The Mural

by Michael Mallory

  “In a dream. Like I said, he’s dead, has been for more than sixty years.”

  “So he told you to come here and meet someone.”

  “Yes, a little girl, like this sweet thing here.” She smiled down at Robynn, who smiled back.

  The conversation was starting to make Jack nervous. “Howard came to you in a dream and told you to come and meet my daughter?”

  “A little girl is what he said. She’s the only little girl I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “The bus got in just after ten. What is it now?”

  Jack looked at his watch. It was nearly two. The woman had been sitting here on this bench, in the heat of the day, for almost four hours waiting for a little girl at the request of an old dead boyfriend. Every instinct he had told him to pick up Robynn and run, run away as fast as possible, but he knew that was out of the question. He could not simply walk away and abandon a woman who was clearly confused, if not infirm, in the middle of an unfamiliar town. At the very least, he would have to find a policeman or some other city official and turn her over to them.

  “Mrs. Kinchloe, do you know why Howard wanted to you come down here to meet someone you’ve never met?”

  “Why he wanted me to come down here?” she asked, as though the question was puzzling.

  “Yes, what is it he intends for you and this person you are to meet to do?”

  “That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. I’m supposed to fight the legion.”

  “What’s the legion?”

  “I don’t know. Gracious, it’s hot out here. Usually I like the heat, but today it’s too much.”

  “Okay, maybe we should all go inside,” Jack suggested. The last thing he wanted was the old woman fainting, or worse, in front of him and Robynn. “I have an idea. Let’s all go into that restaurant over there and have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, or something, and talk about this.”

  “Pie and ice cream on one day?” Robynn said excitedly. “I don’t think Mommy would like that.”

  “Mommy isn’t here,” Jack replied, a bit sharply. Then: “Don’t worry, punkin, lots of people eat pie and ice cream together, it’s called à la mode. It will be all right this once. Mrs. Kinchloe, will you come?”

  “Sure, sure,” she said, lifting herself off the bench.

  Jack picked up her small bag and the three of them made their way toward the restaurant, which was called O’Dowd’s Place. The interior was done in Early American Cowtown Fantasy, a combination of oaken tables, heavy wooden beams with decorative gingerbread, hanging lights with ornate red glass shades, a long bar complete with a brass foot rail and prop spittoons, a stuffed buffalo on the back wall, and a sawdust-covered floor. Jack and Althea each got coffee, while Robynn, with some help, decided on a slice of chocolate cream pie. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the size of it and even wider when she tasted it. “I like this!” she declared.

  “Okay, punkin, you eat your pie and color the pictures on that menu while Mrs. Kinchloe and I talk, all right?”

  “Hmm-hmmm.”

  Althea Kinchloe stirred some cream into her coffee. “You know, when I think about what I’ve been saying to you, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I must be out of my mind. It sounds pretty crazy.”

  “It sounds like you must have been a very vivid dream.”

  “Real. It was very real. Usually I don’t smell things in dreams, but in this one I could actually smell the wet paint around the studio.” Althea laughed softly. “I’m sure that won’t make a lick of sense to you, but my Howard was an artist. He worked for the WPA during the thirties on all their projects, things like those great big—”

  “Murals?” Jack interrupted.

  “Yes, you’ve seen them?”

  “I’ve seen one just recently, or at least a small bit of one, up at the ruins of an old abandoned town in the woods.”

  “Daddy, can I go out and get Mr. Booty from the car?” Robynn asked. “He’d like this pie, too.”

  “Can he wait a little bit, punkin?”

  “Okay.”

  “You must mean that old lumber town,” Althea said.

  “You know it?”

  “I haven’t thought about it for ages. They were building it when Howard and I were up at San Simeon.”

  “We’re headed for San Simeon.”

  “That must be why Howard wanted me to come and meet you. He must have specified the little girl so I’d know who to look for.”

  Jack did not know what to think. Things had seemed not quite normal for the past couple of days, but now here was a woman completely out of the blue who claimed to have been directed to meet him, or at least Robynn, by a ghost who happened to be a WPA mural artist. Could it be that he was dreaming?

  “Daddy, now I’m thirsty,” Robynn said, and Jack flagged down the waitress and asked her to bring a glass of water.

  “Oh, what a lovely picture you’re coloring, Robynn,” Althea said, looking across the table at the printed menu with the broad drawings of cows in cowboy hats and bonnets on them. Robynn smiled back at her as the waitress brought three waters. After a quick sip, Robynn went back to concentrating on her crayons.

  “I find all of this very strange,” Jack said, “but strange or not, we have to decide what we’re going to do now. What exactly were your plans, Mrs. Kinchloe?”

  “Please call me Althea. I’m afraid I don’t have any. I came down here like I was instructed to and I met you and the sweetie here, like I was told to do, but that’s the end of my marching orders. I only bought a one-way bus ticket.”

  “Can Noni come with us?” Robynn asked excitedly.

  “Well, one of the problems with that is that I’m driving a pickup truck with a bench seat, and I’m not sure I can fit all of us in.”

  “Oh, I could ride the little one on my lap,” Althea offered, smiling toward Robynn, who smiled back.

  How much simpler things were in Althea’s generation, Jack thought. He shook his head. “Not these days, I’m afraid. She has to be in a car seat. Maybe I could leave the truck here and find a place to rent a car.”

  “Oh, you’re going to so much trouble for this,” Althea said. “Let’s just give the truck a try and see if we fit, first.”

  Jack reluctantly agreed. The waitress brought the check on a plastic tray, topped with three root beer barrels. He scooped up the candies before Robynn saw them and glanced at the check, then fished out a ten from his wallet and placed it on the tray. “Are we ready to go, then?”

  “I have to go again, Daddy.”

  “Okay, punkin.” As he started to get up, Althea said, “You know, it wouldn’t hurt me, either. I’ll go back with her.” With a grandmotherly smile, she took Robynn’s willing hand and the two strode back to the restrooms.

  The last thing Jack had anticipated was picking up an elderly, possibly unstable woman and including her in the travels. Jesus, was he in control of anything any more? Then again, she might definitely be a help with Robynn, and it really wasn’t that far to San Simeon from here. He could take her that far and then decide what to do.

  While waiting for Althea and Robynn to return from the bathroom Jack absently looked over the kid’s placemat on which his daughter had been coloring so diligently. There were the usual animal drawings—puppies were a specialty of hers—and the cow pictures had been colored in mostly with green, which was her favorite color. Even more oddly, there was a crayon line that coursed diagonally across the paper, culminating in an arrow at the lower right corner. Jack studied this simple creation: the point of the arrow was surprisingly well drawn, small and fine, and looking more like the kind of mark a mechanical draftsman or architect would put alongside a measurement on a blueprint. How on earth did she manage that with the blunt end of a crayon? Perhaps she had genuine artistic talent. Since the clear implication of the arrow was that the sheet should be turned over, Jack obliged.

  Then he froze.

  A
face stared back at him from the flipside of the menu. It was a woman’s face and nothing short of a crayon masterpiece: vibrant, alive, expressive, and disturbing. The waxen eyes, the brown color of which had somehow been created by overdrawing with primary colors, were riveted on his, refusing to move no matter how he changed the angle of his head or shifted around the paper. It was as though the face on the placemat was looking at him. There was a slight, sardonic smile on the face; a knowing smile.

  It was unmistakably the face from the mural.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jonelle Armour’s desk groaned under the weight of Marcus Broarty. “Didn’t you wear that top last week?” he asked her.

  Jonelle was an African-American woman of twenty-six with straight hair, large warm eyes and Caucasian features, like Halle Berry. More importantly as far as Broarty was concerned she had a bust that that stretched the front of her white button blouse to the absolute maximum. She had been working as the company receptionist for slightly less than two months, which Broarty considered enough time to decide whether or not she was happy in her job, which in turn would dictate the sort of steps she would take in order to keep it.

  “I’m sure I have worn this before top, Mr. Broarty,” she answered demurely. “Y’know, with a raise I could buy more tops and I wouldn’t have to wear the same ones all the time.”

  “Oh, don’t go replacing this one on my account.”

  He was about to deliver the preliminary question on the job security exam when Jonelle’s phone board buzzed. “’Scuse me, Mr. Broarty. This is Jonelle. Oh, hi, Yolanda. Yes, he is here, should I hand the phone to him?”

  Broarty rolled his eyes. “I can’t go anywhere,” he sighed under his breath.

  “Oh, all right, I’ll tell him.” She hung up. “That was Yolanda.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “There’s a call for you in your office from a Mr. McMenamin. He’s holding.”

  “Christ. Okay, well, we’ll continue our discussion some other time.”

  Once he was gone, Jonelle buzzed Yolanda. “He’s on his way back, and thanks. It was getting a little uncomfortable here.”

  “No problem, we’ve all been there,” Yolanda replied.

  As Broarty lumbered back to Yolanda’s desk, he asked: “What the hell does Emac want now?”

  “I don’t know, but he doesn’t sound happy.”

  “Couldn’t you have told him I was out?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. B., I thought you’d want to talk to him. Shall I tell him we can’t find you?”

  “No, no, I’ll take it. It can’t be that bad.” Broarty went into his office and nudged the door almost shut. “Hey, Emac, what’s up?”

  “My patience with you, that’s what!” McMenamin roared.

  “Wait, whoa, whoa, Emac, what’s the problem?”

  “Those pictures of Wood City you sent!”

  “Pictures, what pictures?”

  Yolanda knew it was risky to pick up the phone and listen in. Instead she strained to hear her boss’s voice coming from the office.

  “No, I didn’t, Emac, they didn’t come from me. Maybe Jack Hayden sent them. He’s the one who took them, after all. No, I haven’t seen them. No, I have no idea. What? Emac, please, calm down!”

  Yolanda could no longer stop herself. As gently as she could, she eased the receiver from the cradle and held it up to her ear and heard McMenamin’s angry voice yell: “You fucking assured me yesterday that we could go ahead with our project! Now today I received a set of photos by email showing a ghost town in such dilapidated shape that a rat wouldn’t move in!”

  “I told you what you wanted to hear yesterday, Emac.”

  “I wanted you to tell me the goddamned truth, not some fantasy about buildings that aren’t really there! Now my ass is on the line, because not only did I get these photos, but the president of Resort Partners got the fucking things! He is not happy, Mr. Broarty, not...ah, fuck, hold on, my other line is ringing. Don’t you dare hang up!”

  The line went silent, and all Yolanda could hear was the labored breathing of Marcus Broarty. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  When McMenamin came back on the line, she swore she could actually feel heat radiating through the phone. “Broarty, goddammit, I’m going to hang your balls on my Christmas tree!” he screamed.

  “Emac?” Broarty whimpered.

  “That call was from a newspaper reporter. The local press has a set of the photos too! They’re starting an investigation into the project. Do you have any idea how much the people I work for hate the fucking press?”

  “Emac, I swear to you that I did not send any pictures to you. I did not send any pictures to the president of Resort Partners. I certainly did not send any pictures to any newspaper. Why would I?”

  There was a grunting sigh, followed by McMenamin’s defeated voice. “Well, somebody sure as hell did.”

  “I’m telling you, Emac, it had to be Hayden.”

  “Hayden again.”

  “Who else could it be? He’s the one who had the goddamned things. I deleted all mine.”

  There was a long pause before McMenamin said: “Yesterday, Mr. Broarty, you told me you never got the pictures. How can you delete them if you never received them?”

  “Well, hold on now, what I meant was I accidentally deleted them, but I never actually looked at them.”

  “You didn’t inhale, in other words.”

  “I didn’t do what?”

  “THIS IS THE BIGGEST MOTHERFUCKING BULLSHIT MESS I EVER SAW!”

  Listening in, Yolanda nearly dropped the phone from the force of McMenamin’s voice.

  “Emac,” Broarty said desperately, “this has to be Jack Hayden’s doing. Just between you and me, he’s been having some personal problems lately.”

  “I thought you told me Hayden was the best person on your staff.

  “Well, he is, or at least he was. I don’t know if it’s burnout or what, but lately he’s kind of snapped.”

  “Get him on the goddamned line. Now.”

  “Just hold on, Emac,” Broarty said, setting the phone down and running out to Yolanda’s desk. She had just managed to noiselessly hang up herself when he arrived. “Yolanda, transfer Emac to Jack.”

  “All right,” she said, picking the phone up and saying, “Mr. McMenamin? Hi, hold on please while I transfer you.” Then she buzzed Jack’s office, but there was no answer. She tried again, and finally turned back to Broarty. “I don’t think he’s in.”

  “What do you mean he’s not in?” Broarty yelled, and sprinted down the hall toward Jack’s office, providing quite a spectacle for the other workers. He got there, winded, to find the door closed and the lights off behind it. “I don’t freaking believe it!” Hurrying back, he instructed Yolanda to tell McMenamin that Jack wasn’t available and that he would have him call as soon as he appeared. Then he went back inside his office. He had not even had the chance to sit down when Yolanda was on the intercom again. “Mr. Broarty, he wants to talk to you again.”

  “Goddammit, can’t anybody else handle anything around here! You talk to that asshole!”

  Then he realized he had never replaced the phone receiver back in the cradle, he had only set it down on his desk. He could still be heard on the other end.

  “Broarty!” McMenamin’s voice roared from the phone. Picking it up gingerly, Broarty said: “I’m right here, Emac.”

  “Where the fuck is your boy Hayden if he’s not in the office?”

  “I, uh, don’t know.”

  “I, uh, don’t know,” McMenamin sneered, and all of the bullies who ever taunted and abused Marcus Broarty when he was a schoolboy resided in that voice.

  “Emac, please, as soon as I find him, I’ll make sure he calls you.”

  “I have a better idea. You meet me on the property tomorrow.”

  “At Wood City?”

  “Yes, goddammit, at Wood City!”

  “You’re going to come in all the way from Vegas?”<
br />
  “If that’s what I have to do, yes. Get Hayden’s ass there too.”

  “Is it really necessary that I be there?”

  “I am giving you one last chance to straighten this fucking disaster out, and I’m doing it for one reason only, and that’s because I’m the one who engaged Crane Commercial, so if you jump in a shit puddle, it splashes back on me, and I don’t like getting wet! I expect to see you and Hayden tomorrow at noon. And don’t you even think about firing that cocksucker until I’m through with him!”

  The line went dead.

  After a half-minute, Broarty called for Yolanda to come into his office.

  “Anything wrong, Mr. Broarty?” she asked, stepping in to find him half-slumped against his desk, looking ashen and sweaty. “Sir, you don’t look too good.”

  “Yolanda, you need to find Jack Hayden, now. If he’s in the building, get him in here. If he’s not in the building, find him and then get him in here. Drop whatever else your doing and work on getting Jack in here. Please find him for me, Yolanda. Please.”

  Staggering back into his office, Broarty closed his door and dashed around to his chair, pulling open the bottom drawer of his desk where was stashed a bottle of vodka, and drank straight from the bottle.

  How was he supposed to get to Wood City? Where the hell was Wood City, anyway?

  * * * * * * *

  Jack Hayden’s cell phone beeped repeatedly, and he pulled it out of his pocket, glancing at it quickly so as not to take his eyes off the road for long. One missed call, it read, and he recognized the number as coming from Crane. “Fine, it can stay missing,” he said, putting the phone back in his pocket.

  They were only about a half-hour away from San Simeon. Althea had spent the time since leaving Tarelton talking about how much the middle of California had changed since she was a girl. Jack had occasionally tuned her out to concentrate on driving, but for the most part he found her monologue interesting. The old woman had a very pleasant voice, like an aging actress, and her stories were entertaining and varied enough to belie his initial suspicion that she was senile. Still, it seemed to Jack that she deliberately avoided talking about the dreams she had alluded when they first met, or any other discussion of why she had impulsively pulled up stakes from her comfortable home and put her trust in fate. Neither did Jack try to coerce the information out of her.