The Devil in the Valley

by Castle Freeman

  Eli paused. Then he said, “Nothing.” But Calpurnia wasn’t having it.

  “Eli?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “You know what,” said Calpurnia. “The other day, you were in here, you were so full of something you’re about to bust. I asked, you shut up like a mousetrap: big mystery, big dark secret. That’s enough of that, now. I don’t like secrets. I want to know what’s going on.”

  Eli hitched his chair closer to Calpurnia’s bedside. He lowered his voice.

  “See,” he said, “Langdon has this idea, about how he did what he did for the girl. Not just that, either. About other things he’s done, too. The money for Sean, more. There’s a kind of deal, he says, an agreement, like a contract. It’s pretty weird. Way he tells it …”

  Calpurnia interrupted him. “Wait,” she said. “Go close the door.”

  • • •

  Eli sat back in his chair. He waited for Calpurnia, who said, “That is the craziest, worst, most utter stuff and nonsense I ever heard in my life.”

  There was a knock on the door, which opened to admit one of the Hospice workers.

  “Your door’s closed,” the worker said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine, dear,” said Calpurnia. “I’m sitting in here with a raving lunatic, but apart from that everything’s fine.”

  The worker looked at Eli.

  “It’s alright, dear,” said Calpurnia. “He’s harmless. Go on ahead.”

  The worker withdrew and shut the door. When she had gone, Eli turned to Calpurnia.

  “I told you it was weird,” he said.

  “Weird? It’s beyond weird. It’s … I don’t know what it is. Who does your friend think he is? He didn’t do anything, for goodness’ sake. The girl was never dead in the first place. She was going to wake up. She woke up. Your friend was there. He was there kissing her, pawing her. That makes him a dirty old man. It doesn’t make him a miracle worker.”

  “Spite of what Polly says, you mean?”

  “Don’t give me Polly,” said Calpurnia. “Polly’s a good, churchgoing, Christian woman. I don’t begrudge her. Let her think what she wants. But she might believe a little too much. Polly gets down on the floor and commences to pray, and whatever happens next is a miracle.”

  “What would you call it, then, what happened there?”

  “I’d call it good luck,” said Calpurnia. “I’d call it what Dr. Dish called it. Diving woodchuck disease, or whatever it was.”

  “Pretty tough-minded today, ain’t you?”

  “I’ve seen things,” said Calpurnia. “Things not so different. One time when I was little, these two boys from town—Tom Johnson and the other’s name I forget—went out squirrel hunting on the hill behind the sawmill, there. They had one squirrel rifle between them. So of course it went off, and Tommy got it in the face. Went in right over his eye and came out the back of his head. Down he went. Well, the other boy ran to the mill for help, and the men there dropped everything and ran toward the woods. And, before they get halfway, here comes Tommy, walking down the hill to meet them. Got a little hole over his eye, got another around back. Little blood on his forehead—not much blood. Fit as a flea. Said his ears were ringing. Said he had a little headache. Soon went away. He was fine.”

  “You were there?” Eli asked her. “You saw it?”

  “Sure. I saw Tommy. Everybody did.”

  “And nobody thought that was a miracle?”

  “No,” said Calpurnia. “They thought Tommy had a close call. He’s a lucky kid, they thought. They didn’t think anything more. Why would they? They had other things to think about. Like keeping body and soul together. Those being very hard times, you see. Miracles? It was enough of a miracle in those days if you could hang onto your little farm. So don’t give me miracles. As for Tommy? Well, they were glad he was okay. Everybody liked Tommy. He delivered the mail in Bellows Falls for years and years. Lived to a ripe old age.”

  “Everything’s a ripe old age after you’ve been shot through the head,” said Eli.

  “Gil Coolidge,” said Calpurnia.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Gil Coolidge. That was the other boy, who was with Tommy when he got shot. I couldn’t recall earlier. Gil Coolidge. Gilbert. Trudy and Lee Coolidge’s oldest.”

  Eli had to go. He got to his feet. He shoved his chair into the corner and made ready to leave. “Anything I can get for you right now?” he asked, but Calpurnia shook her head.

  “Not right now,” she said. “But, you know? I wouldn’t mind if you’d bring your friend Mr. Taft around some time. Would you do that? I’d like to meet him.”

  “Even though he’s cuckoo?”

  “Even though.”

  “Good idea,” said Eli. “You could get Dr. What’s-his-name to have a look at him. Tell you why he’s so peculiar.”

  “Doctor Dish. There wouldn’t be any point. He’s an old-folks’ doctor, he’s not a head doctor. Will you bring your friend?”

  “I guess so. But why?”

  “Well, fact is, the Kennedy girl is some kind of third cousin or great-great-grandniece or something to me.”

  “So’s everybody else. So what?”

  “So I’d like to see Mr. Taft. I’d like to thank him for what he did for the girl.”

  “But you don’t think he did anything for her. You just said so. So why?”

  “Are you going to bring him, or aren’t you?”

  “Sure,” said Eli. “When?”

  “Soon,” said Calpurnia.

  13

  A THOUSAND SHIPS

  TROOPER AMY MADISON WAS TWENTY-SEVEN. SHE WAS one of three women in the entire state to have been hired to do the job she had. She was bright, she was ambitious, she could outrun, outjump, outfight, outshoot, and probably outthink three quarters of her masculine counterparts—indeed, she was without detectible fault or flaw of any kind, or she wouldn’t have reached the place she held.

  That place, in a tough organization, a male organization, she had won and kept through decision, through action, not through analysis. She preferred to evaluate a situation quickly and react quickly. She preferred to be in motion. She didn’t hesitate, therefore, when on patrol she passed a motorist stopped by the roadside. Seeing the vehicle and its operator, she immediately pulled over, reversed direction, and approached. It was a car she knew.

  Trooper Madison drove past the strange car, a sporty two-seater, U-turned, and parked ten feet to its rear. She left her cruiser and came up on the roadster’s left. This time, she was ready. At the driver’s-side window, she put her hand on her service pistol and kept it there. The window opened.

  Well, well, it’s the Girl Scout, said the driver of the little car. He saw the trooper’s hand on her weapon. Whoa, Sweetheart, he said. Lighten up on the piece, okay? You’re among friends.

  “Is everything alright, sir?” the trooper asked. “Out of fuel? Engine trouble? Lost?”

  Heart attack.

  “You’re having a heart attack, sir?”

  That’s right, Sweetheart. I’ve got a little bit of a blockage going here, a little bit of an occlusion, a bit of the old plaque, you know? It’s all the brandy and the béarnaise. Can’t seem to stay away from them.

  Trooper Madison looked the driver over. He didn’t seem to be in any distress. He was the same stout, overdressed figure she had first seen along this same road some months before: same tweed jacket, same prissy cloth motoring cap. He smiled at her pleasantly.

  “Are you in pain, sir?” she asked him.

  Terrible.

  “Do you want an ambulance, then? A medic?”

  No need, said the driver. You’ll do fine, Sweetheart. I need you.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take you to the clinic.”

  No, said the driver.

  • • •

  Trooper Madison found herself in the passenger’s seat of the stranger’s car, driving carefully along an unpaved road through an autumn woodland: l
eaves brown, yellow, scarlet. Where were they? Where was her cruiser? Where was her gun?

  “Pull over, sir,” she ordered. “Pull over, and stop your vehicle. Turn off your engine. Now.”

  Be cool, Sweetheart, said the driver. We’re almost there.

  “Where?”

  Taft’s.

  “Why are we going there?”

  A little business.

  “You have business with Mr. Taft?” the trooper asked.

  Not me, Sweetheart. You.

  “I don’t know Taft.”

  You will. Taft wants to make your acquaintance.

  “So what?”

  So, you’d do well to oblige him, Sweetheart. You’d do well not to get crossways of Taft. I could show you things …

  “Sir, I say again: pull over.”

  Almost there, said the driver.

  No, they weren’t. Looking ahead, looking to the side, Trooper Madison saw the bright, particolored woods passing to their rear, but she felt no motion, and she saw no progress. She had the impression of riding in a car in a movie: the vehicle remains fixed while the scenery rolls backward in an unending loop of film, producing the illusion of forward movement.

  The driver was talking to her. I think you and my friend Taft would hit it off, he said. He wants to meet you. He’s shy, though. But you’ll like him. There’s more to Taft than you might think. Oh, I know everybody says he’s a lush, he’s not playing with a full deck, all that. They don’t know Taft. I could show you things …

  “How do you know him?”

  He’s a client.

  “What kind of a client,” asked the trooper. “Who are you? What do you do?”

  Questions, questions, Sweetheart, said the driver. Suffice to say, Taft’s a man apart, a man to take account of. A man of talents. I could show you things …

  “What things?”

  Things about Taft. About what kind of man he is. Have you ever been out East, Sweetheart?

  “East? You mean like New York?”

  No, Sweetheart. Capital-E East. Hong Kong.

  • • •

  Trooper Madison opened her eyes. She tried to clear her head. She found herself, no longer in the yellow woodland, but on the teeming street of a strange city, apparently an Asian city. The street was thronged, it was packed with people who flowed like a human river bearing on its flood cars, taxis, delivery vans, ambulances, scooters, and bicycles by the thousand. On both sides of the street, the stone facades of buildings like cliffs, blank and gray, office towers that soared into the invisible sky. In between them on the street were squeezed shops of every kind: tailor shops, jewelry shops, shoe shops, flower shops, noodle shops. The air was hot and dense, and a hot wind blew papers and other trash above the streaming traffic.

  How do you like it, Sweetheart? Somehow, her driver had changed his costume. Now he was swathed in the flowing saffron robes of a Buddhist monk worn off his right shoulder and gathered over his left arm. His head was shaved, his feet, in white cotton socks, were sandaled. He gazed fondly over the chaotic hurry of the street before them.

  This is my idea of a city, right here, he said, with a sweep of his arm that made his robe billow. You can have your crummy country towns. Look at this, Sweetheart. Take it in. It’s all here, and it’s all for sale. Anything you want to have, anything you want to do, anything you want to be—it’s here for you if you’ve got the price. Here, that’s the only question: Can you pay down? Can you put the cash on the table? If you can, then here, you’re free. You’re free to be a winner. I love it.

  He drew Trooper Madison apart from the crush on the street and nodded across the pavement to the side of a building. Of course, he said, there are winners, and there are also losers. He pointed to a large cardboard shipping carton that had been shoved up against the granite wall of one of the towers. In its recesses, a dark heap of dirty newspapers and rags was visible. Lying on the pavement in front of the carton was a square of cardboard that had been crudely lettered

  HOMELESS

  PLEASE HELP

  Beside this sign was a paper cup for change. The cup was empty.

  Two men were standing in front of the carton. They were black, in their forties, expensively dressed. Both were large, well over six feet tall and massive in build. They peered into the carton, talking between themselves. One stooped to get a better look.

  “He in there, alright,” he said.

  “I don’t see him,” said the other.

  “Don’t need to see him. You can smell him.”

  The second man bent to the carton and snuffed loudly.

  “You right,” he said. “Must be that guy from Goldman.”

  “Ain’t nobody from no Goldman. That’s Jack in there.”

  “Jack? Naw.”

  “Damn right, it is,” said the first man. He struck the carton with his hand. “Yo, Jack!” he said. “Mister Raptor! Come on out of there, Jack. Say hello to your old friends.”

  No response from the packing carton.

  “Ain’t Jack in there, I told you,” said the second man.

  “It’s Jack, alright. Look here.” The first man bent, reached into the carton, and drew out a shoe, a tasseled patent leather loafer, at one time a costly piece of gentleman’s foot attire, but now much scuffed and with its upper flapping off the sole.

  “See there?” the man asked his friend.

  “You right again. It is Jack. Hey, Jack! Wuzzup? How’s everything down on Sutton Place, Jack? Hee-hee.”

  “Heh-heh,” said the other man.

  The carton stirred on the pavement as the filthy and abject creature within attempted, snail-like, to shrink farther into its shelter.

  “How’s it going, Jack?” asked the first man. “We were just talking about you, Jack. We were talking with Mr. Taft. You remember Mr. Taft, don’t you, Jack? Up in the woods? ’Course you do. He asked after you, Jack. He’s going to be in town next week, Mr. Taft is. Said he’d be glad to look you up, but he didn’t know your, ah, new address. Now we can let him know where to find you. Be good to see Mr. Taft again, won’t it, Jack?”

  At that, a yellow liquid began to flow from the heap in the carton. It trickled out onto the sidewalk and ran toward the curb. The two men stepped nimbly out of the way of the stream.

  “Look at that,” said one.

  “Man’s pissed himself,” said the other. “Disgusting.”

  “What’s he afraid of?”

  “Taft, it looks like.”

  “Taft? He ought to be afraid of us.”

  “He ought to be afraid of Mister D.”

  “Mister D, and us.”

  “And Taft. Taft carried the ball.”

  “So he did. Jack got crossways of Taft, and now look where he’s at. Poor Jack. Another casualty of the Global Economy.”

  “Ain’t got nothing to do with no Global Economy,” said his partner. “Living in a box? Pissing himself? What it is: the man has no self-respect. That’s what it is.”

  “That’s what it is, alright.”

  “What it is, is a lack of self-respect.”

  “And getting crossways of Taft.”

  “And that.”

  “Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  With Trooper Madison and her guide watching them, the two men made ready to pass on. One pointed at the cup waiting for change before the carton.

  “Throw him twenty, why don’t you, brother?”

  “Throw him twenty, yourself, you think so highly of him. Me, I never cared for the man.”

  The two moved on.

  What did I tell you? Trooper Madison’s guide asked her. You saw that guy in the box. Don’t get crossways of Taft. Cooperate. He likes you. You like him.

  “I don’t even know him,” the trooper protested.

  Get to know him, Sweetheart.

  • • •

  Trooper Madison stood before the front door at Taft’s. Nobody around. She looked at her cruiser, parked in the driveway. She was alone. She could leave.
She ought to leave. She would leave. She would resign from the force. She would turn in her badge, her gun. She would move to another part of the country and find work in a library. She was leaving. She settled her belt around her hips, stepped up to the door, and raised her hand to knock.

  The door opened and Taft stood before her. He smiled.

  “Mr. Taft?” she asked. Right away, she felt foolish. Who else would he be? Taft nodded and kept on smiling at her.

  “I’m Trooper Madison, Vermont State Police …” she began.

  “I know who you are, officer,” said Taft. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “You have? You knew I was coming?”

  “I hoped you were,” said Taft. He stepped back and let her enter the house.

  Trooper Madison looked around her. They were in Taft’s kitchen. She had been on the front porch. Then she had been at the door. Now she was in the kitchen. Taft fussed at the stove.

  “Cup of tea?” Taft asked her.

  Give her a drink, purred Dangerfield. In his most outlandish turnout to date, he appeared in the trappings of a ghetto pimp: full-length fur coat dyed pink; green three-piece suit, the open vest plunging to reveal a heavily pelted chest and a couple of pounds of gold chains and medallions lying on the fur; a diamond stud the size of a garden pea in his right nostril; a yellow broad-brimmed hat a yard wide, made of velour; combat boots, also yellow. He sat at his ease in the corner. Give her a drink, he whispered.

  “A cup of tea would taste good,” Trooper Madison said. “Thank you.” Taft put the kettle on.

  Slip a little cognac to it, whispered Dangerfield. Get her loose.

  “How do you take it?” Taft asked the trooper.

  She takes it any way she can get it, Chief. Like the rest of us.

  “Shut up,” said Taft.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Trooper Madison.

  “What do you take in your tea?” asked Taft again.

  “Sugar. And half-and-half if you have it. Do you have half-and-half?”

  Half-and-half? Oh, Sweetheart, do we have half-and-half? Half-and-half is the way we have it best.

  “Shut up,” said Taft.

  Dangerfield got to his feet and started on tiptoe for the kitchen door. You’re off and running, here, Chief, he whispered to Taft. Think you can manage on your own, now?