“Have you asked yourself why they only disappear people who rent Number Eleven?”
“Well,” says Ashford after pretending to contemplate the question. “I guess because it has a magic stone buried underneath it.”
“You don’t have an answer, huh?”
“Maybe there’s a hidden entrance,” says Ashford, registering annoyance. “Or you just didn’t see the people leave. Maybe they take them out in little pieces. I got way too many answers. I got them coming out of my ass. That’s why I’m going up there, man. That’s how you work a case.”
Unhappy with this attitude, knowing he can’t influence Ashford, Cliff says, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this for me.”
“Jesus!” Ashford gives a derisive laugh. “You think I’m doing this for you? I don’t give a flying fuck about you. I’m doing this because I enjoy it. I dig being a cop. I hate to see bad guys get away. And that’s what’s going to happen if you become the focus of the investigation. We might get Muntz and the What’s-the-fuck’s-their-names for auto theft, but if they’re guilty of murder, I want to make sure they don’t slide.”
Cliff has new picture of Ashford as a rebel, a loner in the department who never advanced beyond the rank of sergeant because of his penchant for disobeying his superiors. He realizes this picture is no more complete than his original image of the man, but he thinks now that they’re both part of Ashford’s make-up. He wonders what pieces he’s missing.
“Go on, get out of here,” Ashford says, still irritated. “We’re done. Go play your free games.”
Cliff hesitates. “Give me your cell number.”
“What the hell for?”
“If you’re in there more than two hours, I’ll call you.”
Ashford glares at him, then extracts a card case from his jacket and flips a card onto the counter.
“Call me before you check in,” says Cliff. “Right before. So I’ll know when the two hours are up.”
“Fine.” Ashford signals Kerman, holds up his cup, and grins at Mary Beth. “See you later.”
Chapter Ten
As often happens when Cliff is under duress, he’s inclined to put off thinking about crucial issues. He returns to Jungle Queen and finds that his place has been taken by a bald, sunburned, hairy-chested man in a bathing suit, a towel draped around his neck, who has frittered away all but two of his free games. Cliff watches for a bit, drawing a perturbed glance from the man, as if Cliff is the reason for his ineptitude.
He spends the rest of the morning pacing, puttering around the apartment, his mind crowded with thoughts about Stacey. They didn’t care for each other that much, really. The relationship was based on physical attraction and sort of a mutual condescension—they both viewed the other as being frivolous and shallow. Nevertheless, the idea that she’s been murdered makes him sick to his stomach. He switches on the TV, channel-surfs, and switches it off; he vacuums, washes dishes, and finally, at a quarter past one, needing to talk it out with someone, he calls Marley.
“I’m in the middle of something,” she says. “I’ll call you tomorrow.“
From her emphasis on the word, he understands that she probably won’t be home tonight, that she’s trapped by her mother’s impending breakdown.
He drives to the Regal Cineplex in Ormond Beach, where a movie’s playing that he wants to see, but after half-an-hour he regrets his decision. It’s not that the movie is bad—he can’t tell one way or another—but sitting in the almost-empty theater forces him to recognize his own emptiness. It’s still there; it hasn’t gone away. He’s reminded of the first month after he returned to Daytona, when he attended matinee after matinee. He missed being part of the industry, and watching movies had initially been a form of self-punishment, a means of humiliating himself for his failure now that the work wasn’t coming anymore; but before long those hours in the dark, staring at yet not really seeing those bright, flickering celluloid lives, brought home the fact that he was missing some essential sliver of soul. He hadn’t always missed it—he was certain that prior to Hollywood he’d been whole. Yet somehow, somewhere along the line, show biz had extracted that sliver and left him distant from people, an affable sociopath with no particular ax to grind and insufficient energy to grind it, even if he had one. He hoped Marley could bring him back to life, and he still hopes for that, but hope is becoming difficult to maintain.
He walks out into the empty lobby and stands at the center of movie displays and posters. Pitt and Clooney, Will Smith and Matthew McConaughey, posed heroically, absurdly noble and grim. He buys a bag of popcorn at the concession stand from a pretty blond teenager who, after he moves away, leans on the counter, gazing mournfully at the beach weather beyond the glass. Thinking that it was the violence of the film that started him bumming, he tries a domestic melodrama, then a bedroom farce, but they all switch on the Vacancy sign in his head. He drives back to Marley’s apartment in the accumulating twilight, a stiff off-shore wind beginning to bend the palms, and waits for Ashford to call.
By the time the call comes at ten past nine, Cliff’s a paranoid, over-caffeinated mess, but Ashford sounds uncustomarily ebullient.
“Black Dog, Black Dog! This is Dirty Harry Omega. We’re going in! Pray for us!”
Cliff hears high-pitched laughter in the background. “Is someone with you? I thought you didn’t have any back-up.”
“I brought along the hoo…” He breaks off and asks his companion is it okay he refers to her as a hooker. Cliff can’t make out the response, and then Ashford says, “I brought along the beautiful, sexy hooker you set me up with.”
More laughter.
“Are you crazy?” Cliff squeezes the phone in frustration. “You can’t…”
“He wants to know if I’m crazy,” says Ashford.
An instant later, a woman’s voice says, “Ash is extremely crazy. I can vouch for that.”
“Mary Beth? Listen! I want you to have him pull over. Right now!”
“Everything’s under control, Coria,” says Ashford. “I’m on top if it.”
“And behind it, too. And on the bottom.” Mary Beth giggles.
“You can’t take her in there!” says Cliff. “It’s dangerous! Even if there’s nothing…”
“Bye,” says Ashford, and breaks the connection.
Stunned, Cliff calls him back, but either Ashford has switched off his phone or is not picking up.
There’s the missing piece to the Ashford puzzle, the one that explains why he never rose higher than sergeant: He’s a fuck-up, likely a drunk. He didn’t sound drunk, but then he didn’t sound sober, either. His friends on the force probably have had to cover for him more than once. He has to be drinking to pull something like this. Cliff tells himself that Ashford has survived this long, he must be able to handle his liquor; but that won’t float. He should go over to the Celeste…but what if he fucks up Ashford by doing so? He puts his head in his hands, closes his eyes, and tries to think of something that will help; but all he manages to do is to wonder about Mary Beth. Recalling how she slipped into business mode this morning, he’s certain Ashford is paying for her company. Six or seven hundred dollars, plus dinner and drinks—that would be the going rate for all-nighter with an aging hooker. Ashford, he figures, must earn thirty-five or forty K a year. Spending a week’s wage for sex would be doable for him, but he couldn’t make a habit of it. But what if this is his farewell party and he’s crashing out? Unwed, unloved by his peers, facing a solitary retirement—it’s a possibility. Or what if he’s on the take and this sort of behavior is commonplace with Ashford. Cliff has a paranoid vision of Jerry Muntz slipping Ashford a fat envelope. He rebukes himself for this entire line of speculation, realizing there’s nothing to do except wait.
Thirty minutes ooze past. Wind shudders the panes, rain blurring the lights of the boardwalk, and he calls again. Ashford answers, “Yeah…what?”
He’s slurring, his voice thick.
“Just checking on you,�
�� Cliff says.
“Don’t fucking call me, okay? Call when it’s been two hours…or I’ll call.”
“Are you in Number Eleven?”
“Yeah. Goodbye.”
To ease the strain on his back, Cliff lies down on the bed and, perhaps as a result of too much adrenaline, mental fatigue, he passes out. On waking, he sits bolt upright and stares at the alarm clock. Almost midnight. If Ashford called, he didn’t hear it, but he’s so attuned to that damn ring…He fumbles for the phone and punches in Ashford’s number. Voice mail. After a moment’s bewilderment, panic wells up in him and he can’t get air. Once his breathing is under control he tries the number again, and again is shunted to voicemail.
He talks out loud in an attempt to keep calm. “He’s fucking me around,” he says. “Motherfucker. He’s twisting my brains like in high school. Or he forgot. He forgot, and now he and Mary Beth Hooker are passed out in bed at the Celeste.”
Hearing how insane this monologue sounds, he shuts it down before he can speak the third possibility, the one he believes is true—that Ashford and Mary Beth are no more, dead and done for, presently being carted off to wherever the Palaniappans dispose of the bodies.
He flirts with the notion of calling the police, but what would be the point? If they’re alive, all it would achieve is to attract more attention to him and that he doesn’t need. If they’re dead and he calls, he’ll instantly become a suspect in multiple murders and they’d most likely pick him up. But he still has an out. He calls Marley. Voicemail. He leaves an urgent message for her to call him back. If he knew where her mother lived, the street address, he’d drive to Deland and pick her up, and they’d get the hell out of Dodge. Where they would go, that’s a whole other question, but at least they’d be away from Shalin and Bazit. That’s okay, that’s all right. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
He tries Ashford a third time, to no avail, and lies down again. He doesn’t think he can sleep, but he does, straight through to morning, a sleep that seems an eventless dream of a dark, airless confine in which insubstantial monsters are crawling, breeding, killing, speaking in a language indistinguishable from a heavy, fitful wind, coming close enough to touch.
Chapter Eleven
It’s not unreasonable to think, Cliff tells himself, that Marley’s still into it with her mother and that’s why she hasn’t called; but it’s nine AM and he’s growing edgy. He calls the police, asks to speak with Sgt. Ashford, and is put through to a detective named Levetto who says that Ashford’s always late, he should be in soon, do you want to leave a message?
“No, thanks,” says Cliff.
Screwing up his courage, he does something he should have done last night—call the motel.
“Celeste Motel,” says Bazit. “How may I be of service?”
Cliff rasps up his voice to disguise it. “Number Eleven, please.”
“Number Eleven is vacant, sir.”
I’m looking for some friends, the Ashfords. I could have sworn they were in Eleven.”
A pause. “I’m afraid we have no one of that name with us. A Mister Larry Lawless and his wife occupied Number Eleven last night.” Cliff thinks he detects a hint of amusement in Bazit’s voice as he says, “They checked out quite early.”
After trying Marley again, Cliff sits in his underwear, eating toast and jam, drinking coffee, avoiding thought by watching Fox News, when an idea strikes. He throws on shorts and a shirt, and heads for the arcade where he met Ashford the previous morning; he stakes out a stool at the counter, orders an orange juice from Kerman, and waits for Mary Beth to appear.
Last night’s deluge has diminished to this morning’s drizzle, but the wind is gusting hard. It’s a nasty day. Churning surf ploughs the beach, massive, ugly slate-colored waves larded with white, like the liquidinous flesh of some monstrosity spilling onto shore, strands of umber seaweed lifting on its muddy humps. The bruised clouds bulge downward, dragging tendrils of rain over the land. A mere scatter of senior citizens are braving the weather; in the arcade, a handful of debased souls, none of them kids, are feeding coin slots with the regularity of casino habitués. If she’s alive, the chances of Mary Beth putting in an appearance are poor, but Cliff sticks it out for more than an hour, scanning every approaching figure, prospecting the gray backdrop for a glint of whitish gold with black roots. His thoughts grab and stick like busted gears, grinding against each other, and the low music of the arcade, a muttering rap song, seems to be issuing from inside his head.
He reaches for his cell phone, thinking to try Marley, and realizes he has left it on the kitchen counter. He hurries back to the apartment and finds a message from Marley. “Hi, Cliffie,” she says. “I’ll be home soon. Mom’s no longer threatening suicide. Of course, there could always be a relapse.” A sigh. “I miss you. Hope you’re missing me.”
The message was left five minutes ago, so he calls her back, but gets her voicemail. It’s twenty-three miles to Deland, a twenty-minute drive at Marley’s usual rate of speed. At worst, he expects her to walk through the door in a couple of hours. But two o’clock comes and she’s not yet back. He calls obsessively for the better part of an hour, punching in her number every few minutes. At three o’clock, he calls the police again and asks for Ashford. A different detective says, “I don’t see him. You want to leave a message?”
“Is he in today?”
“I don’t know,” says the detective impatiently. “I just got here myself.”
Cliff is astonished by how thoroughly the circumstance has neutralized him. He knows nothing for certain. There’s no proof positive that Stacey is dead, no proof at all concerning the fates of Mary Beth and Ashford. There is some evidence that Jerry is involved in criminal activity, perhaps with the Palaniappans, but nothing you can hang your hat on. He has every expectation that Marley is safe, yet he’s begun to worry. He can’t raise the alarm, because no one will believe him and the police think he’s a murderer. If truth be told, he’s not sure he believes Shalin’s story—events have gone a long way toward convincing him, but it’s perfectly possible that she’s playing mind games with him and that’s all there is to it. When the DNA results come back, as they could any minute, at least according to Ashford, then there may be some proof, but if the DNA doesn’t match Stacey’s…Nada. Yet it’s the very nebulousness of the situation that persuades him that his life has gone and is going horribly wrong, that he’s perched atop a mountain of air and, once he recognizes that nothing is supporting him, his fall will be calamitous. He should do something, he tells himself. He should leave before the DNA comes back, pack a few things and put some miles between him and the Palaniappans whom—irrationally—he fears more than the police. He can call Marley from the road, though God knows what he’ll say to her.
In the end, he takes a half-measure and drives to the cottage, deciding that he’ll pack and wait there for Marley to call. The surf in Port Orange is as unlovely as that in Daytona, the sky as sullen. Wind flattens the dune grass, and the cottage looks vacant, derelict, sand drifted up onto the steps and porch. When he unlocks the inside door, a strong smell rushes out, a stale, sweet scent compounded of spoilage and deodorizers. Eau de Cliff. He tiptoes about nervously, peering into rooms, and, once assured that no one is lying in wait, he grabs a suitcase and begins tossing clothes into it. In a bottom drawer, underneath folded jeans, he finds his old army .45 and a box of shotgun shells. The shotgun has long since been sold, but the .45 might come in handy. He inspects the clip, making certain it’s full, and puts it in the suitcase. Headlines run past on an imaginary crawl. Actor Slain In Deadly Shoot-out—Details at eleven. He finishes packing, goes into the living room, and sits on the couch. A cloud seems to settle over him, a depressive fog. He can’t hold a thought in his head. It’s been years since he felt so unsound, as if the fluttering of a feather duster could disperse him.
The overcast turns into dusk, and for Cliff it’s an eternal moment, a single, seamless drop of time in which he’s embedded like
an ancient insect, suspended throughout the millennia. He feels ancient; his bones are dry sticks, his skin papery and brittle. The phone rings. Not his cell, but his landline. He reacts to it sluggishly—he doubts Marley would call him at this number—but the phone rings and rings, a piercing note that reverberates through the house, disruptive and jarring. He picks up, listens yet does not speak.
“Mister Coria? Hello?”
Cliff remains silent.
“This is Bazit Palaniappan, the owner of the Celeste Motel. How are you today?”
“What do you want?”
“I have someone here who wishes to speak with you.”
Marley’s voice comes on the line, saying, “Cliff? Is that you?”
“Marley?”
“I’m afraid she’s too upset to talk further. I’ve arranged for her to have a lie-down in one of our bungalows.”
“You fuck! You hurt her, I swear to God I’ll kill you!”
Unperturbed, Bazit says, “Perhaps you could come and get her. Shall we say, within the next half-hour?”
“You bet your ass I’m coming! You’d better not hurt her!”
“Within the next half-hour, if you please. I can’t tie up the room longer than that. And do come alone. She’s very upset. I don’t know what will happen if you should bring people with you. It might be too much for her.”
His cloud of depression dissolved, Cliff slings the receiver across the room. He’s furious, his thoughts flurry, he doesn’t know where to turn, what to do, but gradually his fury matures into a cold, fatalistic resolve. He’s fucked. The trap that the Palnaniappans set has been sprung, but Marley…He removes the .45 from the suitcase, sticks it in his waist, under his shirt, and thinks, no, that won’t be enough. They’ll be watching for him, they’ll expect a gun or a knife. His mind muddies. Then, abruptly, it clears and he remembers a trick he learned in blow-it-up school. He goes to the drawer in which he found the .45; he takes out two shotgun shells, hustles back to the living room, rummages through his desk and finds thumbtacks, strapping tape, and scotch tape. He makes a package of the shells, the scotch tape, a few thumbtacks, and a length of string; he drops his shorts and tapes the package under his balls. He’s clumsy with the tape—his hands shake and it sticks to his fingers. The package is unstable. One wrong move and everything will spill onto the ground. He adds more tape. It’s uncomfortable; it feels as if he shit his pants. He stands at the center of the room, and the room seems to shrink around him, to fit tightly to his skin like plastic wrap. He’s hot and cold at the same time. A breath of wind could topple him, yet when he squeezes his hand into a fist, he knows how strong he is. “I love you,” he says to the shadows, and the shadows tremble. “I love you.”
Winter 2007 Page 12