by Lou Berney
No. Of course not. But she was perceptive enough to sense that all was not quite what it seemed.
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll sleep on it. You’re very kind, Frank.”
“Well, Charlotte, I’m glad you think so.”
And now here they were, cruising down 66. Charlotte was tense, the fist in her lap clenching, clenching. Still not entirely convinced that accepting a ride with him had been a wise choice. But Guidry saw signs that she’d begun to relax. The occasional glance drifting out to the high desert and lingering there. A hint of a smile when a song she liked came on the radio.
“We’re making a list,” the curly-haired daughter said, Rosemary.
Guidry realized she was talking to him. She had her chin on the back of the seat next to his shoulder. He didn’t know how long she’d been there.
“Rosemary,” Charlotte said, “don’t disturb Mr. Wainwright.”
“That’s all right,” Guidry said. “I approve of lists. The sign of an organized mind.”
Rosemary showed him their Disney nature book. On the front cover were an owl, a spider, what might looked like a coyote, an octopus. Secrets of the Hidden World.
“It’s about animals and fish and birds and bugs that only sneak out at night,” she said. “We’re making a list of our favorite animals in the book. The coyote is first, of course, because he looks like a sweet dog. Doesn’t he, Joan? We have a separate list for fish and a list for birds and a list for bugs.”
Charlotte cut Guidry an amused look. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”
“Well,” he told the girls, “you better keep an eye peeled, out there to the right. Coyotes come out during the day every now and then. You might spot one.”
Both girls crowded up against the window. The small palms pressed flat against the glass. Sunlight pooling and a concentration in their faces so intent, so pure, that if ever it flagged, the earth would cease to turn. A long-lost memory floated toward Guidry. His sister Annette, four or five years old. Kneeling on a chair by the window, watching as their mother walked toward the house. Guidry would have been eight or nine. Their mother spotted the two of them in the window and smiled. Sunlight pooling. Don’t blink or she’ll disappear forever.
The worst part of an unhappy childhood: the occasional happy moments, when you’re allowed a glimpse of the life that you might have instead.
“Do you think we’ll see a coyote, Joan?” Rosemary said. “I think we will.”
The little girls needed to pee in Coolidge. Another stop for lunch, at a hamburger stand in Gallup. The carhop was chatty. Guidry tried to make the right impression on her, that he was a family man. In case one of Seraphine’s men showed up later and started asking after a handsome bachelor.
We’re on our way to Los Angeles. The two kiddos back there have never been to Disneyland. Here you go, Rosemary, here you go, Joan. Who had the vanilla malt and who the chocolate? Shall I walk the dog before we go?
His dog-walking stratagem almost backfired. While he stood waiting for the dog to finish squeezing out a coiled turd the length of a garden hose, the carhop came over and bent down and asked the name of his cute doggy. Guidry would have loved to know that, too.
“Well,” he said, “usually he thinks his name is ‘Dinnertime.’”
The carhop giggled. The dog, squeezing out his turd, eyed Guidry reproachfully. I have your number, pal.
Rosemary needed to pee again in Lupton. Joan needed to pee again in Chambers. At this rate Guidry could have walked to Las Vegas. Though the slow pace might be to his advantage. Seraphine might be far out in front of him, swarming the cities and ports, scanning the distant horizons.
The girls sang songs, softly. Guidry learned the dog’s name for future reference. Lucky. Charlotte had relaxed enough by now to reach for the radio dial.
“May I?” she said.
“Go right ahead,” he said.
For a couple of miles, they listened in silence to the station she settled on. Guidry didn’t recognize the singer. The voice wasn’t much, scratchy and nasal, but it had a character all its own.
“What’s the title?” Guidry said.
“‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,’” Charlotte said. “It’s an interesting message, isn’t it?”
“He’s leaving her,” Guidry said. “Or she’s kicked him out. I’m not clear on that part.”
“But maybe the song isn’t about a man and a woman. Or not really.”
He glanced over at her, curious. “Illuminate me.”
“Maybe it’s also about all of us,” she said. “As individuals, and as a nation. Having the courage of our convictions. When the president was shot, my brother-in-law said that the world was going to the dogs. But he’s believed that for a long time. I don’t think what happened in Dallas is what really frightens people like him.”
“The Negroes, you mean,” Guidry said. “Civil rights and all that. Your brother-in-law worries that the genie can’t be stuffed back in the bottle.”
“Not just the Negroes,” she said. “Women, too. Young people. Everyone who’s been pushed aside for so long that they’re sick and tired of it.”
“The Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth,” Guidry said. “But I’ve always been skeptical of that opinion.”
“I agree. I think Bob Dylan agrees. The meek don’t inherit the earth. You have to raise your voice. You have to take what’s yours by right. You can’t count on anyone just giving it to you.”
It wasn’t the answer that Guidry had expected. She wasn’t, he was reminded again, the woman he’d expected. He wondered about her husband back in Oklahoma. Wheat farmer? Butcher, baker, candlestick maker? The man, when it came to Charlotte, had drawn an interesting hand. Maybe he didn’t realize it.
Speaking of which. Why wasn’t Dad along on this family jaunt? It was an odd time of the year to visit an aunt in California, wasn’t it? The Christmas holidays were almost a month away. Rosemary and Joan should have been sitting in a school classroom these past three days.
“How long will you be staying in Los Angeles?” he said.
She hesitated. Guidry noted it. He’d been right. Charlotte was on the run, just like him.
“Mommy? Can we talk about it now?” Joan asking, but Rosemary paying attention, too. “How long we’ll stay in California?”
“Oh, look, girls!” Charlotte said.
She pointed to a billboard advertising the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. An Indian in a feathered headdress stood on a ridge and surveyed the bluffs and mesas spread out before him, a rumpled landscape of bright blood and molten gold the same unnaturally unhealthy orange as the Indian’s skin.
The little girls pressed up against the window again. Charlotte smoothed her skirt and pretended to be just as fascinated by the billboard.
When Guidry caught her eye, he gave her an apologetic look. Sorry, I’ll keep my big trap shut from now on.
“Mommy! Is the desert really painted?” Rosemary said. “Who painted it? Is the whole forest petrified? Can we climb the trees? Why are the trees petrified? Why is the desert painted? Will there be Indians?”
The Petrified Forest came first. Guidry stopped at the scenic pull-out. Families, plus one lone wolf sitting on the hood of his beat-up truck. Dirty chinos, a dirty flannel mackinaw, three days of salt-and-pepper stubble. When Guidry got out of the car, the man took a long look at him. Guidry ignored him. He followed Charlotte and the girls over to the rail.
The Petrified Forest disappointed. Forest? No, just blackened lumps scattered across the gravel pan like cigar stubs in an ashtray. But the little girls were delighted. Rosemary was, at least.
“Look, Joan!” Rosemary said. “A forest turned all to stone! By a magician! Because the princess he loved broke his heart. That’s what I think, Joan. Do you think that, too?”
Guidry had seen the shifty-looking bastard in the flannel mackinaw before, hadn’t he? Had he seen the beat-up truck back in Gallup, at the hamburger stand? G
uidry wasn’t sure. Could he feel the man watching him. He wasn’t sure about that either.
The Painted Desert was even less impressive than the Petrified Forest. A cloudy late afternoon, everything the color of old soap. Even Rosemary couldn’t make a silk purse out of it. A few miles on, though, they came upon a gigantic plaster Indian, ten feet tall. The Big Chief Trading Post and Restaurant.
The girls circled Big Chief, awestruck. Big Chief looked like he’d been through fifteen rough rounds with an Even Bigger Chief. He listed to one side, an ear and a few fingers broken off, most of the paint scoured away by the desert wind. One eye blank, blind, dazed. Now, who did that remind Guidry of? Hmm. Let me think.
Guidry watched Charlotte watch her daughters, smiling as she did, and for a moment he couldn’t take her eyes off her.
This trip, her flight from Egypt, had taken its toll on her. How could it not? Two little girls, a wrecked car, a future that could be considered uncertain at best. A weight in her face, the skin beneath her eyes too delicate and translucent. Faint fine lines, new lines. She was still young, but she wouldn’t be for too much longer. That didn’t make her less attractive. Some smiles improved with age.
But Guidry had been attracted to plenty of women over the years. Never once had it clouded his judgment. Why would this time be any different?
The beat-up truck chugged into the parking lot. Guidry tracked it with the corner of his eye. The shifty bastard in the flannel mackinaw got out of the truck. He stretched and yawned and scratched his ass.
Relax. The man wasn’t following Guidry. The Big Chief Trading Post and Restaurant was crowded, the only place to eat for miles. Can’t blame a guy for being hungry.
They sat outside, at one of the picnic tables. Guidry decided to be daring and ordered the tamales for his Thanksgiving dinner. They weren’t bad, mostly corn mush with a little hamburger meat inside. The hot sauce made him hiccup, but Rosemary knew a cure and guided him through it, her hand on his knee.
Close your eyes, hold your breath, count backward from ten. Look, there’s a scary, scary monster! Boo! Right behind you!
It worked, how do you like that? Guidry’s hiccups ceased.
The shifty bastard, a few tables down, reached for his mustard and gave Guidry an even longer, even closer look this time.
Relax. Relax? The sword above Guidry’s head hung suspended, as in the myth, by a single hair from a horse’s tail. It would take so little to finish him: a puff of wind, a chance encounter, a spark of recognition. One man, one phone call to New Orleans, the end.
The shifty bastard finished his dinner and went back inside. Guidry stood. He picked up his empty beer bottle.
“Shall I go see about dessert for us?” he asked Charlotte and the girls. “I believe I shall.”
Inside, the man was winding his way through the tourists, past the cases of curios, the Navajo blankets and genuine arrowheads. He turned down a corridor and disappeared.
What are you doing, you shifty bastard?
Looking for a phone booth. That was what.
Guidry followed. The corridor empty. A back door open. Guidry tested the weight of the empty bottle in his hand. You could use almost anything to bash in a man’s brains. Guidry had learned that in the Pacific. If you found the right seam, if you kept at it, the skull opened up like the petals of a flower.
He stepped outside, behind the building. The man turned, saw him.
“Looking for the telephone?” Guidry said.
Belt him now, he told himself, before the man saw it coming. The light fading, the two of them all alone. Drag the body over there, behind the trash barrels. With a little luck, nobody would find it for hours.
“What?” the man said.
Guidry didn’t see a pay phone. But there would be one at the next stop down the road, or the one after that, and the man would call from there. Seraphine would be able to pin Guidry right to the map. She’d guess exactly where he was headed.
“I’m looking for place to piss, you don’t mind,” the man said. “Pisser inside is occupied, and I gotta go bad, not that it’s any of your business.”
Guidry couldn’t risk it. He had only one guiding principle in life. If it’s between you or me, friend, I choose me. Every single time.
He took a step toward the man. The man wasn’t looking at him. He was peering instead off to Guidry’s left. Guidry had started to turn—what the hell was he looking at?—when he realized that the man’s other eye was pointed straight at him.
Ye gods, Guidry realized, the man hadn’t been staring at him earlier—he was as wall-eyed as a praying mantis.
Guidry flipped his empty beer bottle away.
“What are you laughing at?” the man said.
“Nothing,” Guidry said. “I apologize.”
“Laugh if you want, you son of a bitch. I’m used to it.”
Guidry bought fried sweet-potato pies for Charlotte and the girls. Another beer for himself. He needed it. Back in the car, Big Chief sinking away into the twilight behind them, Guidry started to laugh again. Rosemary set her chin on the seat next to his shoulder.
“Are you thinking of a funny joke?” she said.
Guidry took a long swallow of his beer. “Why, yes,” he said, “in fact I am.”
20
The road climbed, the car labored. They reached Flagstaff a little after nine o’clock at night. It was too dark to see the pine trees all around, but Guidry smelled them. The air brittle and thin and cold, barely enough of it to fill your lungs. Like life on the moon, on a different planet.
Guidry stopped downtown at the first hotel he saw. A creaky old brick and knotty-pine relic that had been around since pioneer days. Probably it hadn’t been dusted since then either. The wallpaper curling, the tiles chipped, one of the wagon-wheel chandeliers listing. The registration book was two feet long and a foot thick. The room clerk in his brass cage used both hands to flip the page.
The little girls were down for the count. Guidry carried Rosemary and Joan up the creaking stairs, one on each hip. Their weight against him, their heat, the scent of sweet potato on their breath. He felt another shiver of memory, a shiver of something.
No. Stop it, stop it. Guidry didn’t want to remember. He’d made a deal with himself long ago.
He said good night to Charlotte and locked the door to his room behind him. Latched the chain, wedged a chair under the knob. His new bedtime routine. The lock and the chain and the chair wouldn’t stop anyone that Carlos sent for him, but Guidry might have enough time to jump out the window, drop three stories, snap his neck, and meet a quick, merciful end.
He wished he knew how close Seraphine was. Did she have all her best people in Miami? Or was somebody right behind Guidry, edging closer and closer?
The room was cold as an icebox. Guidry wrapped himself in the blanket off the bed and stood by the window. The clouds had cleared away, and the stars were smeared thick across the sky, like margarine on toast.
Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Those were the only lines from Dante that Guidry could remember. Dante had experienced a few scares along the way. Eventually he made it out of the inferno, though, up to paradise safe and sound. So, too, might Guidry, though without the shade of Virgil to point the way.
Saigon. Guidry, running his own show. Big Ed would keep his nose out of it. He’d have to, he’d be thousands of miles away. Carlos had kept Guidry in a box. Guidry would show Ed what he could do when the lid was off. Government, military, civilian contractors. The money, the hustle, the sizzle. Bourbon Street multiplied by a hundred.
He got into bed. Soon after, he heard the squeak of bedsprings. Charlotte in the room next door, right on the other side of the wall. He listened to her shift around. He heard her clear her throat.
Life wasn’t complicated. Women weren’t complicated. So why couldn’t Guidry keep it straight, if he wanted Charlotte or not? If
he wanted her or didn’t want her or was just happy to lie there quietly in the darkness next to her?
Overnight the heat in the hotel waxed and waned. By morning the room was still freezing. Guidry woke shivering and followed the smell of hot coffee down to the lobby. My kingdom for a pint of scotch. The hotel bar didn’t open until noon.
He took a chair by the fireplace. He noticed through the window that Charlotte was standing outside with a camera, taking pictures of … what? He couldn’t tell. She had the lens pointed down at the sidewalk. The wind made her hair dance and snap. When she reached up with one hand to tuck the hair back behind her ear, she kept the camera steady. She never moved her eye from the viewfinder.
He poured a cup of coffee for her and stepped outside. The morning was bright and cold. “Give me three guesses,” he said. “No. Better let me have five of them.”
“Move to your right, please,” she said, pointing down.
“You’re going to take a picture of my shadow?” he said.
“I’m bored with my own. Just a little bit more to your right. That’s it.”
“I’m not usually so accommodating.”
“I’m not usually so demanding.”
She snapped the photo and then set the camera down. Guidry handed over her coffee. She held the mug against her chin for a moment, for the warmth, before she took a sip.
“I can’t explain it,” she said. “Why I’m so fascinated by shadows. Look at yours. It’s like it’s trying to escape. Thank you for the coffee.”
The morning sun still low in the sky, Guidry’s shadow straining, stretched taut across the sidewalk and folded up the brick front of the hotel. Lift a foot and away it would fly.
“Now I can’t see anything but shadows everywhere,” he said. “Look what you’ve done to me.”
“You’re very welcome,” she said.
Guidry turned up his collar, but it wasn’t as cold out as he’d thought, not with the sun full on your face. “You’re up early.”
“I’m the only one,” she said. “Rosemary will sleep till noon if I let her.”