The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  Eddie jumped up on the bed and spun around a half-dozen times while scratching up the bedspread before finally dropping down. He looked at me like, “Okay, man, time to sleep.” I told him to stay, but he followed me anyway when I left the porch.

  I went out to the car and got the heavy Mag light and my tool chest out of the trunk. I dug out a ten-pound persuader and a cat’s paw, and stuck them inside my belt. I put a big old Craftsman screwdriver and a pair of Vice Grips in my back pocket. The neighborhood was silent as a cathedral. All you could hear was the tiny surf breaking on the off-white, sea-polished pebbles that lined the bay. No wind.

  Somebody had put a padlock on Regina’s front door. It didn’t look like much. I tucked the cat’s paw between the padlock bracket and the door jam and gave it one good thwap with the little sledge. Almost. Another thwap and it was off. I sat down on the front stoop and looked around at the other houses nearby. No lights came on. Sleeping the sleep of the righteous, or just indifferent. Or wary. Skills learned in New York City.

  I had a key for the door. Eddie padded silently up the walk and slid past me through the door. As I figured, the power was off. Everything was still basically undisturbed, though someone had neatened up the living room and cleaned out the dishes that had been left in the sink. The broom closet looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. There was just a faded cotton robe hanging by a hook on the inside of the door and some beach towels on a shelf. Eddie scanned the baseboards, snorting into the cracks and corners. I warned him not to bark.

  I looked in the drawers of the tall hutch in the pantry where I remembered Regina kept her checkbook for those rare moments she paid me back for something I bought her. The papers stuffed in the drawers were carefully organized. This surprised me. I remembered Regina as an indifferent organizer.

  The house still smelled like death.

  I found the basement door and went down to look at the fuse box. I made Eddie wait for me at the top of the stairs. The mildewy smell was sticky sweet and mildly nauseating. The flashlight defined a tight little island of light and threw big black shadows against the walls. Something skittered across the concrete floor. Eddie whined, but held his post. The main switch was off, so I threw it back on. The light above the panel snapped on. That was too much for Eddie. He broke ranks and ran down the stairs.

  “Come on, back up. Too many critters down here.”

  He was reluctant, but followed me upstairs. In the light I could see the place had been professionally cleaned and organized. I went back to give the tall hutch a better look. Newspaper clippings, old travel brochures, some handwritten notes with indecipherable signatures. A stack of tear-offs from utility bills bundled up in a rubber band. Two boxes, one with canceled and one with unused checks. Harbor Trust. No checkbook. I slipped the used checks and bill records into my pocket.

  The bathroom still held a faint residue of ammonia that almost disguised the angrier smells. I checked out the tub. It was almost polished clean. I pulled Eddie’s nose away from the toilet. The bath towels were laundered and folded over the towel bars in a way that suggested a nicer hotel. The medicine cabinet was empty. I looked around for another place Regina might have stored drugs. Nothing but bath linens and boxes of Kleenex.

  I was about to move on to another room. I flashed the light around the unlit corners one last time. There was something on a narrow shelf above the spotless bathtub that I hadn’t seen initially.

  It was a heavy, black neoprene plug. It was tapered like an ordinary plug, but also threaded. It had the usual chrome pull ring, but no chain. Not surprising since there was nowhere in the tub to attach the chain’s other end.

  Something about the plug reminded me of factories, heavy machinery and guys in orange hardhats. My world.

  Most design engineers pull a few years’ apprenticeship out on a plant floor as part of an assembly team, or serving as some kind of low-level QC grunt with a clipboard and an over-compensating air of importance. Getting a feel for what the applications boys go through to make your designs work in the real world. I liked being there, though I was just as keen on getting out. So I joined the first R&D lab that would have me and stuck my nose directly into a bunch of test stands and lab equipment. We messed around with a lot of nasty chemicals. Even before OSHA there were strict procedures regulating the use of caustics and corrosive acids. Most labs had special sinks that would drain into lined containers for toxic waste disposal. These sinks were usually stainless steel or some kind of exotic ceramic you could clean of residue from the evil shit we’d dump down the drain—which was really just a big round hole, unless for some reason you meant to contain the waste fluids, in which case we’d use a specifically engineered neoprene stopper.

  Exactly like the one Regina Broadhurst apparently used to contain the water in her bathtub. It looked brand new.

  The next morning I was up early, and after giving Eddie a chance to take care of things, opened the door for him to jump into the front passenger seat of the Grand Prix where he liked to sit with his head out the window. The air was agitated but clear. The smell was young and fresh, though a moldy whiff of burned-out vegetation recalled the dry hot summer. When its windows were down the Grand Prix sounded like an injured B-52. They didn’t care much about aerodynamics and exhaust flow back in 1967. You needed the normally aspirated, 10:1 compression, 385 horse, 426 ft. lb. torque V8s just to drown out all the wind noise.

  Every kid I grew up with knew how to maintain and repair heavy V8s, and in-line 6s that powered all the cars in those days. All sloppy American cars, except for the VWs or the occasional MG. Open the hood of any car built today and you’ll see what only automotive engineers understand. Modern cars are run, maintained and monitored by microprocessors, so you can’t do anything without the diagnostic technology that jacks into interface connectors distributed around the engine compartment. Regular car mechanics have been reduced to computer jocks with a little grease under their nails. It’s all for the good, I guess, since it means better cars and less dependence on a class of trade that hadn’t exactly earned the Nobel Prize for commercial integrity.

  But, say you know your way around that mess of multicolored wires and plastic connectors. If you get close to the actual engine you’ll notice a number of thin metal tubes arrayed along the top of the block under the air cleaners that used to sit on carburetors. Only now they filter air going to the little conduits of the fuel injection system. Pop off the air filters of ninety-five percent of the cars made in the world today and you’ll see a strange little nickel-plated or extruded plastic housing with a vacuum line sticking out of it. Also a three-pin connector with red, white and blue wires trailing off into an untraceable tangle of control wiring. Its purpose is to introduce a minuscule dose of a specialized organic compound. The compound vaporizes at slightly below normal atmospheric pressure and disperses evenly into the airstream flowing through the filter on its way to the cataclysm of internal combustion. Retrofitted through a custom configuration to the throat of the hungry 4-barrel in my Grand Prix, this tiny bit of late-twentieth-century technology was responsible for about 15 extra horses. Since I already had almost 400 in the stable, this wasn’t such a big deal. It was more important to all the new cars built around the world that shared a need for greater power, better fuel efficiency and cleaner emissions.

  When added to the revenue stream of the company that owned and licensed the technology, it was also responsible for about eighty-five million dollars a year.

  It was called a SAM-85, which every mechanic assumes is some dumb engineering acronym with a model number, but it’s actually a name. My name. And the year the company got the patent. The damn thing was my idea. It’s my legacy to mankind. And I’m sure mankind would just about give a rat’s ass if it knew.

  I lit a Camel and took a sip from yesterday’s coffee, stowed in the aftermarket cup holder mounted to the shift console. Still tasted like French Vanilla.

  I’d gone to bed thinking about Regina Broadh
urst and woke up doing the same thing. It was annoying, but predictable. She’d occupied an unimportant yet irritating little spot on my consciousness for my entire life. I never really knew that much about her. I just knew she moaned in her sleep and pissed off my old man. Had a crummy little cob-job house and a load of arthritis that probably tormented her every waking hour. Probably couldn’t bend too well, or pick things up, had trouble digging in her garden or getting in and out of the bathtub.

  The twin exhausts from the Grand Prix burbled in my wake like a pair of inboard Mercs. Eddie’s head was out the window, ears pinned back and teeth showing in a grim smile. The sun was bright again and everything looked like it was studded with cheap stage jewelry. The air smelled like a clear conscience. The bay was flat but roughed up by the sturdy breeze. The gulls were trying to look regal, heads to the wind, mustered at attention along the narrow piers and breakwaters. I got Imus on the radio and stopped for a huge hot cup of Viennese Supreme to replace the cold French Vanilla. I clutched it between my legs, warming up my nuts.

  This time of year the back roads were a little less traveled, especially during the week. I passed a few pickups and mid-sized American cars that typecast the regular locals. They’d mostly peeled off from Montauk Highway, the area’s main two-lane artery now choked every morning with incoming traffic.

  It was becoming almost impossible to live as a middle-class wage earner within the weird economics of the Hamptons. The only real industry was serving the wealthy who bought and sold things with a logic that was both outlandish and incomprehensible. Yet siphoning off even a little of that ocean of money was a lot more difficult than you’d think. And even when you did, it cost so much to live out here that holding on to it was even more difficult. You could buy Venezuelan coffee futures and first-tier art on Main Street in Southampton Village. But the closest affordable grocery store was twenty miles up island. The locals used to pass houses from father to son before they could reach the open market. But now the prices were so high few could justify not cashing in at a rate ten times the family price. So the native housing inventory was shrinking fast. More and more sons and daughters were traveling in from the west, or giving up and moving permanently to other places.

  But some hung in there. They just couldn’t give up the air and the light, the canopies of maple leaves that billowed overhead like huge green clouds. The sea-sculpted beaches that stretched to the horizon and the oily fish stink of low tide.

  I stopped at the hardware store. Five or six guys were there to look after three or four customers. Personal service was their forte. I showed the first guy I saw the big neoprene plug. He was prematurely gray, but relaxed. The hardware business had been good to him.

  “Have something like it. Not exactly.”

  He brought me over into the plumbing aisle. We both dug around in the parts bins and eyeballed the shrink-wrapped stuff hanging off display pegs.

  “They might have ’em at a plumbing supply. Looks kind of industrial.”

  “It is. I just thought I might have bought it here.”

  He nodded, but said, “Nope. All I got’s these here. Do the same thing.”

  “Not according to OSHA.”

  He laughed, not understanding the joke. His pale blue eyes were kind, and eager to engage.

  “Guess not, but there’s no pleasin’ those people.”

  I stuffed the plug back in my pocket and went to the place on the corner for some more coffee. I stopped on the way to check up on Eddie. He was sleeping in the cavernous back seat, off duty.

  The flavor of the day was Chocolate Raspberry. The Summer People sitting around the crowded little tables wore their weary City indifference as an accessory to their jogging suits and Oxford cloth shirts with little embroidered polo players. There was a lot of confused milling around the area where you got your coffee and pastries. Summer People rarely obey line protocols, so I just shouldered my way up to the coffee stand and cleared a spot for myself. Only the women looked like they might object. The men had lived long enough to own houses out here by knowing how to pick their fights. I was very polite to the tiny Spanish ladies behind the pastry counter. They kept their distance even though they’d been selling me bagels and flavored coffee on a steady basis for about four years. I had that affect on people.

  Amanda was sitting at a table in the corner, almost hidden behind the deli case. I must have felt her looking at me, because our eyes met the moment I saw her.

  “Hey. How’re you doing?”

  “Okay,” she said, looking at my coffee. “Taking out or staying?”

  I sat down at the table. She looked like somebody had tightened her all up. Her face was drawn back and her hands were clasped together in a white grip. Only her posture seemed at ease as she leaned in closer to speak.

  “I feel so bad about the way I’m behaving. I really wanted to tell you I was sorry.”

  “For what? How’re you supposed to behave?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not really what I mean.”

  “We’re just having a cup of coffee. That was the deal, I think.”

  She dropped one shoulder as she leaned in a little closer. I could smell her hair.

  “I don’t usually do anything on my own without telling Roy what I’m doing. I mean, I don’t have to ask permission. I just usually tell him if I’m doing something with somebody. But I thought I might catch you here. I see you come in and out of here all the time. It’d be like … coincidence.”

  She looked up at me and smiled a tight little smile.

  I wanted to get her off whatever subject we were on, even if I didn’t know exactly what that subject was.

  “I guess Joe Sullivan tracked down Regina’s nephew, Jimmy Maddox. You know Joe Sullivan? He’s a Town cop.”

  “I don’t know him. Roy probably does.”

  “He’s a local.”

  “Then Roy must.”

  “You guys must have met here, as kids, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. Roy’s always been here.”

  It was her turn to whisk me off the subject. She pointed out at the street.

  “I ran over here when I saw you pull in. That big car must be quite the collectible.”

  I snorted, the closest thing I had to a laugh.

  “Collects problems. It’s a big dumb thing.”

  “But you drive it. It must be more fun than your regular car.”

  “No, that’s my regular car.”

  “My.”

  “It belonged to my father. Who was also poorly designed and out of place on Main Street.”

  The look on her face told me she regretted picking this tack, as innocent as it looked at first. I tried to recoup for her.

  “Is your father still around?” I asked her.

  “No. He died when I was little. I never knew him.”

  Man, I’ve got a real skill with casual conversation. An instinct for scratching at nerves, picking off scabs.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. People die. Our parents die. Even my mother, who never had a sick day in her life.”

  I pursed my lips and tried to look understanding, afraid I was going to stick my foot in it again. She helped me out.

  “Roy and I went over there when we hadn’t heard from her and couldn’t reach her. She’d been ironing her little doll outfits. She made her own dolls. She was very talented. It was horrible.”

  She looked me in the eye when she said that and took a sip of her coffee. It wasn’t as if she was trying to test my reaction. She just looked at me. Her hands rotated the coffee cup, occasionally stopping it to draw imaginary lines down the sides with her fingernails. They were strong, thin fingers, with perfect long nails.

  “Sorry. We shouldn’t talk about all these sad things. It’s just, you know, she was in pretty good health, and to just have that happen. And when you told me about Regina, something made me think about my mother. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “So what was it, a heart attack?” I
asked, sensitive to the last.

  She shook her head, her face down again.

  “That’s what they thought. I don’t know. Roy looked after all that. I couldn’t really deal with it.”

  “Roy must be a good looker-after.”

  “Too good,” she said, then regretted it. She smiled brightly and switched gears.

  “What are you doing in town today? I know it’s not bank day.”

  “Just chores.”

  “I can see everything from my window. I saw you go into the hardware store. I thought you’d come in here next. You usually do after you stop at the bank. I think it’s funny. I ambushed you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She looked pleased. “I wanted to honor our bargain.”

  “You did.”

  She snuck a look out the picture window as she sipped her coffee.

  “Something’s buggy,” I said.

  She looked back at me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I used to work on big complex systems for a living. Too complex for anyone to ever really understand. Even us engineers. So a lot of the time you just ran on instinct. I don’t know. Sometimes things just felt buggy.”

  I drank a little more coffee and tried to keep my mouth shut, but it was hard with this woman. I wanted to talk to her.

  “Maybe you just think too much,” she said.

  “No, I do everything I possibly can to avoid thinking about anything at all.”

  “You said it’s a feeling. So maybe you feel too much.”

  “I’ve already had a lifetime of feeling. My allotment’s used up.”

  Amanda sat back in her chair, looking into the paper coffee cup she was now crumpling with two hands.

  “I understand. I shouldn’t be bothering you.”

  “You’re not bothering me. I’m bothering myself. You’re just being nice. I’m not worth it. Not at all.”

  She dug a thumbnail into the side of the cup.

  “I understand. Really. I do. More than you think.”

  Then she got up and left. I watched her delicately navigate the crowded little coffee shop. Nice going, Sam, I told myself. Fucking brilliant.