“Get over here now,” she hissed. “Bring some kind of weapon or something.”
She could hear the creak of his sofa as he sat up straight. “Sure this isn’t another come-on?”
She drew a breath. Double-timing dickweed! “The kitchen door! Now!”
“Twice the usual rate?”
“Yes!”
“‘Kay then,” he said, and hung up.
33. It’s your funeral
The angry mob streamed down the street, trampling the new-fallen snow, their voices rough and anguished. They were not drunk, as the last such group had been. They were not testing themselves, probing the edges of their social bubble. They weren’t having a good time, and they didn’t feel cold or hunger or exhaustion. They were boiling with rage, and they headed toward the former Framdsen House at speed.
There was nothing here, of course, worth killing for. Happy Masters posed no immediate danger to anyone, and the changes she had brought to Equinox might easily have been prevented. But it wasn’t merely Happy whose destruction they now sought: it was their former selves, whose passivity had enabled her to gain the upper hand. Those fools, who had sat idly by as poor Glenda was fired, and the Inn came down, and the college was ruined: they were the ones at whom this wrath ought to have been directed.
But alas, those former selves were gone, rendered obsolete, erased by time, and only Happy remained. And so it was to Lake-Edge they marched, motion inspiring motion, shout begetting shout. Here, a contorted face screamed “Slut!”; there, the word “whore” emerged, like a mantra, from between gritted teeth. There were those who licked their lips without even knowing it, whose spitting mouths overflowed with saliva, as if before a feast. There were some who hadn’t felt adrenaline in their blood for months, or years; there were some who were sexually aroused. Instincts, under whose power every member of this mob was sorely unpracticed, rose from the depths of species memory and overwhelmed every clenched fist and booted foot: the body politic primed for bodily harm.
A few lagged behind or clung to the edge: Archie, of course, who had gotten a late start; Janet Ping, who was horrified at what she had helped unleash. Ruth Spinks, whose independent soul had chafed against the prevailing mood, and whose anger had already given way to despair, and now terror.
There was also a mysterious figure in a trenchcoat, wearing a strange white headpiece and walking with a limp. And a man in black, sprinting along the lake path.
Jennifer Triesman was right out in front. This made her among the first to notice that the windows of Happy’s mansion were dark, that no footprints marred the front stoop, that no signs of life were visible within. The mob, having hoped perhaps for blazing lights, frantic activity, an attempted escape to thwart, slowed in disappointment and of course exhaustion: for though they were buoyed by their fury, most of them were also hopelessly out of shape. They slowed and presently stopped, panting out clouds of gray breath into the streetlit air. They filled Happy’s driveway and yard and waited for someone to say or do something, waited for instructions.
Jennifer yelled, “Come out, you fucking coward!”
An angry cheer went up, a ragged chorus of yeahs and c’mons. But this too faded away; and nothing happened, at least not immediately, to replace it. In the caesura that followed, Archie Olds caught up to the crowd, and the figure in black, unseen by all, knocked quietly at the kitchen door and was promptly let in. And Jennifer, sensing the crowd’s momentum beginning to flag—and realizing, dimly, that this was a good thing, an essential function of the collective mind, yet desperate to shatter it nevertheless—picked up a rock up from under the snow.
It wasn’t an especially large rock—less than an inch long, it was exactly like the thousands of others that comprised Happy’s gravel drive. But it was more than heavy enough, with a bit of momentum behind it, to reach the second-floor window over the large oaken front door, and more than speedy enough to punch right through, resulting in a startling and highly satisfying crash.
In the deathly silence that followed, a sound was heard—a muffled scream. High, deep-throated, and unceasing, it grew in volume and intensity until the door flew open and a woman came running out. A gasp went up: but it was not Happy. It was Louisa, the housekeeper, pajamaed and fuzzy-slippered. She lit out for the treeline, screaming all the way, and disappeared into the murk of the woods.
The sight of her—of Happy’s faithful servant, abandoning her in this time of need—seemed to rouse the crowd to action. A cheer went up, husky and ominous, and each member of the mob bent over and gathered up a handful of rocks. Then they lifted their hands into the air and threw.
* * *
Inside, Happy and Kevin had been trying to develop a plan. Neither was terribly concerned at first. Certainly Happy had been frightened when she called him, but having switched off all the lights and locked all the doors, having stood back a fair distance from the window and watched the mob approach, and having observed their exhaustion and dawning awareness of the cold, she was reminded of the ease with which she had pacified the previous mob, and she began to relax. And Kevin, having sprinted here half-expecting the place to be under armed siege, was relieved and a bit disappointed to find the house dark and the mob docile.
And so they stood together in the unlit kitchen, trying to devise a politically nuanced way of dispelling the visitors, Kevin favoring absolute silence and motionlessness (after which he would nevertheless demand to be paid at the promised rate); Happy preferring a dramatic speech, and wishing that Silas and Sheila, or even Jims, were here to help her with it.
And then they heard glass breaking, and Louisa’s scream, and the front door opening and slamming shut. And then the clapboards rumbled underneath a hail of rocks. Another window shattered, and then another. In a slant of streetlight, Kevin’s and Happy’s eyes met.
Happy’s: gray, flecked with gold, clear and shrewd and commanding. Kevin’s: brown, narrowed in doubt, underslung with purple streaks, the whites yellowed by cigarettes and suffering. A great deal of information passed between those eyes in the seconds after the first window broke. Initially, surprise, pure and sudden and honest: the lids open wide, the pupils dilated in the dark. And then the egos took over, reacting, considering, calculating. Happy’s surprise gave way to fear—just a moment’s worth, which is all she ever felt, having whittled that quite natural and useful emotion down almost to nothing in the years since her cousins first twisted her arm behind her back. Kevin’s surprise unfolded into curiosity, a near-pleasure in anticipating what would happen next. He had given up fear long ago, when he gave up his will to live, in order to cultivate a fatalistic apathy that had served him well through his hardest days. Something was happening, and it interested him: that was what he felt.
Happy’s fear, quickly dispelled, transmuted into anger tinged with self-importance—the only kind of anger Happy knew. This resulted in a compulsion to act, which was reflected in her eyes in a sudden change of focus, a shift from the near and immediate to the external, to the thing that must be acted upon. Kevin saw this, and his own eyes blinked out a warning—What, are you nuts?—before withdrawing back into unconcern: It’s your funeral.
All in a second or two. Happy’s eyes gave Kevin’s their full attention:
Let’s go.
And Kevin: Whatever you say.
The two moved toward the front door, Happy flipping switches all the way, bringing Lake-Edge back to life, setting the chandelier afire and throwing the windows into glare. She didn’t hesitate, as glass shattered around her and the rumble of stones intensified: she threw open the door and stepped into full view on the porch, while Kevin, his pistol tucked into his belt, stepped forward to protect her, a pale face hovering over the black slash of his body.
A stone whizzed between them, and another struck Kevin on the shoulder. A third shattered the gaslamp bolted beside the doorway. And then the throwing ceased. There was a moment of silence. The mob stared, and Happy Masters stared back.
* *
*
That would have been the end, for in that moment the mob were restored to themselves, and remembered who they were, and what they lived for, and wondered, everyone at once, what it was exactly they were doing here. These were villagers, townspeople, good honest Americans. They went to work, and they made money, and they spent money, and they went to bed. They watched television and had sex and got into arguments. That was their lives.
And there was nothing wrong with that. Indeed, for most of them, it was the greatest pleasure: living a normal life, being a regular American. They longed for it now, these mobsters: they longed for a glass of whiskey, and the nightly news, and a roll in the hay, and a night of dreams. The stones fell from their hands and their shoulders drooped. Just like that, with a scolding glance that reminded them of their mothers, their bosses, their parole officers, their spouses, Happy had put an end to the angry mob.
And she knew it, too: she could hear them deflate: the sound of the breath escaping from a yard full of mouths. Go home, she would have told them. Go home and get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow. You are forgiven. Go home.
But she never got the chance.
* * *
Two things happened at once.
The first was the result of a split-second calculation by a farmer who had come into the village for the December town meeting in order to demand the erection of a tractor-crossing sign on either side of the county highway where it bisected his fields. He had been a member of the drunken mob some months before, and in fact had provided the signal flares that many townspeople had waved in the air that night. For all that, he didn’t have an opinion about Happy Masters—nothing she had done had made much of an impression on him.
But he did still have a few leftover flares, stored in a tool box in the cab of his pickup, and as the new mob burst out of the town hall doors he took a moment to reach in and get them. He passed them out to some people he knew and they arrived at the scene with the flares burning.
He would wonder, later, whose flare had done the job, but that hardly mattered. They were all to blame, and none of them were to blame. When the rain of stones shattered the windows of the former Framdsen House, when the lights came on and figures could be seen moving through the house, the farmer leaned back and let his signal flare fly, and it tumbled end over end through one of the four floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the road. His companions, sensing the rightness of this action, did the same. And then the door opened and Happy Masters appeared, some familiar-looking greaser at her side.
I shouldn’t have done that, the farmer thought, and then Happy Masters opened her mouth, as if to speak. But her words were preempted by a collective gasp and sigh, for the curtains that hung in the windows had caught fire.
That was the first thing. A scant moment later, Happy turned, gaped at the burning curtains, and commanded Kevin Russell to go in and douse the flames. He was in her employ, after all, and she had an angry mob to quell. But Kevin hesitated.
“Go!” Happy screamed. “Go!!!”
Perhaps it was some vestige of loyalty toward his employer that made him obey. Maybe he felt bad about burning down her outlet store and thought that saving her house from immolation was the least he could do to repent. Or maybe he merely considered this another opportunity to extort money from Happy (and that this money might otherwise be consumed by the flames), or a challenge to his masculinity. Whatever the case, he pursed his lips, shook his head, and crossed in front of her in annoyed capitulation.
He did not, however, make it to the door, for it was then that the second thing happened.
* * *
Archie Olds had come up behind the mysterious figure, the man in the trenchcoat and headdress, and peered over his shoulder, hoping to divine who it was. If the man sensed that anyone was near, he gave no indication; indeed, the man stood quite still and erect, like a sentry. Stealthily, Archie moved around to his side, keeping a good five or six feet away. He watched the man watch the stones fly through the air; he watched him watch the housekeeper flee across the yard. And still the stranger moved not an inch.
Only when Happy appeared on the doorstep with Kevin Russell did Dave Dryer move at last. But Archie missed it. He, too, was watching Happy. He hadn’t seen her since their night together, and it was with dismay that he found his sudden attraction to her undiminished. Her confidence and poise before the mob; the way she stood, legs spread, arms crossed, in defiance—he feared and admired her, and wanted her more than ever.
If this amorous epiphany left Archie feeling guilty and sick, then at least he didn’t have to feel that way for long. Because only a few seconds had gone by before the curtains ignited, and a few seconds more before Kevin Russell had taken action to douse them. And by that time, Archie was looking once again at the figure beside him.
The man leaned forward now, avid, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. A vagrant, maybe? Some wharf rat hanging around for the winter? The face was swollen and shiny, the flesh pink, the eyes little more than dots, a pair of raisins poked into risen dough. And then Archie seemed to recognize a bit of chin, an earlobe, a part in the hair. Could it be?
He spoke as Happy’s voice—“Go!”—rang out over the yard. “Dave?” he said.
The figure turned to him, slowly, with apparently painful effort. It reminded Archie of a moose he had passed on a path through Canadian woods: a beast that had seen him without seeing, that had taken note and dismissed in one grand toss of the head.
But it was him: it was Dave. “Dave!” Archie hissed, but now Happy screamed—again, “Go!!”—and he turned to look.
That’s why he missed the bit where Dave took the rifle out from under his coat.
Kevin Russell glowered, slumped, seemed to consider. Only then did Archie return his attention to the man who used to be Dave Dryer, and saw him raise the rifle to his shoulder, sight down the barrel, and curl his finger around the trigger.
Winchester 1895, he thought, and leapt.
* * *
Of course Dave was unsurprised to find his nemeses united, together on the porch like this: they had drawn him out of hiding, had brought him here to destroy him. Happy Masters. Thomas Crim. Through a haze of blood he watched them, the zaftig CEO and the wily ghost, and he hesitated, to savor their impending surprise, before he heaved the rifle to his shoulder.
But then, an unexpected moment of clarity arrived, like a foreign voice in a sea of radio static. Dave Dryer awoke from his bacterial slumber and gazed out through the madman’s eyes, and there was Kevin, his friend, whose failures had always made his own seem bearable. The friend in whose eyes he didn’t want to seem weak, and sick, and strange. And there, at the end of the barrel, stood Happy, the woman who’d cheated him out of—what? His bar? No, nothing—for it was Dave Dryer who had blown it, who’d failed to defend both his town and his business. Nevertheless, the intention was clear—he had come to kill, and that’s what he was going to do. Of sound mind, he squeezed the trigger, because his was no longer a life worth living. He’d use the next round on himself, as his father had done, and exit this world—like Glenda, like Crim, like all the weak people who were better off forgotten.
The hammer fell, the bullet flew, and the kick hit Dave with the force of a man, knocking him to the ground. At least that’s what he thought at first. Before he lost consciousness he understood that he’d been tackled. “Reload,” he tried to say, “let me reload,” but the words were lost in the chorus of screams and the roaring of the hurricane in his head.
* * *
Kevin was struck in the chest. His hand had gone for the pistol in his belt but never did make it there. He crumpled at Happy’s feet.
It was not initially clear to Happy what had occurred. Only later would she understand that Kevin Russell had inadvertently saved her life. For now, she looked out into the crowd, saw two men sprawled on the ground in the yard, saw people fleeing in terror from where they lay. A rifle, come to rest mere inches from an out
stretched hand. A white headpiece or turban of some kind—Al Qaeda? In Equinox? A feeling of warmth spread through her which quickly turned to cold—she looked down and saw that she had wet herself.
Only the roaring brought her back around, the roaring, behind her, of fire. Through the cracked-open front door she saw flames creeping around the edges of the main hall, she saw the curtains fall and ignite the Victorian sofa by the windows. It went up with a whoomph and a blast of acrid air: horsehair, she thought, fascinated, and watched it burn as if it were a scene in a novel—Lily and Sally, in fact. Sherman’s men, bearing torches, flushing out the women and children, setting fire to their houses.
My house is on fire, she observed, with a certain satisfaction. So dramatic, so apropos. She slid her feet out from under the dead man who lay upon them, and she pushed the door open further. Little fires everywhere—and only later would she learn, from the fire chief, what (though not who) had started it—the wainscoting here, a carpet there, all of it converging together in a growing, all-consuming blaze.
And then, The dolls, she thought.
She hesitated, for who fails to hesitate before running into a burning building? The brave and the foolish—and Happy was neither. Yet, the next moment found her dashing across an uncarpeted stretch of floor to the stairs, and climbing to the second story. The smoke was thick here, the stench of smoldering woolen rugs and of the finish sizzling off the woodwork, and she coughed and buried her face in her sweater.
And then she was there—the doll room. Her babies lay around her, the prototypes, those priceless originals that gave her life. Eyes wide and pleading, wreathed in smoke. Whom should she save? Lily, Sally, Padma, Jane. Betsy, Pei Pei, Genevieve. Sandy, Mandy, Mindy, Mary, Helga, Kimbe, Jessamyn. Instinctively she reached for Lily, then of course gathered Sally into her other arm. She reached for Janet, War Orphan, then drew back her shaking hand in reconsideration. She picked up Ruby, Bronwyn, Trina, Mei Lin. Dropped them in order to save Evie, Gwynneth, Fiona, and Jet. The smoke had grown thicker and she was beginning to panic.
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