by Hannah Tinti
“Can you walk?” Hawley asked. Talbot’s wife nodded, then winced. Her cloudy eye was spinning up, down, left, while her violet eye stayed on Hawley. “We’re going to the hallway,” he called to Talbot, and then they did, moving slowly, her pressing the pot holder to her throat and Hawley right behind with the gun, leaving two trails of blood behind them.
When they reached the closet, Talbot’s wife slid down against the wall. The floor was still littered with all the junk that had collapsed on top of Hawley earlier, mountains of clothes and boxes and all the drawings.
“Where is it?” Hawley asked.
Talbot’s wife shook her head.
“Tell me where,” Hawley yelled. “Now.”
“The dress.” Talbot’s voice came from behind the door. “Her wedding dress.”
Hawley turned to the wife.
“It’s in the back.” She closed her eyes. “Behind everything else.”
Hawley moved the gun to his bad hand. The tendons in his arm burned with the weight of it. His palm was covered with blood and the metal was slippery. With his right he started throwing things out of the closet, a life’s worth of memories. Overcoats and photo albums and dishes, a set of old 78 records, silk flowers, a moth-eaten batting for a quilt, fire tongs and lightbulbs and stiff leather jackets. Hawley’s shoulder ached with hurt as he tossed everything, groping in the dark as he went deeper, dragging the boxes and kicking them behind, the smell of mothballs permeating it all, until at last his fingers grazed a soft shape covered in plastic, then the crush of crinoline against the back wall of the closet. Hawley felt for the hanger and pulled the garment bag out. It was awkward and heavy as a body, the plastic yellowed and torn at the seams.
He hung it on the hall light and pulled down the zipper. The dress looked like something out of the fifties, with lace sleeves and a tulle skirt. The shape was stuffed with tissue paper and cardboard, so that it held the form of a woman. A headless ghost bride.
“I was skinnier then,” Talbot’s wife said.
Hawley didn’t know the first place to start. He’d already bled on the dress, a streak of red across the bodice. “Where’d he put it?”
“Try the purse,” she said.
There was a pale silk drawstring bag attached to the neck of the hanger. Hawley yanked it free and stuffed his hand inside. He pulled out a piece of lace. There were a few bobby pins in the bottom, but nothing else.
Talbot’s wife held out her hand and Hawley passed her the veil. She didn’t put it on, just pulled the lace across her lap and fingered the edges. Hawley listened for Talbot. He listened for Jove. But all he could hear was the toilet running. “Where else?”
“There’s a pocket,” she said. “He put the letter there, the one I was telling you about. I carried it with me down the aisle.”
Hawley groped the skirt, pushed the tulle aside, and then he felt the pocket, hidden on the left, just where the bride’s hip curved out from the waist. He pushed his fingers inside and found what they’d been searching for, there beneath the folds, cold and hard and waiting.
The watch was not nearly as large as he had expected it to be, but it was heavy, resting in the center of his palm, a precious thing from another century. He ran his thumb over the winding key and the intricate carving of a deer on the cover before he pushed on the knob and the clamshell flipped open, revealing a face set with luminous numbers and four smaller dials, including a flyback chronograph, a calendar indicating the day and month and a window displaying the phases of the moon. Hawley pressed the crown for a second time and the gold lid split in two. This was the feature he’d been told to look for—the rotating sky chart hidden within the lid, set with hundreds of tiny stars and constellations—yellow diamonds and sapphires of the brightest, darkest blue. Hawley wound the key and lifted the watch to his ear. The gears connected. The heart of the machine began to whir.
“Was it there?” the woman asked.
“Yes.” Hawley closed the shell. He slipped the piece into his front pocket. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “I’m going to get my friend and we’re going to leave. Then your husband’s going to take you to the hospital.”
“All right,” she said. But Hawley could tell she didn’t believe him.
“I’m sorry about your dress,” he said.
“I just want to lie down.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hawley was afraid she’d bleed out. “Talbot,” he shouted. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” the old man answered.
“Here comes your wife.”
The woman tried to stand, then fell back on the floor.
Hawley bent next to her. “Hold on to me,” he said, and together they got off the ground, his good arm at her waist, his bad arm holding the gun. They stood on the drawings. She clutched the veil in one hand and with the other hand she kept the pot holder pressed to her throat. Hawley half-carried her down the hall, his shoulder streaming with pain, the wood slippery under their feet.
She began to mumble, her breath close to his ear.
“You want something?” Hawley asked.
“The letter,” she said. Her voice was so soft it could have been a secret, it could have been the name of someone she loved.
“Maureen?” Talbot called, but she was too weak to say anything else, too weak to walk, too weak, Hawley could see, to make it to the hospital.
“I’m going to open the door now,” said Hawley, “and you’re going to take her and put her in the car and then you’re going to drive her to the doctor.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Talbot’s voice sounded like it was coming from the other side of the keyhole. Close enough to shoot point-blank. Hawley positioned himself behind the woman. He switched the revolver back to his good arm, then he unlocked the door.
Talbot looked the same as he did on the coffee mug: like he was from another time; like that watch could have belonged to him when it was brand-new. He was wearing a fisherman’s vest, with all of the extra pockets and zippers. But his hair was wild and gray and thick with curls, the sideburns stretching along the edge of his chin and nearly touching. He was as tall as Hawley and strong, despite his age. One of those tough guys who thickened with muscle as he got older.
Talbot’s eyes grew wide as he caught sight of his bloodied wife. Hawley was afraid the old man was having a stroke—but Talbot rushed forward and took the woman in his arms and started shaking her instead. Shaking her like she was choking and he was trying to dislodge a bone that had caught, until the pot holder fell to the porch and exposed the gaping wound, and a stream of blood splattered across the floor. The old man still had his rifle. His hands clutched the barrel as tightly as they clutched his wife.
“Give me the gun.”
“If my wife dies I’m going to kill you,” said Talbot. “I’m going to hunt you out of your fucking hole and rip your guts out.”
Hawley bent down slowly and picked up the pot holder with his bad hand, keeping the .45 pointed at Talbot. It hurt to use his fingers but he lifted the cloth and passed it over. Talbot exchanged his rifle for the pot holder without another word, pressing the thick quilted square against his wife’s neck. The woman looked worse than ever; with each passing moment her violet eye became more like the clouded eye, unfocused and turning. And then she coughed out a stream of blood all over Talbot’s fishing vest.
Together they managed the woman across the lawn and over to the pickup truck. Talbot cranked open the giant red doors. Hawley lifted her and Talbot climbed in and laid her across the backseat, then he hurried around and started scrambling into the front. Hawley held the door open a moment longer and took in the wife’s swollen nose, her milky eye searching the sky behind him. She was still holding the veil.
“She wants that letter you wrote,” said Hawley. “The one in the dress.”
“It’s gone,” said Talbot. “I threw it out.”
“Then tell her what it said. Tell her while
you’re driving,” said Hawley, and he slammed the door shut on them both. Talbot revved the engine and tore down the road, spitting gravel and dust, and it was only then that Hawley thought of the stolen car they’d left blocking the road. He waited. He waited some more. Then he heard the crash and crunch of metal and the sound of the Talbots’ monstrous truck pushing past the gate.
Back inside the house the carpet was soaked with water. Hawley made his way down the hall, then opened the door to the bathroom. Jove was right where he’d left him, the bathtub full to the brim and overflowing across the tile floor. It looked like Jove was sleeping. His head was tilted back against the lip of the porcelain and his face was covered with tiny white blisters.
Hawley closed the tub faucet. Then he walked over to the toilet, lifted the back lid, reached into the rusted water and stopped it from running. The high-pitched squeal of the pipes eased off and then there was silence. Hawley went to the kitchen, his boots squishing along the carpet, took down the whiskey and drank straight from the bottle, until his nerves started to settle again. Then he went back to the bathroom, checked his shoulder, cleaned out the wound with some hydrogen peroxide and packed it with bandages and tape. He found a bottle of expired Percocet and took two and washed them down with the whiskey. Then he shook Jove.
The man opened his eyes. He took the pills from Hawley’s hand and tossed them down his throat. “You got it?”
“Yeah,” said Hawley.
“Let me see it.”
Hawley reached into his pocket and took out the watch. He pushed the key and showed him the hidden star chart. Jove blinked and leaned in close. He lifted one of his arms out of the cold water and stroked the diamonds with his burnt red finger.
“Hard to believe it’s worth so much.”
They took Talbot’s rifle and their own guns and the whiskey and the cooler of salmon between them and started down the driveway. Jove limped along in some dry clothes taken from the closet, while Hawley tried not to move his shoulder, wrapped up in a wool coat to hide the blood.
When they reached the gate it was just as Hawley had suspected—Talbot had driven right through, ramming their tiny car into a gulley with his truck. The side was crushed in, the axle twisted.
“I think I’m going to need another Percocet,” said Jove.
Hawley handed the bottle over. Then he opened one of the broken doors and rummaged for the map they’d used to get there. When he shut the door again, what was left of the window spiderwebbed and shattered onto the ground.
“Now what?” Jove asked.
“The boat,” said Hawley.
They hustled back to the house, then cut through the trees and down into the ravine, traveling through another carpet of bright-green ferns. Hawley’s legs were heavy. It was getting hard to catch his breath. He found a path and they followed it to the water. There was a ladder and then an old aluminum ramp leading to the beach. The ramp was steep and rattled as they climbed down. Jove went first, sending the plastic cooler of salmon sliding ahead like a giant block of ice. It shot along the ramp and tumbled over the edge to the beach, tossing the fish onto the sand. Hawley felt dizzy and nearly fell, too, catching himself with the rail. His shoulder pulled and it was like knives shooting across his back.
Down on the beach the whole shoreline was full of wreckage—piled with branches and driftwood and enormous, twisted roots that had spent years in salted water. Fallen pine trees lined the base of the cliffs, jumbled together like the giant whitewashed bones of mythical beasts. Hawley climbed over the trunks until he found Talbot’s boat, a dinghy with an outboard motor. It was barely big enough for two people, but it would have to do.
Jove picked up the fish from where they’d fallen in the sand, washed them in the water and lovingly placed them back in the cooler while Hawley finished the last of the whiskey. Between that and the Percocet, the pain in his shoulder was manageable, as long as he didn’t move too much. Hawley glanced up at the cliffs and told Jove to hurry. If Talbot’s wife was dead it wouldn’t take long for Talbot to return, and the old man could pick them off from the top of the cliff if he had a rifle with the proper range.
Hawley reached into his pocket. The watch was warm from his body and heavy against his palm. He looked closer at the etching of the deer. The animal was running. There was an arrow in its side, and one of its horns was broken. Hawley brought the watch to his ear. It was still ticking from when he’d wound it earlier. A beating pulse in an ancient tomb. He heard a gear click into place and then the watch began to chime.
It was more than a simple marking of the hour. The watch was playing a song. Sweet and melancholy, with the tone of a windup music box, as if a miniature orchestra made of tiny bells had been waiting for this exact moment to perform for him. It made Hawley remember something Jove had been saying at the bar, before the bikers knocked him off his stool and tried to take his wallet. Complications. That’s what they were called. Features of these one-of-a-kind pocket watches that went beyond the telling of time—playing music or charting the stars or marking the tide or the weather. The higher the number of complications, the higher the price of the watch. The one in his hand was supposed to be worth eleven million.
“Debussy,” said Jove.
“What?” said Hawley.
“That’s the music that it plays.”
Hawley ran his thumb over the deer again.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I’m not,” said Hawley.
“Good,” said Jove. “Because King would send somebody even worse after us.”
He limped over and put the cooler into the boat.
“Just so you know,” he said, “I can’t swim.”
“I thought you grew up on the Hudson.”
“No one swims there. It’s polluted.”
“Well,” said Hawley, “I can’t swim, either.”
Together they slid the dinghy across the crush of dark stones toward the water. It made a terrible noise, like the bottom was being torn out. The men set the guns in the bow and then Jove climbed in and Hawley pushed them out into the open water with his good arm. When they were deep enough he climbed over the stern and lowered the motor. Then he grabbed the starter and pulled and pulled, each movement a shot of fire down his side, until the engine turned, the rumbling noise of metal and gas connecting and echoing off the cliff. The blades began to spin and then they were moving forward, away from the beach. Hawley tried to clear some distance from shore, then steered them to the right, wondering how far the property ran, imagining Talbot chasing alongside.
A series of waves came in from the channel, hit starboard and set them rocking. Jove gripped the sides of the boat with his blistered hands. “I thought your father was a fisherman.”
“He was,” said Hawley.
“Then why the hell didn’t he teach you to swim?”
“He didn’t know how, either.”
“Jesus, doesn’t anybody do their jobs right anymore?”
Hawley didn’t tell Jove the reason his father had never learned to swim. It was so he would drown quickly if his boat went down in a storm. So he wouldn’t flail and suffer for hours alone in the sea.
The dinghy hit the rolling wake of a container ship, the bow rising and falling hard. Hawley kept his eye on Mount Rainier. The snow held the shape of the mountain like a blanket covering a body. Hawley pointed the boat directly into the waves. He felt dizzy again, and couldn’t tell if it was from the whiskey or the drugs or the bullet that had passed through him.
In the distance there were ferryboats crossing, frothing up a giant trail of white through the harbor, and at last the weight of the job began to lift from Hawley’s shoulders. He glanced behind them at the cliff. It seemed far away. Far enough that Talbot couldn’t hit them, even if he was up there with a rifle. Even if his wife was dead. There was no way the old man could make the shot.
As soon as he thought this, a spray blasted, hissing not thirty feet away. Hawley immediately ducked down, thinki
ng it was Talbot after all. Then the boat began to pitch and Jove started making a noise in the back of his throat, like he was going to be sick. Hawley checked for blood but Jove wasn’t hit. He was staring over the port side, at a widening plane of flatness among the waves. And from this open place, the whale appeared—rising like a dark and crusted slice of doom, only ten feet away from the boat. The creature slid along the hull, five times the length of their dinghy from bow to stern, its snout covered in barnacles and parasites.
It was a gray whale, the kind Jove had spotted from the ferry that morning. Fifty feet of blubber and muscle and skin the color of storm clouds. With all his might Hawley leaned into the tiller, spinning the boat away. But the whale turned and followed, its giant mouth opening wider, like a black hole sucking in all of the ocean.
Hawley reached for the cooler. Jove shouted and grabbed the handle with his ruined fingers but Hawley shook him off and threw the salmon overboard as an offering, their silvery skins landing with a smack before sinking under their own dead weight.
The creature was not distracted. It ignored the fish and passed underneath the dinghy, then bumped into the hull. Both men were sent sprawling. The motor choked, flooded with water, sputtered for a moment and died. Hawley gripped the rail, trying to steady the balance. He crawled to the stern and yanked the starter, but the engine refused to catch. Without power the tiny boat floundered. Waves crashed over the bow.
The tide around them swelled in broad circles, then slid sideways as if it were being pulled down a drain. A low rumbling began, a subterraneous hum, and the whale emerged once more, blasting air and raining a flood of brackish wash down on the men like a fountain. The creature hovered on the surface beside the boat, an expanse of scarred and unforgiving rock, its snout like the head of a sunken galleon. And then the whale bashed the dinghy again, nearly upending it, and another rush of cold water poured across Hawley’s legs.
Jove got to his knees and started bailing. Everywhere there was water, and Hawley lunged for the handgun. Then he got to his feet, aimed as best he could and pulled the trigger. The shots echoed off the cliffs, loud as fireworks. For a moment Hawley could sense each bullet as it left the chamber, as it traveled through the air, as it penetrated the whale’s dark skin and tunneled through flesh, slowed and then came to a stop, nestled in some hidden corner of the leviathan’s body, a token to be carried until the end of days.