So this was Oliver Yardman! Twenty-one years after the Key West idyll, the man had thickened, grown coarser, yet there was the unmistakable sexual swagger, the sulky spoiled-boy mouth.
Yardman was shorter than Leonard had expected, burly and solid-built as a fire hydrant. He had a rucked forehead and a fleshy nose riddled with small broken veins and his breath was meaty, sour. He wore a leathery-looking cowboy hat, an expensive-looking rumpled suede jacket, lime-green shirt with a black string tie looped around his neck, rumpled khakis, badly scuffed leather boots. He seemed impatient, edgy. His hands, that were busily gesticulating, in twitchy swoops like the gestures of a deranged magician, were noticeably large, with stubby fingers, and on the smallest finger of his left hand he wore a showy gold signet ring with a heraldic crest.
The first husband. Leonard's heart kicked in his chest; he was in the presence of his enemy.
In the office that was hardly more than a storefront, and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, Yardman showed Leonard photographs of “ranch-type” properties within “easy commuting distance” of downtown Denver. In his aggressive, mock-friendly yet grudging voice Yardman kept up a continual banter, peppering Leonard with facts, figures, statistics, punctuating his words with Eh? It was a verbal tic of which Yardman seemed unaware or was helpless to control and Leonard steeled himself waiting to hear it, dry-mouthed with apprehension that Yardman was suspicious of him, eyeing him so intimately, “...tight schedule, eh? Goin’ back tomorrow, you said? Said your firm's ‘relocating'? Some kinda computer parts, eh? There's a lot of that in Denver, ‘lectronics, ‘chips,’ theseare boom times for some, eh? Demographics're movin’ west, for sure. Population shift. Back East, billion-dollar companies goin’ down the toilet, you hear.” Yardman laughed heartily, amused by the spectacle of companies going down a toilet.
Leonard said, in Dwayne Ducharme's earnest voice, “Mr. Yardman, I've been very—"
"'Mitch.’ Call me ‘Mitch,’ eh?"
"—'Mitch.’ I've been very lucky to be transferred to our Denver branch. My company has been ‘downsized,’ but—"
"Tell me about it, man! ‘Downsize.’ ‘Cut back.’ Ain't that the story of these United States lately, eh?” Yardman was suddenly vehement, incensed. His pronunciation was savage: Yoo-nited States.
Leonard said, with an air of stubborn naiveté, “Mr. Yardman, my wife and I think of this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To ‘relocate’ to the West from the crowded East. We're Methodist Evangelicals and the church is flourishing in Colorado and we have a twelve-year-old boy dying to raise horses and my wife thinks—"
"That is so interesting, Dwayne Ducharme,” Yardman interrupted, with a rude smirk, “—you are one of a new ‘pioneer breed’ relocating to our ‘wide open spaces’ and relaxed way of life and lower taxes. Seems to me I have just the property for you: six-acre ranch, four-bedroom house for the growin’ family, barn in good repair, creek runs through the property, fences, shade trees, aspens, in kinda a valley where there's deer and antelope to hunt. Just went on the market a few days ago, Dwayne Ducharme, thisis serendip'ty, eh?"
Yardman locked up the office. Pulled down a sign on the front door: CLOSED. When he wasn't facing Leonard, his sulky mouth yet retained its fixed smile.
Outside, the men had a disagreement: Yardman wanted to drive his prospective client to the ranch, which was approximately sixteen miles away, and Dwayne Ducharme insisted upon driving his rental car. Yardman said, “Why'n hell we need two vehicles, eh? Save gas. Keep each other company. It's the usual procedure, see.” Yardman's vehicle was a new-model Suburban with smoke-tinted windows, bumper stickers featuring the American flag, and a dented right rear door. It was both gleaming-black and splattered with mud like coarse lace. Inside, a dog was barking excitedly, throwing itself against the window nearest Leonard and slobbering the glass. “That's Kaspar. Spelled with a ‘K.’ Bark's worse'n his bite. Kaspar ain't goin’ to bite you, Dwayne Ducharme, I guarantee.” Yardman slammed the flat of his hand against the window commanding the dog to “settle down.” Kaspar was an Airedale, pure-bred, Yardman said. Damn good breed, but needs discipline. “You buy this pretty li'l property out at Mineral Springs for your family, you'll want a dog. ‘Man's best friend’ is no bullshit."
But Leonard didn't want to ride with Yardman and Kaspar; Leonard would drive his own car. Yardman stared at him, baffled. Clearly, Yardman was a man not accustomed to being contradicted or thwarted in the smallest matters. He said, barely troubling to disguise his contempt, “Well, Dwayne Ducharme, you do that. You in your li'l Volva, Volvo, Vulva, you do that. Kaspar and me will drive ahead, see you don't get lost."
In a procession of two vehicles they drove through the small town of Makeville in the traffic of early Saturday afternoon, in late March. It was a windy day, tasting of snow. Overhead were massive clouds like galleons. What a relief, to be free of Yardman's overpowering personality! Leonard hadn't slept well the night before, nor the night before that, his nerves were strung tight. In his compact rental car he followed the military-looking black Suburban through blocks of undistinguished storefronts, stucco apartment buildings, taverns, X-rated video stores, opening onto a state highway crowded with the usual fast-food restaurants, discount outlets, gas stations, strip malls. All that seemed to remain of Makeville's mining-town past were The Gold Strike Go-Go, Strike-It-Rich Lounge, Silver Lining Barbecue. Beyond the highway was a mesa landscape of small stunted trees, rocks. To get to Yardman Realty & Insurance at 661 Main Street, Makeville, Leonard had had a forty-minute drive from the Denver airport through a dispiriting clog of traffic and air hazier than the air of Manhattan on most days.
He thought, Can he guess? Any idea who I am?
He was excited, edgy. No one knew where Leonard Chase was.
Outside town, where the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour, Yardman pushed the Suburban toward seventy, leaving Leonard behind. It was to punish him, Leonard knew: Yardman allowed other vehicles to come between him and Leonard, then pulled off onto the shoulder of the road to allow Leonard to catch up. In a gesture of genial contempt, Yardman signaled to him, and pulled out onto the highway before him, fast. In the rear window of the Suburban was an American flag. On the rear bumper were stickers: BUSH CHENEY USA. KEEP HONKING, I'M RELOADING.
Yardman's family must have been rich at one time. Yardman had been sent east to college. Though he played the yokel, it was clear that the man was shrewd, calculating. Something had happened in his personal life and in his professional life, possibly a succession of things. He'd had money, but not now. Valerie would never have married Yardman otherwise. Wouldn't have kept the lewd Polaroids for more than two decades.
If he guessed. What?
The Suburban was pulling away again, passing an eighteen-rig truck. Leonard could turn off at any time, drive back to the airport and take a flight back to Chicago. He'd told Valerie that he would be in Chicago for a few days on business and this was true: Leonard had a job interview with a Chicago firm needing a tax litigator with federal court experience. He hadn't told Valerie that he'd been severed from the Rector Street firm and was sure that there could be no way she might know. He'd been commuting into the city five days a week, schedule unaltered. His CEO had seen to it, he'd been treated with courtesy: allowed the use of his office for several weeks while he searched for a new job. Except for one or two unfortunate episodes, he got along well with his old colleagues. Once or twice he showed up unshaven, disheveled, most of the time he seemed unchanged. White cotton shirt, striped tie, dark pinstripe suit. He continued to have his shoes shined in Penn Station. In his office, door shut, he stared out the window. Or clicked through the Internet. So few law firms were interested in him, at forty-six: “downsized.” But he'd tracked down Yardman in this way. And the interview in Chicago was genuine. Leonard Chase's impressive resumé, the “strong, supportive” recommendation his CEO had promised, were genuine.
Valerie had ceased touching his arm, his cheek. Valerie had ce
ased asking in a concerned voice, Is anything wrong, darling?
This faint excitement, edginess. He'd been in high-altitude terrain before. Beautiful Aspen, where they'd gone skiing just once. Also Santa Fe. Denver was a mile above sea level and Leonard's breath was coming quickly and shallowly in the wake of Yardman's vehicle. His pulse was fast, elated. He knew that after a day, the sensation of excitement would shift to a dull throbbing pain behind his eyes. But he hoped to be gone from Colorado by then.
Mineral Springs. This part of the area certainly didn't look prosperous. Obviously there were wealthy Denver suburbs and outlying towns but this wasn't one of them. The land continued flat and monotonous and its predominant hue was the hue of dried manure. At least, Leonard had expected mountains. In the other direction, Yardman had said with a smirk—but where? The jagged skyline of Denver, behind Leonard, to his right, was lost in a soupy brown haze.
The Suburban turned off onto a potholed road. United Church of Christ in a weathered wood-frame building, a mobile-home park, small asphalt-sided houses set back in scrubby lots in sudden and unexpected proximity to Quail Ridge Acres, a “custom-built"—"luxury home"—housing development sprawling out of sight. There began to be more open land, “ranches” with grazing cattle, horses close beside the road lifting their long heads as Leonard passed by. The sudden beauty of a horse can take your breath away, Leonard had forgotten. He felt a pang of loss, he had no son. No one to move west with him, raise horses in Colorado.
Yardman was turning the Suburban onto a long bumpy lane. Here was the Flying S Ranch. A pair of badly worn steer horns hung crooked on the opened front gate, in greeting. Leonard pulled up behind Yardman and parked. A sensation of acute loneliness and yearning swept over him. If we could live here! Begin over again! Except he needed to be younger, and Valerie needed to be a different woman. Here was a possible home: a long flat-roofed wood-and-stucco ranch house with a slapdash charm, needing repair, repainting, new shutters, probably a new roof. You could see a woman's touches: stone urns in the shape of swans flanking the front door, the remains of a rock garden in the front yard. Beyond the house were several outbuildings, a silo. In a shed, a left-behind tractor. Mounds of rotted hay, dried manure. Fences in varying stages of dereliction. Yet, there was a striking view of a sweeping, sloping plain and a hilly terrain—a mesa?—in the distance. Pierced with sunshine the sky was beautiful, a hard, glassy blue behind clouds like gigantic sculpted figures. Leonard saw that, from the rear of the ranch house, you'd have a view of the hills, marred only by what looked like the start of a housing development far to the right. Almost, if you stared straight ahead, you might not notice the intrusion.
As Leonard approached the Suburban, he saw that Yardman was leaning against the side of the vehicle, speaking tersely into a cell phone. His face was a knot of flesh. Kaspar the purebred Airedale was loose, trotting excitedly about, sniffing at the rock garden and lifting his leg. When he sighted Leonard he rushed at him barking frantically and baring his teeth. Yardman shouted, “Back off, Kaspar! Damn dog, obey!"When Leonard shrank back, shielding himself with his arms, Yardman scolded him, too: “Kaspar is all damn bark and no bite, din't I tell you? Eh? C'mon, boy. Sit. Now.” With a show of reluctance Kaspar obeyed his red-faced master. Leonard hadn't known that Airedales were so large. This one had a wiry, coarse tan-and-black coat, a grizzled snout of a muzzle, and moist dark vehement eyes like his master. Yardman shut off the cell phone and tried to arrange his face into a pleasant smile. As he unlocked the front door and led Leonard into the house he said, in his salesman's genial-blustery voice, “...churches, eh? You seen ‘em? On the way out here? This is strong Christian soil. Earliest settlers. Prots'ant stock. There's a Mormon population, too. Those folks are serious.” Yardman sucked his fleshy mouth, considering the Mormons. There was something to be acknowledged about those folks, maybe money.
The ranch house looked as if it hadn't been occupied in some time. Leonard, looking about with a vague, polite smile, as a prospective buyer might, halfway wondered if something, a small creature perhaps, had crawled beneath the house and died. Yardman forestalled any question from his client by telling a joke: “...punishment for bigamy? Eh? ‘Two wives.'” His laughter was loud and meant to be infectious.
Leonard smiled at the thought of Valerie stepping into such a house. Not very likely! The woman's sensitive soul would be bruised in proximity to what Yardman described as the “remodeled” kitchen with the “fantastic view of the hills” and, in the living room, an unexpected spectacle of left-behind furniture: a long, L-shaped sofa in a nubby butterscotch fabric, a large showy glass-topped coffee table with a spiderweb crack in the glass, deep-piled wall-to-wall stained beige carpeting. Two steps down into a family room with a large fireplace and another “fantastic view of the hills” and stamped-cardboard rock walls. Seeing the startled expression on Leonard's face Yardman said with a grim smile, “Hey sure, a new homeowner might wish to remodel here, some. ‘Renovate.’ They got their taste, you got yours. Like Einstein said, ‘There's no free lunch in the universe.’”
Yardman was standing close to Leonard, as if daring him to object. Leonard said in a voice meant to be quizzical, “'No free lunch in the universe'?—I don't understand, Mr. Yardman."
"Means you get what you pay for, see. What you don't pay for, you don't get. Phil'sphy of life, eh?” Yardman must have been drinking in the Suburban, his breath smelled of whiskey and his words were slightly slurred.
As if to placate the realtor, Leonard said of course he understood, any new property he bought, he'd likely have to put some money into. “All our married lives it's been my wife's and my dream to purchase some land and this is our opportunity. My wife has just inherited a little money, not much but a little,” Dwayne Ducharme's voice quavered, in fear this might sound inadvertently boastful, “and we would use this.” Such naive enthusiasm drew from Yardman a wary predator smile. Leonard could almost hear the realtor thinking, Here is a fool, too good to be true. Yardman murmured, “Wise, Dwayne Ducharme. Very wise."
Yardman led Leonard into the “master” bedroom where a grotesque pink-toned mirror covered one of the walls and in this mirror, garishly reflected, the men loomed over-large as if magnified. Yardman laughed as if taken by surprise and Leonard looked quickly away, shocked that he'd shaved so carelessly that morning: Graying stubble showed on the left side of his face and there was a moist red nick in the cleft of his chin. His eyes were set in hollows like ill-fitting sockets in a skull and his clothes, a tweed sport coat, a candy-striped shirt, looked rumpled and damp as if he'd been sleeping in them as perhaps he had been, intermittently, on the long flight from New York to Chicago to Denver.
Luckily, the master bedroom had a plate-glass sliding door that Yardman managed to open, and the men stepped quickly out into fresh air. Almost immediately there came rushing at Leonard the frantically barking Airedale who would certainly have bitten him except Yardman intervened. This time he not only shouted at the dog but struck him on the snout, on the head, dragged him away from Leonard by his collar, cursed and kicked him until the dog cowered whimpering at his feet, its stubby tail wagging. “Damn asshole, you blew it. Busted now.” Flush-faced, deeply shamed by the dog's behavior, Yardman dragged the whimpering Airedale around the house to the driveway where the Suburban was parked. Leonard pressed his hands over his ears not wanting to hear Yardman's furious cursing and the dog's broken-hearted whimpering as Yardman must have forced him back inside the vehicle, to lock him in. He thought, That dog is his only friend. He might kill that dog.
Leonard walked quickly away from the house, as if eager to look at the silo, which was partly collapsed in a sprawl of what looked like fossilized corncobs and mortar, and a barn the size of a three-car garage with a slumping roof and a strong odor of manure and rotted hay, pleasurable in his nostrils. In a manure pile a pitchfork was stuck upright as if someone had abruptly decided that he'd had enough of ranch life and had departed. Leonard felt a thrill of excite
ment, unless it was a thrill of dread. He had no clear idea why he was here, being shown the derelict Flying S Ranch in Mineral Springs, Colorado. Why he'd sought out “Mitch” Yardman. The first husband Oliver Yardman. If his middle-aged wife cherished erotic memories of this man as he'd been twenty years before, what was that to Leonard? He was staring at his hands, lifted before him, palms up in a gesture of honest bewilderment. He wore gloves, that seemed to steady his hands. He'd been noticing lately, these past several months, his hands sometimes shook.
Just outside the barn, Yardman had paused to make another call on his cell phone. He was leaving a message, his voice low-pitched, threatening and yet seductive. “Hey babe. ‘Sme. Where the hell areya, babe. Call me. I'm here.” He broke the connection, cursing under his breath.
At the rear of the barn, looking out at the hills, Yardman caught up with Leonard. The late-afternoon sky was still vivid with light, massive clouds in oddly vertical sculpted columnar shapes. Leonard was staring at these shapes, flexing his fingers in his leather gloves. Yardman swatted at his shoulder as if they were new friends linked in a common enterprise; his breath smelled of fresh whiskey. “Quite a place, eh? Makes a man dream, eh? ‘Big sky country.’ That's the West, see. I lived awhile in the East, freakin’ hemmed-in. No place for a man. Always wanted a neat li'l ranch like this. Decent life for a man, raise horses, not damn rat-race ‘real estate’ ... Any questions for me, Dwayne? Like, is the list price ‘negotiable'? Or—"
"Did you always live in Makeville, Mr. Yardman—Mitch?” Dwayne Ducharme had a way of speaking bluntly yet politely. “Just curious!"
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