by Mike Heppner
Pike smiled at her worried expression. “It’s an MD-600. Have you ever been in a helicopter before?”
“A helicopter? No.” She looked at Heath, who was busy prep-ping his camera bag and didn’t notice her. “Is it safe?”
Pike clapped her on the shoulder. “Of course it is! Would I let you ride in it if it wasn’t? Give me a little credit, Allison. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
They piled into Pike’s SUV and drove to a nearby airstrip, where the helicopter was sitting on the tarmac, its blades circling slowly above the cabin. Pike gave a thumbs-up to the pilot, who signaled back. Allison was the last to board. Neither she nor Heath was looking forward to the ride, but at least Heath had his video camera to distract him; Allison had nothing.
The Plexiglas-domed helicopter took off and flew west over the Kancamagus Pass. Allison did her best not to let the mild turbulence get to her. Her nerves were frayed and her pulse was pounding in her wrists and throat, thanks to the three lines of coke she’d ingested earlier that morning.
Doing drugs, like a lot of things, wasn’t much fun anymore. Back in London, she’d first tried coke because her mother had enjoyed it, and initially she did, too. Cocaine was expensive, exciting and upscale compared to pot, which was common and teenager-cheap. Allison associated smoking pot with being in college, whereas snorting coke seemed like a more adult thing to do. She was feeling impatient with her life—confused, bored, nervous—and cocaine suited her perfectly. It was the right drug for the right time.
Unfortunately, her body couldn’t handle it, and within weeks she’d developed migraines, insomnia and inflammations of the nose and throat. She’d even lost some of her hair. For Heath, being around Allison was like dating a junkie or a crackhead. There wasn’t a morally sound rationale for doing coke like there was for pot. Brian Wilson had shown him that pot and LSD could serve as conduits for creative expression. Not cocaine. So far as Heath was concerned, she might as well have stayed in London.
“There it is,” Pike said, pointing out the canopy at the green mountainside two hundred feet below. “Heath, get a shot of that.”
Heath leaned forward and aimed his camera down the steadily ascending slope. Allison also rose, but the chopper hit a rough spot, and she fell into Heath’s lap.
“Ow!” He glared at her. “You spoiled my composition.”
Pike called out, “Hey, everybody shut up back there. We’re almost right over it.”
As their altitude dropped, a trail became visible through the dense cover of trees. About a thousand yards east of the trail, they saw what appeared to be the top of a building, which was rectangular and fairly low to the ground. The roof was flat and wide enough for the helicopter to land on it. Circling closer now, they looked down on Pike’s parking lot, which flanked the building on one side. A sign jutted above the building’s entrance, but they could see only the back of it.
“Now, check this out,” Pike said.
The helicopter descended and banked steeply to the right. Coming about hard, Allison and Heath got their first head-on view of the building. It was quite large and appeared to be constructed for commercial or industrial purposes. Tall, broad windows extended from either side of the multiple doors that provided access.
Allison squinted but couldn’t see through the windows. “What is it?”
The roar of the propeller decreased as the pilot hovered fifty feet over the ground. She wondered if he planned on landing, or if this was as close as they were going to get.
“Look at the sign,” Heath said.
She did. She’d seen it somewhere before—so many times, in fact, that it’d stopped making an impression on her. This was an icon, an image anyone over a certain age associated with suburban sprawl, strip malls and commercial overdevelopment.
Kmart, it said.
She couldn’t believe it. “Fucking Christ . . .”
“Take us down,” Pike told the pilot. “You really have to see it close up.”
They landed in a field about a hundred yards south of the building and disembarked. Once Allison, Heath and Pike were safely clear of the rotor blades, the pilot gave a jaunty salute and lifted off.
“Where’s he going?” she asked.
Pike smiled. “Don’t worry, he’s on call. Come on.”
He plunged into the woods, where a poorly cut trail wound up a hill to the construction site. Heath and Allison hustled to keep up.
“Can you deal with this?” she whispered to Heath, who’d taken a break from filming to have a look around. “This is beyond crazy. This is fucking certifiable.”
“I think it’s pretty amazing,” he said.
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that. I mean, a parking lot is one thing. But why a Kmart? I thought Kmart filed for bankruptcy.”
Pike overheard her. “They did. That’s how clever I am, Allison. No other company was willing to sell their licensing rights to me. You should file that away for future reference, both of you. It’s easier to negotiate when the other party’s strapped for cash.”
At the end of the trail, the ground rose sharply to the level of the parking lot, which was still in pristine condition. A wall of trees surrounded the lot, some of them so tall that they loomed several feet above the rooftop, where workers on ladders and scaffoldings were applying finishing touches to the weatherproofing.
“The stadium lights just arrived a week ago,” Pike said, indicating a rack of lights near the construction site, behind which pink and black electrical cords were plugged into a massive generator. “Used to be, we couldn’t work after nine p.m.”
Heath panned with his camera across the lot. He stopped on Allison, who looked wistful inside his viewfinder. “Are you just going to leave it empty like that?” she asked Pike.
“Hell no! As soon as these workers get out of here, we’re gonna receive our first shipment from the DC in Columbus. DC—that’s Distribution Center. It’ll probably take two weeks to fill the shelves, but it’ll be worth it. I’m even going to hire a full-time staff. Stockboys, cashiers, you name it.”
“But why?” Allison demanded.
He grinned savagely. “Stop asking that. I hate ‘why.’ A kid your age shouldn’t ask why all the time.” Across the lot, many of the workers had set down their tools to listen. “I declare war on why. If I do nothing else, that’s my goal. My one cause in life. No more why.”
With his camera raised, Heath had a hard time keeping Pike in focus, so impulsive were his gestures. It occurred to him that this scene would fit in nicely with some of the bits he’d shot with Stuart and Marlene earlier in the spring. The two projects were basically incompatible, of course, but in an ideal world he could intercut them. He thought back to some of the earliest footage that he’d taken of Marlene, when they’d brought the camera down to Brenton Point in Newport and she’d walked naked to the edge of the seawall and gazed out at the Newport Bridge. If there was a link at all, it was that both Pike and Marlene were well-known eccentrics—marginal figures, ultimately, but no less interesting for that. Like Brian Wilson, Heath primarily saw himself as a collage artist; the individual components weren’t as important as what they created together. On a certain track from Smile, for example, it was the juxtaposition between Hawaiian chants, a thundering motif for kettle drums and steel guitars, and the Beach Boys singing cyclical riffs about early American history. In Heath’s film, the juxtaposition wasn’t musical but visual, ideological rather than psychedelic. He had no idea what any of it meant but tried not to think about it. He, too, was on an anti-why crusade.
“Let’s go,” Pike said and led them into the building. A pair of automatic sliding glass doors opened and closed behind them, just like in a real Kmart. Once inside, the drilling, sawing and buzzing sounds of construction became louder as carpenters installed huge shelving units that extended to the back of the building. The cash registers had already been set up, along with a numbered banner above each checkout station.
They procee
ded as far as the customer-service desk, where Pike opened a box of ad-prep and pulled out a banner that read Save While You Shop. “Look at that,” he said. “An authentic, Kmart-approved aisle banner, and I own it.” Allison didn’t want to touch it, so he offered it to Heath, who handled it with care. Seeing the inside of a Kmart in its semiconstructed state seemed to him a rare opportunity, like watching heart surgery.
“Who do you think will actually shop here?” Allison asked.
Pike took the sign from Heath and put it back in its box. “I don’t know. That’s the mystery of it. Short of a chopper, the only way in’s on foot, and that’s a three-hour climb up rough trail.” He paused for the punch line. “I don’t think we’ll be selling much office furniture.”
Both he and Heath laughed, but Allison didn’t join them. “I don’t get it. Don’t you care what people are going to think of you when they see this?” she asked.
“Not particularly. Don’t worry about me, Allison. My sterling reputation isn’t worth losing any beauty sleep over.”
“Whatever,” she said. Arguing with him was pointless, since he had an answer for everything. Still, she had to give him some credit; he did what he wanted, and damn the consequences. Pike didn’t believe in denying himself anything, even if it made him look bad. She supposed that this was what so many women had found attractive about him—not just his good looks but his fearlessness. How unlike her father, she thought; how unlike herself, for that matter.
She turned to leave, but a sudden pain inside her head stopped her. Everywhere she looked, she saw a haze of blue, then purple, then green.
Pike cut out his clowning. “Allison, what’s wrong? You look like hell,” he said.
She swallowed with effort. Her face was pale, and her skin felt clammy. “Oh, I’m okay. I just think the altitude’s getting to me,” she said.
“Well, don’t get sick on my nice new floor.” Pike didn’t know what to do with her, so he said, “Why don’t you take a walk? There’s some fresh air near the back door.”
She nodded weakly and stumbled along to find a quiet spot to sit. Her joints hurt, and something in the back of her throat tasted corrosive. A chill came over her as the pounding in her head gradually died down a bit. With a shock, she realized her nose was bleeding.
4
One hundred fifty miles to the south, Celia Shriver picked up Henry Savage and drove him to Nathaniel Pike’s old house in Little Compton, Rhode Island, through vineyards, fallow fields and ranchettes along the rural route leading into blackberry country. The house itself stood far back from the road and was shielded by a row of tall evergreens, some of which were dead. A low stone wall surrounded the property, giving it an uniquely New England character.
In the days since he’d arrived, Henry had had few opportunities to experience the real New England, apart from what Celia had shown him. Overall, the trip wasn’t going well. The people he’d interviewed about Pike were wary of Henry’s government credentials, and not even Celia could accept that there was anything more to him beyond what she thought of the agency he represented.
All of which frustrated him greatly. Henry wanted people to feel about their government as he had when he’d started working for it nearly three decades ago: that the United States, for all its faults, was still the most open and compassionate country in the world; that the men and women who comprised its agencies were not evil automatons with computer chips planted in their brains, merely fallible human beings whose faults were the result of their own personal limitations and not some overriding conspiracy within the system. If they fucked up seven times out of ten, it was only because that’s what people did: fuck things up. In hospitals and muffler shops, loan offices and fast-food restaurants, the people of America were busy fucking things up, every hour, every second—putting the decimal point in the wrong place, giving you extra onions when you asked for extra pickles. Why should those same people expect a higher degree of competence from their government? Why, Henry wondered, blame me for everything?
Outside the house, he waited at a discreet distance as Celia rang the doorbell. She had a vague connection to the homeowner—they’d taught together at the Rhode Island School of Design—and had set up the appointment herself.
The man who answered the door was gray-haired and elderly, with a feeble squint that became more prominent the longer he stayed in the sunlight. Introducing himself as Parker—whether first name or last, Henry wasn’t sure—he led them into the living room, where a tray with some cheese was set out, along with a stack of cocktail napkins. He’d made some effort to welcome his guests, and Henry assumed he didn’t get out much.
“How long have you lived here?” Henry asked.
“Seven years, sir.” Parker’s voice was as watery as his blue eyes, which looked disproportionately large behind his thick glasses. “We moved out of Providence shortly after my wife retired. Most of our friends thought we were pretty cuckoo when they heard whom we’d bought it from.” The thought of Nathaniel Pike brought a smile to his thin, creased lips. “I always say, if it weren’t for Mr. Pike, we never could’ve afforded this place. The realtor’s original asking price was way too high.”
Henry frowned. “Did you know the history of the house before you bought it?”
“Of course. It was in all the papers. Nathaniel Pike this, Nathaniel Pike that. He’s quite an eccentric. I remember one time—”
Celia coughed impatiently. “Can we please stay on topic, gentlemen?”
A door at the back of the room opened, and a woman about Parker’s age came in. “What kind of lies are you telling these people?” she asked him.
“Oh, the usual.” Parker’s body language became more formal when he offered her his seat. “Mr. Savage, this is my wife, Barbara.”
She remained standing. Like Parker, she was gray-haired, but with a stronger, more compact build. She nodded at Henry, then acknowledged Celia by name.
“Barbara,” Celia said, “whose idea was it to buy this place, yours or your husband’s?”
“Both of us. I had more questions about it than Parker did.”
Henry perked up. “Did you get any answers?”
“Not from Mr. Pike. But I found a few things out on my own.”
Her husband looked embarrassed. “Honey, it’s not important.”
“I know it’s not important, but the man might be interested.”
“What’s this, Mrs. . . . ?” Henry’s voice trailed off. He’d wanted to say Parker, but knew that wasn’t right. Mrs. Parker? Parker Parker?
Barbara motioned for him to follow. “It’s out back,” she said, then led him, Parker and Celia out the back door to a field behind the house. A gravel trail continued into the outlying woodlands, where many of the trees were still bare.
Henry turned around to look at the house. Its most distinguishing feature was the balcony on the second floor, which had no railing around it, just a low brick ledge about knee-high. The roof was dark brown, and the upstairs windows were all cut out of it, like eyeholes in a ski mask. For all its history, the house looked plain, even homely. Whatever mystery it contained didn’t show on the surface.
Up ahead, Barbara left the trail and plunged straight into the woods, and within a few steps they reached a clearing where the ground was still covered with yellow and black leaves from the previous autumn. Barbara kicked them aside, and they swirled and blew against her legs.
“I did a little research,” she said. “Parker and I know a guy who collects old maps of southern New England. We were both out here six months ago.” Crouching, she pointed to a stone foundation, which the mossy undergrowth partially concealed. The stones described a perfect rectangle, with a single opening for a doorway.
“What is it?” Henry asked.
“A pen of some kind. A free-standing cellar. I’d guess it’s about three hundred years old. These property lines haven’t changed since the seventeen hundreds, so it’s safe to say it’s always been part of the estate.”
<
br /> Celia stood in the center of the foundation. “It’s big,” she said. “What do you suppose they kept in it?”
“Possibly dry goods. We’re on an elevation, so the ground stays dry most of the year. They could’ve stored grain or cured meats, maybe even ammunition. Many of the wealthier families down in South County moved over to the East Bay to get away from the Narragansett Indians, and most of them kept an arsenal.”
Henry chipped away at the ground with his shoe. “There’s probably some pretty heavy artillery under all this dirt.”
“I found something better. Look.” She pointed at a second pile of leaves, about twenty feet from the first. When they went over to it, they saw more rocks from the foundation lying in rubble. The dank smell of dirt and decaying wood was particularly strong here.
“Ruins,” Henry said. “I don’t see the point, unless—”
“They’re not ruins.” She hefted one of the smaller rocks. “Nathaniel Pike did this. I checked my friend’s map against a more recent one. This building was still standing ten years ago. When Pike had the main house bulldozed, he tore down this pen, too.”
“So?”
“Why would someone go through the trouble of making an exact copy of a house, down to the last stick of furniture, except for this one structure?”
That question “why” again. It came up a lot where Pike was concerned.
“Maybe he just lost interest,” Celia suggested. “Pike’s got the attention span of a two-year-old.”
Both women looked at Henry, who admitted, “I’m clueless. My only guess is that something bothered him about this place. Maybe that’s why he sold it to you so cheaply. He wanted to get rid of it.”
Barbara said, “Oh, there’s no doubt about that.”
They walked back to the house, where Henry thanked the old couple and left with Celia. Instead of heading directly back to Providence, they made a quick swing through the village square. Like many communities in the East Bay, Little Compton consisted of a small commons area lined with tiny markets and steepled churches, quaint and old-fashioned for these few short blocks. A brick-and-glass police station stood next to the firehouse around the corner from the high school and across the street from a green patch of cemetery. It was hard to believe that Providence was only thirty minutes away.