by Peter Heller
They passed in single file, briskly, and went up the steps.
Alison chuckled softly. “They take their massage appointments pretty seriously around here.”
They’re just getting started. Jack shook his head. That didn’t sound like a massage and spa, that sounded like addiction therapy, AA group, whatever. But, as he thought at breakfast, the Takagis were—seemed—the antithesis of addicts. The only excess they seemed to indulge in was politeness.
“What?” Alison said. “You look really disturbed now.” She poked him. “Are you wishing you were getting a massage?”
Jack started as if just waking, as if just realizing she was beside him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had an interesting talk with Shay last night. And…other things.”
“I was thinking that,” she said.
He told her. About the conversation outside the kitchen door. About the nondisclosure agreement, the treatment center disguised as a neighbor.
“For the mega-rich and famous apparently,” he said.
“I never heard of it. What am I, chopped liver?”
“You’re not desperate and strung out.”
“When you fish with me in the mountains of North Carolina I might tell you that story.”
“I’d like that.”
“You’re supposed to be telling me stories now. Remember, I told the Young and the Guideless that that’s why I employed you.”
“You hinted at another reason and Yumi blushed hard.”
“Tell me more about Shay.”
“Well, she said the rehab or whatever is super secret and it’s the only reason the folks who come here don’t get plastered all over BuzzFeed. She said that if you’re someone like a big CEO with a drug problem and the board of the company can’t know, you come here.”
“Okaay…”
“Well, that suddenly made a lot of sense. The security, the not wanting anyone to have guns, Will and Neave looking so drugged out. I thought maybe the IV marks on the back of their hands—his hand—were from some high-powered Antabuse, but…” He trailed off.
“What?”
“They were all drinking mojitos the other night.”
“Maybe theirs were virgin. We weren’t there when they ordered.”
“Yeah, that occurred to me. But then I was thinking about us getting shot at. And the wading boot I saw half-buried and how when I went back it was gone. What Shay said, it—” He stopped. He was still trying to grapple with everything he had witnessed.
“What?”
“It made some sense. It explained a lot. Not all. I was thinking maybe eighty percent. It was the other twenty percent that really bothered me.”
“So?”
“So this morning I found an iPhone under my bed.”
* * *
•
There was no way to tell it except to tell it. What his father always said.
So he told her. About Ken’s message. How he, Jack, was certain it was Ken’s boot he had seen in the spruce. The almost panicked urgency of the two voice memos, the one saying he had been scouting elk and something about kids, the other saying he was sure he had been seen by a “merc,” and he was now certain he was fucked. How he told Jensen he was quitting and Kurt had said Den only hires broken people because nobody believes them. How Den watches everything and how Ken had said to check the thermostat.
“Did you?” Alison said. She had the look of a child trying to make sense of an awful Grimms’ fairy tale for the first time. “Did you check it?”
“Sure.”
“And?”
“There was a frigging camera in there. Pointed right at my bed. Taking in the whole room.”
“No way. What’d you do?”
“I turned on the thermostat. So it looked like that’s why I was messing with it.”
“Good thinking,” she said. But her tone was not at all sure.
* * *
•
“Wanna fish?” Jack said. “It’s about all we can do right now.”
“Okay,” she said. “Sure. Yes, yes, I want to. Let’s think about something else. Jeez.”
They fished. Slowly. Neither was very enthused at the start, but Jack was such a natural, his choices and motions so ingrained, and she had so much poise—in her movements and patience—that they caught fish. When the top fly hitched and she set the hook and the rod bent and quivered—that connection, with another being, with a life force erased for the moment all other considerations. It demanded full attention, which is its own version of joy. For a couple of hours they moved in the cold current, and the river granted them a measure of her heedless grace.
At noon, a half hour before lunch, they packed it in. They climbed the trail to Jack’s cabin and continued down the sandy road toward the lodge and lunch. Alison said, “Hey, let’s swing up to the pool house on the way. I think I’ll knock off early this afternoon and take a sauna. Lord knows I don’t think I can sweat out the creeps, but it’d feel good.”
So they turned up the path into the aspen grove above the pond where the pool lay in its own log sanctuary surrounded by glass garage doors, all open now to the breezy afternoon. They walked unspeaking side by side and Jack stopped and put his hand on her arm. He pulled her back behind two twin trees. He pointed up the hill to where Shay’s cart track ran and they saw a golf cart bumping down it slowly. This cart had a back bench seat, not a cargo bed, and on the seat, holding to the vertical pipes that supported the roof, were Yumi and Teiji. They were coming from upcanyon, from the main house and parking lot, or beyond. Was it Kreutzer’s? The thought sent a frisson of panic through Jack, like the jolt of dissonance in a nightmare when nothing was adding up. They were supposed to be having massages or whatever, weren’t they? But more shocking were their faces. They were maybe thirty yards off and Jack and Alison could see them clearly. Yumi was sheet white, her face rigid, and against this mask the tears ran. Teiji sat erect, his expression stoic, eyes straight ahead, and though he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with his wife he looked terribly alone.
They jostled past. Somebody Jack did not recognize drove them, a young clean-cut guy in a red polo shirt.
“What the heck?” Alison whispered. “Did you see their faces?”
“Uh huh. I feel queasy.”
“Me, too. God. Didn’t look like they just came from relaxing bodywork.”
“Let’s go down,” Jack said. “Can you invite them to our table?”
“Yeah, sure. I might not eat much.”
* * *
•
They stripped waders on the porch, hung them on the pegs, pulled on the running shoes they had left there. She put up her rod, and they located their table on the deck. Full house today, the other couples were already there. The vibe was friendly, if a little forced. Will and Neave and the Youngens were at their own tables and seemed in a haze of distraction, but they made an effort to smile, lift a hand. Stiff smiles maybe, but smiles. Everybody, it seemed, was acting. Except the Takagis. They were about to sit down at the only table left, in the sun in the middle of the deck, when Alison stepped over and asked if they cared to join her. The Takagis were startled. As was Alison when she saw their faces. They seemed suddenly years older, as if they’d just been through a natural disaster or lost a child. The poise was gone. Teiji hesitated. Alison gestured at her table, which was the farthest table downstream. It was in the shade, and against the railing overlooking the river, and much more secluded than being in the center of the patio. Maybe it tipped the decision, because Yumi said,
“Yes. Yes, thank you. We will.” And she seemed relieved.
The four sat and gratefully downed a full tumbler each of sweetened iced tea. Yumi blinked as she drank and would not look past her glass. Shay put down a basket of hot homemade potato chips and again wouldn’t look at J
ack. Teiji ordered a Sapporo beer. Comfort in the familiar. Yumi called Shay back and asked for a hot sake. Teiji forced himself to ask how the fishing went. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying, or wanted to.
“It was decent,” Alison said. “We didn’t slay them, but we made a solid effort. You?”
“We didn’t fish. Our treatments were this morning,” Yumi said. “We made a mistake.”
Well, she didn’t say “spa treatments.” At least she was not lying.
“Was it nice?” Alison said.
“It was…” A smile fluttered to her lips and trembled there. Jack thought she was trying her hardest not to weep. He also noticed that she held the tumbler with her left hand, and her right was under the table. As was Teiji’s. Who interjected,
“It was not what we expected.”
“I’m sorry,” Alison said.
Shay brought the beer and sake on a tray. She set the heavier Sapporo down first, followed by the glass, which she filled. The hot sake was in a small hand-glazed porcelain bottle painted with flying cranes. Shay lifted it from the tray and Yumi reached up with both hands to take it and Jack noticed the Band-Aid on the back of her right hand.
“Thank you,” Yumi said. And then Jack saw her turn the bottle to see the design and her face startled again, and tightened. She handed it back to Shay. “Can you please put it in another vessel,” she said. “Do you have one with carp?”
Shay cocked her head as if mishearing, but immediately recovered her aplomb. “Of course. Yes, I think we do.”
Teiji rescued his wife again. “Cranes can be a symbol of death,” he said.
“Oh!” Alison said. “I had no idea.”
“Thank you,” Yumi said, bowing her head. For what, Jack wasn’t sure. A general sympathy, he guessed.
“Well, whew,” Alison said. “Well, at least we can all fish this afternoon. We can work around whatever section you want to try.”
Finally Yumi lifted her head and met Alison’s eye. “Actually, we are leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes. We asked the lodge to book us on the late-afternoon flight from Gunnison.”
“Oh.” Jack had not seen Alison at a loss, but now she was. “May I ask why?” she said.
“We are not at all happy with the scheduling,” she said.
“The service is not what we expected,” Teiji said.
No shit, Jack thought. And just as he thought it he heard the thud of a boot on the deck and turned to see Kurt Jensen making his way straight to their table.
* * *
•
The manager tipped his hat to Alison and the Takagis, who looked away. Jack thought that was odd. If anything governed their behavior it was unwavering graciousness, which even now, as shaken as they seemed to be, they were attempting to display. Had been until this moment. Kurt towered over Jack and said quietly enough that the other tables couldn’t hear, “No lunch today. No time. Let’s have a chat.” Kurt lifted his chin toward the porch steps.
“What?” Jack put down the basket he’d just picked up.
“Let’s go around front,” Kurt said.
“Excuse me?” Alison said, loud enough for everyone. But Kurt was already moving and Jack followed. So did Alison. When the three got to the fishing rod rack at the corner of the front porch, out of earshot of the lunch tables, the manager turned. He straightened himself when he saw Alison K.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I truly am. It’s a company matter.”
“Was there something so momentous you wanted to tell my guide? That he couldn’t eat his lunch after a long morning of fishing?”
Kurt didn’t meet her eyes. He studied the grass at his feet as if coming to a decision and then he looked straight at her. “Your guide,” he said. “I’m gonna have to let him go.” He turned to Jack. “You’re fired.”
Alison stiffened. “Can I ask you why?” she said, very low.
“Best not to go into details,” Kurt said.
“Let’s go into details, why don’t we?” she said. Her voice was the tool of her trade and it carried. Jack held his breath. There was still a steel gate and a long empty road between them and anywhere safe. Maybe half a county to get across. He tried to catch her eye but in her fury she had only one target.
Jensen swung around and in his face Jack could see the surprise and also the steel of an old horse trainer. A problem horse that acted up just when you wanted to get lunch was part of the job.
“It’s done,” he said, without his usual deference to guests. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. If he was steeled, her blood was up. Her eyes were a flashing true green, and she was flushed but assured. She seemed to Jack like a seasoned warrior about to do what she was trained to do. “He’s the best goddamned guide I’ve ever had, and I’m here for five more days.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Kurt said. “Him being extra good. And I know you two have a special relationship, but—”
“Are you being rude now, Mr. Jensen?” she flared. “Is this what the Kingfisher Lodge gets you for twenty grand a week?”
Jensen, Jack saw, was throttled. His mouth opened, and he closed it. Whatever else he was, he’d been a rancher first, born and bred, as Jack was, and he had an inborn code of civility and tact which he knew he had just violated. It may have mortified him, but Jack doubted it. He clearly had bigger things on his plate.
She did not wait for him to get his footing. “Like I said,” she seethed. “Let’s talk about details. How would it go over if I announced to my one-point-one-million Twitter followers that I came to the Kingfisher Lodge and got shot at, and treated to snide sexual comments by the rudest manager, and that the personnel situation was chaotic, and that local fishermen were getting mauled nearly to death by out-of-control neighbor dogs? That all sounds like a country song, doesn’t it?”
He opened his mouth again. Jack thought he looked like a fish gawping for oxygen.
“Well,” Kurt stammered. Jack never thought he’d see the man at a loss. “Uh…”
Jack said, “Mr. Jensen, can I ask you why you’re letting me go?” He didn’t give a shit, he just wanted to hear what Kurt would say.
The big man turned. His neck was red. He said, “I asked you to bring up your firearms and you didn’t. At this place, with this clientele, that’s a serious breach. I told you that. I waited. I gave you three days’ grace and that grace is up.”
“I’ll bring it up to the office now,” Jack said. “Right after lunch.”
“It’s the attitude more than anything,” Kurt said. Jack could tell he was trying to keep himself from snarling. “Truth be told.”
“Just what I’m thinking,” Alison shot back. “Your attitude, Mr. Jensen. Let’s tell the world all about it.”
Kurt stood on the little patch of mowed grass. He looked from Jack to Alison K and back. Jack knew the manager was weighing every consequence and Jack also knew that the reasons he’d given for dismissal were bullshit. Which rang alarm bells. How much did the man know? Of Jack’s nocturnal activities, of his other little hikes? Of hers? Someone had smoothed over the duff under the spruce, that was bad enough. Jack really did want to pack up his shit right now and climb in his truck and leave, but there was no way he was going to leave her, and he was not going to leave the terror-stricken girl he’d seen on the road if that was part of the “kids” Ken had mentioned in the recording.
Was it a trafficking ring? That’s what occurred to him. Sex trafficking for billionaires while they got treatment for their other addictions? Was that what had shaken the Takagis? Jack stood in the sun and blinked at his boss and thought, I am already dead. And what he meant was that when his mother died he did, too, partially; and a lot of the rest of him went with Wynn. There wasn’t a whole lot to lose here.
“I wi
ll,” he said again. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Jensen. I’ll bring the rifle up now.”
Jensen’s mouth was set and he looked from one to the other. Then he shook his head in disgust and turned on his heel and walked back up the track.
* * *
•
One thing with rich and famous people: discretion is a currency. They grant it and expect it in return, and so when Alison and Jack walked across the open back porch the other couples only gave the briefest of glances, quick smiles, and went back to their lunches. But the Takagis were gone.
They ate in silence, mostly, each in their own thoughts. After a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler in heavy cream, and coffee, they nodded to the other couples and walked off the deck and unhooked their waders from the pegs on the front porch. That’s when Jack felt in the chest pocket and his iPhone was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
They both needed a break. He rolled up his waders and tucked them under his arm. He didn’t say anything to her. Stuff was mounting up, the sense of threat. As much as he needed an ally, there was nothing they could do now about the phone and there was no point in adding to her burden.
She wanted to swim in the pool and take a sauna and relax, and he badly wanted to just sit in the cane rocker on his little cabin porch and let everything sift. Read a chapter of his latest Murakami novel, or Li Xue’s poems from The Orchard. They would reconvene at 3:30 and fish the late afternoon until dinner.
But first he had to play ball. Play ball with Kurt and the lodge enough to get through the next few days. Jensen already wanted to stomp him into jelly, Jack could see it in his eyes plain as day. Fair enough, the feeling was now mutual. Was it Wednesday? He checked his watch. Yes. Alison was scheduled to leave after fishing Monday morning. If he could just maintain. If they could. Fish and share meals and keep their cool and get her out of here. He could do the rest, whatever it was. The lodge knew he knew something, but not what, he was certain. They were worried, but not sure, which is why they were just trying to get him off the property. Den hires people no one would believe…Otherwise he, too, would be half buried by now, like Ken the Hen, right where he tried to flee.