Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  Renny finally parked himself under an awning at a show around the corner from Kelly’s called Helldorado, where actors and part-time stuntmen (“Ol’ Lupe here doubled for Emilio Estevez in Young Guns II!”) entertained the crowds for tips. Most of Diablo was rather sad, a second-rate Tombstone, and from what he’d heard, Tombstone was no Universal City. But Helldorado was actually fairly elaborate for a tourist attraction. It was set back from the main street, sandbags stacked head-high outside the façade. Careful reading of the brochure revealed that the facility was also used in Western-style shooting competitions. Now that was something he’d like to see.

  After a bit of over-amped range-rover music, the show began. Villains sneered and postured, leather-slapping cowboys bit the dust, bushwhackers appeared through trapdoors to menace fainting schoolmarms who transformed in a blur and a cloud of smoke into Annie Oakley clones. Their dialogue was looped into the music track and mouthed by the performers, cornier than a Republic two-reeler and comforting in its very ineptitude. It was more fun than he wanted to admit, and when it was over, when the gun smoke cleared and the cast brushed off the dust and took their bows, Sand was spanking his palms with the rest of the yokels.

  He bought a bottle of warm water on the way out. The sun sucked the moisture out of his skin almost as fast as Diablo sucked the money out of tourists. Drugstores crammed with post cards and knickknacks, souvenir shops with carved topaz and wrought silver jewelry crowding their windows, coffee shops and sandwich vendors offering buffalo burgers and “sidewinder sodas” all vied with each other for the tourist dollar. Renny went deeply into observer mode, and watched the machine at work. Seen from one perspective, it was the same gentle swindle worked at carnies and amusement parks the world over. The Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian-shirt crowd was eating it up.

  He maneuvered around an elderly Japanese couple walking a miniature boxer dog on a braided leash, and encountered a tall man with fine golden hair, dressed in black shirt, pants, shoes and hat, with a golden Sheriff’s star over his heart. He carried himself as if the entire town was a Hollywood back lot, and everyone else merely a bit player.

  Then the two of them stood face to face. He was Sand’s height, and maybe fifteen years older. Renny had the sense that he’d seen this man before, and wondered where. After a moment he decided he was wrong. The sheriff was an archetype, familiar from a thousand Saturday morning reruns, that was all.

  The sheriff tipped his hat and walked on.

  Renny walked back to the boardinghouse, with the vague, and vaguely discomforting, feeling that he had missed something. He also had the sense that eyes were boring into his back. Sand turned, and looked back down the street after him, but Black Bart was gone.

  Renny returned to the Kerrigan House and his rented bed, and lay staring up at the slanted ceiling, hearing the fake gun-blasts from over at the Helldorado stage, wondering why he had been so spooked by a cartoon sheriff. It was as ridiculous as getting the willies because those damned portraits at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion kept staring at you.

  When he came down for dinner, Kelly Kerrigan was busy straightening the living room. She was grayer than she had been in the video, her skin more weathered. But according to his research she was a sprightly sixty-eight, while her husband was, unfortunately, a completely used-up seventy-three. Sand had the impression that they had just finished an early supper.

  “Evening,” Sand said. “Am I the only guest right now?”

  “Yep,” she said. “We’ve got more coming in day after tomorrow, but July’s just too darned hot for most out-of-staters. The real business is spring and winter.”

  She looked at him a few times as if some tiny alarm switch in her mind were triggering.

  “Your name is Renny Sand?” Her voice was precise, polite, with a hidden strand of unbreakable wire within. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” She held up her hand as if anticipating a denial. “I’m rarely wrong.”

  “Oh, well…”

  “Oh, come on.” She leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “Indulge an old lady.”

  Damned sharp old lady, he thought. “It was years ago, ma’am. I was a reporter going through a reception line for Alexander Marcus.”

  She nodded, filing him away. He could tell she had dog-eared the corner of her mental Rolodex. Renny Sand? She wasn’t buying his nonchalance. “Maybe that’s it,” she said. And then shrugged. “What brings you to Diablo?”

  He considered a lie, and then realized, without any question, that she would see right through it. It was time to tell the truth. “You do,” he said.

  * * *

  Sand and the Kerrigans sat on the front porch swing, gazing out on a street that was more dirt than pavement, toward a distant crop of blue-black mountains and somber desert.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

  Ray answered. “Go right ahead, young fella. I like the smell.”

  So he lit up, and told Kelly that he’d uncovered information about a San Francisco jaunt not listed on any of the official itineraries. He wondered if she would elucidate.

  “I was assigned to Alexander between ’86 and ’87,” she said. “He liked me. More importantly, his mother liked me. Even after he dropped out of the race in ’87, there were still threats, and things just worked out for me to stay on. I liked it, most of the time. He said that if I wanted to take leave from the Service, he would pay my salary. I agreed.”

  “So … what was the San Francisco trip?”

  She laughed. “It was all very hush-hush. He told me about it on the flight up. Some medical tests, I think.”

  The hair on the back of his neck tingled: reporter’s instinct.

  She continued, “Seems that maybe a year earlier, an old frat brother from Harvard introduced Alexander to a scientist of some kind. Educator. The man’s name was … Dronet. Dr. Dronet.”

  He searched his mind, and no bell rang.

  “Anyway, Alexander said this man had a great idea, and that he was financing it. He never said too much about it. Alexander was negotiating for a half-dozen midwestern radio stations at the time. I didn’t see him much that trip, and tell you the truth I shopped while he took off with one of the goon squad for the day.”

  “A whole day? And do you know where he went?”

  “No. He enjoyed teasing me about it, though.”

  Sand was very quiet, but then asked, “Mrs. Kerrigan?”

  “Kelly, please.”

  “I want to be as honest as possible, but for reasons of discretion, I can’t tell you everything I know, or think I know.” It was strange, but he just couldn’t imagine himself lying to this razor-sharp little woman.

  She was very still. Her husband was watching them both, and dissecting Renny with an unnervingly piercing gaze.

  “Let’s say that I believed that Alexander Marcus was a complicated man, and that he might have had some dealings that were withheld from the public view.” How in the hell could he phrase this? “In your time in his presence, did you ever have the sense that he was withholding secrets? I don’t mean confidential business or political matters.”

  Her generous mouth thinned. “You’re going to need to be a mite more specific. Everyone has secrets.”

  “I mean secrets that could have … destroyed him. Did he have an abnormal need for privacy?”

  “He was surrounded by people, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  “Yes, but…” Damn, damn damn.

  Bobby Ray hadn’t said anything at all through all of this, but finally he spoke, in a calm, direct voice. “You drove all the way out here to talk with Kelly, didn’t you, young man?”

  Renny nodded.

  “You’re a reporter, and you found something out about your former boss, and you’re wondering about what to do with it.” He paused. “You wrote that article about the cocaine, didn’t you? I saw you on Sixty Minutes.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  “’Pears to me you’re trying to be extra careful with your sources. S
orta got your fingers burned the last time, didn’t you?”

  His eyes, a watery but direct blue, seemed to go right through Sand. “Yes, sir, I am, and I did.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “So the talk about San Francisco was more smoke screen than anything else?”

  “No, sir. I have reason to wonder about San Francisco. But you got to see sides of him that he probably concealed from the rest of the world.”

  Sand felt a rush, a compulsion to lay out what he thought he knew, but just couldn’t do it. “So … I guess I’ll just ask you one question. And I pray you’ll answer it for me. I think I’m on the verge of the biggest story of my life. It’s so big that I barely know what to do with it, don’t know what corner to pry up first. So far, it’s all circumstantial. I need some verification that my wild suspicions might actually be correct before I dig any deeper.”

  Sand took a deep breath, and then went on. “Suppose I told you I thought that Alexander Marcus might have had a terrible, dark secret, something that kept him from running for the Presidency. Something bigger than race, or death threats, or his worried mother.”

  Her face might have been made of stone. Heart pounding, he went on.

  “And suppose, just suppose I asked you what general area you believed that problem rested in. If you were to answer that question, what do you think you’d say?”

  She was very quiet for so long that Sand wondered if he had insulted her, crossed over some invisible line. “I’d say that I couldn’t answer that question,” she said flatly. “The men and women of the Service are involved in the intimate lives of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, and we are sworn to maintain that veil of privacy.”

  He was at a dead end. This was miserable. “Please.” He didn’t want to beg, but could hear desperation creeping into his voice. “I’m trying to make sure that I don’t accidentally tarnish the legacy of a great man.” She remained unmoved. “If I ask you things, specific things, would you at least tell me if I’m off base?”

  Another silence. “The first wrong question ends the conversation,” she said finally.

  Thank God. Under the circumstances, that was more than fair: it was a gift. “All right. All right. If there was one area that might have caused problems for Marcus in terms of the Presidency, that area was … a need for privacy.”

  She nodded slightly. “That would be safe to say.”

  “From time to time he would elude his bodyguards, and go off for some time by himself.…”

  Her look was disapproving. “Half right,” she said. “But not alone.”

  Shit! With a friend? Partner? “If there was a problem, it might have to do with women.”

  She looked at Bobby Ray, and his mouth flattened in what might have been an unpleasant little smile. She nodded.

  “From time to time you had the sense he liked to play rough.”

  She stood. “I’m sorry, this discussion is over.”

  “Please…”

  She held up her hand. “We made a deal, Mr. Sand.”

  He sighed. She was right. And he knew that he was right, too. She wouldn’t talk about it, but there was something there. From time to time Alexander Marcus went off with a friend, and did things that she thought had something to do with women. He smiled. “All right. Thank you for what you were willing to say.” He stretched, suddenly feeling the strain of the eight-hour drive. Kelly Kerrigan hadn’t said much, but her eyes seemed to burn through him.

  “You’ve found something you don’t like,” she said.

  “I hate it.”

  “You admired him, didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I was also fascinated. Did you ever look at a tiger in a cage from a distance, watch it run, or climb, and think ‘what an awesome machine,’ then get close enough to see the muscles and bones working under the skin?”

  He nodded, unsure of her newfound direction.

  “I think I’ve always had a fondness for getting close to dangerous things,” she said. “And Alexander Marcus, like most powerful men, was also dangerous. If you found something volatile, be very sure, Mr. Sand. Very sure. You could hurt a lot of people.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he said.

  “I believe you,” she replied, and gave him a tight, bright, wary little smile.

  He turned when he reached the doorway. “We made a deal, and you kept your part of it. Thank you. But if there is anything, any other information at all that you can give me, I would appreciate it more than I have words to say.” She looked as if she were about to speak, and he raised his hand. “Please, don’t make up your mind now. Think about it. Tell me in the morning.” He tried to keep the plea out of his voice, but knew he hadn’t succeeded.

  Kelly gazed up at him, the calm in her eyes somehow communicating to him, banking the fire in his stomach. “I’ll think on it, Renny Sand. Good night.”

  “G’ night,” he said, nodded to both of them, and disappeared inside.

  * * *

  Renny lay in bed that night, staring at the arched ceiling. What did he know? Everything, and nothing. Yet. He knew that Marcus had been born in poverty, a brilliant, athletic boy who had been tormented by neighborhood girls and then caught the eye of his high school history teacher. He knew their affair had been discovered, and Marcus mutilated, by her husband.

  And that his mother had accepted money in a deal that allowed the husband to escape prosecution. How had Marcus felt about that? Did he both love and hate his mother for that? He certainly had reason to hate other women. The tall, rawboned, awkward genius he must have once been … the betrayal and fear …

  And had he gone to other women, and been rebuffed? Marcus had never married, but obviously frequented prostitutes. Christ. If this horror show wasn’t a breeding ground for monsters, he didn’t know what was.

  Renny saw the path before him. He needed to talk to someone, to lay the whole thing out to someone who could share it. This was just too much.

  He was so used to lies, and half-truths, and expedient fabrications, and justifiable obfuscation. There was something refreshing about Kelly and her husband. He had wanted to speak nothing but truth before them, had known that the cost of dishonesty was dissolution of relationship. That was a breath of fresh air in his life. There were damned few people with whom honesty was more rewarding than ingenuity.

  There was one other person who came to mind, who from the very beginning, from the very first contact, had provoked a similar response. Vivian. He had seen her, and known the reality of his own emotion so starkly that no lie could possibly have concealed his intent. Truth had gushed out of him like water from a turned spigot.

  There was a problem with lying to others, one that had nothing to do with getting caught, or even the difficulty of keeping your lies straight. It was that lying to others inevitably led to lying to yourself. What he needed now was clarity. He needed to lay all his thoughts and feelings out before another human being, one he could trust to tell him what she thought, and felt, and saw.

  Then he would know his next step.

  There was only one person who fit that bill, and by sheerest coincidence, she too was in Arizona. Exactly where, he didn’t know, but he would sure as hell find out in the morning.

  * * *

  Kelly and Bobby Ray sat out on the porch, gazing at the mountains, so dimly visible in the starlight. They spoke mostly of small things, Kelly carefully avoiding the subject Sand had broached. Bobby Ray knew his woman, knew that she was turning something over and over in her own mind, examining it like an archaeologist examining an ancient, mysterious artifact.

  “You know,” she finally said, “there are things from those days I don’t look at. It was all sort of fun, and golden, and then he died. For a while I didn’t even believe he was dead, that anyone so alive could ever die.”

  “Are you sure he did?”

  She clucked. “I saw the body, and it was him, Bobby Ray. It was him. So the dream
was over, and I came back to my senses a little. And when D’Angelo called and said he remembered I’d talked about wanting to run a B&B, and that there was one for sale here, and he could get us one hell of a bank loan, I remembered the old days, and … I jumped at it.”

  “We jumped.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, and was quiet again, for a long time. Then: “What if that reporter is right? What if there is something? Was something.”

  He turned her face until her hazel eyes met his. “Are you telling me you had suspicions?”

  She broke contact. “Not exactly. But I knew he had secrets. Knew that there was a place inside him that he kept tight. To tell you honestly, I thought it was the race thing, that a Negro just wasn’t going to open himself up to the white lady, no matter how much he liked her. But sometimes I wondered. He was always under such perfect control emotionally. Better than anyone I ever met. I wondered: What did he do with his anger? His pain? His fear?” She shook her head. “But that’s awful, judging a man capable of evil things because he seemed so good.” She turned to face Bobby Ray again. “Isn’t it?”

  He took his time thinking before he ventured a guess. “Was there ever a time that Marcus got away from the rest of you? Went off by himself?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “He slipped everyone except D’Angelo.”

  “Chasing a little tail?”

  She sighed. “Maybe that’s it. A string of little bastards up and down the coast?” Alexander Marcus and D’Angelo sharing a little smile after a long night out? Wasn’t there a Nike-tread print in sand, and a twisted sprig of evergreen, on the carpet outside the fire escape on Marcus’s wing one of those late nights in San Francisco? How far would you have to drive to find soil like that, and plants like that? Just the local jogging track? Or further?

  “Strange about that,” Bobby Ray said. “Angel never seemed the type. You ever get a sex vibe off ’im?”

  “No,” she said, and found that her throat was just a little constricted. It had to be the cold. “Not even once. But he did notice younger women a bit. He was extremely polite to them. Heavy-handedly polite. What seemed natural extravagance with Marcus was … well, almost mockery with Angel.”