by John Gardner
“It’s illogical,” Meakins said. Voice like a detective. “Somebody’s trying to kill her, so she goes out on the streets and starts tailing somebody. You’d think she’d stay in bed, or maybe under it. It’s—” He paused, hunting for the word. “Fishy.” He narrowed his eyes, thinking hard.
“That’s true, Craine,” Hannah said.
Craine rolled his eyes up, clear behind the lids, a gesture that, though overdone, meant, “Lord send us patience.” He was unaware that he’d done that act for them many, many times.
“You got it solved then?” Meakins said. He stood waiting, fingers interlocked to hold his belly up.
“Not solved,” Craine said. “But you know yourself there’s only a few possibilities, case like this.” They were all waiting now. Even Royce was watching with the corner of his lip raised in something remotely like interest. There was a time, Craine thought, when he’d have savored that, would have rubbed his hands, metaphorically speaking, and grinned at the wall— the cheaply framed licenses, the framed apparition of himself at twenty-four in his police uniform, eager young man wearing crew cut and dimples; a time he would have gloated and inkled them slyly toward the obvious. But his ability to see to the end of things—his talent, drunk or sober, for catching by logic or a flash of intuition what would be mysterious for days to a lesser private eye—no longer gave Craine pleasure. There are no new stories (he was thinking of Ira Katz), that was the dusty, gray bone of the matter—no startling discoveries to be made about the character of man. Age on age, dead civilization on dead civilization, from now till the witlessly spiralling universe vanished in thin air, there was only plodding labor, dull problem solving, the profession (not even a duty, to Craine) of determining which story it was this time.
He opened his pouch and with a cracked, dry finger began scraping tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. He said—sourly, since they’d come to it themselves if you gave them two, three weeks to think—“We know we’re dealing with some woman, or else some peculiar young man, who’s a liar—a person who may and then again may not have anything to do with that clipping they sent—whole thing may be a plot—and for that matter may and then again may not be watching for a sign from this window. They don’t need to, after all. It’s no matter for suspense. I’ve got the check.” He shook his head. “I’m in the business.”
Meakins moved nearer, bent forward, and touched Craine’s desk with his fingertips. “You think it might be a man, Craine?” His eyes were wide, indignant.
“Mere possibility. Anyone can put on a wig and go buy a cashier’s check.”
“That’s true,” Hannah said. Her chin drew inward and her eyebrows rose.
Meakins said, snatching up Craine’s line of thought, “Maybe it’s two people working in cahoots.”
“Maybe it’s a whole invasion force of intergalactic aliens,” Craine said, and leered.
Royce grinned, showing his teeth. Hannah and Meakins were offended.
When Craine said no more—trying to get hold of some thought that had escaped him, had flared and vanished, some alarming recognition—Meakins asked, “So what are we gonna do, Craine? Put Hannah on it?”
Craine considered the question, or pretended to. Something was at work on him, quiet as a shark, down below the floor of his drunkenness—a fearful and attractive, maybe lurid emotion of the sort he’d sometimes felt when he was forced to pass a night in some decaying, gray-balustered old hotel on the river—no, more specific: down in Cairo it was, where he’d done guarding and patrolling at the time of the troubles. He tried to sink deeper into the feeling, get hold of it. The wide Mississippi lay glinting, brown, placid on the surface, no sound but the whippoorwills now, at dusk—day and night inextricable as the water and mud of the marsh from which the gloomy, antique city rose. It was the hour of the wolf, as astrologers say; the hour Gerald Craine had been born in.
The image was strong, as firm in his mind as a photograph; the swollen river—floodtime was approaching—dark leafless trees on the farther bank, the river hurrying, an unspeakable power, greater than a cyclone yet making no more sound in the deepening twilight than a swift-moving snake. He stood waiting, cold sober. He could hear tinkling music; some dive farther in. Black girls in hotpants. Wind briefly touched the hotel like a footstep; a wooden door banged, as if slammed in anger. Then nothing. He looked out across the water. It seemed the earth, not the water, that was moving. He was a grown man; he’d played with death many times, both the slow kind and the quick. Why was he afraid?
Craine drained his glass, carefully set it down, carefully lifted the bottle and splashed in more Scotch.
When he picked up the letter to study it again, one phrase leaped out at him: the known superiority of female intelligence. He knew, all at once—as he’d known the first moment he’d glanced at it—what kind of person had written the letter. (Again he saw the river. It was like a code beamed down at him, some foreign mind laboring, terrible and serene, to get through.) And it seemed to him now that he’d known from the beginning what it was that he intended. “What I’m not gonna do,” he said suddenly, drily, “is nod out that window.”
Dreams, illusions—they should’ve known better than to play with him! He was Lazarus come back from the dead, not amused. If God were in the room—a metaphor, a metaphor—Craine would have shot him between the eyes.
The pipe in his hands came cleanly into focus, the dirt in the cracks of his fingers, the crooked, gray nails. The room was suddenly full of the smell of perked coffee.
“Royce,” he said, and sat forward, preparing to get up, “we’re going hunting, you and me.” He rose from his desk, steadying himself with his left hand, drained the Scotch in the glass and set the glass down harder than he’d meant to. “Meakins, check out this Elaine Glass. If that’s really her name, she’s probably university, probably a student, undergraduate.”
Hannah broke in, “What makes you think—”
“Glass. Jewish. Has to be university.” He added quickly, nastily, “Whole thing’s too bold for those faculty people, and for a graduate student, too expensive. Undergraduates have daddies.” He hurried on, pointing his pipe stems at Meakins. “Also, check out this clipping.” He groped for, found, and jimmied himself into his shoulder holster, clumsily, as if he’d never before done it, and shoved in the .357 magnum. Hannah looked alarmed, and no wonder, no wonder; -something had gotten into him. Though his hands were shaking badly, he felt unnaturally calm. He glanced at Royce, who was pouring himself coffee. And now back again came the frightening, ungraspable memory. The room flashed white and it seemed to him that blood came out of Royce’s mouth. He struggled to think clearly, get control of himself, and immediately everything was perfectly normal, except distant, as if seen through clear, high-quality tinted glass. Meakins was supporting him, looking at him oddly, with his mouth open, but helping him into his old brown suit coat and, after that, into his limp gray overcoat.
Meakins said, “You mean you want us to—”
Craine nodded. “That’s what I mean. Exactly.”
Hannah, over by the window, cried out suddenly, “Craine, there’s somebody watching us!”
Craine turned, in fact jumped, and looked out in pure terror. Despite the weakness of his eyes, he spotted immediately a frail, dwarfish creature with a ratty brown beard and a rounded back, lumpy shoes that toed inward. He was standing in plain view in the parking lot—Craine had seen him before, though he couldn’t think where. His hands were crammed down into the pockets of a beltless, uneven trench coat—now one hand came up to touch his beard—and he stood bent forward, looking up as if myopically, like a rabbi, at Craine’s window. He had on the back of his head a wide-brimmed gray hat that might have come from an old-time gangster movie. Craine’s heart hammered.
Royce, who had sharp eyes, gave a laugh like an explosion. “It’s her,” he said. “She’s put on a Goddamn phony beard.”
“You gotta be kidding,” Hannah said. She leaned closer to the window
and her faced moved toward righteous indignation. “Damn if you ain’t right,” she said. She looked at Craine.
Craine showed no surprise. The truth clicked in his mind as if he’d known it from the start.
Royce laughed again, harder this time. “Jesus Christ if that don’t beat hell!” he said, and slapped his knee. With the coffee cup in one hand, he towed Meakins toward the window with the other. “Lookee that,” he said. He doubled up with laughter, balancing the cup, never spilling a drop, so that the whole performance looked fraudulent, ugly. Meakins merely looked, troubled and sorrowful, then glanced at Royce with distaste, then over at Craine, who was watching Royce’s antics with the look of a man from a distant planet. Not even Hannah smiled. Royce wound himself down, still pretending it was funny. He was aware by now that his amusement wasn’t catching. He went back to his chair, still shaking his head, laughing as if just beginning to get control, balancing the coffee, then sat against the wall, whipped out his pistol, left-handed, and raised it to his temple as if to shoot himself.
Strange, strange man, Craine mused, cold of eye as a surgeon. Somehow it made him think of something he’d read about, a word—in some African language—that meant only itself, no outside referent. I must remember to think about that, Craine thought. He knew he would never remember.
At last Craine said, “I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind, Emmit.” He paused, startled by a new idea, an idea that brightened in his mind slowly, tantalizing. He squinted again, unconsciously touching the gun at his armpit. The three of them were watching him as if they believed he’d gone crazier—which he had, he understood.
Falsely casual, smoothing down his dyed-black hair, Craine crossed to the door of the coat closet and took, from the shelf above where the coats hung, a curious black object. He held it up, smiling, for them to see. It was a gift from some friend, some practical joker. He could remember the face, piglike; the name was gone.
What Craine held up for his associates’ inspection was a single-piece moustache, beard, and wig. It was a ridiculous, outrageous object, the fur of some animal, perhaps a black bear, and when you put it against your face it scraped like hell’s torment, dry as blowing sand. He pulled it on and, with some difficulty, fastened the metal catch on the black elastic strap.
“I’ll tell you what I have in mind,” he said in an artificial voice, high, almost womanish, turning his head from side to side like a creature on the late late late show. Hannah laughed, uneasy.
Craine put the back of his hand to his mouth, or rather to his fur, remembering the bottle of Scotch on his desk, and after a moment’s reflection he went over to it, screwed on the bottlecap, and screwed the bottle down into his overcoat pocket. It passed through the pocket and went on down into the lining and bumped against his leg. He let it be; it would ride.
Royce, still seated, stared at him over the rim of his cup. He said, “What the fuck you doin, Craine?”
Craine smiled behind the false moustache and beard. He pulled on his hat and tipped the brim down.
Royce and Meakins looked at Hannah. She wrinkled her face up, thoughtful. “That poor girl,” she said. She picked up the letter from the top of his desk and held it out to him, shaking it a little. “What if it’s all true, what she wrote in here? Craine, I don’t b’lieve you ought to do this.”
But Craine’s mind was not available for debate. He jerked his head toward the door. Royce pursed his lips, thoughtful, then got up and crossed to it.
Two
This was Craine’s plan:
Disguised, but not unrecognizably so—at least not to anyone who’d seen before that miserable slouch, that trailing, mud-spattered, buttonless overcoat—Craine would slink out into the street, by the Baptist Book Store entrance, carrying in his arm an immense black Bible. He couldn’t say himself what the Bible was for—he hadn’t been to church in forty years, though as a child in the care of his maiden aunt Harriet he’d sung in the Methodist church choir and had been, indeed, more religious than he now remembered—but something would come to him; the Bible would somehow or another prove handy; all master craftsmanship is partly a matter of setting up favorable conditions for fortunate accident. Anyway a ponderous, preacherly Bible suited Craine’s present disposition, his fury at this latest crude injury of a world inexcusably unworthy of man’s noblest efforts, a flatulent wind in the face of a brave boy’s willingness to think hard, take risks. The proverbial camel’s back was broken, and the straw that had broken it was the witless duplicity of E. Glass’s letter, the TV vulgarity of her five-hundred-dollar check, the bottomless injustice of her wish to do him harm, to say nothing of the wanton irreverence of that damned false beard. (“You want an adventure, Ms. Glass?” said Craine. “You’ve come to the right wolf’s door!”) Therefore Craine, dispassionate professional no longer, mere shadow no more, an avenging angel with the fire of Jehovah in his bloodshot, bleary eyes, would step forth with terrible choler onto Main Street, Sodom-gonorrhea—he smiled like a dragon—and Royce would watch as he crossed to the post office, went in, perhaps, came out again, turned right toward the half-abandoned railroad depot with its domes and porches and old-fashioned signs—the only half-dignified signs left in town—CARBONDALE (O dreadsound of doom! thought Craine—dale of carbon, coal valley, hell’s pit!)—Craine would walk along, and as soon as their bearded lady began to follow, Royce would fall in behind, at a distance, and Craine would slink on, singing to himself, muttering to strangers like an old drunken lunatic going on his senseless diurnal rounds—the Ben Franklin Store, the Singer Store, Denham’s Tobacco Shop, wherever whim or heaven’s sweet influence took him to spread the fear of God, so to speak. When they’d played with her a while, given her a taste of the pleasures of the hunt, Royce and Craine would sandwich the lady and be done with it.
The woman at the counter, someone even prissier than the regular people, stood horribly wincing—at the whiskey stink, presumably, or perhaps at the curious stream of Craine’s muttering—but she accepted the money Craine’s jittering hand held out to her; and though her soft red mouth opened, she made no objection as Craine drew the Bible from the counter, one covered in gilt and limp white plastic, with the words Holy Bible squared off, literally, by gilded lilies—the only large Bible the clerk had in stock. The gilt and white cover had a queer effect on him, as if he’d seen it before, perhaps done all of this before. The Muzak was going, toothless and soulless, not religious music—“unless maybe,” Craine muttered, staring gimlet-eyed at the woman behind the counter, “the music fat farting old Satan listens to, sitting buck naked with his feet wide apart on his desk at Hell Incorporated, heh heh.” The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “God bless you,” Craine said, emphatically malicious, profoundly bowing, and with the tip of his pipe he scratched under the beard, revealing that the beard was fake. The woman only stared, horribly wincing, perspiration on her bucked-out upper lip, as Craine backed away, carefully turned left, supporting himself on the flimsy display rack of lumpy religious cards, and made for the door. “Hypocrite! Moron!” Craine snarled past his shoulder. The woman slightly jumped. Craine opened the door—with such difficulty that Royce was on the point of coming forward to assist him with it—and stepped down onto the sidewalk, the whiskey bottle banging against his knee. A cold gust of wind made his face sting.
“Praise the Lord,” Craine said loudly, belligerently, reeling; but somehow—indeed, it was a miracle—he did not fall.
He made his way across to the Post Office, went carefully up the steps and inside. To kill time he went to the window, set the Bible on the counter, and asked for postage stamps.
“Is that you, Craine?” the small, lean black man at the window said. He smiled, clean of eye as a scout master. He was an orderly person. His rubber stamps were ranked like lead soldiers on the ink pad. He was a good man as well, Craine cunningly deduced, and a loyal citizen; at any rate, like Craine, like Socrates, he was not among the Wanted.
Craine glanced mysteriously behind him an
d raised one finger to the fur near where his mouth was.
The man leaned forward, lips pursed as if to kiss him, eyes rolling. “What’s happening?” he whispered. He had, it seemed, one small imperfection. The thought of murder, arson, regimental rape was exciting to his soul.
Craine lowered his glasses, winked portentously, and again raised the skinny, crooked finger to his mouth. The man looked past him, blinking rapidly. Except for Craine, the man at the window, and someone in back throwing boulders into a truck, there was no one at all in the post office. Craine paid for the stamps, picked up the Bible, turned carefully—the floor was marble—and made his way back to the door, shakily trying to put the stamps in his wallet, the Bible clamped so tightly under his right elbow that his shoulder stood up sharply, like the shoulder of a hawk. When he pulled at the pitted brass handle on the door—relic of a former, nobler age, an age in which letters still had human significance (comfort for the prisoner, relief for the destitute, perhaps some thundering, heartfelt rebuke for the capricious politician)—it seemed to him at first that the door had somehow gotten locked since he’d come in. But then he pushed, and it swung open so easily, for all its imperatorial height, that if he hadn’t been clinging to the handle he would certainly have fallen. He made it down the steps to the sidewalk, started toward the corner, then stopped, turned, and boldly—one might have thought angrily—looked back. The girl in the beard, the thick, round glasses, ducked quickly behind a parked Volkswagen just down from the plate-glass front window of Carter’s store. Her reflection stood hunched like a scrawny pheasant, head erect, rear end out, beak tipped. Royce, leaning against an electric pole not ten feet away from her, shook his head and grinned. Light flashed from Royce’s hands, and Craine made out that he was paring his nails with a jackknife. At the Ben Franklin Store, thick with the smell of ammonia and cheapness and the deafening chatter of unclean birds, Craine set down the Bible, scratched under the beard, and pretended to study brooms. “They don’t make ’em like they use to,” Craine told the salesgirl.