it behind and beamed on out of here.”
“I don’t want you touching that car.”
“Fine, Walter. You don’t have to worry about me ever coming near it. I’m leaving.” And he stormed off like he had never stormed off before. I was sure that old hunk of junk had just cost me my best friend.
“People disappear all the time. They just usually don’t get the coverage that Hoffa’s getting.” I was watching the Ford rust with Larry Hartford. Larry was not exactly what I would call a best friend, more like a good acquaintance. I mean, Larry and me had known each other since the first grade, but we never really hung around together. An occasional fishing trip, an occasional beer, and that’s about it. It had been about two months since the car first appeared and almost as long since I last talked to Harold. He sure could be a sorehead when he wanted to be. So I was pretty much stuck with Larry, or he was stuck with me, depending on how you look at it.
“Are you saying that some guy offed his wife, stuck her in the trunk, dropped her off here, and told her family that she took off with another man?” I was starting to like the way Larry’s mind worked. “Well, there could be a million possibilities. She runs off with some guy, and he turns out to be some psycho and kills her the first chance he gets. In the world today you never know who the crazies are.”
I paused before I said anything. “Do you think I’m crazy for not touching the car?”
“Heck, no. You could be tampering with evidence. The state troopers show up and start asking why your fingerprints are all over the car, and next thing you know, you could wind up in jail for killing some girl that you never known while the real killer runs free. Just not worth taking the chance if you know what I mean.”
I nodded my head. I did know what he meant. It made me feel better to hear that I was right and Harold was wrong. You just don’t go messing with other people’s things. You never know what kind of trouble it can land you in.
Halloween that year brought some trouble as far as Jimmy’s car was concerned. Jimmy’s car, that’s what I had come to think of it as by that point. If I ever thought too hard about it, I would tell myself that I was just being a silly middle-aged man. But then again I never tried to think too hard about it.
So Halloween night I was sitting out on my porch in the dark as I did a lot of nights when I couldn’t find anything worth watching on the television. I saw some flashlights flickering on and off along my property fine. I picked up the shotgun that I kept just inside the door. You city folk might think that’s an odd thing to do, but the crazies seem to like to leave the city lights and head out to the country. They figure we live so far apart it will be easier to get away with any danged thing. So most of us keep the heavy artillery within a quick reach.
I made a straight line for Jimmy’s place. I could tell that was where the flashlights were headed. Maybe after all these months someone was finally coming for whatever they left behind. Maybe they were using this goofy holiday to cover anything strange happening. It was the one night of the year that people wouldn’t look twice at you if you were wearing a mask. Maybe the New York mobsters had come back to see why Jimmy had never turned up in the news. Or maybe the crazed husband came back to remove all identification from his wife’s body, or maybe just to look at her one more time to convince himself he had actually done the horrible thing that his nightmares told him he had. To look at his loving wife’s face just one more time...
Whoever it was, they were close to me at that point and not doing too good a job hiding their approach.
“Stop giggling. Someone will hear us,” a hushed whisper said.
“I can’t help it. McNally will flip when he sees his car is gone,” another not-so-hushed voice said.
The first voice said, “If he catches us while we’re doing it...”
“I’ll blow your head clean off,” I said with as much menace as I could muster. I cocked the shotgun for effect.
“Jesus Christ! He’s here!”
There was a mad scramble as the three figures tripped over each other trying to get as far away from me as they could. Just my luck, a bunch of the local schoolboys come to mess with goofy old Walter McNally. Was I really that easy a mark? I hoped the shotgun story would make its rounds and enough people would know I meant business when it came to Jimmy’s car. Or anything else on my property for that matter.
I guess it did the trick because the old rust bucket sat there on the edge of my field undisturbed for quite some time. I eventually got up the nerve to walk up to it, to get a real good look at it. It had local plates that were now expired. The inside of the car was all black vinyl. And it was clean. There were no suitcases clogging up the back seat. There was no bloody trail leading to the trunk. There was just dusty old seats. I didn’t try the trunk. I knew that as long as I had the car I could never pry that thing open. Heck, I didn’t even try the doors to see if they were locked or not, to see if there was anything under the seats. I didn’t want to ruin the magic of this car. It had kept my mind whirling for the longest time, trying to come up with every possible solution to how this car got here and why no one had come for it. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. And no matter how many scenarios I came up with, I always came back to Jimmy. They hadn’t found him yet, so it could still be him.
Things were quiet for a long time. Months rolled by as I buried myself in farmwork. It wasn’t hard to do. There’s no such thing as a day off on a farm. When the weather got warm again, I took to sitting out on the porch, sometimes with Larry, more often just by myself. When Harold came up onto the porch, it sent me for a loop, that’s for sure.
“What if there’s money in there?” were the first words out of his mouth. I shook my head. If he’d come back just to get me to go into the car, he might as well have stayed away. And I was ready to tell him that, too.
“Walter, don’t be stupid. You could be a millionaire, and you don’t even know it.”
“People don’t abandon millions of dollars in cars. If they did, they’ll come back for it. Nothing good would come of taking it out.”
“You’re a fool, Walter. I don’t know why I bother.”
I built a small wooden rail alongside it, to trap it into my land. So that everyone would know that it was my car, on my land. And if someone came looking for it, well, I hadn’t moved it an inch from where they had left it. Most of the locals had forgotten about how the car showed up on my lawn. Me and Larry would talk about it from time to time, but that was about it. In this part of the state most of your bigger homes have at least one car somewhere on the property. But me and Larry weren’t the only ones who hadn’t forgotten.
It was a long time later, but when Harold returned, he was still on the same topic. “Says here in this magazine that Hoffa is buried at Giants Stadium.”
“Don’t prove nothing,” I told him.
“But this is from a mobster. He would know.”
“Don’t touch the car, Harold.”
He stormed off again.
When Harold came back, he didn’t come to the porch. I had just gone into the kitchen for another beer during a commercial break when I glanced out the window and saw a flashlight working its way toward Jimmy’s car. I glanced at the clock and thought about the stupid high school boys. It was a school night, but what did that ever matter to delinquents?
I cursed at whatever stupid idiot this was going to turn out to be because I was going to miss the end of my show. This was before everyone had them VCR’s. Not that it would’ve mattered. I never learned how to program the thing. I picked up my shotgun and headed out. The flashlight was not like when them kids went to it. This was a steady beam of light, making its way straight to where the car sat.
I moved as quickly as I could over to where Jimmy’s car was. I could tell that the flashlight would beat me there, and I thought about shouting out to whoever it was, but I wanted to see the face of who was doing this to me. If I yelled, they might run off, and I would always be left wondering just who it was.
As I got closer, I heard the sound of breaking glass. I ran as fast as I could, and when I came up to the car, I saw someone sitting in the front seat on the passenger’s side. It looked like they were going through the glove compartment. I stood a few feet away and aimed the gun at the intruder. “Get out nice and slow.”
The figure turned and smiled at me. It was Harold. “Hey, Walter, I had to find out.”
“You?” I momentarily faltered. My gun started to dip toward the ground. “What are you doing in the car?”
“There could be money in this car. Don’t you understand? We could be rich, beyond our wildest dreams. We could have young girls wanting us. Things that could never happen without money.”
“What do you mean, we? This car is on my property, not yours. Now, get out of the car. I mean it. I don’t care if there’s a billion dollars sitting in there. This car was not to be touched. And I told you that more than once.”
“I opened the glove compartment. I know who the car was registered to.”
“I don’t want to hear it!” I shouted louder than I had intended. Not that it mattered. My closest neighbor was not in shouting distance. “Get out of the car, Harold, before I shoot you where you are.” I raised the gun again. His eyes fixed on the long, dark barrels and nothing else.
“Walter, don’t be stupid.”
“I am really tired of hearing you say that. You were my best friend for years, but you always told me I was stupid. You stopped talking to me, all over this car, and now you have the nerve to say it again. Now, I asked you once already. Get out of Jimmy’s car.”
“This is not Jimmy’s...”
Harold never finished his sentence. Or if he did, I couldn’t hear it over the shotgun blast. I stood there looking at his body strung out over the front seat. The glove compartment was open, and papers were hanging out and some lay under him. Eventually I moved back toward the house, leaving him be. I knew no one would be coming down the road this time of night. I got an old equipment cover from the shed and flung it over the whole scene. It covered everything, even Harold’s legs, now hanging out the passenger door. I didn’t shut the door, I didn’t do nothing. I just left it there until the following night.
No one came by asking about Harold. No one wanted to know if I had seen him. I guess after years of not talking to each other, people no longer thought of us in the same sentence. That night I forsook television and made my way out to Jimmy’s place. I pulled back the cover and looked at what damage had been done the night before. Harold was still dead; his blood had ruined the front seat. The papers from the glove compartment looked ruined as well. I climbed over Harold, not really thinking about what I was doing, until I was in the driver’s seat. I released the emergency brake, then got out and pushed Jimmy’s car a few feet forward. Finally I took shovel to earth and began to dig, in what I knew would be a long night.
I wanted to give Harold a proper burial, so I dug down six feet, just like they’d do at a Christian cemetery. By the time I finished digging I was too tired to say any words, so I just pulled him out and flung him in the grave. I did look down at his body and stared for a long time.
“You tried to take the magic away.”
The sun was rising by the time I’d filled the grave. I didn’t take no breaks. I knew that I had to finish before there were folks about. The blood-soaked papers I returned to the glove compartment. I didn’t even think about looking at them. I had to preserve whatever was left of the magic.
I pushed the car back into position, relocked the doors, and threw the cover over the car. Then I headed back to the house to take a much needed shower.
I have watched the snow cover the car and wondered about how old Harold was coping. I have watched them auction off his farm. His name is almost never brought up no more. No one really knows what happened. Sometimes people disappear. Like Jimmy Hoffa.
I know Harold said with his dying breath that the car wasn’t Jimmy’s. That doesn’t really surprise me. I mean it has local tags. I imagine the hit men that brought Jimmy out here have cars in every state for whatever emergency needs to be taken care of. Besides, Harold didn’t look in the trunk, and my guess is that is where whatever secret this car holds is. That is where the magic remains.
They built an interstate nearby a few years back, and my old country road has seen a definite increase in traffic. More and more farmers are selling off their land to real estate people who turn them into tract homes. That type of life is not for me. I look out the window at the car, half covered with a sheet that blows off more times than it stays on, and I keep waiting for someone to drive by and recognize the car.
And I imagine who it will be and how they will recognize it. Will it be the husband of the long missing wife, or some mobster guy in the witness protection program who panics when he sees the car with Hoffa’s body sitting plain as day at the edge of the farm? Sometimes I think that when someone does recognize it they’ll come after me and kill me. And the more I run that play through my mind, the more I don’t think that’s so bad. There isn’t much good on television any more these days, and I miss talking to my friend Harold.
“So what was your main excuse in the first place to go out and buy a computer, of all things, Dianne?” Evelyn Culver, a dubious tone to her voice, skillfully shuffled the cards with first a backwards and then a forwards bend and a long buzz both ways while shooting a sideways glance at the younger woman. “I never can see why a normal human person’d want to own one of them things, any more than I can see them wanting to own, say, a scanning electron microscope, whatever that is.”
“If you don’t know what a thing is,” Dianne Freely returned, one eyebrow cocked in a critical, inverted V, “then maybe you shouldn’t be giving opinions about it.” Her annoyed gaze dropped to Evelyn’s brisk shuffling. “And are you actually going to deal those cards out to us one of these days, or are you going to wear the spots off them first?”
It was Thursday evening in End of Main, and that meant frustration night, frustration being the card game that brought the women together here in Evelyn’s kitchen each week, Mrs. Aird and Winona Delmare completing the foursome.
“It’s not I’m being critical. All’s I’m wondering is, what the heck do you
“There’s more to computers than games,” Dianne Freely returned defensively with a toss of her blonde hair. “You can waste time on solitaire with a two dollar deck of cards; you don’t need to fork over three thousand dollars, plus tax, to do it.” She frowned over her hand, finally discarding the queen of spades, then flinching when Mrs. Aird pounced on it with a rapacious grin. Further nettled, Dianne went on: “There’s no end of things you can do with computers. Winona here could type in all her recipe cards, for example. Then, when she wanted to know where that certain recipe was, the one that’s got the custard and maraschino cherry topping, say, she’s only got to tell the machine to go fetch anything with those ingredients, and — splang! — there it is right in front of her.”
“I had a boyfriend would go fetch me anything,” Winona Del-mare replied flatly, “and it didn’t cost me one red cent.”
“Are you sure about that?” Evelyn asked. “What about at ten a.m. when the Netley beer store opened?”
“Well, he might of cost me something. But not no three thousand in one whack, that’s for sure.”
“What are we talking about?” Mrs. Aird wanted to know. Hard of hearing, she had drifted into one of her spells of woolgathering, now resurfacing for a recap of everything that had been said in the last ten minutes or so.
“Computers, dear. We’re talking computers. Pay attention, for pity’s sake,” pleaded Evelyn.
“I do pay attention.” Mrs. Aird frowned haughtily. “But you mumble like you got a three-armed dentist in your mouth.” Her hearing aid gave a whistle, and she poked it.
“I suppose,” Winona Delmare speculated, “if you got tired of solitaire, you could use a computer to hold up a flowerpot.”
“Okay, all of you, keep riding me.” Dianne Freely’s tone had turned suddenly sharp, a fresh note of aggrieved persecution to it. “But if you’re trying to make me feel guilty about spending my own money, you’re wasting your time.” She hesitated, as if uncertain whether or not to deliver her next statement; then, with a quick breath to brace herself, she came out with it. “You might laugh out the other sides of your faces if you knew what I’ve been using it for the last while.”
“Figuring out a square root?” asked Evelyn.
“Counting a calorie?” grunted Winona.
“No. To connect, that’s what. To connect and communicate. To talk with people all over the world and especially to chitchat with the pleasantest and nicest person I ever come across in my life.”
This got their instant attention. “What on earth are you blathering about?” Evelyn asked.
Dianne became coy. She mused thoughtfully over her cards. “Oh, just someone.”
“Tell us!”
Dianne raised her face to them with arched eyebrows, as if mildly astonished at the sudden interest. “Well, I don’t see what difference it makes. There’s no way any of
Mrs. Aird’s shortsighted eyes narrowed but never left her cards. “Smurfing? What’s she mean — smurfing? That’s those little blue cartoon creatures, isn’t it?”
“You don’t mean to tell us, dear,” Evelyn Culver said with a scowl of maternal concern — she employed Dianne in her unisex hair salon, the Easy-Clip, and fretted over her like a mother — “that you’re involved with the Internet? All those gossip lines that we’ve been hearing about?”
“It’s called IRC–Internet Relay Chat,” Dianne replied curtly. “And we don’t gossip, we have enlightened discussions. Which is more than I can say for the chin-wagging that goes on around this table most of the time.”
“But good grief, girl! Don’t you read the newspapers? There’s something nasty going on in the world of computers. Some sort of ‘predator,’ according to the
Mrs. Aird was still mired in the terminology. “Maybe smurfing has got something to do with computer games. Like you draw a smurf on the screen, and then make him hop.”
“All right, so you met this person on the Internet;
“You don’t actually see each other. It doesn’t work that way. You talk to one another by typing words with your keyboard.”
“Sounds boring.”
“And unromantic,” Winona sniffed.
“Actually, it’s kind of neat,” Dianne insisted. “You’re anonymous, so you can try on new identities. You can be anything you want to be — a rocket pilot, a doctor, a stewardess. While you could really be, say, a clerk.”
“Or a murderer,” muttered Evelyn darkly.
“If you want smurfs in your life,” said Mrs. Aird, shaking her gray head in perplexity, “you only got to turn on the TV every morning and there they are, scurrying all over the place.” She laid down her cards. “I’m out. See? There’s my two runs of five in the same suit. I’m winning. What’s next?”
The others threw down their hands in disgust. Evelyn shoved her chair back sharply and went off to root in a cupboard for something that would augment the depleted chips and dip. “Give us the lowdown, Dianne,” she said over her shoulder, dragging out a bag of pretzels that were left over from New Year’s. “So you met on the Net, or whatever you computer geeks call it. But what happened
“The juicy details,” Winona Delmare added.
“There are no juicy details. We met in the MUD, actually.”
“Where?” Mrs. Aird’s eyes blinked several times in quick succession.
“In the MUD. The multi-user dungeon. One of the chat rooms, okay?”
“And what,” Winona asked, “is a chat room, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Dianne’s pretty face tightened at their collective obtuseness. “A chat room is a sort of electronic place that you key into. There are different rooms for different interests. This particular one is for singles. They call it the Lonelyheart’s Cafe.”
“A cafe, huh?” Evelyn was back at the table rattling the bag of pretzels over the chip bowl.
“In the
“The Lonelyheart’s is where people from all over the world — people with computers, that is! — can meet electronically to talk about their love life.” Dianne seemed to be avoiding their gaze. “Naturally,” she admitted, “they are mostly folks who haven’t got one — a love life, I mean — but who would
“Is that why you went surfing in there, dear?” asked Winona Delmare with a catty tone to her voice.
“Of course not!”
Dianne squared her shoulders angrily and snatched a pretzel. She was one of the prettiest girls in End of Main and didn’t need anyone to remind her of it. She had dated every eligible male — even, rumor had it, some who were not so eligible — but apparently up to now had found them all wanting. “I was curious, that’s all. And I’m glad I was. This is a nice person. And so knowledgeable. He says there are two new classes of people in the world — the information rich and the information poor — just like in the Middle Ages before the printing press was invented. Back then it was books people didn’t have. Now it’s computers. So he collects old computer equipment and distributes it to the underprivileged. He says it’s a duty.”
“I’m sure he’s well-meaning, dear,” said Evelyn, “but you could of gone to a dating service a whole lot cheaper. What’s all this costing you, down there at the bottom line? I mean, in addition to forking out the three thousand, plus tax, in the first place.”
“It’s a hobby. I don’t care what it costs. But my biggest expense right now is my Internet connect time. It adds up fast. And as for equipment, I’m going to upgrade my hardware just as soon as my new Computer Warehouse catalogue arrives. Last month I got the telephone answering-machine feature.”
“What?” snapped Evelyn Culver. “You mean I got to talk to a computer next time I phone you?”
And Winona Delmare said, making out as if she were completely flabbergasted, a plump hand spread wide across her breast, “Upgrade the thing already? Hell’s bells, dear, you only just got it.”
“I’ve had it for months. It’s a fast-moving technology, and it costs money to keep up with it. Already I need more RAM, a bigger hard drive, a faster modem. You can never have a fast-enough modem, too big of a hard drive, or enough RAM, according to Timothy.”
“Aha!” said Evelyn, pouncing. “So it’s Timothy, is it?” She gave the others a shrewd look. “And if he’s telling you to replace your brand-new computer parts, let me guess what he wants you to do with the old ones.”
“Send them to him, of course. What else? It’s charity for the underprivileged.” Dianne said it with pride.
“Rams and modems,” muttered Mrs. Aird grumpily. “Smurfs and mud. Why can’t it be like the good old days — root-beers and hula hoops.”
“Maybe,” went on Dianne, deliberately ignoring Evelyn’s insinuation about the motives of her new acquaintance, “while I’m at it, I’ll get myself a faster CD-ROM drive and send my old one of those to him as well.”
Mrs. Delmare looked baffled and put off. “It’s like alphabet soup. It don’t make a lick of sense.” She glared at Evelyn. “Are you going to just sit there? I played that diamond, for Pete’s sake! It’s your go, for crying in the sink!”
Evelyn threw down a club, addressing Dianne.
“This guy must think you’re made of money, dear.”
“Money’s got nothing to do with it. It’s just that your RAM — that’s the machine’s memory, if you want to know — and your hard drive — that’s like a filing cabinet where you can store information — are like closets and cupboards. Timothy says that no matter how big they are when you first get them, they’re way too small for you before you know it.”
Winona rolled her eyes. “God help us. Your memory was tight in the hips the day you got it.” She looked at Dianne. “I made mine bigger without driving a nail — my closets and cupboards, that is. All’s I did was to kick out Wilbur and replace him with my little Shih Tzu, Dodo. His junk took up the space of three vacuum cleaners. He must of had five or six old jackets there on every hook. When he finally run off with that sexpot from the Gimli Marina, I called the Goodwill to send a truck around and wound up with more space than I know what to do with.”
Dianne shrugged. “Whatever works for you, Winona. But you can’t kick a husband out of a computer, can you?” She twitched her nose, reconsidering. “Well, I suppose you could, but I don’t have a husband. Anyway, this is the most exciting hobby I ever had. And if keeping up with it benefits the disadvantaged, well then, so much the better so far as I’m concerned.”
“What about the Internet Predator?” Evelyn asked.
“What about him? There are millions of us on the Internet.
“So did you already send away some of your equipment?”
“A few things, yes.”
“And you mean to send him more?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’re quite the Samaritan, dear. And there aren’t many of those around.”
“That depends,” said Winona, “what you call a Samaritan. Some might say there’s one born every minute.” She glanced at the clock. “Listen, can we finish this? I got to get home and walk my Dodo before she does poopsies on my own property.”
At the Easy-Clip next day, after the tide of morning trade had swept the first wave of customers in and then subsided, Evelyn sank with a grateful sigh into one of the mauve swivel chairs and got back onto the subject of Dianne’s new acquaintance. She’d been thinking about it all night. It worried her. She couldn’t help herself.
“You know—” she was determined not to get into an argument “—now I think about it, maybe this computer craze isn’t such a bad thing after all.”
“It isn’t a craze,” replied Dianne without a hint of conciliation in her tone.
She rinsed her combs in the sink, laid them on a folded towel, then picked up that morning’s issue of the
“No, no, of course not, dear. What I meant to say was—”
“A revolution is more what it is. Like the industrial one, when they converted everything over to steam.”
“I thought you said it was like the invention of the printing press.”
“It’s like a lot of things. It’s like steam because it lets one worker do the work of ten.”
“Hmm.” Evelyn stared blankly into space. “And
“People got new jobs. They moved on to other things.”
“They moved to the New World, dear. Problem is, there’s no New World to move to this time.” She was arguing again, but she couldn’t help it. “What do you suppose will happen when they get computers to cut people’s hair? When folks only have to walk in, select the ‘do’ they want, and press a button. Dial-a-Style, they’ll call it. Whir! Zing! Done! There won’t be much for us to do. Except maybe change the oil in the computers once in a while.”
With an air of strained patience Dianne shook out the newspaper. “Computers don’t have oil.”
“Well, that proves my point. More people out of work. All your Texans and Arabs in the welfare office with their oil drills under their arms.” Evelyn hesitated. She wanted to make Dianne see the dangers of being impetuous. She laid her hand on the girl’s arm. “Dear, listen, what do I know? When it comes to computers — nothing. You know way more about them than I do, I admit it. But I do know something about life, and about people, and I’d be lying if I said that what you’re doing doesn’t worry me.”
“Why should
“I just want you to be careful. It’s the Internet. And there’s a killer on the loose. You don’t know nothing about this person. You don’t know what his ethics are.”
“His ethics are fine. I trust him completely.” Dianne turned a page. “In fact, we’ve arranged a meeting.”
Evelyn gaped, stunned by this news.
“You mean to tell me this is a local person?”
“What did you think? That he’s flying in from China?”
“And you gave him your particulars? Your name and address and all that?”
“I told him a few things. I mean, I had to. How could we meet if we don’t tell each other anything?”
“But, dear, honestly! That’s the one thing you’re
“So you
“I may not go surfing the Internet, but I do have a lick of common sense.” Evelyn frowned at Dianne. “I listen to the radio and watch the TV, and I have a nephew who’s quick as cats about computers. And one thing I hear over and over again is how important it is to protect your identity. Especially with that Internet Predator skulking about. There’s no telling what might happen. No telling what kind of grief you might be attracting if you don’t take precautions.”
“I’ve taken precautions all my life. I’ve been
Dianne was admitting — what, exactly? That she was lonely? It had never occurred to Evelyn that a young woman with her attributes could have that sort of a problem, ever.
“Hon,” she said grudgingly, finding a softer tone, “I see where you’re coming from. Life can seem dull. I feel that way myself sometimes, Lord knows. All’s I’m trying to say is I wish you’d be careful. I’m sure this person is very nice, but for the moment at least, he’s a stranger. You don’t know the first thing about him.”
“I know this,” Dianne replied curtly. “The person I’ve been communicating with is kind and considerate. And generous — look at that charity work! And whether
Evelyn watched her direct a gale of superheated air at the mirror. “Your f-2-f, dear?”
“That’s Net talk! It means face-to-face, all right?”
“Ah,” breathed Evelyn sadly. “Right.” On the countertop the newspaper headlines screamed CYBER-PREDATOR STRIKES AGAIN! ANOTHER NETTER MISSING! “You know best,” she said. “Of course you do.”
Sixty miles away, Big Heloise Walker had appointments to keep. The first was her meeting with a stewardess — a
The girl had bought it.
That was important.
It had to be well and truly dark at zero hour.
Her other appointment was of the electronic sort, with an individual who lived in Europe, a cyberholic like herself, known to her simply as Qwaz. Lu had never had an f-2-f with Qwaz. Nor did she know what the four-character name stood for. Probably nothing. Probably chosen because the letters were simple to generate, all grouped handily at the left end of the computer keyboard. She glanced at her Swiss Army watch and saw that it was time. She keyed into their usual chat room, and typed:
— Yo, Qwaz.
The response came back:
— Hi, Blu.
Blu was the shorthand Qwaz used for her. Like all netters, Qwaz loved shorthand. It saved connection time. Qwaz typed:
— Still interested?
— Y
— I’m waiting.
— I know.
— So what’s the holdup?
— Well, you asked for quality, right?
— Y
— Then be patient. I’ll have something soon.
— A Gen-Xer?
Qwaz meant generation X — a member of the post baby-boom wave.
— Nothing but. You’ll have bit maps within the week. What about $?
— The $, Blu, will be sent when the QAI is done.
QAI stood for Quality Assurance Inspection. Qwaz added:
— You have the P.O. box number?
— Y
— That’s fine. CU later.
And Qwaz was gone, allowing Lu one more chance. Lu knew that she had to make good on it this time, that there were unlikely to be any further extensions. And damn it, she would have had the material in Qwaz’s hands weeks ago if things hadn’t kept going sour for her.
Her attempts kept coming up dry. She’d arrange a meeting and arrive promptly, but the other party would fail to materialize. It was like a curse, or else extremely bad luck. Tonight would be different, though. Her luck was due to change. She felt it way down deep in her bones.
To burn off adrenaline before setting off to meet the stewardess, Lu sat at the computer a while longer and flamed people. Flaming was an amusing pastime, the Net equivalent of throwing spitballs. You made contact with someone, were enormously polite and sympathetic, pressing them to open up to you, to bare their innermost self. Then you lashed out at the unsuspecting cyber-dork with the most outrageous and abusive insult you could possibly muster. Lu was a champ at it. She liked the instant gratification, the raw and indignant response. She had just meted out a terrific scorcher to a particularly soppy net-head and was waiting in keen anticipation for the comeback when suddenly the system operator keyed onto the screen. The sysop typed a curt message, followed by a sideways crabby face:
— OK, torch, snuff it! And butt out of my board! >:-/
Lu replied with a face of her own; a cheeky one...
—:-P
...and shut down.
She was peeved. Sysops were intrusive. Once a frontier of unfettered freedom, the Net was now drifting the way of everything else — towards overregulation and policing. It was a trend that had started with the phone companies, them and their digital networks. No longer an assortment of clumsy electro-mechanical switches, the telephone network had evolved into a web of powerful computers. And computers remembered things. It meant the authorities no longer had to keep you on a line to trace you, as they did in the old movies, but had simply to look at a screen — the next day, even — and there you were. The time and duration of your call, the number of the called party, the number of the caller.
But it was time to leave. Time to go out into that lousy
Lu locked up carefully as she always did. And as always, standing in her garage moments later with her ignition key in her hand, she hesitated, then returned to inspect the locks. There were five of them — their number had grown over the years — and each time she left the house they all had to be double-checked. You just couldn’t be too careful nowadays. There was a grave nationwide law-and-order problem in her view: too much law and not enough order.
She drove toward the park contemplating her stewardess — or more accurately, her
Virtual or not, stewardesses reigned in Big Lu’s bad books. As a teen she had fantasized about joining those high-fliers, envying the free travel, exotic places, and high wages. But when she was old enough to try for the job, she didn’t even apply. She knew they wouldn’t accept her. By her eighteenth birthday Lu was already six feet tall, weighed over two hundred pounds, and, unlike some more fortunate large women, didn’t wear it well.
Lu hoped that the subject truly was a stewardess, or at least somebody very much like one.
Gathering thunderheads in the west drew an early twilight over the sky, the footbridge that spanned the river already an arc of yellow electric light dispensed by round glass globes on ornamental posts. Very murky. Very turn-of-the-century. It made one feel like — well, like Jack the Ripper. Pausing on a broad, grassy slope, Lu gave the area a quick once-over. A real stewardess ought to stand out like a clothes horse — twiggy, neat, and pert, with the air of someone balancing a book on her head. But there were few people here and certainly no one of that description. An older couple walked a small fuzzy dog across the bridge; a boy on a bicycle swept past them in defiance of the bylaws. The only other person present was a dumpy middle-aged man in an ugly plaid coat. Was this her stewardess? Lu seethed. She hoped he wasn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise her. The guy was staring at the water as if he meant to end it all. Go for it, Lu thought with acid spite. Do it! I’ll give you a leg up.
She sauntered past as if the bridge were the last thing that interested her. Only when she was completely out of sight of it and its arches were screened by the limbs of a broad, gnarly willow did she casually turn and stroll back the other way. She hoped to find the dumpy metajerk replaced by a reasonable facsimile of a stewardess.
He hadn’t been.
She would have to ignore him.
She walked out on the bridge, keeping her distance from the man, placed her own brawny elbows on the parapet, and peered down at the water, which was slate-gray, turgid, dimpled with vortices. Swallows skimmed its surface, then veered under the bridge like miniature fighter planes. It was a peaceful scene; almost, she thought, as good as the screen-saver on her computer monitor.
The stewardess was late. She would give her another five minutes, and then...
“Deep water for this time of year, huh?” The voice was nasal and chummy, and it resonated right at her elbow. She was not surprised to discover that the middle-aged man had sidled up to her like some rotund, wheezing predator. He had a nylon bag that Lu hadn’t noticed before, which he dropped theatrically on the wide, stone parapet with a soft, heavy
“Got some items here that just might interest you.” The man leered as if this were his private showroom. He flopped the bag open before she could raise an objection, revealing a panoply of wares for the local lowlifes: a couple of handguns; some combat knives, many of them particularly vicious-looking; and the cold gleam of throwing stars and brass knuckles. Deeper in the bag’s folds were lurid magazines and videotapes. And there was computer software...
It was the software that caught Lu’s attention. Diskettes bundled in elastic bands and CD-ROM’s bright with garish artwork. She saw immediately what this guy was about. The gang weaponry, the magazines, the rest of this stuff she didn’t give a damn about. But the software touched a nerve. It implied something else. It told her that this guy must be her stewardess, and that he had come here simply to make a buck off of her.
In sudden rage, Lu shot out her hand and seized the man. He gasped and made a plaintive mewing sound. She jerked him off his feet and with a thrust of her powerful shoulders heaved him sideways out over the water. He fell away from her, his astonished face orange under the lights, and hit the water with a dismayed yell and an enormous
Behind her, in the black water, her victim floundered under the bridge’s arches, the dark blob of his sports bag sedately making for the first bend in the river but sinking fast.
It was well past the appointed time. Dianne sat, nervous and expectant, on the bench. The vantage point she had selected was so far off among the trees of the park that it did not permit her to observe the full breadth of the river, but she had seen the large person in the black jacket arrive and stride out onto the bridge. Now the figure was screened by leafy boughs, and she wondered whether it was her Timothy. Be careful, Evelyn had advised. Well, she
A young man strolled by her bench and glanced at her. With short-cropped hair and manly features he was very handsome. His intelligent gaze lingered on her curiously for a moment, and then he continued on.
She was considering the advisability of moving down the slope, getting closer to the river so she could reconnoiter things more closely, when suddenly the large person left the bridge and strode briskly away. Was it Timothy, angry that he’d been stood up? Before she could stop herself, she jumped up and followed.
Evelyn’s warnings still rang in her mind. She let the person maintain a good lead as he made his way to a van that was waiting, not in the public lot, but outside the park gates on the street where Dianne had left her own vehicle. Soon she was trailing the van through late evening traffic.
The van got away from her once, carried off like a cork in the vehicular flow; but luckily — it seemed lucky at the time! — she caught up with it again at the Route 90 on-ramp. Ten minutes of fast driving brought them to an exit that debouched into the elm-lined street of an older neighborhood. Staying close now, Dianne watched the van pull briskly into the driveway of a tall, prewar clapboard house and disappear into a garage. She pulled over, and after several more minutes of wrestling with Evelyn’s cautions and her own misgivings, she got out of her car and approached the front door. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She knocked twice, but no one answered. Then, as she raised her hand again, the porch light came on and the door sprang open under her knuckles.
Black Jacket stood in the doorway, glaring down at her balefully under the dim porch light. Dianne was startled to find that, seeing the individual close up, she was no longer sure that she was dealing with a male person; somehow the features seemed too effeminate, the skin too soft, and there was the unsettling suggestion of a bosom swelling the jacket’s folds.
“Are... are you Timothy?” Dianne asked, tipping her head quizzically to one side.
Black Jacket said nothing. Not a word. Not, “Oh, hey, you must be Dianne,” or, “Jeez, how come you weren’t at the bridge?” There was no smile, no hint of welcome, only a long, glassy stare with petulant lips slightly parted. The awkward moment passed. The next thing Dianne knew, she was airborne.
The strength of Black Jacket was shocking. It was a man’s strength, enough brawn to haul Dianne Freely’s not insignificant self through the door and toss her into a chair as if she were an overcoat. In the same motion Black Jacket kicked the door shut and bent over her, the flaccid face now just inches away. Dianne couldn’t meet the hostile eyes. She found herself searching for razor stubble and not finding any.
The question came in a ragged whisper, lips pulled tightly back against yellowed smoker’s teeth. “You mean to tell me you’re the so-called stewardess?”
Dianne had some trouble finding a steady voice, but when she was finally able to put a sentence together, she found herself projecting a bravado she did not feel. “I’m not really a stewardess, no. But you really shouldn’t go throwing people around like that!”
The reply was venomous.
“Oh, shouldn’t I? And what
“Stalk you?” It was such an absurd accusation that it left Dianne stammering. “But, but I didn’t stalk you!”
“Oh yes you did! You followed me home. You invaded my—” a large hand waved, taking in the shabby room “—my
Black Jacket jerked open a drawer, dragged out a pair of shiny handcuffs, and rattled them. Frozen with horror, Dianne had to look twice to make sure she was seeing right. Handcuffs? What did it mean? She watched the big woman pin her wrists with one powerful hand. She felt like a rabbit in the grip of a grizzly bear.
The cuffs closed with a metallic
Where the heck was Dianne? That was what they wanted to know.
She hadn’t shown up for work that morning, Evelyn testified, and now here she was pulling a no-show at the card game. They sat around feeling put out and irritated. Winona played solitaire, snapping the cards down with brisk annoyance. By half past eight the chips and dip were gone, and most of the pretzels, and still their youngest member hadn’t appeared.
It was the last straw for Evelyn Culver. Dianne would avoid a day’s work any chance she got, but it wasn’t like her to miss frustration night.
“She don’t answer her phone. All’s you get is that stupid computer asking for a message. I won’t tell it nothing. I don’t trust it. I believe it’s got something to do with this.”
“What’d you say?” asked Mrs. Aird.
“Her computer! Her damn computer! I said the thing’s got something to do with this!”
“Now that,” said Winona, calmly studying her cards through glasses riding precariously on the end of her nose, “is plain ridiculous. Computers are just machines. They’re like VCR’s. TV’s with an attitude. They don’t get up on their hind legs all of a sudden and attack people.”
“Maybe not,” Evelyn admitted, “but their owners might. In fact, computers could make some people more capable of nastiness than ever.” She set her jaw. “I should call the police. Report a missing person.”
“Hoo!” snorted Winona Delmare. “Hoo! Haw! And what’ll you tell them? That a grown woman’s been missing for all of ten hours, that she went out for a walk and the computers got her? ought to get Chief Robideau leaping around.
“Well, I admit it sounds silly the way you put it, but I still feel we have to
Evelyn exhaled loudly.
“We can’t just sit here like a bunch of sofa slugs if there’s a chance poor Dianne’s in trouble!” She strode to the hall closet and rattled her coat off its hanger. “I’m going to her house. Who’s coming?”
“I’m staying right here,” said Winona, stifling a yawn. “You may need me to hold down the fort in case of a total computer attack.”
“You do that.”
“In case,” Winona elaborated, “they come whirring up the sidewalk, a gang of crazed PC’s with their RAM’s and their ROM’s all differing and clacking.”
“And they just might!”
Mrs. Aird spotted Evelyn at the door and came beetling toward her. “I’ll come.” Then she looked baffled. “Where are we going?”
Dianne’s little house on Burton Street appeared tranquil and calm. Porch light on. Door locked. A cosy place awaiting the return of its owner. But Evelyn wasn’t satisfied. She had to be
It was shadowy inside, the only interior fight an eerie glow emanating from the half-open door of a back bedroom. The living room was tidy. So was the kitchen. No sign of foul play. In fact, everything was just as it ought to be except for that back doorway and its ghostly glow. Evelyn walked through the kitchen and pushed the bedroom door all the way open, and there on a small desk sat Dianne’s computer faintly whirring, its screen building intricate designs out of colored dots, then going blank and starting over again.
“So that’s the famous calculator, is it?” Mrs. Aird peered over Evelyn’s shoulder.
“That’s it,” replied Evelyn.
“Big deal,” Mrs. Aird said. She opened the closet and glanced inside. “So where’s Dianne, then?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Why not ask the calculator, if the damn thing’s so smart?”
She was right. It was the only thing they could do. Seated before the glowing screen, Evelyn couldn’t rid herself of the sense that the machine was an agent of evil. Not dangerous by itself, perhaps; not any one computer in particular. But a whole worldwide network of them gossiping over long-distance circuits was a scenario that was truly menacing. This one didn’t seem to be engaged in anything particularly sinister at the moment — only staring back at her with its cyclopean eye. But it seemed capable of a fiendish nastiness, an evil raised to a very high order.
Still, she would brave the thing if it helped track down Dianne.
She spoke into the phone to her nephew: “Now what?”
When it came to computers, Robert was good. In addition to that, he was exceptionally patient. More patient than a formal instructor when it came to teaching an old dog a new trick. He couldn’t be there in person, and so she had to take his instructions over the telephone, his calm, unruffled voice making her feel like a tourist preparing to land a stricken airliner under directions from an airport control tower.
He guided her into Dianne’s “browser” software as he called it. “Do you have the main screen now?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Fine. Click on the word Bookmark.”
She slid the mouse across its pad unsteadily, bringing the pointer over the Bookmark icon after some zigzags and a muttered, “Where’d it go, where’d it go?” When she clicked the button, a list of addresses dropped down the screen. The topmost of these said Lonelyheart’s, with some other gibberish trailing after the words. She felt a surge of excitement.
“I see it! I see it!”
“Great. That’s the most recent address she’s accessed. You should be in business.”
Mrs. Aird wandered in from the kitchen with a fridge magnet in her hand.
“When you get through with that thing,” she said from the doorway, “you better come in here and take a boo at this.”
“Not now!” Evelyn snapped irritably.
“What’s the matter?” asked Robert.
“Oh, it’s a friend of mine. She’s wandering around here with a magnet in her hand.”
“Did you say a magnet? Good lord, keep her away from things. Magnets and electronic media don’t mix. She could wipe out a diskette, make total gibberish of it.”
“Keep away from me with that thing!” Evelyn ordered Mrs. Aird.
“I’ll leave you to it now,” said Robert. “If you need me, call me later.”
“You’ve been great. I’ll remember this on your next birthday.”
He told her a small Porsche would make a suitable thank you gift and with a chuckle hung up the phone.
She clicked the mouse button. The screen blinked, refreshed itself a couple of times; moments later words appeared like scripted dialogue. It appeared to be a discussion regarding prime holiday resorts for affluent singles. Well and good, she thought, I’ll just have to break in. Hesitantly she typed “Timothy,” and with a suddenness that startled her, a reply came back at her:
— Lady Di?
It
— I’m not Lady Di. I’m her friend. I’m trying to find her. She’s missing.
She watched as a few more exchanges between the vacationers went by; then, as if after some deep and careful thought, came a response:
— Want to tell me about it?
Time to make a decision. Whatever had happened couldn’t involve Timothy. He wouldn’t be surfacing like this, asking after Dianne, if he was responsible for something bad happening to her. Not likely. And while she agonized over his innocent request, poor Dianne might very well be... She swallowed. She didn’t want to think about what might be happening to Dianne. She was going to have to take this Timothy person into her confidence, and that’s all there was to it. She placed her fingers over the keyboard and began to explain, pecking the words out clumsily, but after a sentence or two Timothy took pity on her and broke in, suggesting they continue off-line and asking for a phone number. She gave it to him.
You’re crazy! a small voice hollered inside her. Completely mad! After everything you told Dianne, you suddenly give out her telephone number over the Internet? Never mind, she countered. She had to do it. In any case telephone numbers could be changed. And this was the only lead she had on poor Dianne.
When the phone rang, she snatched up the receiver. Mrs. Aird peered curiously in at her from the hallway.
“This is Timothy,” said a voice. It was a gentle voice, a reassuring one, communicating just the proper note of concern. “Tell me what this is all about.”
She took a deep breath, then related what she knew — which, now that she actually came to verbalize it, she realized wasn’t a whole heck of a lot.
But she learned some things, too. The caller told her he knew nothing about collecting computer parts for charity and that he knew nothing about any face-to-face meeting.
“But I
No, he didn’t, but he assured her they would get to the bottom of things. He then asked about any notes or clues to Dianne’s whereabouts that she might’ve left lying about on her desk or saved on her computer.
“There’s nothing on her desk. I don’t know much about computers,” Evelyn admitted.
“That’s all right. I’ll help you.”
Coolly — as cool as her nephew almost — he led her through arcane keyboard and mouse maneuvers until she found herself in an application called File Manager. With it they examined the file names stored on the hard drive. What to watch out for, Timothy explained, was anything that might refer to such a meeting or, failing that, any mention of used computer parts, especially an address to which she might have sent them.
“Nope, nothing,” Evelyn said.
“Okay. That means we’ll need to look through her diskettes, Evelyn.”
Robert had mentioned those. “What’s a diskette?”
“There should be some there. Little things, about the size of a coaster, in square plastic cases.”
“Oh.” She could see plenty of the little kerwaladers scattered about. She picked one up. “How do you get ’em out of the case?”
“You
“Jeez, this could take a while,” Evelyn said.
But with the first diskette she got lucky. “I see something here says RECYC.DOC.”
“That sounds promising. Click on it twice.” She obeyed. The screen flickered and changed.
“Holy cow,” she said, “it’s a letter explaining what she’s sending.” Then her spirits plunged. “But it’s got no address!”
Big Lu — apparently her proper name — was a wacko, a complete space cadet. She was a candidate for a guest shot on the latest freakazoid talk show, one of those nuts who might hole herself up in a farmhouse with half the army reserve trying to chivvy her out. Dianne peeped at her through loops of galvanized chain link, trying to come to grips with the situation. After being manacled in the upstairs hallway, she had been flung over Big Lu’s shoulder, toted downstairs, and dumped like a sack of beans in a tiny room next to the furnace. The room had damp fieldstone walls and a concrete floor, probably a coal room in some previous era. A hunk of chain link fencing served as a door, her captor removing one of the cuffs from Dianne’s wrist, then snapping it to the links. She then had bade Dianne good night and had gone off to dispose of her captive’s car. Dianne had spent a sleepless night with one arm raised higher than her head, and now, with daylight filtering through the curtained windows, she knelt with her fingers hooked in the links, staring out at a wall of electronic equipment.
“World government’s coming,” Lu was telling her. “Your United Nations. And when that happens, we’ll really be in the soup.” Under a teetery wall of dead monitors and other stacked-up, dusty computer gear, she was laboriously positioning a heavy workbench under a hanging fluorescent light.
“Some of us are already in the soup,” Dianne responded weakly.
“You’re not mocking me, are you?”
“No, I’m mocking myself.”
“That’s good. It’s not wise to mock me.”
The table was massive, built of stout timbers and angle-irons, and even Big Lu, for all her bullish strength, grunted at her labors. She eyeballed the thing, then threw a couple of hip checks into it as a final adjustment.
Satisfied, she began rooting through an old wooden soft drink crate bursting with cables and other junk.
“Technology,” Lu said, “sets us free. That’s the point of it. Trouble is the government wants to use it to
Got to humor her, Dianne thought. Buy some time. With enough time she could work out a plan, and with a plan and some luck, she might escape.
But the thought left a hollow in the pit of her stomach. How could she escape when she was penned up like this, watched by a jailer who could break her in half with one hand? She wished to heaven she hadn’t been so headstrong. She should have taken someone into her confidence.
Someone like Evelyn...
“Bureaucrats only do what they get paid to do,” she said, trying to be conversational. “They’re lawmakers. So they make laws.”
“Yeah. Whether we need them or not.”
“Well—”
“It’s like that Disney cartoon, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. All those buckets carting water and dumping it till the entire room is flooded, not having sense enough to know enough is enough.”
“Well—”
“That’s government for you. What they’re doing with the Internet. Typical arrogant pseudo-cyberheads. The only freedom we got left, and they want to control it.”
“Then maybe we can vote them out at the next election.”
“Pooh! Complete horse potatoes! There’s too many spineless voters for that. If the government passed a law tomorrow allowing netters to be shot on sight, most people would not only accept it, they’d provide the bullets.” Lu suddenly gave a bark of triumph, dragging a rusted chain from the crate with a grinding rattle. “I knew I’d find this sucker if I kept looking for it”
Dianne eyed Lu’s find with cold misgivings. Its oxidized links left orange stains on Big Lu’s fingers.
“What... what do you want a thing like that for?”
“What do I want it for?” Big Lu nudged a camera on a tripod into Dianne’s field of view. “Sweetie, you’re gonna be famous. An international cyber-celebrity. As they say in Tinsel Town, girl, I’m gonna make you a star.”
She dropped the chain on the bench with a hideous clatter.
Finding clues among the confusion of computer files was no easy matter. Not the least of Evelyn’s problems was deciphering Dianne’s spidery printing on the labels. She removed the last diskette from the drive slot and looked at the phone. What could she tell Timothy?
“You through with that calculator yet?” Mrs. Aird shouted in crusty tones from the other room.
“I’m more than through,” Evelyn admitted, “I’m completely beat.”
“I didn’t bleat! I only asked you a question!”
“When you
Evelyn groaned and went into the kitchen.
Mrs. Aird glanced up at her. “So you
“Huh?” Evelyn didn’t comprehend what her friend was alluding to. “What chicken-scratching are you talking about?”
The magnet in Mrs. Aird’s hand was in the form of a metal clamp that had a slip of pink notepaper clipped in its jaws. Mrs. Aird gave the note a flourish and squinted at it over her glasses. “Let’s see now, if I’m deciphering correctly, it says here ‘Last Chance Computers — mark shipment fragile!’ And there’s an address scrawled here beside it...”
Evelyn’s spirits leapt as she grabbed the note. “You mean the whole time I been sweating like a computer scientist the information was stuck on the door of the fridge?”
“Seems like it.”
“I can’t believe it! It’s so... so
“That’s your opinion. There’s no such thing as an old fashioned fridge note. They’ll always be around. Just like brooms.”
“Huh?”
“Has the vacuum cleaner replaced the broom? No. Ever try to swat a mouse with a vacuum cleaner? You can’t do it. All you’d do is knock a hole in your wall. And witches can’t ride vacuum cleaners, they’d run out of electrical cord, wouldn’t they?”
Evelyn rushed to phone to read the address to Timothy. “I know where the place is,” he replied. “I’ll head straight down there.”
“Not without us!”
“But it could be dangerous—”
“I don’t care. Me and Mrs. Aird want to see this thing through.”
“Mrs. Aird?”
“A friend of mine. You’re going to love her. We’ll meet you in front of that shop in less than an hour.”
Evelyn hung up the phone and gazed at her old friend affectionately. “Mrs. Aird, find us a photo of Dianne. I know two old witches that better saddle up this minute, zoom down to the city, and fast!”
As Dianne watched, Big Lu divided the rusty chain into four equal sections with a bolt cutter — her square wrists bulging with each cut — and then secured each length to one corner of the old workbench with long and shiny self-tapping screws. The lengths of chain lay flat on the tabletop, angling in from each corner, and to the free end of each one Big Lu attached a padlock.
“Can you figure it out yet, dear?”
Dianne could figure it out all right. What Big Lu had constructed here was something one might see in an old Boris Karloff flick. There was nothing sophisticated about it; it was straight out of the Middle Ages.
It was a rack.
“You see,” Big Lu confided, “here’s how it is. There’s people on the Net who like photography. And they download it from wherever they find it. It’s what you might call a marketable item. How it works is, you put out a free sample. If it’s quality stuff, there’s some who’ll pay good money for it. Delivery can be made via snail mail, which is to say our friendly post office, or electronically over the Net. It’s done all the time, sweetie. It’s big business.”
The fullness of what Big Lu was implying was just beginning to sink in.
“My God, you don’t mean you brought me down here to...”
“I think we’re on the same wavelength, sweetie.”
“But what you’re suggesting is... I mean, what you’re intending is... But that’s sick! It’s not normal!”
“Absolutely right. But it’s profitable, sweetie. And one has to keep body and soul together, doesn’t one?” Big Lu beamed at her. Just a regular gal trying to eke out a living.
Dianne felt her strength drain away, her knees begin to fold. She saw Big Lu watching her through the links, smiling and smiling...
They did make the trip in less than an hour, Mrs. Aird driving like a madwoman, Evelyn saying, “Careful there,” and “Easy does it,” and pumping an imaginary brake pedal every minute with her foot. They made such good time they arrived only moments behind Dianne’s Internet friend Timothy, who was just climbing out of a low-slung sports car in front of the shop as they pulled up. Evelyn looked him up and down.
He had one of those youthful faces women love, fashionable clothing, and neatly groomed hair. After a hesitant greeting, Evelyn felt it necessary to explain that Dianne was much younger than her or Mrs. Aird. This out of the way, they turned to the computer store. It was a small brickfront single-story pinched between a fried chicken take-out and a toy and novelty shop. Computer-generated electric signs in the windows announced bargains in seven-segment letters: CASH BACK FOR OLD RAM! — NEW AND USED CD-ROMS! — ON-RAMP TO THE INFO HIGHWAY — COME IN FOR A TEST DRIVE!
“Well,” said Mrs. Aird, “now what? Do we go in there and hammer somebody?” Timothy glanced at her with raised eyebrows. “It’s brutal,” Mrs. Aird explained, “but we may have to do it.”
“I’ll go in alone,” Evelyn announced. “I’ll ask some questions and try to get us some answers.”
“You could also,” Mrs. Aird continued, “threaten to break someone’s legs.”
“Don’t mind her,” Evelyn told Timothy. “She’s what you might call proactive.” She looked at the novelty shop. “She’s right, though. I may need a good argument. I wonder...”
“What do you wonder?” Timothy asked.
“Oh, just something my nephew mentioned to me...”
Entering the computer shop, instead of the jangle of a bell or an electronic beep Evelyn heard a Darth Vaderlike voice announce in reverberant tones, “I sense a new disturbance in the Force, admiral...”
The place was well-stocked with computer gear, though most of it was surplus and outdated, even Evelyn could see that. Heaps of grubby old computers and keyboards, shelves lined with grimy monitors. And boxes under the display tables bulged with thick gray cables and loose circuit boards. She was wondering if the place had been cleaned once since the business opened when a pudgy man with a widow’s peak and a humorless frown shuffled into the room.
He sized her up doubtfully. “You got a grandson, lady?” And before she could respond, he added, “I order new, or sell secondhand. I can build a setup out of new or used parts or a combination of both, depends how you want to go.”
Evelyn moved closer. He didn’t look like a kidnapper. Still, you never could tell...
“I want to go,” she said, “in the direction a friend of mine went a day or so ago. I want to go
The guy glanced at the photo with reluctance. “I don’t know nothing about missing persons. But I get a fair walk-in trade. Could be she stopped by here once.”
“I’m telling you,” Evelyn insisted, her voice hard and level, “she did business here. She shipped you used equipment for some so-called charity. You should have a record of it.” The man shook his head, not taking his eyes off of her. Evelyn said, “You do keep records here, don’t you?”
“Look, lady—”
“No, you look. It isn’t just me. I can call in the police if you like and have them root through your files. Or, if you prefer it, I got a friend outside just itching to come in here and hammer somebody.”
The proprietor still made no move to cooperate.
Evelyn sighed and reached into her pocket. In the shop next door she had purchased a magnet, the biggest one they had, almost cartoonlike in size and appearance. It was a fire-engine red horseshoe that weighed two pounds if it weighed an ounce, and when she held it out over the counter, to the shopkeeper’s horror and her own surprise, a mass of screws and metal plates leaped into the air and stuck to it.
“Physics 301,” Evelyn said. “Magnetism.”
“Ye-e-es...” The shopkeeper breathed shallowly.
“And as magnets go, this here one’s pretty powerful.” As if on cue, the magnet practically tore itself from Evelyn’s grasp, leaping to the metal frame of the glass display case with a loud whack! With difficulty she pried it loose. “You realize,” she said, “what a magnet can do in a place like this?”
The shopkeeper was starting to crack, perspiration beading on his high, polished cranium. Maybe he believed she was a criminally insane person, a wild-woman capable of anything. Evelyn brandished the magnet threateningly, moving it toward a batch of CD-ROM’s. The shopkeeper gave a feeble grin. “It won’t harm CD’s.”
“It will if I whack them with it!”
The grin dissipated. “Okay, you win. I’ll try and help you. But you have to agree to keep it a secret.” He glanced at the door and then leaned towards her. “There’s this — this
“Name?”
“Calls himself Timothy.”
“Description?”
“Well, to start with, he... But I’m not really sure he’s a... Strike that. You want to know what
Evelyn frowned. It wasn’t the Timothy waiting outside with Mrs. Aird, that was for sure.
The shopkeeper threw in some background. “He asked me if I would take delivery of used computer parts for him.”
“Used parts from where?”
“He didn’t tell me that.”
“And you went along with it?”
“Why not? He said we’d share the stuff. He takes the best items, and I get the junk, but hey! — junk’s my stock in trade. Hobbyists, people who tinker, they love junk. They can’t get enough of it. And if I sell anything, I keep the proceeds.”
“Well,” Evelyn said, “so much for the poor and underprivileged.” She hardened her tone. She wanted an address. The man consulted a notebook computer and jotted one down for her.
“Now remember,” he cautioned, “this is strictly between you and me. I don’t want that character getting on my case.”
“Don’t get your mouse in a knot,” Evelyn told him. “My word is my bond.” Taking the slip from him, she added, “One other thing. This better be on the level. If not, I’m going to actually use this magnet. Not on your merchandise but on you! In unpleasant ways that you never thought possible!”
The house was an old two story wood-frame near the Route 90 freeway. Mrs. Aird and Evelyn thumped on the door while Timothy waited and watched from his car; they were disappointed when the occupant, someone they couldn’t see clearly through the window screen, told them flatly that she didn’t know anyone answering to such a description, that she was the sole occupant of the place and could not help them in any way. She shut the door firmly in their faces, and they came down the steps feeling stumped and uncertain. They met Timothy coming up the walk.
“It’s a dead end,” Evelyn told him. She could not contain her vexation. “Poor,
“Gives up easy, don’t she,” Mrs. Aird said to Timothy. She moved her head ponderously to peer back up at the place. “Maybe the woman just don’t trust strangers. They could be in there gabbing about calculators for all we know. Having a nice chitchat about Smurfs and mud rooms.”
“About what?” Timothy looked puzzled.
“Never mind,” Evelyn said, touching his arm.
She started back towards the house, her shadow thrust ahead of her by the streetlight.
“Let’s take a look around the back. Maybe there’s a separate entrance, a neighbor or something...”
Big Lu came down the stairs from the kitchen frowning and shaking her head. “Just a couple of old bags, sweetie, collecting for some charity. Probably the local seniors’ drop-dead center. Oh, pardon me, I mean the drop-in center.” She sniffed derisively. “I should keep a rottweiler by the door. I hate visitors.”
“Old bags?” A flutter of hope stirred in Dianne’s heart.
“Two old frumps, hon. I gave them the brushoff. Back to business.” Lu had been setting up parasol reflectors around the bench, and now she adjusted them, poking her tongue out the corner of her mouth. A lit computer screen dominated the room. “This won’t be your usual photography, sweetie. It’s digital. Produces images called bit maps that you can modify, store on diskette, send out over the Internet to customers half a world away.”
“Aren’t you afraid they might be intercepted?” Dianne mumbled.
She was still trying valiantly to stall for time but was too dazed by all that had happened to her to put any real effort into it.
“No problem. I use PGP encryption. That stands for Pretty Good Privacy, and it’s shareware, which means it don’t cost nothing. But it’s so good even the FBI can’t crack it.” She grinned. “Ain’t technology wonderful?”
Dianne felt her last threads of sanity drifting away. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and let out her grief out in a loud,
Judas in a jumpsuit! “What was that?” Evelyn stopped in her tracks at the side of the house and flung a restraining hand up in front of the others.
“Somebody yelled,” said Timothy.
“They sure did,” agreed Mrs. Aird. Even she had heard it. “Sounded like a bare-bottomed warbler doing a tail-plant on a prickly bush.”
“It was Dianne’s voice!” said Evelyn excitedly. “I’m sure of it!” They hurried around the corner to the rear of the house, where they found the back storm door latched against them. It was a flimsy thing; a lot of badly caulked glass in a frail latticed frame. “We need something heavy,” Evelyn said breathlessly, looking around, “to knock the window out with.”
“Look,” said Mrs. Aird, “we got something to knock the window out. Stand clear!” She took her large purse in her hands, hefted it, then brought it forward with all her force. The impact stove in the glass panes and smashed the framework into kindling.
“You heard of the Inquisition?” Big Lu asked pleasantly, making conversation as if Dianne had dropped by to obtain a passport photo.
She performed a few last adjustments to her photographic setup, then came towards the chain link gate. “There was this guy Torquemada back then, and it’s too bad he didn’t have a digital camera setup. The things he did! You wouldn’t believe it. There’s folks would give thousands to see the stills of it, and I’m not exaggerating.”
“What... what kind of things did he do?” Dianne asked hesitantly.
“I was just about to show you.” Big Lu unfastened the loose bracelet of the handcuffs from the links, then opened the gate. “It’ll be a reenactment. Come on out of there, sweetie.”
But Dianne could not make her limbs obey. She stayed huddled against the damp fieldstone, trembling uncontrollably. “Snap out of it!” Big Lu ordered. “Time is money!”
“I c-can’t...”
“Oh, yes, you c-can!” returned Big Lu, mocking her stammer. “And you better d-do it, too, or else!”
She took a menacing step forward, then stopped. There had been a crash upstairs, the tinkle of glass hitting the floor, and Big Lu’s eyes flew wide open.
She tipped her head back and stared upwards as if she could see through the floor joists.
“What the devil—”
The tinkle was followed by the sudden tread of footsteps across the floor of the kitchen, and then the clump of feet on the stairs. Dianne gasped when the sturdy frame of Evelyn Culver hove into view, followed by Mrs. Aird. Her friends wore expressions of curiosity, concern, and wrath. And then a third person appeared. She recognized him immediately. It was the handsome young man she had seen in the park!
Evelyn put her hands on her hips and threw Big Lu a scalding look.
“So you didn’t know who we were talking about, huh?”
Big Lu seemed stunned. She was quivering with rage. “You-you broke into my
“Wow!” Evelyn said, “what a grasp of the obvious.” She gave Dianne an encouraging grin and a waggle of fingers. “Hi, kiddo! We’ll take you home now, if that’s all right.”
If it was all right? It was more than all right! Dianne’s strength returned magically. She would have dashed up the stairs if Big Lu hadn’t resecured the flap of chain link that imprisoned her.
“Not so fast,” Big Lu said, recovering a little. “I got something to say about this.”
“No,” replied Evelyn, “you don’t. You’ve said and done enough already.” She stepped forward. “Move aside. We’re taking our friend, and we’re leaving.”
“I don’t think so,” Big Lu said.
Evelyn produced her magnet. “Do you know what this is?”
However, this time her threat didn’t have the desired effect. Instead of being cowed, Big Lu suddenly threw herself forward like a linebacker, striking Evelyn broadside with forearms and elbows. The magnet flew from her grasp and skittered across the floor while she herself staggered backwards and sat down heavily on the floor with a grunt.
Big Lu loomed above her. A foot-long screwdriver had appeared in her hand.
“You dare threaten
“What’s going on? What’s the blathering about?” It was Mrs. Aird.
Evelyn blinked.
Her friend had procured an axe from behind the furnace where a number of garden implements were stored. She was hefting it with the confidence of a seasoned north woods lumberjack.
“What does she think she’s going to do with that?” scoffed Big Lu. “Chop my head off? I don’t think so!”
“You want me to chop something?” asked Mrs. Aird. “That’s fine with me. What do you want me to chop first?”
“You’re bluffing,” Big Lu said. Then she suddenly went pale with alarm. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
Mrs. Aird had raised the axe and now brought it down briskly on a spare computer screen, the jarring blow turning it into broken glass, splintered plastic, and scattered electronic components.
Big Lu screamed.
She lunged at Mrs. Aird, but Evelyn, still sitting on the floor, caught her ankle and sent her sprawling.
“What’s she hollering about?” Mrs. Aird nonchalantly pounded an ink-jet printer into fragments. “Tell her to speak up. There’s a fair bit of noise in here.” She flattened an outboard modem.
“Stop her! Somebody stop her!” Big Lu shrieked.
She was trying valiantly to regain her feet, but each time, Evelyn pulled her down again. In the confusion Timothy slipped past them both and lifted the chain link from its fastenings. Gently he helped Dianne up the stairs.
“I’ll just keep at it till she tells me to stop,” said Mrs. Aird, stepping into the soft radiance of the computer on the desk.
“Bad investment,” commented Evelyn. “I think it’s about to depreciate.” Mrs. Aird swung the axe. There was a delayed explosion this time, a shower of whirling, scintillating sparks, then a cloud of gray-white smoke, and finally a dance of fluid bluish flame licking up from the machine’s wrecked innards.
Mrs. Aird rested on the axe a moment, shaking her head and clucking her tongue.
“This,” she said, “is what happens when your high-tech and your low-tech meet.”
The room was a shambles. Smashed equipment, broken plastic, and glass shards lay everywhere. A thin smoke haze and a stink of scorched plastic filled the air.
“Hey. Where’s Dianne?” asked Evelyn, glancing around suddenly-
“Timothy took her out,” said Mrs. Aird, her hearing unexpectedly keen.
“Thank heavens.” Evelyn bent over Big Lu who was curled up on the floor wracked with great frame-shaking sobs. “All right, you! Don’t carry on. This is nothing compared to what the police will do to you. They’ve been trying for weeks to get a line on the Internet Predator.”
“The what?” Big Lu blew her nose on her shirtfront.
“Don’t play dumb. You’re a famous killer.”
“And you’re crazy. I never killed anybody.”
“You must have. It’s in the newspapers.”
“It’s not me they’re talking about. I don’t have a clue what happened to those other girls. I didn’t even get to meet them. I
Evelyn snorted. “You expect us to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth. Somebody got to them first.”
Something in her voice made Evelyn hesitate. “But who? How would anyone else know?”
“We’re talking Internet, lady. It’s like CB radio. Anyone could have seen our arrangements. The Net is dangerous. Or didn’t you know that?”
“Oh my God,” said Evelyn to Mrs. Aird with a sudden intake of breath, hearing her own admonitions thrown back at her. “That’s right! That’s exactly right!”
And she made for the stairs at a lumbering gallop.
Timothy was so very gentle, so kind and considerate. He helped her into his car, a low-slung sports model, one with darkened windows that were impossible to see through, then he got in himself, slammed the door, and locked it. They were alone. He held her hand.
“Did that madwoman hurt you?”
“No. I’m all right — I think.”
“I saw you at the bridge,” he said.
“I saw you, too.”
“I knew it was you. At least I thought it was. But then you suddenly rushed off so fast, I couldn’t get to my car in time. You got clean away on me.”
“How... how did you find me, then?”
“Persistence.”
“You mean you wanted to?”
“I
Dianne was touched. She felt the trickle of tears on her cheeks. She fumbled for a tissue, automatically reaching for the glove compartment release.
“Don’t do that!” Timothy suddenly blurted, thrusting out a hand to stop her. But he was too late. The glove compartment opened, and two large wooden spools fell out, connected by thick blue twine.
Dianne stared. She rubbed her eyes. Tried to make sense out of what she was seeing. Then things clicked into place. A pall of fear dropped over her.
He returned her gaze evenly.
“I had hoped for a more romantic spot, but now I guess I’ll have to take care of you right here.” He yanked the spools from her hands and threw her back against the seat. A fresh wave of emotion rose up and engulfed Dianne. All the fear, all the terror, all the anger and hurt inside her came together like a fast-moving stormfront. A mental tempest. She brought her hand up in one swift motion, feeling the weight of the cuffs that still hung from her wrist. She swung them hard, hearing the dull thump as they connected with her assailant’s head. He yelled with pain. She struck again and again till he fell away from her. Then her door was suddenly jerked open, and Evelyn Culver was peering in.
“Well,” she said, taking in the scene. “Looks like your f-2-f didn’t go so well.”
The four of them sat around Evelyn’s table trying to keep their minds on their cards but not having much success at it. Evelyn was especially agitated. It had been a shock to realize that she had practically befriended a killer. Chief Robideau had explained the details, passing on information received from the city police.
Timothy’s real name was Harold Kurtz. He’d been tracking Big Lu’s assignations with the clear intention of striking first. He had meant to confuse investigators, and it had been working. His attacks had naturally been attributed to Heloise Walker as the cops gradually closed in.
“How was I supposed to know who the real murderer was?” she demanded earnestly. “He didn’t look like a murderer, did he?”
“What’s a murderer look like?” asked Winona Delmare. “I mean when he’s not actually murdering people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well then, stop blaming yourself. That madwoman
“Who’s deaf?” Mrs. Aird flung down a club.
“Not deaf, dear.
“I heard you the first time. I’m
Evelyn sighed. “I admit I learned something. Dianne was able to take care of herself after all.”
Dianne shrugged. She still had a pale look about her. “I guess that’s true. But I still should’ve listened to you. But I learned something, too. That’s why I sold my computer.”
“You what?” Evelyn mouth fell open. “Who’d you sell it to?”
Dianne raised her chin slowly and looked across the table. Following her gaze, Evelyn suddenly sucked in her breath.
“Oh no!”
Winona Delmare said, “It’s fascinating. Last night I found this chat room all about insects, and I learned about this spider — which isn’t really an insect — that doesn’t spin its own web, but preys on the bugs trapped in other spiders’ webs. And I met the nicest person. A real spider expert. And the two of us are planning to have dinner together one night...”
It began over lunch with Lourdes Delgado. Over enchiladas. When she started, I was more interested in looking at the lovely Lourdes and listening to the lilt of her voice, but before I reached my second enchilada, she definitely had me hooked.
“The woman simply vanished. No one has seen or heard from her in almost four weeks.”
“Are the New Mexico police still working on it?” I asked.
“I suppose they are,” Lourdes said, “but they don’t seem to be getting much of anywhere. Nothing from the hospitals or planes, trains, buses. They even checked all the taxi companies. No dead body has turned up.”
The last line sounded rather brutal for Lourdes, necessary as it was. “You mean all the homicide victims since then have been identified?” I said.
“How long was the woman in Albuquerque before she vanished?”
“She arrived on a Sunday. By Wednesday the hotel was aware there was something wrong. Her bed hadn’t been slept in on Tuesday night, and no one saw her after that.”
“Are you a friend of her daughter or just an acquaintance?” I asked.
“She works for us part-time at the office. She asked me to recommend a private investigator if I knew of any.”
“How old is the woman — what was her name? — who disappeared?”
“Nancy Canales. She’s forty-one. She teaches in the Astronomy Department at the university”
By now I was so interested I’d stopped eating. Lourdes sipped at her beer with lovely bps.
“So, as I understand it, she decides to take a week’s vacation in New Mexico, flies to Albuquerque, and disappears, probably on her third day there. The police have no firm leads, and her daughter wants to hire me to go up there and sniff around.”
“Actually, I don’t know if she can afford you,” Lourdes said. “She did mention that she and her mother have a joint bank account.”
“How old is the daughter?”
“Haidée is twenty-one, I think. A pretty, sensible sort of girl.”
“I’m not all that busy right now,” I said. “I’m willing to give it a few days. Tell her I’ll do it for the expenses of the trip.”
“You could look on it as a working vacation,” she said. “Have you ever been to New Mexico?”
“No. I was thinking the same thing. Have her come to see me.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible. This afternoon?”
“I’ll send her over when she shows up at two,” Lourdes said.
We pushed aside what was left of our cold enchiladas and ordered coffee.
Haidée was well named: lovely, dark-eyed, slim and curvy at the same time. She made me pop out of my desk chair. She spoke a rapid, educated Spanish, and I soon learned that she was a senior at the university.
After the usual opening amenities, which included offering her some of Maria’s macho coffee, I got down to cases: “What possible reason can you see for your mother’s disappearance?”
“I think something happened to her,” Haidée replied. “Something very bad. Or I would have heard from her by now.”
“Does she have enemies?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“So why should ‘something bad’ have happened to her?”
“There are all sorts of horrible people out there,” Haidée explained, making me feel like an idiot. “Murderers, rapists, crackpots, drug addicts. These days you don’t have to have enemies.”
“The common thread to most of the crime on this island is drugs,” I said. “Could that possibly have
She shook her head wearily. “I believe she smoked some pot in college twenty or so years ago. All the activist students did.”
“So your mother was a sixties rebel.”
“More early seventies, but yes. She demonstrated against the ROTC on campus and against the United States presence here in general.”
I recalled those days clearly. I had been young then myself. I’d seen the shoo touts at the University of Puerto Rico on television.
“Do you have a photo of your mother?”
She had a wallet bulging with photos, and the one she handed to me showed a woman who looked about forty with short, dark (dyed?) hair and a face that had once been attractive but had been hardened by the twenty years since her youthful activist days. You would never mistake it for a happy face.
“I’ll need this,” I said. She nodded. She was dabbing at her adorable nose with a Kleenex.
“You have a cold?” I asked commiseratively.
“No—” snuffle “—an allergy.”
“What are you allergic to?”
“I don’t know. Everything.”
I swung back to the subject. “Tell me what you’ve learned from the police.”
She reeled it off rapidly:
“Well, my mother did get on the flight to Albuquerque, and she did arrive there and check in at the hotel, El Descanso, on the eastern edge of town. She signed the registration card; she had a reservation for seven nights. The third night she was seen leaving with a man about her own age. No one knew how she met him. She didn’t sleep in the hotel that night apparently. No one saw her after that. The police were not able to identify the man she left with.”
She paused as if trying to recall whether she’d omitted anything.
“You assume this man is connected with your mother’s disappearance.”
“It certainly looks that way,” Haidée said. She tugged out a fresh Kleenex.
“Your father is deceased?”
“No. He and my mother divorced when I was four.”
“Do you keep in touch with him?” I asked more out of curiosity than anything else.
“He works in Chicago now. I see him very occasionally.”
“Does he know your mother’s disappeared?”
“I wouldn’t know. I guess not.”
“You have no brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
I pushed out of my chair and extracted the office bottle of Palo Viejo from the filing cabinet. “I’ll leave tomorrow,” I said.
“I do hope you don’t drink too much,” she remarked baldly.
“No,” I said, “just enough.”
That cynicism seemed to satisfy her. I offered her a drink but she refused. She said she had to go back to work at Lourdes’ office.
The next day I flew from Puerto Rico to Houston, sat around the airport for two hours, and then went on to Albuquerque, arriving near evening. The sky over the Albuquerque airport looked like something by El Greco when he was in an evil mood, but it didn’t rain.
I’d had my travel agency book me into El Descanso, the same hotel Nancy Canales had stayed at. The agency had also arranged for a rental car at the airport. Following the directions of the guy at the rental desk, I drove north and east towards my hotel on Central Avenue. My first impressions were that Albuquerque was built very low — even compared to San Juan — and spread out. All the architecture seemed to be tan-colored and in the adobe style of the Indian pueblos. I wondered how they enforced their city planning laws; in Puerto Rico we couldn’t even enforce our traffic laws.
El Descanso was also built like an Indian pueblo, right down to the jutting beam ends. It shone almost red in the huge setting sun. Its lobby was rustic — Indian rugs and sombreros on the walls — and cosy. Behind a dark wooden counter a businesslike young man took my information and gave me my key. It was an electronic key.
I’d eaten on the plane, and I wasn’t hungry. After a shower and change of clothes, I went downstairs to the lobby to see how they reacted to private detectives investigating the disappearance of one of their guests.
The businesslike young man was all alone. He looked at me as if he was anxious to solve whatever problems I might have. I told him what I was and why I was there. He insisted on seeing my P.I. license, which I showed him, along with the photo of Nancy Canales.
To save time for both of us, I told him what I already knew. He seemed nervous now, as if he wished for guidance from some higher authority, like God.
“I remember the woman,” he said. “I checked her in. As I recall, she arrived about the same time of day you did.”
“Did you notice anything at all unusual about her?”
“No, nothing except that she was traveling alone. Not many people vacation alone.”
“How did you know she was on vacation?”
“She told me. She asked me about the sights to see. I gave her several brochures.” He chin-pointed to a rack of colorful reading matter against the wall.
“Did you see much of her?” I asked.
He wagged his head negatively-
“Did you see her with anyone else?”
“No, but Sonia saw her with that man the night she disappeared. I believe he was waiting for her just outside. Sonia told the police all about it as you seem to know.”
“What did the man look like?”
“She said he was in his late thirties maybe, trim, dressed like a cowboy.”
“What kind of car did they get into?”
“The police asked the same question. Sonia didn’t notice. She just passed them on her way in.”
I worked on him for a few minutes more, but that was all he knew. He said I could talk to Sonia when she came in at noon tomorrow. She would normally be around now, but her husband was in the hospital. Gallstones.
I thanked him for all this information and strolled back to my room.
The mysterious man. Did Nancy Canales know him before she came to Albuquerque, or did she meet him here? A middle-age sexual fling? It sure looked that way. Maybe the mysterious cowboy had nothing at all to do with her disappearance.
I switched on the TV and watched half of an awful movie before I fell asleep.
The next morning found me down at the police department, Missing Persons Section. A plainclothes cop there condescended to talk to me in spite of the fact that I was a P.I. from Puerto Rico. His name was Bradley, and Nancy Canales’s disappearance was one of his files.
“So how can you help me, Mr. Bannon?” he said.
“I was kind of hoping you could help
He smiled. He had a wicked, long-time-cop smile. “We’re not here to assist private investigations,” he said.
“I’m working for the missing woman’s daughter,” I said. “You can imagine how she feels.”
“I don’t get paid to imagine,” Bradley said, “I get paid to move files. This file is here because the case is still open. I would like to move it over there—” he indicated a row of filing cabinets “—where we keep the cases that have been closed.”
“Each file is a human being,” I said. “More than one human being.”
“I don’t get paid to think about human beings,” Bradley said.
“The girl is only twenty-one,” I said. “A college student. Her parents have been divorced since she was four. Her mother’s all she’s got.”
Bradley made a tsk-tsk sound with his thin lips. “You’ll have me in tears in a minute.”
“Oh hell,” I said. “I’m on my way out.”
“Good,” Bradley said. “You have a nice day.”
I turned back. “If I do turn up anything on this disappearance, you can be damned sure I’m not going to inform you of it.” I added another pungent pair of words as I slammed the door.
People turned their heads to follow me down the hall. They didn’t seem surprised at my state of mind.
Over lunch I got an idea — a long shot. What if Sonia hadn’t noticed a car because they didn’t get into a car? I pointed my rented Chevy back to the hotel and parked it in the lot. There was a woman behind the reception desk; however, she told me that she wasn’t Sonia, she was Alicia. Sonia’s husband was being operated on at the hospital, and she was still there. There are some days...
I walked out into the street and surveyed busy Central Avenue. On my side of the street, stores, parking lots, another hotel — nothing that looked likely — but across the street were two bars and a Greek restaurant named The Delphi. I headed for the nearer of the bars.
It was deep and narrow, made two storied by balconies along two of the walls. The bar itself was a small horseshoe with about a million glasses hanging upside-down. Most of the place was tables, only three of which were occupied by couples nibbling each other’s earlobes. I grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered a margarita straight up from a burly guy who could have been Puerto Rican but was probably Mexican. I tried my Spanish on him, telling him I was from San Juan.
He seemed interested.
I took out my card and handed it to him along with the photograph of Nancy Canales.
“Carlos Bannon,” he grinned at the name, then dutifully studied the photo of the woman. “She’s the one who disappeared about a month ago. The police said she was Puerto Rican.”
“The police were here?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t help them. They also had her picture.”
“I knew it was a thousand-to-one shot.”
He grinned in agreement, then said, “You could ask
“Didn’t the police talk to her?”
“No. She was off duty.”
“Two Miller drafts and two margaritas on the rocks,” she said as she walked up.
The bartender started bar-tending. I introduced myself to the girl and went through my preliminaries again. I showed her the photograph. She almost knocked me off my feet when she said, “Sure, I remember her. I remember her face.”
“Was she alone?” I inquired deviously.
“No, she was with a guy — redneck type. I’ve seen him before. He runs a rattlesnake farm for tourists somewhere north of town.”
Jesus Christ, the woman was a gold mine.
“What’s his name?”
“He told me it was Jeb.”
“What else do you know about Jeb?”
“Not much. He’s only been in a couple of times. He’s got this quirk of always wearing yellow glasses — you know, the kind they use for shooting. He wears yellow glasses and jeans and cowboy shirts.”
“How did they behave that night?”
“Like everyone else. They sat over there—” she pointed to a remote corner of the balcony. “Quiet. I assumed they were pretty close.”
“Why didn’t you give this information to the police?” I asked.
“I didn’t know they were looking for her.”
“Don’t you read the newspapers?”
“No. Too depressing. I don’t watch the news on TV either.”
Actually I didn’t know if anything had appeared in the local papers. I said, quite honestly, “I’m surprised you remember her.”
“I remember her because she looked so unhappy. In that respect they weren’t like the other couples. Just look at that photo—” She glanced down at it. “She looks like a woman who’s been out in the rain for a long time.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “I thought so, too. How do I get to this rattlesnake farm?”
“I couldn’t say. I just know it’s north, off I-25.”
“What’s it called?”
“I couldn’t tell you that either.”
“Well anyway, you’ve been a tremendous help,” I said. “A bright girl like you should be doing something better than waiting on tables.”
“I will be, one day. I’m studying drama at UNM,” she said. “I’m going to be an actress.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Milly. Milly Taber.”
“I’ll remember it when you become famous,” I said.
“I hope you don’t have to wait too long,” Milly Taber said.
I crossed the street to the hotel and found the same woman, Alicia, sitting behind the desk. She was working on something and did a fine job of ignoring me. Her long black hair needed a good combing.
“I’m looking for a snake farm,” I said.
“Isn’t everybody,” she said.
“Seriously. A rattlesnake farm north of town somewhere off I-25.”
“I don’t know much about snake farms,” she said. She had eyes that reminded you of Anna Magnani in old black and white films. “Maybe Sonia would know about snake farms, but Sonia isn’t here today. She took off at the last minute.”
“Have you got a phone book I could look at?”
Her Latin eyes smoldered as she hefted one onto the counter.
Possibly it was listed in there, but I didn’t find it. I hadn’t the slightest idea what to look under. But I’m a private eye, little problems like this don’t deter me. I thanked Alicia for the phone book and went out to my rental car in the lot. There was a roadmap in the glove compartment that got me onto 1-40 and then onto I-25 north.
As I drove out of town, the land grew arid and gullied, with occasional stark hills. There was some brush and dry streambeds but no trees. Signs indicated there were Indian lands everywhere — there also seemed to be gambling casinos everywhere. I stopped at gas stations to inquire about rattlesnake farms.
Above San Felipe Pueblo, I found a kid at a gas station who knew where it was. He directed me to turn left at a road that led to Cochiti Pueblo. I’d see the snake place about a mile down on the left side.
Right after pulling out of the gas station I saw the first sign advertising the “Don’t Miss It!” snake farm. After the turn there were three smaller signs. The kid’s directions were good: it was almost exactly a mile down the side road. A four-foot-long red arrow directed me under a massive wooden sign that said Rattlesnake Farm and below that, A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EXPERIENCE. The sign was flanked by two American flags. I pulled up in front of still another adobe-looking building that sat behind a split-rail fence separating it from the parking area. Only two other cars were parked in the dusty lot, an old Ford and a red pickup. A man in cowboy clothes was leaning against the door-jamb of the building sipping a beer. Unless he’d grown a potbelly and added twenty years in a month, this wasn’t the man I was looking for.
I approached Potbelly, his straw hat low over his eyes, and asked him about the man I wanted. “You police?” he asked.
“No.”
“Insurance investigator? Something like that?”
“Nope.”
I didn’t feel like being cooperative.
“Well, what are you?” he said finally.
“A friend of a friend.”
“That’s pretty damn vague, friend.” He crushed his empty beer can and tossed it expertly into a nearby plastic trash receptacle. “Come on in,” he said.
I followed his bluejeaned bottom into the building. It was about eighty by thirty feet and all one room. Along the sides and in two rows down the center were many glass cases full of snakes. To the right of the entrance was an old slant-topped desk and behind it a chair that leaned back against the wall. On the chair lounged a long-legged type in tan boots, jeans, and a plaid cowboy shirt. He rested a scuffed high-heeled boot against the desk. Next to the boot sat a plastic ashtray holding a burning cigarette and next to that a brown felt cowboy hat.
This one was wearing yellow shooter’s glasses.
“Ticket?” he asked.
“Actually I came to talk to you,” I said.
“Buy a ticket,” he suggested.
“How much is it?”
“Only two fifty.”
I gave him the money, and he looked friendlier. “Now, what did you want to talk about?”
“A woman you met in Albuquerque about a month ago. Her name was Nancy Canales.”
“I don’t think I know her,” he said. He had dry, worn-looking skin. His eyes were the kind of washed-out blue you see in drunkards and the people who run Nazi concentration camps. He got up and wandered around the desk. He was several inches taller than me.
“Why’m I supposed to know this woman?”
“Some people saw you meet her outside the Descanso Hotel on May twenty-second. A waitress in a bar across the street from the hotel also saw her with you the same night.”
He wandered along the cases of rattlesnakes against the wall, and I wandered after him. I noticed he had a ten inch hunting knife, with a nice stacked leather handle, on his belt. His fat friend had taken the chair behind the desk and was watching us.
“Why are you interested?” Yellow Glasses asked.
“She has disappeared. Her daughter hired me to find her.”
I showed him my license. It was in Spanish, of course, and I doubted he could read Spanish.
“Puerto Rico,” he said. “I’ve never been to Puerto Rico.”
I said, “She came here on vacation — or so she said — was seen with you that Tuesday night, and wasn’t seen again after that. It doesn’t look good for you. I’d hate to have to go to the police.”
He pointed to a huge brown rattler that stuck out its tongue at me. “That’s our biggest,” he said. “He’s a prize. And so’s this next one.” He moved to the following case, which contained, of all things, a white rattler. “Albino. Very rare.”
He shot his spent cigarette out the door and lit another from a dented Zippo.
“We’ve got every kind of rattlesnake here. Big ones, little ones, local ones, ones from far away — even foreign ones. Yes, this is a rattlesnake lover’s paradise.”
“I didn’t know there were rattlesnake lovers.”
“You want me to take one out?” he offered.
I declined.
Yellow Glasses took a deep drag on his cigarette. “What’s the story on this woman?”
“As far as I know, there is no story. She came up for a vacation, and she just disappeared. Nobody knows why, how, or even exactly when.”
“You have yourself quite a job, Mr...”
“Bannon.”
“I’m Jeb McGrath. That there’s Carvy.”
“Is that his first name or his last name?”
“He’s just Carvy.”
Carvy tipped his sweat-stained straw hat with his forefinger.
“Look, Mr. Bannon, let’s just lay out the cards,” Jeb McGrath said. He looked more like he was talking to the yellow rattlesnake in a case in front of him than to me. “I met this Nancy in Old Town on Tuesday afternoon. Frankly, I was trying to pick somebody up. She was a little older than I was looking for, but she was receptive. I spent some time talking to her and arranged to meet her again at her hotel that night. We went to the bar you were talking about and had a few drinks. That loosened her up. I suggested we go out to my place and have a few more drinks. She was in the mood, and we drove to my house out near Sandia. It’s a small place but I like it — private, even cosy, you might say. She stayed overnight, and I drove her back to town in the morning. She asked me to let her off at the Indian Cultural Center. That’s the last I saw of her. It was what you’d call a one-night stand.”
“Well, it’s all very neat,” I said. “Even plausible. But unfortunately you were the last one to see her alive.”
He turned on me suddenly like a rattlesnake. “I can’t help that.”
“You’re not helping
“I can’t help that either,” he said evenly.
“What do you think happened to her?”
“Maybe she wanted to disappear.”
“I doubt it. At least, I haven’t run into anything to suggest it.”
“Maybe she had an accident. Maybe she fell into the Rio Grande. How the hell should I know?”
“You didn’t try to make contact with her again?”
“She wasn’t attractive enough for that,” he said crudely.
I’d got as much as I was going to get out of this cowpoke. Unless I turned him over to the police. But the police meant Bradley on this case, and Bradley wasn’t going to give me the time of day so why the hell should I help him out? Screw Bradley, and screw Jeb McGrath. I told him I’d run out of questions. Maybe I’d get in touch with him again. He released a stream of smoke through his nostrils and nodded.
I touched my nonexistent hat to Carvy as I walked out the door into the bright sunlight. They both watched from the shadow of the doorway as I drove away.
They didn’t seem to do a whole lot of business.
It was getting near cocktail time. I put the car in the hotel lot and went back to the bar across the street. For the first time I noticed it was called Gringo’s. The burly Mexican bartender was polishing glasses. The same barstool was vacant, and I ordered another margarita straight up.
The bartender asked what I’d been up to.
“I talked to the guy who was here with the woman who disappeared.”
“How did you find him?”
I spotted the blonde, Milly, chatting with some customers at a table. The place was much more crowded than earlier. “Your waitress put me onto him. She told me he ran a rattlesnake farm.”
“Interesting line of work.”
“He wasn’t much help. Claims she was a one-night stand — he never saw her again.”
The bartender studied a champagne glass he was burnishing. Milly came over with an order; she smiled hello.
“Hello yourself,” I smiled back. “I found him.”
“Did it help?”
I gave her a rundown of our conversation. “The guy’s a bit too macho to be real,” I said. “Yellow glasses, rattlesnakes, a ten inch belt knife — it’s a little too much.”
“You should hear his politics,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“He downs a few and starts on politics: the liberals, the foreigners, the atheists — hates just about everybody. Hates the government. Talks about how he’s gonna buy a place in the hills and five his own godgiven way.”
“Sounds like a survivalist.”
“Sounds like the Ku Klux Klan sometimes,” Milly said.
“You think politics has something to do with this?” I asked her.
She mused a moment. “I doubt it.”
“Well, the woman who disappeared has left-wing politics, if anything,” I said.
“For sure
“Pretty girl,” I said to the bartender.
“Damn right,” he said. “And smart, too.”
“Too bad I’m not twenty years younger,” I said.
“Me too,” he said.
We both sank into self-pitying silence.
I wanted to make a long-distance phone call, but it was too late to do that — it would have to wait till morning. Instead, after showering, I went down to the hotel lobby to ask about a good steak restaurant. The businesslike young man who had checked me in was back. He gave me the name of one close to the Sandia tramway “that people seem to like.”
I drove north on Tramway Road. The restaurant was farther out than I had thought. Soon there was windswept flatland to my left and the Sandia range climbing to my right. The sun was setting in a wash of pink and orange. I saw few side roads. One of them had a sign for a winery. At that point, with no other cars nearby, a blue pickup pulled up rapidly on my left to pass. It had the kind of almost-black tinted glass that you see in Puerto Rico and that frequently bodes no good. As I watched him pass, his passenger window cranked halfway down, and in my usual paranoia I thought I saw a pistol barrel over the edge. Then I heard the two shots and felt a sharp stinging on my left cheek. I ducked and slammed on the brakes and swore all at the same time. The car careened wildly to the right and came to a stop with two wheels in a drainage ditch.
I looked up. The blue pickup was speeding off. There were two bullet holes in my left and right front windows. The windows were cobwebbed into a thousand sections. It had been a miracle that I hadn’t been hit. I felt my face and winced; the hand I took away was bloody.
A car that had been far back was now coming to a stop behind me. Another was pulling up across the road. The two drivers, both men, got out to see how I was. One of them had a telephone and called the cops.
It took an hour and a half to talk to the cops and to get the car pulled out of the ditch. Except for the two windows, the Chevy seemed to be all right. There were some small scratches on its right side. The cops said they’d like me to come in the next day and give them a statement about what had happened. I said fine.
Having lost my appetite, I drove back to the hotel. It was close to nine o’clock. I had one stroke of luck: there was no one at the front desk for the moment. I slunk up the carpeted stairs and down the hallway to my room.
My face didn’t look as bad as I’d been imagining. There were tiny fragments of glass in my left cheek, but they would eventually work their way out. The blood was in those spots, but there was no large wound. After some washing up I’d look as good as someone with incipient plague.
I tried watching TV, but that didn’t work. You can’t watch TV after someone has tried to kill you. Sleeping isn’t that easy either.
After a hearty breakfast at a pancake house I returned to El Descanso and dialed Puerto Rico long distance.
He came on sounding affable — he always sounded affable. Which seemed strange to me for a guy who’d seen three marriages collapse on him. “Federal Bureau of Investigation — Evans speaking.”
“This is Carlos Bannon, Bill.”
“Hey, Carlos. It’s been a long time.”
“A few years in fact. That case where the clothes were soaked with cocaine.”
Bill Evans chuckled. “I remember it well,” he said. “Hey, listen to this one. A guy says to another guy, What do you think of this cocker spaniel I got for my wife?’ The other guy answers, ‘That’s not a bad trade.’ ”
He guffawed at his own joke. As I said, three divorces.
“That’s a good one,” I said.
“You call for any special reason, Carlos?” he asked after he’d recovered.
“I’m calling from Albuquerque. I want you to do something very unkosher for me: to let me know if you have a file on a woman I’m looking for up here — a missing person case.”
“What the hell,” he said jovially. “Give me the name. If there’s anything you’re not supposed to know, I won’t tell you.”
“Fair enough. Her name is Nancy Canales. How long will it take you to check?”
“We have computers now, buddy. I’ll get back to you before lunch.”
Puerto Rico time was two hours later than Albuquerque.
I thanked Evans, gave him the hotel number, and rang off.
It took him longer than I’d expected, but eventually the phone beside my bed rang. “She may be a live one,” Evans’ voice said. “We believe she’s affiliated with a leftist
“I’ve heard of them. A couple of terrorist incidents.”
“That’s right. Not a big group. Our informant said she was their accountant.”
“Do terrorist groups have accountants?”
“I guess so,” he chuckled. “She teaches at the University of Puerto Rico.”
“Has she ever been picked up?”
“Nope. She’s never been connected with anything specific. You don’t pick up people because of their beliefs.”
Thanks for the lesson in civil rights, Bill. “Look,” I said, “do you know any agent here in Albuquerque that I could maybe talk to?”
“As a matter of fact I do. I met him a few months ago in D.C. We had some drinks together.”
He was silent a moment. Leafing through his book of phone numbers?
“Here he is: Daniel Serpe. I’ve got his office number and his home.”
“Give me both.”
I jotted down the numbers on a tiny pad thoughtfully provided by El Descanso.
“Thanks a million, Bill.”
“You owe me one,” he said. “Let me know how things work out.”
“I’ll do that.”
I put down the receiver and wondered if I should call Daniel Serpe before going to the police station or afterwards. I decided to do it afterwards.
Writing the statement was a formality, and the cops knew it as well as I did. They weren’t going to find those bullets in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, and I hadn’t got the Ecense number of the truck — which was probably a phony anyway. But I went through the motions, and they smiled and thanked me, and I found a public phone and called Daniel Serpe’s office number.
He remembered Bill Evans and suggested that we meet somewhere for lunch — did I know Albuquerque? No, I said, I didn’t. Then I remembered the steak restaurant I’d almost made it to and suggested that. He said fine, he’d be there at one o’clock.
The air conditioning in the car didn’t seem much affected by the holes in the windows. I couldn’t lower them because they’d fall to pieces. I had to close the door gingerly.
El Vaquero was a large, very Southwestern looking place with roughhewn wooden tables and a tiny stage for a danceband. There was no band at one in the afternoon but a surprising number of people, mostly tourists and business types. Daniel Serpe was waiting for me on a sofa just inside the entrance next to a “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign.
He was a middle-aged man with distinguished looking silver temples that matched the conspicuous Indian-silver ring on his left hand. He wore a well-cut grey suit and a necktie that must have cost forty dollars. He appeared to be sucking something — which I later learned was a Tic Tac. A woman in an ankle-length suede skirt and a Jane Russell blouse seated us in a booth next to the windows.
“What happened to your face?” Daniel Serpe asked.
“Someone took two shots at me yesterday evening. It was a very close thing.”
He sucked his Tic Tac. “Do you think he was trying to kill you or just scare you?”
“Kill me.”
“He’s a bad shot.”
“We were both moving, and he was using a pistol. I was just lucky.”
“What are you involved in, Bannon?”
“I thought it was a missing person case; now I’m not so sure.”
“Fill me in.”
We ordered lunch, and while we waited for the food to arrive, I talked. I didn’t leave anything out.
“At this point it doesn’t make sense to me,” I concluded. “If Nancy Canales is connected with a leftist Puerto Rican independence group and Jeb McGrath is possibly associated with some right-wing militia group — I’m just surmising—”
“He is,” Serpe interrupted. “We know all about him. They call themselves the American Eagles.”
“Well then, what could they possibly have to do with each other? I understand he hates foreigners.”
“They have one thing in common,” Serpe said. “They’re both militant against the U.S. Government.”
“But from completely different sides of the political spectrum.”
“There’s an angle you haven’t thought of,” Serpe suggested. “These groups here have tremendous stockpiles of weapons. They are easy to come by.”
“I noticed a lot of gun shops along Central Avenue,” I said.
“Right. So it’s not guns they need, it’s cash. Guns bring high prices when they’re purchased by groups that find them hard to come by.”
“Our gun-control laws are as tough as New York’s,” I said.
“There you have a possible reason for their meeting,” said Serpe. He looked quite pleased with himself.
The waitress brought our food. I’d ordered a steak sandwich after my big breakfast, but Daniel Serpe had ordered a meal large enough for two. How did he keep that trim figure?
“It still doesn’t make sense to me,” I said. “You don’t kill a person who’s here to buy guns from you.”
“Perhaps he took the money and then killed her to keep the weapons,” Serpe proposed. “Perhaps he just didn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut.”
“If that happened, she was pretty stupid,” I said. “And she’s a professor at the university.”
Agent Serpe shrugged.
“Maybe Jeb McGrath’s only connection with her
Not even a shrug to that one. “This steak’s very good,” Serpe said. “I’ll put this lunch on my expense account. Do you like jazz?”
“What?”
“I was wondering if you like jazz. I’m a collector, mostly bebop. It’s my passion.”
“Yes, I like jazz,” I said, “but I’d rather talk about Nancy Canales’s disappearance right now.”
“What more is there to say?” Serpe said. “Either I’m right or McGrath probably isn’t involved. As far as I know, his sexual activities are normal, not lethal.” He took another mouthful of steak.
We finished our meal without my learning anything more except that Daniel Serpe had been trained as a lawyer.
Out in the car I pulled out El Descanso’s little notepad and made a list:
1. Disappeared on purpose — no reason evident
2. Kidnapped — political reasons?
3. Hurt — amnesia? (too
4. Dead
a. Murdered — politics? sex?
b. Accident
My high school English teacher would have been proud. It didn’t help much.
I turned the car north toward the rattlesnake farm. Knowing where I was going, I made it in much better time than the day before. I found Yellow Glasses leaning against the split-rail fence in front of the building smoking a cigarette. I didn’t see his sidekick Carvy. This time there were two other cars in the lot besides the red pickup and the Ford.
Yellow Glasses squinted at me over the smoke of his cigarette. “What happened to your car window?” he asked.
“Somebody thought I needed more ventilation.”
“Well now, you’re lucky they didn’t ventilate your head,” Yellow Glasses smiled.
I waved my hand at his lot. “Business is picking up.”
“It’s pretty good on weekends,” he said. He was wearing his nice brown cowboy hat. “You been busy yourself?” he asked.
“You could say that. I learned that you’re a Boy Scout.”
That confused him. He pondered on it.
“A member of the American Eagles.”
He flicked away his cigarette butt. “And proud of it,” he said quite seriously. “You do get around, Bannon.”
“I’m surprised you’d be spending the night with a Puerto Rican woman.”
“I’ll take any woman I can get,” McGrath said. “Mr. Peter doesn’t know any prejudices.”
“The FBI thinks you and she were up to something else.”
I could almost see his ears go tense. His whole body seemed to freeze, but his voice remained exactly the same — soft and steady. “You been talking to the FBI?”
“I had lunch with them. They think you were selling weapons to Nancy Canales. They think she represents a terrorist group in Puerto Rico.”
He laughed. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“For the money. More money for your cause.”
“So where is she, and where are the weapons?”
“They think she may be dead and that the weapons are right where they always were. The theory is that maybe you took her money and...” I snapped my fingers like a gunshot.
McGrath’s shoulders hunched slightly. “You play a very dangerous game, friend. A man could get himself — hurt, in that game of yours.”
“I know,” I said. “Look at my face.”
A bulky figure moved into the doorway of the building. It was Carvy. He was looking at us with interest.
“The FBI has an informant,” I said. “Are you sure all your Eagles are high flyers?”
He released an expletive. “This is crap, Bannon.”
“The informant says he can lead them to Nancy Canales. But if this is all crap, you have nothing to worry about.”
McGrath squinted up at two birds flying against the yellow sun. “They say the air here is unhealthy for foreigners from Puerto Rico,” he said. “If I were you, I’d take care of myself.”
“Thanks for your concern.”
He gave me his easy Western smile. I walked back to my car. Carvy was still watching from the doorway.
Well, we’d see if it worked.
I pulled out into the road and turned right, headed for an idle quarry area about a hundred and fifty yards away that I’d noticed on my way in. I hid the car behind a massive pile of gravel and myself behind another closer to the road, where I could watch the entrance to McGrath’s tourist attraction. My watch read three fifteen; I might have a long wait. It was one of those times when I wished I hadn’t given up cigarettes.
In less than ten minutes one of the cars that had been in the parking lot left. It contained a tourist family of four. After that three cars pulled in, and another left.
But the Ford and the red pickup were still in there. It was like that till almost dark. By then I felt done in, as much from boredom as anything. Then the red pickup came out of the gate and turned toward me. There was still enough light to see that McGrath was driving and that he was alone. I scurried for my car.
He led me back to 1-25 and then north to Santa Fe. We drove past Santa Fe on Route 84 and then along the Rio Grande on 68.
By now it was dark, but a bright moon was rising. We took 68 into Taos, but still he didn’t stop. Past Taos he turned left onto 64. We’d been driving for nearly two hours. Finally I saw his taillights slow down and pull over to the right side of the road. I pulled over myself at the first spot I saw. He cut his lights, and I cut mine, as well as the engine.
On foot I crouched along the side of the road toward his pickup; by the time I got close to it he was out of sight. Where the hell was he? In front of me was a long silvery bridge. There was a metal sign beside the road, but I couldn’t read it in the dark. I walked a ways onto the bridge. Moonlight glistened off water that seemed to be miles below me. The bridge appeared to span an incredibly deep and narrow gorge. I dimly recalled reading about a famous bridge somewhere near Taos — six hundred and something feet high. Was this where he’d buried Nancy Canales’s body? Why go so far out of the way? Why use a tourist attraction?
I leaned over the rail and wondered how many people had tossed themselves off — it would be so easy to do. And that was when I saw what was happening. I was outlined out there like a perfect target; McGrath was in the rocks and brush below me. I dropped to my hands and knees but not quickly enough. There was a sharp pain in my left arm as if I’d been punched. McGrath, not I, had been the one to set the trap.
Occasional cars were passing, but no one was going to stop for a crazy man with a bleeding arm. I crawled toward the entrance of the bridge. My car seemed as far away as the bottom of the gorge. To get to it I’d have to dash from the semi-protection of the bridge rail. But what were the alternatives? If I stayed there, he’d come for me. If I tried to stop a car, I’d make myself a target. I dashed, like a pair of ragged claws, waiting to hear the next shot. But it didn’t come. I made it to my car, gasping like a fish out of water, and shoved myself behind the wheel. I jammed the lever into drive and U-turned out of there with a squeal they could hear in Albuquerque. Only when I was speeding south at eighty miles an hour did I start breathing at something like a normal rate.
My bleeding arm was drenching the car seat, but it was still partly functional. I didn’t think a bone had been hit — the pain wasn’t bad enough. Thank God it had been my left arm.
In Taos I got directions to the hospital and presented myself in the emergency room. The doctor there told me I was lucky: the bullet had gone clean through, and no bone had been damaged. He fixed me up as though gunshot wounds were not all that uncommon and told me a report would have to be filled out for the police. I reported the part about a sniper’s taking a shot at me at the Gorge Bridge, but I didn’t mention McGrath. I’d tell Daniel Serpe about that part of it.
The young doctor gave me some pills for the next morning. “The pain will be much worse then than now,” he assured me.
It was well past midnight before I got to my hotel. I looked at the car seat and at the two windows and reflected that the rental people were going to be very unhappy with me.
It was the next day, a little after one o’clock, and I was having lunch with FBI Special Agent Daniel Serpe at a Mexican restaurant of his own choosing. He ate with a hearty appetite. He was putting it on his expense account.
“Does it hurt much?” he asked, not looking especially concerned.
“I’m on painkillers.”
“You won’t be doing much with that arm for a while,” Serpe observed. “But all in all, you’re very lucky you’re not dead, Bannon.”
“I know. I’m beginning to feel like I have a bull’s-eye painted on me.”
“They won’t miss the third time,” Serpe said. “And you don’t even have a weapon with you — it’s not sporting.”
I didn’t reply. What was there to say? Serpe’s handsome Indian ring flashed as he helped himself to more salsa picante.
“Why don’t you go back to Puerto Rico,” he said. “There’s nothing more you can do here. We’ll continue with our own investigation.”
“I don’t like leaving things half done.”
“You have no choice: there’s not a shred of evidence. Nancy Canales’s body hasn’t been found and I doubt it ever will be. As you’ve learned, these guys may be cuckoo, but they’re not stupid. No body: no murder. No slugs from either time they shot at you.”
“Just search the Rio Grande Gorge,” I said with lame humor.
“It’s a dead end for now,” he said. “But we’ll catch up with them eventually.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said tiredly. “I might as well leave.”
“No maybe about it,” Serpe said. He’d finished eating and was popping Tic Tacs. “Get on a plane and go home, my friend.”
So I did.
I won’t even describe the encounter with the car rental people at the airport. I got on a five thirty P.M. flight to Miami, and after a long layover there, I arrived in Puerto Rico at four in the morning local time. At that hour the airport taxi drivers try to relieve you of every cent you own. I finally arrived at my apartment at five A.M. and fell into a deep, grateful sleep.
I guess it had started to come together on the flight back, and I think the sleep helped some, but by the time I took my shower at noon everything made so much sense it was scary. That’s when I called up my pal, Special Agent Bill Evans, and arranged to meet him at the Berliner during happy hour for a drink. He arrived right on time, crewcut, slightly overweight, always affable. “Nice place,” he remarked. “I’ve never been here. I like the German decor.”
“It’s different,” I said. “What’ll you have?”
He went for a dark beer, and I ordered a margarita. Our
“I just got my daughter one of those books of 3D computer pictures,” Bill Evans said. “They’re terrific. Have you seen them?”
I said I hadn’t.
“Absolutely terrific,” he said. “You hold the page here against your nose and then, with your eyes completely unfocused, you slowly move the picture out to arm’s length.” He demonstrated with the menu. “An absolutely different 3D image emerges from the page. Fantastic.”
“Sounds like it,” I said.
“You seem pretty down,” said Evans. “The arm, I suppose.”
“That’s part of it.”
“And not finding out what happened to Nancy Canales.”
“Oh, I know what happened to her,” I said. “She’s dead.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Yes, I can. She was killed because the American Eagles learned she was an FBI plant. She was working undercover, and I think you were the one handling her. You here and Serpe up in Albuquerque.”
He just looked at me, all the usual joviality gone. I saw a face — cold, calculating — I’d never seen before. Our drinks arrived, and to my surprise Evans set his to one side.
“There’s no proof of that,” he said. “You’re just speculating.”
“I don’t need proof. Looking at you right now is proof enough. And if I’m right, everything suddenly makes perfect sense. How did they find out about her?”
He stared at me expressionlessly, then said, “The nearest we can figure, someone saw her with Serpe. Someone who knew who Serpe was.”
“You didn’t tell the police anything.”
“It wouldn’t have served any purpose.”
“No — and you guys don’t like bad publicity. How long had she been working for you?”
“From the beginning. She’s been an
“Well, I’m sure you can replace her,” I said coldly.
“The bitch of it is, we could have had them,” Evans said. “We were
“Yeah, it’s a shame,” I said. “You know, you guys are good. You really had me taken in.”
He half smiled sheepishly; for a second he was the familiar comic in the crewcut. “We thought you might help us out,” he said.
The half smile disgusted me more than anything else. I had to leave. I had to make a call that I dreaded to the daughter of Nancy Canales.
The Saturday morning fog hung so thick and heavy and wet Howell Dunne felt he could wave a hand and come up with a fistful of water. That was the way things were going lately, he thought. Nothing worked out right.
He turned from the window and walked through the emptiness of the house to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sipped at the black, heavy flavor. For the hundredth time he told himself she had no right to leave, none at all. Something might have been worked out. But then maybe not. She had always been fond of money, and since the business had failed, he’d had little enough of that.
Which was why he had to get rid of the plane. Owning your own aircraft and flying every weekend was a hobby he could no longer afford.
The fog brushed the kitchen window with a million little droplets that distorted the view of the back yard.
Too bad. He had intended to take the plane up this morning for one last flight before turning it over to Westmont, who’d had his eye on it for a long time. There were few AT-6’s left these days, and one in excellent condition like his was worth a good price. Enough to five on for a few months.
He poured the coffee down the drain. To hell with it. He’d go out to the airfield anyway, even though there would be no one there except Marco Fleming. It would be better than sitting around here all morning.
Forty minutes later he pulled up before the small cinder block operations building at the corner of the L-shaped grass field. Extending down the line away from the building, a twin row of planes of various configurations loomed wetly shining and dark, the far end fading into the mist, their pi-lot-owners still sensibly at home in bed.
As he stepped into the dry warmth of the operations office, Marco, feet up on the desk and hands folded over his ample stomach, opened one eye, closed it again, and grunted. “I have to be here, since I own the damned place. You should be at home asleep.”
“I am a seeker of peace and quiet, Marco. Rare commodities these days. You can get them at five thousand feet at dawn or in this hut on a foggy morning. Is the forecast as bad as I think?”
Marco indicated the tireless red light endlessly running across the face of the scanner he kept tuned to aircraft frequencies. “The whole area is closed in.” He swung his feet to the floor. “Heard you sold your bird to Westmont.”
“No choice. Need the money.”
“I thought you broke even when you closed up the business.”
Marco nodded. “Happens all the time.” He hesitated. “Listen, Howell. You were one of the first to back me when I opened up, and you brought your friends, so about that plane of yours. I’d be willing to go along with you for a while on the parking fee and even for a tankful of gas now and then if you want to hold on to it.”
Dunne nodded. “I appreciate that, but all I’d be doing is postponing the inevitable. Hoped to take it up one last time this morning, but the fog killed that idea. Westmont will be here at noon to sign the papers. Think I’ll just check it over before he gets here.”
Between the parked planes the grass was wet, the sod spongy beneath his feet. The stillness was as heavy as the fog, the only sound the whisper of his footsteps. He passed the parked planes slowly. The fog, the winged shapes, the stillness blended to return him to similar days on an airfield in England during World War II.
I suppose you never shake that feeling, no matter how many years pass, he thought wryly.
A small crackling sound made him turn and peer into the fog. He saw nothing. He waited. The sound wasn’t repeated.
He shrugged. A morning like this was ideal for exercising your imagination.
He swung up on the wing of his plane, unlocked the canopy, removed the records he’d need to complete the deal with Westmont, and leaped to the ground, walking around the plane slowly and trailing his fingers through the jewellike condensation on the metal skin. He was reluctant to part with it. In its own way losing the plane meant more to him than losing his wife. Flying had always been important, the kind of flying that took him into the sky alone to do as he pleased and to go where he pleased, a freedom that could never be explained to those who had never experienced it and doesn’t have to be to those who have.
No matter what his future financial condition, it was always possible for him to remarry, but it wasn’t likely that he could ever again afford a plane like this and its upkeep. Giving it up meant a radical change in the way he lived, the loss of something that was an integral part of him.
As he tested the tie-downs, a small sound made him glance back at the mist-hidden operations building. He saw nothing. Maybe someone else was crazy enough to come out this early.
He gave the plane a final pat and went back to the building. He stepped through the door, his muscles stiffening in shock.
Marco lay crumpled in a corner, one hand held to a temple that oozed a rivulet of blood, his mouth open and panic in his eyes.
And then a hard hand between Dunne’s shoulder blades propelled him to Marco’s side, slamming him into the wall. He spun angrily and froze, fear locking his heart and tingling down his spine.
The eyes of the man standing near the doorway were so wide the whites showed and the pupils burned. Only a fool would have defied the large revolver he pointed shakily at Dunne’s stomach.
Dunne held his breath and raised his hands cautiously, shrinking against the wall, unconsciously making himself as small a target as possible.
The man’s hair hung in long, wet strands, his light shirt damp across the shoulders and his slacks soaked to the knees. His cheekbones were as prominent as those on a death’s head, his eyes heavily shadowed, his nose fierce and hooked, his lips thin and colorless.
His voice was a snarl. “I want someone to fly me out of here.”
Dunne cleared his throat. “No one flies in this weather. This field isn’t equipped for it.”
“Airlines on a commercial field,” Dunne told him. “Where they have the facilities for bad-weather flying. Not small private planes at a grass field like this. Besides, no one is flying today at all. Even the airlines have their minimums.”
The gun lifted. “You take me out or I shoot you both! Understand?”
Dunne took a deep breath.
“They’ll kill me anyway! Now, which of you is going to do it?”
Dunne held his voice level. “I told you. Nobody flies on a day like this in planes like these.”
The eyes burned, the mind behind them beyond reason and sanity. The man’s lips worked soundlessly, and Dunne felt he was only a heartbeat away from dying. Cold sweat covered his palms and trickled between his shoulder blades.
After an immeasurable, unbearable moment of time, the man seemed to grow calmer, his eyes narrowing, a crafty look on his face. “You own one of those planes?”
Dunne hesitated. “Yeah, but it isn’t equipped for instrument flying.”
The barrel of the gun motioned. “Step away from him.”
Dunne moved a few feet to one side.
The man leveled the revolver at Marco’s head, peering down the sights as though he were hoping Dunne would give him a reason to pull the trigger. “You take me or I kill him.” Marco’s eyes, raised to Dunne’s, pleaded for him to do something. Time, thought Dunne. We need time. Go along with him until we run out of it.
He reached above his head and took down the keys to a four-seater Cessna with twin engines — better equipped with navigational and radio equipment than any other plane on the field, even though the equipment was not all it could have been or the latest in design.
“All right,” he said.
The gun gestured. “He goes, too.”
“We don’t need him.”
The smile was sly. “How else you going to do what I tell you?”
The man might have been crazy, but he really wasn’t stupid. Once away from Marco, Dunne had hoped for a chance to jump him and get that gun away. He might fail, but the way things were, he really didn’t have much to lose. Marco did.
He stepped out into the fog that was now as menacing and deadly as the gaunt-faced man who followed, his gun jammed into Marco’s back.
The Cessna was parked only a few planes from the office. Dunne checked the tanks and found them full, mentally cursing Marco for being so conscientious, because filling them would have delayed matters. He fumbled away minutes releasing the tie-downs and kicking the chocks away from the wheels, all the while trying to come up with a way to avoid flying the plane and finding none. When he climbed into the cabin, Marco followed, taking the right-hand seat, the man sitting behind them.
Since no miracle had materialized out of the fog to save them, Dunne buckled himself in tightly. The experienced Marco did the same. The man did not.
Dunne spoke over his shoulder. “If we do make it, where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere. Just get me away from those cops. They want to kill me.”
“Anywhere is likely where we will end up,” Dunne muttered to Marco. He fired up the engines and studied the gauges.
The revolver poked at his neck. “What are you waiting for?”
Tension gave him the courage to snap, “Get that thing the hell away from me! I wouldn’t take off in good weather with a cold engine, let alone a day like this. Now, you sit there and wait until I’m satisfied this plane is ready to go, or you can damned well pull that trigger and take your chances with the cops.”
Again he felt that he was only a heartbeat away from dying, but the man sank back. “Just make it fast.”
The needles climbed. He ran the engines up, playing with them, delaying, still hoping for that miracle to appear out of the fog.
The revolver poked at his neck. “Let’s go. This time I mean it.”
The tone in the voice made him release the brakes and gun the Cessna out between the parked planes, the aircraft rocking and sluggish on the soft earth. He was rapidly running out of time to do something that would bring this madness to an end, but that gun muzzle remained an inch from Marco’s head. Even if the police the man was running from heard the engines and investigated, they would be too late to save them now.
His mind probed desperately for a way to disable the plane, to buy more time. Hook a wing into a tree, he thought, but deep down he knew the man would accept no excuses. He would kill them both.
Sweating, moving the plane slowly, he worked his way through the mist, and only instinct and the years he had flown from Marco’s field brought him without accident to the bright orange cones that marked the takeoff area.
Here the fog seemed even thicker and more deadly. Mouth dry, he felt trapped — both the fog before him and the man behind him could kill, but with the fog he at least had a chance.
“God,” said Marco, his voice on the edge of panic, “I don’t see how you’re going to make it. You can’t see far enough to get lined up straight.”
“Tell him that, Marco, and see what it gets you.”
The gun poked. “Both of you shut up.”
Dunne went through his takeoff procedure carefully, still delaying, still hoping for a miracle that never came, getting instead another cruel poke in the neck with the gun muzzle. “Let’s go.”
“Get the wheels,” he told Marco, eased the throttles open, and released the brakes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a pale Marco brace himself, the hands in his lap squeezed so tightly the knuckles were white.
Even on that soggy field the plane leaped forward, and they hurtled into soft nothingness, not knowing where the trees were or if they would clear them. He felt the plane lift slightly, and at that moment they were committed; no way to stop and no way to turn back.
He eased the wheel back gently. The nose wheel lifted, the bumping and thudding ceased, and they left the ground, a hard knot grinding in the pit of his stomach in anticipation of dark shapes of trees bursting out of the fog so quickly they would have time only to scream before being smashed into a fiery ball.
“Wheels,” he said.
Marco touched the switch, and as the wheels retracted, an almost imperceptible darkening in the fog on his right warned him and he flipped the wheel over as a tall pine slid under the wing. Marco gasped. Dunne felt the sweat trickling down his face, and then they were above a hundred feet, the pines below them. He let his breath out slowly.
Suspended in the grayness with no sensation of movement even though the engines were roaring and the plane vibrating, they remained caught in a wet wooliness with only the instruments to tell Dunne what they were doing, his ears straining for the slightest change in the sound of the engines. The minutes scraped across his nerves.
So slowly it was sensed rather than seen, the mist gradually became lighter, indicating they were approaching the top. Dunne began to breathe again. The altimeter indicated a thousand feet.
The fog slid by quickly until they could look down and see it stretched in all directions like soft cotton batting that had been soiled here and there. Above, long dark strings of an approaching front masked the sun so they hung suspended between layers of mist and cloud in a gray, disordered world.
Marco wiped the perspiration from his face.
“Try the radio,” Dunne told him. He leveled off and started a big circle.
Marco said, “They’re calling us.”
The gunman thrust his face between them. “What do you mean they’re calling us?”
“They see us on their radar screens,” explained Marco.
“Not you,” said Dunne soothingly. “Someone. They don’t know who. That’s why they’re calling.”
The man snatched the phones from Marco’s head and pressed one to his ear. Dunne slipped on his set.
The voice was insistent and authoritative. “—please identify. Please identify. Penalties for violating regulations can be severe.”
“What’s he talking about?” asked the gunman.
“Nothing to concern you. They don’t like an airplane flying around in this weather without knowing who it is.”
The man cackled. “Tell him we’re an unidentified flying object.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Dunne said.
The gun dug at his cheek, and the voice was cold. “If you won’t tell him, I will. How do I do it?”
Dunne nodded at Marco. Marco handed the man the microphone. “Just press the button to talk.”
The man held the microphone to his lips and yelled,
He laughed long and loud and crazily.
The controller’s voice came back, low and serious. “Unidentified aircraft, do you have a passenger aboard named Turner?”
The gunman screamed, the sound crashing around their ears.
Dunne’s skin crawled. The police searching for Turner must have been close enough to hear them take off, put two and two together, and phoned the information in to the controller, asking him to keep track of them.
The insanity that lurked behind the wide eyes exploded in a deafening roar as he shot Marco.
The second bullet hit the instrument panel as Dunne desperately jerked the wheel over hard and threw Turner off balance; the third smashed through the directional gyro as he jammed the wheel forward; the fourth tugged at his sleeve and also smashed through the instrument panel as he kicked the rudder.
Turner fired the fifth just as Dunne rolled the plane fast, the bullet tearing through his calf and leaving his leg numb.
Then he pulled up hard, the force of gravity driving him into his seat and pinning the tumbling Turner to the floor. Still Turner pulled the trigger again, missing Dunne again and demolishing the panel further, but by then his head was between the seats, pinned there by the G-force, within reach of Dunne’s fist. He chopped down hard, catching Turner on the jaw and feeling it crack, and chopped again and again to be sure he was out.
He eased the plane level and sat breathing hard as pain slowly replaced the numbness in his leg. The air rushed through the holes Turner had drilled in the nose with a high pitched howl that filled and chilled the cabin. Hands trembling, Dunne dug out his handkerchief and knotted it around his calf.
He looked at Marco once and couldn’t look again. Marco had been a good friend.
Almost wonderingly, he ran a hand over the remains of the instrument panel. If Turner had taken aim, he couldn’t have done more damage. Those random bullets had not only smashed the instruments but had severed the vacuum and electrical lines so that almost all of the dials that hadn’t been splintered were inoperative.
Even the slight hum in his earphones was gone. One of those bullets had taken the radio out, too.
Shivering in the cold air rushing into the plane, wondering how he could still be alive, he was slow to think about the trouble he was in, and when he did, panic flickered inside and threatened to break out in a scream.
He was sitting above a heavy layer of fog with no way to get down through it safely.
Before the shooting he hadn’t been concerned about landing even if the fog remained because then he had flight instruments to tell him the attitude of the plane, whether he was going up or down, banking or turning or skidding even though he couldn’t see, and he had the radio to contact fields that had instrument landing facilities. He could be talked down even though the Cessna lacked complete navigational equipment.
That was impossible now. He was lost and blind and hurt, and there was no way he could go down into that fog without killing himself and perhaps people on the ground.
And with the blood running out of his calf and filling his shoe, he couldn’t even circle and hope the fog would lift before he ran out of fuel.
He slammed the useless earphones to the floor. Turner’s bullets had killed him as effectively as they had Marco.
Slowly bleeding, growing number from shock and cold, he clutched the wheel with both hands, circled slowly, and tried to think as his blood drained from him, eventually finding his mind drifting, images from his past coming and going; the day he met his wife for the first time; the first order he had written that had set his new business on its feet; the feeling he had when he first soloed and found himself alone in the sky.
He sank deeper toward unconsciousness and — as when he had walked between the parked planes — the roaring of the engines, the clouds overhead, and the fog below stirred forgotten memories of the war, this time of a day when he had been returning from a mission alone, separated from the others by a fight and bad weather.
Slightly ahead and below him he had seen another Mustang trailing a faint stream of black smoke and pulled up beside it. The canopy was half blasted away, bullet holes stitched through the metal skin behind the pilot, and a red-stained scarf wrapped around the pilot’s neck flapped in the airstream.
Eyes above the mask resigned, the pilot covered his eyes and then his mouth with his hand. Dunne knew what he meant. His instruments and radio were both out, and without them the man had no way to get through the clouds below.
Dunne motioned the man to take position on his wing, held up two fingers, and pointed down. The man nodded.
Dunne took them both down through the clouds, feeling his way lower and lower until the dark shapes of the trees lifted eager branches to pluck them from the sky, and then the field was below them and Dunne brought them both in.
The pilot had been a blue-eyed, dark-haired twenty-year-old named Castle on his third mission, holding himself tall and appearing older than his years.
“I owe you one,” Castle said quietly. “I’ll pay you back someday.”
A week later he hit a string of high-tension wires while strafing an airfield, his Mustang leaving a black scar in the snow of a farmer’s field.
Dunne jerked erect as one of the engines missed a beat. He was very tired. His head sagged again.
He fought off the stupor.
Once. Twice.
Each lift of his head became more difficult, and then it didn’t seem to matter any longer. His wife was gone, his business was gone, and in a larger sense, so was his entire life. In essence, he had been dead before he entered the operations building and found Turner there.
Still, he lifted his head again, something inside unwilling to concede defeat.
He blinked and drew a hand across his eyes.
Slightly ahead and to one side was a Mustang, so close he could see the rivets and the heat streaks from the engine, the canopy half blasted away, a red-stained scarf around the pilot’s neck, the man’s eyes above the oxygen mask.
Dunne stared. Castle. But the kid was dead. What was he doing here?
The conviction grew in Dunne that he was dying and the kid had come to lead him through the shadows to his eventual destination. He sighed. If that was the way it was to be, the matter was out of his hands.
He tucked his wing inside the Mustang’s resignedly, and with a dead man beside him and an unconscious maniac on the floor, he entered the fog-flying formation with a plane out of the past, not knowing where he was going and not caring, his mind frozen, until the pilot lifted a hand and pointed downward. Dunne took his eyes from the plane and saw a broad runway rushing beneath him. He cut the switches and brought the Cessna in on its belly, sliding and scraping along the runway. He was certain he was dead, but the only thing that concerned him was that wheels-up landing. It was a helluva way for an experienced pilot to arrive in heaven or hell, as the case might be.
He fumbled feebly at the seatbelt to get out to face whatever awaited him, but the effort was too great. He passed out.
When he awoke, he was staring at a dun-colored ceiling, dimly remembering being lifted and carried, hearing concerned voices, being pulled and jostled. So he was alive after all. How or why he didn’t know.
The memory of that Mustang remained with the freshness of a dream retained. What had it been? An illusion? Hallucination? Ghost out of the past? The product of a lively imagination stimulated by circumstance? None of those things could explain how it had brought him down through the fog.
He lay still, a hollow feeling inside, trying to find an answer if there was one.
A woman came into the room, tall, her hair cut short and touched with gray. Once pretty, her face had matured into smooth planes that gave her an attractiveness and dignity youth could never have.
She smiled. “You
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Stethoscope plugged into her ears, she examined him quickly. “I think you’re fine, Mr. Dunne. If you want to get it over with now, you have my permission.”
“Get what over with?”
“Talking to all of the people waiting to see you. You’re a hero, you know. Everyone wants to know what happened, and you’re the only one who can tell the entire story. All anyone knows at present is what little we were able to get from Mr. Turner, who spoke mostly gibberish before we wired his broken jaw shut and strapped him to a bed in the psychiatric ward.
“You were very lucky. The man killed three people, attacked the two policemen attempting to bring him in, and escaped in the fog. It was rather obvious that he killed the other man in the plane and almost succeeded in killing you before you somehow subdued him, but there are many questions only you can answer.”
Dunne closed his eyes. Describing what had happened up until the time the Mustang had appeared and led him down would be no problem. The question was — how could he explain
She smiled. “Mr. Dunne, I’m old enough to know that there are many occasions when telling the truth serves no useful purpose.”
She was right, thought Dunne. What had happened concerned him and no one else. He alone would have to live with it and accept it for what it had given him — the chance to go on from here.
That, at least, explained why the Mustang had appeared — the payment of a debt held beyond time and understanding.
The rest was masked by fog deeper than that the Mustang had brought him through; so dense and vast man had never penetrated it in the whole of his existence. He wouldn’t even try.
You had to watch Kenny Beal like a hawk. In 1956 he was ten years old, short and lean, fast at sports, fond of wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts, and a notorious cheater at Monopoly. In the middle-class district of the city where I stayed with my grandparents for the summer, he and I and a couple of other kids would sit outdoors on our large wooden porch, move little silver tokens around Go, occasionally end up in jail or miserably land on Boardwalk with hotels. Each of us had his own strategy, but Kenny’s was unique. Stealthily he would watch our hands, our eyes, the turn of our heads, and when he found us distracted by talk or laughter, would, like a praying mantis, snatch a gloriously orange five hundred dollar bill out of the bank and hide it under his stack of tens. If he succeeded, he’d wait until later in the game, then with a dramatic flourish reveal the money and claim he’d been secretly saving it for an emergency.
We’d accuse him in blasts of invective, groan our contempt, then wait for the hilarious quirk that would give him away, for in a textbook demonstration of the guilt-ridden personality he could not for the life of him look anyone in the eye while lying. Under the fuzzy lid of his blond crewcut he’d shift his gaze up and sideways as if tracking a fly and say with feigned sincerity, “I didn’t steal it, I had it before!” He’d look just off to the side or above your head. When he got caught, he’d make a joke of it. “Can’t blame me for try-
It was a great show.
Winning, money, and sleight of hand were the surface priorities of Kenny’s life, and his father was probably responsible. Kirk Beal was first and foremost an entrepreneur. Sometimes his thin frame, long legs, and copious head of straight blond hair could be seen on the sidewalk in front of a neighbor’s house, his favorite venue for discussing a potential enterprise. Most of it was just talk, but one year — I think it was 1959 — he came close to achieving immortality in the fast-food delivery business. And he might have retired a millionaire by age fifty if only he’d chosen a different
The year of 1956 was especially significant for a different reason. In that year our neighborhood was struck by the Dragnet Burglar.
At the time I didn’t know there was such a person and therefore had no hint he might enter the life of anyone I knew. The story of Frank B. Harrison was an anomaly in (as they say) the annals of crime. The newspaper eventually described him as “a divorced white male in his late twenties whose most recent employment was as an aircraft-seat upholsterer at Boeing.” Photographs of him show a tall, fashionable, slightly brawny man with a peculiarly slanted middle-American smile and no sign of the dark, bitter emotions apparently resulting from an abused childhood. An alcoholic, he’d had to leave his home state of North Carolina to find work. His wife remained behind, and two years later she and Harrison were divorced.
In November, 1955, the Boeing company discovered that Harrison had falsified part of his resume and fired him. Embittered and out of work, he resumed drinking heavily — and also watching television (then a relatively new luxury). Heaps of broken glass were discovered along the baseboard of one of his living room walls. The plaster was cracked and smashed, apparently where he had been hurling bottles as soon as they were emptied. Around March of 1956 he took to the streets, trying to walk off his alcoholic urges. He wrote to his ex-wife in North Carolina saying that he was so tired after one of these long walks he didn’t even have the energy to open a bottle. “I he awake at night,” he wrote. “I do not know what will happen to me. Soon my money will run out, and there are no jobs for upholsterers within five hundred miles.”
Even in the early days of television, residential sidewalks were abandoned at night. Walking alone in the dark, Harrison must have casually gazed into the window of a house, perhaps seen the glow of a television set, and realized how alone and unseen he was. That spring was unseasonably warm, and while people sat entranced before the black and white electronic hearth, windows were left open. Rear windows. And Harrison became aware of an optimum, statistically confirmed period of time when all those people were likely to be frozen in place, unaware of his, or anyone else’s, presence.
With the aid of
The police took three weeks to catch on to the pattern of the burglaries, but just as they began to issue warnings, Harrison decided to vary his schedule by switching to
Harrison began to push his luck during summer reruns. He almost got caught twice in June, but it seemed he would continue during this high-risk period until the beginning of the new fall season.
It was on a midsummer evening that the Dragnet Burglar made his final excursion.
That day I had stupidly gotten locked inside Kenny Beal’s garage. I was more embarrassed than angry at being tricked into going in there and hearing the click of the latch behind me — and too miffed to yell for little Kenny-the-creep to let me out.
As I strained to see into the shadows, I discovered by a crack of light that Kirk Beal was storing a
After banging on the door, I took a deep breath and sat down on a relatively clean area of the concrete floor. In about an hour I heard someone. A dark shadow covered the crack between the big wooden doors. Then I heard Mr. Beal’s low voice.
“David, are you in there?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I said as resentfully as I could.
The latch clicked open, fight flooded in, and Mr. Beal peered into the garage.
“Kenny locked me in,” I said.
“He told me a couple of minutes ago. He’s sure as hell in trouble. How long have you been in here?”
“I don’t know. An hour, I guess.”
Mr. Beal motioned me outside. I squinted into the afternoon brightness and stepped out onto the sidewalk while he closed the doors. I’d had only a vague impression of him before. Maybe he was okay — an understanding father with a miscreant son. Then, as I thought of the gasoline, it was a potential arsonist who rested a thin white hand on my shoulder. “There’s no excuse for what Kenny did. We’ve put him in his room. He’s going to stay there for two days. We’re going to serve him meals in his room. Scant meals. He’s allowed to come out to use the bathroom, but that’s all. When he comes out for good, he is going to come over to your grandparents’ house and apologize to you for locking you in the garage.”
Not enough, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“Kenny may be a little wild sometimes, but he’s a good kid. We want him to be aggressive and self-sufficient. I hope you don’t take this shenanigan too seriously.” His expression was confident, contemplative, and he had the tone of someone giving thoughtful advice. “The Russians have a lot of missiles pointed at us, you know. And we have a lot of missiles pointed at them.” The lines on his forehead deepened. “We have a lot of missiles pointed at each other. You know what I mean?”
I nodded at this incomprehensible leap in subject matter. We walked a few paces toward a heavy wooden gate that led into the Beals’ back yard.
“When the next war comes, it’s going to be pretty tough, and only those who are prepared will survive.”
I thought of how we kids played “army,” and tried to connect this with what Mr. Beal was saying. I remembered the rumor from the summer before that the Beals had built a bomb shelter in their back yard. No one believed it.
“We have to be prepared for any eventuality,” he continued. “Kenny will be prepared to survive the next war if that war should ever come.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to imagine how cheating at Monopoly would help.
Mr. Beal smiled knowingly. “You kids are all good kids, but you have to be tough. Maybe it wasn’t so bad you got locked in that garage after all. Maybe you’ll learn something from it. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“But we’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yeah. I gotta go now.”
“All right, David. Tell your grandparents we’re disciplining Kenny and he’s going to apologize.”
“Sure,” I said. “Bye.”
The Beal household had become an arsenal. Kirk Beal, as a result of his personal visions of nuclear apocalypse, had discovered “survivalism.” Neighbors’ conversations with him in the following months — conversations that filtered down to us — revealed that not only was he hoarding fuel and food, but that he’d acquired a number of deadly weapons, mostly of World War II vintage. I knew about one of the guns because Kenny had shown me a loaded German Luger pistol in his father’s desk drawer in a corner of the living room. Not only had Kenny known the gun was there, but he knew where to get the key to open the drawer. It’s hard to keep secrets from one’s own kids, especially when they’ve been trained to be observant, clever, and opportunistic. But perhaps I’m being too hard on Kirk Beal, having the advantage of hindsight.
That night, the night the Dragnet Burglar arrived, I was sitting on our front porch reading an Uncle Scrooge comic and gulping an Orange Crush. It was nearly dark, and a deep sunset-magenta tint shone on the houses across the street. I heard a car engine start, and a moment later the Beals’ cream-colored ’55 Dodge went past toward Northeast Sixty-fifth. I saw them from above street level, since the houses on our block were built atop grassy embankments held back by concrete walls or rockeries, with concrete stairs leading up to the porches. I saw Kirk Beal driving and Kenny’s sister Katy in the back seat. That would mean Margaret Beal, Kenny’s mother, was riding in front. I wondered if the
I remember an acute sensation of betrayal as the Beal car drove by, for I assumed that Kenny, who was supposed to be in his room, was in that car. But I couldn’t see. I didn’t
The sky turned a deep blue above the city’s roofs while I thought about sneaking around to the back of the Beal house and looking in Kenny’s bedroom window. At the same time Frank Harrison, observing the Beal house from the shadows, was thinking of doing exactly the same thing.
Harrison could see the TV glow in the Beals’ living room from Sixty-third Street. Taking risks during the rerun season had not been a matter of overconfidence. He had been regularly playing seven-card high-low split and, being a man who rarely folded his cards, found himself bankrupt. Nothing is worse than being clever only half the time, and now he silently made his way to the dark side of the Beal house, dropping out of sight into the shrubbery.
I got to the back gate next to the garage and unfastened the latch as quietly as possible. The rear of the house was quiet. Two downstairs bedrooms were along the side, and all I had to do was round the corner, walk a few feet between houses to Kenny’s window, and look in to see if Mr. Beal had gone back on his word. Pausing, I leaned against the clapboard siding and smiled. Man, I thought, if the little bastard is in there, I could scare the crap out of him by banging on his window.
Harrison had already made it into the house by way of the front bedroom.
I checked out the house next door, but there was no sign of anyone. Cockily running my hand along the side of the house, feeling my way in the dim light from a nearby streetlight, I crept up to Kenny’s halfopen window. I raised my head and looked inside.
Just as I’d thought. No Kenny. The room was dark. But then I heard the sound of the television coming from the living room. Devious Kenny had obviously left his room while his parents were gone and was illicitly watching TV. Or had his father given him permission?
Stepping up onto the clapboard skirting, I grabbed the windowsill, forced myself higher, and hung there suspended, leaning awkwardly into the emptiness. A voice on TV said, “He’s got a fast horse, marshal.”
I remember the line exactly because the next moment I lifted myself up and into the room, landing quietly on the floor next to the bed. I was going to scare the crap out of Kenny, I thought, for locking me in the garage.
It didn’t turn out that way.
From the living room there was a short, staccato scream — and it didn’t come from the TV.
“Shut up, kid.”
“Who are you?”
The voices were only a few feet from the open bedroom door, and I could hear them clearly. One was Kenny’s, the other a man’s.
“Just shut up and I won’t hurt you.”
“What do you want? What do you want?”
“Show me where your parents keep their jewelry and money, and I won’t hurt you.”
It was as if my flesh, muscles, and blood had frozen into a block of sculptured ice. Some guy was in there
“Hurry it,” the man’s voice said.
“I don’t know where it is,” said Kenny.
There was a click as the television was turned off. I wanted to go home and call the police, but I was afraid the floor would creak, afraid I couldn’t get out the window fast enough.
Then I heard an awful sound as if Kenny’s breath had been knocked out of him, a kind of “uhff.”
“Don’t yell or I’ll kill you,” said the man. “Find it.”
Terrible brutality was unfolding, and I seemed to be floundering on the moon.
“Sure,” said Kenny, “sure, my dad’s got money. I’ve... got a key.”
“Then get it.”
It was Kenny’s
The confluence of personalities at that point was far more volatile than the amount of gasoline in the Beal garage. Harrison was about to get a gun pulled on him by a half-clever, pathetically sly, overconfident ten-year-old.
A noise, as if Kenny were now fumbling with the drawer to his father’s desk, came from the living room. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t stand still for what I imagined would be a suicide play. I knew Kenny’s track record at sleight-of-hand only too well, and he just couldn’t get away with this. A quick calculation registered in my brain, and I realized (was it something I’d read or been told?) that if I interfered with what was happening there was a good chance the robber would panic.
My
“DON’T DO IT, KENNY! DON’T DO IT! DON’T DO IT!”
Terrified at the volume of my own voice, I rushed to the open window, jumped out, and hit the ground painfully. Would the burglar emerge from the window behind me?
Looking up, I heard an aftermath of noises. One was Kenny, yelling for help. The other was a crash of furniture. I heard a lamp break. In another moment the sound of the very thing I’d tried to prevent cracked and echoed through the air. A gunshot!
I lay still on the ground, scared to death.
Then the strangest thing.
As if in a dream, a cascade of bright flashing red light coincided with a sound of squealing tires. Light beamed up the narrow passage between houses and reflected off the siding. The night was suffused with amazing phenomena. Apocalyptic visions of Mr. Beal seared through my mind. I didn’t know what was happening, and I could only think of exploding nuclear missiles. In my confusion it seemed that the confrontations in the Beal house just now had turned, into the world’s own. I looked up again. As if in a horror movie, a woman’s silhouette appeared in a darkened, backlit window. She was staring down at me from what I’d thought was an empty house next door.
Wrenched back to reality, I knew what it meant. The woman next door had called the police. She’d seen the burglar enter the house.
I ran to the back yard, hurried to the gate, and hurled it open.
Running along the grassy parking strip was a man caught in the glare of the flashing lights. He was holding his side. Between his fingers was a bloody mass of red-soaked shirt. He turned. His half-lit face seemed to shrink in fear. Then he slowed, stumbled into the street, knelt on the pavement and remained still for several seconds until finally he fell over, sprawled on the concrete.
Two uniformed officers hurried toward him. People were emerging from the houses all along the block. Even my grandparents came out on our front porch across the street. In ten minutes the whole neighborhood was active with police cars, a white ambulance, barricades, and roving investigators in search of evidence and witnesses. I stood like an animal caught in a beam of light, watching all the kids talking and jumping around. It was like a carnival. Then I hid in the shadow of the alley.
Soon, the Beals’ big Dodge rolled down the street, stopping at the far curb behind the barricades. The ambulance roared off. Whispers from a group of people nearby broadcast the news. The man was shot. The man was dead.
Until the next day only the police and I knew who had killed the Dragnet Burglar. Then everyone knew.
Two detectives came to interview me, and I told them what had happened. Kenny, of course, was questioned, yet nothing more of the actual shooting was ever told us. In the coming months two of Harrison’s poker buddies were arrested for receiving stolen goods, and the details of Harrison’s life and career were printed. The Dragnet Burglar was history.
Soon we started to play kickball in the street every afternoon until school started. Kenny didn’t come outside much, though he’d always liked neighborhood sports. When he did come out, the kids kept asking him exactly what had happened, but Kenny wasn’t talking. How a ten-year-old handles killing someone I don’t know and can’t imagine. But a permanent change seemed to befall him. He lost his cocky nature and stopped cheating at Monopoly, and it soon became clear that the neighborhood would never be the same.
Because of Kenny, the Dragnet Burglar’s remarkable career had begun and ended within the span of a single spring and summer. For the most part Frank Harrison had played it safe. Too bad he had to die.
Anyone might have told him that you had to watch Kenny Beal like a hawk.
“Now what?” Corrections Sergeant Frieda Ferguson muttered as she entered Unit Five to begin her work shift. Angry shouts were coming from upstairs. It was five minutes before eleven o’clock on Friday night, and the curfew in this minimum security prison demanded quiet after ten o’clock every night, with no exception for weekends. It looked as if her night was off to a bad start.
Frieda tried the office door. Locked. She shifted her backpack, which hung over one shoulder, and slid her other arm into its strap to secure the pack and free her arms and hands. She ran swiftly up the stairs toward the voices.
At the other end of the hall Derrick O’Neill, the second shift sergeant, was telling Inmate Greene that if he went into his room this minute he would get a conduct report, and if he didn’t, he would go straight to the detention unit as well.
Frieda stopped at the top of the stairs out of their sight, waiting while Greene made his decision. A door opened across the hall from where she stood and Inmate Willis looked out. Frieda put her finger to her lips and shook her head. Willis stepped back and stood inside his room, watching Frieda.
Greene’s door slammed with a resounding bang, and Sergeant O’Neill came down the hallway toward Frieda. “What’s his problem now?” she asked.
O’Neill swung quickly toward Willis, who stood quietly in his doorway. “Get inside, Willis, and keep the door closed,” he hissed. Willis backed farther inside, quickly closing the door.
Together Frieda and Derrick walked down the stairs to the office. “I’ll write these reports, and then I’m outa here,” Derrick said. He leafed through a stack of forms in a wire basket on the corner of the desk. “Greene’s pulling the same old crap. He taunts Willis until Willis gets mad and swings or throws something. Greene sees that as a go-ahead to torment him further. This time he decided to argue with me about it.” Derrick finished one report and started on the other. “They’re both on room confinement until the first-shift lieutenant sees them. Wish I knew what Greene is after. This is the first time he’s started something this late. And the first time he’s mouthed off to me, far as that goes.” Derrick finished the reports and made a note of the disturbance in the logbook.
“Maybe he wants to be shipped out,” Frieda said.
“That would make everyone happy. I’ve written reports suggesting that he doesn’t belong here, isn’t ready for minimum security,” Derrick said. “Ray’s been trying as well. We haven’t even been able to get him sent up to detention. Maybe they’re keeping him here to test our patience.”
“Ray’s opinion usually counts, since he’s the exalted first-shift officer,” Frieda said. “Maybe Greene’s related to someone.”
“If he was white, I’d think so.”
“Oh well, maybe we can still civilize him.”
“If you’ll cover my shift tomorrow and Sunday, you can work on him,” Derrick said hopefully.
Frieda made a face.
“It’s short notice I know, but one of my kids was in an accident. I just got the call about eight. They’re with my ex. In Chicago.”
“Is he okay? She?”
“She. Just banged up a little, but bad enough to be admitted to the hospital.” Derrick looked at his watch. “I’ll be there before she wakes up in the morning. Will you cover?”
“Why not? Maybe sixteen hours of me for a couple of days will be more than Greene can stand, and he’ll beg to get out of here.” Frieda dug the work-exchange form out of the pile and signed her agreement to work Derrick’s shift on the weekend.
“I’ll turn the request in to security along with the conduct reports and hope for the best.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. I’m here anyway.” Frieda locked the office behind them and entered the television room as Derrick left the building. It was already a quarter past eleven. Her initial count would be late, but when Derrick stopped at the security office with the paperwork, he could explain.
The usual three men were watching television. Frieda noted their presence on the roster she carried on a clipboard.
“Uh, hi-ya, Fred.”
“Evenin’, Miss Frieda.”
“Yo!”
“Hi, guys,” Frieda responded. She walked down the hall checking the six inmate rooms on the ground floor. The door was open at number six. Otis was one of the three in the television room. He always called her Fred, Fred Fergustone, in his best Barney Rubble voice. Frieda checked the basement door and the back exit to be sure they were locked and climbed the stairs silently in her rubber-soled jogging shoes.
All quiet. She started down the hall, stopping at each door and raising the privacy curtain. It was Friday night, and everyone was awake with lights on. She raised the curtain at Greene’s room. He glared at her.
She knocked on Willis’s door and looked in through the small rectangle of glass. Willis looked up, and Frieda opened the door.
“I ain’t done nuthin’, Miss Frieda,” Willis whined, sadness and bewilderment in his dark eyes.
“I know, Willis,” Frieda assured him. “But you know the rules. When there’s a fight, everyone who’s involved gets room confinement.” Room confinement in this minimum security prison operated on the honor system, since none of the rooms had toilet facilities and the inmate could not be locked in his room.
Willis’s radio emitted a screech of static. He wheeled around and grabbed it. Cradling it against his body, he turned the sound down to silence. An inmate on room confinement was not allowed to play his television or radio. Willis looked frightened. “O’Neill say I can play the radio, Miss Frieda. He tell me I can.”
“I know, Willis. You can always play your radio, even on room confinement. Don’t worry about it.” Frieda smiled encouragement. “Willis, why do you think Greene always fights with you?”
“Because I be slow. He call me a ree-tard. I ain’t no ree-tard, Miss Frieda. An’ I ain’t no queer neither.”
“No, you’re not a queer, Willis. And you’re not a ree-tard. You’re a kind and gentle man. And it’s okay to play your music — quietly. Goodnight, now.” Frieda pulled his door closed and continued her count.
Back in the office she called the numbers in to the security office.
“Hey, Ferguson, if you can’t climax any faster than this, we’ll get a real man in there to help you,” Officer Aiken grouched.
“And if you can’t give birth, you’re taking up far too much space on the planet, Ron.”
“Doctor, doctor,” he screeched. “I’m already at three centimeters.”
“Well, keep tickling it, Ron. Maybe you’ll get it up to three inches.” Frieda said, flinching when Ron slammed his phone into the cradle.
Locking the office again, she went into the television room and sat near the door where she could see down the hall. When a commercial came on, the men started fidgeting. She didn’t usually sit there with them unless they were noisy or there was some problem that required her presence.
“It’s okay,” Frieda teased. “I didn’t catch you at it, whatever it was.” The fidgeting stopped. “I need some information.”
“We don’t know nuthin’. We just cons.”
“That’s why you know, guys. Don’t fight with me, I’m on your side.” She waited until they looked at her. “I’ve seen new men come into the house who act up. And to keep them from bringing the heat down on all of us, you guys teach them the facts of life. Don’t deny it,” she said as the men started to protest. “I’ve heard you. That’s fine. You make life easier for everyone. What I’m wondering is, why haven’t you been able to civilize Greene? He’s been here two months, and he’s still acting like a bull with a bee in his ear.”
“Hmmph! That punk!” Otis muttered.
“He got an attitude, Miss Frieda.” John said quietly. “Be careful he don’t hurt you.”
“He picks on Willis,” Frieda said. “Why do you think he might hurt me?”
Silence. Frieda waited.
“We been tryin’ to straighten him out,” Manny said.
“Greene don’t like queers, or women neither,” Otis offered. “Ain’t no queers in this house since Benny gone home.”
“He know he can always get Willis mad if he call him queer,” Manny said, “and when Willis mad, he fight, and Greene always win.”
“Make him feel like a big man,” Otis added.
“And he doesn’t like women?” Frieda asked.
“He don’t like women who be in charge, Miss Frieda,” John explained. “He got to be top dog, ’specially over women. An’ he know how to use his fists. Be extra careful, Miss Frieda.”
“Jerk need to be in the walls till he learn how to act,” Manny said.
“Why he ain’t never locked down?” Otis asked. “Other mens do time in the hole for less than what he do.”
Frieda watched the light change on the wall across from the stair. Someone was moving just outside the door. As quietly as she could, she got up from the plastic covered lounge chair and stepped quickly to the door. She almost collided with Howard from room number twenty.
“Could I get a couple of aspirin?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
Frieda relaxed. It wouldn’t do to start imagining things. Graveyard shift could do funny things to the mind. She gave Howard his aspirin and followed him up the stairs and into the hall.
All quiet. She walked slowly through the hallway and down the stairs at the other end.
The rest of the night was uneventful. The three men watching television were in their rooms before two o’clock without her prodding them. Frieda’s shift ended at seven in the morning. She had to sleep fast and be back by three in the afternoon to do Derrick’s shift and then her own for the next two days. Back-to-back doubles. Two sixteens. And Greene.
“Well, what’s the verdict on Greene?” Frieda asked Ray when she arrived shortly before three that afternoon.
“The usual,” Ray growled. “Be nice, now, Tommy,” he squeaked, mocking an ineffective mother scolding her naughty child. “Room confinement till Monday morning at seven when the captain gets in,” he added in his own voice.
“Well, that helps me a little. Have a good evening, Ray. I’ll be here when you get back. Maybe he’ll escape before then.”
“Wish he would,” Ray grumbled.
“Doesn’t Security ever tell you why they insist we keep him when he causes so much trouble in here?”
“No, and it’s the damnedest thing. Seems like somebody in here’s being set up. Hope it ain’t me.”
“Or me.”
The main hallway on the ground floor ran from the television room on one end to the dining room on the other. On the left, just outside the dining room, a short hall led to the rear exit, the basement door, the back stairway, and the kitchen. The kitchen was separated from the dining room by a long pass-through counter.
Before five o’clock the men were lining up outside the dining room door. Willis was in the kitchen setting up the food on the steam table, ignoring them as best he could.
Frieda remembered when Willis first moved into the cottage. The security director told the officers that Willis was slightly retarded and easily frustrated. If he felt cornered, he would fight. Because he was soothed by the music he loved, the officers were instructed to allow Willis to play his radio even when he was on room confinement, which was often. What Frieda could not understand was why, if that were true about Willis, he would be given the job of serving food. The kitchen man needed nerves of steel and a lot of self-control, more than in any other inmate job in the entire institution. Everyone always complained about the food and heaped abuse on the kitchen man even though his job was only to serve the food that had been delivered from the main kitchen. And on top of that undeserved abuse Willis had to put up with the stress of living with Greene. Poor Willis.
Frieda stood against the far wall of the dining room facing the door and hallway, watching the men as they snaked in, took their food, and sat down to eat at tables of four. She took her plate last. She had just finished eating when she heard the telephone ringing and went to the office to answer it.
As she returned to the dining room, she saw Greene standing at the foot of the back stairs, taunting Willis through the open kitchen door. At that moment Willis scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and flung them at Greene. Greene ducked, and the potatoes splashed against the door frame near Frieda’s head. She stopped short. Greene spun around when he saw the horrified look on Willis’s face.
“Get!” Frieda said, her thumb pointing up the stairs. The word was like a gunshot.
Already moving, Greene sprinted up the stairs three at a time. A few diners fingered in the dining room, waiting to see what Frieda would do. Several more men gathered at the door, drawn by the drama. They had never before heard Frieda raise her voice. No one spoke.
Frieda entered the dining room, grabbing up a napkin as she passed the counter, and wiped potato spatters from her forehead and hair. She sat down, covered her face with both hands, and shook with laughter. She laughed until the tears came.
“You all right, sarge?” somebody asked.
She stifled a giggle. “Just a little hysteria,” she said wiping her eyes. Willis stood like a statue, shocked by what he had almost done. “Finish up,” Frieda told him. To the rest of the men, who had once more begun to breathe, she said, “I’m going to see if I can get that bozo out of here.” She returned to the office to phone the lieutenant on duty.
“He stays,” Lieutenant Austin said irritably. “He’s on room confinement already. It’s your job to see that he stays in his room.” In the background Frieda could hear male voices telling convict jokes accompanied by raucous laughter. “I’ll stop in when I get a chance,” the lieutenant added.
Frieda spent most of the evening walking through the house. She would make sure Greene and Willis stayed in their rooms. She decided to ask Ray if he would be able to move Greene downstairs nearer the office and farther from Willis.
The lieutenant stopped in at about half past ten. When Frieda came downstairs from one of her trips through the halls, he was standing by the office door.
Frieda unlocked the door, and they entered. She wished she could ask the lieutenant what the motive was behind the seemingly dangerous decisions being made about Willis and Greene, and who was making those decisions. But she didn’t try. Earlier in her career, on another shift, she had asked questions and expressed opinions about ways things could be made safer or more convenient in the prison, and her efforts resulted in her becoming an outcast. She’d requested a transfer to third shift and forced herself to stop caring about the institution and the people who worked in it.
Apparently the lieutenant was expecting her to complain because after his first few attempts to encourage her to talk about the problem, he brought it up himself. “I pulled the file on Greene,” he said. “Just what is the problem with him?”
The lieutenant is playing concerned uncle, Frieda thought. In turn, Frieda was supposed to pour all her woes onto his broad and caring shoulders, and then sit through a lecture that would boil down to “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” She said, “Does the file include the incident and conduct reports written by Ray and Derrick?”
The lieutenant looked startled. “Er, yes,” he said. “But there’s more?”
Frieda shrugged. “I haven’t seen their reports,” she said, as if none of it really concerned her.
“Something happened this afternoon?” he prompted.
“Nothing more than what I told you on the phone. I have the paperwork here.” She indicated the forms lying neatly on the edge of the desk.
The lieutenant was looking uncomfortable. Now Frieda was puzzled. Maybe he did want to talk about the situation. Maybe he didn’t like it any more than she did. Frieda waited politely.
The lieutenant cleared his throat, looked at Frieda, looked away, looked back. “Do you think Greene is getting special treatment?”
“I’m third shift, lieutenant. The guys are usually pretty mellow by the time I get here. Everyone knows better than to let Greene provoke them into a fight after eleven at night. They just go to their rooms and close the door. Greene doesn’t want to make a ruckus by himself.”
“Do you think Greene is unsuited for minimum security?” When Frieda didn’t answer, he asked, “Why did you call me at suppertime?”
“It’s not my place to make judgments on the security decisions you all make,” Frieda said, smiling. “I called at suppertime in case you wanted to check it out right then rather than waiting for me to bring the paperwork up front tomorrow morning. You got Derrick’s report from yesterday? I wanted to keep you up to date.” Frieda couldn’t control a little hysterical giggle. She blinked the tears from her eyes and wiped away her smile with one hand. “The potatoes could as well have hit me instead of the door frame.” She giggled again, imagining the picture. “Splat! right in the puss,” she said, and let the laughter come.
The lieutenant saw the picture, too, and tried not to laugh. “It’s not funny,” he said, his face turning crimson. He cleared his throat again. “Anyway, that was, um—” he paused, looking at Frieda’s report “—Willis. That was Willis.”
“Right.” She let the word hang there, and looked into the lieutenant’s eyes. She wanted to see if he knew what was going on and was uncomfortable with it or if he knew and was part of the problem.
He wasn’t giving anything away. “Do you think Willis is a threat?” he asked.
“No,” Frieda said flatly, “he’s not. Lieutenant, I need to cruise through again, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, rising. “It’s my job to see that Greene stays in his room, you said, so I’d best be seeing to it.”
“Frieda, help me out here. We were sergeants together on second shift. I know you have a feel for, for—” he searched for a word “—injustices. I see an odd situation here, I just want your take on it.”
Frieda was saved from replying when Officer Don Hendricks clumped in the front door and into the office, keys jangling. His studded leather jacket flapped open, exposing a huge, snarling Tasmanian Devil that covered the entire front of his T-shirt. “I can give you a real good take on it, lieutenant,” he said. He pulled a can from his jacket pocket and handed it to Frieda. “I brought you a Coke, Freddie, for your next shift.”
“What are you doing here already?” Frieda looked at her watch. “Good grief, it’s eleven oh-five. Excuse me, lieutenant, I do have to count now.” She grabbed up her clipboard and pen and escaped into the hall.
Frieda expected to find Hendricks alone in the office when she returned, but the lieutenant was still there. She called her count total in to the security office.
“If you could bear to remove your hand from Lieutenant Austin’s fly,” Ron began.
Frieda bent quickly toward the floor. “Ooooh, oof,” she said as she straightened up and pressed the speaker-phone button. “I’m sorry, Ron. I dropped my lunch here. I didn’t hear what you said.”
Ron repeated what he had said and added, “George is waiting here to commune with him.” George Fuller was the third-shift lieutenant.
Lieutenant Austin’s face reddened. He took the receiver and disconnected the speaker phone. “Put George on,” he said.
Officer Hendricks and Frieda looked at one another, eyebrows raised.
“George, I’ll be up front shortly,” he said stiffly. “Meanwhile, please inform Officer Aiken that I’ll be writing a report for his file concerning his comment about my fly and Sergeant Ferguson’s hand.” He hung up abruptly. “Does he always talk to you like that?” he asked Frieda.
Frieda took a deep breath. She was sure the lieutenant knew how Ron talked to her. Didn’t he work in the same office? She’d hoped that hearing Ron’s words in mixed company would embarrass him a little. Lieutenant Austin looked more shocked than embarrassed, and that surprised her. She’d always painted the entire security office bunch with the same brush. That included Ron Aiken, the desk officers on the other shifts, all the lieutenants, and the captain. They had the leisure for boredom and crude jokes. They didn’t spend eight hours each day alone in the company of twenty-five felons who had nothing more pressing to do than think of ways to drive the house sergeant crazy. The staff in the security office didn’t feel the isolation and need for friendly communication that the officers in the housing units felt.
“He usually talks to me like that, yes,” Frieda said. “And depending on my level of stress, I either ignore him or insult him in return.”
“You could file a sexual harassment suit.” The lieutenant looked as if that were the last thing he would want to see her do. Frieda was surprised that he even brought it up.
“I could,” she said. “But then I might as well quit, and I like this job. He doesn’t really insult me, I just consider the size of his brain. It only bothers me if I have an emergency here and he wants to play sexy-poo on the phone.”
“Well, maybe this will slow him down some. Thanks for letting me hear it.” He stood up. “Well, goodnight, Frieda, Don.”
After Lieutenant Austin had gone, Frieda asked Hendricks, “So, did you give him your take on the Greene, slash, Willis caper?”
“I sure as hell did. I even suggested he become a steady reader of the
“Yikes,” Frieda said. “Did you really...”
“Bunch of us were in Lenny’s the other night. Our regular beer ’n’ bitch session, you know, and we were filling each other in on the Greene, slash, Willis caper as you call it. Apparently Greene torments Willis out in the yard and at the gym, too. Everybody had something to say about him.” He smiled, remembering. “A writer from that paper was at the bar eavesdropping. He introduced himself and said it sounded like an unhealthy situation and was the warden insensitive or was he intentionally setting somebody up to get hurt? Well, we told him that if he would make sure the story got a lot of press when the situation exploded, we’d tell him anything he wanted to know.”
“ ‘Inmate at Beechwood Correctional Institution Goes Berserk and Kills Officer and Twenty-four Inmates.’ Wow! Nice headline.”
“How about ‘Staff Mutiny at Beechwood Correctional Removes Warden, Corrects Dangerous Policies’?”
“It would be nice,” Frieda said wistfully, “if they would tell us the reason we’re keeping Greene so we could at least be working together on it instead of running around in the dark trying to protect ourselves from both enemy and friendly fire. What a bass-ackward way to run a prison, she redundantly repeated one more time again.”
“Shall we walk through the house so I can stick my ugly puss up against Greene’s porthole?” Hendricks asked. “Give him something to dream about.”
Another uneventful night, almost. Frieda was walking the halls, counting again, at four in the morning. She shone her light into Greene’s room and didn’t see him. There was a mound in the bed, but the rule said that the officer must see skin. Frieda followed the rule religiously. No one would trick her into thinking he was asleep when he was actually gone. She opened the door and reached in, pulling the blanket toward her. Nothing was under it but pillows. She turned on the light and backed out, closing the door, then ran down to the office. She called Ron Aiken, wishing it were someone she could count on, and asked him to send Hendricks right away. She hung up before Ron could comment or question.
Otis was standing outside the office door. “Be careful, Fred,” he said softly. “We’ll back you up if the badge don’t get here in time.”
“Thanks, Otis.”
“Greene be on the move.”
Frieda nodded and went upstairs. How on earth does Otis know this? she wondered. She checked Greene’s room again. It was as she had left it. Pillows. She opened the closed bathroom door, forgoing her usual courteous knock that allowed a man using the facilities to call out his room number rather than have her walk in on him. The light was off. She flipped it on. Willis lay on the floor, his blue and white striped bathrobe raised, exposing his buttocks.
Blood dripped from his nose and ear. His face was scraped and bruised. More blood was smeared on his buttocks. As quiet as it was in the building at night, Frieda had heard nothing. She checked the toilet stalls and shower. Except for Willis and herself, the bathroom was empty. Moving around so she faced the open door, she felt Willis’s neck for a pulse, getting her fingers bloody in the process. Thank goodness, he was alive. She pulled a sock from his mouth. No wonder he didn’t make noise. Greene must have cornered Willis, stuffed the sock in his mouth, and pounded him until he went unconscious.
Frieda stifled the urge to hunt for Greene. Alone she would be no match for him, and she didn’t want Otis and the others to have to come to her rescue. She was on the phone with Lieutenant Fuller when she heard the outside door open and close quietly. Thinking that Greene must be leaving the house, she was startled when Hendricks came into the office.
“Greene has beaten Willis up and is hiding somewhere,” Frieda said softly. “Unless he took off while I was upstairs.”
“He didn’t,” Otis said, standing in the office doorway. “He ain’t come down.”
“Okay then. Unless he went out a window, he’s upstairs someplace,” Frieda said. “Shall we look? You go one way, and I’ll go the other?”
“Fine,” Hendricks said. “I’ll take the back stairs. Turn on all the lights you come to.” He stepped down to the front door and turned on the entry light.
Frieda got the TV room and hall lights. She crept quietly up the stairs, clutching her flashlight, wishing for the first time that it were bigger and heavier. At the top she turned on the stairway lights and then flipped the hall switch. The fights came on, went out, and instantly came on again. Hendricks must have flipped the switch at his end the same time she did. She looked both ways and stepped into the hall. She saw only Hendricks. He motioned that she should open doors and turn on lights in every room. She threw a door open, reached around the jamb to turn on the light, and moved on to the next room, to those at the end of the hallway, then down the opposite side. She saw Hendricks stop in the bathroom doorway for a minute and look in at Willis. At Willis’s room Frieda motioned for Hendricks to join her. She heard the lieutenant come in downstairs with at least one other officer, judging from the noise they made.
Frieda stood against the wall on one side of Willis’s door, Hendricks on the other side. Hendricks threw open the door and flipped the light switch. Greene burst out of the room toward the stairway, stopping short when he saw the lieutenant coming up. He spun around to go the other way. Hendricks moved into his path. Greene tried to push past, and the two men struggled. Greene threw a punch and broke away, sprinting toward the far stairway.
John was standing in the hall outside his room. Otis stood in the open doorway that led to the stairs. Greene charged toward Otis and bounced back in surprise, cursing Otis, who leaned against two mop handles, holding them crossways against the door jamb at the level of his buttocks. Greene hadn’t seen them, and they had halted his forward movement without breaking.
Greene raised his fist to throw a punch at the grinning Otis, but John slid an arm around his neck and pulled him backwards, off balance. The lieutenant and the officers moved in with handcuffs and hustled Greene away.
Hendricks looked at Otis and John. “First time I ever saw cons helping the law bust another con,” he said.
“We swat flies,” Otis said, “no matter who they bitin’. This be for Willis.”
“Thanks a lot, guys,” Frieda said. “Hey, pretty clever, Otis.” She indicated the mop handles he was holding.
The ambulance attendants arrived and examined Willis. As they prepared to turn him to lift him onto the stretcher, Frieda said urgently, “Wait. Before you turn him, please see if there’s any foreign object inside that might damage him when he’s moved.”
They gave her a look that made her feel dirty.
“Please,” she said again. “The one who did this might want to sodomize Willis but isn’t likely to do it in the usual way.”
While she was talking, an attendant put on surgical gloves and examined Willis’s rectum. He carefully removed a wooden dowel about twelve inches long. He sealed it inside a plastic bag.
“Oh, poor Willis,” Frieda whispered.
“Thanks, man,” Hendricks said.
The attendants lifted Willis onto the stretcher and slipped soft cuffs around his ankles and wrists. “Procedure,” they said, seeing the anger on Otis’s and John’s faces.
Frieda and Hendricks nodded and followed the men downstairs.
“Poor Willis,” Frieda said again when the ambulance had gone.
“He deserves a medal,” Hendricks said, “for getting Greene out of here. I’ll get him a Certificate of Appreciation. A membership in the dragonslayers’ club. He’ll like that.”
“Your eye is getting colorful, Don.” Frieda took a wad of paper towels and wet them with cold water. “How long do you think our good fortune will last?” she asked. “Oh my gosh! You have to give your reporter the story now.”
“All hell should break loose.”
“We’ll probably all get canned,” Frieda said.
“Then the
“Sorry to wake you so early, lieutenant,” he said into the phone, and went on to tell the lieutenant the final chapter of the Greene/Willis story. When he hung up the phone, he said, “Lieutenant’s buying us breakfast.”
Ray arrived at seven o’clock, and Frieda held the office keys aloft, jingling them joyfully. “He’s gone,” she said. “It’s in the log, and I’m going to hit the sack.” She grabbed her backpack and departed.
In the parking lot Hendricks reminded her, “Breakfast at Lenny’s.”
“Oh yeah.” Frieda scrubbed her hand over her face to force her eyes and brain to keep working. “Not long, though. I have to be back here at three.”
Lieutenant Austin was waiting outside the restaurant when Frieda and Hendricks pulled up. “The warden will be joining us,” he said. “Go on in.”
“Good thing that reporter didn’t answer his phone,” Hendricks said as they slid into a booth. “I was going to invite him to breakfast, being as our unhealthy situation has done exploded.”
When their breakfast arrived, Frieda said to the warden, “Sir, I just worked a double and have to be back at three for another double, so pardon me for being blunt but I need to know why we’ve had to suffer Greene’s threats for the last two months?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Ferguson,” the warden said. “I learned about the situation only this morning when Lieutenant Austin called me. He told me it was Captain Lundquist’s order to keep Greene in Unit Five. When I questioned Mr. Lundquist, he explained that Greene is a boxer. Lundquist is sponsoring him in a tournament coming up. He didn’t want to take a chance that Greene might be shipped out of here.”
The captain! Frieda closed her eyes, but tears squeezed past her lashes. She was so tired. “Greene is a boxer?” she whispered, her voice quivering. “With fists considered by law to be deadly weapons. Poor Willis.”
She wondered why Greene hadn’t bragged about being a boxer. She wondered how he could be a successful boxer anyway when he was such a loose cannon.
“Willis, yes,” the warden said. “I need to stop at the hospital and check his condition. I was thinking how fortunate we are that you, Ms. Ferguson, and the other sergeants haven’t been hurt. Greene should never have been in minimum security. I’ve offered Mr. Lundquist an opportunity to resign.”
“Thank you, sir,” Frieda said and got to her feet. “Please excuse me now, I really do have to sleep. See you at three, lieutenant, at eleven, Don.”
She picked up her bag and hurried out to her car.
It was a raw, rainy night, Monday, April 15, 1991, about eight forty-five p.m. Mike Wilson, the literary agent from New York, was less than a block from where he had parked the rented car when disaster struck. A furtive figure under the flickering streetlight, he was carrying two corrugated manuscript boxes and an umbrella.
He was almost across the little stone pedestrian bridge when he slipped on some wet leaves. He slid against the stone parapet on his right, banged his elbow, howled with pain, dropped the umbrella and the manuscript box under his left arm, and grabbed his right elbow.
That dislodged the box under his right arm. It landed atop the parapet, teetered tantalizingly, and fell into the rain-swollen creek.
“Oh my God,” Mike squealed as he steadied himself, looked over the balustrade. He was in time to see the box hit a jagged rock and split open, the contents pulled under by the swiftly flowing stream.
He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. A manuscript worth at least six million dollars — the original, the hard copies, the computer disk, everything — was already a sodden mess on its way to the Gulf of Mexico through a network of creeks and rivers.
A bolt of lightning rent the sky, thunder crashed, a sheet of rain hit him. He picked up the umbrella and the other box and ran for the car. He had a terrible time getting the key in the door lock.
Finally inside, the door closed, he switched on the dashboard light and made a silent prayer.
“Please, Lord, please, please,” he begged, “let this be the
He should have known better; the Lord frowns on thievery.
“I knew it, I knew it,” he wailed, “God help me. I’m done, finished, on my way to jail. And what about her? Oh my God, this is a catastrophe.”
It was pretty bad.
Two weeks before the manuscript went over the bridge, Cathy and Linda, two hairstylists at Lillian’s New York Style Hair Salon, finished the four dollar and twenty-five cent special at the fast food restaurant. After which they solemnly shook hands and pledged to do what they had been talking of doing for weeks: contact the supermarket tabloid.
“I still think they’ll pay at least fifty thousand,” said Cathy. “This is the kind of sensational story they love.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Linda. “Think what I can do with my share. Now, you’re not going to back out are you? You’re really going to phone tomorrow?”
“I said I was, didn’t I? You tell Lil I’ll be in around ten thirty. Tell her the high school principal called me again about Wendy. That kid, someday I’ll choke her. Now, let’s go over it again.”
They went over it again.
That same night, on the Upper West Side of New York, a tall, distinguished-looking man finished his evening’s allotment, his second beer, and got up to leave.
“Goodnight, Danny,” he said to the bartender.
“Goodnight, Mr. Reardon, have a pleasant evening,” Danny said.
Mr. Reardon was Thomas W. Reardon, a sixty-five-year-old widower, head of
His dear wife of forty years had died the year before; it still hurt. And unless a philanthropist appeared with several million dollars in the next few months, the foundation would be bankrupt. That would be a disaster, for without her father’s monthly check, his daughter and her two small children in Ohio would be homeless, her rotten husband having absconded to Brazil with his employer’s young wife and most of the firm’s capital.
Walking to his lonely apartment on a lovely spring evening throbbing with rebirth, Reardon began to sob. Life had become almost unbearable.
Thereby — from all the above — hangs a tale, a tale inspired by the adage
And as Bobbie Burns has told us,
And how often have we heard that
Best laid schemes constantly come a cropper, go awry, foul up. That’s what happened when two decent people — Martha Ainsley and Mike Wilson — were confronted with their vile realities.
Mike Wilson was no saint, but he had never broken any laws. In April 1991, he had only one vile reality. But it was a vile one, a forty-five hundred dollar alimony due on the first Monday of every month.
Martha Ainsley was a faultless person. Shy, meek, irreproachable, she was the most unlikely person ever to become a participant in a shaky scheme which, if it failed, could result in imprisonment. For a straitlaced goody two-shoes to abandon the straight and narrow for the slippery slope, there had to be an enormous vile reality.
There was. She was almost forty. She was madly in love with Walter Foster, the wonderful mailman. She was close to losing him to a henna-haired hussy. With fate about to close the book on her last chance for happiness, she flung righteousness aside, spurred on by the terrifying realization that there would be no more chances.
All tales have a beginning. An arbitrary beginning for this tale would be December 1975, with most of the drama taking place in Hillsdale, the county seat of Ashford County in the worked-out bituminous coalfields of southwestern Pennsylvania. That was almost sixteen years before Martha became involved in the six million dollar scheme from which thirty-five thousand dollars would be hers. That, together with her savings, would be enough to buy her mother the Florida condo, plus leaving additional money to augment her mother’s Social Security.
With her mother no longer the obstacle in the battle for the divine letter carrier, Martha’s chances would be greatly improved. There had been frenzied competition for Walter Foster. No wonder. In a pathetic town like Hillsdale, mired in a permanent depression, a stalwart, handsome bachelor like Walter with a steady job, a fine pension someday, and a widowed mother with failing eyesight and a bad heart naturally attracted a lot of attention.
But by the spring of 1991 (Walter’s mother died in September 1989) there were only two candidates left. All the others — mainly motherly types, great cooks, super seamstresses, spick and span housekeepers — had bowed to bitter reality. Walter Foster (no mother ever had a more devoted son) did not want another mother. He was forty-seven, had led a monastic life. Who could blame him for wanting to make up for lost time?
Martha Ainsley and Ginny Barnes were the surviving candidates. By the crucial month of April 1991, the once shy, skinny, slouchy, mousy-haired Martha had undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis. She now had a lot to offer. But she still had her mother, a sixty-four-year-old millstone.
Ginny Barnes had a mother, but she lived in Florida with her third husband. Ginny had other things going for her. She was divorced, childless, a green-eyed, henna-haired vamp with outstanding physical attributes. In Walter Foster she saw everything that a twice-divorced, late thirty-something girl could hope for. She was determined to beat out Martha Ainsley.
The first step in Martha’s eventual transformation had been taken simply to earn some extra money. Just before Christmas 1975 (bleak as usual), her hand shaking, the dear girl wrote a check for a hundred and fifty dollars for a three-month ad — the minimum accepted — in the Manuscripts Typed section of a national writers’ magazine. A shrinking violet (“Just like your father,” her mother nagged, “afraid to toot your own horn.”) she squirmed and blushed before coming up with:
“Bus schl grad/yrs sect exp/prompt service/spl/punct/gram. 75¢ ds pg. All states welc/all types mss include handwrt/rough type. Free copies/free post.”
By charging only “75¢ ds pg,” promising “gram,” offering “free post” she hoped to gain an advantage over the other typists, all of whom advertised 85¢ ds pg plus post and only “some gram.”
That was the beginning of a long, tortuous metamorphosis, a metamorphosis involving her mother, Uncle Sam, Lady Luck.
Her mother began it. Forever bemoaning her late husband’s failure, endlessly predicting that the welfare office loomed ever closer, Helen Ainsley finally drove her fainthearted daughter to do something unheard of: spend a small fortune, a hundred and fifty dollars, without consulting her.
Uncle Sam contributed the most vital ingredient, the quiet, handsome, bachelor mailman. Lady Luck’s contribution to the brew was to nudge Walter into calling tails when the postmaster threw the coin to determine which of the two eligible carriers would win the coveted transfer from a steep, hilly route to the very desirable West End route after grumpy Herman Means retired in June 1990.
It had come up tails. That brought two literature lovers, two devoted bibliophiles, into precious propinquity, even if for only a few moments a week. Walter’s father had died when the boy was only five, and his mother, a high school English teacher, had raised her son and had inspired him to read from an early age. By the time Walter took over the new route he had read hundreds of books, and during the last three years of his mother’s life, as her accelerating blindness made it impossible for her to read even the large print books, he had been reading to her night after night.
And Martha loved books. For many joyous years she and her beloved father, hand in hand, giggling and laughing, jumped over the cracks in the sidewalk on their way to the library on Saturday mornings.
There
Helen Walowsky was a beauty, a ravishing blonde. She came from a family of hardworking coal miners, and by the time she was a junior in high school, she had vowed she would have a better life than her mother and her married sisters.
After graduation she got a job in the Register of Wills office in the County Building. By then the college boys — scions of the rich coal and coke barons from the mansions of LaFayette Terrace — had discovered her. She was the belle of the ball at the country club dances and she selected the boy most likely to inherit a huge fortune.
Tall, blond, blue-eyed David Ainsley had graduated from Yale with a Ph.D. in English literature. He lived with his widowed father on one of the more imposing estates. It had been built by his grandfather, who had grown rich in the coke industry (coke, a vital ingredient in steel manufacturing, is coal with the impurities burnt off).
Helen snared David in June 1949. He was twenty-seven, she was twenty-three. The wedding was held in St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church. Later, at the country club, quite a number of the guests thought that while the bride was gorgeous and the groom handsome, the little tears that suddenly appeared when the bride murmured, “I do,” appeared to be sad tears, not happy tears.
They
He took it hard, called her a damned gold-digger, and vowed to make her eat her words. He became a miner, determined to save his money, go to college.
David and Helen honeymooned in New York. As they were flying back to the Pittsburgh airport, David’s father, his vast fortune gone from bad investments, committed suicide. Unknown to David, the LaFayette mansion had two mortgages. After the bank foreclosed and the estate was probated, all that was left was four thousand dollars.
Helen was devastated. David, mourning his father, tried to convince her they still had much to be thankful for. A new community college was opening in the next county, and he thought there’d be a fine opportunity for him there. Which there was; he was hired as an assistant professor in the Eng-fish department.
They bought a pretty Cape Cod on a tree-lined street near the city park. David loved his work, his students loved him. He volunteered at the library and the humane society, became a good Samaritan for old people too feeble to rake their autumn leaves or shovel the winter snows. And when their daughter was born in 1951, he devoted as many hours as possible to her. He began to think of writing a novel. Life was pleasant.
Not for Helen. Although she loved her little daughter and made determined efforts to be a happy housewife, she couldn’t keep from feeling that David had let her down.
As the years went by, father and daughter became dear friends. Helen went through the motions but couldn’t get over her bitterness. Then, on a hot sunny morning in August 1964 when Helen and Martha were at the supermarket, the phone rang. Mrs. Newcomer, an octogenarian widow who lived up the street, was distraught. Nameless, her cat, had once more climbed the big oak in her back yard and, as usual, was afraid to come down.
“He’s up there wailing pathetically, David,” Mrs. Newcomer said. “And I hesitate to call the police, they’re so shorthanded. Do you think...”
“I’ll be right up, Mrs. Newcomer,” David assured her, confident that, like the other times, he’d have no trouble getting Nameless down. But this time Nameless had gone higher. Meowing forlornly, he cowered at the end of a large limb. It looked strong. It wasn’t. With a crack like a bolt of lightning, it broke. Nameless landed safely. David wasn’t as lucky. He landed headfirst in the widow’s rock garden.
The whole town took it hard. Helen and Martha were grief-stricken, especially Martha. She cried for days. The poor girl — she’d lost the greatest father a girl ever had. She was thirteen, tall, shy, gangly, a bright girl with a high forehead, brown eyes, dull brown hair. There’d be many, many sad days ahead.
Helen’s grief soon turned to anger. David Ainsley, the brilliant catch, had proved a dismal failure. Not only was there no fortune, but he had been content to be an underpaid assistant professor at a backwater college while being a good Samaritan to every Tom, Dick, and Harry instead of writing the novel he had planned.
His death meant she had to go back to work. She became a lowly file clerk in the County Building, and was lucky to get even that. It was bad, but it could have been worse. David had mortgage insurance. That paid off the pretty Cape Cod on Chestnut Street. He also had a small life insurance policy with the college. When the funeral expenses were paid, there was twenty-two hundred dollars left. That didn’t make Helen any less bitter.
The years passed, bringing little joy to Hillsdale, to the whole county. The coal had all been worked out, the coke ovens shut down, and by December 1975, layoffs in all departments had reduced services to a dismal level. Even the library, a combination county-city facility, had suffered. It no longer opened at night, was down to three paid employees from a high of ten in the good old days, and was kept operating through the efforts of volunteers. It couldn’t afford to be computerized. If there had been any money, it would have gone to a new bookmobile (the current one was long overdue at the scrap yard). And year by year new leaks appeared in the roof; more and more buckets were required to catch the dripping drops.
Helen Ainsley hadn’t escaped downsizing. By the winter of 1975 she had reached the lowest point of her life. She was a part-time employee of the credit bureau, paid the minimum wage. She was tough to live with.
She was forty-nine, still a damn goodlooking woman, still had her hair done every ten days at Lil-Han’s New York Style Hair Salon (Martha went every two months). And though the pickings were pitiful in Ashford County, Helen had been wooed by two suitors. Neither had met her requirements: plenty of money, reasonable age and looks, and a desire to move to Florida. Besides, there was always that aching feeling for her first love, the boy she let get away; wonderful, wonderful Steve.
Martha was twenty-four in December 1975, a little taller, a little thinner, a little shyer, a little sadder. Only one boy had wooed her, a tall, shy assistant librarian at the community college. He had faded away, unable to cope with Helen, who regarded him as another dreamer, a duplicate of her failed husband.
With her father’s death Martha’s dreams of college vanished. She did well in high school, then took the year’s course at Miss Mason’s Business School, and in December 1975 was employed as the office manager and general factotum, which involved chores usually delegated to a cleaning woman — the sole employee at J. L. Henderson Real Estate and Insurance on Main Street.
It had been a bad year. In addition to Helen’s having sunk to the lowest rung on the ladder, the pretty Cape Cod had suffered some major blows. The furnace had expired in March and the washer in June, and an October storm had tom half the shingles off the roof. Then the ten-year-old car began making funny noises.
Helen was beside herself. They were doomed, they would be on food stamps by summer. Martha, cowering under the gloomy onslaught, nevertheless tried to put a better fight on the situation. In addition to a fine new furnace, the latest in washers, a lovely roof with a fifteen year guarantee, the car was sounding better than ever (it was the fan belt), and they still had over eight hundred fifty dollars in the bank.
No good.
“There you go again,” her mother snapped. “You’re your father all over, every cloud has a silver lining. But why do I waste my voice? I can’t even get you to stand up to that skinflint J. L. and demand he pay you what you’re worth. When are you ever going to realize that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, Martha, and if you don’t stand up for yourself, no one else will?”
So it went. Still, there was some justification for Helen’s complaints. Had Martha been employed in Pittsburgh, charged with the same duties, she would indeed have commanded a much higher salary. And J. L. could well afford to pay her more, for though the area’s boom days were long gone people still needed insurance, and affluent Pittsburghers were now buying second homes in the mountains east of town.
But it was not all woe and rue. The Cape Cod was only six blocks from the downtown office. Martha walked to work in all kinds of weather, the route taking her through the city park over the stone pedestrian bridge above the little creek.
In spring and summer birds sang, little animals scurried about, wildflowers bloomed. But when autumn came and the leaves began to fall, Martha often cried on her way to work. Another summer gone, I am a year older (her birthday was in June), just as miserable. Is this how I’m to spend the rest of my life? The poor dear girl.
Winter seemed to invigorate her. She began thinking about beginning a novel. And all during December 1975, goaded by her mother’s nightly jeremiad, she kept thinking of how she could earn extra money.
Then one cold morning it came to her. All bundled up, her step brisk, she suddenly thought of the Manuscripts Typed ads in the writers’ magazine to which she had subscribed to for years, just as her father had.
“That’s it,” she said, all excited. “I am an experienced typist, I’ve always been good in grammar. And think how exciting it would be, getting paid for typing manuscripts, mostly novels probably. Why, it might force me to finally begin my own novel. I’m going to do it. I am.”
She did. Now, the desperate deed done, came the dreaded moment when she had to tell her mother.
Helen was thunderstruck, absolutely thunderstruck.
“What? You mean to tell me that you, without consulting me, squandered a hundred and fifty dollars for an ad in that stupid writers’ magazine you and your father have wasted money on for years? I’m thunderstruck, absolutely thunderstruck.”
Poor Martha, wringing her hands, tried not to cry.
“Please, Mother,” she begged, “don’t you understand why I did it? It seems a wonderful way to earn extra money. And it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. I thought about it for a long time. Why can’t we give it a chance? And just for once, Mother, can’t you compliment me for doing something that shows I do have some of the spunk you keep telling me I lack? Please, Mother, don’t be so terribly critical.”
Her daughter’s imploring tone caused Helen to ease up.
“Well, what’s done is done. I’m not saying another word except to predict that it will turn out to be a hundred and fifty dollars thrown away.”
“I hope not, Mother, I hope not,” poor Martha managed.
The ad appeared in the March 1976 issue. Martha cringed as she read it. How did I ever have the courage to take such a gamble? What if it turns out to be a failure? Will I ever have enough confidence to do anything out of the ordinary? Oh, dear Lord, please, please, please tell someone to send me a manuscript.
The poor Lord; he had his hands full elsewhere, everywhere. No manuscript appeared at 146 Chestnut Street. March sped by, April came, the little creek rose higher with the spring rains.
“Nope, nothing but junk mail,” was her mother’s curt greeting when Martha arrived home at five fifteen every evening.
“Maybe tomorrow will bring good news,” Martha would say.
“That’ll be the day,” her mother usually snapped.
By the middle of April it looked hopeless. The time was approaching for renewing the ad, giving it another three months. That was out of the question; the wonderful idea had turned into a pipe-dream. Never again would she have enough courage to take a chance.
Then, thank God, exactly a week before the deadline for renewal, Martha came home to stunning news. A manuscript had arrived.
“And Herman wasn’t too happy about it,” her mother said. “He’s already got enough packages.”
Herman was Herman Means, the grouchy mailman. The hell with Herman, a normal person would have exclaimed. Not Martha.
“Oh, poor Herman, it must be his bunions again. But, Mother, where is the package? And can it really be a manuscript?”
“There it is, on the table. It
Helen was dead wrong. The beautifully scripted “handwrt ms” was from an eighty-eight-year-old widow of a West Virginia coal operator. It was entitled
In a witty, chatty letter Grandma explained that “my twenty-nine grandchildren have been after me for years to write down what it was like back in ‘the good old days’ when we were dirt poor but lived so far off the beaten path we didn’t realize how hard up we were.”
A check for five hundred dollars was enclosed. Martha let out a choked whoop.
“What’s wrong?” her mother demanded.
“Nothing, Mother. But look, the dear woman sent a check for five hundred dollars. I’m sure she overpaid. But isn’t it wonderful?”
Her mother saw it differently.
“Ha. That check will probably bounce.”
It didn’t bounce, thank goodness, for Martha had taken another gamble. Using her first earnings — Grandma’s payment — she sent another hundred and fifty dollars to the magazine.
It took Martha longer than it should have to type Grandma’s eighty thousand word manuscript. A less sentimental typist would have knocked off three or four hours. Soft-hearted Martha had to stop to wipe away the tears at such passages as:
“The rattlesnake bite proved fatal, and we buried the dear little four-year-old tomboy in a field of waving dandelions as a chorus of black crows cawed a requiem from a dying chestnut tree. We hollow dwellers would have starved without dandelions, but I never picked another one from that field.”
There were dozens of such stories. Grandma had a wonderful memory, a lively, uninhibited writing style. Deliriously happy, Martha mailed the completed manuscript — 320 ds pg — plus a check for two hundred sixty dollars, explaining that the bill came to only two forty. She thanked Grandma “from the bottom of my heart for trusting a total stranger with your beautiful reminiscences.”
Grandma wrote back. She praised Martha for a superb job, promised to send her a copy when the book came from the printer. And she returned Martha’s check, writing that “you deserve it for having far exceeded my expectations. And I can afford it. We had many tough years, but my dear, stubborn husband wouldn’t quit. I’m ashamed to say, Miss Ainsley, that I’m filthy rich.”
Martha cried for a long time after receiving Grandma’s letter. Maybe I’ve found my niche; maybe I can still amount to something. And wouldn’t Daddy be proud of his little girl?
In due time Grandma’s book arrived. It was a gorgeous book, with wonderful illustrations by Grandma. Martha clutched it to her small bosom as tears coursed down her cheeks. Thank you, dear Grandma, thank you. And thank you, dear Lord, thank you.
By the time Grandma’s book arrived, Martha had received and typed four more manuscripts. She was ecstatic. Her mother, doing her best to conceal her amazement at how well the mad idea seemed to be working out, reminded Martha that it was too early to call the venture a success.
“And I hope you’re not getting so carried away as to think about leaving your steady job. Remember, Martha, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Martha, happy as a lark, knew that.
“Of course I have no intention of leaving the agency,” she said. “But you must admit that if I only type one or two manuscripts a month, the extra money will be a big help.”
“You’re forgetting the expense. There are the ribbons, the typing paper, the postage. It’s not all gravy.”
Martha shook her head. Will she ever change? she thought. She would.
In March 1977, a year after the ad first appeared, a jubilant Martha balanced the books. She had typed, corrected the “spl/punt/gram” of sixteen manuscripts. Eleven were novels, one a biography
She had grossed two thousand nine hundred sixty-four dollars, been stuck for two hundred eighteen dollars by the congressman. Five letters to him — polite letters, the metamorphosis was still in the embryonic stage — had gone unanswered. Total costs, with six hundred dollars for the ads the largest expense, came to seven hundred twenty-one. Add in the uncollected two eighteen, the debits came to nine hundred thirty-nine dollars, leaving a profit of two thousand twenty-five.
The rash adventure had succeeded beyond Martha’s wildest dreams. And other benefits had accrued. Her mother had begun boasting about Martha at Lillian’s. And manuscript by manuscript, Martha was becoming more self-confident, and more amenable to
Having been cheated by the congressman, she now required payment before she mailed the completed work. And she had been inspired to finally start her novel.
Good heavens, she thought time after time as she labored through another pathetic manuscript, I can do better than that. In fact one of the novels — one hundred thousand dismal words — was so hopeless, so inept (Oh you poor, poor deluded person, she’d thought) that she came within an eyelash of returning it posthaste with the excuse that she was too busy.
But if I do that, it’ll simply be sent to another typist, and I’ll lose over three hundred dollars. She typed it. Slowly, ever so slowly, the metamorphosing stew was beginning to gurgle and simmer.
The temperature went up one Saturday morning in June. Her mother at the supermarket, Martha had tuned into the public TV station in Pittsburgh for the
There he was, the fat, pompous fraud, the ex-congressman.
“The old values — honesty, integrity, truthfulness — are all under attack,” he pontificated. “We who hold sacred our forefathers’ values must continue to fight the cynical forces... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
The check arrived six days later, the congressman “regretting that my secretary, who has been seriously ill, did not take care of this long before.”
“Horsefeathers,” Martha exclaimed, jubilantly, enormously proud of herself, all aglow. She was still aglow the next day, and when J. L. — a large, hail-fellow-well-met type — remarked that she hadn’t mopped the outer office floor lately, Martha, without even thinking, responded rather forcefully.
“I don’t think mopping the floors should be one of my duties, Mr. Henderson.”
At which J. L.’s chubby face turned red. He gulped three or four times, finally said, “I agree, Martha. Ah, I’ll arrange for a cleaning woman to handle all the... the extraneous duties from now on.”
With that he fled, mumbling that he had an appointment to show a large tract in the mountains. My goodness, thought Martha, I’m becoming a regular shrew. Martha Ainsley, everyone’s doormat, according to mother, beginning to assert herself. And it’s all due to that desperate venture, the manuscript typing. I’ve become proud of myself.
She had reason to be proud. Nearly every author on receiving the completed manuscript wrote back, praising her work. That’s how things stood in July 1977 prior to the arrival of
But when she examined the huge handwritten manuscript, she too reacted grumpily.
“For heaven’s sake, look at this mess,” she groaned. “Words are crossed out, others scribbled in, the margins overrun with corrections. And the penmanship, the misspelling, the hideous punctuation, and it’s at least a hundred and twenty-five thousand words. Well, I’m simply not going to waste my time on this mess. Back it goes tomorrow.”
It didn’t go back. She made the mistake of reading the cover letter.
Baxter said that he had grown up the poorest of the poor in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Since New Bedford was once a thriving whaling town, “I heard amazing stories of the incredible riches gained from the slaughter of those defenseless creatures.”
He had gone to college on a football scholarship, had watched “arrogant Back Bay families, whose obscene fortunes were rooted in killing whales, outdo one another in dismantling the Ten Commandments.” He was twenty-nine, barely surviving in Greenwich Village, waiting on tables and all too often “despairing that I would ever finish this manuscript, for which I have endured the agonies of the damned. I too often succumb to the intoxicating lure of that devilish fiend Bacchus. And I plan to write three more. I must be crazy.”
A check for two hundred dollars was enclosed. He said he had recently made friends with a literary agent who was opening his own office. The completed manuscript was to be sent to the agent, and he would pay the balance. He’ll pay before I send it, Martha said to herself.
Baxter apologized for his handwriting, “the general messiness. I simply couldn’t rewrite it. I wouldn’t blame you for sending it back. I await your decision.”
Intrigued by the author’s confession that he had “endured the agonies of the damned,” Martha began to read the messy manuscript, for she was experiencing her own agonies in trying to get past the first chapter of her novel.
And she had another reason for reading the manuscript, for her own novel was about Boston Brahmins rich from textile manufacture, sending their smooth-talking representatives to West Virginia in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s to talk the poverty-stricken hillbillies into leasing their coal lands for as little as a dollar an acre, their timber for a stumpage of fifteen cents a tree. Ashford County bordered West Virginia, and Martha had heard many stories of the rape of the beautiful state’s natural resources by rich Bostonians.
The manuscript was tough going; the handwriting would have shamed a fourth grader. But Martha kept reading. She was hooked — fascinated by the unique way Baxter built up tension. And there were wonderful characters. Sally Boggs became one of Martha’s favorites.
An illegitimate, illiterate, six-teen-year-old spittoon cleaner in a vile waterfront saloon, with nothing going for her but her “unbathed nubile carnality,” Sally ended up the owner of the most luxurious brothel in Boston, became a patron of the arts, and was highly esteemed by the gentry.
Ethan Easterfield was another favorite. Ethan, the youngest of the four boys (the other three were ship captains like their hard-driving father) was an idealistic person. He graduated from Harvard Divinity at nineteen and sailed with a group of fellow missionaries for the South Seas, eager to bring Christianity to the benighted heathens.
Alas, somewhere south of the Sandwich Islands on a gorgeous morning the dear boy, rushing to the rail to look at a huge whale, tripped over the box of Bibles on deck and went flying into the ocean, where he was immediately swallowed by the mammoth whale, an ironic twist of fate since poor Ethan had surreptitiously joined the Save the Whales fanatics at Harvard. “Oh poor Ethan, how awful,” Martha murmured.
She spent three long evenings reading the manuscript. When she came to The End, she let loose with the highest of encomiums: “Wow, what a writer, what a writer.” In spite of the sloppiness, the inconsistencies, the overall messiness, the rough draft possessed a vital spark, a unique, indefinable something that had held her spellbound. And this from someone who had read hundreds of books.
I’ve learned a lot from Harry Baxter, she told herself. I had to keep turning the pages no matter how tired my eyes were, had to see what happened next. That’s what I’m going to try to do with my novel if I ever get past Chapter One.
But now, woe is me, I have to begin to put this brilliant, chaotic mess into readable shape. But it really is a masterpiece. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it became a bestseller?
It became a bestseller, an enormous bestseller. Book critics were almost unanimous in praising it, one eminent critic calling it “a tour de force, a Moby-Dickian masterpiece. Let us hope we hear more from Harry Baxter.”
Martha had mixed emotions on reading the reviews. She was elated that “one of my authors” was such a spectacular success. But she would have loved to have her contribution recognized.
For not only had she spent many extra hours deciphering the scrawling handwriting and correcting the spelling, grammar, punctuation, she’d done an extraordinary amount of editing, something she had done very little of previously.
Writing in a white heat, Baxter frequently lost track of his dozens of characters. Ethan had departed in Chapter Three, permanently whalebound. Forty pages later, the dear innocent was duped by Sally Boggs. She whimpered that she was “with child.” Bewildered but gullible, poor Ethan married Sally, the nuptials performed by a ship captain, the waterfront evangelist responsible nowhere to be found.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Martha had moaned, another flagrant mistake. She phoned Baxter. Let her marry one of the cousins, he told her (there were dozens of Easterfields). But major problems occurred again and again. Martha phoned, usually found Baxter with a chip on his shoulder. Finally he ordered her to type the manuscript just as it was.
“It’s not going to sell anyway,” he told her. “And if by some crazy chance it does, the editor will straighten it out. That’s what they get paid for.”
But conscientious Martha (“I’d be ashamed to send it to a literary agent like it is.”) kept bringing order out of chaos, which cost her many, many exasperating hours.
In 1991, before the fateful night when six million dollars went over the bridge, Lillian’s New York Style Hair Salon was going great.
Not only was it revered for excellence in hairdressing, it was held in high esteem for its preeminence in the field of scandal and gossip. Lil — a big, buxom, boisterous divorcee with a heart as big as her bosom — had a horde of relatives in city and county offices. They kept her up to date on the latest shenanigans in government. And her devoted patrons contributed their share. Very little happened in the whole county that escaped Lil’s network.
That took care of the local stuff. National and international high-jinks were covered by the four weekly tabloids to which Lil subscribed. Royals Cavort Topless or Batty Billionaire Marries Great-grandson’s Babysitter — Lil’s enthralled patrons got the news hot off the press. No wonder it was called Gossip Heaven.
The metamorphosis was nearly complete. She was no longer the shy, skinny, slouchy, mousy-haired mollycoddle of December 1975. But while
Proud of her accomplishments in the manuscript work and for having actually written a novel, she nevertheless still had feelings of insecurity, especially when thinking of Ginny Barnes. But she shouldn’t have felt insecure, for she was now an attractive woman. Lil had perfected a style that brought out the highlights in Martha’s brown hair but also pleasingly framed her high forehead, her brown eyes, her nice nose.
Lil had done more. She had nagged Martha into putting on weight, standing straight, and watching her carriage. Thus by early 1991 Martha had added eighteen pounds to her tall frame. Hardly voluptuous, she would still make some lucky man a well-rounded, cuddly, curvy armful. She hoped and prayed the man would be wonderful Walter.
There were other changes. The faithful Remington had been replaced by an “IBM Comp/HP Pmt.” Fees had gone to “$1.25 ds pg + P&H.” She was now “nationally known, accepts only novels,” but “handwrtn/rough type mss” were still accepted. One never knew what treasures lurked behind pathetic penmanship.
By the fateful night of April 15, 1991, Martha had twenty-five thousand six hundred seventy-five dollars in certificates of deposit in the bank. And if she hadn’t been forced to turn down manuscripts to work on her novel, she might have had the sixty thousand dollars for her mother’s condo.
Another change: since the whole town knew of Martha’s success, J. L., scared to death of losing his jewel, had raised her salary three times.
Martha had concentrated on her novel for the last four years, accepting only an occasional manuscript, one requiring a minimum of editing. She still couldn’t resign herself to being a mere typist. Every completed manuscript had to be one she could be proud of.
She had desperately hoped that the novel would sell; then there would be plenty of money for the condo. But it hadn’t sold. And she hadn’t hit the lottery (she played five dollars a week, the same numbers). But in the midst of all the gloom, there appeared the silver fining, Walter Foster taking over the West End route. His workweek was Tuesday through Saturday — a female substitute took over on Monday. And since Martha had the weekend off, she now had a heaven-sent opportunity to see him every week, even if for only a few moments. When word reached her that Walter would be taking over the route, she wrestled with her conscience. It lost. (“I’m losing all my principles,” she said sadly.) For though she received a lot of mail, it would be tragic if there was none on a particular Saturday.
She phoned the postmaster, said that she would always have stamped mail to be picked up on Saturday. Please have the mailman stop every Saturday.
Thus, beginning on the third Saturday of June 1990, her mother at the supermarket, Martha stood at the front window, peeping around the edge of the curtain, shivering all over in the pleasant summer heat. She was prepared. Lil had done her part, Martha having a nine A.M. appointment. She had bought a lovely blue blouse and a matching skirt but had reluctantly passed up Unbridled at the boutique in the mall in favor of a less potent perfume, Summertime.
The magic moment arrived, twelve fifteen. Her knight in postal armor opened the gate, came up the walk onto the porch, and rang the doorbell. Martha, smothering a little squeal, managed to open the door and come out on the porch, holding two letters in a shaky hand.
“My, Martha, how nice you look,” Walter exclaimed as he took the letters. “Well, I mean, that is... you do look nice.” Then he blushed. He was forty-six years old. He could still blush. No wonder all the women on his long route were crazy about him.
Martha giggled just like a teenager.
“Oh, how kind of you, Walter,” she said as she too blushed. “Isn’t it a gorgeous day?”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Walter.
Seventh heaven had come to 146 Chestnut Street. It was a brief seventh heaven. After all, there are regulations. But it was heavenly, out of this world. Walter always complimented Martha on how nice she looked. She glowed. Then they talked of the weather, then of books. What was he reading? And how was her novel coming?
Her novel,
Mr. Harry Baxter could almost accuse me of plagiarizing his style, she thought after the last rewrite. But it’s
It went out five times, was rejected five times, each time with a short personal note, the gist being it didn’t meet “current needs.” She was wished well in “placing it elsewhere.”
Poor Martha, choking back her disappointment, always wrote a thank-you note. She sent it to a sixth publisher in the fall of 1990. It was gone for months, no word. In late February she wrote a pleading note, “Any news on my manuscript,
She was thanked, wished well.
Again the poor girl thanked the publisher. And since
Of course she didn’t. She was a perfectionist, especially where Baxter’s manuscripts were concerned. She agonized over it, correcting the grammar, the spelling, the punctuation, eliminating the many, many inconsistencies in names, dates, episodes. She couldn’t help herself. But she could swear now, damn Baxter for being such a sloppy writer.
But she also wanted to please Mike Wilson, Baxter’s literary agent. He had paid the balance due on
And she couldn’t forget Scott Henry. He had edited Baxter’s three books at Sterling & Meeks before he and the other editors were downsized, replaced with eight dollar an hour college temps when the old line publisher was bought by Sharpe & Slashwright, a conglomerate with no experience in book publishing.
Scott had written Martha, praising her for her fine work on Baxter’s manuscripts, “his roughest of rough drafts.” In his last letter he had written, “When I compare Harry’s manuscripts with yours, Miss Ainsley, I say once again that you have made my job enormously easier. Thank you.”
And having observed the horrible editing of recent Sharpe & Slashwright books, Martha could well imagine what would happen with
For it was like the three other Easterfields. Again, it held the readers’ interest page by page and was guaranteed to be another bestseller. But who deserves more than a little credit for Baxter’s books’ being bestsellers? Me, pipsqueak Martha Ainsley, she snarled. Old mealy-mouthed Martha, too timid, too cowardly to demand that Harry Baxter, filthy rich author, pay me ten dollars a page, twenty dollars a page.
The poor girl, she was falling apart. No wonder. Enter Ginny Barnes, exuding sexuality, not intellectuality. Not that Ginny was simply a henna-haired scatterbrain. She was good at her job in the classified ads section of the local paper, but she was no bibliophile. She wouldn’t have known Emma Bovary and Becky Sharp from the Bobbsey Twins.
Her divorce finalized in September 1990, she getting the little house on Elm Street on the West End route, Ginny made a spectacular appearance on her front porch on the second Saturday of September, the opening performance avidly witnessed by Thelma, a dear old nibnose widow across the street for whom a daily dose of gossip was as essential to her well-being as her three different prescription pills.
(“Yes, that’s right,” sly Ginny had said to the postmaster, “At 218 Elm Street I’ll always have a stamped letter. I write to dear Mother in Florida every single Saturday.”)
Perfumed (she’d gone with Unbridled) and pulchritudinous, posturing and prancing provocatively, she was a sight to behold. And when the breathtaking performance was over, Thelma grabbed the phone, called Emily.
“You shoulda seen her. It was just like one o’ them hootchy-kootchy numbers Theda Bara used to do in the silent movies at the Lyric. Huh? Whaddaya mean you don’t remember Theda Bara? Who you kidding? You’re as old as I am. Now, do you want to listen or not?”
Emily listened. Then she telephoned Olive, who couldn’t wait to call Alice. As the titillating tale wove through town, it eventually reached Martha, a well-meaning quidnunc phoning her on Sunday evening.
Poor Martha, she felt like crying. But she didn’t cry, she swore. Damn that creature, damn her. Not satisfied with having had two husbands, she’s trying to steal my dear Walter. Damn her, damn her.
Seventh heaven at 146 Chestnut Street became a little less ethereal after Ginny wriggled front and center. Oh, Walter still told Martha that she looked nice — and she did, she redoubled her efforts to make the best appearance — and they still talked of the weather, books, her novel. They managed to accomplish a lot in sixty or seventy seconds. But an uncertainty in Walter seemed to be developing.
Martha knew why (the gossip grapevine kept humming). Walter reached Ginny’s house on Elm Street at eleven forty-five, a half hour before he arrived at 146 Chestnut. And he was having a tough time. Before Ginny appeared, he had been dreaming of how wonderful it would be married to Martha. He would be doubly blessed, the rapture of the nuptial chamber and the intellectual stimulation before, after, and maybe even during.
They would have hundreds of books. They would help one another with their writing, for after the wedding he would have the courage to tell her about
Then he would remember her mother. Oh boy, it wouldn’t work. But there was still time. She could still marry, she was an attractive woman for her age.
Then Ginny Barnes appeared. Poor Walter, he began having nightmares, Ginny flaunting her copious bodily charms, then Martha taking the floor, discussing Hardy and Jane Austen, Helen hovering nearby, seemingly rooting for Ginny. No wonder an air of uncertainty engulfed Walter.
And Ginny kept applying the pressure. Late in November a library volunteer phoned Martha to tell her Ginny had checked out three books that evening.
“One Hardy,
Poor Martha, she thanked the volunteer, put down the phone, snarled, “That insidious creature, resorting to something that fraudulent, trying to impress Walter. Is there no end to her despicable tactics?”
Much later that night, tossing and turning in bed, she attempted to rationalize. Why, it could backfire, allow Walter to see what a sly, sneaky person she is. He’s simply too intelligent to fall for something so transparent. He’ll be able to see through that flimsy subterfuge.
The poor distraught girl, she wasn’t thinking straight. It would have taken a blind man not to see through Ginny’s flimsy subterfuges. The weather didn’t matter, frost on the pumpkins, thermometer plunging, wind howling, out she pranced, coat open, attired in another breathtaking flimsy subterfuge.
Walter was in such an emotional state that he had to stop work on
With dear nibnose Thelma’s eagle eye focused on the escalating drama at 218 Elm Street, keeping the pipeline humming, the betting at Lil’s by early April 1991 had Ginny a three-to-one favorite to capture the brass ring.
In April 1991, Helen, approaching her sixty-fifth birthday but looking years younger, had been out of work for eight years, downsized at the credit bureau by a secondhand computer. She no longer said anything derogatory about David — Martha had put a stop to that. But she had plenty to say about Harry Baxter at Lil’s. He was rich, and Martha had helped him get rich. If she hadn’t made improvements in his first awful manuscript,
“Now, Martha’s never come right out and said as much,” said Helen, “but it’s plain to me that she feels Baxter hasn’t treated her fairly. I’m not talking about a huge sum of money, just a fair amount.”
Of course not everyone at Lil’s believed all that. It was well known that for years Helen had been yearning to move to Florida. Still, once or twice under questioning from Lil, Martha admitted that she’d always had to spend much more time on Harry Baxter’s manuscripts than any others.
“Making improvements, Martha?” Lil asked.
“Well, I guess you could call it that.”
All the while Cathy and Linda, the two hairstylists, paid close attention. While Helen harped on the injustice of it all, they would look at one another as if to say, “What more do we need?”
Lil’s wasn’t the only place where Harry Baxter was a frequent topic. The whole country knew all about him, the supermarket tabloids having made him a favorite whipping boy. Success and money had led to a turbulent life, and three marriages to the kind of peroxided Loreleis who in pre-harassment days would have been described as “dumb blondes” had resulted in bitter divorce trials, the proceedings enthusiastically covered by the tabloids.
AUTHOR’S WIFE ENDURED CRUEL AND BARBAROUS TREATMENT, screamed the headline about the first divorce. The testimony from Wife Number One was heartrending.
“That’s right,” she sobbed on the stand. “He made me read a book every single week... imagine. And I had to write a book report... and I never got nothin’ but F’s.” Divorce granted; two million dollars awarded.
Wife Number Two was Turned into an Ice Cube. Baxter refused to let her wear a fur coat, claiming animals were better creatures than humans. Whales were especially to be protected.
“Well,” Blondie Number Two whimpered, “when I couldn’t take no more, I said that as far as I was concerned whales were nothin’ but a bunch of blubber.” Baxter flew into a rage, called her a numbskull, a nitwit, “an’ lotsa other horrible names.” Divorce granted; two and a half million awarded.
AUTHOR BEATS WIFE WITH LETHAL WEAPON, screamed the tabloids. That was laying it on pretty thick, for the lethal weapon was a box of Yummy Oats. Baxter got up early, made his breakfast, went into the den to write, his third wife well aware that he was not to be disturbed. One morning the poor girl couldn’t find her favorite cereal.
“All I did,” she testified tearfully, looking about as yummy as they come, “was to open the door to his den, and real polite I said, ‘What happened to the Yummy Oats?’ ”
All hell broke loose. Baxter leaped from his chair, raced into the kitchen, “throwin’ things helter-skelter all over the place” before he found the Yummy Oats box hidden behind the other cereals.
“He beat me over the head with the Yummy Oats,” the poor girl whimpered and sobbed. “An’ the box broke and the stuff spilled all over the floor, an’ he made me sweep it up. It was awful.” No question here; a two million seven hundred thousand dollar verdict.
But the divorce trials were only part of the tabloids’ fascination with Baxter. And he gave them plenty of ammunition. A troubled soul who frequently looked for solace in the bottle, he all too often convinced himself that the next one would do the trick and then the next, the result welcome fodder for the tabloid mills.
AUTHOR SLUGS EX-WIFE’S LAWYER WITH LIVE LOBSTER, POLICE CALLED TO RITZY RESTAURANT went one headline. Months later came Crazed Author Rampaged in Bar. At issue was Baxter’s suspicion — unfounded — that the bartender had watered his drink.
Mike Wilson, Baxter’s literary agent, not only had to bail him out, he had also tried to get Baxter to undergo treatment for alcoholism. Baxter refused, claiming the media were out to get him. In one instance he was right.
He lived in Connecticut, went to New York on weekends to unwind from his writing. Just before Christmas 1988, he emerged from an Upper East Side bar holding three fifty dollar bills, having promised the Salvation Army lass manning the sidewalk kettle that he would have a contribution on his way out. Unsteady to begin with, he slipped on a patch of ice. Baxter, lass, and kettle ended up in the gutter.
SCROOGE LIVES; AUTHOR ATTACKS SALVATION ARMY LASS, shrieked his most persistent adversary,
Agent Mike Wilson — early fifties, stocky, balding — entered his midtown Manhattan office on Friday, April twelfth, at about nine thirty. His secretary, a temp — his longtime one had married and moved to California — handed him a registered letter.
“It came as I was opening up,” she explained, “and there’s been a phone call from a Martha Ainsley. She sounded very upset, wants you to call her as soon as possible. Here’s her number at work.”
Mike thanked her, noted that the envelope had Hairy Baxter’s return address. He went into his office, closed the door, and sat down at his desk.
I know what this is, he said to himself as he opened the envelope. Friend Harry is telling me I’m out.
Mike had been hearing the rumors: Baxter was planning to auction
Mike was right: “This is official notification that you are no longer my agent. Thanks for everything, Mike, but you have made enough off me. As for Sharpe & Slashwright, I’m going to auction
“Damn him, damn him,” Mike snarled as he crushed the letter, threw it into the wastebasket. “After all I’ve done for him. Now what do I do? I can’t let him get away with it. Hell, I can’t afford to lose my ten percent —
He phoned Hillsdale. He had guessed correctly. Martha — very upset — said that Baxter had telephoned her from Connecticut as she was leaving for work. He demanded to know when she would be finished with
“I told him that I’d be finished by Monday evening,” she went on, “and he told me to send everything to him — his manuscript, my copies, the computer disk. Nothing was to be sent to you, Mr. Wilson. He was... well, emphatic on that point. And he even ordered me to delete the computer file. Doesn’t this mean that he intends to bypass you, his agent? Can he legally do that? Don’t you have a contract?”
“We had a contract, Martha,” said Mike, trying to sound calm, “but it expired after the third book. I couldn’t get him to renew it. Since then we’ve operated on mutual trust, like many writers and agents. But can he legally do this? Can he, at the last minute, just before
“My help? I... oh, Mr. Henderson is coming. I’ll have to phone back when I can.”
Okay, thought Mike, I’ve laid the groundwork. But can I really expect our Martha, irreproachable smalltown spinster whom I have come to know from many phone conversations as an upright, highly principled person, to disobey Harry? Wait a minute, haven’t Scott Henry — the poor bastard, still out of work — and I talked about how Martha Ainsley has changed over the years? Haven’t we noticed that she’s become more confident, less diffident? And hasn’t she hinted that Baxter has never appreciated the enormous amount of work she’s done on his manuscripts?
But what does that mean? Do I have the guts to offer that upstanding woman a bribe to disobey Baxter? Hell, I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll steal
An hour later, Martha called back.
“You said you would need my help, Mr. Wilson.”
Yes, he told her, he would. If she disobeyed Baxter and sent everything to Mike, Baxter would have to sue, Mike said. That could take months. And Baxter needed money.
“He’s about broke from his divorces, and he’s been losing pretty heavily in Atlantic City, but that’s beside the point. What he’s attempting is simply rotten. He owes me a lot. And I’m not talking about money.”
“I know what you mean, Mr. Wilson,” Martha said, still very upset. “I know all about it from the tabloids. You’ve always been a staunch friend. But, well, I have a confession to make.”
“Oh?”
In a halting voice Martha confessed that she had bed to Baxter.
“I’ll actually be finished with the manuscript on Sunday, not Monday.” She stopped. Silence.
Mike waited.
“Go on, Martha,” he said finally. “I’m sure you had a good reason for doing what you did.”
“Oh, this is terrible, just terrible,” she said. “I lied because... because I wanted time to think. I am... am... undergoing a crisis, and I immediately knew Mr. Baxter was doing this to deprive you of your commission. And you have always been very generous and supportive. I’m so ashamed.”
“Don’t be; hell, we all have crises. I have one every month — forty-five hundred dollars in alimony. Come on, tell me, maybe I can help.”
More silence. Mike kept quiet, wondering what kind of a crisis she was undergoing. Still silence. Mike had to say something.
“Damn it, Martha, almost any crisis can be overcome. Come on, what is it?”
“You... you remember my telling you that Mother lives with me. I mean we five together. She’s always wanted to five in Florida, and I’ve been trying for years to accumulate enough money to buy her a condo there. But that’s not the real reason. Anyway, I very nearly committed blackmail. I nearly told Mr. Baxter that unless he paid me a certain sum I would mail
“No, no, I do not, Martha,” exclaimed Mike. He was momentarily stunned but recovered quickly. “Listen. Forget about Baxter. I’ll be happy to give you whatever you need to buy the condo for your mother. But we have to talk. I’ll come to Hillsdale tomorrow night, and we’ll get this settled.”
“No, no, you can’t come tomorrow. Mother mustn’t know about this. She’s been talking at the local beauty parlor — it’s been my fault for having complained to her about the extra work I’ve always done on Mr. Baxter’s manuscripts — and she’s been exaggerating. Oh, I don’t know
Wow, thought Mike, breathing a huge sigh of relief. Maybe it’ll work out.
“Monday’s fine,” he hastened to say. After he had taken down the directions, he read them back to her.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a little less than an hour from the Pittsburgh airport. And please don’t come to the house before seven thirty.”
Mike promised. And yes, he understood her wanting him to park four blocks down the street, near the little park (“The neighbors are nice, but this is a gossipy little town.”).
Mike was about to say goodbye when Martha hurriedly said, “But, Mr. Wilson, my not giving
Oh boy, Mike thought. And just when the worst seemed over.
“It might,” he said cautiously, “but honestly, Martha, Baxter isn’t going to press charges. As I said, he’s in real financial trouble. He even has two mortgages on his Connecticut house, the poor bastard. Once I tell him that I have
“But that’s just what
“I’ll see you Monday evening,” Mike managed before she hung up. Damn it, he thought, for a while it looked good. Somehow, though, I have to convince her to give me
Which she did. She also gave him
It was a dreary, dank, dismal, drizzly day with a cold wind howling and black clouds darkening the sky. Seventh heaven at 146 Chestnut Street seemed an unlikely place for a burst of poetry. Yet Walter, hunched against the wind, rain dripping from his slicker, took the letter from Martha, smiled that dear, shy, boyish smile, and said, “It must have been this kind of day in England, Martha, when Eliot wrote that ‘April is the cruelest month.’ ”
Poor Martha, she barely restrained herself from leaping at him and clutching him, the mailbag, and the dripping slicker in a passionate embrace. But she didn’t leap, she suddenly remembered an April poem and burst out passionately, “Oh, but remember Browning, Walter...
She stopped, blushed.
Oh, what a wonderful girl, thought Walter as he finished the verse:
He stopped suddenly, looked embarrassed.
“ ‘In England — now!’ ” finished Martha.
She almost was in tears when Walter turned to go, stopped, turned toward her, and blurted out, “Oh, Martha, you’re wonderful.”
Then he fled, and neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, nor the constant, agonizing knowledge that he would have to make a decision very soon, stayed the faithful carrier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.
Martha stood transfixed, unable to move, as the tears came. Then she ran from the porch, down the walk, stopped at the gate, coat flapping in the wind, rain pelting her, shouted as loud as she could as the faithful carrier opened the gate two houses down, “You are too, Walter, you are wonderful too.”
Naturally the neighbors on either side — both retired couples — witnessed this strange, un-Martha-like behavior and telephoned one another. How exciting, they agreed.
Inside again, Martha, throbbing and glowing and crying at being called wonderful, took off her coat, sobbed that we are made for each other, I will not lose him to that crude, vulgar, shameless creature, I won’t. Come what may, I’ll give
Monday produced a raw, rotten, rainy night, which made no difference to the faithful bingo players at the K of C. Martha had insisted that Mike take an umbrella away with him. And at the very last minute she’d asked again if he shouldn’t leave a copy with her.
Mike, afraid that she would change her mind and mail a copy to Baxter, said that wasn’t necessary. He had everything in the manuscript box, had watched her, fingers trembling, delete the computer file, obliterate
“I am now a full-fledged criminal,” she said almost tearfully.
Mike quickly changed the subject.
“About your manuscript, Martha. You said you’ve had six rejections. Do you have the names of those publishers handy?”
She did, and she also had the last rejection slip wherein the editor praised her manuscript as “a splendid effort.”
“Hey,” said Mike, “I know this editor. He doesn’t pass out that kind of praise unless he means it. You might have something, Martha. I’ll start reading it on the plane.”
“Oh, would you? That would be wonderful. But you may be disappointed. It might appear that I was deliberately attempting to imitate Mr. Baxter’s style. I wasn’t. Or at least I didn’t intend to.”
“Don’t let that bother you. In fact, it could be a plus. Now I have to go if I want to catch the last plane to LaGuardia.”
“But what if Mr. Baxter kept a copy?” Martha asked. “All this would be in vain, wouldn’t it?”
Boy oh boy, thought Mike, this is a battle.
“I doubt he did. I’ve needled him in the past, but he always claimed it was too much work getting those legal pads reproduced. And between us, I believe the poor man was always so plain sick of each manuscript that he could hardly wait to send it to you. I’ll still sue him, tie things up for months. One more thing, Martha, you’re sure you won’t let me give you the thirty-five thousand? I brought a blank check.”
“No, no, I’ll wait until the auction. I hope it’ll be soon. Besides, I might win the lottery. After all, the odds are only twelve million to one.”
“Now, don’t be so gloomy. This is going to work out. And nobody will be hurt, least of all Harry Baxter.”
“I don’t know. But it’s too late to back out. Please be careful, it’s a terrible night. I’ll hold the door open. And... thank you.”
“Thank
Walking swiftly to where he’d left the car, fighting the umbrella, he thought about how different Martha Ainsley was from the smalltown spinster type he and Scott Henry had originally envisioned. At a guess, she must be close to forty, but she wasn’t a bad looking woman. Then he remembered something she’d said in the phone conversation on Friday. She needed the money for the condo for her mother and for “another reason.”
Ten to one, thought Mike, bracing himself against the rain, it’s the old
He didn’t read any of Martha’s manuscript on the plane. He sat stunned, sunk in a terrible daze, unable to believe what had happened. He spent an awful night, got about two hours’ sleep. But he awoke as usual at six forty-five. He staggered out to the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, went back to the front room, drank the orange juice while wondering if Socrates had sipped the hemlock or gulped it down.
“God help me,” he moaned. “Unless the world has come to an end, and even more unlikely, unless Harry Baxter kept a copy, I am on my way to jail. And what about that poor, fine, innocent woman. This is a calamity of... of...”
He searched for the remote control to turn on the TV. Maybe the world had indeed come to an end.
The world hadn’t come to an end, but Harry Baxter had.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Mike yelled at the announcer. “Repeat that... go on...”
“To repeat,” said the announcer in an end-of-the-world voice, “Harry Baxter, the famous novelist, died in an early morning fire at his Connecticut home. It’s suspected that the fire began with a cigarette. Mr. Baxter was known to be a heavy smoker. We expect more details on the noon news. Now to international news. Reports from the Ethiopian capital of...”
Mike hit the remote control.
“Oh my God,” he yelled as he leaped from the couch, “maybe I’m being saved by the bell. Maybe he
He phoned for a limousine and left a message on the office answering machine saying he’d be in the office early that afternoon and if anyone called he would call back.
If Baxter had kept a copy of
“And the pathetic thing is,” a fireman told Mike, “if the sprinkler system had been working, there’d have only been a little water damage. Some people spend thousands on the system and then forget to have regular inspections.”
“The remains?” said Mike with a lump in his throat, thinking of poor, tortured Harry, nothing now but “remains.”
“At the morgue,” said the fireman and gave Mike directions.
“You don’t want to see him,” the medical examiner said. “Not much left. You couldn’t identify him. We’re checking dental records. But it’s cut and dried. It has to be Baxter.”
The limousine was approaching Norwalk on the way back before Mike could wrench his mind from the horror of Harry’s death. What now, he thought hopelessly. Sure, I can clear Martha and myself of any illegality by simply saying that
And how about Martha and her need for money? Hell, that’s simple. I fouled up, botched a foolproof scheme. God, how could it have happened? But it did. I’ll have to tell her. And then when she recovers from her hysteria — justifiable hysteria — I’ll hand her a check, make her take it. Then I’ll slink away like the miserable bungler I am, close the agency, head for California, and get a job in a pizza shop.
Such thoughts weren’t helping. He tried another tack. Think, man, think. There must be some way out of this mess. Then... wait a minute. What was that Martha said about her manuscript? That it might appear she was deliberately imitating Harry’s writing style?
He didn’t go to the office. He had the driver drop him off at the apartment. He phoned the office. Were there any messages? Yes, Martha Ainsley had telephoned twice. A reporter from the
He took
“Good Lord,” he exclaimed as he put the manuscript down. “This is unbelievable. Hell, it could easily be passed off as a Baxter manuscript. And think of it! It’s the only remaining Harry Baxter — famous author — manuscript on the face of the earth. It’s worth millions. Oh my God, think what this could mean. But am I such a rotten, unprincipled bastard as to beg that poor woman — who must have labored over it for months, maybe years — to sacrifice her manuscript so I can pretend it’s an early Harry Baxter, the last of the great writer’s work? And since that would constitute fraud — naturally I’d have to conceal the truth from the publisher — that means I would have lured that fine, decent woman deeper into crime.
Meantime, Martha had had a terrible day. She learned of Baxter’s death via the seven o’clock morning news. She phoned Mike twice; no word from him. Then around two thirty in the afternoon another blow: Ginny raised the ante.
“I heard it at Lil’s,” a well-meaning quidnunc phoned her at work. “I thought you ought to know. You know the
Fuming inside but ever polite, Martha thanked the caller, slammed down the phone. “What next?” she snarled. “Mr. Baxter dead, no word from Mr. Wilson, and now this... this... lewd, lecherous creature flaunting herself before poor, sweet, innocent Walter five days a week. If she were here now, I’d kill her, I would.”
She didn’t really mean that. Things were falling apart. How long could Walter resist that wriggling, slithering, half-naked creature now that she would be able to wriggle and slither five days a week in comparison to poor Martha’s one day?
“And... I don’t wriggle... or slither,” the poor girl whimpered. “Maybe I should have. Why doesn’t Mr. Wilson call me... why?”
Mike called around three thirty. Naturally, Martha was taking care of a customer.
“I’ll call you back,” she hissed. Wow, thought Mike, she has a temper. He waited. Martha rang back in fifteen minutes.
“Why didn’t you phone me long ago?” she demanded. “I’ve been in a terrible state. Poor Mr. Baxter, how awful. But what does this do to... to... you know?”
Mike knew; it changes things, he said.
“But we can’t discuss it over the phone,” he went on. “I must come to Hillsdale this evening. Now, now, I know about your mother. You’ll have to get her out of the house. How about having her go — take a friend, too — to a nice restaurant and maybe a movie afterwards. I’ll reimburse you. No, I can’t answer any questions. I’ll see you around seven thirty.” He quickly hung up.
Getting Helen out of the house wasn’t really too hard.
“Mr. Baxter’s literary agent is coming from New York,” Martha explained. “Just a minute, Mother,” she said sternly as Helen was about to speak. “We have a lot to discuss,” she continued very emphatically, “and we can’t have any interruptions. Why don’t you call Alice and you and she go to the White Swan and a movie afterwards. Mr. Wilson will be happy to pay for it.”
By now Helen had learned not to argue with Martha when she used her “I-don’t-want-to-discuss-it-further” tone.
“Hmm,” she hmmed. “I can take a hint.” Still, the opportunity to dine at the White Swan, the one remaining symbol of the glory days, and go to a movie was something that didn’t happen very often. She phoned Alice, who was thrilled.
It was a lovely, warm, fragrant spring evening. A huge moon beamed down on the creek, bathing it in a luminous glow. The water had gone down a lot, and the creek babbled melodiously as it wove its way among the rocks.
It was a scene to inspire a poet. It didn’t inspire Mike.
“Ah, go to hell,” he snarled as he walked across the humpbacked bridge. He was tense. Try as he might, he couldn’t convince himself — as desperate as his plight was, he would be broke in three months — to propose to Martha that she allow him to auction
For shame, his outraged conscience berated him. Think what an effort she put into that manuscript. And you want her to give it up, pretend it’s Baxter’s. Have you no standards? Unfortunately, he did have standards.
I just can’t do it, he finally said. But he was still desperate, and on the plane to Pittsburgh he suddenly thought of something. No one but he knew that
“Then I’ll auction it off,” Mike told himself jubilantly. “I’ll get my commission, Baxter’s estate gets the rest, Martha gets her thirty-five thousand. It all ends happily. One thing I swear, if I ever get out of this mess, I’m going to start going to church again. I mean it.”
He had a hell of a time telling Martha what happened to
She couldn’t. All she could do was make funny little whimpering noises. Then she suddenly covered her face with her hands, began to sob. Mike jumped up, rushed over to her, and began patting her on the shoulder, telling her that all was not lost, that if she could redo
She finally stopped, put her hands down, raised her tear-stained face.
“I apologize, Mr. Wilson,” the poor girl said. “I’m ashamed of myself for acting like this. And I know how you must feel.”
“For God’s sake, Martha,” said Mike as he went back to his chair, “Quit the Mr. Wilson, call me Mike. We’re on close enough terms for first names.”
“All right, Mike,” she said with a woebegone smile, “and yes, I’m pretty sure I could redo
Mike said he remembered.
“Oh, this is so humiliating. I never thought I could bare my soul so. I can’t go on, I can’t.”
“Sure you can, Martha,” urged Mike. “Baring one’s soul is no crime. Come on now, maybe something can be worked out.”
She took a deep breath, sat up straight, squared her shoulders, stuck out her chin, told him of the battle between her and one Ginny Barnes for the mailman.
“As long as... as Mother fives with me,” she continued, her voice beginning to falter, “there is no chance of... of... and since Walter’s mother has been dead for nearly eighteen months, he can’t be expected to mourn much longer. I just couldn’t sit at the computer night after night for months knowing that Walter was being exposed to... oh, this is terrible, terrible.”
“Damn it, Martha, it isn’t terrible,” Mike insisted. “But I have to say that this Walter should have grabbed you a long time ago, mother or no mother. I would have.”
That brought a little smile, a wistfully woeful smile.
“Thanks, Mike, that helps. But you haven’t seen Ginny Barnes.”
“The hell with Ginny Barnes. Now, listen to me.” He reached into his pocket. “Here’s a check for what you need. Take it, damn it, take it, don’t shake your head. Buy your mother the condo. That will put you on equal terms with the femme fatale. Come on, take it.”
Martha shied away.
“I can’t. You told me about your huge alimony payment and indicated that losing the commission for
“I’ve read enough of it to know that it’s dam good,” said Mike, and he meant it. “I’m confident I’ll be able to sell it.”
Martha looked as if she were going to cry.
“What’s the matter, Martha?”
“Well, I’m... I’m elated that you think it’s... it’s publishable. But... oh I don’t believe I’m saying this. I’m almost forty, Mr. Wilson... I mean Mike. This is awful... I’m in love. I can’t let Walter... what I mean is, can we pretend that my manuscript is an earlier work of Mr. Baxter’s? Is it possible, you know?”
Mike knew. He could hardly believe. Wow, what we do for love.
Back in New York the next day, Mike telephoned five publishers, called the
“You’re telling me the Easterfield manuscript that Harry was working on was destroyed in the fire,” said Yardley. “Which I was afraid had happened. But what’s that about an earlier work you’ve had for several years?”
Mike explained that
“He didn’t think it was good enough,” Mike explained, “but two or three years ago he sent it to me. And told me to hold it. Actually, I’d almost forgotten about it until the fire. And I’ll bet Harry
“And you mean you can sell it? For how much?”
“Hell, yes, I can sell it. How much? Six million at least. I have five publishers eager to bid on it. After all, it’s Harry’s last work.”
“Well, I’ll be damned, poor old Harry. I was ready for the worst, figured that all he had was the insurance on the Connecticut place.”
“About the will, Pete. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who the heirs are?”
“Can’t do it, Mike. But there’ll be a few surprises. And there’s no use having the reading until you sell that manuscript. When do you think that’ll be?”
“Two weeks at the latest. I’ll be in touch.”
Baxter’s death galvanized
Something did come up, Harry Baxter’s number. A reporter and photographer were rushed to Hillsdale.
Ten days later, in affluent Palm Beach, Florida, a well-preserved sixty-five-year-old widower, a retired president of an international construction company, picked up the latest copy of the
The man stared at the picture, stared, stared. He shook his head, looked again. He read the story, went back to the picture. My God, it’s her, she. And look at her, still a beauty. And she’s a widow now. Who said you don’t get a second chance?
Helen did look great. The photographer had snapped her surreptitiously as she emerged from Lil’s, having had the works. Poor Martha, bleak and bedraggled, had been snapped from behind a blooming forsythia bush on her way home from work. Her hair was mussed, her chin down, her countenance hopeless. She looked exactly like someone undergoing a horrible ordeal.
Which she was. She was now involved in one more crime — fraud. Mike had tried to talk her out of it, and he had been sincere, but she had insisted, had abandoned all claims to the novel that had taken her excruciating years to write.
Henry, the barber, had to call the next customer twice.
“Mr. Zablonsky,” he called louder, “you’re next.”
The customer leaped up and almost ran to the chair, holding the tabloid in his hand.
“I want a perfect cut, Henry, your best effort. I want to look my best, my best.”
“Hah hah,” said Henry grinning. “I knew it, I knew it. Haven’t I been telling you that one of those sexy widows would finally wear you down? Which one is it, 9-D or 12-C?”
“Neither. See this woman on the cover, the one on the left? That’s my old flame — wow, was she a beauty. And look at her. She still is. I’m phoning her today, heading north tomorrow.”
“Well, how about that? And to think I wasn’t going to renew my subscription to that scandal sheet when it came due a month ago. Boy, you never know, do you?”
Naturally, when that issue of
Helen managed a weak smile, hastened home. She studied the picture thinking, my, don’t I look nice, read the story, heart pounding.
The tabloid described Baxter as “a sly, swindling Svengali who used his well-honed sorcery to bewitch a naive smalltown spinster into allowing him to use his name on her brilliant novel with the promise of sharing the book’s royalties, the bulk of which he kept for himself.”
Poor Martha. She was “a pliant, plain-looking, gullible spinster victimized by the infamous writer, whose inept first novel had been rejected by numerous publishers before he somehow learned that she’d written a novel but was too timid to send it to a publisher. And after the incredible success of the first book, Baxter had no difficulty convincing the credulous spinster that his name could sell any manuscript, and she had written two more. Again he paid her a paltry sum.”
There was more, most of it preceded by “neighbors say,” “gossip at the local beauty parlor,” “rumor insists.” It was rough on Baxter and unflattering to Martha, and Helen didn’t escape entirely.
She was reputed to be “an autocratic, complaining, domineering mother who was the town heartbreaker in her youth and who now spent hours at the beauty parlor trying to disguise the ravages of time.”
Helen was outraged. I’ll sue them. How dare they. Then she thought of Martha. Oh my God, she must be horrified. What’s she going to say to me? Whatever it is, I deserve it. I’ve ruined that dear, dear girl.
By noon three different women had come in to the agency with copies of the tabloid (it was amazing how many women in that little poverty-stricken town subscribed to tabloids). One kind soul left her copy with Martha, a dumbfounded, stricken Martha. Look at me, she wailed. I look like the mother instead of the daughter. She read the story, making pitiful little sounds.
It’s all Mother’s fault, all that irresponsible talk at Lil’s. But listen to me; poor Mother, she must be half crazy. And it isn’t her fault, it’s mine. All she did was repeat what I’ve been saying, about all the extra work I had to do on Mr. Baxter’s manuscripts. What will this do to
Martha phoned Helen, told her that she had seen the story and that her mother was not to blame herself. It wasn’t her fault.
“Oh, Martha,” her mother sobbed, “I’m so glad you called. I feel awful, just awful, and... how kind of you not to blame me when it is all my fault. Me and my big mouth at Lil’s. You’re... you’re a wonderful, wonderful girl, Martha.”
If she only knew, thought Martha as she put down the phone.
Two lonely widows on Walter’s route subscribed to the tabloid, and he saw the story as he was arranging his mail before leaving the post office. His first thought was, poor Martha, she’ll be devastated. Then he got mad. How dare they call her a “plain-looking gullible spinster,” “a hick town old maid.” How dare they?
When Walter, grim and tight-lipped, arrived at Ginny’s house at eleven forty-five, Ginny was ready. She had on a flimsy, fetching thing (which Thelma described to Emily as “outrageous”). She overplayed her hand. She had a copy of the tabloid, and as she gave Walter her letter with her right hand, she held up the tabloid close to her face, to show Walter the contrast between exotic her and spinsterish Martha.
“They didn’t treat Martha very well, did they, Walter,” she cooed treacherously. Walter answered angrily.
“No, they didn’t. And I’m going to see that she does something about it.”
At which he turned quickly and almost ran down the walk, leaving Ginny open-mouthed, thinking, what the hell was that all about. (“I’m tellin’ you, Emily,” Thelma reported, “she’s still standing there with her mouth open. What happened? How do I know. But Theda Bara just lost round eleven.”)
What that was all about was that Walter was outraged that a dear, sweet, decent, attractive woman like his Martha could be subjected to such humiliation. Of course the story was false — who believes those scandal sheets — but such vicious stories shouldn’t be allowed.
Meantime, Martha had telephoned Mike. He had also read the story, the temp having seen it in the newsstand in the lobby, recognized the name.
It took a while for him to calm her down. He kept insisting that while she was certainly treated shamefully he was sure the story wouldn’t have an adverse effect on the auction.
“In fact, in some weird way, the publicity just might generate even more interest in the manuscript. Needless to say, I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine, and Mother’s. Oh my, I have to hang up. Please keep me informed.”
Mike then phoned Pete Yardley.
“They just won’t leave poor old Harry alone, will they,” Pete commented. “I hope you’re right that the story won’t hurt the auction.”
“I’m certain it won’t, Pete.”
Walter waited until he was sure Martha was home from work before calling her. Yes, the story was despicable, but he didn’t believe a word of it. And he wanted to talk to her. He would pick her up in half an hour. When she began to protest, he interrupted, “I have to talk to you, Martha. I’ve waited too long. I’ll be there soon.”
They drove up into the mountains, parked at the lookout, the town lights twinkling far below.
“But I
Walter reached over, pulled her close to him, hugged her tightly.
“Please don’t cry, Martha,” he begged. “I know the story isn’t true. Those vile tabloids shouldn’t be allowed to pillory someone as wonderful as you. Now, tell me, what can’t you tell me?”
Between muffled sobs she told him the whole sordid tale. Her agreeing to disobey Harry Baxter, give Mike Wilson
“There,” she finished, “there’s the whole shameful, terrible tale. Now am I still wonderful?”
Walter, momentarily stunned, hugged her tighter, asked, “You gave up the novel on which you’ve worked for years? Why, why?”
“Can’t you guess?” the poor girl wailed. “I did it to get the money to buy Mother a condo in Florida. I... I didn’t want to lose you to... to that... that creature. Now, what do you think of me?”
“Oh, Martha, Martha,” he exclaimed, hugging her even tighter — she could barely breathe — “I’m not worthy of such an enormous sacrifice. Oh you poor dear girl. We’ll go right to my house and call this Mike Wilson, tell him it’s all off. Oh, Martha, I love you. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Walter, oh, Walter,” she managed, “but what about Mother?”
“She can live with us. I’ll add a mother-in-law apartment to the house. I should have asked you to marry me long ago.”
That did it. Martha, squealing, whimpering, sobbing, even giggling part of the time, rained passionate kisses on her wonderful mailman. He did his part.
They didn’t call Mike Wilson. Martha explained that Mike couldn’t stay in business unless he got the commission on the sale of
The story in the tabloid didn’t hurt
In early June the will was read. Those invited — each finding it hard to believe — were Mike Wilson, Scott Henry, Martha Ainsley, Thomas Reardon, and Harriet Sloan Larkin-Phillips, the eighty-three-year-old president of the Outlaw Whaling Society.
After taxes, lawyers’ fees, Mike Wilson’s commission, the estate was valued at four million eight hundred fifty thousand dollars, the sale of
The money was divided as follows: fifty thousand to Mike Wilson; fifty thousand to Scott Henry; fifty thousand to Martha Ainsley; two million to
After the reading of the will, the stunned beneficiaries went their separate ways while unanimously agreeing that poor Harry Baxter was a genuine enigma.
Walter didn’t have to add a mother-in-law apartment. Steve Zablonsky came flying up from the South and swooped up his ecstatic old flame. They were married in Las Vegas, honeymooned in Hawaii; old flames rekindling the fires of youth.
Martha, a lovely bride, and Walter, a handsome groom, were married in August in a quiet wedding at St. Mark’s. They raced off to Great Britain, honey-mooned in Literary Britain. They toured Hardy’s Wessex, visited his birthplace and grave, walked the very same footpaths (still existing) where Tess and Jude, and Bathsheba once walked.
They spent enchanting hours in Jane Austen’s house at Chawton — now a museum — still with the creaky door’s warning that someone was coming, giving her time to hide her papers. They were spellbound and teary-eyed at Haworth Parsonage where the poor bronchial Brontës, taking turns coughing, scribbled away while wrapped in shawls and robes as the wild winds howled across the moors and the ink froze in the inkwells.
They went to dozens of hallowed places where famous writers had agonized over just the right word, famous poets over just the right rhyme. And though it took awhile for the fumbling innocents to grope their way through the sexual labyrinth, they finally found earthshaking fulfillment on a starry night in a bed-and-breakfast in the little Cornish town where Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca met her doom.
It is now 1997. Helen and Steve are still on cloud nine, in the penthouse high above the blue Atlantic. Ginny Barnes bounced back, marrying the new editor. The library has a new roof, a fine new bookmobile, and an addition devoted to children’s books, all provided by Mrs. Walter Foster in memory of her beloved father. Martha used her inheritance plus the seventy-five thousand dollars Mike Wilson insisted she take for having given up
Martha not only experiences conscience pangs every now and then, but she occasionally has a funny dream in which she contacts
Thomas W. Reardon retired to a little town in Vermont where he is a library volunteer, the town’s good Samaritan. Yes, he heard the rumors circulating when
Scott Henry is still at Meadows & Berkshire, the publisher proud of him. Back in the summer of 1991 Scott had hoped to confront Mike Wilson and demand to be told who really wrote
We all have our price, he told himself forlornly.
Mike Wilson is holding his own. He still has that vile reality, the alimony. But he’s acquired new writers, sales are going well, and the
Thelma went into a decline after Ginny Barnes sold her house to a retired older couple whose most scandalous behavior was holding hands — to keep each other from falling — when they went for their morning walk.
But the poor dears are now in a nursing home. Thelma is therefore perking up and keeping an eye peeled across the street. The new owner, “one o’ them dyed-haired hussies, claims she’s a psychic. Funny thing, Emily, the only ones she psychics is men. There hain’t been a woman go in there yet.”
Martha sold the house on Chestnut Street, she and Helen sharing the money, and Martha moved into Walter’s house, gave up manuscript typing, and retired from the agency. J. L. barely held back the tears.
Walter will retire in two years. In the meantime he and Martha work together on
Lil’s hasn’t changed, gossip still reigns. Cathy and Linda are still there, still irritated about the puny payment from
“Forget it,” the editor said. “We used that story once. It’s stale news now.”
It seems appropriate to end this tale with a few more adages, to wit:
Efrain pulled off his boots and pants and waded into the river. With one hand he held the clothes above water. In the other he carried his old rifle and machete. The plantains were slung on his back in the large bag that Catalino the Indian had woven for him.
The crossing was easy today, the clear water only thigh-deep. On the other side Efrain dressed and continued along the faint trail through the rain forest.
He paused to study the turkeylike tracks of a
Efrain thought of the time a few months ago when the peccaries had treed him. He hadn’t had the gun with him then. He’d been in this same area, going to see how his new neighbor Olmedo was getting along. With his eyes fixed on his feet to avoid stepping on a fer-de-lance, Efrain had come face to face with a white-lipped peccary. He had leaped for the nearest tree, a flimsy sapling, and shinnied up as fast as he could. Forty peccaries had encircled him, snorting and clacking their tusks. The sapling was so weak that Efrain had been afraid to climb higher where its branches would give him a better perch. For hours he clung with arms and legs wrapped tight around the narrow trunk, wishing he had the sharp digging-in claws of a tree sloth. Finally he saw a flash of yellow dress through the trees.
Sulema, worried by his long absence on a short errand, had come to look for him. She carried the rifle. He wanted to scream to her to stop, but fear had choked him, fear that the peccaries would turn and see this new, easy target. He took all his weight on his legs, let go with his arms, and waved them wildly to keep the peccaries’ attention on him.
But Sulema had already seen them. She stepped behind a big tree and fired the rifle into the air. The peccaries had squealed and run.
Yes, he’d better keep the gun with him, though he had only one shell for it. At the store he would trade the plantains for a few more shells as well as salt and sugar. They wouldn’t bring enough to pay for all that, but the storekeeper would give him credit against his next harvest. Efrain would fill the extra space in his woven bag with coconuts from the beach. At home Sulema would squeeze cooking fat from the coconut meat and make candy with milk from their cow, sugar, and the remaining coconut.
The most important reason he was going to the store, however, was to find out what year this was. Efrain was fairly certain it was still the old year. New Year’s Day was about now, though, and might already have passed. Being sure of the year had never mattered much before, but the baby had been born eight days ago and Sulema said it was important to know the exact year of his birth.
Olmedo had brought his stolid wife Nydia over the night the baby was born. Nydia delivered the baby while Efrain and Olmedo stood outside. Efrain had shivered when a jaguar split the night with its cry, like the sobs of a great bull.
Sulema was so happy that another woman lived in the area now. “Just knowing she’s there makes all the difference,” Sulema had told Efrain. The two women didn’t see much of each other. Olmedo made Sulema feel unwelcome the day she went over to visit Nydia. Sulema had then invited Nydia to come and visit her, but Olmedo had said, “If she goes visiting all day, what about my lunch? The girl will have to stay to cook for me.” Efrain didn’t even know the name of their daughter; she must be eleven or twelve, but he’d never heard her speak a word. Nydia had come over a few times when Olmedo sent her to borrow a spade from Efrain, but she’d always been in a hurry and could chat only a few minutes with Sulema.
The bellow of a cow brought Efrain back to the present. Her desperate voice told him that she was in trouble. He quickened his step.
It would have to be Olmedo’s cow. She was due to calve any time now, Efrain recalled. He hoped nothing had gone wrong with the delivery. Losing the calf would be a harsh blow to Olmedo in the first year of his homestead.
Olmedo was a hard worker, Efrain had to admit that. In the short time since he had begun the homestead, besides making the pasture he had planted a field with beans and com that would soon be ready for harvest. They’d bring a good price at the store. Recently Olmedo’s brother had arrived from the city, ostensibly to help Olmedo, but whenever Efrain passed the farm, Olmedo was out working while the brother lay in the hammock whittling and watching Nydia cook or sweep the dirt yard.
The cow lowed again. From the sound she was a little ahead and a few hundred yards off the trail. Why was she here in the forest and not in the pasture that Olmedo had cleared by his house? Every night Efrain brought their cow into the lean-to he’d built at one side of the house. During the day Sulema kept an eye on her to see that she didn’t stray while Efrain was out in the field.
Efrain turned to the right, following the sound. He jumped across a small brook and halted abruptly. In the damp clay was the mark of the creature he feared more than any other.
The print of a jaguar.
Efrain began to run up the hill toward the cow, then slowed as he read more of the story written on the ground and realized he was too late to save the calf.
Here were a man’s bootprints. They ran up the hill and walked back. That would be Olmedo, speeding to the cow’s rescue, then trudging home when he found he was too late. The cow must have come into the forest last night to calve, and the jaguar had taken her calf as soon as it was born. The drag marks were plain in the fallen leaves: the cat hauling its prey deeper into the forest.
Efrain continued up the hill. Here were a woman’s broad, barefoot prints — Nydia, coming with Olmedo to try to save the calf. Why hadn’t they taken the cow back to her pasture?
Now Efrain saw the cow. She was frantic, head high, breath whooshing, pacing back and forth through the trees.
Her calf lay bloody and dead on the ground.
Efrain stopped. The drag marks had been clear. Perhaps the cow had had twins and the jaguar had killed both but dragged only one away.
He walked closer.
The mangled pile wasn’t a calf.
It was Olmedo.
Efrain crossed himself.
Olmedo’s axe lay beside him. He had foolishly tried to chase away the jaguar, and it had killed him. Efrain had better check on Nydia.
He hurried down the hill to get back on the trail. This time as he jumped the brook he saw a glint of metal in its bed. A machete. Yes, that made sense. When the cow awoke them with her bellows, Olmedo would have snatched up the axe, Nydia the machete, and run to the sound. Then Nydia, panicked after seeing her husband slaughtered, fled toward the house and dropped the machete as she jumped the stream.
Efrain rounded the last bend in the trail before Olmedo’s little house made of palm fronds and saplings. Nydia was just walking out the door. She clutched a sack half full of dry beans. Her cooking pot protruded from the top. The silent girl was behind her.
Nydia stopped when she saw him.
“I found Olmedo,” he said. “What happened?”
“The jaguar killed him. We heard the cow in the night. He went to check and didn’t come back. After sunrise I looked for him and found him dead.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Going to my mother’s, in town.”
“We should bury him.”
“No shovel.”
Efrain didn’t want to go back to his house for the spade. That would delay him so that he wouldn’t be able to reach the store and still get home before dark, and he didn’t want Sulema to be alone at night. “We’ll put him in the house and burn it,” he told Nydia. “You’re not coming back?”
“No.”
“Throw some brush inside so it’ll burn well. I’ll bring him.”
Efrain returned to where Olmedo’s body lay. As he dragged it down the slope, he looked at the tangled tracks. Bare feet running uphill, bare feet walking down. Boots going up, boots coming down.
How could that be? Olmedo hadn’t walked down the hill.
Maybe he had run up, seen the jaguar, walked down to the stream, then gathered his courage and charged uphill at the cat?
Efrain couldn’t stop now to read the story better. He wanted to get Olmedo’s body out of his arms. It was heavy and slick with blood from the deep slashes the jaguar’s claws had made. He tried not to look.
Nydia stood by the shack, matches ready in her hand. She and the girl had collected dry brush and wood and piled it inside. Efrain laid the body in the center and backed out. Nydia touched a match to the kindling. It caught at once.
“Do you want to wait a while?” he asked her.
“No.”
They walked in silence down the trail that led to the store.
Efrain thought about the tracks and the machete washed clean in the stream.
When they reached the store, Nydia was in luck. A party of Indians was just leaving for town. They had found a gold nugget in the river and offered it to the storekeeper but hadn’t liked the price he set. They were going to walk to town in hopes of getting a higher price there. Nydia could go with them.
“Give Sulema the cow,” Nydia said before they started out.
Efrain had forgotten about the cow. His mind was filled with a picture that blotted out everything else: Olmedo running to save the calf, Nydia behind him with the machete, both arriving after the jaguar had dragged it away. The two of them walking back toward their house. Olmedo in front, naturally. Perhaps he slipped and fell. Nydia, in a split second, realized that no one was likely to notice the difference between jaguar claws and machete cuts. A few quick blows, then she’d dragged him uphill to the already bloody spot where the jaguar had killed the calf.
Nydia was staring at him. Efrain found his voice. “Sulema will miss you.” He thought of something. “What happened to Olmedo’s brother?”
“He left yesterday. Said he was tired of country life.”
Nydia, the girl, and the Indians set off for town. Efrain finished his trading, collected coconuts, shucking them with his machete, and hurried toward home.
Embers still smoldered as he passed Olmedo’s house at dusk. Efrain started when he realized a person was standing by the ruins.
“Efrain! What happened here?” It was Olmedo’s brother. He looked upset.
“A jaguar killed Olmedo. We put him in the house and burned it because we didn’t have a shovel here to bury him.”
“Where’s the woman?”
“She left.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you went away.”
“Well, I got halfway to town, and then I started thinking it wasn’t right to leave Olmedo with so much work. I should come back and give him a hand. Now it’s too late to help him, but my duty is to take care of his farm. That’s what he would want.”
If you had been on the trail today, I would have seen you, Efrain thought.
The light was fading. “I need to go,” Efrain said.
As he walked away, the brother called after him, “I guess tomorrow I’ll build a shelter.” He obviously hoped for an offer of help. Efrain pretended not to hear.
When he was out of the brother’s sight, Efrain broke into a run. He jumped the stream. With his machete he cut a branch from an
Boots up, boots down. A jaguar print here, there, and there. Efrain concentrated on the cat tracks. It was hard to follow the complete trail because the prints only showed well in the clay near the stream. The rest of the ground was covered with fallen leaves.
He pictured the cat smelling newborn calf on the breeze, then slinking up on the cow. He compared the prints to his visualization. They did not mesh. The prints weren’t spaced the way a jaguar would walk. In fact, the cat tracks only appeared in a couple of clear clay patches, as though the animal had purposely left its marks where a passerby couldn’t miss them.
Efrain studied the bootprints. One pair of boots with fairly good soles. But here was a boot with a chip out of the left heel. He held the smoky torch lower.
Efrain cut another branch to use as a staff. Swinging the staff through the leaves in front of him as a snake guard, he followed the drag marks farther into the forest.
In a few hundred yards he found the calf. Its throat had been slit with one long clean cut. There were no other marks on it, no slashes or rips, no deep killing bite at the neck. No jaguar had killed this calf.
An odd-shaped piece of wood in the leaves caught Efrain’s eye. He picked it up.
It was a jaguar’s paw whittled from balsa wood.
Efrain looked at its base. The cat pads were carefully carved.
A different picture grew in his mind: the brother pretending to leave yesterday but instead hiding in the forest. Killing the newborn calf in the night and dragging it out of sight. The cow’s enraged bellows leading Olmedo into the ambush. Jaguar tracks carefully placed for whoever discovered the body.
He went home and told Sulema what had happened. They took turns staying up all night and watching, just in case. At dawn he went to get Catalino the Indian. Then with his old rifle in hand, he and Sulema — the baby dozing on her back — and Catalino hurried along the trail in the direction of the store.
When they passed Olmedo’s farm, the brother was looking over the bean field. Fortunately he was too far away to ask where they were going.
They explained everything to the storekeeper. He came out and shut the unpainted wooden door to show the store was closed. Then they all walked back up the trail to Olmedo’s farm.
The brother had collected a few palm fronds to start his shelter. He looked surprised to see them.
“You can’t stay,” Efrain told him.
“What do you mean?”
Efrain held out the wooden jaguar foot. The brother stepped back.
“You have to go,” the storekeeper said.
The brother stared at them for a long moment. Then he turned and walked down the trail that would take him past the store, to town, and eventually to the city.
The storekeeper waited a few minutes so as not to have to walk near the brother. Then he set off for his store. Catalino went with him in case the brother stopped at the store to make trouble. Catalino had to buy coffee anyway.
Efrain and Sulema walked the other way on the trail. They found Olmedo’s cow standing exhausted in the stream. She needed to be milked. Efrain pulled off his rope belt and put it around her neck. He tugged gently and she followed.
As they walked toward their house, he said, “Oh, Sulema, the storekeeper said this is still the old year. New Year’s Day is tomorrow.”
He had almost forgotten why he’d gone to the store.
“Darcy Hayes did kill someone. Guilt is not the issue. It rarely is in a criminal case. Our concern is what he will be convicted of, and even more important, what his punishment will be,” said Wilson McGraw, the defense attorney.
To Thomas Clark, fresh from passing the bar exam and only a few months out of law school, this sounded awfully cynical and mercenary. But he was in no position to disagree, it being only his second month with McGraw. McGraw had agreed to give Clark a job on a week-to-week basis.
The arrangement was that Clark worked for a pittance the first month and after that his pay gradually increased until, at the end of a year, he’d be making just under what some people started at. McGraw was neither Simon Legree nor the Salvation Army. Jobs for young attorneys were scarce, and Clark was more than willing to forgo some wages for the chance to follow the highly respected McGraw around to gain experience. McGraw, for his part, got an intelligent, eager mind to handle some of his more routine matters. He figured the association was workable unless Clark showed flaws McGraw couldn’t live with. McGraw had enough of his own flaws to live with.
McGraw’s client, Darcy Hayes, was a twenty-five-year-old high school dropout who made a living at many things. Thing one was auto theft. Thing two was robbery. McGraw knew of these vocations because Hayes had been convicted of them. As an adult, he had been convicted of car theft three times and robbery twice. Most recently he’d spent four years of a six year sentence in the state prison for armed robbery.
A month ago Hayes tried robbing a gas station. The attendant resisted, Hayes picked up and swung a lug wrench lying on the counter, and the attendant died.
He was identified both by fingerprints found on the wrench and by a motorist who pulled into — and then quickly out of — the station as he saw the attendant go down. As a multiple offender Darcy Hayes faced the death penalty if indicted for either first degree premeditated murder or second degree intentional murder without premeditation.
McGraw was explaining strategy to Clark.
“Our goal is to get the best possible deal without a trial, to lock in a sentence. Darcy will no doubt be convicted in a trial. If he is convicted, the prosecutor can request and the judge can impose any sentence allowed by law. In this case that could mean the death penalty. Darcy Hayes does not want to die.”
The district attorney could present the case to a grand jury in a couple of weeks, and McGraw wanted to settle before then if possible. So far, Hayes was charged by criminal complaint with second degree felony murder; a death penalty charge could only be brought with a grand jury indictment.
“Once they get the indictment,” McGraw explained, “they’re likely to push for the death penalty. It would look bad to plead down a capital case. The best we might hope for then is for the judge to sentence Hayes to life without parole.”
“Why don’t they go ahead and get the indictment? Why should they talk settlement now?” Clark asked.
“They’re required to at least discuss the case with the defense attorney and the judge to see if it can be resolved. Our court system is so inundated that only by getting pleas in most cases can it keep functioning. In a capital case there would be years of costly appeals before the death sentence was carried out.
“Beyond that, though the grand jury will give them the indictment on the most serious charge they request, the petit jury, which decides guilt or innocence, may convict on a lesser charge. Every trial lawyer knows there’s no certainty in trial.” McGraw said the jury might not find first degree murder with premeditation because the lug wrench was at the scene and Hayes only used it once, but they certainly might find second degree intentional murder. To fight off an intentional murder charge Hayes would have to testify because only he could testify that he meant only to rob, not to kill.
“If I put him on the stand to say the attendant’s death was unintentional, the prosecutor can bring in all his adult convictions in an effort to attack his believability. Once the jury hears his record, they might convict on that alone.”
The prosecutor was Donald Morrison, a fifteen-year veteran of the district attorney’s office. Morrison was more than competent, and crafty. He also wasn’t above using a particular case for his own glory, McGraw explained.
“With a significant case like this murder, he might want a trial for the publicity rather than a plea bargain. He has every right to try the case. But first he’ll have to make some kind of an offer to try to avoid trial or all the judges will hear that he didn’t, and he doesn’t want to provoke them. Every week cases are divided among the judges available. An unnecessary murder trial that ties up one of them affects everyone’s workload.
“We don’t want an indictment, and the best way to avoid that is to plead to the current charge. Second degree felony murder is a forty-year sentence; with time off for good behavior Hayes would serve twenty-six years and eight months.”
To Clark this seemed like an awfully long time to agree to serve. Certainly after a trial a person might get forty years, but to agree to stay in prison for forty years without a trial! That was appalling. He pointed that out to McGraw, who merely shrugged. He was a successful attorney because his face and voice showed only what he wanted when anyone was looking.
McGraw had spent some sleepless nights arriving at his decision, and it was a very bitter thing to have the harshness of the sentence pointed out by this fledgling attorney. McGraw was a thoughtful, introspective man, a loner. He didn’t like to be second-guessed. Maybe that was why he’d stayed a solo practitioner for so long.
“It isn’t your life or my life we’re risking if we go to trial,” he said calmly. “I will certainly try to get less time, but that may not happen. Remember now, what I’ve told you is strictly confidential. If they know our strategy, I won’t get the best deal for Hayes. I may not get any deal at all.”
Clark wanted to discuss it further, but McGraw walked away. It was too painful. None of his clients had ever received a death sentence, and the gnawing uncertainty about whether Hayes would die or live was eating at him. It was pushing his pulse rate up and keeping an unsettled, butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling in his gut much of the time.
McGraw’s first death penalty case had fallen on him before he was a lawyer. He was a sophomore in college when he was selected for jury duty. The accused man (McGraw never thought of him by name) was guilty, and so the jury found. He had killed an acquaintance in an argument over a set of mag wheels for his car. It happened in that time before senseless violence was so cavalierly tolerated. McGraw was naive and shocked by the crime. The other jurors convinced him to vote for the death penalty.
His life probably wouldn’t have changed if that had been the end of it, but his name was drawn as the juror to attend the execution. Justice was swifter back then. Just eighteen months after the man was convicted he was strapped into the electric chair.
McGraw was on the other side of the window looking into the death chamber when the curtain went up, thankful that the man had a hood over his head. When the electric current hit, the man jerked in the chair, strained against the leather bands holding him in, and... well, McGraw didn’t think about the rest of it any more while he was awake. Sometimes it came back at night in sweating, rolling-around nightmares.
Now at times like this, waiting for the skirmish, worrying about strategy and tactics, McGraw hated being a trial lawyer. Clark saw no sign of that turmoil. Nor would anyone else.
A week later McGraw got the notice that the pretrial conference was set before Judge Patrick Flynn, an impatient no-nonsense Irishman. McGraw told Clark that was both bad and good.
On the one hand, Flynn was very fair before a defendant was convicted, and he knew what a case was worth. He had a way of jumping on anyone who was being unreasonable and would pressure the prosecutor to make an offer. On the other hand, Flynn had a reputation for throwing the book at convicted defendants. He would also end plea discussions quickly if a defendant rejected what he thought was a fair offer. While some judges might keep the parties in chambers for hours trying to get a settlement, there wasn’t much bargaining in front of Flynn.
On the morning of the pretrial conference they set off for the courthouse, McGraw bareheaded despite the bitter wind and Clark hatted, muffled, and carrying the file. Clark was looking forward to sitting in on the pretrial. He had to stop by the Clerk of Court’s office to file some motions on another case before they met the prosecutor, Morrison, and McGraw said he wanted to visit an old friend, so they split up at the courthouse door.
McGraw actually wanted to be alone to think over his strategy one more time. His demeanor, as always, showed none of his worry. His weathered, lined face had been around long enough that it hid the effects of having been up since three A.M. He hadn’t meant to get up that early but the nightmare of the man in the electric chair had returned and, when he awoke, he knew there was no hope for sleep. He got up and tried to read, do a crossword puzzle, or watch TV. He ended up taking an early shower and getting to the office at six. He paced behind his office door until it was time to go to the courthouse.
When he left Clark at the courthouse door, he headed for a secluded corner of the law library. McGraw sat, not caring about the hard chair and the widely spaced dowels of the chair back. He closed his eyes and breathed quietly. People were a mystery to him. He’d spent a lifetime getting to know himself, but to his mind, he had constructed only a working hypothesis, not a true understanding. He still wondered how much of what happened in life other people understood though he did not. As usual, he didn’t feel ready for this day.
Meanwhile Clark was killing time. He’d gone upstairs to the second floor and walked to an office that had a twelve foot long window with a four foot wide counter that opened on the main hallway. Though he wasn’t short, it touched his chest when he leaned against it. He gave the papers to one of the deputy clerks of court, turned in the check on which McGraw had carefully filled in the filing fee, and was done with his errand. He had ten minutes to wait.
He looked up and down the hall. A broad tile floor stretched the entire length of the building, with windows at each end. There were also stairwells at each end of the building and elevators in the middle of the building. The courtrooms and judges’ chambers were one flight up, on the third floor at the west end. The district attorney’s office was on the fourth floor, also at the west end. That was the extent of his knowledge of the courthouse. He was barely past being a law student, and law students went to classes and law libraries, not courthouses.
Clark saw a statue at the east end of the hall in front of a window. He strolled down to look at the plaque on the base. It was one of the first settlers of the region. He went around behind it to look out the window. Then he heard footsteps and voices coming down the hallway.
“He wants me to offer manslaughter and twenty-five years? I can’t believe it. Barker knows it’s a good case,” said an agitated voice.
“He wants you to present that triple homicide to the grand jury and doesn’t want you to get tied up in trial with the Hayes case,” replied a second voice.
“Twenty-five years isn’t nearly enough. Hayes could, he should, get the death penalty, or life without parole,” said the first man.
“Certainly you can proceed if he rejects the offer, but this isn’t an order you can just ignore.”
Clark heard the pushbar on the door bang as the men went through and got a fleeting glance at them going up the stairs as the door swung shut. He was stunned. He stared at the door. His mind spun. That was Morrison and another prosecutor; they were talking about the Hayes case! Barker was the district attorney, their boss. Clark had to find McGraw right away. He needed time to explain what he’d heard before Morrison arrived at Judge Flynn’s chambers.
He headed for the door but thought better of it and went to the elevators in the middle of the building. He stood looking at the buttons. Where to find McGraw? He had no idea whom McGraw had gone to see. He wished McGraw didn’t play everything so close to the vest. All he could do was go to chambers and hope McGraw showed up before Morrison. McGraw did.
McGraw saw how anxious Clark was and went willingly into the nearest conference room. Clark told his story all in one breath. McGraw’s eyebrows first went up and then lowered into a frown of concentration as Clark finished.
“How do you know it was Morrison?”
“He gave a lecture I went to in law school.”
“Who was he talking to?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they look like?”
Clark took a deep breath and let it out in exasperation.
“Morrison was tall and well-built and had on a gray suit. The other guy was medium size, wore a brownish suit.”
“Did they see you?”
“They might have, but they paid no attention to me.”
McGraw leaned against the conference table, frowning at the floor. When he looked up, his face was relaxed, the hint of a smile about his mouth.
“I may not be paying you enough,” he said. “Take the rest of the morning off. I obviously don’t want Morrison to see us together.” Clark grinned and left, going down the stairs at the west end of the courthouse, his feet almost dancing on the steps. McGraw watched him leave, the frown back in place.
When Morrison appeared a few minutes later, McGraw’s face was composed. They had agreed to meet early enough to discuss the case before going into Flynn’s chambers.
McGraw watched as the elevator opened and Morrison stepped out. Morrison was about six two, blond, brown-eyed, probably weighed two hundred pounds. He had on a gray suit as Clark had said. But as he stepped off the elevator, something bumped up against McGraw’s subconscious hard enough for him to sense it. Something that didn’t fit. He wished he had more time to think about what it was. The next minutes would be critical to McGraw and his client. A bead of sweat trickled down the small of his back.
“Good morning, Wilson.”
“Good morning, Donald,” McGraw replied.
“Is Flynn still on the bench?”
“As far as I know.”
“What do you want to do with this one?” asked Morrison.
“I’m willing to listen to your offer.”
“Well, let’s see. Hayes is a multiple offender. He’s looking at the death penalty or life without parole if we indict and convict on first degree murder. I think he has to waive indictment and plead to a sentence of life without parole.”
“Life without parole is too heavy. He wouldn’t agree to that.”
“I thought that was a reasonable offer, given the evidence and the judge,” Morrison said. He paused briefly, staring into McGraw’s face. McGraw waited, not speaking, heart pounding. This offer was nowhere near twenty-five years. “But,” Morrison continued, “I’ll offer a plea to second degree murder and forty years just to save the taxpayers the expense of the trial and the cost of his room and board for the rest of his natural life.”
McGraw was shaking his head, smiling. “You know, Morrison, you’re getting too soft.”
Just then Judge Flynn’s law clerk opened the door. “The judge ordered me to find you; he’s in a hurry,” the clerk said nervously. He ducked back into chambers, and Morrison stepped in immediately after him.
McGraw stood in the hall momentarily. Why hadn’t Morrison offered twenty-five years? He had only offered forty.
That was what McGraw had wanted earlier this morning, but not what he expected now. He looked up and down the hall, crooked his finger inside his collar over the knot of his tie, and pulled it back and forth a couple of times. He sighed and walked into Judge Flynn’s chambers. It was never easy.
McGraw was waiting in his office at noon when Clark got there. The whisky bottle was far back in the bottom right-hand desk drawer, and he was chewing his third breath mint. He swallowed it. “What happened?” Clark asked, plopping down in the leather chair across from McGraw.
“Hayes pled to second degree murder, forty years, eligible for parole in twenty-six years and eight months,” McGraw said. He didn’t want to delay or sugarcoat the news, he wanted to get it out and over with.
“Forty years!” Clark’s mouth hung open. “Forty years! What happened? Did the judge... did Morrison... how come...” Clark took a breath. “Why did you take that deal? We could have gotten less time.
“No joke,” replied McGraw. “I got the feeling—”
“I don’t believe this!” Clark interrupted. He felt betrayed, hurt, untrusted. “Is that what good defense lawyers do? Waltz in and plead their client guilty to whatever the district attorney’s office wants? It sure takes a lot of skill to do that!” He began to rise.
“Finished?” Clark asked belligerently.
“Morrison came down too fast from his first offer, something didn’t seem right. I haven’t figured out what yet. I decided I had to stick with the original plan.”
“Then you can find another gopher. I quit.”
The door slammed. McGraw looked down and saw that his hands were flat on the desk. He sat down, drawing them towards himself. When he was seated, they were fists. He pounded them on the desk three times. He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he sagged. He put his elbow on the desk and propped his forehead in his palm.
It had been a long time since he’d last lost his temper. No judge, attorney, or jury had ever seen it happen. True, he had acted angry when situations called for it, but he’d never lost control. Today he’d drunk the whisky too early.
He sat for the rest of the afternoon ruminating. He looked at the desktop, the door, the wall, and settled finally on staring out the window. The gusty March wind was tossing the bare tree branches around under gray, scudding clouds. He thought.
He often thought about conversations he’d had during the day. He sometimes wondered how much more accurate his perceptions would be if he gave an opposite interpretation to what he’d been told. He let his mind wander, going back to the Hayes case off and on. Had he lost his nerve? Had he pled Hayes guilty for too much time because the death penalty loomed too darkly in his own past?
Judge Flynn had been particularly short that day. When McGraw entered the room, Flynn had asked Morrison what the offer was, turned to McGraw, and asked if they had a deal or not. There was no preliminary chitchat. Morrison looked at McGraw and raised his eyebrows. The deal on the table was second degree murder and forty years. Morrison was saying nothing more. Was Morrison going to make another offer if McGraw turned down the forty years? If Morrison didn’t make another offer, Judge Flynn might send them packing right away, given the mood he was in.
Something was wrong with what Clark had seen and heard, but McGraw couldn’t put his finger on it. His mouth was dry. “We have a deal, your honor,” he said. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw Morrison’s mouth twitch, but he couldn’t be sure and, when he looked, there was nothing. Had Morrison gotten fifteen years more out McGraw than he should have?
Hayes had been brought over from the jail, and McGraw went through the deal with him and advised him to take it. Hayes was reluctant, but he hadn’t hired McGraw to ignore his advice while facing a possible death penalty and McGraw reminded Hayes of that.
McGraw knew some of what bothered him about the way it played out. Morrison had made one offer and then another one too fast. If he’d really wanted to get a plea to the forty years, he wouldn’t have offered it that fast, he’d have drawn it out more. Was he going to offer twenty-five years if McGraw turned down forty? Or did Morrison want McGraw to reject the offer so he could proceed to indict for first degree murder with a death penalty?
Then there was the conversation that Clark had overheard. Huh. Why had he ignored it? Something had told him to. So he’d handled the plea as if he didn’t know about that conversation. He had reverted to form, gone with the original plan.
Had he been a lone wolf for so long that he didn’t want Clark’s help? If he hadn’t had an associate, he wouldn’t have known about the overheard conversation. He wouldn’t have spent the afternoon agonizing.
In the end it was the something that had bumped into his subconscious mind when he first saw Morrison that finally came to the surface and provided the key to understanding the battle.
McGraw sat bolt upright when it hit him. He stopped himself and thought through what Clark had told him again. He wanted to feel relieved, but he needed to think about it very carefully to be sure.
McGraw knew Morrison’s office was on the fourth floor of the courthouse, at the west end. The judge’s chambers were on the third floor, also at the west end. Clark had been looking at the statue, which was at the east end of the courthouse. It was on the second floor. That’s where Clark had seen Morrison and the other man, had seen them go up the east stairs.
Yet when Morrison arrived at the judge’s chambers he stepped out of the elevator in the middle of the building. Why would he walk up two flights of stairs but take the elevator to come down one flight? And why would he be walking up the stairs at the opposite end of the building from his office? He must have known that Clark worked for McGraw because Clark was constantly filing motions and doing research for McGraw.
Morrison must have wanted to plant that conversation! Morrison had figured Clark would be sure to report to McGraw before the pretrial. Morrison wanted McGraw to reject any offer above twenty-five years. Then he could proceed with an indictment.
McGraw nodded slowly. So that was what had happened today. He chuckled. What a blessed relief.
Was it a rationalization or the truth? Either way, it would allow him to live with himself and his nightmares a little longer.
Noticing sunlight slanting through the window, he looked at the clock on his desk. It was six o’clock. He had arrived at the office twelve hours ago. It seemed like a lifetime; maybe it was. It was time to quit for the day.
Tomorrow or the next day maybe he would contact Clark and patch things up. If Clark wanted to. McGraw wondered if he cared enough about having an associate to tell Clark what he thought had happened. That was something to worry about later.
He pulled open the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk, took out the liter of amber liquid, and unscrewed the cap. He lifted it and drank two long, stinging swallows. He put the cap back on and slid the bottle to the very back of the drawer. It was still half full. This one had been in there three days. His goal was to make it last a week.
He closed the drawer.
After all, he thought, Darcy Hayes
I’d never been here before. You might as well have set me down in an alien world. Heard about it, of course, because everybody has, but been here? Never. Not until today.
“You said what? What?” he shouted, one hand on the back of his balding head. He was sitting behind a desk cluttered with file folders, memo pads, candy wrappers. “You want to tell me again exactly what you said?”
So I told him. Again. I wondered how many times he wanted me to repeat what I’d said to get tossed out of Mr. Frakes’ chemistry class. Because this was his reaction, again. “You said what? You told him he could do
Maybe he was just a little bit hard of hearing. So I said, as politely as I could, “Yes, sir. Do you want me to tell you again?”
“What are you, boy, some kind of wiseguy?” He was squinting at me.
I’d heard about this side of Mr. Sharpe but never seen it up close. Still, I felt the best defense, if any, was to remain as obedient and polite as possible.
“No, sir, I don’t think I am.”
That’s when he got up from behind his desk, walked around in front of it, leaned back, and stared down at me, arms folded across his chest. He wasn’t a very big man, Mr. Sharpe, but he was imposing. He couldn’t have survived long in this job, assistant principal of Manamesset Junior High, grades seven through nine, if he hadn’t been.
“I think you are, Sawyer,” he said, still squinting. In fact, he was squinting so hard you could barely see his eyes. Some of the kids called him Hawk Eyes because according to them he never missed a trick — anywhere. In the halls, the locker rooms, the bathrooms, the lunchroom, if you were planning anything at all you shouldn’t be — chucking a piece of bread at a pretty girl, writing on a locker, taking a smoke in the boys’ room — he’d home right in on you like he smelled blood.
Actually that’s a pretty poor analogy. Hawks don’t smell blood, what they do is spot, then target, their prey. And that’s exactly what Mr. Sharpe was doing now: spotting me, looking for my weakness.
And although he might have thought he wasn’t trying hard enough to scare me, he was actually doing a pretty good job. My stomach was jumping around; my head was starting to hurt.
“Sawyer. Sawyer.” He tipped his head back, cupped his chin, all a big act. “Do I know your father, Mr. Yes Sir, No Sir?”
It was all I could do not to choke because the only way I could answer was, “No, sir.”
The hawk eyes opened wide and beamed down on me.
“My father’s dead... sir.” I cleared my throat. “But you might know my mother.”
“Your mother? I might know your mother.” He was mocking me, and then he smiled; the kids always said that was a bad sign. Mr. Sharpe had a perfect smile, perfect teeth, like a tiger’s. “Emily Sawyer, works in the superintendent’s office, doesn’t she? Oh, I think she’s going to be one upset and disappointed lady when she hears from me, don’t you?”
“I guess so, sir,” I murmured as he turned from me. Possibly as an added effect he grabbed his phone and slammed it down on his desk near me. It made me jump, which it was supposed to do, I guess, and then he started dialing.
“Thursday, Friday, suspended at home,” I muttered, staring down at the slip in my hands. “Next week, three days in-school suspension.” I put my head back, banging it against the outer wall. But I barely felt it. What I did feel was the utter humiliation. The walls of the main office were glass — so the principal and assistant principal could look out and see what was going on in the main lobby, I suppose. The bells had just rung, and kids were going by to class. I could hear their laughter, then my name ringing out in both surprise and derision.
“Hey, Sawyer!” one especially loud and obnoxious voice cried out. “Got tossed, didn’t you, for saying some bad words in Mr. Frakes’ class?” I heard a rap on the glass when someone hit it as they went by. I jumped up at the same time a nearby secretary did.
“Did you see who that was?” she demanded.
“No, ma’am, didn’t see,” I answered. I wanted to add, “And I wouldn’t tell you even if I had,” but I kept my mouth shut.
“Don’t even know this kid,” I heard Mr. Sharpe say as his door flew open. He was looking at me with those hawk eyes and those tiger teeth. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Sergeant Valari. Never seen him in my office before, never had a complaint from any teacher about him. In fact—” He was holding an open manila folder full of green- and blue-edged papers. Report cards. “Mr. Sawyer’s even made the honor roll seven terms out of eight and was nominated twice as student of the month.” He glared down at me. “Hard to believe after what Mr. Frakes told me happened in chemistry class.”
“Hard to believe,” Jake echoed with a sigh. His small bright eyes were on me, too.
“Also been a peer counselor, worked as an elementary tutor for kids with special needs—” the assistant principal was running out of breath as he flipped through my folder some more “—and according to his seventh and eighth grade teachers—” he looked at Jake in surprise “—has even assisted the police on a few occasions.” He looked at me, then at Jake. “That true?”
“It’s true,” Jake said. “Hard as that is to believe, too.”
“So I did that big a crime they had to call the police?” I asked as I threw my school bag over my shoulder and followed Jake out to the school parking lot. I don’t know why I said that, it only added more grief to what I had coming.
Except, instead of yelling at me, Jake said, “Your mother called me.”
“Really?” I replied. “Hard to believe.”
I could see he was holding his temper, but at that moment I didn’t really care. Maybe I just didn’t care about anything, which was a really strange feeling for me. I’d been afraid, just briefly, in Mr. Sharpe’s office because I’d been anticipating my mother’s reaction to all this. I’d also been anticipating Jake’s, but now that I saw him I wasn’t afraid any more. He was just a cop, a sergeant on the small local police force, who used to date my mother until he dumped her six weeks ago for another woman. And knowing that, seeing him there to take me home, it seemed ironic suddenly, almost ludicrous that she’d call him.
“Yes, Herbie, she called me,” he explained. “She tried to get hold of Elmer Hornton...”
Suddenly I felt my heart sink, and any bravado I was about to display to Jake melted away. Elmer Hornton was a close friend, a good friend, someone I’d always depended on. He was an elderly man who lived two streets over from my mother and me. He was also a retired signpainter. I often did small jobs for him.
“But Elmer wasn’t at home,” Jake said. “Your mother’s pretty upset, Herbie. Why did you do this?”
I didn’t answer. I walked on toward his car, a custom red Firebird with a long scrape down the passenger side door. The rear fender on the same side looked like a ten ton truck had plowed into it.
“Hey, Jake, what happened?” But then it came back, that false sense of bravery that I could say anything I wanted to, since there was nothing worse he could do to me that he hadn’t done already. So even though I knew — this is a small town; it’d been in the papers — that his new girlfriend had borrowed his car and been sideswiped at an intersection a week ago by a pickup, I said, “Looks like somebody banged up your precious Mercury Firebird pretty good, huh?”
Did I say Jake was pushing fifty? And that he was a big guy? But not heavy with flab; no, he was one of those men they call “robust” or “sturdy”; he was also surprisingly fast when he wanted to be. So fast I barely saw him coming as he grabbed me and slammed me against his car.
But it was all for effect. Jake didn’t hurt me, though I’m sure anyone looking out the windows of the principal’s office might have seen it differently. In fact, I probably could have gotten an assault charge out of it — police sergeant shoving a minor kid up against his car — if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to, he’d made his point.
“For a smart kid,” he said to me, his face just inches from mine, “you can be pretty stupid sometimes. It’s a Pontiac Firebird, and I know you’re mad at me and I hope to hell it hasn’t got anything to do with what went on in there.” A glance back at my school. “Because it’s a lame excuse, Herbie, for saying what you did in that chemistry class.” Then he backed off. “Get in the car. I’m taking you home.”
Silence for three or four minutes, and then I said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s an easy thing to say,” he told me, “but not so easy to mean sometimes.”
“Look, I’ve been having problems,” I replied irritably. “What do you want from me? Mr. Frakes caught me off guard. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Mr. Frakes caught you off guard? What the heck are you talking about? It’s what — Wednesday in the second week of school for God’s sake — and you’ve already got a five-day suspension. Pardon me if I say what the—” (and I’ll delete the word, even though it’s the same one that got me into so much trouble) “—is wrong with you?”
“I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t know what he... what the class was doing. Safety or something, and lab equipment. Anyway, he asked me something about the stupid Bunsen burner, and it just came out of my mouth. Look, I’ll apologize to him. I’ll apologize to the whole class if it makes you happy.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little late?” he said, glancing at me as we slowed down at a red light. “There are girls in that class, Herbie.”
“Like they’ve never heard the word before.”
“Not from you they haven’t.”
“Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “Meet me, Mr. Perfect, never says and never does anything he shouldn’t. Mr. Yes Sir, No Sir. I’m just a model to the whole community, aren’t I? But what’s it get me, Jake? You and Mom are split up. She’s dating some jerk over in Northport.”
“Heard he was a firefighter.”
“Assistant fire chief, who cares?” I snapped back. “And now she’s thinking of selling our house and moving into a condo — a
“Boy, you’ve got chip on your shoulder so big I don’t think Arnold Schwarzenegger could knock it off.” He turned again to look at me, his small blue eyes mocking me. “Anything else bothering you you’d like to tell me about?”
“That’s about it.” I looked down suddenly, ran my hands along my legs. “Except for Meggie. She’s at a private school in Ohio. Bet you didn’t know that either.”
“Ohio?” He gave a low whistle. “Kind of puts a cramp in your love life, doesn’t it? Well, Herbie, so you’ve got a whole lot of problems right now, but why take it out on Sam Frakes?”
I looked at him in surprise.
“Oh, I know Sam. We played football in high school together. Don’t forget, Herbie, this is my town, too. Know everybody, I do. Ben Sharpe, too, though he was a few years behind me.”
I knew by his tone what was coming, but I also knew this:
“I don’t want any favors from you, Jake. I appreciate your picking me up, but if I never see you again, I couldn’t care less. My life is hell right now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I think he wanted to say something, probably something upbeat and positive. I could tell by the look on his face, it was kind of confused, but that’s when his radio gave a crackle: official business calling.
I turned away, slumping down in the seat, and folded my arms over my chest. I didn’t even care what the call was about, though normally I’d be curious. It wasn’t until I heard him say, “Corner of Bayview and Oak? I’m close. I’ll be right there,” that I turned around.
“Not Mr. Hornton? That’s his address.”
“I know,” he said, replacing the receiver. “There’s been an accident. They think Elmer fell off his roof or from a ladder. Ed Andersen’s there, and the fire department.” He pulled into a rest stop, spinning the wheel to turn the Firebird around the other way. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
“It was an accident, Jake, pure and simple,” Officer Andersen was saying as he pointed to the back roof of Mr. Hornton’s small, one story Cape. Across the yard a ways, out near Mr. Hornton’s quahog-shell driveway, another police officer was talking to a small group of people, neighbors mostly who’d been attracted by the commotion created by two police cars, a firetruck, an ambulance. Even the local ice cream guy had parked his truck behind Mr. Hornton’s beat-up pickup and ambled over to see what was going on.
“It seems to have happened about, oh, one o’clock. Elmer was up there,” Ed Andersen went on, “cleaning out the gutters maybe, and he slipped. Though I guess the doctors have to check for heart attack, stroke, that sort of thing. Won’t know until they get a good look at him.”
“Cleaning out the gutters,” I muttered. I looked at where Mr. Hornton’s aluminum ladder had been propped against the side of the house. Then I turned around and looked at the garage. It was twelve, maybe thirteen feet from the house, a large, sturdy structure with a sloping roof. The grass between the two buildings was more brown than green and cut very short. In some places there was no grass at all, just a grayish-brown sand, typical of this part of Cape Cod. There were no flattened areas in the grass, you could see, and no marks in the dirt, so at first glance, there was no way to tell where the feet of the ladder had been placed. Against the house? Or against the garage?
“Or maybe a dizzy spell?” Officer Andersen added as he wiped his forehead. “Hot day, still summer, you know.” He looked at me. “Hey, Herbie, what are you doing out of school?”
But it was more reasonable to suppose that Mr. Hornton had been working on the house or its gutters than on the garage. For one thing, the garage had no gutters. For another, the garage roof was newer, with fresh black shingles, though a few about a foot from the edge looked like there was white mildew on them.
If he’d needed his gutters cleaned, he should have asked me to do it, I said to myself.
The EMT’s had already come and gone. I hadn’t had a chance to see Mr. Hornton, though we’d been told he was found lying on his back in the small grassy area between the house and garage. A lady walking her dog had spotted him and had rushed over, then waved down some guys along the road who were removing a tree. One of them had used the phone in his truck to call the police.
Jake had talked to the woman and the tree crew briefly when we first arrived, but now they were gone, too.
As for the ladder, it lay between the house and the garage. Next to it was Mr. Hornton’s green corduroy fishing cap, the one he always wore. “Can I pick it up?” I asked Jake.
“Sure. Not a crime scene, Herbie,” Jake assured me, hands on his hips as he continued to talk to Ed Andersen and look up at the roof, the side of the house, and the garage, its doors thrown wide open, where Mr. Hornton kept his small workshop.
Mr. Hornton was retired, like I said, but he kept busy. He painted for one thing, mostly watercolors — beaches, seagulls, boats — and he did small jobs like lettering trucks and boats, election posters, and the new signs, all gold leaf and dark blue paint, for the Town Hall. He kept paints and other supplies in the garage, plus an odd assortment of tools, old outboard motors, sawhorses, fishing poles, and buoys. It was a big building with a huge overhead loft accessible by a ladder. Up there he stored plans and drawings for signs he’d designed and made over the last forty or fifty years. It was a great garage, a great place to keep... well, to keep all the stuff a guy needs.
I needed a garage, too, although I might not have one much longer.
But that was hardly important now and I was angry at myself for even thinking it.
“He going to be okay, Jake?” I asked, walking back to the two men with the cap in my hand.
“Oh, sure, Herbie,” Ed Andersen said. He pushed his notepad into his back pocket. “He was talking when we got here, not making much sense, kind of in a daze, you know? But he was moving his arms and legs and breathing pretty good. Maybe he just got the wind knocked out of him. Elmer Hornton’s a crusty old son of a—” he smiled “—gun. Little tumble ain’t going to hurt
The small group of neighbors had wandered over our way. I knew most of them including Buster Holiday, who made a point of telling Jake, “Just saw Elmer this morning. Gave him a hand with his stairs, but he didn’t say nothing about going up on the roof.” Buster was a nice enough guy, pushing eighty if he was a day, with bad eyes, bad teeth, and most noticeably bad breath. We all kept our distance as he asked the others standing there — mostly men in their sixties and seventies — “Elmer tell any of you fellers what needed doing up on the roof?”
There was a lot of head shaking and a lot of speculation about leaky roofs, loose shingles, dirty gutters, but none of them was much help.
“I’ll call,” Jake said to me as this little group went on sharing opinions among themselves. “See if the doctors have come up with anything.”
I looked at the ladder, then at Ed Andersen. Not a crime scene. He turned away from the group of men and smiled. Ed Andersen was a nice enough guy, but I never thought he was particularly bright. “That’s where the ladder fell? I mean, no one moved it, did they?”
“Heck,” Ed answered, taking out his notepad and checking it. “Didn’t think to ask, Herbie. I suppose one of the tree guys might have moved it, or the EMT’s. Don’t know for sure.”
Jake was heading for Mr. Hornton’s side door. The house was wide open, and Jake was probably going to look around inside to make sure Mr. Hornton hadn’t been cooking, or left something else on. He paused on the bottom step, looked at me, and said, “Go ahead. Do what you want with it.”
Fifteen minutes later, after I’d done what I wanted with the ladder, I went inside. Jake and Ed Andersen had shut off a radio, turned off the coffeemaker, and put the contents of a slowly simmering Crock-Pot in the refrigerator. Jake sent Ed out to check the garage, make sure no power tools were left on and the lights were all off, paint cans sealed, and so on. Now Jake was standing before Mr. Hornton’s phone, a frown on his face. It looked like he had something in his hand, maybe his notepad. Whatever it was, he slipped it into his pocket, then went to the sink.
There was nothing in it but a couple of coffee mugs and some dishes, soaking in soapy water.
I can be pretty patient for a kid with a fresh mouth, but Jake was too quiet. I glanced at the phone on the wall. It was an old fashioned model, rotary dial, black in color. Next to it on the counter was an answering machine, and it was plugged in, which surprised me. I knew Mr. Hornton hated the thing even if he’d pretended to be pleased and surprised when Mom and I gave it to him last Christmas.
Suddenly I thought I understood. “Did you call the hospital?” I asked, trying not to sound anxious.
“Yes.” Jake’s voice sounded funny. “They’ve ruled out a heart attack, but they’re still looking him over.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” I asked. I looked around. This was a small, bachelor kitchen but neatly kept. Table wiped clean, on the counter a pile of unopened mail and a paper bag with the name of the local hardware store on it, Big Eddie’s. Some sticks were poking out of the bag, probably for stirring paint; Big Eddie’s gave them away with every purchase. There was something else in the bag, too, wrapped in a cardboard and plastic wrapper. I could read the words “genuine camel hair,” written on it, but it wasn’t my business to go nosing around in Mr. Hornton’s things. I looked back at Jake.
“Yeah, Herbie, it’s good news,” he finally answered.
“I’ve got something I want to show you outside,” I said.
“Go on out. I’ll be with you as soon as I lock up.”
“So, what am I looking at, Herbie?” Jake asked. He was still acting kind of funny; he seemed to be trying to pay attention to one thing, me, while his mind was on something else.
“I just ran my hands along that gutter,” I said, pointing up. “It’s absolutely clean. If Mr. Hornton had just finished cleaning it, there’d be a trash bag or a pile of dirt and leaves somewhere, but I don’t see anything like that. I think he cleaned it some time ago, not today.”
“Maybe he’s got a leak in the roof.” Jake shrugged. There was a honk from the driveway. Ed Andersen was starting up his black-and-white.
“You get the front door, sergeant?” Ed hollered.
Jake turned with a wave.
“Everything’s locked up,” he said. As Ed tipped his hat, Jake muttered, “Damn, let’s not make this out to be something it isn’t.”
“What?” I snapped. “Why’d you say that?” I watched Ed Andersen take off up the street. Something here didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know what it was.
“I may not know much, Jake, but I do know this: Mr. Hornton wasn’t up there cleaning out his gutters.” I drew in a deep breath; I was finding it more and more difficult being in the same six square yards of space with him. “When you talk to him, that’s the first thing you ought to ask: what the heck was he doing up there?”
But he wasn’t going to be able to. Talk to Mr. Hornton, that is. When we got to my house, Jake came in. My mother would be home in a few minutes, but that didn’t seem to matter. He said he wanted to use our phone, call the station without broadcasting everything all over the airwaves. Then he made one more quick call, turning away from me suddenly as he did.
When he hung up, I could tell by the look on his face it wasn’t good. I caught in my breath as he told me, “Bad news. They have found signs of bleeding in the brain. Elmer’s gone into a coma.” He added, “I’ve got something else to tell you, Herbie. I found a message on his answering machine. I’ve got the tape here.” He patted his pocket. “It looks possible, remotely possible, that Elmer didn’t fall off that ladder. Maybe he was pushed.”
“I know. I know. It looks like an accident.” Jake was arguing on the phone with his captain, who was at a Police Supervisors’ Conference in New Orleans. “Yes, sir, most likely. I can read it to you again, but I can’t play the tape where I am. I can do that from the station if you want—”
A sigh of exasperation as he looked at me, then at my mother.
“Yes, sir, perfectly plausible, may be no connection.” Another pause. “Okay, it’s just the end of a message. The beginning got recorded over by one of those telemarketers that say nothing, then just hang up. Here it is.” Jake read from his notepad one more time: “ ‘You’ll be sorry if you show the dreamers.’ ” “Yes, sir, that’s all there is, plus the fact that his front door was wide open.” A roll of his eyes. “Sure, he could have left it that way — and gotten a house full of flies.”
Pause. “No. No signs of anyone being in the house. Nothing looks touched or seems missing.” Another pause and Jake shifted his weight around.
“Yes, I’ll have it sent to the lab, maybe they can — yes, captain, a male voice.” Pause. “No suspicion of that, but I agree, better to err on the side of caution.”
“I don’t care what’s on it,” my mother said when Jake hung up. “I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt Elmer Hornton.”
She folded her arms high over her chest and walked through the narrow archway leading from our kitchen to the living room.
It was a small place, our house, but it had a big kitchen and a comfortable living room paneled in old fashioned knotty pine. Every room had a high, open ceiling with a huge circulating fan that Jake had installed for us. The house had two large bedrooms; mine was off the kitchen through what looked like a closet door but actually led to a narrow, curved flight of stairs. Hers was down a short hall from the living room. It was actually two smaller rooms that Jake had remodeled into a larger one by taking out a wall.
It had a fenced-in yard and a pair of towering sycamores in front, a row of small purple locusts in back. We also had an old rickety half-falling-down garage barely big enough to park a car in. Right now it held a lawnmower, a battered outboard engine I was determined to put back together someday, and lots of odds and ends, mostly mine. But the important thing was that it was
Now she was planning to sell it, move into a stupid condo.
All because of him, Jake Valari, following her into the living room, trying to be nonchalant, casual, and concerned. He got only the last part right.
“Emily, it’s just routine,” he told her. “Probably nothing to it. But I’ll have some of my men ask around, see if anyone heard or saw anything. Sometimes things seem one way and—” He stopped abruptly as my mother hugged herself and turned away.
She was facing me and trying not to cry. But for whom? For Mr. Hornton, whom we both cared for, who’d been our first real friend in this town, and honest to God, was more like a — well, like a grandfather to me than just the guy I did odd jobs for?
Or were her eyes full of tears because of Jake, standing there saying, “And they’re not the way they seem.”
“Yeah?” I said, determined to defend my mother as well as her pride. “Like you seemed to be a nice guy but you turned out to be a jerk?”
“Herbie!” my mother cried. Turning to Jake she said, “I’m so sorry. He has been like this for weeks. Unbearable. Sometimes—” now to me “—I don’t think I know my own son any more.”
“You know me fine,” I said as I left them both standing there awkwardly. “I haven’t changed at all.”
“So, Herbie, who or what are the dreamers?” Jake was standing behind me in the open door.
I was sitting on our back steps, facing the sun as it started to drop westward in the distance. In a few hours it would be doing a slow dance across the waters of Manamesset Bay.
Manamesset Bay, just visible between the locust trees. Suddenly I wished I was out there in my little skiff, just fishing or daydreaming or doing anything but listening to him...
Or worrying about Mr. Hornton.
“Well?” he said. Then, repeating the message on Mr. Hornton’s tape, “ ‘You’ll be sorry if you show the dreamers.’ Any ideas?”
“What kind of voice was it?” I asked.
“Male. But not deep, sounded fairly young. No noticeable accent. I’ll get a cassette player, have you listen to it on the off chance you recognize it. You know a lot of Elmer’s friends.”
“Did it sound threatening?”
“The words are threatening enough, but yes, there was a definite... tone to it.”
I watched the neighbors’ kids scream and shout as they chased a ball through their back yard. “I don’t know, Jake,” I said, answering his original question. “Could it be a name? ‘Don’t show something
“Or Dramers, and it was pronounced wrong. Or Dremers without an
I rested my elbows on my knees. “Doesn’t make sense, though. I don’t know anyone with that name. Could it be... what? The Dreamers sounds like a rock group, or the name of a stupid horror book or movie.”
“Herbie, I’m going to ask you to do something,” Jake said. He came down to the bottom step so he could look at me face to face. “I’m going to investigate this, talk to all Elmer’s neighbors and friends, find out what I can, even though this is probably just an accident. You know most of his friends and neighbors, and you’re going to be home for the next two days—”
“Golly, sheriff,” I interrupted cockily, “you appointing me your new deputy?”
I don’t know how he stopped himself from reaching out and slapping me one, but he did.
“You listen to me.” His face grew hard and fierce for a moment. “I’ll let you listen to that tape, but you are not to go around and ask questions. Anyone who would push an old man off a ladder isn’t going to care about some fourteen-year-old kid, you understand?” He sighed. “I don’t know anyone who might hold a grudge against Elmer, but...” A pause. “I’ve got somebody holding a grudge against
I didn’t know what to say.
“So I’m just asking if you hear anything you let me know. Now, if you can stand me for another hour, I’ll be glad to drive you over to County General. What do you say? Then we can get a bite to eat on the way back. I asked your mother; she doesn’t want to go. She says she’ll take some time off tomorrow to visit Elmer.”
So he had surprised me; now it was my turn. “Tell me, Jake, your new girlfriend, she as pretty as my mother?”
Stunned, he just stared at me.
I wasn’t done. “She younger? Smarter? Got a better job? Or how about this: she’s got no kids to get in the way, right?”
“Herbie.” Again, looking right at me, but because I felt like a fool suddenly and didn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes, I jumped up.
“Hell yes, let’s go see him. Because if anything happens to him...” I couldn’t say anything more, couldn’t look at him, but neither could I cover up the crack in my voice as I went to the back door and told my mother I’d be out with Jake for a little while.
All I could think about as we went through Mr. Hornton’s house that evening — turning on lights, setting a radio on low so it would sound like someone was at home — was what he’d looked like in that hospital bed. So old. A hundred years old. Even his tanned and leathery skin, face and hands, had looked pale, insubstantial, thin as paper. I wanted him to sit up, shake off all those tubes and lines they had stuck in him, and yell at me for getting thrown out of school.
“Nothing,” Jake commented. He was sitting at Mr. Hornton’s rolltop desk in a corner of the living room. He hadn’t touched anything because he had no reason to; besides, he had nobody’s permission. I was there because Mr. Hornton had trusted me and my mother with the key to his house long ago.
But Jake had done a few things — put a new tape in the answering machine and checked the front door again — and now he was glancing at the large calendar Mr. Hornton kept on his desk, using it as a kind of combination blotter and schedule pad.
“I’ll have the guys on shift tonight drive by a couple of times,” he told me, “just to keep an eye on things.”
Suddenly he pointed at the calendar. “What’s this on Saturday the twelfth? ‘Exhibition, library.’ What’s that about?”
“Mr. Hornton paints a little, you know, his hobby.” I shrugged and sat down on the arm of the couch near the desk. “Nothing big. Still lifes. Boats. He bought himself some new paintbrushes; they’re in the Big Eddie’s bag on the counter.”
“He paints?”
“Yeah, watercolors. He’s got his stuff in the spare bedroom. You didn’t notice? I thought you checked everything this afternoon.” I headed for the smaller of the two bedrooms, which opened off the living room. “He’s got easels and canvases and everything. There’s a big window in here, but it faces east so the light’s no good except in the morning. Sometimes he works on the front porch, and lately he’s been going to the beach. I’ll show you.”
Jake was just a few steps behind me. “Boats. Herbie, could the Dreamers be a boat?”
“I suppose. He does boat lettering, and he’s real good at it, you know, but it still doesn’t sound right. I mean, when you think about what the guy on the tape said, ‘You’ll be sorry if you show the dreamers.’ Why would Mr. Hornton ‘show’ a boat? Doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m going to have to listen to that tape again. Maybe a few times,” he said.
I flicked on the light, and Jake nearly banged into me when I stopped short and stood there frozen and speechless.
Then I said that word, the one that had gotten me into so much trouble about eight hours ago. This time I definitely thought it fit the situation. Because I’d just found something else that didn’t make sense.
There was nothing in Mr. Hornton’s spare bedroom. Not a stick of furniture. Not an easel or canvas. No paints. No work table where he mixed his paints. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Zip.
Suddenly I felt like I was back in an alien place again.
Of course I couldn’t sleep, or rather I had one of those nights where you’re not really sleeping, you’re constantly tossing and turning, looking at the clock. I thought I heard voices once or twice, my mother on the phone, and I thought of getting up to see what was going on. Then I realized she’d come and get me if anything had happened. To Mr. Hornton, that is.
When I finally woke up, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. She probably hadn’t slept much either. She was standing in the kitchen staring out the window with one hand in her hair, the other holding a coffee cup. On her face was a vague, distracted kind of look as though she wasn’t able to focus on anything.
But she heard me, and said, “I’m not going to work today. I’ve things I have to do at the hospital. Paul’s taking me over.”
I didn’t say anything to that, just scooped my workboots from under the table and, pulling out a kitchen chair, sat down to put them on.
“Herbie, when you and Jake were at the hospital last night, I got a call from Mr. Sharpe.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I know a lot’s going on right now, but we’ve got to talk about this, too.”
I had no interest in talking about school. “How’s Mr. Hornton?” I looked up at her. “I mean, he didn’t die or anything, right? You would have waked me up and told me that, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” she said, shocked. “The bleeding stopped, but his prognosis still isn’t good. He may have to have surgery, and he’s seventy-three.” She put her hand to her mouth, set down her coffee cup, and walked to the back door. She wasn’t a very big woman, less than five three, and was lucky if she weighed a hundred pounds. But suddenly she looked even smaller and incredibly fragile. “Elmer gave me power of attorney a year ago; you know that. He has no relatives, so I have to go sign some papers and talk to some people.”
“And Paul Fiore’s taking you. He’s got the day off, too?”
“Why are you like this?” she asked, turning to look at me. “Why have you been this way the last few weeks? And now this horrible business at school? I couldn’t believe it when Mr. Sharpe told me what you did. You can’t be that mad at me, Herbie, can you?”
“Who says I’m mad at you?” I snapped. “I’ve got things to do.” I went to the key hook by the back door and grabbed Mr. Hornton’s house and garage keys.
“Is it Jake and me?” she demanded almost pathetically; it made me angry to see that reaction from her. “Herbie, I never was in love with Jake Valari, and he didn’t love me either. We were good friends, and we still are... friends. Jake did a lot for me; I won’t deny that. He helped me get a good job and buy this house and—”
“Yeah, he was just your knight in shining armor, wasn’t he? And now he’s dumped you for somebody else, so you’re gonna walk around convincing yourself you never loved him when you did and I know you did. Jake’s a jerk, a total and complete jerk.”
“Herbie, don’t say that,” she said, her voice flat and limp. I almost wished she’d yell at me or slap me or do something. This was the way she used to be, always so weak and rundown and feeling sorry for herself.
“And this thing at school, it’s got nothing to do with you. I’ll serve my time, apologize to Mr. Frakes, and it’ll all be over.” I opened the screen door. “But right now something weird is going on at Mr. Hornton’s, and I’ve got to figure it out. So goodbye, and say hello to Mr. Hornton if he wakes up. I’ll go see him later.” I leaned forward and, grabbing her shoulder, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Then I flew out the door.
Of course I felt like a fool. I had more important things to do. But I couldn’t help myself, and I couldn’t stop it and I didn’t remember ever feeling that way before. Totally helpless and frustrated, so much so that when it started I just sank down on the edge of Mr. Hornton’s sofa and let it come. I was glad there was nobody there to see it happen, and nobody around to hear it, either. The tree guys were right outside. I could hear the roar of their chainsaws.
Imagine, a fourteen-year-old kid crying like a baby. Girls cry over the least little thing, and women and little kids. And maybe even old men, say in times of war, like after their entire fighter squadron gets wiped out by the enemy, but not kids my age. We do anything not to get caught like this, and react any way other than sobbing like a fool. We hit things (or people) and throw things or maybe even swear and say things we don’t mean.
Suddenly I jumped up, realizing that I wasn’t the only person with a key to Mr. Hornton’s house. Jake could stop by any time, and if he’d found out there had been a real threat to — or an attempt on — Mr. Hornton’s life, he’d probably have a court order, or my mother’s permission, to look around inside. He’d start going through Mr. Hornton’s personal papers looking for threatening letters, things like that.
So I went into the bathroom to wash my face, refusing as I did to look in the mirror. I felt so stupid. If anything, Jake needed me to be alert, sharp, and on the ball, not a blubbering idiot who couldn’t hold his emotions together. And though I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, or how, I knew I had a few problems to solve first.
Number one, find out where Mr. Hornton had put his paintings. It was possible he’d taken some to the library for this weekend’s exhibition. I could check that out easily enough. But he had completed at least twenty paintings in the two years since he’d taken up the hobby. Where were they? And where was his work table? And the shelf he’d built to hold his finished work?
Two, figure out who or what the dreamers were. Or Dreamers with a capital D. (Or however else it might be spelled.) I reasoned it would be okay for me to flip through Mr. Hornton’s address book to do that. He also kept a ledger in his workshop with the names, addresses, and job descriptions of any boats he was working on. Jake and I should have looked out there last night. Maybe it was beyond the scope of what Jake could legally do, but I could look, couldn’t I? Since I was Mr. Hornton’s helper, his right-hand man, it would be perfectly legitimate.
And then there was number three: ask around the neighborhood and find out if anyone had seen anything strange or suspicious over here yesterday morning or early afternoon. Did anyone see a truck or car drive up? Were any deliveries made about that time? Was Mr. Hornton in his yard or in his driveway talking to anyone? What about that lady with the dog, and the tree crew — they’d been farther down the street yesterday, but they might have noticed something.
Especially if someone went barreling out the front door, which I checked. It was just a regular wooden door, kind of old fashioned, with an ordinary lock on it, not a deadbolt. In the middle of the doorknob was a button you pushed to lock or unlock the door. But it was strange that Jake had found the door open. Mr. Hornton never used this door. He always went in and out the back. And that crack about the flies was true: if you left your doors open around here long enough, the house would fill up with flies from the marsh across the street.
Even though Jake had warned me about talking to people, I felt some of them might feel more comfortable telling me, a local kid, rather than a cop if they’d noticed something suspicious.
I hated to use that word; it throws a curve on things right away. People are suddenly thinking “Perry Mason” or “Ellery Queen” suspicious. I preferred to use the word “unusual,” or maybe even just plain “usual.”
Yeah, if someone saw Mr. Hornton talking to one of his usual friends, people might not even think to mention it to the police. And Mr. Hornton had a lot of friends; he called them his buddies. He had fishing buddies and clamming buddies and poker buddies. He also had war buddies, whom he hung out with at the VA Club, as well as just plain old buddies whom he saw at the hardware store, the post office, and the doughnut shop. That added up to a heck of a lot of buddies. I’d have to be careful about how I phrased my questions. I hoped Jake would do the same.
As I was washing my face and thinking all this over, I heard a sound, a buzzing sound, then a couple of clicks. It was followed by a voice. Mr. Hornton’s voice.
For a moment I was surprised: was Mr. Hornton home? No, it was the answering machine, but why would Mr. Hornton be calling his house? I went to the bathroom doorway and stood there for a moment, just listening.
“... at the beep, thanks.” Mr. Hornton’s message, followed by an empty silence, and then:
“Elmer? Elmer? Well, I guess you’re not there. This is...” A pause. The voice was a woman’s and, from the sound, very elderly, the words slow and drawn out. “...Mildred Hunt from the library.” Another pause; I moved into the kitchen, washcloth still in my hand. “It’s Thursday, Elmer, about eight fifteen. I’m calling to confirm your exhibition of four paintings this Saturday, the sixth. We’ve given you a nice spot just as we promised, the upper gallery toward the front.” Her voice picked up. “It’s a lovely spot. I’m sure you’ll be very pleased. Now, these are the paintings we have listed for you.
I froze. I didn’t react in time. Some people would have dived for the phone and picked it up. I just stared stupidly at the machine as it went on recording.
“I really adored that one. Two young lovers, so simple, so perfect, staring at the sunset. And what a lovely spot you found; I’m surprised you thought of it. I haven’t been there in years.” A soft, girlish laugh. “I’ve heard it’s quite a different place from when you and I were young.” A pause. “So this is just a formality, and please excuse the length of this message. I’ll be in the library at seven Saturday morning to help you set up. Goodbye.” A click and a buzz as the machine dutifully stored the message.
The Dreamers. I’d answered question number two.
“I’m sorry, young man, but Mildred Hunt isn’t here. She just left. She’s a volunteer, not on regular staff.” The woman on the other end was courteous but hardly helpful. “And no, I cannot give you her home phone number. If you want to speak with her, I’ll leave her a message, and she’ll get back to you. And no, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Mildred takes care of all our art exhibitions. I can check later if you want to call back, but I can’t leave the circulation desk right now. We’ve several school groups today, and we’re short-staffed. I’m terribly sorry.”
Yeah, and what if this were an adult voice you were talking to, would you leave your precious circulation desk and go upstairs to see if any of Mr. Hornton’s paintings had arrived early? Because that’s all I could think of, that
But damn, it was still a revelation, wasn’t it?
“Then listen,” I said even as I heard her sigh into the phone; I was so excruciatingly polite that I nearly made myself sick. “When she returns, please have Mrs. Hunt call this number, would you?” The woman sighed and then sighed again when I asked her to read it back — which she did. I added, “And please have her ask for Detective Sergeant Jacob Valari. It’s about a painting, tell her, a painting called
A painting called
It was all I could think of as I pedaled my bike down Bayview toward the water shimmering like a mirror off the bluffs. A painting, but what connection, if any, did it have with Mr. Hornton’s falling off a ladder?
Maybe no connection at all. A phone call about the painting: what did it mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe Mr. Hornton had painted someone without their permission. Maybe.
A host of maybes.
I saw Officer Ed Andersen park his black-and-white down the road and get out with his notepad in hand. He was walking toward one of Mr. Hornton’s nosier neighbors. She was watering some late-blooming roses around the edge of a fence. Good, I thought, let him talk to her. I knew who I wanted, old “Bad Breath” Buster Holiday.
And out there, fiddling around on his sailboat in the bay, was where I was sure to find him.
A lot of coughing and scratching, then the mandatory spitting off the side of his boat: he was happy to see me. A crack-toothed smile and a “Hey, Herbie Sawyer my man — put it right there.”
I slapped his hand. Buster Holiday watched too many basketball games, too many late-night movies. It was hard to believe, as Mr. Hornton once told me, that Buster had done a stint in Hollywood as an extra for some of the biggest names in movies back in the thirties and forties.
Then, equally hard to believe, he’d written a series of self-help books on home repair, made a bunch of money, and settled here on Cape Cod. He had a beautiful big house on the bluff but spent most of his time on the twenty foot sailboat he kept moored at a private dock. He was always puttering around, fishing, going for clams, quahogs, mussels, whatever was in season.
I got right down to business. “I’ve got some questions for you, Mr. Holiday, about Elmer Hornton...”
Of course that caused a lot more coughing and scratching and even some belching. “How the heck is he? I tried to see him this morning, they wouldn’t let me near him.” This was followed by a general denouncement of the medical establishment, Mr. Hornton’s doctors in particular.
“He’s the same, Mr. Holiday, no change. My mother’s going to see him this morning. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”
“Now, your mother, a fine woman, a real lady—” Several seconds of lauding my mother; she’d made the mistake of sending him an eggplant casserole when he’d been sick a while back — until I could finally interject:
“I need to know... Buster, if you saw anyone at Mr. Hornton’s house yesterday. You know, if someone stopped by, like a friend or even a stranger or, say, a delivery guy?”
More scratching and frowning and looking off across the water as a pair of terns wheeled and twittered overhead. For a moment I thought, great, he’s finally gone senile; he’s not going to be any help at all.
“Well, no. Why you asking?” His sharp little eyes turned on me. He needed a bath; he needed a shave, he needed some mouthwash.
And I needed a new approach. What if Buster himself had — what? Leaned against Mr. Hornton’s ladder? Deliberately pushed it? How did I know what went through somebody else’s mind? Or what arguments, grudges, or differences existed between any two people when I barely knew what existed between me and Jake Valari?
“We’re just wondering—” I said, realizing another mistake, the use of “we.” It was strange, wasn’t it, how I could identify so closely with Jake Valari and still hate him. “—if you or someone else noticed that Mr. Hornton was experiencing any, you know, chest pains or headaches that would be—”
“Symptomatic of an oncoming stroke?” he said, surprising me with his grasp of medical jargon.
Everyone surprised me.
“Well, hell no, I didn’t, at least he didn’t complain of nothing like that. We had a cup of coffee after we worked on the stairs.” He sat back on the rim of the boat and scratched again, his neck, his forehead, his chest. “Oh, then we took a hike down the road, watched those tree guys again. They been taking trees down all along Bayview. Lot of damage that last windstorm, you know; damn shame. Some of those trees are over a hundred years old.” He belched again; I stepped back. “Watched those guys take down one heck of a big oak. Full of ants it was. You should have seen them scamper when they took the big saws to it. Heck of a big saw, too — never saw a saw so big! Get it?” He moved toward me with his elbow, so I nodded quickly.
“I got it.”
“Disgusting things, ants. Had a problem with carpenter ants once, nearly ate me out of house and home—”
“So you were with Mr. Hornton all morning?”
“Until noon. Had myself an ice cream, went home. Funny that Elmer never said anything about his roof. I would have helped him. Never go up a ladder alone, Herbie. Too dangerous. You need someone down below balancing it, and just looking out in case of a problem. I guess Elmer never read that chapter in my book.” More scratching. “Hope I’ve been of some help to you. It’s a damn shame.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I turned to climb off his boat. I’d left my bike up on the bluff.
“But you know Elmer, does everything himself, never wants any help. Wouldn’t have let me help him with the stairs if I hadn’t been there at the time.”
I had one foot on the mooring, the other still in the boat. “What stairs?”
“Why, the new stairs in the garage of course!” he laughed.
“There are no stairs in the garage, Mr. Hobday.”
“The stairs going up—” he pointed one dirty finger into the air “—overhead. You know what I mean, the collapsible kind. Complicated thing. He got a kit and put it together himself. I helped him put it in.”
“Collapsible stairs?”
“Why of course! Into the loft he’s building over the garage. He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I murmured, suddenly knowing where
Amazing how much I can miss or can hear but not listen to.
There it was, just beyond Mr. Hornton’s workbench in the far corner of the garage. Of course that’s where the trapdoor going up into the overhead loft was. The rickety wooden ladder he used to have me climb, stowing papers and plans up there, was tucked in a corner next to some brooms and rakes.
I’d seen one of those contraptions before, in a friend’s house going up to an attic. There was a long thin mesh chain, ending in a ring, that was looped around a nail in the wall. If you pulled up on the chain, the door overhead opened, and out popped the bottom of a collapsible set of stairs. You pulled the stairs down toward you, and they kind of unfolded all the way to the floor. The whole apparatus was on a system of pulleys and chains.
And it worked perfectly. I started up the stairs, and a light came on.
I was startled for a moment, remembering that the only light up here had been one bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling. Then I understood. Mr. Hornton had added new lights and a motion detector; the lights came on automatically. And when I got to the top and looked around at the entire loft, which suddenly had become a real and functional room, I understood a few other things, too.
“I just don’t get it,” I argued. “What do you mean, the investigation’s been stopped? Mr. Hornton was nearly killed!” “Herbie.” Jake cut me off. Although he hadn’t been upset with me for tracking down Mrs. Hunt and finding out that
“Elmer fell off a ladder,” Jake said. We were out on my back steps, a place where we seemed to have a lot of arguments lately. It was going on suppertime, but we could hear the buzz of boats roaring out in the bay, the noisy clamor of the neighborhood kids as they ran out to an ice cream truck in the road. “There’s no reason to think it was anything but that. He fell off. He lost his balance. He’s an old man.”
I glared at him.
“And the message on the tape doesn’t prove much. Someone didn’t want Elmer to put this painting on display, for whatever reason. Maybe he’s the guy in the painting, and the woman’s not his wife.”
“You never let me listen to the tape,” I said bitterly. “I might have recognized the voice.”
“Sorry, Herbie, had to send it to the lab.”
I turned away and heard my mother and her new boyfriend in the kitchen behind us. The guy’s voice was high and irritating. “I don’t know, Em, but I’m not happy with you and Herbie getting mixed up in police business.”
“God, that guy makes me sick,” I muttered.
Jake tried to suppress a smile. “So the investigation, for what it was worth, is over. I’m driving over to see Elmer before it gets too late; then I’m stopping at the library. I spoke to one of the librarians, and she said Mrs. Hunt comes in on Thursday evenings to help with new inventory.”
“Why are you bothering to talk to Mrs. Hunt if there’s no investigation?”
“Just loose ends. I want to know where Elmer painted that picture; apparently she knows. She’s seen it, and...” A shrug, but a highly acted one. “Elmer might have mentioned to her if anyone was trying to buy it, or didn’t want it shown.”
“Yeah, and she’s the only lead you’ve got, right?” I snapped. I turned away and looked out at the driveway where a black boxy-looking car sat next to my mother’s six-year-old Ford Mustang. There was another car in the drive, too, a green and beige Jeep Cherokee.
Now, someone might assume things by looking at those three cars, but then that person might assume things all wrong, too. Assumptions can be tricky and dangerous things.
“Officer Andersen didn’t pick up any other information, did he? From talking to Mr. Hornton’s neighbors?”
“No.” He was too nervous. “I guess no one saw anything.”
I was too mad to respond just then. I’d found out about the stairs in the garage, and where
“You got a new car?” I asked suddenly.
“The Volvo? No, it’s a friend’s. I’m borrowing it while mine’s in for repairs.”
“So your new girlfidend drives a Volvo, huh?” I said flippantly. “Figures. She’s such a lousy driver she needs a car she can’t kill herself in.” I started down the steps with him behind me. “She ought to drive a tank.”
I said nothing, just turned on the radio real loud — to one of the worst, most obnoxious alternative rock stations on the dial — and tapped a pencil I’d found in the glove compartment on my knees, the dash, and just about everywhere else as we drove. I was trying to drive him crazy, I admit it, but wasn’t having much effect. He was too busy watching some guy in the rear view mirror. Tailgaters. He should have pulled him over.
But my heart wasn’t really into annoying Jake Valari, and my mind was on everything else. I simply wasn’t satisfied with anything, including the picture I’d seen in Mr. Hornton’s loft.
The loft had been wide and clean. All the sign plans and papers I’d stowed up there for him were now neatly arranged in a series of shelves along one wall. Along another wall were the thin, vertical compartments Mr. Hornton had built to hold his paintings. Right now, though, most of the canvases in them were blank.
His missing work table was up there and, scattered across it, his paints and brushes, mixing tools, some cans and bottles. Above the table on wooden hooks were a half dozen palettes. But the most astonishing thing — actually the two most astonishing things — were these:
First, above the work table in the slope of the roof Mr. Hornton had drawn a large rectangle in chalk. It was obvious he was planning to cut that part of the roof away for a skylight. A brochure from Big Eddie’s showing all kinds of skylights lay on the table.
And, second, in the middle of the room was an easel, and on it was a painting of two people looking off into a sunset. They were facing away from the artist, painted from the shoulders up, so all you could see was the backs of their heads. The man had short dark hair; the woman’s was long and blonde and fell almost to her shoulders. She was wearing a red tank top, he had on a blue work shirt, and anyone, anyone at all just glancing at the picture, would have known they were in love. Something about it, plus the woman was resting her head on the man’s shoulder.
It was
Other things slid into place, too. I left the loft and went back outside. Hoisting the ladder against the side of the garage, I climbed up. I should have done that yesterday, checked to see if he’d been up there, because what I’d thought was mildew on the shingles was actually chalk. Mr. Hornton had drawn a rough line along the bottom row of shingles and started writing X’s on them. Those shingles had to come off in order to cut a hole in the roof for the skylight.
Damn, I’d been so stupid.
Now
But
It did occur to me that maybe
“Maybe he was going to show it to someone. Maybe.” I looked down into my lap, stopped my tapping. “But then he didn’t.” I stared out the window, watching the garish lights of the local clam shack, ice cream place, and pizza parlor slip by. “Or he couldn’t.” I shut my eyes and said, “ ‘You’ll be sorry if you show
“Case really closed?” I asked.
“Never was a case,” he said as he pulled into the circular lot of Manamesset County General Hospital.
I wandered out into the waiting room. Jake had only stayed a few minutes with Mr. Hornton. Now he was sitting on a worn vinyl chair, elbows on his legs, his head forward. No one had been very forthcoming, not the nurses, not the doctors on staff. There had been no change in Mr. Hornton’s condition, and now he might be taken by ambulance to Boston for surgery.
“I’m going to tell you this,” I said, managing — just barely — to keep my mouth from trembling, my words from spilling over into tears. “That painting, it’s going on display Saturday. Right there in the library. And if there is any connection, case or no case, I’m going to show that son of a—”
A loud boom rocked the ward, the entire building. Nurses came running and interns and orderlies; patients along the corridor were crying out. Then we heard an orderly shout, “There’s been some kind of explosion down in the parking lot. There’s a couple of cars on fire!”
The Volvo was totally destroyed, firebombed along with two other cars belonging to doctors, a Jaguar XJ6 and a Cadillac Seville STS. There were firetrucks out there, police squad cars from both Manamesset and Northport, and a long line of people being held back by police along the periphery of the parking lot.
And then a Jeep Cherokee tore up, nearly onto the sidewalk, right to where Jake and I were standing. It was Paul Fiore, slamming on his brakes, jumping out, and heading straight toward Jake.
“I ought to take you apart, you stupid fool!” he screamed. “You took the kid with you, knowing something like this could happen!” Suddenly two policemen were there grabbing Paul’s arms.
“Hold on, Paul,” Jake said, walking toward him. “I didn’t know...”
“The hell you didn’t!” Paul barked back. “Then why’d you and Emily switch the paintings back at her house? There’s a maniac out there who wants that picture, and you knew it! You knew it!” For a whiny and irritating guy, Paul Fiore was surprisingly strong, throwing off first one man, then the other. “You ought to get written up, Valari, tossed off the force.”
He wiped his eyes, then his face. Suddenly, using that same expletive that had gotten me in so much trouble, he turned away and walked off to join his men as they put out the last of the fire.
Five minutes ago, seeing that burning car, its hull now a smoldering, blackened heap, I had felt like my heart, lungs, and stomach had all been pulled out of me. I’d thought
Arguing, back and forth, loud and sometimes violently, then softer and apologetic. I lay on my stomach listening to them, then I slipped on my headphones and let Depeche Mode, low, soft, depressing, lull me to sleep...
And into dreams of my own.
I sat up straight in bed, awake and alarmed, knowing, having it right there on the tip of my consciousness.
I sat forward farther, trying, trying, trying to hold onto it, the bits and pieces of a dream that was shattering before me.
It was gone. Yet for a moment I’d known why Mr. Hornton had fallen and what it had to do with the dreamers — the two people in the painting, not the painting itself. I knew.
And what I knew, I’d lost.
“You’ve got to get some sleep, Emily.”
I awoke to a different voice, not Paul Fiore’s, and not my mother’s. I glanced at the clock; five in the morning.
“You can’t do this any more.” That was my mother responding to Jake. And though her voice was low and soft, it wasn’t weak; it held that fiery edge to it that both Jake and I had learned to respect. “You can’t involve my son in these matters. I know you’ll say he does it himself, he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there’s also you. You do understand that, don’t you? Herbie’s emulating you.”
I slipped out of my bedroom quietly. Barefoot, careful to avoid the places on the stairs where the boards creak, I went down to the bottom and listened. They were in the living room, so I eased the door open a crack.
“And I don’t want police cars parked out in front of my house all night,” my mother went on. “The neighbors will think I’m carrying on with the whole Manamesset police force.” She tried to laugh, couldn’t.
I eased the door open even farther.
“Just a precaution, Emily. If anyone heard what Paul said tonight at the hospital—” He left it unfinished.
“ ‘What Paul said.’ ” My mother’s voice was too ironic. “You say that as though—”
“He interfered. He should’ve kept his mouth shut.”
“Damn you, Jake, Paul was just being protective!”
“Protective? You know how he could have been protective? By keeping quiet so I could let the papers write that the four paintings that were going on display Saturday were destroyed in the fire. He just made things more complicated.”
“Oh, did he?” she snapped. “So let me ask you this, what’s the plan now, Jake? Wait until Elmer wakes up, if he ever does? Then ask him what’s going on here? Because I’ve got an easier solution. We drag that thing out onto the front lawn of the Town Hall, dump gasoline all over it, and set it on fire.”
“Can’t do that, Emily.”
“No, we can’t do it because it’s not the way you want it. It’s always got to be your way or no way.”
“No, it’s simply not the right thing to do. That painting is going to stay in the town vault until we can figure out what’s going on here.” A prolonged sigh. “Look, I apologize for what happened. I had a hunch, which turned out to be a good one, or maybe a bad one, and—”
“I don’t give a—” the word again, and though it was in its appropriate place, it jolted me to hear her say it “—about your hunches, detective; all I care about is my son. You’ve drawn him into this thing—”
“Emily, no. You know I care about Herbie—”
Her voice rode right over his. “And if you really cared about him, you would have demanded —
“How was I going to stop him?” Jake replied with exasperation. “That kid’s just as hard-headed and stubborn as you—”
“You could have called Ben Sharpe for one thing! You could have demanded that Herbie spend his entire suspension in school! Because, damn it, you know what your hunches are. They’re good hunches, Jake, and if you suspected anything at all was wrong here, you knew you were probably right.”
There was a sudden and intense silence between them. I smelled smoke. Jake was lighting a cigarette.
And she was letting him.
“It’s no good, is it?” my mother finally said. “Fighting with you. It’s like fighting with Herbie. I get nowhere. But I’m scared. Someone saw you and Herbie take those paintings out of Elmer Hornton’s garage, and someone saw you put them in the Volvo. Which leads me to believe that same someone has been watching my son the last two days. And that scares me terribly.”
“Watching your son...” Jake’s voice trailed off as I headed back upstairs, threw some clothes on, grabbed my sneakers, and crept back down.
Suddenly I had a hunch of my own.
The patrol car — number 16, the one Ed Andersen usually drove — was parked in front of my house. Evidently Jake had run out of available vehicles and had to scrape the bottom of the car barrel for this one.
Which meant Ed Andersen had the unmarked gray Chrysler, and
With a choke in my chest and a lump in my throat. For two days there’d been no change in Mr. Hornton’s condition, which was both good and bad.
So for a moment I stood in the space between the house and the garage, looking up at first one, then the other. The sun was coming up, but there was an edge to the air of something cold and raw blowing in from the bay.
I glanced in its direction as a tree removal truck clattered down the road and took the garage key out of my pocket while thoughts cascaded through my head.
What I was about to do was a long shot, perhaps the longest I’d ever had the gall to walk up to the plate and try to hit, but it had occurred to me that there was one other way to look at things. And it was this: that the fall from the ladder had been an accident, an accident that had suddenly upset other plans...
No, not other plans, a transaction.
Wasn’t it possible that someone had been coming here that morning to purchase the painting?
Of course that didn’t explain the threatening message on the machine, but it had been left there earlier in the week. Mr. Hornton had even reused the tape, allowing a new message to be taped over part of it. If he had worried about the message, he hadn’t let on, hadn’t contacted the police or Jake.
So maybe he’d made a deal to sell it and decided not to show it after all. Why else was it on the easel?
And why had Mrs. Hunt needed to “confirm” the paintings for the exhibition unless Mr. Hornton had expressed some doubt about showing it?
An incredible long shot, full of holes, like this one: If that mysterious someone had come along after Mr. Hornton fell from the ladder, why hadn’t he gone into the house and called for help? Why had he bolted out the front door — as it now looked — when the lady and her dog showed up?
For precisely the same reason that person wanted to prevent the painting from going into the exhibit: it made the subjects known.
But known as what? As the two people in
“Lovers,” I said as I opened up the garage. In the thin, pale glare of a rising sun I went to the workbench and took down Mr. Hornton’s ledger. I took it over to the window — I didn’t want to risk turning on the lights in case Ed Andersen suddenly woke up; he was apt to come rushing in with his gun drawn. In the weak light I leafed through the last few weeks.
A couple of election signs coming up for the fall. Two boat-lettering jobs, both done and paid for. The Town Hall job, not paid for yet. But no mention of any offers for a painting, let alone its being sold.
I put the ledger back, looked up at the ceiling. So Mr. Hornton kept his commercial painting jobs in this ledger, but what if he had made a different kind of sale?
I grabbed the chain off the hook on the wall, pulled on it, and caught the stairs as they descended. Then I hurried up into the loft and searched until I found it — under the skylight brochures. A second ledger, for a different type of work. Work that had started simply as pleasure but had suddenly shown a profitable side.
For there on the first page of the book was last Tuesday’s date and the notation
“So this is where it was all along.” A voice from behind me.
I turned, startled and alarmed. A man probably in his late twenties was coming up the stairs, each step a slow, heavy thud. He had sharp, angular features, light brown hair tied back, and dark, bright eyes. Dressed in work clothes — bluejeans, dark brown shirt, camel-colored work-boots — he looked around the loft uncertainly, then tucked his hands into his belt and stared at me. He wasn’t a very big guy, but he was bigger than me. “That right, kid? This is where it was stowed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—” I started.
“The painting.
I took a step backward. “It got burned up.”
“No, it didn’t,” he said softly, removing one hand from under his belt and looking down at it. On his right hand was a row of bandages across the knuckles. He pulled out the other hand, the same thing: burn marks. “I was there, kid.” His eyes lifted to look at me.
“You started that fire,” I whispered.
“I was on call; I helped put it out,” he said. “So where is it?”
“You’re a call firefighter.” I felt like I had no breath. “But that’s not all you are.” I glanced out the small window facing east. The motion detectors had put the fights on; why hadn’t Ed Andersen noticed them? Was he still sleeping in the unmarked car, or...
“I never meant to hurt anyone, kid,” the man was saying. “But I’ve got a short temper. The old guy...” Was that a smattering of regret crossing his face, filling his eyes? “He should have told me where it was when I asked.”
“You pushed him off the ladder.”
“Hey, that was an accident. He told me he’d already sold it. How could he do that? First he tells us that he’s going to show it at the library, then he says he sold it?” He swallowed, or gulped, and turned just enough to move into the fight above the work table. “I couldn’t let him do that. Not sell it. Not show it. Not because of me, but because of the—”
“Other guy in the picture,” I said it for him, suddenly wishing I hadn’t.
His eyes seemed to boil; for a moment there was nothing in them but pure, raw hatred. “What do you know?” he snarled. “What are you, fourteen, fifteen? What do you know?” He moved like he was going to come at me; then he stopped, and a half smile snaked across his face.
“Yeah, it’s me, kid. Want to see?” And with that he tore the band from his hair and swung his head back, smiling as he did. His hair was long enough to reach his shoulders and in the sun probably looked fight enough to be taken for blond. “Hey, I don’t blame you. The old guy thought the same until we came up the beach to see what he was doing. It was all very polite and friendly. He told us he was going to call it
“You realized how embarrassing it would be if you were ever recognized. Your friends would never understand. Firefighters and guys who take down trees for a living, right?”
“You’re pretty—” that word again “—bold, aren’t you, kid? Pretty—” and again “—brave.”
The guy was bigger than me and angry and upset and probably very strong. He could have killed me, no problem, and Ed Andersen wouldn’t have heard a thing. But I was angry, too, and the words flew out of me like spit: “And then you saw him again, when? A few days ago, an old guy coming down the street to watch you take down a tree.” I felt my heart pounding, my eyes tearing up. “You recognized him and decided what? To go after him, to intimidate him so he wouldn’t put
“Your best friend?” he said, and then, when I thought for certain that was the stupidest thing I’d ever said or done in my life, he turned away and kind of crumpled down onto his knees. One hand over his eyes, he said, “God, I’m sorry,” and started to cry.
“I’m very appreciative of all your help, sergeant,” the dark-haired man in the expensive business suit said as he came into Jake’s office. He accepted the chair that Officer Andersen indicated. “And I understand the charges against... my friend. My lawyer has explained them to me and to Max. But I have to say this, I’m certain Max never meant to hurt—” a careful glance at me “—your elderly friend, young man. I know it’s no consolation. But I accept responsibility, too.” Back to Jake. “I didn’t tell Max I was taking care of it.”
Jake looked down at the business card the man had presented when he came in. Mr. Anthony Carletti, owner of one of the largest restaurant chains on the Cape. He’d called ahead, and had brought his lawyer with him, too, though the latter was waiting outside.
“Taking care of it,” Jake murmured.
“He was going to buy the painting,” I snapped; what was Jake? A complete moron? Didn’t he know? Hadn’t I explained it already?
“Yes, yes,” the man said, suddenly uncomfortable and shifting in the chair slightly. “I kept it a secret from Max, and I shouldn’t have. His birthday is in... pardon me.” He suddenly turned away and pulling a handkerchief from his pocket quickly wiped his eyes. “There’s really nothing I can say, nothing I can do to make it right. I remembered the artist, the elderly gentleman telling us that he was a retired signpainter, so I called around and found someone at the Town Hall here who knew who he was. I called Mr. Hornton and made an offer but insisted of course on seeing the painting again. I thought I was getting a rather good deal.” He looked at me as he said this; his eyes were wet. “Such a beautiful painting at such a reasonable price. But it seems now such a terrible price to pay, and all for nothing. If I’d just told Max...”
He turned his head away again.
“So, Jake,” I said as I sat down on the railing outside the police station. I’d been right; the sun was up, but so was the wind off the water, blowing in hard and fierce. The gulls were flying inland, too, sign of a storm moving our way.
“And you can’t lie on this one. I need to know.”
He joined me, leaning against the rail, unlit cigarette in his hand.
“Shoot, Herbie,” he said.
“You ever cry? I mean for any reason other than getting hurt, like when you were a little kid, or other than someone close to you dying, like a parent or...” I shrugged.
“Yes, I have.” He looked at me, his sharp blue eyes frank and unapologetic. “I cried when your mother broke up with me.”
“Yeah.” I slid forward off the railing and starting walking toward the Jeep Cherokee waiting for me. “I kind of thought you might have.”
He shook the snake out of his boot and stepped back in case the rattler was aggrieved, but it slithered away, still a little sluggish with sleep. Placido Geist bore the snake no ill will. The nights were cold, and he was probably lucky it hadn’t crawled into his bedroll. He pulled his boots on and squatted down, breathing some life into the fire, or what was left of it, snapping dry mesquite twigs and feeding them to the embers a few at a time until they caught. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them, getting stiffly to his feet again. His bones were old. Nights on the trail, sleeping on the ground, drinking stale cowboy coffee in the mornings.
He grained and watered the claybank mare, listening to the silence. The sun was just clearing the rimrock, casting long shadows across the scrub. The day seemed to be coming up windless and dry. He poured himself some coffee, breaking pieces of hardtack into it to soften.
After he finished his breakfast, he scattered the cookfire with his feet and poured the old grounds over the ashes. He scoured the pot out with sand, packed his gear, and saddled the claybank. He took off the hobbles and mounted, turning her head southwest.
He’d been tracking his man the best part of a week. The old bounty hunter figured to take him by nightfall.
“Concho Jimmy,” Placido Geist said, studying the photograph. It was recent, or more recent than the likeness Placido Geist had been carrying in his head almost half a lifetime.
“That was taken when he started a dime stretch at Huntsville,” said the marshal, a man called Hardesty.
Placido Geist nodded. Ten years in the state penitentiary. “And now he’s done his time,” he said. He calculated the release date. “A week ago Sunday.”
“First thing I heard about it, I sent you the wire,” the marshal told him apologetically.
The telegram had caught up with him in Odessa, four days too late. “No help for it,” Placido Geist remarked.
Hardesty cleared his throat. “It’s my understanding the two of you have a score to settle,” he said.
That was true enough. It was in fact no secret, and the marshal was simply being circumspect.
“I might know which way he’s headed,” Hardesty said.
“That’s a start,” Placido Geist said.
It was awkward, Hardesty thought, trying to frame his information in a delicate way. Perhaps he meant to spare the older man’s feelings, but Placido Geist would have preferred he just get to the point. He had an idea where this might be going. How not?
“South of the Chisos, into the Big Bend,” Hardesty said. “The money from that robbery was never recovered.”
“I hadn’t forgotten,” Placido Geist said.
“It’s been my experience that most outlaws are creatures of habit, and none too eager to change,” the marshal said.
“No more than the rest of us,” Placido Geist said.
For years, he’d been known in the border country as
The man he was after was named James Taft Pringle. Jimmy the Juke, alias Concho Jimmy. Originally from the Lower East Side in New York, Jimmy Pringle had been sent west as a boy, one of thousands of urban orphans placed with families along the frontier, some of the children welcomed and made to feel wanted but many of them no better than indentured servants. Jimmy Pringle had been one of the unlucky ones, bound over to a Bible-beating dirt farmer who preached Temperance and regularly exercised the strap. Jimmy lay in wait for his foster father in the barn one hot Nebraska afternoon, clouted him with a singletree, and put his eyes out with a pitchfork before he strung him up by the heels from the hayloft, doused him with coal oil, and set him on fire. On the run, he made his way south to Ogallala and across the Platte, down to Dodge City, where he picked up the route of the old Chisholm Trail and followed it into Texas. He was barely sixteen. He was dealing faro in Fort Worth when he fell in with worse company, a hardened owlhoot by the name of Bob Ketchum, known as Wind River Bob, a murderer and horse thief from Wyoming. Wind River Bob came to an appropriately villainous end at the hands of an angry mob in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but by then he and Jimmy had long since come to a parting of the ways. In the meantime, Concho Jimmy had earned his spurs and drunk his fill from the cup of wickedness.
“I don’t recall the specifics,” the judge said. “Then again, it’s been close to thirty years, and back then I was riding circuit up near Amarillo. Deaf Smith, Castro, as far as Ochiltree, little Panhandle courthouses with outdoor privies. I’ve heard bits and pieces, of course.”
Lockjaw Lamar was retired from the bench, but he was still a serving justice of the peace, a lifetime appointment. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Placido Geist’s affidavit was on the partner desk in front of him. Placido Geist sat on the other side of the desk.
The judge sighed and replaced his spectacles, tucking the thinning hair back over his ears. “You’re putting me in a compromising position,” he said. “If you had grounds for a criminal complaint, any court could issue a warrant.”
“I’m aware what I’m asking,” Placido Geist told him.
Lamar nodded. “You want legal authority to effect a reprisal,” he said. “Letters of marque, I might say.”
“I’m not trying to hide behind the law,” Placido Geist said. “If my intention were simply to hunt the man down and kill him outright, I’d do it and suffer the consequences. I want the authority to apprehend.”
Lamar’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses. “You’re, presuming on our previous acquaintance,” he said. “I don’t know as I cotton to it.”
“You know what they say,” Placido Geist remarked, smiling for the first time. “It’s good to know the law, but it’s better to know the judge.”
Lamar snorted. “You’re a bold rascal, but I see no reason to doubt your word,” he said.
“I hope to secure a conviction,” Placido Geist said.
“I’ll draft a writ,” Lamar said. He sucked on his teeth unhappily. “It’s no better than a legal fiction and almost certainly abuse of process,” he added. “A piece of paper won’t afford much protection to either one of us if you bring your man in head down over a saddle.”
“I’d rather see him swing for it,” Placido Geist said.
“I expect he needs it,” the judge said.
Placido Geist rose to his feet. “I’ll be by first thing in the morning,” he said. “I appreciate your help.”
“This affidavit makes no mention of an injury done you,” Lamar said.
“The injury done me was incidental,” Placido Geist said. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”
Ketchum’s gang had held up a freight office in Alpine and escaped south toward Boquillas, on the Rio Grande. They were pursued by a posse of citizens, determined but ill-equipped for tracking fugitives in such desolate country, and the bandits eluded them. Back in those days the Big Bend was wild and broken, with little cultivation or settlement even by the Apache. It still belonged to mule deer and javelina, and horses left little sign on the stony ground a white man could follow. The posse turned back, defeated, and Wind River Bob and Concho Jimmy Pringle got away into Mexico without sweating their mounts. By the time Placido Geist had learned of the outrage, the trail was cold.
This much was on the record. The judge was asking for a fuller account.
“They shot their way out of Alpine with no regard for casualties, civilian or otherwise,” Placido Geist said. “One of the victims was a pregnant woman. She lingered for three days, while the doctor tried to save the baby, but in the end she died and the infant along with her.”
“You knew the girl?” Lamar asked him.
“Her name was Amarita Espenor,” Placido Geist said. His voice sounded rusty. “I was the father of her child.”
“You blame yourself for her death,” the judge said.
“I blame myself for her disgrace,” Placido Geist said. He shrugged. “The ancient Greeks tell us a man can’t step in the same river twice.”
“Heraclitus,” Lamar said.
“I have to make an accounting.”
“As do we all, sooner or later,” Lamar commented.
“Some of us sooner than others,” Placido Geist said.
He’d run them to ground one by one, over time. The task was complicated by the fact that the gang had split up, and it was difficult to establish which of them had actually taken part. The evidence was circumstantial, since the money from the holdup wasn’t found and the notes never went back into circulation, but he pieced it together from outlaw gossip and saloon talk, jailhouse interviews, trial transcripts, deathbed confessions, and foolish luck. He used bribes and, on one occasion, torture. By process of elimination, he made up a list of the six men who’d been in Alpine that afternoon and confirmed it by speaking with witnesses. It took him ten years to find them, and in the course of things two of them died before he caught up with them, killed in an attempted robbery, or trying to evade pursuit, and two more went to the noose for crimes committed later. He was able to talk with Gimp Fogerty the day before his hanging, and it was Gimp who gave him the name of the kid, Concho Jimmy Pringle.
Concho Jimmy had recently been convicted in a bank theft and was doing seven years. Placido Geist thought to visit him, but his attention was distracted by reports of Wind River Bob Ketchum in New Mexico. Wind River Bob didn’t cheat the rope, but he cheated Placido Geist of justice when he fell victim to lynch law. That left Concho Jimmy, but he’d broken jail when Placido Geist got back to Texas. He was variously sighted, but it took another ten years before he was captured near Del Rio and sent back to prison to finish his first term, with five added for the break.
In the year of our Lord 1918, Placido Geist was himself well past sixty, and Jimmy Pringle was no spring chicken when he was released from jail. The boy who’d been sent west on the orphan trains was now closing fifty. Prison and the outlaw life had made him old before his time, embittered and mistrustful and with scant remorse, but Concho Jimmy wouldn’t have lasted this long if he hadn’t already been mean as a snake.
“He may well have done,” the young constable said in answer to Placido Geist’s question. He studied the handbill. “I’ll admit I couldn’t rightly say.”
The town was a whistle-stop called Longfellow, and the constable’s name was Nightingale. He’d offered Placido Geist a chair and a cup of jailhouse coffee, trying to put him at ease with these courtesies, but in fact it was Constable Nightingale himself who felt awkward in the presence of this near-legendary figure out of the rough-and-tumble past. He’d heard many of the stories.
“If he got off the train with the intention of packing into the Chisos, he’d need a horse and tack, grub, some other possibles,” Nightingale said. “We can ask at the Every.”
“I’m glad of your assistance,” Placido Geist said.
“I’d like to do what I can to help,” Nightingale said.
“I’ll have some more of that fine coffee,” the manhunter said pleasantly, leaning back in his chair.
Nightingale thought the old man was probably ribbing him, or just being polite. The coffee in question was more than six hours old. The worn enameled pot had been simmering on the kerosene stove since first fight.
“This robbery your man’s wanted for,” the constable said to him, pouring them both another cup of coffee. “I don’t seem to recollect it, not since I’ve had the badge. When did you say it took place?”
Placido Geist told him the date.
Nightingale’s surprise was plain on his face. The crime had been committed before he was born.
“There’s no statute of limitations on homicide,” Placido Geist reminded him.
“No,” Nightingale admitted, and paused, unsure of himself. He examined the writ from Judge Lamar again. “I don’t mean to offend you,” he said, “but I’m inclined to find this summons of dubious provenance. I doubt if a magistrate in Pecos or Presidio County would feel bound by it. I certainly couldn’t hold a man on an unproved charge that old.”
“I wouldn’t want to cause you embarrassment then,” Placido Geist said, his expression mild.
Constable Nightingale wasn’t sure he cared to read between the lines. “Let’s go pay a call down at the stables,” he suggested, standing. He put on his hat.
Placido Geist was unexpectedly short, Nightingale saw, when measured against the younger man. His reported image would not have had him quite so stout, either.
They walked down to the other end of town on a wooden sidewalk. Nightingale apologized, explaining that they didn’t have the money for brick as yet. Longfellow was no more than a wide spot in the road, it should be observed, but even so, the main street was a metalled roadway made of rolled peastone to accommodate automobile traffic, and there was a local telephone exchange as well. Placido Geist found nothing to object to in a wooden sidewalk, and he could just as well have done without the telephone, but he didn’t remark on this to Nightingale. He figured the young peace officer would think him a stick-in-the-mud. He had to admit he liked automobiles, preferring them to horses at his age.
“What prompted you to get off here?” Nightingale asked.
“Longfellow and Marathon are the closest stops along the rail line to the Big Bend,” Placido Geist said simply.
Which made sense, Nightingale realized, if he’d thought it through before he asked the question. He felt foolish not to have worked it out already.
“Of course there’s no guarantee,” Placido Geist said. “He could be halfway to El Paso or Matamoros and I’m carrying my water in a sprung bucket.”
Nightingale felt better, but he recognized that might have been the older man’s purpose, and he began turning quite a different question over in his mind.
They made inquiries of the ostler, who remembered a sale to a man answering Concho Jimmy’s particulars.
“Sold, not hired?” Nightingale asked.
The gelding was no hack, the stableman told them. He had a soft mouth and good wind. Not some snake-eyed canner, either, but a four hundred dollar horse. The animal he described to them was what the Mexicans called a
Placido Geist had climbed the fence and was looking over the cavvy of saddle horses in the corral.
“How much for the claybank?” he asked the stableman.
The dealer quoted a price.
Nightingale knew it was absurd, but he waited to see how Placido Geist did his business.
The chunky old man heaved himself over the fence and let himself down, picking his way gently through the horses, not spooking them. He offered a caramel candy to the hammerhead mare. Jesus, she was ugly, Nightingale thought.
The horse took the sweet and whickered, her breath whistling as if her vocal cords were stiff.
Placido Geist led the horse back toward the fence, holding her familiarly just under the chin.
“A hundred dollars,” he said.
“I can’t let her go for that,” the stableman said. He’d have let her go to the knackers for fifty.
Placido Geist shrugged and started to climb the fence. The mare nipped at the seat of his pants. The old man hooked his leg over the top rail. “One twenty-five,” he said.
The stableman shifted his eyes. “One fifty,” he said.
Placido Geist got down and spat in his palm. They shook hands. “She’ll be needing fresh shoes,” Placido Geist said.
The livery owner tried to jerk his hand free, but it was caught fast.
“I’m offering you a fair price,” Placido Geist said. “You’d as soon be rid of her.” He glanced over his shoulder at the horse. “She’s got pretty feet, but I can’t say as the rest other’s much.”
The livery owner nodded sulkily-
“I take you to be a fair judge of horses,” the constable said as they walked back up the street. “Why the mare?”
“Looks aren’t everything,” Placido Geist said, smiling.
“And men?” Nightingale asked.
Placido Geist stopped and looked at him.
The question had come out unrehearsed. Nightingale felt suddenly abashed and dropped his gaze.
“There’s no trick to telling a good man from a bad one,” the bounty hunter said.
“Do you mean to bring Pringle in alive?”
“If he’ll come peaceable.”
It was an unsatisfactory answer. “I don’t feature being made an accomplice to a killing,” Nightingale said.
“You mean your mouth’s not quite made up for it,” Placido Geist said, but not unkindly.
“I want your undertaking that what you intend is lawful, or that a man of good conscience could put his name to it.”
“There’s no harm in asking,” Placido Geist said.
None of us is entirely evil, and none of us, of course, entirely good. We are often what we least want to become, and perhaps Concho Jimmy would have turned out differently in what might be regarded as a more perfect world but the facts proved otherwise. He early on displayed a talent, a genuine enthusiasm it must be admitted, for depredation and a taste for easy money. The boy was father to the man.
The missing loot from the freight office robbery in Alpine had lain hidden in the Chisos all this time, and none of the surviving members of the gang had tried to go back for it until now, when Jimmy Pringle was the last of them still alive. There’d been a small amount of gold and silver coin, which they’d divvied up between them, but the bulk of the paper currency was issued by local banks and would attract notice as stolen when anybody tried to redeem it. They decided to bury it. Later, when there might be less suspicion attached to its ownership, they’d retrieve it. Thirty years after the fact, of course, it was red-dog money, worthless because the issuing banks had failed or called in their old notes long before in exchange for U.S. silver certificates backed by the Federal Reserve. At this point the banknotes were nothing more than a historical curiosity. Concho Jimmy wasn’t hazarding the rigors of the trail on a fool’s errand. He had more animal cunning than that.
“Railroad bonds,” Placido Geist explained to the constable.
“Stolen property,” Nightingale said.
“They disappeared a long time ago,” Placido Geist said. “There’s no way to determine their provenance. They might have been unearthed in an attic or found in the lining of a couch. Anybody could happen across them. They are payable to the bearer on demand.”
“Would these be Santa Fe bonds or Southern Pacific?”
“Some smaller road probably, one that’s since been absorbed by Harriman and Hill,” Placido Geist said. “That’s of no great moment.”
“It is if the railroad no longer exists.”
“They’re worth a like interest in the present road,” the older man told him. “Whatever the ownership of the company, such bonds are still hens for as much as twenty years after they mature. It’s not too late to cash them in.”
“He can’t profit from them if he committed the robbery.”
“We’d have to prove it,” Placido Geist said. “And to do that we have to catch him first.”
They’d camped in a draw just south of Maravillas Creek. The dusk was long and flat, but they were already in the shadow of the Santiago, the crooked mountains to the west. Nightingale wasn’t sure whether he’d convinced the old bounty hunter to take him along or whether Placido Geist had let the young constable talk himself into it. Either way, Nightingale was grateful for the opportunity.
“What persuaded you Pringle would come back into the Big Bend?” Nightingale asked.
“I’ve researched the man,” Placido Geist said. “I had a few strong leads as well.”
There was more, and Nightingale suggested as much.
Placido Geist sat back against his up-ended saddle, stretching his boots out toward the small campfire. “I figure it’s appropriate,” he said. “We’ve both come full circle.”
“In other words, you think it likely Concho Jimmy’s out here because you want it to be so,” Nightingale said. “You’d admire the symmetry.”
“I’d say that was true,” Placido Geist admitted, shifting his weight to pick a stone out from under his poncho, and got more comfortable.
“And the others?”
“Gone to a greater reward,” Placido Geist said, “but one not without its own perils.” He stared into the coals.
The coffeepot began to bubble, and Nightingale took it off the fire and set it in the warm ashes. He poured in some cold water to settle the grounds.
“I’m not mistaken to suppose you’ve an axe to grind,” he said. “Your dogged pursuit of this man is hard to fathom.”
“I was disappointed in love,” Placido Geist said.
Nightingale was wise enough to hold his tongue.
“It wasn’t of my own choosing,” Placido Geist told him, not looking up from the fire. “The girl’s family didn’t much approve of me. Can’t hardly blame them, an Indio halfbreed with no prospects. I wasn’t an educated man or a promising one, and I had little to recommend me.”
Nightingale poured them both a cup of coffee and handed one to Placido Geist.
Geist let the steam rise into his face. “I got her pregnant,” he said. “It’s common enough, but I didn’t know. I was chasing Iron Claw for the army. They’d trailed north into Colorado.” He seemed for a moment to have lost his train of thought, but he was only ordering things in his mind, cataloguing his sins. “Amarita was killed by the bunch that robbed the freight office. My child died with her.”
Nightingale felt compelled to comment but was silent.
Placido Geist glanced up from across the fire. “It’s an atonement,” he said.
“I can see how you’d feel that way,” Nightingale said.
Placido Geist smiled. “No,” he said. “I’m not blaming Concho Jimmy Pringle for what happened, any more than I could blame a scorpion or a snake, and no more than I blame myself for it in spite of what my friend Judge Lamar thinks. There are no innocents. We are all guilty of something. Amarita was guilty of too much affection, too simple a desire. Jimmy Pringle is guilty for the hate in his heart, not for what he did to her or me. My atonement is that I have to cleanse my own heart of hatred.”
Nightingale didn’t quite understand.
“I have to forgive him,” Placido Geist said.
“And then you’ll feel free to kill him?”
Placido Geist thought about it for a moment. “No, but I won’t lose any sleep over it,” he said.
It took three days before Concho Jimmy was sure he was being tracked. He hadn’t taken any thought to covering his back trail. Not to put too fine a point on it, but nobody should have known where he was headed or what he was up to. Unlike many cons, Jimmy had kept his own counsel inside and didn’t brag about his scores. Certainly there was talk, but he had never encouraged it. Enough mystery attached to him that he was spoken
“He knows we’re here,” Placido Geist said, studying the track of the horse. He got to his feet and dusted off his pants.
“Why would he think anybody was after him?”
“Native caution,” Placido Geist said. “Concho Jimmy’s spent most of his life looking over his shoulder, and usually there was somebody there.”
“Does it matter what kind of somebody it is?”
“Not to Concho Jimmy.”
“What’s his next move?” Nightingale asked.
“He could double back and give us a sniff,” Placido Geist said, mounting up again. “Or he might be looking to dry-gulch us in one of those arroyos up ahead.” He gazed off toward the horizon. A heavy cloudbank was rolling up along the edge of the sky like rising dough. You could make out the occlusion of the weather front. It came on with ominous speed. “I don’t care for the way this is making up,” he said to Nightingale. “We’d best move to higher ground.”
Getting caught in the open was better than being swept off their horses in a gully-washer. They pushed their mounts up the side of the wash, clambering up onto the ridge. They could see across the country, which was an advantage even if they weren’t following Concho Jimmy directly.
The day had gone suddenly dark, but against the slate color of both mountains and sky Nightingale thought he saw a scurry of movement. He looked again and it was gone, maybe a trick of the light. It was anyway a couple of miles off and could have been only the quick shape-shifting of shadows as the storm bore down on them.
It came in a rush, the wind fretting the manes and tails of the horses and a drumming noise across the barren ground like running feet or the beating of wings. The mare was getting skittish. Placido Geist quickly dismounted and covered her head with his jacket, tying the sleeves underneath her jaw, to calm her down and protect her eyes.
Nightingale followed suit. They pulled the horses around, backs to the wind, and hunkered under their bellies. Hailstones the size of kidney beans rattled down, stinging their shoulders like birdshot, and the horses chivvied and tugged at the reins, spooked and uncertain.
Placido Geist spoke carefully to the mare, holding her head close to his, and Nightingale imagined the old bounty hunter spoke in Spanish. The mare steadied.
It was just as abruptly over, the cloud curtain passing in a veil, and the light leaking back. It was only late afternoon. The boiling cumulus trailed off in streaks of violet cirrus, pushing north.
Nightingale raised his head. The sun came through the canopy in bars, like bolts of cloth unrolled across the hard ground. The light masked the distance, the play of cloud shadow tricking the retina. He uncovered the buckskin’s eyes and climbed back into the saddle, standing in the stirrups to search the landscape in front of him.
Placido Geist was slower to mount, the claybank still shifting her feet nervously, tossing her head and sniffing at the wind as it changed direction.
Nightingale’s horse staggered as if he’d stepped in a prairie dog hole and slowly collapsed beneath him before he even registered the report of the gunshot. He tried to keep his seat as the buckskin went down so he could kick his legs clear of the falling horse and not be caught underneath it, but he realized too late he should have thrown himself to the ground. Upright he was still a target, and the second shot slammed him low in the back of the ribs, pitching him forward over the withers.
Placido Geist dragged him off the wounded horse even as the animal lurched off balance and fell over, shuddering, its limbs splayed out bonelessly. The claybank was rolling her eyes in panic, sawing at the bit and trying to jerk free. A third shot was low, whining off a rock in fragments. Placido Geist managed to haul the mare’s head around and pulled her unwillingly after him off the crest of the ridge, dragging Nightingale along behind him down the stony slope to cover. He knew he was handling the man roughly, but there was no help for it. Nightingale seemed to have lost the use of his legs if not his wits.
Once they were out of sight behind the shallow cutbank of the dry wash, there was no more gunfire. Placido Geist tried to make Nightingale comfortable, but he could see the constable was badly hurt, probably beyond repair. They were too far into the back country, with only one horse between them. Placido Geist made an effort to stem the bleeding but without much success. Nightingale coughed weakly, flinching with the pain. His breathing was labored, and rust-colored saliva bubbled up to his lips. The splintered ribs had punctured a lung.
Geist lifted his head and gave him some water and sat back on his heels.
“God-a-mighty, but I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring you all this way just to get you killed.”
“You needed a witness,” Nightingale whispered hoarsely.
“I fear I’ve lived to regret that.”
“My only regret is that I won’t live to see that varmint hang for this,” Nightingale said.
“I’ll see that he does,” Placido Geist said.
Nightingale shivered slightly as if with a chill.
Placido Geist rose to get a blanket from behind the saddle, but when he knelt down again, Nightingale was dead.
Given to self-examination but not vanity, Placido Geist reflected that he probably wasn’t at fault. On the other hand, the young constable would have lived longer had he stayed behind, and Placido Geist hadn’t discouraged his company. The old bounty hunter felt a rising anger in spite of himself. He’d led the boy into a trap.
The light was beginning to soften as the afternoon wore on. He dug a shallow grave a little way up the slope and buried Nightingale, hunting up enough stones of decent size to cover the body and keep it from being disturbed by scavengers, at least for the next few days. He put the personal effects in his saddlebags and led the mare back up the wash the way they’d come earlier.
He swung in a wide circle to the west before turning south again and stayed below the skyline until dusk, when the shadows grew long and purple. He meant to make up some lost time by traveling after dark and figured to cut sign at daybreak. He wasn’t going to let the sun set on Concho Jimmy Pringle again, not in this lifetime.
Concho Jimmy had slipped away well before the light faded. He counted himself lucky to have hit the horse, let alone the rider, at that range. It was too bad he hadn’t gotten both men, but if the other man kept coming, he’d have a chance to bushwhack him farther along.
After sundown he made a cold camp. A fire would only give him away. In this waste it might be seen for miles. He had no idea who was after him, but it made no difference. He knew he had enemies, and of course any one of Ketchum’s gang might have split on him in the shadow of the rope. The point was that somebody was dogging his trail, waiting for him to lead them to the promise of money. Concho Jimmy hadn’t spent twenty years of his life in prison to let that same promise slip through his fingers. He was too close now.
He studied on the problem. The way he saw it, there was a hard way and an easy one. The harder way was to go wide and backtrack, coming up behind the man on the ugly claybank horse and kill him if he could take him by surprise again. The reward was absolute, the outcome uncertain. The easy way was to let the pursuer come to him in the place of his own choosing. Jimmy thought that was better. And he knew such a place. With an early start he’d be there ahead of time.
He’d bedded down after moonrise, and when he woke at first light and shook the snake out of his boot, he’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep. Mounted again, he worked the kinks out of his back as he rode, quartering back and forth across country until he made out recent tracks. He pulled the horse up and got down. The hoofprints were widely spaced as if the rider were in a hurry. They led off south by southwest. Placido Geist climbed back on his horse and followed them, but taking it at a slower pace, wary of ambush.
Later that morning he came in sight of the cottonwoods. A sure sign of water in that arid country, the lonely stand of trees marked the edge of a creek coming down out of the mountains. The mare could already smell the water and shook her head impatiently. He dismounted and let the reins trail on the ground, patting the horse on the shoulder as he pulled his saddle gun and squatted down. The mare took a few steps and then stopped, unsure of herself. She wasn’t hobbled, she knew, but she expected at least to be led, if not ridden. She bobbed her head, the reins swinging. The only creature dumber than a cow was a horse in Placido Geist’s opinion, and a cow was some dumber than most. He felt around on the ground for a stone to chip at her, but the claybank seemed to realize his intention. She was willing enough to venture to water alone and she trotted forward tamely, if still puzzled by his behavior.
He bellied down in the sawgrass and worked his way into a gully, moving diagonally. He was headed for the trees but upstream. In the spring the gully would flood with runoff from melting snow. In this dry season it was just cracked clay. He hoped he wasn’t raising any dust that could be seen from the cottonwood grove. He squirmed along on his elbows, not lifting his head, the big Sharps cradled across his chest as he crawled. He made an awkward progress, the gun clumsy and dirt itching inside his clothes, sticking to his skin as he began to sweat. His eyes stung. The sun moved toward the meridian overhead, and the sky was white with heat.
The mare trailed her reins to the stream and drank. She raised her head, sniffing another horse.
Placido Geist crawled into the shade and pressed himself against the cold rocks, letting the water trickle over him.
The mare whickered, and then stepped into the stream.
Nothing happened.
Placido Geist held his position. His legs were numb in the cold water. Steam clouded off his damp shoulders.
A kingfisher darted from branch to branch with a call halfway between a rattle and a whistle.
Stones rattled in the talus.
Placido Geist carefully adjusted his posture, hoping his legs would hold him up if he had to stand.
Concho Jimmy slid down the rocks, his rifle at the ready and his eyes alert.
Placido Geist cocked the Sharps.
Concho Jimmy approached the mare carefully, looking to either side, and caught her bridle. She seemed relieved and didn’t bolt.
Placido Geist straightened up slowly to ease the cramps in his legs.
Concho Jimmy tied the mare’s reins to a cottonwood stump and started back across the stream.
“Jimmy,” Placido Geist said quietly. His voice carried the hundred yards across the chuckling water.
Jimmy stopped, his footing uneasy on the slippery stones of the streambed. He looked back over his shoulder.
The barrel of the Sharps rested on a rock, steady as the planets in their orbit.
“You here for the money?” Jimmy asked him.
“I’m here for you,” Placido Geist said.
“Ugly horse you ride,” Jimmy said, grinning.
“She came cheap enough.”
“I don’t come that cheap,” Concho Jimmy said.
Placido Geist saw it happening. Jimmy threw down on him with the Winchester, and Placido Geist shot him with the big gun. The .45–70 caught Jimmy Pringle square in the chest and knocked him into the water. Unaccustomed to gunfire, the mare jerked at the reins tied to the stump, showing the whites other eyes.
Placido Geist levered out the spent shell and reloaded, picking his way over the wet stones as he walked downstream. Jimmy struggled to pull himself upright. He had a belly gun, a .44 pistol. He tried to tug it out.
“Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six,” the bounty hunter said. “Leave it alone.”
“You never meant to take me alive,” Jimmy gasped.
“I mean to see you hang,” Placido Geist said.
“I reckon you won’t have the pleasure,” Jimmy said, getting the pistol free.
Placido Geist stood astride him and knocked the gun out of his hand with the butt of the Sharps. “Take your pleasure where you find it,” he said.
He dragged Jimmy up out of the water and threw him onto the bank like a stunned fish. Jimmy was short of breath. Blood rattled in his chest.
“I’ll cost you the satisfaction,” he said, panting.
“At least I’ll have that,” Placido Geist said. He went across the stream and took the lariat off his saddlehorn.
Jimmy, the life leaking out of him, was slow to understand, but when he saw what Placido Geist really intended for him, he thrashed weakly, kicking at the streambed with his heels. “You owe me better,” Jimmy pleaded. “You’ve already killed me once. A decent grave and some Scripture is all I’m asking for.”
“You don’t deserve it,” Placido Geist told him. He made a loop in the rope and threw it over a branch.
“It ain’t Christian,” Jimmy protested. “You can’t do me this way.”
But he could, and did, and there was an end to it.
He left him swinging, and as he rode away, he heard the kingfisher flirting in the cottonwoods. His call echoed back eagerly.
“I don’t do stakeouts any more, Thelma. I’m too old.”
“Then I’ll do it tonight myself.”
“No way. You’re...” I stopped before I said, “You’re too old, too.” I finished with “You’re overreacting.”
She glared at me across her desk. “It’s
She was right, of course. The post office in Fountain is her domain. Thelma Otis made postmaster about the time I made deputy sheriff, and that was light years ago. And Thelma is almost as old as I am. She has refused retirement since she buried her husband.
“Come on, Thelma,” I said. “The tin cans and the toilet paper and the soap on the windows — it’s just kid stuff. Stupid practical jokes.”
Her glare got worse. “Somebody could get hurt. You should have been here the morning we found some squirrels loose in the lobby. Old Mrs. Matthews damn near had a heart attack.”
She went on about the things that had been done to her post office, and I stared at the floor. You’re passing through town and stop to say hello to an old friend, and all of a sudden you get volunteered to babysit a post office.
“We could get sued if we don’t stop this bastard.” Arthritis may have slowed Thelma down, but it has sharpened her tongue. She glanced around to make sure nobody was near. “And on top of that, Hank, somebody’s trying to have me closed down.”
She reached into a drawer and handed me a postcard. It read:
A POST OFFICE IN A SMALL TOWN LIKE FOUNTAIN IS A WASTE OF MONEY.
The message and address were typed: U.S. Postal Service, 30 Old Karner Road in Albany. The postmark was Quartzville, another little mountain town in upstate New York about twenty miles from here, dated ten days ago. Thelma showed me two more cards:
THE QUARTZVILLE OFFICE CAN HANDLE THE MAIL FOR FOUNTAIN.
and:
FOUNTAIN IS TOO SMALL TO SUPPORT A POST OFFICE.
“There’ve been others,” Thelma told me.
“They ever say anything about you?”
“Nope. Never anything personal or libelous.”
“Who else gets these little editorials?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped the cards into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Just somebody with his nose out of joint. He’ll get tired of it.”
“Right,” I agreed. That’s when I should have picked up my hat and left. But Thelma and I go back to high school. She was on the first cheerleading squad the school had. Her parents were criticized for letting her wear a short skirt and jump around. I warmed the bench with some other not-very-fast linemen.
Her red hair turned to rust long ago, but Thelma still gets around. Last year she came over and talked to my Scout troop. Told the boys how the post office used camels to deliver the mail in the Arizona desert, and that William Faulkner had started out as a postmaster, down in Mississippi.
She leaned across her desk. “I’m expecting a postal inspector in here tomorrow to talk about mail fraud, Hank. I don’t want the place to be a mess. I know you’re retired, but keep an eye on the place, will you? Please?”
I hate to give up a night’s rest without a good reason, and I still thought the vandalism was mindless adolescent pranks.
“All right. I’ll give it a shot. But just tonight.”
“Thanks, Hank,” Thelma said. “Lighten up. You’re not old if you’re seventy.”
“Yeah, right. Not if you’re a tree.”
The street where I was parked was as dark as a cave. The bulk of Whiteface Mountain hid half of the few stars that were out. The only streetlights in town were a block away on Main Street. I tried to ration a thermos of coffee while I waited to see if the Phantom of the Post Office would show up.
Maybe he’d run out of things to do. He had dumped garbage on the lawn, smeared soap on the sidewalk, pulled the flowers out of the windowboxes, spread glue over the big blue drop box out front. Childish stunts that had given the town something to talk about and infuriated Thelma. But she was right to be concerned; she was responsible for government property.
Then I saw him. A figure — a man — at the corner of the post office. There for an instant; then he stepped back into the shadows. I eased my door open — the dome light is fixed so it doesn’t come on. I’d taken about three steps when the man reappeared.
He was pushing something, a wheelbarrow; it looked heavy. He was moving along the concrete walk that straddles the flagpole and widens out at the front door of the post office.
I watched him lift the wheelbarrow’s handles and empty it in front of the door. I heard a scraping sound, faint but clear. Then he turned and hurried away, pushing the wheelbarrow in front of him.
I was moving forward, but he was gone in the darkness before I reached the corner. I heard a car engine start in the alley behind the post office, and then it too was gone. No headlights. I waited a minute. No sound, no shadows.
I walked the few remaining yards to the post office and used my flashlight to see what the man had dumped at the door.
It was a big pile of wet ready-mix cement.
I stood there and looked at it. By morning it would harden into concrete, blocking the entrance. No customers could get into Thelma’s post office until it was broken up with a sledge hammer. Uncle Sam’s postal service in Fountain would be out of business. Unless I did something about it.
The chance of anyone’s stumbling over the concrete in the dark was the same as my hitting the lottery, but if I’d gone home, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. I keep a short-handled snow shovel in my trunk. I brought the car up and left the headlights on while I shoveled and scraped. I couldn’t haul the mess away, but I did get it away from the door and off the sidewalk.
I phoned Thelma first thing next morning and told her to call the state police. The concrete would have interfered with government business, and it was still a public nuisance.
I hurried back to town and went in the back door of the post office. Thelma had her temper under control. A young state trooper named Frank Lee had arrived and snapped pictures of the heap of concrete.
Trooper Lee was a cleancut young man in his late twenties. Stocky build, dark features. I thought he might be a Mohawk. I knew the St. Regis Mohawks had their own police force, but some of them are members of our state police.
He tried not to show it, but he was very taken with Thelma’s clerk, a young lady named Nancy Courtney. She did look very attractive in her regulation gray blouse and red tie. Nancy has a figure that reinvents the word cute. I don’t apologize; once you have an eye for the opposite sex, you never lose it.
Thelma’s rural route man, Davie Shalley, was standing by with a pick and shovel. Thelma posted Nancy at the door to field questions and comments from the crowd, and we went back to her little office behind the parcel post racks.
Thelma briefed Trooper Lee on the events of the past couple of weeks and showed him the postcards. He asked the questions I had in mind myself.
“Mrs. Otis, you probably have some idea of who is doing these things. What can you tell me?”
“I’ve been asking myself that for over a week now,” she said. “Joe Casey lost a package last Christmas. Something special for his daughter. It wasn’t insured and got lost. Joe blamed us, got really steamed. Months ago and he’s still chewing about it.
“A little while back Stan Baldwin and his wife wanted to set up a handicrafts table in the lobby. I wouldn’t let them. Against regulations. They made a big scene. May still carry a grudge.
“There’s Floyd Randolph. I threw him out last month for taking a leak in one of the wastebaskets. I’ve warned him about that. He’s not too bright, but he can be spiteful. Nancy caught him tearing up a zipcode directory.” Thelma paused. “I think I saw him out there in the crowd this morning.”
That wasn’t much to go on. Frank Lee closed his notebook and stood up to leave. “I’ll see what we can do about your problem, Mrs. Otis. We can have a patrol come by every now and then at night. Let me know if anything else happens.”
Frank and I left by the back door after he said goodbye to Nancy. I think he was already planning to come back. We walked down the alley to his troop car. I gave him credit for not parking in front and giving the town something more to talk about.
It was going to be another hot day — spring in the Adirondacks was early this year. Frank made no move to get into his car; he was waiting for me to say something. He knew I had a law enforcement background although technically I’m a civilian. I appreciated his deferring to me; some young people aren’t so polite.
“What do you make of it?” I asked. I didn’t say “son” or anything patronizing.
“I figure two people,” he answered.
“That’s the way I see it, too,” I agreed. Anyone smart enough and literate enough to write those postcards wasn’t the type to run around at night throwing garbage on the lawn.
“Working together?” he asked seriously. “We got a conspiracy here?”
“I dunno. Maybe we can find out.”
We leaned against the fender of the car. There were spurts of conversation from the radio inside. A log truck rumbled by on the main street at the north end of the alley.
“Another thing, Mr. Sessions,” Frank said. “Those were pretty tame stunts this guy pulled.”
“Right,” I said. “He’s only a pussycat.”
“Why didn’t he put a brick through a window or spray-paint the walls?”
“Maybe he was afraid to,” I answered. “Criminal mischief is one thing, but when you start playing around with a federal post office, you could wind up looking at a felony charge.”
It was time for me to declare myself; did I want to be in or out of the investigation?
“I’ve got some time,” I said. “I’ll nose around town a bit.”
He straightened up.
“Fine, sir. I’ll check with our Special Crimes Division about those postcards. See if there’s a poisoned-pen specialist around here.”
We shook hands, and he drove away. I walked down the alley to Main Street. Like a lot of small towns here in upstate New York, Fountain was a busy company town back when the iron mines were working. Ore wagons rumbled down the street all day and most of the night to feed the smelters. Whole mountainsides gave up their trees to the furnaces. You could hear Swedish and German spoken on the streets as well as English. Immigrants were recruited right on the docks in New York to work here.
Time was when one of our iron-producing towns almost became the capital of the state instead of Albany. But then competition and technology closed the ironworks. Later a disastrous fire in Fountain took most of the company houses and stores. But the little towns are still here, existing on forests and orchards and farms. And tourists in season.
My home now is in Keeseville a few miles downriver, closer to the county seat where I used to work.
I didn’t think I’d have much luck trying to trace the ready-mix concrete. It’s cheaper to get your sand and gravel and cement separately. But if you need just a small amount, like a wheelbarrow load, you can’t beat the convenience. Each little town has a hardware or building supply store, and I would try them later if I had to.
But I learned a long time ago that if you don’t know the town get a haircut. The local barbershop is a good place to troll for information. And I got lucky; I got a piece of the puzzle.
The shop in Fountain was a one-chair affair. It had the usual mounted deer head on the wall and some lethal looking bow-hunting equipment in a glass case. Eight folding chairs were occupied more often by spectators than by customers.
The barber’s name was on the wall, Charles Pike. I had known an uncle of his, so we got to talking right away.
The big news item was that Fountain was being considered for a QuickStop convenience store. Men had been in and out of town for a month looking at different locations, asking questions, making traffic counts.
The biggest thing that can happen nowadays in a small upstate town is a new prison, but a branch of a big convenience-store chain would be a fine addition to the local economy.
“A QuickStop would be a right nice boost for the town,” Charles said. “Ray Maples at the Citgo station is agin it, but the competition would do old Ray good. Everybody in town who has some property has been after the Quick-Stop people, but they haven’t signed anybody up yet, far as I know.”
I mentioned that I had heard about the concrete in front of the post office.
“Sounds like somebody’s got it in for the post office,” I ventured.
“Maybe, but he better not tangle with Mrs. Otis. She won’t stand for no foolishness. Give you the rough side of her tongue if you’re not careful. Old Lady Peaselee’s the only one that can give her a hard time.”
“How’s that?”
“Peaselee owns the building the post office is in. And about half of Main Street. A real skinflint. Her granddaddy was a manager when the mills were here.”
We agreed that it looked promising for the trout season and that the black flies would be here before long. I left with thanks and a sizable tip.
I decided to go back to the post office and ask some more questions. If Peaselee owned the building where the post office was, maybe she was the vandal’s real target. But the vandalism would have to be a lot more destructive to get her attention. And if she wanted the post office out of her building, there were better ways to break a lease than a timid little postcard campaign.
I walked down Main Street to Forge Street and turned right. The post office was a long block down, at the next corner.
Behind the row of stores on Main was a service alley, and between the alley and the post office was a good-sized vacant lot. A weatherworn For Sale sign was half hidden in the weeds.
Somebody, probably Nancy, had run the flag up the pole. It was moving gently against a clear blue sky. The sky is such a pure blue here in the mountains because the air is so clean. I’m glad I won’t be around when acid rain kills off all the lakes and vegetation.
When I went in the front door, a tall elderly woman was standing at the counter talking to Nancy. She was complaining in a loud voice that the windowsills were dusty, and she was wearing a hat.
That was unusual — the women here wear hats only to funerals and church weddings. This hat was a bowl-shaped affair with some scruffy linen flowers in front and two tails of faded ribbon in back. Nevertheless, the hat said authority. This had to be Mrs. Lucinda Peaselee, town matriarch and Thelma’s landlady.
I pretended to read the notices on the bulletin board and looked over the second person at the counter.
This was a young woman with the biggest head of hair I’ve ever seen. Bright yellow, puffed out and stiffened into waves and ringlets. She had enough hair for three people her size.
Every minute or so she would reach up and touch it gently; clearly it was her proudest possession. I found out later that it served as a walking billboard.
The blonde was about twenty-five with a pipe-thin figure. She wore heavy eye makeup and deep red lip paint to balance the sunburst above. She was Bonnie Mae Shalley, Nancy told me, a niece of Mrs. Peaselee’s. She carried a shopping bag in one hand and two letters in the other.
“Tell Mrs. Otis I expect to see a great improvement in her housekeeping for the rest of the time you’re here!” Mrs. Peaselee rapped on the counter, glared at Nancy, and started for the door. To Bonnie Mae she said, “Here, child, get the stamps.”
She handed her niece a dollar bill. Bonnie Mae hurried to the counter and bought two stamps from Nancy. She went back to her aunt with the change. Lucinda counted the coins before she dropped them in her purse. Only then did Bonnie Mae put the stamps on the letters and push them in the slot. A real tightwad, the barber had said of Mrs. Peaselee. I believed him.
The Hat swept out, Bonnie Mae a step behind her.
I waited while Nancy took care of another customer and then walked over to the counter.
“Was that Mrs. Peaselee, your landlady?” I asked.
Nancy nodded. “For now. She says she’s going to throw us out. The old witch gravels me,” Nancy muttered. “I’m going to deck her someday. You get a load of the hat?”
“Couldn’t miss it.”
“The pope has his ring, Lucinda has her hat. Never leaves home without it. Got half the money in the county but she squeezes every nickel. And proud as a peacock.”
She told me that Bonnie Mae and her brother Davie were poor relations. Bonnie Mae was Lucinda’s secretary, driver, housekeeper, and whatever.
“I’ll give her credit, though,” Nancy said. “Bonnie Mae just finished beautician’s school up at Clinton. Works part-time in Irene Townsend’s beauty shop. Wants to get away from the old bat and make something of herself.”
While we were talking the back door opened and. Davie Shalley came in. He’d finished his highway delivery run, his appointed round from which neither rain nor snow nor dark of night would stay him. I’d met him that morning when he cleaned up the concrete mess. He was in his thirties, beefy, wore his hair long, raised rabbits as a hobby.
“He might be a sandwich short of a picnic,” Nancy had told me, “but he’s cheerful and helps out around the place.”
Davie finished whatever he was doing and left. I had noticed his car in the alley. In addition to the U.S. Mail sign above the windshield, his car wore bumper stickers like FIGHT CRIME... SHOOT BACK and SAVE A TREE... EAT A BEAVER.
“You hired Lucinda’s nephew?” I asked Thelma.
“What the hell,” she said, “a little nepotism can’t hurt.”
Nancy filled me in on some of her paperwork. “We keep a log of money order purchases and packages sent C.O.D. If we see a pattern, it tends to make us suspicious.”
“It would make me suspicious, too,” I replied. I was hearing more than I wanted to know about how post offices are run. “How about some lunch?”
Thelma joined us at the counter. She had been on the phone reporting the concrete episode to the High Poom, the Post Office Operations Manager down in Albany. She told them that local authorities were working on it. “Big deal,” she growled. “They got more excited when I ran out of Elvis commemoratives a couple of years ago. Did somebody say lunch?”
I hadn’t planned to spend the day in the post office, but the postal inspector Thelma had been expecting turned up early in the afternoon and we sat around in Thelma’s tiny office. Clyde Kingston wore a suit and tie, which immediately marked him as a stranger in town. He was heavyset with retreating dark hair and a large bushy mustache. Thelma explained briefly who I was and why I was there.
Inspector Kingston had a “been there, done that” attitude; I suppose it comes with the territory. After all, the Postal Inspection Service is the oldest law enforcement agency in the country, even if most people have never heard of it. He wasn’t very impressed with the vandalism. He dismissed the series of pranks as strictly a local matter.
The postcards were something else altogether.
“Got another one,” he said, and handed Thelma a card. She read it and handed it to me.
SAVE TAX DOLLARS! WHO NEEDS A POST OFFICE IN LITTLE OLD FOUNTAIN?
“Same old thing,” she said.
Kingston shook his head. “Worse. He sent this little bullet to the governor and both state senators.”
Thelma stared at him. “The hell you say!” She looked at me. “This is serious. Big time.”
Her pen pal could send the postal department all the cards he wanted to; that was in the family. But adding governors and senators made it a political issue. And bureaucracy being what it is, Thelma was automatically on the hot seat.
Nobody said anything for a minute. I looked at Kingston. “Did your lab boys get anything off the cards?”
He shook his head. “Damn little. No fingerprints. No way to trace the cards, they’re even sold in vending machines now. We think he used a Smith Corona Model 600. A top-of-the-line machine but not an office model. And he can type; no strikeovers, no erasures.”
“No help,” I said.
Kingston turned to Thelma. “I’m not in the real estate section, but I looked up your lease. I see it’s due for renewal next month.” He consulted a small notebook. “How do you get along with Mrs. Lucinda Peaselee? You think she might be doing this?”
Thelma shook her head.
“Not her style. She’s an in-your-face old broad. If she doesn’t want to renew the lease, she’ll spit in Albany’s face. She might want to offer the building to a new convenience store that’s sniffing around town. Maybe she thinks she can get more money from them.”
Thelma’s temper was taking hold. “If she’s holding us up for money, give her the goddamn building and find me another spot. I started out as a clerk when the post office was in a hardware store. I sold more horseshoes than stamps, and I’ll be selling stamps long after Lucy Peaselee’s gone to...”
“Sure, sure,” Kingston said. “We’ll just move the office if we have to.”
That was the end of that. I never doubted that Fountain would continue to have postal service, no matter how tiny a town it was. In your really small towns the post office is a social and cultural center as well as a link to the federal government. It goes back to 1737 when the British colonial authorities appointed Ben Franklin postmaster. Pretty soon he had a network of seventy-five little offices throughout the colonies, all on the same wavelength.
But we still had somebody out there, trying to make trouble with a handful of postcards.
Inspector Kingston shot a look at his watch to remind us that his time was limited. He asked Thelma, “What about this mail fraud scheme you think you have here in Fountain?”
“It’s the dead man operation.” Thelma reached for a clipboard hanging on the wall. “We’ve got a guy out here on Route 10 who runs a wooden toy company. Cheap souvenirs. He comes in three or four times a month and sends a package collect. Twenty-nine ninety-five, plus charges.” She tapped the clipboard. “All here in the log.”
She took a small package from a shelf and handed it to Kingston. “This one came in this morning; going out on the truck tonight.”
The agent passed the package over to me. It was about the size of the box a book club uses and weighed only a few ounces. It had a colorful mailing label, UNCLE BOB’S WOODWORKING SHOP, decorated with a cartoon bird on one side and a grinning squirrel on the other. It was addressed to a man in Bethpage, Long Island.
Kingston looked a bit puzzled. “Most small toy companies do business by mail order, Mrs. Otis,” he said. “Of course, most of it is prepaid.”
“I know that,” Thelma shot back, “hut this outfit gets damn little mail.”
She rapped the package with her finger.
“I’ll bet a month’s pay this Mr. Whoever is dead. And that he died last week.”
There was nothing Kingston could say to that. He tried to be reasonable. “I’ll take a copy of your C.O.D. log and check all the offices for complaints. You may be right,” he said diplomatically; “you may have a fraud artist around here. These crooks love small towns. They think they can get away with what they’re doing because nobody will notice.” Thelma bristled at that. “But that’s certainly not true here in your office, Mrs. Otis,” he added hastily.
When I was on duty, I spent most of my time trying to nail the scum who peddled dope to school children, but I know how this scam works.
The operator gets the name of a deceased person from the obituary section of a paper. He picks someone who died suddenly in a hospital or in an accident, never from a long illness. He wants someone with a large family with grandchildren. He puts a high price on some cheap gift and mails it C.O.D.
Naturally the family’s upset, and they think the package is something Grandpa or Grandma ordered, maybe something for the grandchildren. So they accept it and pay the charges. The operator walks away with the money. If the family does refuse the package and files a complaint, the operator says it was a shipping error or whatever and hands back the money. This rarely happens. It’s an old scam. Probably the Pony Express delivered something for a guy in Boot Hill who never ordered it.
“What do you know about this Uncle Bob person?” the agent asked Thelma.
“His name is Donald Parks. He bought the Uncle Bob business a year or so ago. Located about four miles out on Route 10 toward Keene. I think he and his wife moved here from Ohio.”
Kingston shook his head. “We’ll have to wait for a complaint.”
I hated the idea of somebody’s being conned out of thirty dollars for a little piece of plywood. “Outside of a complaint,” I asked him, “what would you need to stop this guy?”
“We would have to prove intent to defraud.”
I picked up the package and took a penknife out of my pocket.
“Let’s open it,” I suggested, “Maybe there’s a note or something.”
Thelma leaned forward. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
Kingston held up his hand. “I can’t let you do that, Mr. Sessions,” he said sternly. “I would have to arrest you for interfering with the mail.”
I knew he meant it. I dropped the package and sat back. The mail must go through. Play by the rules even if it means another thirty bucks for Uncle Bob.
I think Thelma was disappointed that I backed down.
I wasn’t really surprised to see Trooper Lee at the counter talking to Nancy, conferring about the case no doubt.
“We were just talking about those postcards,” he said when I came up. “If this person thought his message was so important, why did he use a postcard instead of a first class letter?”
“Maybe for more visibility, more exposure,” Nancy said. “Everybody reads postcards no matter who they’re addressed to.”
“Or maybe he thinks a postcard is more democratic,” Frank said, “but in that case he would put his name on the message.”
“Maybe it’s none of the above,” Nancy said. “After all, postcards are cheaper than letters.”
“Bingo,” I said. I asked Frank to do something for us on the case. That’s how I put it, for
“You got it.”
I went outside and looked at the small lawn between the door and the street.
Even Lucinda Peaselee could see there wasn’t enough room for the driveway and gas pumps a QuickStop store featured. But there was plenty of room in the lot next door.
I drove out to see Donald Parks. If Albany couldn’t do anything, maybe I could. At least give him the benefit of the doubt. I called first, said I had something important to ask him, that I wasn’t trying to collect money.
It was nice to get out in the fresh air and sunshine. In a month this road would carry a lot of traffic, tourists visiting the attractions and fishermen working both branches of the river.
The Parks shop and home were easy to find — in addition to the mailbox there was a large sign reading UNCLE BOB’S WOODWORKING SHOP. It was trash pickup day. I had to step around the recyclable material placed neatly at the side of the road; separate containers for tin, glass, and plastic. Two big bundles of newspapers, one of magazines.
A driveway led to a largish parking area. The shop was the size of a double garage with big doors that could be swung open in good weather. Inside were displays of Uncle Bob’s products, little shapes of animals and birds cut from half-inch plywood and painted. Each object bore a decal that read SOUVENIR OF THE ADIRONDACKS. I didn’t see a price tag on any of them.
Donald Parks was waiting for me; a bit this side of fifty, bright blue eyes, medium build, thinning hair. He wore a carpenter’s apron with pockets full of pencils. It was more like a costume than work clothes.
I admired the shop for a polite amount of time, and we moved into Parks’s office, a little room at the rear of the house. There I saw a desk with a typewriter, a couple of file cabinets, a stack of trade magazines, the usual furniture.
“Does Uncle Bob do much mail order business?” I asked casually-
“A good bit. I’ve got ads in a lot of catalogues.”
He was polite, curious about why I was there. He made no attempt to introduce a Mrs. Parks. What I could see of the house was neat and clean.
Over many years of talking to strangers informally, I’ve found an approach that is almost guaranteed to put a man off guard and let you size him up.
Being as sincere as I could, I looked him in the eye and said, “Mr. Parks, a group of men want me to ask you if you would run for town supervisor this fall.”
He was flattered, as I knew he would be.
We had a nice talk about the rewards of office and civic duty, with me doing most of the talking. Parks smiled and thanked me and said he didn’t think his work would permit it.
When I left, I was sure that Donald Parks would never be running for office. He had something to hide. When I had the time, I would find out whether it was personal or criminal.
When I walked back to my car, I passed the recyclables waiting to be picked up. On impulse I grabbed the bundles of newspapers and slung them in the back seat. The vet clinic in Keeseville always needs papers to line their animal cages.
I had to go through Fountain to get home, and I stopped at Ray Maples’ Citgo station for gas. I’ve never cared much for Ray. I know for a fact that a few years ago he left a wounded deer in the woods; wouldn’t take time to track it and put it out of its misery.
He was doing some construction work at the station, building an addition on the side opposite the service bay. He had to tell me all about it.
“I’m puttin’ in a deli department,” he said proudly. “That’s the only thing I don’t have that the QuickStop stores have. I had to go to Keene to get the money; what we need in this town is a bank. And I’m goin’ to start renting videos. They don’t have that, you know.”
It’s interesting to see what the threat of competition will do. I wished him good luck and left.
I drove home slowly. I enjoy looking at the river from this stretch of Route 10. Today the water was high and fast because snow was still melting in the mountains.
What this town needs is a bank, Ray Maples had said. I thought about that while I did chores.
A bank needs a downtown location, parking for its walk-in customers, room for a drive-up window, a long service counter. Lucinda Peaselee could offer a bank almost all of that. Maybe she already had.
After dinner I telephoned Ted Culpepper. He’s a loan officer at the Harvest Bank and knows more about people and things going on in the valley than I ever will. And he loves to fish for trout.
I told Ted I knew where some eighteen inch rainbow trout were hiding.
Sometime after midnight the phone woke me. It was Trooper Frank Lee. He had arrested Davie Shalley for malicious mischief. Davie had been spreading straw on the lawn in front of the post office.
He would have to be held overnight at Ray Brook headquarters and see a judge tomorrow. I said it was important that Frank have Davie at the post office in the morning so we could clear everything up.
Frank said he would bring him.
“All right, folks, let’s go see Lucinda Peaselee,” I said.
We were in the rear of the post office, Thelma, Frank Lee, and I. Davie had been brought in, white and shaken. The look Thelma gave him would have melted bone. He was waiting in the troop car, in handcuffs. Nancy was at the counter, her eyes dancing with excitement.
I told Thelma and Frank that we had most of the answers we needed. Mrs. Peaselee could give us the rest.
“Frank, bring Davie in your car. Thelma and I will take mine.”
“No,” Thelma said, “we can’t leave now.”
“Why not?”
“What about Davie’s highway route? Who’s going to deliver the mail?”
I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, goddamn it. The mail’s my responsibility.”
“We’ll be back in an hour. Can’t it wait?”
“No. It has to be handled now.”
And it was. Davie Shalley was what is called a highway contractor, which meant he sorted and delivered the mail to patrons outside of town. He had to arrange his own back-up for when he couldn’t do it. Like today.
Under Thelma’s supervision the mail was sorted and boxed. A man who knew the route was enlisted to make the run. Finally Thelma was satisfied. She left Nancy in charge, and we were on our way.
The Peaselee residence was on the edge of town; a big three story house with bay windows and lots of chimneys. It had escaped the big fire of seventy years ago.
Bonnie Mae saw us drive up. She had the door open before we were half way up the walk. Her eyes got enormous when she saw the handcuffs. “Davie, oh, Davie...”
Lucinda stood in the doorway of the front parlor, her hands clasped in front of her. Her grey hair was in a tight bun, and there was a grim expression on her face. She looked less formidable without her hat. Her face sagged when she saw Davie in cuffs and escorted by a state trooper. She paid no attention to Thelma or me.
“What is the meaning of this?” Her voice was not quite steady.
“I think we’d all better sit down,” Frank said. It was more of a demand than a suggestion. Without a word Lucinda turned and led the way into the parlor. Frank didn’t sit down. He put Davie in a straight chair and stood over him. Thelma and Bonnie Mae took chairs, Lucinda stood against the wall.
This was the chance I was waiting for.
Bonnie Mae was The Hat’s secretary. There had to be an office somewhere, I hoped downstairs. I’d told Frank to spell things out for Peaselee while I went looking for the office, and a Smith Corona typewriter.
“Mrs. Peaselee, your nephew here has admitted responsibility for all the acts of vandalism at the post office,” Frank said. “He has broken several laws, state and federal.”
“What acts?” Lucinda asked, her voice unsteady.
Frank named them off, finishing with “obstructing a public walkway, endangering public safety, interfering with the United States Postal Service.”
Apparently Lucinda hadn’t known about Davie’s nighttime activities. Her face got quite pale.
Davie looked up. “I was only trying to help, Aunt Lucy.”
“Be quiet,” she snapped. She raised her chin and glared at Frank, hoping the Peaselee money and position would solve the problem. “Well then, I’ll pay his fine.”
Frank was ready for that. “It’s more serious than that, Mrs. Peaselee. Davie may have to go to jail.”
Now family disgrace was staring her in the face. The haughty expression disappeared, and she sat down in the nearest chair. “To jail? Davie in jail?”
“It depends on whether Mrs. Otis here and the Postal Service want to press charges.”
I found a little room off the kitchen that might have been a butler’s pantry in the old days. Now it served as an office where Lucinda kept the records of her tenants and her rents. On the desk was a Smith Corona 600 typewriter.
I went back to the parlor and took a seat. I nodded at Thelma to let her know it was her turn at bat.
“Lucinda,” she said, “you’ve been playing a dirty little game. You’ve been trying to get my post office pulled out of Fountain so you can rent the building to somebody else.” Thelma was out of her chair and standing in front of Lucinda. She handed her some of the postcards. “And if these didn’t work, you were going to ask Uncle Sam for more money when the lease comes up next month. You can’t play both ends against the middle, Lucy. You try it and you’ll get your tits caught in a wringer!”
Lucinda Peaselee was speechless. Nobody ever used her first name, and nobody ever talked to her that way.
In a moment she found her voice.
“I never wrote those cards! I never did any such thing!”
I was looking at Bonnie Mae, at that monstrous head of yellow hair and the lavish makeup. Nancy’s words came back: “Bonnie Mae wants to open her own beauty shop.”
I stood up.
“Bonnie Mae, you typed those cards, didn’t you?” I asked casually. “And you had Davie mail them from out of town, didn’t you?”
A hand went up to pat her hair, and she looked at me defiantly. “What if I did?”
Lucinda tried to regain a little control. “Child, I will not tolerate that tone of voice in my...”
Her niece turned to her. “You said you wanted the post office out of there, Aunt Lucy. You said so yourself.”
“That was just business, child, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I think she does understand, Mrs. Peaselee,” I said. “But you never told her what you really have in mind for the building. As Mrs. Otis says, you’ve been playing both ends against the middle.
“You knew you would never get the convenience store. Your building isn’t on Main Street, and there isn’t room for gas pumps. You have been dickering with Harvest Bank to put a branch in Fountain. You’ve offered them the post office building. To sweeten the pot, you’ve offered them the lot next door so they can have a drive-up window or something.”
I lobbed the grenade Frank had found yesterday. “We know you paid two thousand dollars for a sixty-day option on that lot.”
Nobody said anything. The look on Lucinda’s face told me I had put it all together. “If the bank goes for your deal, you’ll cut the post office loose. If not, you’ll try to hold Albany up for more rent.”
Thelma made an impolite sound. “That’s be the day pigs fly and hell freezes,” she said.
I wasn’t quite finished. “But, Lucinda, Bonnie Mae did a good job with those postcards, and she saved you money on the postage. She’s a smart young lady, and she’s got her own reasons for wanting to see the post office out of that building.” Everybody except Davie looked at the girl. “Tell your aunt what you want to do with it.” I sat down to let her have the floor.
Bonnie Mae stood up and faced her aunt. She gave me a brief smile for my introduction. The big moment was here; her bid for independence.
“I was fixin’ to tell you, Aunt Lucy. I need that building for my new beauty shop. It’s going to be Bonnie’s Beauty Boutique. Don’t you like the name?”
“I know where I can get my ’quipment on time, and I’ll pay you rent just as soon as I get ’stablished. That’s a good location, easy for folks to get to. They taught us lots of good ideas in school, and I’ll give little Miss Irene Townsend a run for her money. I might even start givin’ men’s haircuts. It’s just old fuds go to that Charlie Pike’s place — no offense, sir — and I bet I can beat his price. Oh yeah, Davie did them things at night just to help us git the post office out of there, Aunt Lucy. Weren’t his fault, really.”
She paused and looked around at her audience.
“So,” she finished, “the sooner the post office is out of there, the sooner I kin get started.”
At first Lucinda had looked shocked — this was mutiny — but now there was something like pride on her face. Her nephew Davie would never hope for more than a blue ribbon for his rabbits at the country fair, but her niece was aiming higher. Bonnie Mae wanted to leave the nest, try her wings, take her chance.
I suppose in every generation a young Peaselee has wanted to strike out on his own. Each one has been asked the same question: “What are you going to use for money?”
I suspect that each budding businessman has given the same answer. Bonnie Mae lifted her chin and faced her aunt. “You got plenty, Aunt Lucy. You kin lend me some.”
In my book ambition always wins over elocution. I decided it was time to wind things up here and leave the Peaselees to what would be a long and private family talk.
“Mrs. Otis, do you want to press charges against Davie?” I asked.
Thelma shook her head.
“Davie,” I said, “tell Mrs. Otis you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Otis,” he said meekly. “Do I still have my job?”
“I’ll think about it,” Thelma said. “Be sure to clean up that straw.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Frank removed the handcuffs, and our little group was ready to leave. But I was still in my oratorical mode; I had two last thoughts to deliver.
“All right, Mrs. Peaselee, here’s what I think you should do. If the Postal Service offers you a satisfactory lease, take it. Then go to the bank and offer to build them a building on that vacant lot; built to their specifications.
“They’ll be happy with a modular type building like they have over in Ray Brook. That shouldn’t be too much of an investment for a woman like yourself, and you can be sure of a very long lease.”
Lucinda nodded slowly; the wheels were turning under that grey hair.
“Look, Bonnie Mae,” I said, “there’s a nice little house for rent right down on Willow Street. That’s a good location, and you could put your shop downstairs. I bet you and your aunt could get it real cheap.”
There was a smart kid under that king-size beehive. She gave me a wink and a nod.
That was all; Thelma and Frank and I moved towards the door. A voice from the other side of the room stopped us. “Just a minute, please.”
We turned around.
Lucinda Peaselee stood up. “I’m truly sorry for all this, Mrs. Otis,” she said formally.
Thelma gave a little wave. “No real harm done,” she said. She took a step toward the door but turned back. “Look, Lucy, if you really want more rent for that building, don’t beat around the goddamn bush. Go down to Albany and see the real estate section. Tell ’em I sent you.”
We drove back to the post office in silence; there wasn’t anything that needed saying. When we got there, Thelma told Nancy to take a break. Nancy and Frank Lee went outside to talk in the sunshine. They had a long conversation as young people are prone to do. Thelma and I drank coffee, and I told her I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have to pack up and move.
When Nancy came back in, Thelma couldn’t resist making a comment. “That Frank is cuter than a spotted pup.”
Nancy gave us both an innocent, wide-eyed look. In a little girl voice she said, “Mother, if he follows me home, can I keep him?”
The next afternoon I telephoned Thelma. “See how fast you can get your inspector back up here. Tell him you’ve got a mail fraud artist who’s ripe for picking.”
She didn’t ask questions. “I’ll have him here in the morning.”
Clyde Kingston was there by nine o’clock — Albany is only three hours away by car — and we were waiting for him. Thelma told him the governor could rest easy; there’d be no more postcards. The newspapers I’d liberated from Donald Parks’s trash were piled on her desk.
I had gone by the vet’s clinic yesterday to drop them off, but one of the papers caught my eye. It was the Long Island
I showed Kingston some of the papers. “Mrs. Otis was right about Parks,” I said. “He’s been using the mail to cheat people. He gets his prospects by combing the obituaries for the names of the recently deceased.
“Here are
Clyde was getting excited. He opened another paper to the obit page; there was a name with a blue circle around it. In another he found the same thing. He grinned at us. “I wonder where...” he began, but I was ahead of him.
“Look at the top of the first page. That’s where the mailing address is always printed for copies mailed out of town.”
The Long Island papers were addressed to Donald Parks, Keene, New York. The Connecticut paper went to E’town; the Jersey paper to Keeseville. It was mailed in a brown paper sleeve that had been discarded along with the paper.
“You get the picture? Parks has these papers sent to different addresses so he doesn’t attract attention.”
“Right,” said Kingston, “and he mails his junk from different post offices so nobody gets suspicious. Pretty smart.”
“Not smart enough,” Thelma snorted. “The son of a bitch.”
Clyde was opening more papers, finding more blue circles. “Some of these obits give the street address of the deceased, some don’t. How do you suppose he gets around that?”
“The funeral home’s name is always there. He could call, say he wants to send flowers, ask for a florist. Then he cons the florist out of the address.”
“Sure, he could do that.”
“He’s got a zip code directory in his office. I saw it.”
“You went to see Parks? What were you doing there?”
“We were talking politics.”
“Sneaky,” Thelma said. “I always said you were a sneaky so-and-so.”
Clyde was frowning, ruffling his big mustache with his fingers and staring at the floor. I could guess what he was thinking. No warrant, no probable cause, an unlawful search, no case.
Casually I asked, “You want to know how I came by these papers?”
“I sure as hell do.”
“I found them. Found them in the middle of the highway. Must have fallen off a truck on its way to the landfill. Now, I couldn’t just leave them there, could I?”
Clyde was staring at me, not quite convinced. “And littering is against the law, isn’t it?” I asked blandly.
“Damn right,” Thelma said.
“It was my civic duty to stop and pick them up, wasn’t it?”
“Sure it was,” Clyde replied. “Sure it was.”
That was that. “Well now,” I said. “Do you think you have enough here to prove intent to defraud? You think you can put Parks away?”
“Just watch me,” he said. “Just watch me.”
We shook hands. “Mrs. Otis, you’ll be hearing from me,” he said to Thelma. To me he said, “Nice work, Mr. Sessions. I hope we meet again.”
I helped him tie up the newspapers and put them in his car. I knew Kingston would check the C.O.D. logs in the other post offices; maybe even get Parks’s telephone bills. I went back into Thelma’s office to finish my coffee before I went home.
Thelma stood up behind her desk. “Hank,” she said, “you remember what you did after the homecoming game our senior year, when we beat the Peru Indians?”
That was a long time ago. I didn’t remember the game or the score or the year.
“What did I do?”
“You grabbed me and kissed me.” Thelma came around the desk.
“Now it’s my turn. Hold still.”
You ought not to get yourself in a jackpot for accusing someone of bumping off his own father thirteen hundred years ago.
Wouldn’t you think?
Being a reasonable person, I did. But I’ll get to that later. All that concerned me at the moment was fresh air and not doing a Humpty Dumpty number. I don’t mind admitting I’d contemplated faking an old football injury.
The stone steps looked about ten degrees steeper than vertical. Slick and smooth, they were sweating as much as me. Bare bulbs dangling from a cord provided lighting, and illumination ranged from dim yellow to Black Hole of Calcutta.
“Bricklin Bates, come on,” Darla said, waving from deep in the mouth of that thing.
She only used my full moniker when she wanted to needle me or boot me in the backside. So down I went.
The core of Palenque’s Temple of the Inscriptions was a claustrophobic sauna. It was the final resting place of Lord Sun Shield Pacal, one of the longest reigning monarchs in history. Pacal’s bones were gone, but his profile and all sorts of gingerbread were carved into the sarcophagus lid suspended two feet above his tomb in a cramped, vaulted crypt. The limestone slab must have outweighed a Buick. The crummy light flickered, giving the chamber the appearance of a fly-by-night paint job.
Once outside, where I couldn’t get to quick enough, Darla noted that my butt was dragging and cut me some slack. She said we could do the full tour of the ruin tomorrow. It was late anyhow, and we hadn’t checked into our hotel yet. We’d been in four airports today and had driven a hundred and fifty harum-scarum klicks in a rental car from Villahermosa to Palenque, beelining it to the Temple of the Inscriptions.
Darla said it was the highlight of Palenque and that Palenque was the highlight of Mexico. This was like having your dessert first, at least from her viewpoint.
We’d compromised on our Mexican trip, which is to say she won and I lost. My druthers was Cancun and two weeks of bobbing around a pool bar clutching a cold Corona as a life preserver while my balding scalp roasted. Darla said Cancun was an aberration, the total antithesis of Yucatan Mexico, whatever that meant. Some of Darla’s words are bigger than my paragraphs.
Darla said it would be a travesty not to see the remnants of the great Maya civilization. She rattled off Uxmal, Edzna, Sayil, Labna, Kabah, Chichen Itza, and some longer names that tied my tongue in knots. She was determined to do every archaeological site she could.
I complained that it was gonna be like a whistlestop tour. She said what did it matter where we were? We’d still have the time and energy my “honeymoon without benefit of clergy” proposal entailed, though she referred to it as a proposition.
Don’t get me wrong. Darla likes the lovey-dovey stuff as much as me. If you were a peeping Tom you’d see us wrapped up like a basketful of boa constrictors.
And I had to hand it to her. She had us going first class on a budget. Our Palenque hotel was actually a resort with a series of cabins set next to thick jungle. Our cabin overlooked a creek and had charm coming out its ears, as did its open-air, thatch-roofed café, where we wound down and wet our whistles.
I waved a dead soldier at the barkeep and said, “I had a thought.”
“Me too, Brick. When I’m finished with my margarita.”
Darla Hogan teaches anthropology at a community college. She is a little slip of a woman with big hair and bigger glasses. She has the sweetest leer.
“No, another thought. What if Lord Pacal was whacked out? You know, assassinated.”
“What on earth gave you that idea?”
I pointed at the stack of books and notebooks on the table. Since we’d begun planning the trip, it was like they were grafted to her.
“You told me Pacal was born in 603 A.D., right? His mom, the queen, handed the keys to the kingdom over to him in 615. He was eighty when he croaked, after damn near seventy years in power. Hell, his reign alone was probably twice the normal lifespan.”
“Eighty was old then, it’s old today,” Darla reminded me. “You’re pushing forty, no spring chick—”
“Never mind. If Pacal lived to a ripe old age, wouldn’t there be a natural assumption he’d live forever? These dudes were god-kings, you know. Pacal’s older son, Chan Bahlum, a.k.a. Jaguar Serpent, was forty-eight when he took over from dad. Don’t you think he was getting antsy?”
Darla stroked my forearm hair, saying, “My Brick, always looking under rocks.”
Hey, looking under rocks was what I did for a living. Darla had been stalked by her ex-boyfriend. She didn’t think the restraining order was worth the paper it was written on, so she let her fingers do the walking. She picked me because my worthy competition advertised as Security Consultants and Professional Investigators, wimpy crapola like that. I was the only one who hung out my shingle as a private eye.
She wanted me to track the creep and to dig up dirt that would land him in the pokey. He was nearly my age and lived with his mother. Trouble was, he was squeaky clean. He didn’t do diddlysquat except follow Darla around like a lovesick puppy. I knew the type. One fine day he’d go berserk. Then he’d be a model prisoner on death row.
At first sight I fell for Darla like a ton of bricks. I took her case mighty personal. One night I caught the freakoid alone and took the law in my own hands, as well as him. I never told Darla what I did, and I’m not spilling the beans to you either, other than that he fives with a maiden aunt on the opposite coast and is eligible to try out for the Vienna Boys Choir.
“You can take the shoulder holster off the shamus,” she said, doing the math on a napkin. “Lord Pacal died one thousand three hundred and fourteen years ago. How do you expect to prove Chan Bahlum committed patricide?”
I shrugged and patted my pocket. I’d given up smoking for her. Not to mention letting her toss the bottle of cheap whisky from my filing cabinet and thin out my trenchcoat and snapbrim fedora collection. There were still times I felt naked without an unfiltered Camel dangling from my kisser, and this was one of them. “So the trail’s gone a little cold.”
“Good luck tracing eyewitnesses.”
I said, “There’re tons of historical precedents, you know. I switched to
“And look at England. I’ll bet whatshisname is running out of patience. If Liz ever falls off her horse, the first thing I’d do is check under her saddle for a burr.”
“You’re reaching, love of my life.”
“You were telling me about these Maya folks and human sacrifice. Anything’s possible.”
“Blood lubricated their universe,” she said.
“Hacking off heads and gouging the living, beating hearts out of chests with those stone knives isn’t what you’d call your basic polite behavior,” I said. “If I was Pacal, I’d’ve walked around with a rear view mirror glued to my forehead.”
“Homicide is not the same as ritual killing. The typical sacrifice victim was a captured enemy, the higher ranking the better.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a coverup. It’s worth looking into.”
“Answer two questions,” Darla said. “Who’s your client? How are you going to get paid?”
I was speechless. I hated it when she made sense.
Next morning the sky poured down on us in buckets. I’d never been anywhere tropical and couldn’t believe my eyeballs. It was just like Chicken Little said.
I suggested to Darla that we spend the day in bed watching TV. She reminded me that we didn’t have television. I said so what. She called me a satyr. I asked what that was. She said it was a vulgar mythical creature with goat horns that had only one thing on its mind.
I said that flattery would get her everywhere. She said uh-uh, we were on a tight schedule. We’d do the museum today. If it was still yucky later, we’d do Palenque tomorrow. Then we’d head on up to Uxmal.
Like a good scout I bought breakfast and drove us to the museum and visitor center, a modem building a mile from the Palenque ruin. On display were an assortment of artifacts and replicas of wall murals and stone carvings. Those ancient Mayans sure had busy hands.
I hadn’t been inside a museum since a field trip in the fifth grade, and all I remembered about it was that everything was old, so when Darla commented that they’d done a nice job here, I had to agree. While she was taking notes and pictures, I zeroed in on a stucco head of my prime suspect, Chan Bahlum. Client or no client, I needed to scratch my itch.
Chan Bahlum had a big schnozz and pierced earlobes. Attitude was written all over him, and he was definitely shifty looking.
We met up at a wall carving reproduction of Lord Pacal, who was with this babe they identified as his principal wife, Lady Ahpo Hel. In between them was their son, Kan Xul. They were dressed to the nines in feathered headgear and ornate loincloths. Ma and Pa were giving the boy some stuff, including what may have been a crown on the end of a stick.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lord Pacal and Lady Ahpo are anointing Kan Xul with the symbols of power.”
“Whoa, wait a second. Where does Kan perch in the family tree?”
“He’s Chan Bahlum’s younger brother.”
“Aha!”
“Shhhhh. You big galoot, everybody’s looking at us.”
“Don’t you get it? Palace intrigue. Jealousy, envy, high-level hanky-panky. Chan Bahlum learned he was being passed over in favor of his kid brother. He decided to control his own destiny by clipping his old man.”
“Prove it, Brick,” Darla said, then immediately saw my stupidest grin. She covered her mouth, realizing her atrocious mistake.
She had just dared Brick Bates.
Opposites attract. That’s not exactly a news bulletin. Take Darla and me in regards to sheepskins alone. She’s got a B.S., an M.S., and is wrapping up her Ph.D. Although she’s always saying I’m a master in the b.s. department, my formal schooling involved a matchbook cover application to the Gumshoe Correspondence Institute of Private Detection.
And frankly I think she was kind of lording her education over me at lunch. We were in Santo Domingo, a.k.a. Palenque Village, a compact town five miles from the ruin. It was a busy, friendly burg swarming with lethal taxicabs. Santo Domingo was here because of tourists and what they came to see, but the folks weren’t constantly in your face, hard-core hustling you like they’d be in Cancun, I had to admit.
“You’re cuckoo,” she said.
“That’s irrelevant and immaterial,” I said.
“Bricklin Bates, I acknowledge that you are the world’s greatest private eye.”
I bowed my head modestly.
“All right, how
“You canvass the neighborhood and shake the hypotheticals out of the trees. The rain’s letting up.”
“Oh, Brick.”
“After lunch and before we head back to the ruin, we’ll do some snooping in town.” I whipped a postcard out of my pocket. “A photo of Lord Pacal’s sarcophagus lid. Look at him, surrounded by all those doodads.”
Darla sighed.
“These street vendors we’ve seen, it’s a toss-up whether this picture in one form or another or those Zapatista dolls is the hottest item.”
“Fringie types believe he’s at the controls of his spaceship.”
Actually, he looked like he was squinting into an ornate periscope, fixing to fire torpedoes. “Bat guano, huh?”
“Without question. In fact, the elaborate sculpture is quite consistent with Maya cosmology. The departed king isn’t perched on an alien booster rocket, he’s falling into the fleshless jaws of the earth monster. He’s hanging onto a two-headed serpent that represents the sky. Lord Pacal is in transition from one world to the next.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Any fool can see that. C’mon, let’s give it a shot.”
With Darla’s Spanish phrasebook in hand, I took the postcard along Avenida Juarez, Santo Domingo’s main drag, to anyone willing to rehash the good old days. I realized this wasn’t a scientific approach, though sometimes folklore’s passed along. At this point I was willing to settle for an unsubstantiated innuendo.
Darla wasn’t as enthusiastic as me, to put it mildly. She hung back and off to the side, like she could deny she knew me if push came to shove with the locals.
I concentrated on older shopkeepers. Showing them the postcard, I’d run a finger across my throat, make a face, and say,
The usual reaction was a shrug and that
It was obvious they were stonewalling me and would do so even without Darla’s goofing. I was beginning to wonder what they had to hide. Anyway, I was getting nowhere fast, so I threw in the towel.
We went back to the cabin to change before heading out to the ruin. I was ready first and sat on the porch in a rocking chair, enjoying the scenery. The sky was breaking up into dumpling clouds, and it was warming fast. The jungle was steamy, smelling like salad.
I had to do a doubletake on what I spotted beyond the creek. This was in trees and vines and shadows right out of a Tarzan movie. The guy wasn’t much more than a silhouette, like a shape that’d pop up at the target range. I could make out only that he was short, stumpy, and naked except for a loincloth and some kind of headdress that would’ve made Carmen Miranda drool.
What got to me was his evil scowl, mostly cuz I couldn’t see it, I could just feel it. A puff cloud crossed in front of the sun. A breeze blew through a clump of bamboo next to me, making it creak like a door with rusty hinges. I, who could stare down a Ten Most Wanted fugitive and his mother-in-law, too, was getting the willies.
Darla came out in a banana-colored sundress.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She scanned where my eyeballs were frozen. There was nothing to see. She gave me a funny look and stroked my arms to smooth out the goosebumps.
Palenque rose on artificial terraces, backstopped by lush green foothills. The buildings were stuck in the hillside, as if growing out of it. Low clouds docked against the hills. From the ground, tourists climbing the taller temples appeared to be walking into the mist.
From those higher elevations you had a wide view of the valley. I imagined that Palenque had plenty of warning prior to an attack and that their enemies had a severe ass-kicking in store for them. Darla confirmed this.
“Palenque’s architects considered danger as well as aesthetics when they designed the city,” she said. “There was no such thing as a Maya empire. During the classic period, 250 to 900 A.D., the region was a loose collection of city-states linked by trade, royal intermarriage, and warfare. Especially the last. Palenque expanded its influence considerably under Pacal’s rule.”
“How big is this place, Darla?”
“Experts say the unexcavated ruins extend as far as ten kilometers. Palenque ruled neighboring cities, too.”
“That’s a lot of real estate to inherit.”
“You’re a broken record on that subject, Bricklin.”
She was right. Again. I took the needle off the turntable for the rest of the tour. And let her do the talking. On how Palenque was abandoned in the ninth century for reasons yet unclear. How Cortes and his gold-crazed conquistadors passed within miles of it. How the site wasn’t discovered until the 1700’s. How we don’t even know what the residents called it,
Very interesting, but I was ready to move on. So was Darla, chattering on the way to the exit about what fun we’d have at Uxmal. That is, until we saw that all four tires on our rental unit were flat. From her sweet lips came forth some words I hadn’t heard since I last ran down a bail skip and escorted his scuzzy rear to the county lockup.
One of the first lessons I learned in my Gumshoe Correspondence Institute of Private Detection studies was that nature abhors a coincidence. Sure enough, the air hadn’t seeped out of the pores of the tread. Each tire had an inch-long sidewall slash. There was something wedged in one of the cuts, and I went after it with a pocketknife.
The entrance area was jam-packed with park employees, tourists, and vendors. Most of the visitors today were Eurogringos who’d piled out of buses. Darla asked around, but her French and German were minimal, and the other tourists weren’t generally inclined to be friendly and helpful toward Yanks. Her Spanish was passable, but nobody saw nothing nohow. No other cars had been touched.
“What do you make of this?” I asked, showing her a shiny black rock I’d dug out. It was triangular, the size of a fingernail.
“Obsidian,” she said. “Volcanic glass. The Maya didn’t have metal. They made tools of it.”
“Like sacrificial knives?”
“Brick.”
“Okay, okay. Tell me this, do the locals still walk around with them? Seems to me they have access to metal nowadays.”
She didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d scored an intellectual point on her. If my nose hadn’t been so out of joint on account of the vandalism, I would’ve been walking on air.
We caught a cab into town. The driver was a sourpuss and a dead ringer for the guys scratched into those temple walls. He had a Miami Heat T-shirt and an attitude, but Darla’s combination of Spanish and pidgin to him got us to a tire store without a shortcut through Guatemala.
A young fella said they’d take four tires out there and mount them, then deliver the car to us that evening. I put two on my Visa card, and Darla put the other two on her MasterCard. There were a bunch of zeros on the pesos, but I tried to think of it as Monopoly money. We’d sort out the fine print on the insurance coverage later.
The same taxi was cruising the street, so we had Smiley run us to the resort, where we unwound with drinks. Timing was of the essence, so I waited until Darla’s third margarita before saying, “Speaking of sacrificial knives whittled out of obsidian...”
“No, we weren’t.”
“What did they use them for besides open heart surgery?”
“Not all sacrifice was fatal. The kings drew blood from other parts of the body, including the penis. The blood dripped on paper made of bark, which they burned to appease the gods.”
I cringed and said, “How would somebody get hold of a knife?”
“I suppose replicas are sold as souvenirs.”
“How’s about an original?”
“An archaeological find or theft from a museum. I’ve been thinking about what happened, Brick. Somebody you offended slashed our tires with a replica and broke it off to make a statement.”
“Offended,” I said, dumbfounded. “Me?”
That set off a case of the giggles that I contracted from her like a common cold. People were looking at us, so we retired to the cabin and continued to make fools of ourselves in several different ways I won’t elaborate on. At sundown I went out front to look for our rental car, which had just been delivered.
Darla was sitting on our porch in her bathrobe, arms wrapped around herself, shivering. “Brick, when you were out here and said you saw nothing, were you fibbing?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think I’d gone wacko.”
“Oh, I already do. Describe what you saw.” I did as I scanned the jungle shadows. “Don’t bother,” Darla said. “I didn’t see him at all, but I knew he was there and I know he’s gone.”
I had a hunch, and it didn’t take much doing to get Darla to play along. She went through her books until she came to a profile of Chan Bahlum.
“That’s him,” I said, tapping the picture. “Same as the head in the museum, same as our cabbie.”
“Brick, be reasonable. Chan Bahlum died thirteen hundred years ago.”
I could tell by the tone in her voice that Ms. Smarty-pants wasn’t so sure of herself any more. “Yeah, well, let’s find out.”
“How?”
“Ask him. We’ll go into town to eat — anyway, I’m hungry enough to eat a burro.”
The game plan was to have the desk clerk phone for a cab. If our Chan Bahlum lookalike wasn’t dispatched, we’d hang loose in Santo Domingo until we crossed paths. But there he was, parked next to our rental, leaning against a fender, smoking a cigarette. I hadn’t realized how short he was. Like other pureblooded Maya we’d seen, he couldn’t have been much over five feet tall, though he looked solid, like a cinder block stood on end.
“What’s next?” I asked him. “Sugar in the gas tank?”
He flicked his smoke onto the road and shrugged.
“Yeah, right. And my Aunt Hazel wears army boots.”
Darla told him in Spanish that we didn’t feel like driving and asked for a recommendation of a nice restaurant. He didn’t say a peep but took us to a decent-looking open-air cafe. Darla invited him to eat with us, to discuss a matter of great importance.
He shrugged again.
“That may be the truth, Brick. Spanish is still a second language to many Maya, who primarily speak their own tongue.”
“Maybe,” I said as we got out.
After I paid him, I held the obsidian knife tip in front of his face. “Lose something, Chan?”
He looked at it, then me, and said in English as stellar as mine, “Are you buying the dinner?”
“Off the top of the menu if you want. Anything your heart desires.”
He left his taxi where it was, parking regulations being kind of casual in Santo Domingo. We took a table, and he lit up. An unfiltered Camel, as a matter of fact. Darla saw me gaze fondly at his pack and moisten my lips, and said, “Brick, no.”
As soon as we ordered drinks, I said, “Okay, pal, who are you?”
He cocked his head toward Darla, cigarette hanging in a corner of his mug, a look I myself had copied from an old Cassavetes flick. “She understands the Maya concept of time.”
Darla told me, “The Maya believe that time is cyclical, an endless series of repeated patterns. The past always returns in a certain order. The past is the present and the future.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China, and what’s your beef with us?”
He chugged his Corona in one gulp and shook his head. “I dislike it when a tourist pokes his nose where it does not belong. This is twice. The other time was when a crackpot was preaching the space alien theory to his lamebrain followers. I could not tolerate this. I had to deal with him. I kicked him from the Temple of the Inscriptions to the Palace to the Temple of the Cross. You two are not in that crowd, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” Darla said.
“I get the program,” I said, nodding knowingly. “You have a bone to pick with tourists, and we’re your Ugly Americans du jour. You vandalize our car and lurk out in the woods in a tutu, trying to scare hell out of us.”
He blew a smoke ring. “A word of advice. Mind your own business.”
“Hey, murder is my business,” I snarled. “I don’t know the law in old Maya stomping grounds, but in this day and age there’s no statute of limitations. You throttle your old man, bub, sooner or later you gotta pay the fiddler, even if just in the history books.”
He held his fork like he was gonna use it on me. “Chan did not kill his father.” Before I could ask him how he knew, our food arrived. He dug into the biggest plate of enchiladas I’d ever seen, talking as he gobbled. “Before the flying saucer cultist lost consciousness, he said Lord Pacal was mentored by the king of Venus.”
“Okay, I don’t blame you for getting in the clown’s face, but why’d you act like a punk and slash our tires?”
He looked up from his food, which was already half scarfed down. “To let you know that our history is not to be trifled with.”
“I got Mr. Bahlum dead to rights. The proofs in the museum. Kan Xul, his kid brother with his ma and pa. Ring a bell?”
He laughed. “That?”
“What’s so damned funny?”
“I have nothing more to say to you.”
“That Miranda crap doesn’t wash with me.”
“Brick, please keep your voice down.”
He smiled. “You are angry. Are you going to hit me?”
“Don’t tempt me,” I said.
“Shall we step outside and get it over with?”
“We are outside. Kind of,” I said. “And I’d advise you to watch your mouth. I’m twice your size, you know.”
He shrugged, downed his last enchilada in one gulp, and said, “Of course if you do not have the guts.”
I came out of my chair like a Saturn booster. Darla rolled her eyes. “God, I don’t believe this.”
Before I could assure her I’d go easy on the little guy, he was leading us around the side, down stairs, and into what they had in mind when they coined the phrase “dark alley.”
“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you.”
He had his dukes up.
“If you children expect me to play the hysterical female, you’re sadly mistaken,” Darla said, arms folded. “I’m not cleaning anybody up afterward either.”
“Hey, let’s get on with it,” I said. “I’ll even give you the first punch.”
I didn’t figure he’d take me up on my offer, but he laid a fist into my ribs that felt like a sledgehammer. I made a whooshing noise like an airlock in a science fiction movie and landed on my knees. I couldn’t breathe, and he’d gone out of focus.
“Please listen to me,” he said.
“If you’ve had enough,” I gasped. Darla had a gentle hand on my shoulder in case I was inclined to bounce to my feet and finish him off.
“The representation of Chan Bahlum’s father, mother, and younger brother was of an event that took place after the death of his parents.”
Then to Darla he said, “You would have discovered the truth sooner or later in your readings. To the Maya, time is fluid. They were anointing Kan Xul to replace Chan after he died. Chan ruled until his death in your year 702. Kan Xul succeeded him. In 720 Kan was captured by one of Palenque’s enemies and sacrificed.”
Then to both of us, scanning us with eyes as dark and hard as obsidian, he said, “Lord Pacal died in a mysterious manner that you can perhaps explain to me.”
“Shoot,” I said, wincing.
“On the morning of your August 31, 683, he awakened ill in his stomach. It had been unbearably hot for days, so it was thought his nausea was a result of the heat. Soon he complained that his left arm was on fire, but no flame was seen. His chest felt to him as if ten men were standing on it. His breath came in gasps. Suddenly he was gone. Maya medicine could not save him. It is our belief that our gods sent for him uniquely. Is this true, or do others die this death?”
His obsidian eyes were shiny, damp. Darla and I looked at each other.
She said, “It is true. Lord Pacal was a great king for nearly seven decades. The gods could not invite him as they would an ordinary mortal.”
I thought he almost smiled, but I couldn’t vouch for that on account of after Darla helped me to my feet, he was gone. We went back to the café. We’d lost our appetites, but we stayed for coffee. We didn’t talk for a while. We watched this big fuss between the cops and a guy who said he was the rightful owner of the taxi.
Darla said, “It’s logical that they were unfamiliar with the symptoms of a heart attack. In that era they didn’t have the risk factors of coronary artery disease, and it was rare for a person to five long enough to die of a degenerative disease.”
I agreed. “Yeah. The biggest risk of heart trouble was having it sliced out of you. But answer me this, how come our cabbie didn’t know the signs that his ticker was kaput? These days twelve-year-olds take CPR training.”
She took my hand. “These days. Maybe those are the key words.”
“Maybe.”
“Case closed?”
“Case closed,” I said.
We headed out to Uxmal at oh-dark-thirty. We made a deal on the way. She wouldn’t pester me about culture if I kept my nose out of local business.
The rest of the trip she spent her days at ruins with her notebooks and camera. I reconnoitered the pool area with a cold one locked on my lips.
It was the best vacation of my life.
Miss Muffet had only that one second to decide what to do, and only two hands. Her spoon was in one of the hands, her bowl of curds and whey in the other. She set off pell-mell, milk dripping from the breakfast dish as she ran.
The tuffet was left behind, of course, just sitting in the meadow with no idea what had happened. It had not minded its work, which was usually to be sat on indoors, but it had not been tuffeting long enough to know this was unusual. I wonder if she’ll come back for me, the little cushion thought.
She never did, between her fear of spiders and the unreasoning terror that had made her forget exactly where in the countryside she’d been having her snack. For lack of anything else to do the tuffet waited.
The rain was an annoyance now and then, and for a while a batch of baby spiders lived in the lining, which the tuffet found ticklish. But by and large the tuffet found life in the meadow no more irritating than a life of being sat on in the house.
After several months the tuffet heard a sound of heavy breathing. It thought at first that this might be a cow. Cows had wandered through the meadow from time to time accompanied occasionally by a goat. But none of them had had any interest in tuffets.
This was a tall man, though, a man who had been dressed in bright armor and shining royal garb. The clothes were torn now, and the armor was dented. There were scorch marks on his helmet, and some of his hair was singed.
He was breathing hard and walking with difficulty. His eyes were wide with horror.
He’s seen a spider, thought the tuffet sagely.
The man looked over his shoulder and stumbled. His head came down smack in the middle of the tuffet. This appeared to surprise him. He tried, briefly, to rise. Then he put up a hand, pulled the tuffet up into a bunch under one ear, and went to sleep.
The nap was a brief one, but the man seemed gratified by it. “I’ll take you along,” he whispered, lifting the tuffet. “I may live to sleep again.” He thrust the cushion behind his breastplate and turned back the way he’d come.
One corner of the tuffet protruded from behind the armor so the cushion could see where it was heading. The man was making his way to a burned, broken forest. “General Keles?” he called. “Colonel Bural?”
No one answered. The tuffet couldn’t see where any spider could be hiding in all this devastation.
“They must have gone back to the castle,” the man murmured. “But where is the...”
“Araaaa!” something answered.
Slithering toward them came a long yellow snake. Flame flickered at its nostrils. Here we go again! thought the tuffet.
But the man did not run. Instead he reached to his waist and drew a sword.
“Well met, worm! Have you killed my friends?”
The creature was either snickering or taking deep breaths. A bolt of flame flew from its nose, sizzling the air around them. The man ducked, but his sword was knocked from his hand. As he reached for his dagger, the creature hurtled forward with surprising speed.
And the man could not touch his dagger. The tuffet was in the way. “Out!” ordered the man, pulling it free.
No need to shout, thought the tuffet. It isn’t
“Ack!”
The snake stopped short and twisted its head to one side, eyeing the man.
“What?” The man, about to drop the tuffet, took a step forward, the cushion upraised. “What is it, worm? You’re not afraid of a... a pillow?”
Tuffet, thought the tuffet.
“Ack,” the snake said again. “Ackackack.” It turned, starting away as quickly as it had started forward.
“No, you don’t!”
The man charged, reaching under his breastplate for his dagger. “Come back!” He ran after the big snake.
“Ackack,” the snake said, but now the man had caught up with it and was climbing its back. The snake’s head shook left and right, but the man held on with his knees, the dagger in one hand, the tuffet in the other.
“Ackackackack,” said the snake. “Ack-a-choo!”
This was the last thing it said.
“I don’t know what happened,” the man said when he was back at the castle, where his friends had indeed gone for shelter. “I shook this pillow at it, and it started to make strange sounds and tried to run.”
“Is the dragon allergic to feathers?” demanded the king.
“No,” said a tall man with a long grey beard, “only to dairy products. You weren’t eating your lunch near this pillow, were you? It looks over here as if someone spilled some whey on it.”
“We may never know,” said the man, who was the king’s son. “All we know is that, whatever power this pillow has, it has saved the kingdom.”
“We shall put it in the treasury,” the king decreed, “and all my magicians shall study it to find out what magic it possesses to so frighten a dragon.”
“It’s the stain,” murmured the man with the grey beard, but he took the tuffet to the treasury.
The tuffet waited there for a number of years, but no magician could ever decide why the dragon had turned and run. At length the young man became king himself and had the tuffet put in a public museum as a trophy of his greatest battle. The people came from miles around to see this and the dagger and the fangs of the dragon.
“Do you know, dear,” a middle-aged woman told her daughter, “I used to have a tuffet just like that when I was your age. I wonder whatever became of it.”
The tuffet studied the current size of the former Miss Muffet and shuddered. That, it thought, would be worse than spiders.
When he sees the piece in the morning paper, Mikey’s hand comes up and smacks his forehead medium hard, the sound like an echo of Ken Griffey’s bat saying hello to a fastball.
“Am I an idiot?” he asks the flaking walls of his bare-bones studio in a rotting concrete high-rise above English Bay. The last time the address was fashionable, so were wide-wale corduroy bell-bottoms. “I’m a total idiot. I been throwing away the jewels, selling the freaking boxes.”
He cuts the item out of the tabloid and takes it over to East Vancouver to show Cheeks. His pee-o-ess Toyota pickup with the cracked fiberglass canopy stalls on the off ramp of the Georgia Viaduct, then the battery dies before he can get it going again, so he has to give a cabbie his last twelve bucks for a jump start.
The fat man is in the back room eating little cake doughnuts, one bite apiece, while his bratwurst fingers poke around in the guts of a Trinitron spread over the repair bench.
“You got something for me?” Cheeks says. He always looks first to see if there’s anything in Mikey’s hands before raising his beer-colored eyes to the burglar’s face.
“I got opportunity is what I got,” says Mikey. “Check this out.”
Cheeks reads the clipping, flakes of powdered sugar falling from silently moving, pink lips. Halfway through, he pushes the little square of newsprint away. “What is this crap? All I see, some broad is counting whales, somebody lifts her laptop, now she’s crying about it.”
“Go all the way to the end,” Mikey says.
Cheeks sighs and rubs the roll of suet that is the nape of his neck, then works his way to the last paragraph. He reaches for another doughnut. “So?”
“You don’t see it?” Mikey says. “It says five grand reward.”
“So what? We ain’t got what she’s paying for.”
Mikey wants to hit his forehead again. Instead, he spells it out for Cheeks. “Okay,” he says, “the broad is a scientist, right, she’s out looking at whales — what’s it say there? — three years, making her notes, keeping track. All this work she puts into her laptop, which is this total junk Panasonic 386 that’s worth, tops, ten bucks to some crackhead who busts her car window and hustles it in the beer parlor.”
Cheeks digs around in his teeth for a glob of doughnut, sucks it off his finger. “I got stuff to do here,” he says. “Whaddaya trying to say?”
“I’m saying the hardware is worth it all. The information, man, that’s gold.”
Another doughnut. “When does this add up to something for me?”
Mikey walks him through it. Two years he’s been bringing Cheeks any computer hardware he picks up. The fence breaks up the desktop PC’s, reformats the disks, and sells them along with the CPU’s and RAM chips on the gray market. Notebooks stay in one piece, passed on whole to a collector who ships them to Eastern Europe.
“But some of these decks, man, they’re full of information that’s worth a whole lot to the schmuck that lost them. I mean, this babe with the whales, probably doesn’t own one pair decent shoes, she’s ready to drop five grand. So what’s some suit gonna pay, we can give him his whole business back?”
Cheeks pulls something out of the Trinitron, looks at it, and gropes around under the doughnut box, hunting up his multimeter. “The guy’s gonna have backups, disks.”
“Miss Whale Watcher got no backups.”
“So she’s stupid.”
“People weren’t stupid, how’d we make a living?” Mikey says. “ ’Sides, half the time I’m in somebody’s place lifting a deck, the backup disks are right there, on the shelf maybe, in the drawer.”
Cheeks finds the multimeter, tests the component, puts it back. He pulls at his nose, makes a horse noise with his lips, then says, “Nah. My business, I just want something to sell. What you’re talking, you gotta make contact, stage a drop, use cutouts. That’s complications. One little thing goes wrong, bang, it’s you in the jackpot.”
“I already worked it out,” Mikey says. “I got it covered, Cheeks.”
“Uh-uh.”
Mikey lets out his breath. “Listen, you don’t want in, fine. But how ’bout you front me maybe two, three grand to set it up? I’ll give you payback outa the first score plus, say, twenty points the first year, ten points the second.”
“Gross or net?” Cheeks wants to know.
“Gross.”
Cheeks considers it but shakes his head. After the last shake his jowls are still moving. “Nah. People should be what they are. You’re a pretty good burglar. I’m a good fence. Let’s leave it like that. Bring me something I can sell.”
“Okay,” says Mikey, talking to the Toyota’s dashboard as he nurses it back to the West End. “The hard way.”
He knows there are really two hard ways. But he’s not going to take the one where he goes to Angie Tedesco and borrows at six for five. ’Cause it might turn out, just maybe, he doesn’t have it covered the way he was telling Cheeks.
“Then I’m screwed, blued, and tattooed,” he says to the yuppie in the Saab who’s nuzzling the pickup’s back bumper, itching to cut around and get downtown and make some more deals.
“I can’t pay the vig, Angie seizes my collateral, then he twists them off.”
The other hard way is one Mikey’s been thinking about since the time he was on probation and working as a window cleaner and got a look into the government office at lunchtime. He still has the big squeegee and the jumpsuit he kept when probation ended and he stopped going in.
It’s daylight work, scary. But he doesn’t give himself time to think. A few minutes past noon he walks into the Sinclair Center on West Hastings. The words E-Z KLEEN are stitched across his back in faded blue thread, and the squeegee sticks out of a gym bag stuffed with crumpled newspapers. Mikey moves against the flow of civil servants heading for the food fair or the up-market Italian restaurant. The commissionaire looks him over.
“How’s it going?” Mikey says.
The face is familiar enough that the guard nods.
Six minutes and Mikey’s in the pickup again, pulling away. Sweat sticks the coverall to his back, but the bag on the seat beside him now holds four good notebooks, retail eight to ten grand apiece, that would not be waiting on their owners’ desks after lunch.
Cheeks pays seven fifty each for the decks. “You get more, I’ll take ’em,” he says. “These I can sell.”
Mikey buys phony I.D.’s from the guy at the photocopy store, then spends a couple of days opening bank accounts, fifty or sixty bucks each, at branches all over the city, all under different names. Each account gets him an over-the-counter ATM card. He has the banks send the PIN numbers to a post office box he rents at a no-questions place on West Broadway.
From a guy he knows is okay he buys a cloned cell phone, good for a month until the citizen paying for all the calls sees his bill. Last, he goes to an Internet cafe, where anybody can log on for two bucks an hour, and a white-faced kid with round glasses and chin stubble shows him how to do what he needs to do.
Now he has to wait a week for the PIN’s to come through. He spends the time scoping out targets. First he thinks it through, working out the profile of a soft hit. From the yellow pages he makes a list of one-man chartered accountant and tax consulting firms with office addresses in the better suburbs. Then he cruises the prospects, looking for ground floor locations, alleys he can park in, windows he can break. Alarms don’t worry him: police response time is fifteen minutes on a slow night; he means to be faster than that.
Mikey finds three he likes, two accountants and a tax consultant. After the PIN’s come, he does them — one, two, three — between ten and eleven the same night. His method of operation is the same for each job: he puts the Toyota under a window, climbs up and smashes in with an arm-long crowbar. Inside, he locates the computer, pulls its leads free or snips them with wirecutters if they’re screwed in. He pries open drawers and cupboards, loads any disks he finds into the gym bag, and carries it all to the window.
He’s quick and efficient. His slowest on-the-job time this night is under three minutes — there are two desktop decks to cut free and take to the window, but he saves time on the backup disks, neatly boxed in the accountant’s bottom drawer.
Mikey’s home before midnight, too wired to sleep. One by one he connects the decks to a monitor lifted from one of the offices, powers them up, and scans the hard drives. Each one is loaded with data, a lot of the files hidden behind passwords.
“Password, my ass,” he tells the monitor screen.
Mikey waits until a quarter to noon before calling the first hit — he figures it’s easier to negotiate with a guy whose belly is thinking about a Big Mac. It’s a dud. When the tax consultant hears Mikey’s proposition, he says, “Shove the disks up your ass. My whole operation’s backed up on a notebook at home. You didn’t even break my stride, you scuz.”
Mikey shrugs and dials the second one. He tells the girl who answers he needs to speak to the boss.
“I got your stuff,” he tells the accountant.
The guy is slow. “What?”
“You didn’t notice something was missing this morning? I got it.”
There’s a short silence. “You’re the burglar?”
“Ding,” says Mikey.
“What do you want?”
“I wanna sell you your backup disks.”
The man tells Mikey to do something anatomically inappropriate.
“Okay.” But Mikey doesn’t hit the cell’s off button.
“No, wait!” the accountant says, and Mikey can see him now, chewing his lip, thinking about it. “How much are we talking about?”
Go high, Mikey says to himself. “Ten,” he tells the voice on the phone.
“Ten what? Ten thousand? You are outa your goddamn mind!”
“Yeah?” Mikey comes back. “So whatta you offering?”
Another silence, then, “I’ll go two.”
Mikey laughs. “If you’re going two, then it’s worth ten.”
The accountant doesn’t know many swear words. In only ten seconds he’s repeating himself.
Mikey cuts in. “Hey! Any more of this abuse, the price goes up. Or maybe you never see your files again.”
The man on the phone is choking it down. “Okay,” he says, “ten. What do we do?”
“We stop thinking about calling the cops in and phone traces and all that TV crap. I’m on a cell clone, you know what that means?”
“I know.”
“Good. You got a cell?”
“Yeah.”
“Gimme the number.” Mikey writes it on a pad. “Okay, go get the ten grand, fifties and hundreds. I’ll call you back, one hour.”
“Wait! How do I know you’ve got my files? Maybe you just read in the paper about the break-in, and you’re gonna try and rip me off.”
Mikey is ready for the question. He reads off the names of a couple of files.
“Okay,” says the accountant, “one hour.”
While he’s waiting, Mikey calls the third opportunity. The man is a recent immigrant. His thick Chinese accent gives Mikey a fit-tie trouble, but it doesn’t take too long to make an arrangement. Mikey settles for five and arranges to call back. It’s embarrassing because the guy is crying and talking about his children.
“Man’s either a great negotiator or a freaking great actor,” he says to the parking lot where he’d stopped to make the calls.
At one o’clock he calls the cell phone of the accountant with the ten thousand, tells him to put two grand in a certain account at the TD bank at Forty-First and Boulevard.
“How do I know you’re going to come across with the files?” the man wants to know.
“If I rip you off, you’ll tell your friends. Then how’m I going to do business with the next guy?”
“That’s bull.”
“Then you just gotta trust me,” Mikey says. “Put the money in.”
Mikey waits by an ATM on Commercial Drive, sitting on the Toyota’s hood, kicking a front tire with his heel. He gives it twenty minutes, then puts his card in and checks the balance of the TD account. The screen says the balance is two thousand fifty dollars.
The bank card will only let him withdraw a thousand a day. He takes half of the two thousand and tells the bank to transfer the remaining money to another of his accounts. Then he uses the second account’s card to withdraw the other grand.
“Hoo hoo,” Mikey says, and dials the accountant’s cell again. This time he wants four grand in a Bank of Montreal account on Oak Street. While the accountant is traveling, Mikey heads to another ATM.
He takes the thousand the machine will give him and moves the other three grand to other accounts and drains them. Then he sends the accountant to another bank to drop the last installment of the ten thousand, and it works again.
“Smooth,” Mikey says. The ten thousand goes into a safe deposit box at a bank where he does no other business. Then he drives out to an Internet cafe in the yuppie stronghold of Kitsilano. He calls the accountant one last time and gets the man’s modem number, dials it up, and uploads the twelve data disks through the big funnel of the cafe’s 56 modem.
“You seeing it come through?” he asks the accountant.
“Yeah,” comes the answer.
“Here comes the last one. Nice doing business with you.”
“Bite me.”
Mikey laughs and heads out the door to his pickup. As he walks, he dials the Chinese accountant’s cell. The man is blubbering again, but he’s ready with the five.
“Okay, stop making all the damn noise,” Mikey says. “I’m trying to tell you what you gotta do.”
He gives instructions, then hangs up. He thinks about the man scurrying around to get him some money. “This is how it feels,” he tells the guy with the grin in his rear view mirror. “This is how it feels to be like Angie T. This is how it feels to be
“You shoulda come in with me,” Mikey says.
“Gimme them pan-fried noodles,” Cheeks says.
Mikey passes the dish. He’s just picking at the ginger beef and shrimp chow yoke, a little steamed rice in a bowl. There are three more heaping piles of Chinese food on the table and Cheeks is eating from every one, using the serving spoon that came with the rice.
The proprietor brings over a platter of garlic prawns, then goes into the kitchen, starts yelling something in Chinese. There’s nobody else in the place.
“You’re lucky you can eat like that,” Mikey says. “A burglar, you don’t keep the weight down, some night you get stuck in a narrow window. The cops come, they’re all laughing at you, or maybe it’s the guy owns the place finds you, gets himself a two by four.”
Cheeks grunts.
“What I’m doing now, it’s better,” Mikey says. He fingers his shirt. “Silk. You shoulda come in with me. I got six guys working that I trained myself. We’re grossing ten, fifteen grand a night. I been clearing forty a week for six months, not counting what I get from you for the decks.”
Cheeks stops eating for a moment. “You got anything for me now?”
“I got eight desktops, three notebooks.”
“I’ll take ’em,” Cheeks says. “Something I can sell.”
“They’re in the truck. See that nice little Subaru out there? The weekend, I got a Porsche.”
Cheeks doesn’t bother to turn and look.
“Yeah, nice.”
Mikey leans back in the chair. “So, Cheeks, why you call me? You don’t want to get in on my thing now the money’s flowing?”
Cheeks’ small teeth crunch through crisp batter and into a prawn. “Nah. I just sell what people want to buy.”
“I don’t get it,” Mikey says. “You want to sell me something?”
Cheeks says nothing. Now Mikey notices that the only sound he’s hearing is what’s coming from the lips and nose of the fence as he’s eating. There’s not even any noise from the kitchen.
Mikey gets up, but so does Cheeks. His speed is surprising for a fat man, and he’s wider than the front door. Mikey backs a step away, turns toward the back, and freezes. He swallows and says, “Hi, Angie, how’s it going?”
Angie Tedesco comes out of the kitchen, a compact man with hands too big for comfort. The guy behind him, about the size of the Marine Building but made of harder stuff, has an aluminum softball bat. He’s rolling the wide rack of his shoulders to loosen them up.
“We need to talk about this new line of business you been starting,” Angie says, then adds, “...for us.”
Mikey turns to the fat man. “Jesus, Cheeks...”
The fence shrugs.
“Mikey, you bring me something I can sell, you think I’m not gonna sell it?”