Floater

by Gary Brandner

  If it was true that a woman’s mother is an accurate picture of what the woman will become, he was in for a rotten future with Stephanie. Myrna Haaglund had been no prize twelve years ago when Roman was hustled into marrying her daughter. Fat and irritable then, at least she had most of her faculties. She wasn’t all that old now, mid-seventies probably, but her mind was rotting. Half the time she couldn’t remember where she was. Why Van didn’t put the woman into a nursing home Roman did not know. The old man was as tough and ropy as ever, his mind just as keen. He sure didn’t lack the money, and if Roman was any judge, Van Haaglund could still get it up, given the opportunity.

  That thought brought Roman back to his predicament. He swung his legs out of the bed and got up, leaving Kathy bobbing there gently, like a pale dolphin on the tide.

  “You don’t want to try again?”

  “Not today. I’ve got things to do. Things on my mind.”

  “Well, that’s probably the trouble.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Roman pulled on the bikini briefs Stephanie always told him he was too old to wear, and got into his shirt and pants.

  “Are you going back to the store?” Kathy asked.

  “What for? The place runs itself.”

  It was true. Each of the three D&H Sporting Goods Stores was managed efficiently by young men recruited from the University of Washington school of business. Roman kept an office in the original store in the U-District, but made an appearance there rarely. He scanned the monthly profit figures, made occasional recommendations on new lines of equipment, checked out the new hires, went to junior chamber meetings, but his presence at the store was largely symbolic. What it did for Roman was give him an excuse to get out of the house and away from Stephanie and the boys. Also, it let him personally hire certain key employees. Like Kathy Isles.

  Kathy dressed rapidly, and they left the Olympus Adult Motel, discreetly located north of the city on old Highway 99. They stood for a moment under the portico out of the drizzling rain that was Seattle’s trademark.

  “You might as well take the rest of the day off too,” he said.

  “Thanks, boss.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. “And don’t worry about it. We’ll make up for it next time.”

  “I’m not worried,” he said.

  At least not about what she thought he was. He watched Kathy cross the parking lot, pert and bouncy in her belted yellow raincoat. Then he walked through the drizzle to his Eldorado, thinking again of the bizarre experience last week with his mother-in-law.

  • • •

  Visits to the home of his wife’s parents were always a drag for Roman. They had an expensive house in the rich suburb of Bothell, but he would rather go bowling.

  His mother-in-law did little but sit and drool and babble about things that made no sense to anybody. Van only wanted to talk business, with the emphasis on how much tougher it had been for him than it was now for his son-in-law. Stephanie jabbered away foolishly as though everyone were having a fine time. The last visit, however, had been especially unsettling.

  They made it through dinner — rib roast overdone the way Van liked it by the Haaglunds’ surly black cook. No cocktails, no wine, and no after-dinner drinks. Van Haaglund was a teetotaler and a health freak. To smoke his cigarette Roman had to go out and stand in the rain on the brick patio. Mustn’t contaminate the air. Balls. When he came back in he found himself alone with his mother-in-law, a situation he always tried to avoid.

  Roman did his best to ignore her and checked his watch. If he could get Stephanie out of there in the next ten minutes he would get home in time for Miami Vice. While he waited for his wife to return he picked up a Sports Illustrated from the coffee table, hoping there might be a shot of some chick in a swimsuit. For a moment he successfully forgot about the drooling old woman, so he was startled when she spoke to him.

  “Roman!”

  At least the voice seemed to come from Myrna Haaglund. The tone was so harsh and the pronunciation so distinct that Roman almost dropped the magazine.

  He looked at her in shocked surprise.

  “It’s payback time,” she growled. In her watery, faded eyes there burned for an instant a hatred so palpable Roman could feel the heat of it. Then Myrna’s head lolled to one side, the eyes dimmed to their customary stare, and the moment was gone.

  When Stephanie and her father returned to the room Myrna was back to her dribbling, mumbling self. Roman said nothing about the strange outburst. It was over so suddenly that he could almost believe he had imagined it. Except that he hadn’t imagined it. And for reasons he could not explain, the brief scene troubled him deeply.

  • • •

  Now he drove slowly through the light afternoon traffic across the Floating Bridge to the suburb of Bellevue, where his family waited. He was in no hurry to get back to Stephanie and her kids. Even after twelve years he was unable to think of her two boys as theirs. Maybe if he’d had some of his own, his life would be different now. But there was no use thinking about that. He’d made his bargain. A life of reasonable security for which he had to take on a homely woman and two homely kids. Sometimes — hell, often — he imagined how it might have been if he had not twisted his knee on that long ago football field.

  He decided to stop at the Lion d’Or for a drink before going home. Maybe two drinks. They had a satellite dish, and there might be a ball game on from somewhere.

  New York, June 1987

  ALEC

  Hard to believe, thought Alec McDowell, that there was a time when citizens could walk safely through Central Park in any season, night or day, without the imminent likelihood of losing their valuables, their virtue, their life, or all three. That time had vanished long before Alec McDowell arrived in the city in 1975, but he still sometimes thought about it with that odd nostalgia people feel for times they have never known.

  It was not Alec’s habit to stroll idly through the park, and he kept a wary eye on the other walkers on this June afternoon as he passed the heroic statue of General Sherman at the East Drive exit onto Fifth Avenue. He kept his stride brisk and let his arms swing purposefully as though packed into his narrow five-foot-six body there were a coiled machine ready to destroy an attacker with one or another of the martial arts. Not that he could hope to deceive a streetwise New York mugger for long, but at least he might be passed by for some decrepit old lady if he moved with alacrity.

  There was a problem other than muggers bothering Alec this afternoon. He could not shake the unpleasant aftertaste of what seemed at the time to be a meaningless incident. It had happened the week before in his office at Laymon and Koontz, the consultant firm where Alec expected to have his own name added to the title soon.

  He had been working late. The building had the silent, haunted feeling of offices at night, when ghostly echoes of the day still whisper through the halls and cubicles.

  Alec’s attention had been focused on the audio tape cassette playing in his portable machine. It was a conversation between an elected city official named Anton Scolari and the owner of a Newark construction company. The content of the conversation would have been enough to indict the official on charges of bribery and conflict of interest, had the tape not been obtained through the use of an illegal bug in the man’s office. Alec McDowell, however, was unconcerned with the legal ramifications. What he was after was something to help elect his firm’s client, Bo Walton, who would oppose Scolari in the upcoming election.

  “Alec!”

  He started at the unexpected sound of his own name spoken in the grating voice. At first it seemed to come from the tape recording, but logic quickly rejected that possibility.

  Alec punched the cassette player into silence and looked around the roomy, deserted office. A young Puerto Rican woman in the blue uniform of the building maintenance crew was emptying ashtrays into a plastic-lined trash can.

  “It’s payback time.”

  Alec stared at her. “What did you say?”
>
  The woman looked at him, and for a fraction of a heartbeat she wore a devil’s smile, all teeth and hatred. Then her face lapsed into a soft Latin innocence.

  “Sir?”

  “Did you just speak to me?”

  “No, sir. I di’n say nothing.”

  He held her eye for a long moment, then realized that what he had heard could not possibly have come from the throat of this woman. And what he thought he saw on her face was an illusion, a trick of the night shadows. What else could it be?

  “Never mind,” he told her. He punched the rewind button on the tape deck. “Can you come back and do this room later?”

  “I got to do it like the list says or I get in trouble,” the woman said.

  “All right.”

  Alec swept the material he was working on into his desk and locked the drawer. What the hell, he’d got as much as he was going to out of the tape. It wasn’t good enough.

  Besides, the voice or hallucination or whatever it was had destroyed his concentration. It was nearly ten o’clock. He could go home to his Yorkville apartment, read some of the accumulated newsletters, then maybe get to sleep.

  Sleep did not come easy that night. The grating voice would not leave his mind. There was something distantly, ominously familiar about it.

  Now as he hurried along Fifth Avenue, where the danger of muggers was minimal, Alec still sensed a menacing presence somewhere nearby. Furtively he scanned the faces of the other pedestrians, but no one met his eye. He pulled up the collar of his jacket against a chill that only he could feel.

  THE FLOATER

  Darkness.

  No light. No heat. No sound. No pain.

  Only a terrible, crazy joy.

  It had been a long, long time in the planning. There had been false starts and wrong turns. But now, at last, it had begun. The plot had been set in motion. There would be no stopping now.

  It was payback time.

  CHAPTER 3

  Wolf River, September 1966

  Wolf River, Wisconsin

  “A nice place to live.”

  Population: 21,752

  Location: 135 miles north of Milwaukee, 29 miles west of Green Bay

  Principal industries: dairy farms, agriculture, Moderne Gloves, Allis Chalmers Farm Machinery

  Hospitals: 1

  Elementary schools: 4

  High schools: 1

  Colleges: 1

  Hotels: 2; Motels: 4

  Theaters: 2; one walk-in, one drive-in

  Whorehouses: 2

  Churches: 22

  Taverns: 21

  Cemeteries: 2

  LINDY

  “There’s nothing like the smell of a new car,” Todd Hartman said. He stroked the simulated leather dash panel of the burgundy Thunderbird as he headed up Elm Street.

  “It’s really nice, Todd,” said Lindy. She didn’t really care much about cars, but she knew what was expected of her. “I really appreciate your taking me down to Moreland’s. This was the last day of the sale.”

  Merilee Lund spoke up from the back seat, thrusting her curly blond head in between them. “Yeah, me too, Todd. This really is a bitchin’ car. How fast will it go, anyway?”

  “As fast as you want,” Todd said, talking back over his shoulder but still looking at Lindy. “You going down to Main Street this afternoon?” he asked her.

  “I suppose so,” Lindy said. “That’s what everybody does on Saturday.”

  “It is a silly custom,” Todd said, “but when in Rome … you have a ride?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Roman Dixon, I suppose.”

  “Sure. Who else?”

  “I’m not riding with anybody,” Merilee said. “I mean, I haven’t promised anybody.”

  “You really like him, huh,” Todd said. “Roman.”

  “Sure I like him. I wouldn’t go with a boy if I didn’t like him.”

  “You just don’t seem like the usual type that hangs around jocks.”

  “I don’t think I exactly hang around jocks,” she said.

  “You know what I mean. Anyway, if you ever get bored, or feel like a change …”

  “I’ll let you know,” Lindy said.

  “I’m not riding with anybody,” Merilee said again.

  “I guess you can ride with me if you want,” Todd said without turning around.

  “Oh, wow! Wait’ll everybody sees us in this bitchin’ car!”

  Todd pulled the Thunderbird to a stop in front of the Grant house.

  Lindy gathered up the sweater she’d bought at Moreland’s and opened the door. “Thanks again, Todd,” she said and stepped out.

  “I guess you’re going to the Halloween Ball with Roman too,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Boy, it pays to be a football star.”

  “I don’t know who I’m going with,” Merilee said. She started to push the seat forward so she could move to the front, but Todd reached across, slammed the door, and drove off.

  Lindy watched them drive away. She liked them both, but somehow this year their faults were glaringly apparent. Todd was the son of the town’s richest banker, and couldn’t let anybody forget it. He would probably be nice enough, but his family’s money wouldn’t let him. Merilee was nominally Lindy’s best friend, but sometimes she could be painfully dumb.

  She turned and went up the walk to her house.

  Lindy would have liked to show Daddy the new sweater and let him admire her in it, but Wendell Grant was in his study, where she never disturbed him. Mrs. Krantz would appreciate her bargain, but she was busy out in the kitchen, her private domain. Lindy went on upstairs.

  • • •

  Lindy’s room was in the front on the second floor of the big old house on upper Elm Street. Both windows were open to the warm Indian summer breeze. The pink-and-white curtains billowed softly, and the perfume of autumn filled the room. A stuffed panda, propped on the bed pillows, watched the girl come in with great sad eyes. It was the last of the little-girl things that Lindy kept in her room. The rest had been banished to the attic.

  “Hi, Panda,” she said. “Do you want to see my new sweater?”

  She laid the box on the bed, opened it, and took out the layers of tissue paper. She held the maroon-and-white ski sweater up against her.

  “See? It’s too hot to wear it now, but it’ll be nice this winter.”

  Abruptly, the sweater didn’t seem all that wonderful anymore. She folded it up and put it back in the box. When she saw the sale ad in the Chronicle it had seemed like she had to have the sweater or perish. Daddy had given her the money, he always did, but now she wondered why it had seemed so important.

  Feeling restless, she wandered over and sat down at her dressing table. She placed a hand to her cheek and inclined her head to the side. All around the mirror were Polaroid photos wedged in between the glass and the frame. Although none of the pictures was more than a year old, the edges of some had curled and the colors were already starting to fade. The events pictured seemed remote and nostalgic to sixteen-year-old Lindy, as though they had taken place in some Polaroid past.

  There was a posed shot of the yell squad with Lindy, the yell queen, kneeling in front. Merilee was prominent in the first row, giving it the big openmouthed smile. The girls wore pleated red skirts, white letter sweaters decorated with red megaphones lettered WR, white socks, red-and-white saddle shoes. They held red-and-white crepe paper pompons, and the lot of them were smiling like the Pat Boone family.

  The picture had been taken at last year’s Thanksgiving Day game with Appleton, and at the time it had seemed exciting and fun. It should be even more kicky in this, her senior year, with a good chance for the team to win the state championship, plus the brand-new sweaters the school board had promised the yell squad. Why, Lindy wondered, couldn’t she feel it?

  She continued to study the photos, unemotionally, as though they belonged to somebody else. Here was a shot of her and Roman Dixon standing alongside his
candy-apple 1957 Chevy. The car was dazzling, having just received its umpteenth coat of hand-rubbed lacquer. Roman, his thick blond hair BrylCreamed into a gleaming D.A., glowed with the pride of ownership. Lindy clung to his sweatered arm and smiled her All-American smile. She studied her white, even teeth. The braces Daddy insisted on when she was little had been a pain and a half, but the results were worth it.

  And here was one from the Junior Prom — Lindy in pale green chiffon with orchid corsage, Roman stiff in white dinner jacket with scarlet cummerbund and matching carnation. They made a lovely couple. Just about perfect. Everybody said so.

  The class picnic. Lindy and Roman at the lake, turning to grin up at the camera from the table where remains of chicken and potato salad crusted under the springtime sun.

  The lovely couple again, this time after a football game, with Roman sweaty and triumphant in red-and-white uniform, helmet cradled under one arm like a knight after the tournament. Lindy, clutching her pompon, gazed fondly up at her champion.

  And here they were costumed as Superman and Wonder Woman for the last year’s Halloween Ball. How appropriate. Everybody said so.

  There were other pictures of Lindy and friends, Lindy alone, and one of Lindy with her father. In many of the pictures the kids were seated in or standing next to somebody’s car. There was one with Todd Hartman lounging against a shiny Cougar. Last year’s car.

  Lindy reflected that her father’s high school album from thirty years before, with all the funny haircuts and the impossible clothes, also featured cars in many of the old black-and-white snapshots. Cars, Lindy decided, were treated like members of the family in America. She wondered if they did that in other cultures.

  Bored with the Polaroid snaps, she got up and walked over to the chest of drawers. From the top she picked up a framed photograph of a dark-haired woman with fine cheekbones and smiling pale eyes.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said softly. “Here I am starting another school year. Last one. After this, no more Wolf River High. No more ‘Fight, fight, fight for old Red and White.’ I’ll be glad to get out, I guess, but sometimes I wish you were around to tell me what happens next. Sometimes? Shoot, a lot of the time. I mean, Daddy’s a prince, and he’ll always take the time to talk to me, as long as I want. But there are things you just can’t talk to your father about, you know? Aah, nuts.”