Black Horizon
Page 31
“This tank,” Nancy said, “it's nothing like the one at the institute.”
“What did you expect,” Jack said, insinuating one finger under the elastic of her suit, “accuracy?”
“Get out of there,” she said, flicking him away. “There are children on this beach.”
She went on reading; according to Mansfield, Sprague had died of electrocution, while attempting to wire the tank for further experimentation with “the guitar-playing charlatan, Jack Logan.” Jack, apparently, had duped the “trusting, but hopelessly naive, scientist into believing in his self-professed powers, and even in paying for them.”
“So far, you're not coming off very well,” Nancy commented.
Jack laughed. “I guess he can't forgive me for slugging him at the hospital.”
“Or for making him cough up fifteen hundred for this exclusive.”
“You're right. He told me he'd been slugged plenty of times.”
There was a lot about Jack's “malicious chicanery,” and Mansfield's own clever sleuthing. In the end, Jack was cast as a shallow but repentant cad, now piecing together a living as a guitar instructor in a shabby Upper West Side studio, and “rummaging forlornly, for solace and understanding, through the broken rubble of his forgotten Catholic faith.”
“I'd like to see rubble that isn't broken,” Nancy said aloud.
“Oh—so you're done. Still want to go out with me?”
She pushed the paper away and laid her head back, down on the towel. “I guess . . . provided you're through with all this chicanery.”
Through,” he promised. “If that article doesn't put a stop to the Jack Logan story, nothing will.”
But would it? She closed her eyes and listened to the lifeguard's whistle. By publicly exposing himself, by openly admitting to an elaborate hoax, Jack had hoped to kill the story once and for all . . . to put it all behind them, for good now. Nancy prayed that it would do the trick.
The lifeguard's whistle blew again. Then she heard him say something, though she couldn't make out the words, over his bullhorn. There were shouts from down the beach, a woman's voice raised in alarm. Nancy lifted her head. “What's going on?”
Jack was already sitting up. “I don't know. It's down by those rocks.”
The lifeguard had called everyone in from the water, and bounded off his stand. He was racing down the beach, his feet kicking up little bursts of white sand.
“Maybe I should go see what's going on,” Jack said.
A flicker of fear coursed through Nancy. “He'll take care of it,” she said, as casually as she could. “I'm sure it's nothing.” She put her head back down on the towel, as if to prove it. Far off, she could still hear the growing commotion.
Jack waited another few seconds, then said, “I'm gonna see what's up.” He patted her on the behind as he got up, then walked quickly away. There was a knot of people—several adults, some kids—gathered by the promontory. Please, Nancy thought, please don't let it be what I think it is.
She saw Jack, as he drew closer, begin to jog.
Please—no.
The lifeguard was kneeling now, by something on the sand. A woman in a straw hat whisked the children away, shooing them up the beach. Nancy couldn't stand not knowing anymore; she stuck the Investigator under the towel so it wouldn't blow away, and got up. Now she could see that the lifeguard was bent over a body—it looked from here like a little girl—and giving her artificial resuscitation.
Jack was watching from a few feet away.
She glanced out to sea for some reason—the rain clouds were coming closer, drifting in toward shore.
She stepped off the towel—the sand, cooled by the breeze off the water, was comfortably warm underfoot—and moved slowly down the beach. She was torn between wanting to know exactly what was happening, and not wanting any of this—why here? why now?—to be happening at all. When she was a few yards away, she saw that the lifeguard was pressing the girl's abdomen—she was blond, about nine or ten years old—and blowing into her open mouth. Coming up beside Jack, she slipped her arm around his waist and said softly, “How did it happen?”
“She was playing in the tide pools around the rocks,” he said, still staring intently at the straining lifeguard. “She got hit by a wave, pulled under . . . as far as I can tell.”
There was a young Filipino woman, in a brightly flowered bathing suit, kneeling on the sand, utterly silent, squeezing her hands together. The nanny, Nancy thought? Another woman stood beside her, one hand clutching her friend's shoulder.
The lifeguard leaned back, winded, and felt the girl's wrist, again, for a pulse. His face was red from exertion. The little girl, wearing a yellow swimsuit with tiny blue fish all over it, lay flat and still as a stone.
The lifeguard mumbled something to the kneeling woman. “I'm sorry,” it sounded like, “I don't think . . .”
Nancy felt Jack's body stiffen. “Jack,” she said, “you can't . . . she's gone . . . there's nothing you—”
“I can try.” He lifted her arm away from his waist. “I have to.” He touched the lifeguard on the shoulder, said, “Please—let me.” The lifeguard, looking exhausted and confused, moved aside. Jack knelt beside the girl, in his turquoise Jams and sunglasses; put his hands on her narrow shoulders. He said something, so softly it couldn't be heard, then leaned forward, pressing the girl's body against his.
The Filipino woman, terrified, tears welling up in her eyes, looked across him, to Nancy. Nancy nodded at her, reassuringly, and held up one hand to signal patience. She knew where he was going, even if she could never know how he traveled there, and she knew the dangers he faced.
The storm clouds had spread, like a fine black veil, across the entire horizon now. A strong wind had kicked up off the water.
Where was he right now, she wondered? What was he seeing? Had he found the little girl? His back was tense, but he didn't move; he almost seemed to have stopped breathing. His brain waves, she knew, would have dropped off precipitously by now; his body temperature would be eight or ten degrees below normal. It was his heart she worried most about—what was his heart doing? Was it beating strongly, regularly—alone? Were the souls of his mother, of Tulley, of Sprague, aware of his coming? Were they—she felt a shiver descend her spine—lying in wait for him?
A big drop of rain, cold and solitary, skidded down her arm.
Jack's shoulders, tanned and gleaming, strained over the girl's body; all but her legs and feet were obscured. How much longer could he risk being there? Was he being held, against his will? Was he still searching for the soul of the girl?
The Filipino let out a squeal. “Her foot!” she screamed. “It moved!”
Nancy looked down; both feet were moving now, the heels arching, the toes stretching up. Nancy heard a gurgling sound, and a wet cough; the girl was coughing, and spitting up water. Jack's shoulders visibly relaxed, and he rolled, listlessly, onto the sand beside her. The lifeguard jumped over him, raised the girl's head; she was coughing, and crying, and dribbling water. Nancy dropped beside Jack: “Are you all right? Can you hear me? Are you all right?” She snatched his sunglasses away.
The storm clouds passed directly overhead, throwing a deep gray shadow over his face.
“Jack . . . Jack . . .” His eyes were closed, his mouth slack; his skin felt like ice. “Jack . . . please . . . Jack, can you hear me?”
Another drop of rain landed square on his forehead, trickled down onto the bridge of his nose. His eyelids twitched, and his head stirred, almost imperceptibly, on the sand.
“Yes, yes,” Nancy heard herself saying, “yes, you're alive, you're alive, Jack . . . yes.”
He opened his eyes, just as the rain began to fall in earnest.
She leaned over him to protect his face. He said something she couldn't make out; she leaned closer.
“Piece a cake,” he whispered, slipping his fingers, so gently she hardly noticed, back under the bottom of her bathing suit.
Abou
t the Author
Robert Masello is a graduate of Princeton University, and has written both fiction and non-fiction works. He is a freelance writer for several magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, has lectured on writing and appears often on both radio and television. He lives in New York City.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Robert Masello
ISBN 978-1-4976-6163-9
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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