The Mural

by Michael Mallory

  “Really. Well, then, if it’s over, I guess it’s the same as never having happened in the first place. Just wipe the slate clean. I wish I could use that one, but it’s the kind of rationalization that only applies to women.”

  “I’ll tell you what only applies to women, Jack,” she spat back. “Office sexual abuse only applies to women. Do you really think I’d be in my position with the company if I hadn’t put out? Do you know how many women have come and gone through the office because they told Blaise to go take a fucking hike? That’s the difference, Jack. I slept with Blaise because I had to, but if you slept with that Danica bitch it’s because you wanted to.”

  “Had to?”

  “Somebody in this family has to make the money, goddammit! Somebody has to maintain stability! Who’s that person going to be, Jack, you? You think we could live where we’re living on what you make? What about Robynn? You know she can’t go to public school, where every malicious little monster is going to make fun of her scar. But will your salary pay for private school? Will it? And will you turn that fucking fan off!”

  Jack switched it off and then slumped down onto the toilet, a submissive, seated position that signaled he was forfeiting the argument. “You make it sound like I’m on welfare.”

  “You’ve been living off of me for so long, you might as well be.”

  Jack’s mouth moved open and closed, but no sound came out.

  “Well, say something,” Elley demanded.

  “What is there to say? It sounds like it’s over between us.”

  From the sudden flash of shock that played across her face, Jack sensed that she just got it too. “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Whatever’s best for Robynn, I guess.”

  “All right, she’s going back home with me. Today. Right now.”

  “Can’t it wait a little bit? You must be exhausted.”

  “A little, but I’ll manage.”

  “Oh, right. You have to get to work this afternoon.”

  “That’s not a problem anymore, thanks to you and your impromptu road trip. I think it’s fair to say that I resigned by flying back to L.A.”

  So everything was his fault. Jack desperately wanted to put up an argument, but he had no ammunition left. There was nothing he could say. Going home with Elley, where she would return to school and be cared for by Nola, was undoubtedly the best thing for Robynn at the moment. Jack sighed and nodded. “At least let Robynn say goodbye to Althea.”

  “Who the fuck is this Althea?”

  “A woman we met on the way here. She’s great with Robynn.”

  “So of course you just brought her with you. I suppose you’re paying for her to be here, too.” A light clicked on in Elley’s eyes. “I get it. You needed someone to look after Robynn while you were banging your Swedish angel, so you just picked up a hitchhiker, right? My god, what my lawyer is going to do to you.”

  “Whatever,” Jack sighed. He had never felt so tired in his life.

  From outside the bathroom door came a small, plaintive voice, calling: “Daddy? Are you here?”

  “I’m in the bathroom, punkin,” Jack called back. Then he opened the door and said, “And guess what, so is Mommy!”

  Robynn looked up sleepily from the bed, and her face broke into a broad grin. Leaping down she ran toward Elley, crying: “Hi, Mommeeeeeeeee!”

  “Hi, honey,” Elley said, picking her up and kissing her. “I’m going to be taking you home while Daddy finishes his...business up here, okay?”

  “Is Noni coming with us?” the girl asked.

  “That’s her name for Althea,” Jack said.

  “No, but....” Elley shot a look toward Jack. “We’ll make sure we say goodbye before we go, okay?”

  “Will I get to see her again?”

  “Noni must really be special.”

  “Hmm-hmmm,” Robynn said, smiling.

  “Where is she?”

  “Next room,” Jack said.

  “Let’s go see her now, okay?” Elley carried Robynn out of the room and Jack could hear the sound of knocking on the door of the next room, followed by a soft conversation. Within two minutes, Elley was back, and alone. “That old bat has some kind of power over Robynn. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “She loves her,” Jack said.

  “Goddammit, I love her too! She’s my daughter! I’m sick of these little comments about what a crappy mother I am!”

  Jack did not recall making one, but it did not matter. He simply shrugged.

  “Christ, Jack, yesterday morning I got up and drove to the airport and parked my car and got on a plane, and once we were airborne my entire existence suddenly fell to shit. I want it to be normal again. Is that too much to ask?”

  “It might be.”

  After glaring at him, Elley Gorman Hayden spun around and marched to the door, opened it and left the room. Through the walls, Jack could hear the faint voices of Elley, Robynn and Althea. A few moments later, Robynn slunk into the Jack’s room alone and looked at him with Keane painting eyes. “How come you’re not going home with us, Daddy?” she asked with all the hurt one can fit into five years of experience.

  Jack knelt down and hugged here. “There are a few things I have to do here, punkin. Then I’ll come home.” Whether I’ll be allowed inside or not is another matter.

  “How come Noni can’t go?”

  “She has to help me. But you’ll be fine with mommy.”

  “Yeah, but I miss you, Daddy.”

  “I’m still here, punkin.”

  Elley exhaled impatiently. “I’ll be in the lobby. Bring her out when the two of you are finished.”

  “Elley—”

  “Clearly you’re the one she wants, so just finish your business then come out.” She spun on her heel and stormed out of the room.

  “What’s wrong with Mommy?”

  “She’s tired,” Jack said. “Grown-ups get tired, too.”

  “Are you and mommy going to get ’vorced, like Molly’s parents?” Molly was a classmate from kindergarten.

  Jack opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Finally, he said: “Robynn, listen to me. I’m not going anywhere. Right now I have to stay here because it’s part of my job, but I’ll be home soon.”

  Robynn did not look convinced. In fact, she began to tear up. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  He took her in his arms and her hug was surprisingly forceful, almost desperate. “Punkin, is there something bothering you that you’re not saying?”

  Robynn pulled away and looked at him. “It was that man. He was in my dreams.”

  “Who was he?”

  Robynn shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t even see his face. He was like a shadow, but he scared me. He had a special name for me, like when you call me punkin.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. His was ‘Harelip.’”

  Jack froze, but he tried to cover it.

  “That’s wrong, though. I don’t have a moustache.”

  “I know you don’t, Robynn. It was probably some kind of bad joke.”

  “Yeah, prob’ly,” the girl agreed. “But this man was talking about you, too.”

  “What did he say about me?”

  “He said if you didn’t stop what you were doing you were going to be one dead muverfucker. What’s a muverfucker?”

  Impossible as it seemed, Jack became even colder. He heard a hollow parody of his own voice say from a hundred miles away, “It’s a kind of bird,” not having a clue where that had come from.

  “Why a dead one?”

  “That’s just an expression, like, you know, when you’re really in trouble you say, ‘I’m a dead duck now,’ or ‘I’m dead tired,’ something like that.”

  “Is Mommy a dead muverfucker?”

  Christ. “Do me a favor, okay, punkin? Don’t tell mommy about these dreams. They’re just between us. And don’t say anything about her being a muverfucker, dead or otherwise, ok
ay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s time for you to go now.”

  “Bye, daddy,” she whimpered as she hugged him.

  “Bye, punkin. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  Jack walked her out to the lobby, where Elley was actually pacing, and handed his daughter over to her. He felt a horrible pang as he watched the two of them leave. What in god’s name was he involved in? He only hoped that getting Robynn away from here would keep her safe; save, even, from her dreams.

  Jack found himself wandering around the lobby of the motel, absently looking at the continental breakfast spread that had been laid out for the guests. He got himself a cup of coffee and a roll, and headed back to his room. The door to Althea’s room was propped open, so he stuck his head in. She was reading a newspaper and looked up. “I guess they’ve gone.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “and that’s probably for the best.”

  “I’m certainly going to miss her.”

  “I already do.”

  The two of them made small talk for a while, though Jack deliberately tried to change the subject whenever Elley came up. After some time he heard a familiar sound, faintly and through the wall. It was his cell phone ringing in the next room. If it was Dani, he could finally talk freely now. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told Althea, and dashed into his room, holding precariously the coffee and roll while he slid the key card through the lock. Once inside, Jack grabbed the phone and clicked it alive. “Yeah, this is Jack,” he said.

  “Thank god!” a woman’s voice said. At first he didn’t recognize it, but it went on: “Jeez, Jack, where have you been hiding, the Moon? MBA’s fit to be tied!”

  Jack sighed. “Hi, Yolanda. What’s the crisis now?”

  “Emac’s freaking out for some reason, and Marc can’t bluff his way out of it this time, so he’s a total spaz.”

  “Yolanda, is Marc there?”

  “No, he’s on his way up to the site, Jack.”

  “The site? You mean Wood City?”

  “He should be there by noon. He left in the early hours and was not a happy camper.”

  “Why the hell is Marc going to Wood City? What’s going on, Yoli?”

  “I can’t tell, but it doesn’t sound good. I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday, but I could never get an answer.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been dealing with some other matters. Christ. I guess I’d better try to contact him.”

  “You may want to pretend you were killed in a car accident instead.”

  “That bad?”

  “He was on and off the phone to Emac practically all afternoon yesterday, and in between he’d storm out of the office and rage against you for either doing or not doing something. From the sounds of it, the whole project might get flushed.”

  “Well, if it does, it’s Marc’s hand on the chain, not mine. He’s the one that refused to believe my report.”

  “I’ve no doubt that you’re right, but the point is, Jack, whatever is happening sounds serious and MBA has been already started to make you the scapegoat for it. I don’t want to see anything happen to you, Jack. I’m talking to you now as a friend, not as your inferior in the company.”

  “I don’t think of you as an inferior, Yoli.”

  “That’s my point. You’re about the only guy around here who doesn’t. If something happens to you, I’ll be stuck here with a lot of creeps who think I’m nothing but a life support system for set of chi-chis.”

  Jack laughed in spite of himself, and then apologized for it. “Okay, Yoli, here’s what we’ll do. Call Marc up and tell him that you finally got a hold of me, and that I’ve been up here since last night at my own expense in order to take more pictures of Wood City, which is exactly what I offered to do, so he can’t claim he didn’t know. Tell him that the reason you couldn’t reach me because my cell phone service went out. Tell him I will meet him at the site around noon. I’m only about twenty minutes away. Make it sound like I’m painfully sorry for being unavailable. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I have faith in you, Yoli. Call me back if you need me.” Jack rang off and then dashed back into Althea’s room. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go out for a while. Believe it or not, I actually have to go do some work. But I’ll be back later.”

  “No problem,” she replied. “I may just go outside and enjoy the sunshine.”

  “Althea, I really want to thank you for being so good with Robynn.”

  “How could anyone not be?”

  “Yeah,” Jack nodded, and then he left. After stopping for a quick cup of coffee in the lobby, he went out to his truck and headed out for Wood City. It looked like the beginnings of a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and white clouds, with no marine layer anywhere to be seen. At least it would be a good day to take pictures.

  He was only five minutes down the highway when his cell rang. “What it is, Yoli,” he said into the phone.

  “Is this Jack Hayden?” a man’s voice replied.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Chief Creeley from the Glenowen PD.”

  “Now what have I done?”

  “Nothing, but I need to talk to you on a separate matter.”

  “I’m on a job right now. Can I come by this afternoon?”

  “All right. Shouldn’t have a problem keeping the woman here, given her condition.”

  “Woman? What woman? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a woman here who’s had some sort of lapse in memory. The only thing she’s said is your name, over and over again. Her name’s Danica Lindstrom.”

  “Jesus,” Jack moaned. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hayden.” The phone line went dead.

  Now what? Jack stomped on the gas and tossed any further consideration of Marcus Broarty out the window.

  * * * * * * *

  “You’re awfully quiet, Robynn,” Elley said to her daughter, strapped into the car seat behind her. “Is something bothering you?”

  They were already thirty miles down the highway because Elley was not being particularly watchful of her speed. It was not so much that she felt she had to get back home in a hurry; rather she felt an overpowering compulsion to get the hell out of here. And she was not even certain where here was.

  “I just wish Daddy were with us,” Robynn said. “And Noni.”

  “You like Noni, don’t you?” Elley asked.

  “Mmm-hmm. She read to me.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “When was the last time you read to me, mommy? You selfish cunt.”

  Elley Gorman Hayden nearly lost control of the car, causing it to drift across the centerline and come dangerously close to an oncoming SUV before she managed to swerve back into her own lane and then onto the shoulder of the highway, where she slammed to a screeching stop.

  “Mommy!” her frightened daughter called, but Elley ignored it. Snapping her head around to the back seat, she demanded: “What did you say to me?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “What did you say?”

  Robynn was now in tears. “I said I liked Noni.”

  “After that.”

  “I said she read to me.”

  “After that!”

  “Nothing.” The girl could barely get the word out.

  “That’s not what I heard!”

  Now the waterworks and racking sobs were in full force. “I didn’t say anything!”

  “You didn’t call me a bad name?”

  Robynn looked shocked. “No!”

  But Elley had heard it. She heard it clear as day. And it was Robynn’s voice that had spoken. But looking at the girl melting into terrified emotion before her, she could easily believe that Robynn was telling the truth.

  Christ. Jack had been right: she was exhausted to the point of hearing things.

  Elley exhaled and a big-rig tore past on the highway, the force of which shook her car. “Mommy
’s sorry, honey. I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

  “You’re not mad?” Robynn’s voice was the size of an amoeba.

  “Well, to be truthful, I’m mad at myself for reacting so badly that I scared you, but I’m not mad at you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Elley put the car back into gear and carefully watched for traffic as she eased back onto the highway. “Look out the window at the ocean, Robynn. Maybe you can see some whales.”

  “Whales?” Robynn said, recovering from her spell and adjusting her position in the car seat to see out of the rear passenger window. Elley thought about trying to tune in Radio Disney as they headed down the coast, but decided to leave the radio off until Robynn asked for it. At the moment, she needed the quiet.

  Twenty more miles later, the quiet was still there, and becoming somewhat oppressive, so she went ahead and switched on the radio and started fiddling with the dial, turning on both the music and the fragile normalcy.

  But she had heard it, those horrible words coming from her daughter’s lips. She wasn’t crazy. She had heard it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It had taken Marcus Broarty fifteen minutes just to baby his Jaguar up this washed-out wreck of a road and he cringed every time the bottom of the expensive car scraped the trail. Broarty had his car washed every week and detailed once a month, and driving through the middle of the goddamned forest, where millions of tree branches just ached to scrape against the sides and mar the ironic forest green paint, was the worst thing he could imagine putting his Jag through.

  Just up ahead he saw the statue-like figure of Egon McMenamin, anger radiating off of him in waves and pointedly looking at his wrist watch. Pasting a big phony smile on his face, Broarty got out of the car. “Hey, Emac, great to see you.” He approached the other man hand outstretched, but Egon McMenamin kept his gaze on his watch and his hand where it was.

  “I’ve been waiting here for thirty-seven minutes. Did you get lost, or something?”

  The last thing Broarty wanted to tell the bastard was that yeah, he did get lost. It took him for ever to find this godforsaken Davy Crockett trail, and then he had to jeopardize his car to get into the middle of the frigging woods. Instead he said: “Someone on the freeway was driving like an Asian woman, slowing everybody down like it was a funeral procession.”