by Art Bourgeau
As he turned into the parking lot near Forbidden Drive he tried to imagine Stanley Hightower doing the same thing. Was he alone when he came here?
There were two cars in the parking lot . . . an old Ford station wagon and a Toyota sedan, parked near the steps leading up to the Maison Catherine on the hill. He recognized them. The Ford belonged to Catherine Poydras, the owner of the restaurant, and the Toyota belonged to her chef, Wilson.
Still trying to picture Stanley Hightower he drove slowly across the lot and parked in the place where he'd found the black BMW.
"What were you doing here? What brought you here at that time of night? You'd had dinner and you came out here to meet someone . . . who?"
Wait a minute. Why was he thinking Hightower had come here alone? What about Sloan's theory that he had picked up someone and driven them here? Maybe, but sitting here now, the only way he could imagine him was alone and waiting. That night came back to him . . . the rain, the cold. He remembered getting out of the blue-and-white and walking toward the BMW. There were stains on the ground. Oil stains, he'd thought at the time . . . then he remembered the sounds he'd heard by the garbage can and later in the woods. At first he'd thought it was a dog. After finding the body he wasn't sure . . . he still wasn't . . .
A knock at his window startled him. He turned and in the darkness could just make out a teen-ager on a bicycle. He rolled down the window. "Yeah."
"Mister, I thought you'd like to know your rear tire is going flat."
Mercanto got out to look. There was nothing wrong with the tire. When he turned back the teen-ager had a gun in his hand.
"Hand over your wallet, motherfucker."
Anger boiled. At himself for being stupid enough to get suckered this way. At the teen-ager for trying it.
"Look, why don’t you forget it and take off — —"
The teen-ager cocked the pistol. Was this how it happened to Hightower? he thought. He shook his head. It didn't feel right, didn't answer the question what he was doing here at three a.m.
The teen-ager took his words and the shake of his head to be a refusal. "I'm going to count three and blow your fucking head off if I don’t have that wallet."
Mercanto had seen street violence too often not to be afraid. It was surely drug money the kid was after. A kid like that would do anything. In the faint light his gun looked like an old Western Colt .45, an unlikely gun for him to be carrying. It could be a fake, one of those replicas. He hoped it was. If it wasn't . . . He thought for a second about announcing he was a cop, decided against it. Play for time.
"Put the gun away, let's talk about this . . . I think we can straighten everything out," he said, feeling like an amateur snake-charmer with a cobra in front of him.
"One."
Mercanto wanted to reach for his own gun but pushed back the thought. It was almost like one part of him had stepped out of his body and was watching from the sidelines. The night of Rudy Gunther’s death replayed itself. Stay cool. Be persuasive. His career couldn’t stand another incident like that, especially not involving a teen-ager.
"You’re making a mistake, son. I've only got ten bucks on me. Why don't we forget about it? If l see you around sometime I'll buy you a beer and we’l1 maybe laugh about it. Believe me, I was your age once — —"
"Two."
Mercanto looked at him closely, trying to fix him in his mind. About six feet, dark hair, no scars or marks. Clothing dark, hair cut short, like a prep school kid from the West Mt. Airy side of the park. Could this possibly be Hightower's killer? If he was, he had to bring him in . . . hopefully alive.
"Tell me one thing, why are you doing this?"
"What's it to you?"
He wanted to shout out because I’m a cop. But unless he had the drop on the kid, all an announcement like that would do was scare him into the act, and Mercanto didn’t want to feel a .45 slug tear into his body.
"I just thought maybe I could help. Sometimes stuff gets out of hand, it’s good to talk about it. We've got time," he said, knowing it sounded foolish but not able to think of anything better. Step back and contain, that's what he should have done they said after Rudy Gunther. Easier said than done.
"Maybe you've got all night, I don't. Give me that wallet."
Mercanto had to recognize the finality in the tone. He'd heard the same thing on the street too many times before.
"All right, you win."
He moved his hand slowly inside his coat like he was reaching for his wallet. His hand closed around the butt of his revolver. God, please don't let this kid make me shoot him. He pulled the gun free of the holster, letting a little of his breath out as he dropped into a combat stance. "Get your hands up. I'm a police officer."
The teen-ager fired. Mercanto felt the slug tear into him, and he began to fall. His last thought was, it’s true . . . you do feel it before you hear the sound.
CHAPTER 9
LORING SAT huddled on the rocks at Cape May, the aves of the Atlantic crashing around him with the bubbling hawk-and-spit of an old man expectorating. He'd been there alone on the beach all night. The cold wind from the east had leeched its way inside his parka hours ago, and he was chilled to the bone. With the dawn, sky and sea separated until one was gray, the other oily black trimmed with whitecaps. In his mind he heard the sounds of the Passion of St. Matthew with its complimenting strength and delicacy matching the growl of the sea.
The music had begun last evening after the call from Wiladene Jenkins and had continued in his mind all night with symphonic clarity. Unexplained as it was, he marveled at how it seemed a part of him rather than a memory. At times through the night its beauty had moved him close to tears. He pulled his knees tighter to his chest and tried to focus on what she had said. That she wanted him to ask Erin Fraser to the opening party for the exhibit at the museum. He appreciated Erin's aloneness in her moment of triumph, but he had still refused. There was only one woman in his life . . . Margaret. But Wiladene was adamant. No one could say no to her, and in the end he relented.
He called Margaret at home immediately after to explain what he'd done, but when she answered, like always when he called, he couldn't make himself speak. All he did was listen until she hung up, feeling that he had betrayed her by giving in to Wiladene.
After that the walls of his house seemed to close in on him. He tried to think of other things, to read or relax somehow, his stomach a bundle of nerves that even belladonna would not loosen. He paced, he cursed, he hated himself. A pawn to other people's desires, a piece to be moved around, that’s what he was, what he'd always been. He was not a man, at least not his own man. Otherwise he would not have betrayed Margaret like that.
He sat at his desk. If he couldn't bring himself to speak to her on the phone at least he could write to her. He picked up his pen. The words flowed like acrylic paint onto the paper. The beauty of the contrast between the black ink and the white paper was hypnotic. This was right, he felt it. Margaret had to know. There was too much not to pass it on. Essential information. Not the present, that was only confusion, bad dreams, chaos, except for her, but the past. She had to understand heroics were not important, only survival. Concentration camp lessons from legions of the undead. Nazi lessons. He decorated the margin of one sheet with swastikas to illustrate, knowing she would understand when she saw them. On the third page he redrew the picnic picture they'd spoken about in therapy, only this time he included his stepfather with Hitler's features and gave his mother huge breasts. Above her picture he wrote the words "Eva Braun."
It was all clear to him now and would be to Margaret.
Sometime during the letter he heard the music in his mind. He wasn’t aware of the exact moment it started because once he realized it was there it seemed like it had been there forever. The letter went to sixteen pages before everything was said. All the answers to all the questions. All the knowledge that the terror of his history had given him. His sin, his years of punishment.
When h
e finished he felt closer to Margaret than ever before. Her face was with him as he got in his car and started to drive. He imagined her sitting next to him as the Jersey shore towns rolled by, her knees tucked under, coolly smoking, watching him.
He thought of her breasts as his free hand strayed to his own nipples, and he began to caress them through his shirt, feeling a pleasant sensation that moved over his body. This wasn’t sin. It wasn’t dirty. It was pleasure. This was how Margaret would feel, he thought. It would feel good like this if he touched hers, or she touched his. He knew the sensation would be the same because he was her, she was him. Not peas of the pod, but one, free to use this oneness to bring goodness, not pain or humiliation like others did.
Now on the rocks hours later he was alone again. Just himself and the sea. His body was shivering as he looked east toward the horizon, the letter tucked safely in his pocket. The words of the book of Genesis came to mind. First there was the darkness, then the waters, then the light. The sea was where it all began. Life as we know it, he thought. Sea creatures to land creatures. Out there somewhere off shore it's still happening. A wave is born, moving slow and small, gaining momentum, maturity on its way to shore. Each one separate and distinct from all that have come before it. Each one powerless to change its course or to stop itself from dying in white water on the beach, he thought. Like me. . .
He got up and started for his car, the music no longer playing in his mind.
Erin and Wiladene were in one of the upper rooms at the Braddon laying out items for a Channel 12 telecast on the exhibit when he arrived. They both looked up as he came in, and Wiladene smiled. She should, he thought. I'm here like one of the waves.
"Aren’t you working today? I'm not used to seeing you without a suit," Wiladene said.
"I'm taking the day off."
"That's not like you. Don't you feel well?"
"I feel fine."
Erin didn’t believe him. He looked haggard, worn, like he hadn't slept all night. She hoped he wasn’t coming down with something.
Wiladene looked at her watch. "Gosh, I just realized I've got to run out for a few minutes. I'll be back in a little while," she said, gathering up her coat and purse.
They watched her go. Erin knew it was a ploy to leave them alone. Wiladene had told her Loring was going to invite her to the party but that he was shy about such things.
He moved around the room, looking at some of the items, lightly touching others. "All these things are from the Caribbean . . ."
"That’s right. Mainly from Haiti and Jamaica. They have the richest cultures, but there are items from most of the other islands as well."
Shyness was a quality she could appreciate since her own relationships with the opposite sex were marked by an awkwardness she found impossible to control.
"Do you ever want to go back to the islands?" he said, thinking of how life had been so simple when he was planning his own trip to Barbados. It seemed like he’d grown old in the short time since his sister's call about her wedding had ruined those plans.
"Sure, all the time. Especially when the weather's like this. Doesn’t everyone?"
"I guess."
She had to admit she liked him better in a parka and jeans than in a suit. He seemed more real. She’d already made up her mind to accept if he asked her. Wiladene had seen to that, singing his praises every time they were together, but he seemed so uncomfortable. Maybe if she helped him a little
"What brings you to the museum today?"
Her question brought Wiladene's call back to mind. "Ask Erin to the party," she'd demanded, as if the decision was hers to make, his to obey. Like his mother. . . If you love me, you’1l do what I want . . . The times he had bitten his tongue to keep from telling her the truth . . . that he did not love her. . . never had. She wouldn’t have understood. To her, love was a capitulation. That's how she measured her own, how much she gave up. His, too. The greater the cost, the greater the love.
It was the only possible explanation for what he’d seen her do with him . . . her husband, long ago.
"I dropped by because I . . . wanted to ask if I could take you to the opening party for the exhibit," he said. "I know with you being the director it's not exactly right for me to ask. I don’t mean to intrude but I thought . . ."
"I'd like that very much. Thank you."
In a way he felt relieved when she accepted. It made his surrender easier. Like all the other times, he told himself. Don't think about it, just do it and it'll be over with.
Erin saw the look on his face and was glad she'd helped him. She would have preferred a bolder approach, but there was something charming about him.
He picked up a mask from one of the tables. "What’s this?"
She went to stand nearer him. "It’s a Haitian voodoo mask. The reason it's here is because of its unusual design," she said, thinking of the circumstances in which she'd first seen it worn.
He turned it over in his hands. It was plain like a death mask, following the imprint of the face closely. There were no feathers or decorations except for a trickle of rhinestone tears leading downward from the corners of the eyes. The top half was violet, coming to a point at the tip of the nose, making it seem elongated, animal like. The bottom half was the red pink of torn flesh.
As he looked at it he heard the music again in his mind. The sacrificial mass. The music seemed to make it clear to him, and he understood the mask. It was the inner face of the damned, the soul of the one who made it and wore it.
The feeling scared him. What if they were kindred spirits? The feeling of doom he’d felt in the fitting room came back. He knew that had been caused by overwork, but there was still the feeling . . . the same feeling so plain to him in the mask. Then there’d been his lunch with Erin, something he'd dismissed as just bad food, but now he wasn’t so sure. What if it had been an episode, too, or even worse . . . a sign. Of what? Movement toward the same knowledge the maker of the mask had had?
Something started to form. A memory he didn't know was there. One that was worse still because of its newness. He tried to push it back, out of his consciousness. It's just a fantasy, he told himself, but the harder he tried, the more clearly he remembered. His chair. . . his cleric's chair. . . waking up there, not knowing how he'd gotten from his bed . . .
He put the mask down and walked over to a tapestry on another table, trying to focus on it. It was red with gold, woven, blocky figures of three stubby-legged men and a dog. The dog was out of proportion, like Wolf in his own picnic picture.
From a distance he heard Erin say, "That's a Mayan tapestry from the ruins near Cozumel."
"My mother makes tapestries," he said.
Erin watched the way he touched it, traced the figures with his fingertips as if they were Braille. He was experiencing them through touch. "It's very old, over three hundred years," she said.
He heard her words but they didn't register. When he turned to ask her to repeat it he saw the mask again. It's position on the table caught the light and made the rhinestone tears look wet. The anguish of it drew him, unlocked the scene in his mind he knew he didn't want to remember. Get a grip on yourself, he told himself, you're not a character from Shakespeare. You're Loring Weatherby, stockbroker.
As he thought this, he remembered getting up from his chair and looking in the mirror. Like the mask, the lower part of his face was covered in blood, too . . .
Then he knew — what he was remembering didn't happen.
He was remembering a dream, a nightmare. It had to be. Wasn't Margaret always talking about dreams, wanting him to tell her his . . . That's what it was . . . a nightmare. More than a nightmare . . . the granddaddy of nightmares. I’ll go to her now and tell her. She’ll be glad, finally one of my dreams to interpret.
The thought of being with Margaret made him smile. He looked at Erin. On some level she reminded him of his sister. Going out with his sister was no betrayal of Margaret. That thought made him feel much better than he had
since Wiladene's call. He reached out and touched her arm. "Thanks for accepting. I’ll call you later to go over the details. Now I have to run."
He took Market Street from West Philly back into Center City, weaving in and out of the heavy traffic. He wasn't due to see Margaret today but he knew she'd understand, be glad to see him. At Nineteenth he took a right, crossed Chestnut and Walnut and circled Rittenhouse Square. He parked illegally near the Warwick and hurried to her office.
He felt buoyant, like bringing home a good report card. His troubles were over. She'd led him to the key in her soft womanly way. He wasn't going crazy. All these things were just dreams. Super realistic dreams. If he talked about them they would go away.
The waiting room was empty. He crossed it in two strides and opened the door to her inner office. The sight inside shocked him. Margaret was not alone. There was a man with her.
She looked up in surprise when he burst into the room.
"Loring. . . Mr. Weatherby, what are you doing here?" he heard her say.
The man was lying on the couch, his jacket off. Margaret was sitting in a chair near the head of it. She seemed to be writing something on a pad, but the look on her face gave her away. It was guilt, he decided. The same look he'd seen on his mother’s face that night long ago when he'd come into the den and found her on her knees with him mounting her. She stood and smoothed her skirt. "I'm very sorry about this. Please excuse me for a moment," she said to the man. As she crossed the room to him, he saw the anger on her face and now he was embarrassed. If only he could turn the clock back five minutes he could undo it, but like that night, the damage was done.
"Step outside, please," she said.
He stumbled backward through the door and she followed him into the outer office, closing the door behind her.
"I'm with a patient . . ."
"But I need to see you."
"Right now that's not possible. Your appointment is tomorrow. . . if you feel it's so urgent you can't wait, then I can refer you to someone — "