by Farris, John
Several rugged old men were bragging about their morning plunge into the frigid breakers. Tanya Tucker on the radio. I believe the South is gonna rise again. Breakfast cost Peter forty cents, so he was down to a little more than three dollars. He had his return ticket already. The coffee made his stomach hurt, a warning which he had managed to ignore for quite a while.
Royal Beach was fighting a losing battle with beach erosion. A battering storm in November had moved the tide line frighteningly close to the half mile of downtown boardwalk. Abandoned houses were crumbling into the surf. There were Corps of Engineers dredges in the harbor. Peter walked the length of the boardwalk. Shuttered shops and stalls. Pancakes. Souvenirs. Shooting gallery. Then a fading sign over a door that looked as if it had been padlocked for many a season. "Your fortune told * World-renowned psychic reader and advisor * The Tarot interpreted, Palmistry."
There was also part of a poster in a display case, the glass shattered by storm or vandals. You've read about his fantastic powers' Now let Raym ie tell you wh re holds!!
Eight thirty-seven. Peter drank milk this time, in a place on the main drag where the two waitresses were dying of boredom. Peter's waitress had pink hair and freckles turning dark as soot on her aging mug.
"Kind of a quiet place."
"Oh, listen, it's gory death in the winter! It'll be death in the summer too if the Army engineers can't do something about the beach. Worse here than it is down around Cape May. One more good blow will do the trick. Having anything to eat? The jelly doughnuts are fresh this morning."
"No, thanks."
"First time in Royal Beach?"
"I came down hoping to find someone. But I guess he's long gone."
"If he's got good sense he is. You used to have to walk almost two hundred yards to get to the water. I'm not lying! That beach was as neat as a pin when I was a little girl, not all gobbed up with tar from the tankers. When the oceans go, what happens to mankind? That's the question we should be asking ourselves. Personal friend?"
"Excuse me?"
"The one you said you were looking for."
"He's someone I heard about. His name is Raymond Dunwoodie." The waitress looked a little more closely at him.
"Oh, yeh. People still do come looking for Raymond. 'Psychic miracle worker.' I wouldn't have figured you were the type to fall for that old wheeze."
"Just curiosity. I thought there might be a piece in it. I'm a freelance writer."
She seemed to look too long at the frayed collar of his shirt. "Had any success at it?"
Peter smiled, inviting sympathy.
"Not lately."
"Well—I don't think there's much to Raymond. Gypsy fortunetellers are dime a dozen in the resorts. Raymond was just selling the same old snake oil. A little more successful at it than most. But those investigators called his bluff—"
"What investigators?"
"Oh, you know, the kind of people who are always poking around in haunted houses and exposing mediums—they got interested in Raymond when the newspapers started writing him up. Four, maybe five years ago. So Raymond went up to New York or Boston or someplace and they tested him with all kinds of machines. Sure enough, he was just a big blowhard. A fraud. Came dragging back into town a few months later. He'd taken to drink. His mother tried to get him back on the straight and narrow, but the sheriff locked him up one night after they found him naked in a cow pasture screaming about mind-taps and government conspiracies and I don't know what. They had to send him up to Ancora for a spell."
"Ancora?"
"State hospital. The funny farm."
"Is he there now?"
"Oh, no, he calmed down and they let him go. I guess two summers ago he was back on the boardwalk reading palms, but he fell off the wagon again. He's been on and off ever since. For all I know he's out at his mother's place right now. . . . Hey, Hannah, when's the last time you saw Ray Dunwoodie?"
"Shee, who keeps up with that kook?"
"Where does his mother live?" Peter asked.
"Out the Bellbrook road. Ground floor's a bridal shop."
"Can I walk it?"
"It's maybe two miles, two and a quarter. You look like you've got stout legs."
Peter left one of his remaining dollars on the counter.
"Jingle bells."
"Have a merry," the waitress said, beaming at the buck.
For most of the way the Bellbrook road went parallel to the sound and was lined with dink cottages, boathouses, grocery stores and bait shops with old flies in the empty windows, a marina or two. It all looked tediously temporary, sand-filled, a neglected encampment. Civilization had moved on, and found something a little better. Gulls coasted above an inland dump that burned slow and soured the air.
When he saw the police car coming toward him Peter suffered a deadly moment of paranoia, cold as the point of a knife at his temple. But he kept walking briskly along, and when the car was near enough he smiled and waved. The officer didn't wave back; nor did he look Peter over too closely.
Near where the road ended in the tufted dunes he found the house, a vast salt-cured Victorian, its four stories affording enough elevation for a glimpse eastward of the sea, scintillating, blue as Old Glory. Behind the house the sound formed an inlet ringed by willows thrown together by strong winds, entangled like old mops. Peter walked up a shell drive. Someone wearing a curiously old-fashioned white dress was standing in a parlor window watching him, or so he thought, but when he was nearer the porch he saw that it was a mannequin in a satin-finish wedding gown. Otherwise Mrs. Dunwoodie didn't advertise her business.
A woman with a bulbous nose and pins in her mouth answered the bell.
"We've been sewing day and night, but it won't be ready a minute before four-thirty. I thought that was understood. Four-thirty's the best we can do."
"Mrs. Dunwoodie?"
"No. Aren't you Carolyn Oberdeck's brother-in-law?"
"No."
"What do you want then?"
"It's about Raymond."
She stared at him, mouth pursed around the pins, then opened the glass storm door.
"Good God. It's not like we haven't been expecting something, but it would have to come on this day of days."
She took a piece of cardboard from a pocket of her denim apron and began transferring the pins from her mouth to the cardboard, not trying to talk again until she finished. The house was overheated. The long center hall was furnished with two rubber plants. Peter heard a sewing machine somewhere back beyond the stairs.
"I hope you don't have the wrong idea about who I—"
"If it's bad you better tell me first. I'm the strong one in the family. The least little bit of added tension, and Essie will have a blowout."
The woman had two or three pairs of glasses in another pocket. She tried on one pair, couldn't make him out at all and switched to the proper lenses. She frowned at his seediness.
"What was it?" she said sharply. "Burnt himself up in bed, hey? Or was it one of those packs of ghetto kids, kicked him to death in an alley."
"Mrs.—"
"Edge. Roberta P. Edge."
"Mrs. Edge, I don't have any news about Raymond, good or bad. I don't even know him. I'm just trying to find him."
"Good God. Why didn't you say so? We’re very busy here. We don't have time for—"
"If you could just tell me where I might find—"
"Why?" she demanded, hands on hips.
"Mrs. Edge, if I could only talk to Raymond's mother—"
"Well, you can't. She can't be bothered. She don't need the added heartache, mister."
"Mrs. Edge, I know a little about what Raymond's been through. I know why he drinks and I know that the stories he told, stories that got him locked up in a mental institution, are probably true. I believe in Raymond's powers. I have to find him, talk to him. I need his help."
She was shaking her head, but deep down she wasn't tough enough to show him the door.
"Raymond's long pa
st being of use to anyone, including himself. And that's the truth."
"But he's not to blame."
"I know he isn't." She listened fiercely to the sewing machine, and fidgeted. "You didn't give your name."
"Peter."
"Peter? That it?"
"If you don't mind."
"Somehow you've got that look. Oh, I'm not talking about the way you're dressed. Don't mean a thing, it's the eyes and the style, how you just keep boring away quiet as you please until you've got what you're after. We've had 'em here, back when they were still interested in Raymond, still keeping watch. And you could be one of 'em, and maybe it's some kind of—trap for Raymond, some kind of trouble he's in we don't know about. What if I told you right now to get out of here and not ever bother us again?"
"I'd go quietly, Mrs. Edge. I don't want to cause trouble. I can't afford any."
"Maybe," she said, "maybe—you could be of help to us while you're he'pin' yourself." She jerked her head toward the room behind her.
"Let's sit in the parlor. Keep your voice down so Essie won't hear when she stops sewing, and wander out: We have to finish that Oberdeck gown today. We need the cash, mister."
There were two other gowned mannequins in the six-sided parlor. A plaque on a dusty desk with the legend Complete Wedding Service. Several dog-eared catalogues. Peter took off his trench coat, noting that in a matter of days one of his elbows would be through the sleeve. Mrs. Edge excused herself and was gone five minutes, long enough to worry him. He kept an eye on the drive for that police car he'd seen earlier. The sewing machine worked at random stitchings.
When she came back she had tea and a plate of cookies and a Polaroid snapshot with her.
"This was taken the Fourth of July at the Neptune's Revels Community Barbecue. Here's Essie and here's Raymond. You can see how he was off the booze for a while and started to balloon up again."
Peter studied the fat young man. He knew Raymond was just twenty-six, but he looked middle-aged. High, round forehead, hair long at the ears, a chipmunky grin. But there was woe beneath the brows and his hands were joined in the manner of someone accustomed to sudden fits of anxiety.
"Mrs. Edge, I know it doesn't make things any better, but there have been a lot of Raymonds."
"You know that much about it, do you?"
"I know enough."
She drew her own conclusions about his reticence and lightly touched the back of his hand.
"Maybe your stomach's in knots right now, but those are molasses and date-nut cookies. You take a handful with you when you go, they're nourishing."
"Where do I look?"
"He's in New York City, or was. That's the last we heard from him."
She showed Peter a postcard: the Statue of Liberty. The card was dated shortly after Labor Day. He couldn't read a word of the brief message. Only the signature was legible.
"Essie and me studied it together and finally made it out," Mrs. Edge said. "He was staying at a hotel called the San Marino. But that was September. He probably moved on."
"Down south?"
"No. He doesn't migrate with the other—bums. For reasons of his own he wants to stay close to that place where they half killed him. I think they pay him, why I don't know. He's hoping that a miracle will happen, that he'll get it back. All of his powers."
"How good was he?"
"Give Ray some kind of object—ballpoint pen, a handkerchief—and if he never laid eyes on the person that owned it he could reel off a life history. I'm telling you, on his good days he was eerie. He could make the rest of the human race feel obsolete. But it was just a natural part of his life. He wanted to be liked, to be needed and help people. But Raymond wasn't some kind of plaster saint. He has his bad habits and his weaknesses, and they've brought him down as we know. There might be one other place you could locate him."
"Where's that?"
"Central Park. Especially sunny days in winter. He liked to sit in the sun and watch the skaters."
"I'll do my best to find him. And if I do—"
Her red-rimmed seamstress's eyes filled with tears.
"Tell him it's not the drinking that bothers us. We can put up with that. It's not knowing where he is or what's happening to him. That's what kills us."
The sewing machine was silent. "Roberta!" Mrs. Dunwoodie called. "I need a little help if you're not too busy."
Mrs. Edge stood up, hastily wrapping cookies in a napkin for Peter. "Shhh, I guess you'd better go. I don't want to stir up any hope in Essie. It's too cruel."
Peter let himself silently out of the house while Mrs. Edge went back to the sewing room. As he walked down the drive he had to squint to keep the sun from blinding him. It was beautiful here, and it would be beautiful in New York. Fifty-five degrees and not too windy, a day to bring out all the pale city dwellers, perhaps even those who thought they didn't have all that much to live for any more.
With a little luck in making connections, he could be in Central Park by three o'clock.
Chapter Three
Gillian didn't believe in pampering herself, and she didn't want to ruin things for Larue, so for most of the day she rationalized her worsening symptoms, which included the swollen throat, aching joints and a slowly simmering fever that dulled her perceptions and made her session with Tynan Wells a catastrophe. If you were serious about the flute and could endure his temper then you took flute from Tynan Wells. But he had dismissed students forever for better readings than Gillian was able to provide on this occasion.
After a quarter of an hour he expressed his displeasure by leaping up from the piano bench, snatching the score from the stand in front of her (it was his own Sonatina for flute and piano, inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem), ripping the score into numerous pieces and scattering them across the Persian carpet. Following that he stood for five minutes at the windows, glowering, his lower lip stuck out, while Gillian sighed inaudibly and chewed her fingernails.
"If you are ever to be any good, you must learn the things that are not printed on the score. You have superb technique for one your age, but I'm not looking for polish right now. I could scarcely be less concerned if you are rushed, if you miscalculate notes, if you breathe abominably; but you must never be timid. It is a joyous ostinato! Reveal yourself to me, Gillian. Don't bore me with mechanical repetition."
Gillian smiled bravely, but the overpowering sweetness of the roses blooming on the baby grand finally got to her. She excused herself, ran to the powder room and threw up.
When she came out Tynan was waiting for her; he put a cool hand on her forehead.
"I didn't realize you were ill. Better go home."
"I'll be all right," Gillian said, but she didn't feel any better for having heaved, just emptier.
Larue was in the library listening on headphones to Alicia de Larrocha. They made their escape and at the corner of Eighty-sixth Street caught a Fifth Avenue bus going downtown. .
Larue said, "All that dark, brooding fury; wow. Is he a good musician?"
"Probably the best American flutist, and one of the three best in the world."
"He wants to screw you."
"Does he?"
"Can't you tell?"
"No."
"He won't get cute the way they do sometimes, and spoil it. Not him. He won't say a word. He'll just stare. Then he'll give you like two seconds to take your clothes off before he starts tearing them off."
"Sounds good so far," Gillian said, laughing.
"Do you want to screw him?"
"I don't know; do you suppose he's that hairy all over?"
Larue whooped and leaned closer.
"Speaking of admirers, that bum back there can't take his eyes off you."
After a few moments Gillian glanced casually at the back of the bus. The bum had the bench seat to himself. He was sitting squarely in the middle. The hair that grew around his ears and clung to the back of his skull hung shoulder-length and shiny as snakes. For the moment his bald head was n
odding as the bus jolted over a stretch of rough pavement. His knees were spread and his hands clutched the cord handle of the tattered Bergdorf shopping bag he'd found in a trash can somewhere. His pants were hiked up to mid-calf and his skin was dead white, which made the small sore on one shin all the more distasteful. All of his clothing looked too big for him, as if he'd suffered a drastic weight loss recently.
Pathetic, Gillian thought routinely, and at that he looked up quickly, catching her unawares.
He had one cloudy drunkard's eye and one dazzling blue eye that shocked her, held her attention. He smiled strangely at Gillian, a fawning, worshiping smile, yet there was nothing lustful about it. He hitched forward slightly in his seat as if he meant to rise and approach her, and still she couldn't look away. She was caught unawares again, but this time by something she felt rather than saw; it was like being bowled over by a strong cold wave on a beach.
Gillian jerked her head around and trembled so strongly Larue was aware of it. Larue looked at her, puzzled.
"What's the matter?"
"The damn bus fumes," Gillian explained. They were nearing Sixty-eighth Street. "Could we get off and walk the rest of the way?"
"Sure," Larue said.
The bum got up too, making haste behind them. The bus doors closed on him before he could step down, and he howled in outrage. The doors reopened and the bus discharged him with a flatulent sound.
"Don't look now, but—" Larue said, taking Gillian's arm.
"We've got a buddy."
"Do you want to give him money?"
"No."
"Well, he probably won't bother us. Gillian, you're shaking. You're not afraid of him, are you?"
It was more like being afraid for him, almost dizzy with apprehension, but she couldn't explain that to Larue, or to herself. She only knew she wanted to be far, far away from this derelict who shuffled half a block behind them. Either he thought he knew her, or he urgently wanted something from her.