Willis shrugged again. "Sure. Just don't let anyone out there see you taking it, okay?" He nodded to indicate the big precinct room beyond his office.
"Okay," Ryerson said. He stood. "So you can't tell me anything that's not here?" He tapped the file, which he held under his left arm.
Willis shook his head. "I'm hoping you'll be able to tell us something, Rye."
"I'll do what I can," Ryerson said.
EIGHTEEN
Rebecca Meechum had a key to Sam's office, and when she opened the door late that evening, she went immediately to the big window—it looked out on a railroad yard—and closed the wide, dark green shade, then the curtains. She felt very theatrical doing this, and it pleased her. Cloak-and-dagger stuff was fun.
After she'd closed the curtains, she turned on the desk lamp and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk until it caught. She reached into the back of the drawer, then up, withdrew a manila envelope lodged on the slats supporting the drawer above, put the envelope into her purse, and headed for the door.
"What's that?" she heard. She didn't recognize the voice. It was the voice of a man, and it was oddly accented. She stiffened, halfway to the door.
"That envelope," the voice said. "What is it?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Who are you?"
"Christ, who am I? Just tell me what's in the damned envelope, Becky."
"How do you know me?"
"How do I know you? How do I know you? Peels, don't sack my chin."
"Huh?"
"Like I said."
Rebecca turned her head. The desk lamp was still on, and in its yellow light, she could see that the small room was empty. Perhaps the man was in the bathroom. She looked at the bathroom door; it was closed. The closet, then. She looked. Its door was closed, too. "You're not there," she whispered.
"There, where," said the voice. "Don't yank my chain, Becky."
"Where are you?"
"Who knows, who knows. The envelope, please."
A form appeared behind the desk. It was as tall as a man and as indistinct as smoke.
Rebecca screamed, ran from the office and out to her car.
The form behind the desk muttered to itself, "Was it something I dead, I sighed? Something I lied? Something I said?"
~ * ~
Stevie Lutz had always loved the ocean. She'd swum in it, surfed in it, fished in it, sailed on it. She'd taken several ocean cruises to nowhere in particular. The destinations were not important; being there, on the ocean, was.
What she loved most about the ocean was it bigness. It was big in a way that even large lakes are not. An ocean's horizon stretches beyond itself.
She had always wanted to live in a house next to the ocean, but her husband had nixed that idea. The ocean made him queasy, he said. It was the smell of fish, he said. But she knew better. The ocean, so vast and so powerful, was beyond his control. And he needed to be in control.
This fact alone had, more than once, made her think about leaving him and finding someone else. But he had been her childhood sweetheart and they had always planned on being married. What an awful disappointment if all that planning and hope came to nothing. In that other life, it would be unbearable.
Here, it wasn't.
Because she had always loved the ocean.
And so she loved this place, created from the mist of her memory.
She was in control here.
She did not feel oppressed here. Or half alive.
~ * ~
Ryerson was walking Creosote on a well-lit street near his home. Creosote was not an easy dog to walk. He was too short, and the leash was too short, it was raining, and Creosote was reluctant to do his business in the rain, wanted to break out into a run, and could not. Ryerson had thought about getting a longer leash, a self-retracting fifteen-foot leash that would give the little dog some running room, but city ordinances did not allow such leashes, so Creosote had to be content to run in the town house.
A man was walking toward Ryerson. He was tall and stocky, was dressed in an overcoat and hat, and he made Ryerson feel suddenly tense. Ryerson could not see the man's face; the man's hat cast a shadow, but the man's gait—hands in his overcoat pockets, head down slightly, steps quick and short and purposeful—seemed threatening, and Ryerson stopped walking when the man was still fifty feet away.
The man stopped walking.
Creosote growled. It was more like a loud and ragged purr than a growl, and the man in the overcoat chuckled and called, "I'm sure he means well."
Ryerson didn't recognize the man's voice. It was deep, and accented, though he couldn't place the accent. Ryerson said, "Do you have business with me?"
"I'm not sure."
"You don't know if you have business with me?"
"Is your name Sam Goodlow?"
"No."
"Then I don't have business with you."
"Why did you stop walking when I stopped walking?"
"I wasn't aware that I had."
"Yes, you did."
The man looked down at his feet. "You're right. I'm not walking."
Ryerson felt a moment of confusion. It was not his own confusion, he realized. It was the man's confusion. He was not what he appeared to be.
The man took his hands from his coat pockets. He shrugged, turned around, and walked back the way he had come, down the well-lit street, then, while Ryerson watched, turned left, down another street, and was gone.
Moments later, a car appeared from the street the man had turned on. The car was big and important looking, but Ryerson was lousy with makes of cars and so could not say what kind it was. It turned away from Ryerson; he heard the hum of its big engine, noted the car's license number—a vanity plate; it read BIG MAMA—and then, in a split second, the car was gone, as if the rainy night had swallowed it up.
Ryerson glanced at Creosote, who glanced back, flat face a blank. Ryerson said, "What the hell was that all about, do you think?" Had the man really been on the street? Ryerson wondered. Or the car?
But Creosote wasn't talking.
~ * ~
Ryerson was on the phone with Captain Bill Willis minutes later. "I need you to check out a license plate number for me, Bill."
"Sure. What is it?"
"Massachusetts, I think; B-I-G," he spelled, "space, M-A-M-A."
"`BIG MAMA'?"
"'BIG MAMA.'"
"Okay. The Motor Vehicle Department's closed now, of course, but I'll call you tomorrow morning."
~ * ~
The man's wife had been dead for ten years, but he still missed her terribly. He missed her so much, in fact, that he hadn't dated anyone in the decade since her death, although he was a good-looking man and had had many offers.
He dreamt of her often. He dreamt of their brief time together, of their lovemaking—which had been nothing short of spiritual—of their quiet moments, their public hand-holding and caressing, their wordless conversations, the kinds of conversations that only two very alike people can have.
He missed all of her. He missed her little flirtatious glances, her quick and musical laughter, her defiant sort of walk, her breasts, her hands—though two of her fingers were gnarled by early arthritis—her eyes that told him just how well she knew him, and how happy that made her.
He had longed a thousand times for her to come to him after her death. He would have easily accepted the corruption of her body, because he knew that her spirit was incorruptible.
And he was very grateful when she did come to him, at last, and she was whole and flirtatious and sexual and uncorrupted.
She lifted the blankets and slipped in beside him, fondled him, stroked him.
He was ready within the moment, and she straddled him in the semidarkness.
He whispered her name.
But she did not whisper his. She was lost in her grinning and loose-armed pleasure. She had always been the acrobat, had always given him such delicious pain.
He whispered her name again, hop
ing now for recognition from her.
"Jack!" she whispered back, and though it sounded oddly angry, he smiled, because his name was Jack. But it was not his name she had whispered, and he did not know it.
Soon, she left him.
NINETEEN
At 9:30 the following morning, Captain Willis called Ryerson to tell him that BIG MAMA was registered to a woman named Violet McCartle, and gave Ryerson the woman's address.
~ * ~
It was in Boston's Back Bay section. The house that belonged to Violet McCartle was huge and ostentatious; blue painted stone lions guarded the front gates. So did a large man in a black uniform who bent way over to talk to Ryerson through the Woody's open driver's window.
"Do you have an appointment, sir?"
"No," Ryerson answered.
"Then you aren't getting in, I'm sorry."
"Perhaps you could call Mrs. McCartle and leave my name."
"I can do that," said the large man. "What's your name?"
"Sam Goodlow."
"Okay. Wait here." The man called the woman in the house and came back to the car. "Go ahead, Mr. Goodlow," he said, and as he said this, the tall iron gates swung open.
~ * ~
A thin, sixtyish woman stood at the front door of the house. The woman was wearing a gray dress, no shoes, and her demeanor spoke clearly of impatience.
As Ryerson came up the long flight of stone steps, she shouted at him—her voice was like the call of a crow—"I'm Violet McCartle. Who are you?"
"I'm Sam Goodlow," Ryerson called back. He noted the recently erected wooden ramp to the left of the steps. It was clearly designed to accommodate a wheelchair.
"No, you aren't Sam Goodlow," the woman shouted. "Tell me who you are."
Ryerson did not answer immediately. He sensed that she would allow him to come all the way up the steps before she alerted the man at the gates.
Ryerson reached the top step and offered his hand. She glanced at it and repeated, "You aren't Sam Goodlow. Tell me who you are or I'll have you ejected at once."
Ryerson let his hand drop. "My name's Ryerson Biergarten," he said. "I'm a friend of Sam Goodlow's."
"No. I don't think so."
Ryerson sensed uncertainty from her. Her eyes were faded blue and canny and she looked like she could be a formidable opponent, despite her frail appearance. Her voice, now that she wasn't shouting, was strong and commanding. If he hadn't been who he was—if he had had to depend solely on his five senses—he would have assumed without question that she knew him to be a liar.
Ryerson said, "Sam and I met shortly before his disappearance, Mrs. McCartle. He told me about you."
"Did he?" Less uncertainty. She grinned. Her teeth were straight and white; Ryerson supposed they were her own. "And what was it that he told you?"
"Of your relationship."
"That sounds smarmy, Mr. Biergarten. Was it meant to sound smarmy?"
Ryerson shook his head. "I'm sorry, no. I meant your business relationship."
Her grin drooped, then returned, wider. "You're fishing, Mr. Biergarten. I can feel it. You may know Mr. Goodlow, you may know of him, but I doubt you're his friend." She stepped back and put her hand on the door to close it.
Ryerson stepped forward, put his hand on the doorknob, and said, "You live here alone, isn't that true?" He knew it was true; he had read it from her.
She glared at his hand on the doorknob. "Mr. Biergarten, you are perilously close to having your testicles squashed."
The phrase surprised him—she had said it with such venom and sincerity. He let go of the doorknob and said, as she closed the door, "Sam told me that you hired him." He sensed something strange about the woman, something he couldn't pinpoint.
She closed the door. It was made of glass, with iron scrollwork, and he could see her peer out at him a moment, turn, and move off into the bowels of the house.
Ryerson asked himself, Who is she? She isn't Violet McCartle. He had little idea how he knew this. He'd never met Violet McCartle.
He leaned forward, put his face to the door to peer into the house.
He saw the woman looking back at him from the far end of the long hallway.
Moments later, he sensed that someone was behind him, at the bottom of the long flight of steps. He looked. The giant of a man who had been guarding the front gates was there. His face was blank. He stood very tall and very straight, and he needed to say nothing.
Half a minute later, Ryerson was in the Woody and on his way back to the town house.
~ * ~
Sam Goodlow was in the car with him. "Who was that?" he asked from the third seat.
Ryerson had sensed Sam's presence only a moment before Sam had spoken, so Sam's question gave him a start. He missed a stop sign and a car coming through the intersection braked hard, its horn blared, a volley of curses filled the air.
"Watch what you're doing," Sam warned.
"Don't take me by surprise."
"You think I can help it?"
Ryerson sighed and glanced in the rearview mirror, first at Sam—who was as Ryerson remembered, multicolored insides and grinning outsides, and then at the driver he'd cut off, who was, thankfully, turning the other way.
"So, who was that?" Sam repeated.
"You don't know?" Ryerson asked.
"Would I ask if I knew?"
Ryerson shook his head. "She says her name is Violet McCartle. Does that ring a bell?"
"It doesn't ring a thing."
"You know, Sam, you're talking better."
"Am I? I get lots of rest. A body needs rest."
Ryerson grinned. "Was that a joke?"
"It could have been. I don't know. I have something for you; I know where the asshole's wife is."
Silence.
"And?" Ryerson coaxed.
"My God, my God, that lady back there threatened to squash your testicles! That's a horrible thing. I cannot see sweet old lady squashing someone's testicles. It's ludicrous, obscene, it galls the eyeballs, I can barely stand to ehash it, but there it is."
"Could we stick to the subject, Sam?"
"I don't know, I don't know. The subject keeps changing, especially from where I sit. You'll see, when it's your turn in the backseat. First, this is the subject, then that is the subject, and sometimes there are multiple subjects within a given moment, and there the moments are, all laid out like he trails of snails, time elongated, stretched, pulled and postulated, and you know, you know, there are no moments unless we're beyond them."
Silence.
Ryerson said, "End of speech?"
"The asshole's wife is all divided, Rye, and they're using her soul for fun and games and Auld Lang Syne. The poor ling is as lost as a penny and she doesn't even know it."
"Sam, you're going to have to be a bit more specific; you're speaking in riddles."
"It's kind of a Zen thing."
"Sorry?"
"Memories are made of these, Rye."
Silence.
Ryerson glanced in the rearview mirror.
Sam was gone.
~ * ~
The woman who called herself Violet McCartle said to the big man, "You are very good at what you do. And I pay you well for it."
"You're talking about the guy who just left, am I correct?"
"Yes. Ryerson Biergarten. I've heard of him. He's a psychic. And my guess is, he's legitimate. He could spell real trouble for me—"
"Yes, I know."
"Don't interrupt. It's discourteous. I want you to find out, first, what he knows about our friend, what he knows, or thinks he knows, about Violet, then bring the information back to me."
"I assume you want him dead?"
"And I assume that that was a rhetorical question. Eventually, he will have to die, of course. But we must be careful about the web we're weaving here. We might be increasing our troubles geometrically. You will do nothing without consulting me first, although I'm sure you understand that without my having to say it."
"As a matter of fact, yes."
The woman smiled. "You really are a smart ass son of a bitch underneath that gruff exterior, aren't you?"
"And I assume that that was a rhetorical question."
"No, it was an observation. Now, go and do as I've asked."
Twenty
The boys could not find their way back to the strange mound in the woods, although they had been looking for hours, following paths they were sure they recognized, passing landmarks that seemed familiar. But one path through the woods looks much the same as another, and landmarks—fence posts, gnarled trees, stumps—turn out to be less than unique. So the boys were becoming frustrated, angry, and tired.
The first boy—who had been to the mound only once—complained that the mosquitoes would soon be out in droves, and the second boy protested that the mosquitoes came out at dusk, which was still a couple of hours off.
"What we should do," the first boy suggested, "is go back home and tell someone. You know, like a cop."
"And you know what would happen if we did that?" countered the second boy. "The cop would ask us why we didn't say anything the first time we were here, and we'd get in lots of trouble. Withholding evidence, it's called. What's the matter, you don't watch TV?"
"I watch as much TV as you do and you know it."
They walked while they were talking, which was the way of adolescents—mouths and feet always moved.
And as they talked, they found themselves at the spot they'd been looking for. The first boy, who was taller and stockier than the second, saw it first, and he put his hand out against the second boy's stomach to stop him. "Here it is."
"Yeah," breathed the second boy, as if awestruck. "What do we do now?"
The second boy didn't answer right away.
"Well?" coaxed the first boy.
"Dig it up, I guess."
"Yeah, that's what we gotta do, huh?"
"Yeah."
~ * ~
Jack Lutz was upset. "I'm calling you from the damn jail, Mr. Biergarten. They've locked me up, for Christ's sake. They think I murdered Stevie. I showed her to them when they came to pick me up. She was there, Mr. Biergarten. She was in the house. And I showed her to them. I said, 'There she is.' But they didn't see her, and then 1 didn't see her either. She was gone. Again. And then they brought me here.
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