But there was something else he’d been meaning to look up, something to do with a case. But which? Which else? He searched for “H Varga” to see if perchance it would yield some sort of contact information. It did not, but there was a small news item from a few weeks ago. So there would be no confirming Pullman’s story with Hollis Varga: his body had been dredged near Penrose with iron weights in his pockets and a one-line note in a ziplock bag:
Today I have seen the Dragon
Godfrey shut down the computer and swiveled the chair and regarded Letha’s framed childhood silhouette on an end table across the room. So where are we? He knew enough about their shared blood that she was going to be having the child, and enough about Johann’s slime trail that it would be impossible to follow without slipping. But the one, it had to be admitted, had nothing to do with the other, and in a time when the imperative of fathers was thrown into tragic and urgent relief his own cold crusade did not have the luxury of priority. Letha was having the child. The institute was one of the most advanced medical centers in the world. And the only thing that mattered was the safety of his baby girl.
* * *
Roman pulled into the empty gravel lot abutting the rail yard and Peter told him to kill the headlights. Roman said there was no point because no one gave two shits what happened out here, but Peter said to humor him. Roman killed the lights and pulled forward and parked by the electrical substation. Peter exited but Roman did not.
“What?” said Peter.
Roman regarded the clock in a cold sweat: 1:11. There was no way to convey how fatal an augur it would be to embark on this task when the time was a succession of primes that added to the worst of primes, so he didn’t bother. He waited until it turned 1:12—a cumulative 4.
He exhaled in relief and got out. They both carried flashlights, and Roman a bolt cutter. They passed the Dragon. Roman waved his arms irreverently and said, “Ooga booga!”
“Please don’t,” said Peter.
“Why?” said Roman.
“Humor me,” said Peter.
They walked to the main entrance of Castle Godfrey. Roman hefted the chain, noting that there was no rust on it; it had been recently replaced. He notched a link and sheared it and pushed the doors open. The whine of the hinges echoed within the mill building. They stepped inside. It was cold and smelled like metal and mud. The floor was covered with slag and graphite and broken glass and their feet crunched on it.
“You know how when you close your ears sometimes the sound of your heart is like a little man walking through snow?” said Roman.
“Yeah, that’s weird,” said Peter.
They turned on flashlights. There was a crane system overhead and at one end an immense, shadowy mass like a dead whale, or sleeping. On the wall was a Steelers logo next to the words SAFETY’S NO. 1! in gold.
“Any idea what we may be looking for?” said Roman.
“Driver’s license,” said Peter. “Social Security card. Dream journal.”
“Kiss my big black ass,” said Roman.
They split off, taking different halves of the mill. Peter turned his flashlight to the mass, revealing it to be a Bessemer converter. It was larger than his trailer and lay on its side, a fissure in the cement snaking away from the mouth from a past seismic impact. Peter crouched behind a row of pallets and pointed his light. Empty. Roman climbed the stairs to the crane pulpit but found nothing, and combed the locker room to the same end. Peter went into the office. He pointed his beam into a corner and a sleeping bag came into view. He went to it and knelt and ran his finger along a caking of dust on the nylon. He noticed a spoon, the convexity blackened, and nearby on the floor a patch cleared of the old blueprints and beaver mags. His beam lighted a large burnt-looking stain on the floor that was shaped symmetrically into a pair of wings. Blood, a snow angel of blood. Peter turned to call for Roman, then didn’t. It was clear this had been here since long before the vargulf, and not knowing what to make of it himself, he decided Roman’s energies were better kept undistracted.
His beam lighted a pair of boots, at least as old as the sleeping bag, and by them another pair of wings. A quick sweep revealed perhaps a half dozen more on the walls and ceiling and Peter’s bones went cold. It was time to go, he suddenly knew. To get out, and especially get Roman out. The energy here had no good in it, there was no good in exposing Roman to it, he felt in his balls. But in turning toward the office door his light illumined the hollow of one of the boots and with it came a flash of inspiration that he did not like, he didn’t like anything about it. Not least of all that it meant not leaving yet.
Reluctant every step, Peter walked out of the office and across the floor and stood before the Bessemer converter. He gagged at the stench issuing like pestilential breath and he muffled his nose and shone his flashlight into the mouth. He held it there and unsettled dust danced in its shining and he said nothing.
“What?” said Roman. He came beside Peter. The stench hit him and he averted his face as though struck, but not before getting a look at what was inside.
“Oh, man,” said Roman quietly.
The lining of the interior was encrusted with sticky brown black and at the base was what appeared at first to be a comically large meat-stripped wishbone. The wishbone wore candy-striped go-go boots. The outstanding half of Lisa Willoughby.
“Should we … tell someone?” said Roman.
“Tell them what.” said Peter. He lowered his flashlight.
Roman was quiet and his eyes lingered on the blackness of the Bessemer. The panties he stole had smelled fresh and sweet, like fabric softener.
“I’d like to go,” said Roman.
They walked out in silence and when they emerged into the air Roman fished for a smoke. Then the shadows of the black willows rose and fell like the spokes of a turning wheel as a light streamed through and Peter and Roman looked at each other, realizing at the same time. Another car.
“Inside,” said Peter, already slipping back within the shadows of the mill.
“He’ll see the car,” said Roman, squinting to get a better look at who was approaching.
“That doesn’t mean blow him a fucking kiss,” hissed Peter’s disembodied voice.
Roman withdrew and they both watched the car pull into the lot and come abreast of Roman’s. A sheriff’s department cruiser. Two figures emerged: Neck and Nose. They inspected the Jaguar.
“Young Master Godfrey’s, if memory serves,” said Neck.
Nose pointed a flashlight to the mill and Peter and Roman hugged the wall.
“You may as well get your tight ass out here, because I’m going to be real pissed if I have to go in there,” he said.
Peter looked at Roman. “Get rid of them.”
“With pleasure,” said Roman, and there was something in the way he said it that filled Peter with misgiving, but there was nothing to be done as Roman stepped out.
“Well, olly olly oxen free,” said Neck.
“You know Chuck E. Cheese is that way, kid,” said Nose.
“Can I help you gentlemen with anything?” said Roman with a gentility that did not help Peter’s unease.
“Maybe you can start with what the hell you think you’re doing out here,” said Neck.
“Well gee, I was sitting quietly by myself playing solitaire,” said Roman. “I hope I wasn’t disturbing anyone.”
Peter’s balls aged in dog years.
Nose closed in aggressively on Roman. “You think we won’t run you in, you goddamn little punk?” he said.
Roman turned back in what Peter at first feared was for the purpose of some kind of stage wink or equally bonehead gesture but instead he swept his arm at the side of the building—to what end Peter did not know but he could not imagine what was preventing him from employing the one thing he was reliably good for.
“The eyes,” Peter whispered desperately. “Do the crazy roofie eyes.”
In fact, what Roman was indicating was the faded six-foot white
lettering on the side of the building: GODFREY STEEL COMPANY. And he had seen his name put to too much ill use this day to resort to parlor tricks; real things were at stake here and had to be put to right.
“Okay, I’ll level with you,” said Roman.
“We’re all ears,” said Neck.
“I was actually jacking off to French postcards of your mother and would prefer a little privacy, if you wouldn’t mind directly fucking off and staying away from my property or I’m reporting both you illiterate assholes for harassment,” said Roman.
Neck and Nose exchanged looks.
“Best news I got all week,” said Nose.
He seized Roman by the arm, roughly wrenched it behind him, causing him to emit a sharp cry of pain, and slammed him face-forward into the side of the building.
“At the request of Olivia Godfrey, I’m placing you under arrest,” he said.
Once the taillights of the cruiser had vanished and Peter was in darkness he began to breathe normally again. He took a final look at the converter and walked out of the mill. The keys were still in the Jaguar. Wheeling it around, the headlights hit a white patch that caught Peter’s eye. A scrap of paper. He left the car idling and got out and knelt to the ground. It was a page ripped from a book, weighted by scattered pebbles. He brushed it clean and held it to the light of the moon.
She clipped a precious golden lock
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl
Those Who Are Able We Invite You to Rise
On the way home Roman sat in the passenger side of the pickup with his head leaning against the window. He tapped his knuckles against the door paneling in time with the passing of lampposts and telephone poles. Olivia’s eyes were fixed ahead and there was a standoff as each waited on the other. Roman reached to turn on the radio. Olivia hit the brakes, coming to a sudden stop in the middle of the road.
“Jesus,” said Roman.
She took his chin in her hand and roughly turned his face to hers.
“Jesus,” said Roman again.
“I will cut you off without a cent,” she said. “You think I won’t?”
He looked at her without saying anything.
“You think I won’t?”
Her fingers made white bruises in his jaw. The breath from his nose rolled over her knuckles. He cast his eyes down.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
She released him and rested her hand on the gearshift. Her hand was shaking.
“I just—” she said, “all I want is—”
She didn’t finish the sentence as her eyes drifted to a malfunctioning lamppost, the light waning to a glow of filament and then sputtering out and then flaring once more, and the shaking of her hand passed through her body in a shudder. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Mom, are you okay?” said Roman.
She inhaled sharply and her eyes refocused.
“Mom … I see them too,” said Roman.
Olivia started the engine again and put her hand on Roman’s knee.
“All I want in this world is what’s best for my baby.”
* * *
From the archives of Norman Godfrey:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: none
To begin, a blunt admission, because there is hardly any point proceeding without it. Upon reflection, that you and Mother should have a—what dismay in giving irrevocable shape to the words—sexual affair is, on its face, unsurprising. Terribly banal, even. Is there a commoner platitude: these things happen. As though commonness in any way trivializes it. Birth is common, the hour before sunrise.
Betrayal. What could be commoner?
But an accounting of your heart is neither my place nor purpose, I simply feel I must be honest with you because if I was not it would mean irreparably to lose you. So please forgive my honesty in order that I may forgive you. I cannot lose you, Uncle.
Especially now, my purpose in writing not my own unhappy discovery but another of larger consequence.
To begin, Roman was arrested last night. He was caught on the mill property (in the company, one might surmise, of Peter Rumancek, but as to the purpose of their errand your guess is as good as mine), where he earned, in Roman’s inimitable fashion, the disfavor of a pair of policemen who brought him in for “malicious mischief.” Suffice to say the incident did not lighten Mother’s disposition. For my part, I was actually greatly relieved: I had cloistered myself in my room all evening and thought some ongoing row might further divert attention from me. But today relations reached a striking armistice. Roman’s manner was polite, even solicitous, in an unspoken (not to mention out-of-character) gesture of contrition, and Mother’s rancor (also uncharacteristically) showed no residual traces. By lunch they were conversing idly about Monaco or Provence for Christmas, the whole time my own head was lowered as I counted the seconds before I could excuse myself without attracting notice.
But just when it became possible to inconspicuously leave the table, I felt it, the first tickle. A single mote of dust: fate’s siege engine. And then I sneezed—hopelessly disrupting my most deliberately fashioned hair.
Roman gave his blessing, before seeing. And then he stared, alongside Mother.
And here we must back up to yesterday afternoon when, once alone, I made an illicit expedition to the mall, where my wonderfully wicked Jenny was only too delighted a coconspirator in a petulant revenge against Mother for, well, being Mother. And yes, if I was so anxious after consideration of the consequences I could have more easily removed and discarded all evidence of its doing, but one needs no advanced expertise in unraveling psychic mysteries to see that the dread of discovery did not overwhelm the desire—no, necessity—for it. And this something more than childish spite—when Jenny first brandished the mirror and I experienced the simple feminine thrill of wearing something made to make a woman feel like a woman …
I am ugly, Uncle. There is no other way to put it. But that does not mean I am without pride, without joy, without the same entitlement to feel deserving of love from those not obligated by blood to give it. I may be ugly, but I can hardly imagine a reason to act like it.
Mother, of course, has always had a different opinion, insisting I keep my dress and hair as plain as possible (this in a family where more is spent per annum between her and my brother on plumage than a low-income family’s total expenditure). But not as some arbitrary tyranny, no: out of concern that any attention I call to myself—even the audacity of wearing the costume of a normal person—would only expose me to unneeded ridicule and heartache. It is only my happiness she has in mind in extinguishing the notion of dressing the part of anything but a pitiful grotesque. Without question the kinder of cruelties.
So you might picture her face. Not half a day after retrieving her son from the sheriff’s office, this new sedition. The shock and blow to her sovereignty.
“What,” she said, once words returned, “have you done to yourself?”
Lacking a credible response, I vainly and foolishly bowed my head and covered my ears with my hands. She strode over and pried them off, taking one lobe between her fingers with furious delicacy.
“You perfectly idiotic creature,” she said. “You great, lumbering dolt.” She turned to Roman and demanded if he had had any hand in this.
He appeared conflicted, as though tempted to share and thereby ameliorate guilt but ultimately knowing his own standing too unsteady. He denied it, and of course I was partially disappointed he did not come to my rescue, but glad also: I had made a decision and it was my own.
“I—” said Mother, her attention back on me, “I am simply perplexed. You want to make a mockery of yourself? You would connive to demean yourself? At least I thought you had a [EXPLETIVE DELETED] brain. At least I thought you had that.”
In the past there have naturally been times when I have caused Mother’s frustration to flare, but never, quite unlike Roman, with deli
berate forethought. And Mother, for whatever shortcomings she may possess, has made an effort of patience and consideration with me that is a great strain on her nerves. It must be said this is not easy on her.
She has never yelled at me.
I sobbed, helpless. She continued.
“Do you know what true deformity is, Shelley? The most intolerable and repellent of them all? Stupidity. Do you think for a moment I thought you were too young to understand what your father used to call you?”
The “abortion.” She used to tell him not to call me that.
“This travesty ends now,” she said. “Remove the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] things.”
I fumbled for my ears, but my fingers, not the nimblest in the best of circumstances, had no hope the way they were shaking. She watched, her impatience excoriating as my clumsy efforts became all the more pitiable. Mercifully her vexation overtook her and she seized my wrists to do it herself.
And that’s when it happened: the entire edifice of our home dissolved in one word:
“Stop.”
Stated, not vehement, but with what I believe could fairly be described as heartbreak, Roman told her to stop.
“Stay out of this,” said Mother dismissively.
But Roman repeated himself. Looking at neither her nor me, his face lacking in affect like some ventriloquist’s tool.
“Let go of her,” he said.
“Excuse me,” said Mother, less dismissively, “was that a command?”
He folded his hands on the table and now he met her face. “Leave her alone,” he said.
Mother laughed like a nail. “Amazing,” she said to some imagined and equally unbelieving audience and reached once more with that terrible delicacy for my ear. “Hold still.”
Roman put his hands flat on the table, pushed himself back, and came around to us. He clamped his fingers around Mother’s forearm. My head was a helium balloon that had slipped its knot and my breath came in shallow gasps.
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