He began to see things, to dream things. He dreamed of himself as an old man. But he now knew those dreams were of his father. He came to understand that he must someday go to his father, that his father would make him a man. Now he had found his father, and the void within that man terrified him.
One day in second grade, he moved a pencil with his mind. Later, he honed that skill onto an entire cup of pencils that sat on his teacher’s desk, spilling them like pickup sticks. This made him happy. But then one afternoon he grew enraged at a blue jay that dive bombed his cat in the broad lawn behind his house. He focused his mind and felt some preternatural energy course through him and capture that bird, and it flew straight into a tree and died. This filled him with abject fear. And a sick dread.
Now his mind’s energy held his Pap-paw and Mr. Waltz in place across the room. He could almost see the field that poured through his eyes and captured the two men. Like something blue and stretchy, cartoon rubber. He looked into his grandfather’s eyes—into his mind, his soul—and he saw pain and fear. But also love. And he looked into the lawyer’s soul and he saw sadness. But also hope. And a bright passion blooming.
The lawyer called out to him.
He pictured his mother’s eyes; he saw the love.
He pictured the woman nailed to a tree; he saw the hate.
The gruesome scene, the mutilation of that beautiful woman, had haunted his dreams. The evil had risen off the bayou that day like a toxic fog. He saw a woeful symbol marring sacred flesh.
That same symbol, the terrible inverted cross, flanked him now.
A sick aura of hate. As on the bayou where the woman died, he sensed it now from the twisted soulless man before him, his putative father. If such were his life’s destiny, he would choose death.
And so he released the two flawed, good men from his mind’s grip and turned to his father. Only he would no longer think of this awful husk, this empty former-man, as his father. He had no father. He felt ready to be reborn.
He saw fear in the Doctor’s eyes as he focused his energy like never before. Something electric flowed through his veins and out. He saw only white heat. And then darkness.
•
The Doctor burst into flames and the air in that small space reeked of ozone and burning flesh and hot metal. Joey fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Issuing a weary moan, Willie fell to his knees. Geoff felt the field’s grip leave him and he rushed to the stricken boy. The intense flames from the Doctor’s body threatened to engulf him. Geoff pulled him to safety and checked his pulse—regular—and listened to his deep and steady breathing. But Joey would not awaken.
He threw the child over his shoulder and held out a hand to the old man, helping him to his feet. The walls around them were melting and disintegrating into rusty dirt.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
Geoff pushed the Doctor’s desk against the wall, beneath an air vent, and lifted a chair on top. Laying Joey upon the wide desk beside the chair, Geoff doffed his pack and pulled out a screwdriver for the vent and a length of nylon rope for the boy, silently praising Marisol for her preparation. He saw the towel-wrapped canister containing the grotesque fetus—it seemed so minor now, after all he had seen in this place. But he still wanted to get it to the outside, to expose at least some of the crimes that had occurred here.
Handing the pack to Willie, Geoff climbed his makeshift steps and unscrewed the vent. Then he pulled his client up.
“You first. Carry the bag, I’ll get your boy. You have to lead us out of here. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Yes I can.” The old man’s forceful voice and stubborn eyes had returned, recalling to Geoff the client meeting weeks before, when Willie had turned the crowd against Texronco’s settlement offer. As if the wicked spell that this place cast had at last released its grip.
For this place would soon exist no more. The walls melted and collapsed into piles of dirt—like the gun Geoff had held. The unearthly material atomized, or dissolved into its elemental form. And behind those walls lay the saturated loam of that swampy country. Soon it would all cave in, suffocating them, burying them alive.
Willie pulled himself up into the ventilation duct and Geoff followed, Joey passed out and lashed to his back. It seemed that the dissolution of the facility began at the bottom and worked its way up—things appeared a bit more stable up here. A lucky break. And with Willie leading them on their Byzantine trek, they came at last to the bottom of the well shaft. Here, the entropy had only just begun. But they didn’t have much time. They had one hundred feet to climb on narrow rungs with a heavy pack and an unconscious boy.
Geoff paused just long enough to remove the walkie-talkie from the bag now on Willie’s back. He prayed Marisol would be within range, feared that she could not have had time to make it all the way to the hospital with Bobby and back. But when he called out over the radio, he heard her voice crackling back through thick static. He could hardly understand her, but she was there.
He said, “We’re coming up but we’re going to need a rope. Take the rope from the boat and tie it to a tree or the well or something that’ll support us. Drop it down the shaft.”
Releasing the speak button, he heard her voice come back but could not make out the words. He could not know whether she had understood his instructions, had no time to ponder it.
He gestured for Willie to mount the rungs rising up the shaft. But the old man said, “No. You first, with Joey. If nothing else, let’s get Joey out.”
Geoff climbed, Willie right behind. The shaft’s metal sides wavered and shimmered and grew soft. When they had risen half way, Geoff could see bare earth leaking through. Each rung seemed less solid than the one before. What felt like dirt began to coat the palms of his hands. His back screamed with the weight of the boy.
The next rung threatened to dissolve in his hands. We’re goners, he thought. But then he saw Marisol’s silhouette in the circle of light thirty feet above. A heavy length of rope dropped down the shaft at his side. Jumping onto it, he almost lost his grip and slid down. But he got hold and glanced down just long enough to see that Willie had done the same.
As the space caved in all around, adrenaline propelled him—the only possible explanation for the unnatural strength he found to pull himself and Joey out of that hole. He used his legs on the metal sides dissolving into dirt and his hands on the rope to climb until he rose near enough to the surface for Marisol to grab his arms and help lift them out. And then he and Joey lay there by the opening—the boy still in a deep slumber, Geoff panting like a shaggy dog in August.
“Willie,” he said between gasps.
He rolled over and looked down the shrinking shaft and Marisol looked down and their heads touched and she smelled like sweat and the bayou but also like sweet life.
Willie’s voice emerged from the abyss. “I can’t climb no more. I’m too old.”
Marisol took the rope and started pulling. With his last ounce of strength, Geoff did the same. They worked together and pulled Willie up by inches as the hole collapsed. But even that gnomish figure was too heavy to lift fast enough.
Then Geoff called into the hole. “Drop the pack. You’re too heavy—drop the pack.”
And the old man must have done so because the load grew lighter then, enough so that when Geoff and Marisol threw their weight back, Willie came up from the soft ground coughing and covered in metallic dirt, just as the last trace of the well shaft disappeared.
Chapter 39
Geoff put the finishing touches on a thirty-page brief and filed it through the federal court’s electronic system. A major project done, and only 5:30. And it’s Friday—I can knock off early and go have a beer.
Stepping out into a perfect October afternoon, he waved to the contractors constructing his new garage out back, just finishing up for the day. He left on foot, inspecting the grounds. The old house did not look too shabby—he had spent the summer on everything from having the fou
ndation leveled to washing the windows. He glanced up; the countless clusters of young green orbs on the pecan trees presaged a bumper crop this year.
As he walked into the neighborhood dive, he saw Tony Abruzzo sitting perched on his usual stool. He scanned the room for Marisol and felt a twinge of disappointment at her absence. Then he took a seat by Tony, the two men greeted each other, and Geoff ordered a pint.
“How’s the house work coming along, Geoffy-boy?”
“Garage is about done, then I think it can officially lose its designation as a fixer-upper.”
Tony raised his glass—bourbon on the rocks, as always. “Salud to that.”
“Salud.”
They sat and sipped in silence for a bit. Tony chewed on a little plastic cocktail sword. “Then what?” he asked.
“You mean after the home repairs are done?”
“Yeah—you selling out? Staying put? Hanging it up? Travelling the world? What’s the next chapter in the marvelous adventure that is Geoff Waltz’s life?”
Geoff shook his head and pondered. He had done a lot of pondering over the long Texas summer. He felt adrift—but also at peace. As if the vastness of the world had opened up to him, and he only needed to set his course. But he felt no need to hurry.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m thinking about selling the house and getting a condo uptown. And expanding my practice—you know, a real office, a staff. Maybe bring on a couple of associates. There’s plenty of work.” He took a sip of beer. “Or maybe I’ll move to New Orleans and set up shop. I still know people there. Lots of opportunities to do good work in that city.”
Muttering fuck it, Tony pulled the mangled plastic pick from his mouth, dropped it in an ash tray, and motioned for the bartender to sell him a pack of cigarettes. Then he smirked at Geoff. “‘Good work,’ eh? So you’ve become a do-gooder? Representing those greenie types has gotten to you. Maybe you should move to San Fran with the rest of the nuts and flakes.” Tony lit a cigarette. “Or at least fucking Austin.”
Geoff chuckled at Tony’s ball-busting—the national sport of the fat man’s native New Jersey, he figured. “I’m not licensed in California, and I don’t want to take another exam. And Austin was great in college, but I don’t think I’d fit in anymore. I’m not twenty-five, and I’m not interested in pretending to be twenty-five for the rest of my life.”
As Tony guffawed and nodded and smoked, Geoff thought about his practice, his emerging specialty representing private citizens against the corporate polluters in their midst. It wasn’t a bad gig.
Then he said, “Speaking of my cases, I’m going down to the lake tomorrow. Big fish fry with Willie Kincaid and family.”
“Kincaid? Your client in that Texronco case? Is that all wrapped up now?”
Geoff nodded. “All wrapped up. After Duchamp got shot and the feds dropped their criminal investigation, we resumed the lawsuit. Texronco settled real fast then—they’re cleaning up the pollution.”
That’s the official version of the story, anyway. They did not speak of Geoff’s day beneath the bayou with Willie. He had told Tony once in passing that the trip had been a bust—nothing to see but the source of the pollution: corroding drums half-sunk into the murk at the refinery site’s edge, which he already knew about. He and Marisol had decided it was best to keep the incredible, and unprovable, truth to themselves.
But Texronco did settle the lawsuit—on pretty much the same generous terms their lawyer Rick White had relayed to Geoff way back before he had a clue what was really going on at the refinery. It was as if the corporation, freed from the Duchamp family and the legacy of Operation Moth Wing, from the puppeteering Doctor running the project from his lair, had decided to act rationally and dispose of its mess once and for all. Or so Geoff surmised. But Texronco was doing more than just cleaning up the contamination Eileen and Dalia had identified at the site. The company had entered agreement with the EPA and walled off the entire area. China Island, too. And the nearest Geoff could figure, the Feds and the corporation had teamed up to excavate millions of tons of swampland, down God knew how many feet, and send it all by rail to a federal hazardous waste dump in New Mexico. Along with any evidence of Moth Wing or the Doctor’s extracurricular projects.
But Geoff and his people had put a stop to it. That’s what mattered. They had vindicated the deaths of Eileen and Dalia. Plus the garage attendant in New Orleans.
And Joey—somehow we saved the soul of that odd, beautiful (magical?) boy. Still not sure how. For the more time passed, the more the boy’s—what? His choice? Had it been Joey who had saved us?—at the moment of the Doctor’s death beneath the lake had come to seem like a dream.
“By the way,” Geoff said. “Have you seen Marisol Solis? I was hoping she would be here—wanted to invite her to Willie’s thing tomorrow.”
“Haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks. Did you try her office?”
“Nah, maybe I’ll give her a call.” But he knew he wouldn’t. In the weeks after their adventures, he had wanted to call, to see if the connection he felt they had made could exist outside a difficult and perplexing case to puzzle through together. But he never worked up the nerve. He hadn’t dated in years. Then he had spent a few weeks in Colorado, escaping the heat. On returning, he had dedicated himself to his work and his house. Come September, it seemed that too much time had passed to call her out of the blue.
It almost made him want to take another case so messed up that he would have to retain her services again.
•
Geoff arrived at the Kincaids’ little frame house on the bayou in the hour before sunset. The season’s first real cool snap had blown through the night before, bringing rain and ushering in a day clear and crisp, the cloudless sky a blue so rich it appeared almost violet through the forest’s thick green canopy. And though the deciduous trees that stood amid the pines in those East Texas woods would hold their green for another month, the air already smelled of autumn.
He headed straight for the back yard and waved to Willie, who stood over a giant fryer, preparing it for the catfish. Tiki torches stood at the ready around the long picnic table, and Geoff spotted Joey gathering wood for the fire pit.
As Geoff approached, Sheriff Seastrunk and Bobby Henderson rose from the table’s bench seat to greet him.
“Sheriff, Bobby. Good to see y’all.”
“And you, Waltz.” They shook hands, and Geoff could see the light scars crisscrossing the deputy’s arms. To Geoff, Bobby’s gaze did not seem as open as before, as if the young man had aged many years in the six months since they had first met.
“Did you bring your guitar, Sheriff?”
“Shoot, I reckon. We’ll play a few tunes after supper.”
Willie walked up with Joey at his side and put a gnarled hand on Geoff’s shoulder.
“I want to thank you for coming. I just ask that you eat your fill, cause we got plenty.”
Geoff smiled down at the little man. “Don’t you worry, Willie. I brought my appetite.”
And then Geoff looked to the boy, who smiled back. He had spent a week in a coma following their subterranean ordeal, but now he looked … normal. Really normal. His eyes were as blue as the sky, but they did not shimmer. And when they shook hands, Geoff saw minor scabs on Joey’s knuckles—typical markings of boyhood. He still felt an inscrutable warmth toward the boy but no longer the fierce protectiveness that had haunted his dreams last spring. As if the act of saving each other (and yes, that is what had happened, Geoff now knew as he met the child’s gaze—they had somehow saved each other’s souls) had broken a bond forged by a shared terror.
Around the table, amid the whippoorwills’ cries in the setting sun, they spoke very little of the case that had brought them together. Geoff did ask, as Willie dumped the corn-mealed fish into the vat of hot oil: “How did things shake out in the DA’s office?”
“Ol’ Hargrave decided not to stand for reelection this fall,” the sheriff said. “Reckon he
decided he’d had enough.”
“And Tasha Carter moved to Austin last month,” Bobby said. “Took a job in the Governor’s office. She’ll go far.”
Bobby did not sound bitter to Geoff; only maybe a little rueful.
Later, Willie leaned in close to Geoff. “Come with me to the water, counselor, before things get busy around here.”
Leaving Seastrunk, Bobby, and Sally to commune among themselves, Geoff followed the old man down to the bayou’s edge. They stood there in the setting sun, and Willie took a dip of snuff before speaking.
“Geoff, I just wanted to give you an honest apology to your face. Hadn’t had the opportunity yet. So here it is. I’m sorry.”
Geoff nodded into the coming gloom, considering. Then he said, “You don’t have to apologize, Willie. I don’t know that anybody would have done anything any different.”
“Well. I don’t know. I’m just happy it’s finished.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice.
“Joey seems good.”
“Yeah, little joker came out all right.” He paused. “I wonder if I ought to worry. That he might grow up … you know.”
“To be a psychotic Nazi madman? No. You don’t have to worry. Just raise him right, like I know y’all are. Joey has a good heart, regardless of where his genes came from. You can tell by the choice he made.”
Looking out over that still water, admiring the beauty of the sunset over the bayou, Geoff thought about the evil they had seen—an evil that seemed too great to reside in any genetic code and so must come from some place or some force much larger. The Tatum twins, the Doctor—in the twins, that evil feasted on ignorance and stupidly; in the doctor, a soulless and rotten sophistication, a malicious application of brilliant science, nourished it. But the end result was the same, whether marked by a swastika carved in flesh or hanging from a flag pole: race hatred, death lust.
He did not think he had spoken any of this aloud, but maybe he had, because Willie said: “Just like ol’ Zeus said to Prometheus.”
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