The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  “See you then.”

  Martin Jeffers started up the car and fought his way through the building morning traffic. He realized he had no plan other than simply barging in on the people who were there. What are you going to say? he asked himself. What are you going to tell them? Excuse me, sir or madam, but you wouldn’t happen to have seen a man bearing a family resemblance to yours truly dripping blood in the neighborhood?

  What can you say other than the truth?

  He realized that was impossible. This particular truth was too far removed from reality to absorb at eight a.m. on a late-summer morning, when eating a leisurely breakfast before heading to the beach.

  So, he thought, just tell them he’s lost and you’re trying to find him. Tell them he’s in a fugue state, wandering between poles of memory, disengaged from life, like everyone’s crazy Aunt Sadie, who one day simply walked off and took a train to St. Louis. Tell them he’s harmless. Tell them you’re concerned. Tell them anything.

  Every construction he tried sounded equally far-fetched.

  Just tell them you’re looking for your brother and once you lived in this house and you thought he might have come visiting.

  Tell them what they want to hear.

  This, he admitted to himself, is going to be impossible.

  But he realized that embarrassment was by far the least terrible thing that could happen.

  He drove through the rising morning, darting between the shadows the green trees tossed so casually across the road. He was driving unconsciously, letting his memory take over and steer the car. Distances seemed strangely different, first longer, then shorter. He saw the houses that he remembered, and new buildings that he didn’t. He was pleased, in an odd way, to see that the general store in the tiny town of West Tisbury had not changed. He cruised past, heading toward the turnoff.

  He continued following the path of his past. He thought: The hospital is that way. But we didn’t have to drive fast, because there was no hope.

  He saw the great sand-pit entrance to the road off to his right and slowed. He was surprised that he’d found it, and equally surprised that it looked the same. He hesitated only momentarily before heading down the road. The washboard dirt surface pitched the rental car about, and he heard the paint being scratched on the sides where the bramble bushes bent toward the road. He recalled why the road had never been improved: the people who lived down it wanted to discourage anyone from coming sightseeing. He hit a bump and heard the bottom of the car scrape violently against the rocks and dirt. They were always successful, he thought.

  He had driven several miles when he came to the trees with the colored arrows. He didn’t bother to check; he knew which fork to take, even after so many years. He could feel his pulse quickening as he steered through the overhanging trees.

  I never thought I would return, he said to himself for the thousandth time.

  He emerged from the trees and caught his first sight of the pond off to the side of the road. In the far distance he could see, just barely, the glint of the sun as it hit the ocean. There were a half-dozen bright triangular sails from small boats already cutting across the pond toward the beach. His eyes focused on a farmhouse several hundred yards across the water. Old man Johnson, he thought, smiling. The old bastard. I wonder if he’s still shooting at kids who drive on the sand dunes? He stopped and rolled down the window. He could hear the surf in the distance, and he wondered why such a constant and violent sound was also so soothing.

  He looked down the road and caught sight of the house.

  The best worst place.

  He closed his eyes and tried to think of what he would say and realized that he would simply have to rely on whatever words came to him. The important thing, he thought, is to seem open and friendly and nonthreatening. Just get in the door, he thought, and then see what happens.

  He drove the last quarter mile and pulled into a small driveway. He got out of the car and stared up at the house. He could see that it had received some new gray shingles and some of the windows appeared new. It was a low, single-story, old Cape design, with a front door that looked back at the road and a back side of the house that looked out over the pond toward the ocean.

  Finger Point, he thought. The spit of land reaches out into the pond, pointing at the ocean. Not a particularly interesting method of naming a piece of property, but accurate. He looked out at sea grass waving in the breeze across the water on the Johnson property and remembered running through the grass, the blades slicing at him, oblivious to the sharpness of the pain, trying to keep up with his brother. He shut his eyes and felt the sun striking his head and shoulders. For a moment he felt completely foolish, then completely terrified. He wanted to get back in the car and drive away. He’s not here, he thought. He’s somewhere, lost in America, doing terrible things. He’s gone forever. Just turn and leave and never think of him again.

  He knew that was impossible and he opened his eyes.

  You made it this far without turning back. Might as well make a complete ass of yourself.

  He walked up to the front door and knocked loudly.

  Sorry, he said to himself. I hope I’m not getting anyone out of bed. He heard footsteps from inside and then the front door opened.

  It was a young woman, pretty, in her early twenties, Jeffers guessed, with blond hair that was set off by her black mechanic’s outfit.

  “Excuse me,” Martin Jeffers started. He thought she was dressed unusually for a summer morning, but he did not have time to assess this idea. “I know it’s early and I’m terribly sorry to be bothering you, but . . .”

  And then he stopped.

  The young woman was staring wide-eyed at him, as if shocked by his appearance. He saw her eyes absorb the details of his features.

  “I’m sorry . . .” he started in again.

  “But why?” came the terrible, mocking, but totally familiar voice behind him.

  The membership of the Lost Boys filed slowly into the sunlit day room and took their customary seats. This they did out of habit and the demands of hospital scheduling, which told them that in this time period they were to be in this room, doing this therapy. Deviations from the normal routine were discouraged. So they went, knowing that the normal routine had already been shattered. But they were all well versed enough in the ways of bureaucracies to understand that, even if there were to be no session, they surely were required to be there until told explicitly to the contrary. They knew that Martin Jeffers would not be there, for he’d told them that himself. They knew that their session would consist of sitting about while some other doctor, thrust by his precipitous departure, filled in. They also knew they’d tell the new doctor nothing.

  They waited, smoking, talking quietly amongst themselves, idly curious as to what would happen.

  They were, to a man, shocked when Detective Mercedes Barren walked through the door.

  In the silence that accompanied her entry, Detective Barren fixed the room with a rock-hard glare. These, she thought, are my natural enemies. She could feel goosebumps on her skin.

  The room was empty of sound.

  She waited for an instant, then walked to the front of the group. She could feel their eyes on her. They did not know who she was, of course, but she knew they hated her, instantly, profoundly.

  As she did them.

  She turned and faced the group.

  Slowly, exaggerating her movements, she reached into her bag and brought out her gold shield. She held it high, so they could all see it clearly. It reflected the sunlight, glowing in her hand.

  “My name is Mercedes Barren,” she said firmly. “Detective. City of Miami Police Department.”

  She paused.

  “If it had been me on your case, you’d be doing hard time.”

  This was stated as a blunt fact.

/>   The room remained quiet. She had little doubt that the men absorbed her words carefully. Now, she thought, throw them the curve.

  “Your regular group leader is Doctor Martin Jeffers. He left the hospital suddenly yesterday afternoon, not long after meeting with you men . . .”

  She paused.

  “Where is he?”

  The room exploded into a cacophony of conversation; the men had their heads together, everyone talking at once.

  She held up her hand, and the twelve pairs of eyes rested back on her.

  “Where did he go?”

  There was another flurry of talk that faded swiftly into a belligerent silence. Finally one man, a pockmarked, heavyset man with a ready sneer, said, “Fuck you, lady.”

  “What’s your name?”

  ‘‘Miller.”

  “You facing a little prison time after this holiday is over, Miller? Maybe you’d like to do it in maximum security?”

  “I can do the time,” Miller replied.

  “I hope so.”

  Again silence took over until a smallish round man waved his hand at Detective Barren. She nodded in his direction and he spoke in a sarcastic, effeminate voice:

  “Why, detective, should we bother to help you?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Steele,” he said. “But my friends call me Petey.”

  “If you had any,” said another voice. She couldn’t tell who and she had to force herself not to smile. There was a smattering of laughter in the room.

  “All right, Steele, I’ll tell you why you should help me. Because you are all criminals. And just who the hell do you think helps the police? That’s the way things work, you know. Bad guys know where other bad guys are.”

  “You saying the doc’s a bad guy?” This was Bryan speaking.

  “No. I’m not. But he went after somebody real bad.”

  “Who?” It was Senderling and Knight together.

  She hesitated. Well, why not?

  “You all help me, I’ll tell you. I just want an agreement first.”

  She looked around the room. She saw the men leaning their heads together. “All right,” said Knight and Senderling, both. “We’ll help.” They laughed. “Got nothing to lose.”

  “Except maybe the d-d-d-doc’s trust,” stuttered Wasserman.

  That made the men pause.

  “What’s in it for us?” Miller asked.

  “Nothing solid. You just get to know a little bit. Information is always valuable.”

  Miller snorted. “You’re just like every cop, even if you ain’t got the right equipment. You want to get something for nothing.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Look,” said Parker, “if we help you a little, can you promise that the doc won’t get hurt? I mean, legally, too, not just physically.”

  “Doctor Jeffers is not the subject of my investigation,” Detective Barren replied. “But he knows the person who is. I want to keep him from getting himself into more trouble. How’s that?”

  “I don’t trust no cops,” said Miller.

  “Well, is the doctor in danger?” asked Bryan.

  Maybe. Maybe not. She didn’t know. So she lied.

  “Yes. Absolutely. But he doesn’t know it.”

  This made the men start murmuring again.

  “Tell you what,” Knight said. “You tell us what the deal is, who this bad dude is, and we’ll see if we can help.”

  Detective Barren shrugged. She knew that if she were to get any information out of the group, she would have to keep the conversation flowing. If she stonewalled, so would they.

  She took a deep breath and answered:

  “His brother.”

  There was an instant’s silence, then Steele began to whoop and clap his hands. He jumped from his seat and danced about the day room. “I knew it, I knew it. Pay up! Pay up! You, Bryan, two packs of cigarettes. You, Miller, three packs. All you dumb fuckers who bet against me—I told you it was a relative! It had to be! Pay up! Pay up!”

  She saw the men grumbling.

  “So,” she demanded, “where did he go?”

  “He d-d-d-didn’t say,” Wasserman replied.

  “He wasn’t specific,” Weingarten jumped in. “He just said this guy, he didn’t say who, was worse than us. He said the guy was visiting memories. I didn’t think we said all that much to help him.”

  “Yeah, except all of a sudden he jumps up and takes off.” This was Parker.

  “He had it all fucking backwards anyway,” Miller grunted. “He wasn’t sure what sort of memory he was looking for. We had to straighten him out. We told him to look for the worst memory, because that would be the best for someone like us.”

  “What did you say exactly?” Detective Barren leaned forward.

  “Shit, who knows? We said a lot of things.”

  “Yes, but one thing you said made him think of something.”

  The men all started talking together again.

  “We said a lot of things,” Miller insisted.

  “Come on, dammit! What was said?”

  “He wanted to know what happened so that we became free, you know, free to do what we do.”

  “What?”

  “He asked us what started us. You know. What got us going.”

  She took a deep breath and it made perfect sense to her. He had demanded the key. And they’d given it to him.

  “So what was said? What was it?”

  The men in the room stared at her angrily. She could sense the strength of hatred that they had for her, not merely as a policeman, but as a woman. She met their eyes, filling her own gaze with all the power she could find within her.

  The silence was like oil, spread over everything.

  She wanted to scream.

  Tell me, she shouted in her mind. Tell me!

  “I know,” came a deep voice from the back. It was Pope. She leaned forward and met his eyes. Here, she thought to herself, is a truly terrifying man. She had a sudden horrifying image of the man, grabbing her, ripping at her clothes. She wondered how many women had had that nightmare in reality.

  “I know what I said. And it made him think of something.”

  “What?”

  Pope hesitated. Then he shrugged.

  “I hope everyone dies,” he said under his voice.

  He looked at Detective Barren. “I said, ‘Look for a death or a departure.’ It always starts with one or the other. Sometimes they’re the same.”

  She leaned back in a chair. A departure, she thought. We went there. New Hampshire.

  “That’s it?” she asked. She hid the defeat from her voice.

  “That was it. He stood up and took a hike.”

  “S-s-s-sorry, d-d-d-detective . . .”

  She stared at the men. She wondered how many deaths were spread about the room. How many ruined lives. She shivered inwardly.

  Then she thought: A death. A ruined life.

  The idea formed slowly, like a cyclone deep in the distance, but gaining power and strength with each passing second. She felt flushed, as if the heat in the room had suddenly spiked, and she thought of something Martin Jeffers had said in passing a few days beforehand: The bastard didn’t even give us his name. And he died, in an accident.

  She put her hand to her forehead, as if feeling her temperature. She looked out at the glowing eyes of the men around her. She stood up, unaware that she was mimicking Martin Jeffers.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  I know, she thought. I know.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe. At least it’s a place to start.

  She pictured the aged newspaper in the box beneath Martin Jeffer
s’ bed. Go! The voice deep within her screamed. Go! It will tell you where he’s gone! She had only a moment to berate herself for missing the obvious the first time she broke into Martin Jeffers’ apartment. This time, she thought, you know what you’re looking for. Go! Go! Go!

  She turned abruptly and left the men muttering behind her.

  Her heels echoed a staccato, machine-gun sound, as she rushed from the hospital.

  XIV

  NO MAN’S LAND

  19. Holt Overholser, sixty-three years old, the chief of the West Tisbury police force, and its only year-round member, fiddled with the paperwork on his desk, inwardly complaining about the influx of summer people who paid his salary every year, but who also neglected to obey the posted speed limits and were forever trying to toss out their garbage at the town dump on days it was officially closed. He had spent much of the afternoon with his radar detector, ticketing cars. The selectmen had put up a speed limit 15 sign a half mile from the center of town, knowing that no one would slow that much until they at least got past the Presbyterian Church. This was where Holt parked, waving every other car over and handing the driver a $25 speeding ticket, which he’d had the sense to fill out in advance.

  This had become a major source of revenue for the town; the selectmen were pleased and Holt was pleased. Last year they’d made enough to get him a new Ford Bronco with four-wheel drive and the special police package. This year, he thought, they’d get those new walkie-talkies that clip onto the belt, with the microphone up on the shoulder, like the ones they wore on Hill Street Blues sometimes. That was Holt’s favorite show, and much of his police training had been acquired from a religious watching of it and other shows, dating all the way back to Dragnet. Every time he signed off the radio, he said, “Ten-four,” in the same gruff manner that Broderick Crawford had made famous. He wondered whether there would be any good police shows in the upcoming television season. He doubted it; cops seemed to have swung out of favor again and it would probably be a couple of years before television tried something new. He didn’t count Miami Vice as a police show.

  Holt leafed through the ticket book, making certain everything was legible before sending it over to the town clerk’s office. He’d written forty-seven tickets in four hot hours. That was three shy of his record, he thought ruefully. But Labor Day was fast approaching, and he was confident that he would not only break his record but shatter it.