‘Listen, deputy, I really didn’t touch those cars.’
‘Got any witnesses? Anybody who saw what happened?’
‘This little guy here, Stanley. He was here all along.’
Deputy Fordyce tilted his hat and peered down at Stanley like a giant suddenly noticing a morsel of mortal.
‘You were here all along, were you, son? Do you want to tell me what happened?’
Stanley said, ‘I heard the cars banging so I came to have a look. Then E.C. Dude came out wearing girl’s panties.’
Deputy Fordyce gave E.C. Dude the kind of look that Arizona deputies usually reserve for the occupants of visiting UFOs. E.C. Dude said, ‘They were Cybille’s, for Christ’s sake. The rest of my shorts were in the wash.’
‘Go on,’ Deputy Fordyce told Stanley. ‘What happened then?’
Stanley licked his lips. ‘E.C. Dude put his jeans on and said let’s take a look at the cars to see if there’s any damage, then we’ll have a beer.’
‘He was going to buy you a beer?’
‘Listen, man, I was only kidding,’ E.C. Dude protested. ‘I was just trying to talk to him like he was grown-up.’
‘What happened then?’ asked Deputy Fordyce, with theatrical patience.
‘The cars all started crashing,’ said Stanley. ‘E.C. Dude didn’t touch them. He tried to stop them, but he couldn’t.’
Deputy Fordyce took a long, slow look around the lot. ‘So, they crashed all by themselves … with no help whatsoever from either of you?’
Stanley shook his head.
‘Well, I thought not,’ smiled Deputy Fordyce, carefully tugging at the knees of his immaculately-pressed slacks, and then hunkering down beside him. ‘So why don’t you tell me exactly what happened? Did you and E.C. decide to have yourselves a demolition derby? Is that what happened?’
‘No, sir, the shadow did it.’
‘The shadow?’
‘Yes, sir, there was a shadow on the wall and I know that the shadow did it.’
‘How do you know that?’
Stanley shrugged. ‘I just do, that’s all.’
Deputy Fordyce stood up again. He walked around the wrecked cars towards the workshop, followed by E.C. Dude and Jack Mackie and Linda and Stanley and half-a-dozen locals and inquisitive strangers. He stopped when he reached the workshop wall and said, ‘This is some Goddamned mess, I’ll tell you, and everybody nodded and agreed with him. A door suddenly dropped off an overturned sedan and everybody jumped, even Deputy Fordyce. They looked at each other in embarrassment as the door see-sawed to a gradual standstill.
‘Where was this shadow, then?’ asked Deputy Fordyce.
Stanley pointed. ‘On the wall, right there. It ran across the wall.’ He imitated its awkward, hump-backed gait.
‘But if the guy’s shadow ran across the wall, you must have seen the guy whose shadow it was. He would have been in plain view. The way the sun is right now, he would have had to be there, right there. You couldn’t have missed him.’
‘No, sir,’ said Stanley, politely. ‘He wasn’t on this side of the wall.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Stanley walked around the back of Deputy Fordyce until he reached the rickety wooden doors of the workshop. He pressed the palm of his hand against the grey, sun-faded paint, and said, ‘He was on this side.’
It took Deputy Fordyce a moment to register what Stanley was saying. Then suddenly he laughed and shook his head. ‘You mean he was inside the workshop, but his shadow went right through the brick, so that you could see it on the outside?’
Stanley looked serious. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, Stanley,’ said Linda, taking hold of his hand. ‘You make up such crazy stories sometimes! I’m sorry, deputy. He has such a wild imagination! Sometimes he doesn’t know the difference between stories and reality.’
‘Well, he sure aint the only one,’ said Deputy Fordyce, staring beadily at E.C. Dude. ‘Magnetic storm, indeed. Saw it in Superman. Jesus!’
He was just about to turn away from the workshop doors when Stanley broke free from his mother’s hand and snatched at the leg of his slacks.
‘It’s true!’ Stanley shouted at him. ‘It’s true! I know it’s true! He was inside! He was inside!’
‘Hey now, come on, pal, watch the uniform,’ said Deputy Fordyce. Stanley had left what looked like a chocolate mark on the immaculate twill of Deputy Fordyce’s slacks. ‘I know you think it’s true, but you’ve gotten a little mixed-up, okay? It’s a hot day, sometimes the heat can get to your brain and give you wacky ideas.’ He spat on the end of his finger and tried to rub the chocolate off.
Stanley rushed back to the workshop doors and banged against them with his fists.
‘It’s true I know it’s true he was inside!’
Deputy Fordyce approached the workshop doors and hefted the rusty padlock in his hand. ‘Is this always kept locked?’ he asked E.C. Dude.
E.C. Dude nodded. ‘I don’t think that’s been opened for a year.’
‘Do you have a key?’
‘Papago Joe has a key.’
‘Is there any other way in?’
‘There’s a window down at the far end. I guess you could climb in, but it’s real high up.’
Deputy Fordyce let the padlock fall back. ‘I think I want to take a written statement from you, E.C. And somebody better get in contact with Papago Joe. I don’t know what the hell’s gone down here, but I have every intention of finding out.’
He began to walk back towards his car, his bottom undulating from side to side, his holster riding up and down with every step. ‘Everybody tells me that Papago Joe is practically a saint or something but I know the kind of guys that Papago Joe deals with. If this wasn’t revenge or something, some kind of punishment, then you can eat my shorts with Dijon mustard.’
E.C. Dude said, ‘There was nobody here, believe me. Nobody but me and the kid.’
Deputy Fordyce gave him a puckered-up, disbelieving smile. ‘That’s what I’d say, too, if the Apache Mafia told me to forget everything that happened here today. But I don’t believe you, E.C., and that’s just about the length of it.’
At that instant, however, they heard a piercing shriek, like somebody drawing a knifeblade down a window. They turned around and saw Stanley only two or three feet away from the workshop door. His face was liverish-grey, his eyes had rolled up into his head so that only the whites showed, and he was standing in an extraordinary tensed-up posture, his knees half-bent, his fists clenched, trembling and shaking.
‘He was inside!’ Stanley screamed. ‘He was inside, I saw him!’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Deputy Fordyce.
Linda grabbed hold of Stanley and clutched him close, but he wrestled his face clear of her shoulder and kept on screaming, ‘He was inside, don’t you believe me, he was inside, he was inside, he was inside!’ His eyes were still white, and flecks of spit were flying from his mouth, and for the first time in his life E.C. felt like taking hold of a kid and telling him, ‘Don’t, don’t, everything’s cool.’
Deputy Fordyce laid his hand on Linda’s shoulder. Linda looked up at him, her blonde hair tussled, her blue eyes challenging. She didn’t have to speak, no need for it
‘Is he prone to hysteria?’ Deputy Fordyce asked.
‘What do you think?’ Linda retaliated. ‘His father was killed when he was four. He’s learned to adapt to just about anything.’
Deputy Fordyce swivelled around and said, ‘Jack! Fetch me one of those tire-irons, would you?’
Jack Mackie kicked open the W-shaped trunk of the nearest automobile, reached inside, and yanked out the tire-iron. He handed it to Deputy Fordyce with an expression on his face which clearly meant, You should’ve done this the first time, you sucker. Deputy Fordyce took it without a word, and slid the shaft into the hasp of the padlock. He gave three hefty pulls, and the padlock burst open.
‘Don’t expect me to pay for that,’ said E.C. Dude. ‘The
re’s enough Goddamned damage here already.’
‘Be cool, will you?’ said Deputy Fordyce.
E.C. Dude was outraged. ‘You’re telling me to be cool? What is this?’
Deputy Fordyce swung open the workshop doors. Inside it was gloomy and smelled of burlap and oil. When Papago Joe had first taken over the business from Old Man Johnson, seventeen years ago, he had sold new Pontiacs and Chevrolets, and used the workshop to prep and repair them. But all the new-car trade had left him for Phoenix and Scottsdale, where the displays were smarter and the discounts were higher, and where they offered your wife a set of free saucepans and your kids balloons.
The workshop was gloomy, apart from the sunlight that filtered into it from a single grimy window high up on the rear wall. There were shelves on either side, and workbenches, and a block-and-tackle for lifting out engines. The chains of the block-and-tackle swung heavy and greasy in the breeze, chink — kerchunk … chink — kerchunk
In the centre of the floor there was a deep, dark inspection pit. Deputy Fordyce approached it on flat, ten-to-two feet, and peered into it suspiciously. He peered into it for a very long time, and then he reached behind him and snapped his fingers.
‘Flashlight,’ he said
‘Who, me?’ asked E.C. Dude.
‘Just get me my fucking flashlight!’ Deputy Fordyce yelled at him, still without turning around.
E.C. Dude stepped back into the sunlight. Jack Mackie said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Search me,’ said E.C. Dude. ‘He wants a flashlight.’
‘Jack Mackie called, Deputy, you need some help there?’
But Deputy Fordyce said harshly, ‘You just stay where you are! If I need your help I’ll ask you for it!’
E.C. Dude opened Deputy Fordyce’s patrol car and took out the long heavy-duty flashlight. The car smelled of sun-heated vinyl and the radio squawked and blurted, — we have a make on that Utah license-plate now — that’s correct —. E.C. returned to the workshop and Jack Mackie let him pass without saying a word.
Deputy Fordyce took the flashlight and switched it on. The beam darted this way and that E.C. Dude saw naked arms and legs, a bloodied torso. He saw a young woman, wide-eyed, staring up at him with such an expression of horror that he thought at first that she was alive. She was wearing what looked like a red rubber swimming-cap. It was only when Deputy Fordyce held the flashlight still for a moment that he realized it wasn’t a red rubber swimming-cap at all. She had been scalped.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said E.C. Dude. He felt his knees melting, and he wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to stand upright
Deputy Fordyce poked the flashlight beam all around the inspection pit. The walls were glossy with blood. There were so many arms and legs and ripped-off pieces of flesh that it was impossible to tell how many people were down there. E.C. Dude glimpsed a middle-aged man, his forehead pressed against the corner of the inspection pit, his lower jaw missing, so that his tongue lolled on the concrete. It looked like a fat purple snake that was trying to heave itself out of his throat.
He saw a black woman, with one of her eyes lying on her cheek. ‘Do you recognize any of these folks?’ asked Deputy Fordyce.
E.C. Dude shook his head. His mouth seethed with bile.
‘How about her?’ The flashlight momentarily lit up the face of a freckly young woman with both of her arms torn off. ‘Have you ever seen her before?’
‘No, sir. Never.’
‘Did you know these people were here?’
‘No, sir. We used to have itinerants sleeping in here from time to time; but not lately. Not since Joe started to lock the doors.’
Deputy Fordyce switched off the flashlight, but E.C. Dude couldn’t take his eyes away from the half-darkness of the inspection pit. He could just make out the glistening of blood and bone and the terrible soft paleness of bled-white flesh.
‘Come on, son,’ said Deputy Fordyce, and led him outside. E.C. Dude had to sit down on an oil-drum and take three or four deep breaths.
Jack Mackie said, ‘What’s happening, deputy? You two look like you saw a ghost.’
Deputy Fordyce swung the workshop doors together, and slid the tire-iron through the hasps to keep them closed.
‘We have a multiple death situation,’ he announced.
‘There are people dead in there? How many?’
‘Hard to say. Five at least, could be more.’
‘Well, what happened to them?’ asked Jack Mackie. ‘Have they been murdered, or what?’
Deputy Fordyce began to walk across to his car. ‘I can tell you for sure that it wasn’t an accident. But I can’t tell you for sure that it was murder. If it was some kind of animal or animals, like two or three pit bull terriers, then the animal or animals must have been crazed right out of their skulls.’
‘And if it was a human?’
Deputy Fordyce reached into his car window and picked up his r/t microphone. ‘If it was a human, then it was only a human in the technical sense. If it was a human, then you’d better start praying that you and yours never chance across him — never.’
Four
I was waiting outside the classroom when the break bell rang and all the kids tumbled out I stayed where I was, my arms folded, leaning against the wall, watching Amelia collect up her papers and tidy her desk. She was much thinner than I remembered her, and her hair was all pinned up in a schoolmarmish bun. She wore moon-lensed spectacles, too.
The last time I had seen her she had been wearing a crimson silk kaftan and beads and a crimson bandanna around her hair. Now she was dressed in a brown cardigan and a cream-coloured blouse and a sensible pleated skirt. On the door there was a handprinted card which said Mrs Wakeman. On the blackboard behind her, she had written Words which sound alike: There — their — ours — hours —.
At last she finished tidying and closed her drawer. The classroom was filled with sunlight and a jam-jar of daisies stood on her desk. She came towards the door, folding her spectacles and tucking them into a red velvet case. She sensed me rather than saw me, and stopped.
‘Harry?’
I stood to attention. ‘Good morning, Mrs Wakeman.’
‘Harry, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were dead.’
I took hold of her hand and tried to kiss her but she turned her face away. ‘Nay, not dead, my queen, but moved to midtown.’
‘You look older.’
‘Of course I look older. I am older. Mind you — let me look at you — you haven’t changed a bit. Marriage must suit you.’
‘Divorce suits me.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. He was a commodities broker. He dressed me in Armani but he almost bored me to death.’
We walked along the corridor together. The walls were decorated with bright, crude paintings, Christopher Columbus landing in the West Indies, the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, a splendidly gory rendition of Custer’s Last Stand. Custer had fifteen fingers on each hand and about a thousand arrows in his body. The building echoed with children’s laughter and the squeak-scuff-squeaking of sneakers.
‘How did you find me?’ asked Amelia.
‘Oh, it wasn’t difficult. I asked MacArthur.’
‘I haven’t seen MacArthur in fifteen years. How is he?’
‘Fat and bald. He’s driving a taxi. You did yourself a favour, kicking him out.’
‘I should have kicked you out, too,’ she remarked.
‘Oh, come on, can’t we let bygones be bygones? It’s all bourbon under the bridgework.’
‘You weren’t very fair to me, Harry.’
I took out my handkerchief and blew my nose. ‘I did say sorry.’
She gave me a wan, indulgent smile. ‘Yes, I suppose you did. For what it was worth.’
‘Do you have time for coffee?’ I asked her.
She checked her watch. ‘Ten minutes, no more. I have to get my next class ready.’
We left the dusty fenced
-off compound in front of the school and crossed the street. The morning was humid and breathlessly hot, and everything looked hazy and brown. We went into a small Italian place called Marco’s and sat by the window. An immense woman with hairy armpits and a hairy mole on her chin took our order for two double espressos.
Amelia took out a cigarette and I lit it for her with the bookmatches from the table. ‘When did you start smoking?’ I asked her.
‘After you,’ she said. ‘I quit for a while but I started it again when Humphrey and I got divorced.’
‘Humphrey? That was your husband’s name? What was his mother, a Bogart fan?’
‘Unh-hunh. His father used to be friends with Hubert Humphrey.’
‘Jesus wept.’
Our coffee arrived but I don’t think either of us really wanted it I would have preferred a Jack Daniel’s, straight up. Amelia smoked and smiled and played with the sachets of Sweet’n’Lo. She still had that world-weary prettiness that had first attracted me, all that time ago. In those days, she had run a mystic bookstore in the Village, The Star Cat. That was when the world was still innocent and bright of eye, and rents were low. But in the late seventies Amelia had eventually gone broke, and that was when she and MacArthur had split up, and she and I had spent some time together. I don’t know whether you could call it an affair, or even a relationship. I was somewhat less than sane in those days; given to drinking and nightmares and bad temper, and Amelia had suffered more than she should.
Amelia had deserved somebody much kinder than me; and I had needed somebody much stronger than Amelia. In the end I hurt her, just to get myself free.
‘MacArthur said you’d been teaching for nearly six years,’ I remarked.
She nodded. ‘The remedial class. The poor little kids who can’t tell the difference between ‘cat’ and ‘hat’. I love it, though. It’s very rewarding.’
‘You don’t do any of that occult stuff any more?’
‘Never. What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m still telling the fortunes. Reading the palms, laying out the cards, probing the entrails.’
‘I thought you were finished with all that.’
‘Well, it’s a living. And people still need to feel that the real world isn’t all there is.’
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