Abel Baker Charley

by John R. Maxim

  “As Harry Mailander? Why not John Doe?”

  “Tanner.” He took her hand in his. He thought her eyes softened when he spoke her name. “Tanner, there are two very badly hurt men in the park. The bigger one might even die. I don't know why any of that happened, but I'm going to try to walk quietly away from it. I hope you will too. There are other reasons why I can't say or do what I'd like, but that's a big one. I can't get involved with ... that park business.”

  Tanner Burke studied him, trying to absorb him. She opened her mouth to speak, to say to him that she'd never tell his name. Not even if all she had depended on it. But she said nothing. She knew that a promise would never be enough. Not for him. There was something surreal about him. Something shadowy. As if he was one of those creatures who existed only after dark. But that wasn't right. There was the airline ticket. And it made him real. If not here, then in whatever place he came from. Someplace where he said good morning to the neighbors and where he had friends and where anyone who knew him could talk to him anytime they wanted. But she couldn't. Once again, it struck her that if she turned away or shut her eyes, he might well be gone when she looked up again. She reached to touch him so that could not happen. So that he couldn't leave. Being with him, his gentleness, his touching and warming her, had thrown a cloak across the horror of the park, and now he was going to pull the cloak away.

  He couldn't leave her.

  “Can you stay with me awhile longer?'' she asked, her voice small.

  She saw him hesitate and blink. Something caused his right eye to water, and she saw his body lean away from the hand that she raised. Tanner stood for a moment, awkwardly, almost hating him in that brief moment. She turned in silence toward the hotel.

  He watched her as she walked from him. He saw Tina in the way she walked. And he wondered if Tina would ever walk that way again. He wondered when the pain would end. And how many more lives would be torn apart. But one of them didn't have to be Tanner's. Let her go, Baker.

  “Tanner.” He heard his voice call her name.

  She had already half-stopped, trying not to turn and look. But she did turn and she walked slowly back to him. “At least to my door.” She took his arm. “Stay with me at least to my door.”

  Tanner eased him toward the green-carpeted steps of the Plaza.

  2

  It was a day two full summers earlier. April. The rain then had stopped too. The first sun since midweek was slanting down through trees that were beginning to thicken, and children were emerging onto shining streets. Tina was the first. She had a Frisbee in her hand.

  There had been a television program the day before about dogs who caught Frisbees. Some seemed to leap ten feet into the air, vaulting and somersaulting with a gymnast's skill, plucking the Frisbee in its flight and then soaring awhile before tumbling to earth in a happy heap. One of the dogs had been a golden retriever. He wasn't the best. The mutts always seemed to do better. But the retriever could do it, and if he could, Macduff could. Tina's golden retriever could do it too.

  “Stupid dog!” Baker heard her voice from the front lawn. He stepped away from a harbor scene he was trying in watercolors—it was a mess, anyway—and looked out through the window of his den. He saw the Frisbee first. It sailed vertically upward, perhaps twenty feet in the air, then he saw Tina run under to snatch it. She caught the plastic disk with her hands, but she kept the hands close to her face, pretending to catch it in her mouth. “See, Macduff?” she called. The dog came into view, smiling foolishly. He pranced at her feet, hoping to show that he was willing to play, more than willing, and that he would try to understand what she wanted of him.

  Tina showed the Frisbee to Macduff and, after faking twice to show him its direction, tossed it on a short and shallow trajectory. Macduff watched the disk until it landed, then leaped forward triumphantly, pinning it with his paws. Tina tried again, this time sailing the Frisbee directly toward the big gulden's snout. He watched its approach and barely blinked as it bounced off his face.

  “Dumb!” Tina shouted.

  Baker smiled at his daughter's frustration. From two rooms away, he heard Sarah laugh. She too had been watching. Now she was going outside.

  For several minutes, Baker watched Sarah try her luck with Macduff, who was by now thoroughly confused. Sarah had tried to reason with him just as she reasoned with lawn-mowers that wouldn't start and checkbooks that wouldn't balance. Again the dog watched the Frisbee's approach, and again he allowed it to carom off his head. Baker wondered what the dog thought. Perhaps he'd decided that that was the game. It's called, stop that white round thing with your face and then chew on it until they pry it away.

  Sarah and Tina gave up. They moved into the street, deciding that a simple game of catch would be more rewarding. Macduff watched them from the edge of the lawn. Their game didn't look nearly so interesting.

  Still smiling, Baker returned to his canvas. The smile vanished. Really pretty lousy, he thought. After three years of adult education art classes, you'd think I could paint a lobsterboat that doesn't look like a bathtub toy. He took the canvas and put it aside, picking up instead an almost-finished oil portrait of Sarah.

  Her warm, soft eyes looked back at him. At least it was supposed to be Sarah. The likeness wasn't terrific, but it wasn't bad either. Not bad for a Sunday artist. Not too terrible for a third attempt at portrait painting. The shape of the face was almost perfect. The high cheekbones, the auburn hair, and the line of the chin were just about right. And the eyes were close. One was just a trifle lower than the other, but no one would notice that. The mouth was wrong, though. It was a wider, more sensual mouth than Sarah's. Not that Sarah wasn't sexy, but her mouth just didn't have that fullness. And the coloring was a little too dark. The face was almost closer to that of the actress whose photograph hung on Tina's wall by her trophy shelf.

  The distant racket of a motorcycle engine cut through the morning quiet. The low, snarling sound changed its pitch, coughed, and changed again. Too fast, Baker thought. Too fast for these streets. He felt his jaw tighten and a rush of sudden anger swelled inside him. He turned his head toward the receding noise and felt his fingers flex in anticipation of grabbing the son of a bitch who ...

  Baker shook his head violently and blinked. Stop that, he told himself. What's the matter with you lately?

  He was calm again almost at once. The rage was gone. But still, it troubled him; these feelings had been coming upon him too often in recent months. Maybe for the past year. The motorist who cut him off and then gave him the finger when Baker honked a complaint. Baker felt it then. He wanted to tear the finger off the man's hand. And there was the rude store clerk whose face Baker almost smashed and the drunk who jabbed his finger into Baker's chest. Baker might have hurt them too if he'd been less in control. Or they might have hurt him.

  He did not understand these feelings because they were not like him. He liked to think he was a gentle man, that there was no meanness in him. But something was happening and he didn't like it. He didn't like the flashes of rage that came from nowhere, and he didn't like the other feelings he was getting. Feelings that he was being talked about. Almost hearing what was being said. That bothered him. Was he becoming paranoid? Or schizophrenic? He wasn't even sure what either term meant until the persistence of the feelings made him look them up. Neither fit exactly. The paranoid person felt threatened by thoughts he imagined, but Baker felt no threat. He simply knew that thoughts were of him. Sometimes. Nor was there the withdrawal from reality of the classic schizophrenic. Or any behavioral change. There were just these feelings. Harmless, probably. Just a build-up of pressure. An edginess. A vacation would help. Maybe they shouldn't wait until ski season. No. It was nothing. Not as long as he kept it inside where it didn't show and where Sarah couldn't see it. She'd worry. She'd make him take a few days off. And Tina would worry. Tina would worry even more than Sarah, he thought. Because Tîna seemed to know sometimes.

  The motorcycle sound was coming
back and it was louder. The anger came with it. Or tried to. Baker walked away from it. He laid down his paints and walked to the basement, where, with the water running, he washed the pigments from his hands and watched them blend into a weak beige as they circled down the drain.

  Drains. That was another thing. There was something about drains lately. He had no idea what. Only that they made him feel... He didn't know that either.

  Except this drain screamed. There was a roar and a banging and then a scream, and he felt a piece of himself tear away, and he felt it floating for a moment before it withered and dispersed.

  My God, he thought. Baker, you worry me sometimes. Come on, knock it off. You've been indoors too long. Get out of here, grab Sarah's hand, and go take a long walk someplace before you ... Baker reeled suddenly. He had to grab the edge of the sink. Sarah? Sarah? Why did he think there wasn't any Sarah? Baker stumbled up the basement stairs and smashed through his front screen door, shattering it.

  He screamed her name.

  Sam Willis saw it. He'd been staking tomato plants knocked down by the rain when he heard the insolent roar of that goddamned motorcycle. This time he'd call the cops.

  He saw Tina first. He saw Tina running beneath a Frisbee that was curving back upon her and he saw Sarah Baker, her eyes now fixed on the oncoming machine, running toward Tina, her arms waving angrily toward the motorcyclist. Willis could not hear the words, but he knew that she was shouting. The motorcyclist saw her. He saw the woman reach her daughter's side, and he saw one hand ease her toward the grass while the other hand, the fist, shook at the gleaming black helmet. The biker did not slow or turn. My God, thought Willis, the guy is aiming at her. He's playing chicken with her and she's not backing off. Now he is. He's trying to pass close with one foot up to kick at her, but his rear wheel is moving sideways. He's skidding. And Sarah Baker's slipping. She's slipping down on the wet pavement and Tina is reaching back from the grass toward her mother. Oh God, no! Sam Willis shut his eyes.

  At the crunching, sodden sound of impact, he shut them tighter.

  Baker would remember seeing the Frisbee first. Rolling slowly on the gentle slope of the street, it caught his eye and held it. It was turning, tighter now and faster, finally into a spin that spiraled into a small white blur before it sputtered to a stop. But he was also seeing Tina with another eye. And she was crawling. She crawled right through the spinning blur and one foot seemed to bump along behind her; she was dragging it toward a pile of rags that were heaped at the base of Sam Willis's tree. Sam Willis was running now to the pile of rags. But something was wrong with Tina. Why wasn't Sam running to help Tina?

  Another man was coming to help, but Baker didn't look at him. He felt himself floating toward the rags. They were white and they were red. The red part had hair on it and it must have been a head, but it didn't look like a head.

  “Hey,” a voice said, ”I couldn't help that.”

  Baker was on his knees, holding Tina. He was cradling Tina's head so she couldn't see.

  ”I mean, hey.” The voice was becoming more urgent. More desperate. ‘They shouldn't have been on the damned street. Streets are for cars and bikes, you know?”

  Baker's left arm lashed toward the voice and it stumbled backward.

  “Hey .. ” The voice was slurring and it was wilder. “Hey, back off, asshole. I could have got killed. Look at my bike. Look what they did to my fùckin' bike.”

  “Your bike?” Baker whispered. He saw his own hand after it had gripped the younger man's throat and he saw his other arm swinging a fist against the biker's face. The arm lashed forward a second time, but now the head twisted away and Baker's knuckles smashed painfully against the helmet's visor. A numbing shock shot up through Baker's elbow and he snatched at the lacerated fist with his good hand. Seeing Baker helpless, the younger man attacked wildly with fists and boots. One or more of the blows stunned Baker. He felt his world flash white and the pain became distant. He could feel the other body near his own and he knew that blows were being struck. Baker was dimly aware that the younger man must have been hitting him, but he did not feel the impact. Sarah ... He had to help Sarah. Baker could hear Tina crying and shouting and he turned to her. He must have been holding the man who rode the motorcycle because that man fell to the street when Baker turned away. Baker didn't care. He wanted to hold Tina. He took her and pressed her against his chest with one arm while the other gathered the still body of Sarah Baker.

  The police found him that way.

  “Mr. Baker?”

  The older man sat next to him on the green vinyl couch. A second man was standing. The older one spoke several times before Baker looked up.

  “Mr. Baker, do you know where you are?”

  “Hospital,” he murmured.

  “Mr. Baker, I'm Detective Sergeant Kinney and this is Detective Gurdik. Are you able to tell us what you saw?”

  “Sarah's dead.”

  “I'm terribly sorry about that, Mr. Baker. But your daughter's alive and she's going to need you. We're going to need you too. Did you see it happen, Mr. Baker?”

  “No.” Baker ran his fingers slowly over his bandaged hand. ”I heard something. I didn't see .. till after.”

  “Sir, did you know the operator of the motorcycle?”

  “No.”

  “You didn't recognize him?”

  ”I hardly saw his face.”

  The two detectives exchanged looks.

  “Well, we'll pick him up soon, Mr. Baker. Your neighbors say he's busted down that street before. Also, Mr. Willis says you marked him up pretty good, so we shouldn't have much trouble finding him.”

  Baker seemed not to understand. ”I what?”

  “You recall striking him, Mr. Baker?”

  Baker gestured with his throbbing hand. ”I think I hit him once. After that I hit his helmet.” He stared into space as if trying to remember. There was someone else there. Someone was fighting while he was looking at Sarah. And he remembered the one in the helmet lying in the street holding his face and trying to get up. And he did get up. He kept falling down, but he did reach his motorcycle and then he was pushing it down the street. Who else hit him? Sam, maybe.

  “But Mr. Willis says you .. ” Detective Kinney stopped himself when a doctor, an older man named Bruggerman, entered the waiting room. He nodded to the detectives and extended a hand toward Jared Baker's shoulder. He seemed annoyed that Baker was being questioned.

  “Tina's out of surgery, Jared,” he said. “You'll be able to look in on her in about ten minutes.”

  “How is she?” Baker had trouble focusing. He was almost dozing from the effects of a Demerol injection.

  “She came through fairly well. We'll have to do some touching up later but, with any kind of luck, she ought to have full use of her leg.” Tom Bruggerman turned to the detectives. “Mr. Baker is heavily sedated, as you can see. You really ought to hold off any questions.”

  Detective Kinney shrugged and snapped his notebook shut. ”I guess we can make sense out of it later. We'll give him a ride home after he sees his daughter.”

  “No.” Baker waved his arm drunkenly. “I'm staying here.”

  “Go home, Jared,” Bruggerman said firmly. “Tina won't even know you for at least twelve hours. When she does, you're going to want to be fresh. She'll need you very much, Jared, but not the way you are now.”

  He could not bring himself to enter the bedroom he and Sarah had shared. He was not even sure he could climb the stairs. Someone knew that. Peggy Willis, maybe. Peggy steered him to the couch in the living room and put a blanket over him. It didn't seem as though he slept, but the dreams started coming. Except they couldn't have been dreams. He'd be having them, but he could still open his eyes and see his fireplace and the brown leather chair beside it. He could count the seagulls in the watercolor above the mantel and he could hear Sam Willis's voice in the kitchen. Who else was out there? Oh, yeah. Jane Carey from next door. Sarah's friend. Trying not to cry. But Baker
started to cry and then suddenly he stopped. He was dreaming again about the one on the motorcycle and that one was talking about him. Baker knew that. The one on the motorcycle was going to get Baker for what Baker did no matter what else happened. What Baker did? What I did, you miserable bastard?

  Macduff barked outside.

  Baker heard the man's voice louder now. He was talking about fire. Burning. He was talking about burning Baker's house.

  Macduff was snarling now.

  Sam Willis was saying something. Yelling something. Baker could hardly hear. Then how come he could hear Willis whispering just before if now he could hardly hear him yelling out loud. Yelling about what? Stop, Macduff.

  Macduff screamed.

  But that wasn't anger. That was pain. And now there was an orange light that danced across his living room wall. For a moment, the sky behind the seagulls turned red. A bolt of pain seared the back of Baker's eye, shocking him to his feet. Another orange ball roared across his bay window and blackened it before dissolving into tongues of flame. Off balance, Baker fell backward across a coffee table and his body crashed heavily to the floor on top of his bandaged hand. Half-blinded by tears and pain and clutching his screaming hand, he clamped his eyes shut and rolled to a sitting position. He wanted to leap up but could not. Yet he was up. When his eyes opened again, he saw that his body was moving toward the door. He was with it, but he was not of it. He followed it, like a passenger, through the door that he couldn't remember opening and onto the lawn and toward the man there whose face was scarred and torn and who held a baseball bat in his hands. And there was fire. And crying out. Willis and his wife were shouting. And Jane. And the one with the bat was screaming except that half the bat was split away and the bottom half looked like a dagger. The dagger floated in front of him and his bandaged hand was holding it. Then the dagger was gone and the man who killed Sarah was leaping and shrieking and flapping like a scarecrow on the end of someone's arm. The hand on the arm was bandaged.