by Thomas Perry
Julian pulled up on the street far enough from the store not to be recognized in a car he didn’t own, and sat for a minute. His eyes settled on the market as he thought. There was Ruthie coming out of the market with a brown paper bag in her left arm.
She was wearing a white cotton dress and flat sandals. She paused in the parking lot. She seemed not to see him, but to know he must be there and look where she expected him to be. She walked across the parking lot and up the sidewalk to the passenger side of his car. She pointed at the lock button on that side and he hit the switch to make it pop up. She opened the door and sat beside him.
He looked at her, not pretending he wasn’t staring. He was taking in the sight.
She smiled. “Can we go for a ride?”
He started the car and drove.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said.
“Leila told me.”
“I got divorced this year,” she said.
“Are you sad about it?” he said.
“No. A little embarrassed. People look at me, and I can see behind their eyes. They’re trying to guess why it happened. They wonder if he cheated on me, if I cheated on him, who we would have cheated with. They wonder if I’m cold, or bitchy, or selfish. They wonder if he hit me. Whatever anybody ever got divorced for, they try on me to see if it fits.”
“What does fit?”
“Nothing. People get along or they don’t. If they don’t, then one day one of them sees the future all laid out ahead. And they realize that it’s almost exactly like the present. And they don’t want it to be.”
“I understand,” he said.
She gave him a look that had a bit of skepticism, and he knew what she was thinking: Either you’ve been divorced or you haven’t. So he thought about how foolish he probably had sounded. It wasn’t that he’d had the experience or really understood. What he’d meant was: I don’t want to think about that anymore.
They drove on for a couple of miles before she said, “How long are you going to be here?”
“I don’t know.” He took out his phone and held it up. “When this rings again, I’ll have to go. If it never rings I’ll be here until I die.”
“If it rings, can you say no?”
He thought for a few seconds. “Not if I want to keep working for the government.”
“Has that been so great?”
“Not really, to tell you the truth.”
“Okay,” she said, and then stopped because he could draw his own conclusions.
“Why did you want me to come and see you?” Julian asked.
“Before I divorced Taylor I did a lot of thinking, and after the decree I kept thinking.”
“What about?”
“About a lot of things. Mostly about what I know, and what my life has been like so far, and the choices and decisions, and how they worked out. And I’ve thought about what went wrong and what I should do next. Taylor has always been a drinker, and so I went to a couple of Al-Anon meetings. That’s what they call Alcoholics Anonymous now. He wouldn’t go with me.”
“It wasn’t a bad idea, though. Did you learn anything?”
“Some things. They have these steps you follow to straighten yourself out. One of them is to go around and find all the people you’ve harmed, and try to make things right.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Julian said.
She turned to look at him. “You’re one of the people I harmed.”
“I don’t remember that,” he said.
“It was when we were young—like seventeen. I knew you had a big crush on me, but I pretended I didn’t.”
“That’s not taking anything from me.”
“I knew that you were serious when you tried to ask me to go to the prom with you, and you really wanted me to go. I knew that you would have been so happy if I would just say yes. But I pretended I thought you were just joking around, so I could laugh and say no in a way that would make you stop, but not be able to say I was being mean.”
“That’s not being mean. You just didn’t want to go with me. That’s no harm.”
“It hurt me,” she said. “Not right away, but later. I kind of knew it would then. Most girls were looking forward to going to the prom with somebody, but I was mainly interested in staying unclaimed and seeing who asked, and how many there were, and picking the best one. You were the first one to ask, and at that age I was two inches taller than you, and we had known each other since we were three. After I said no I had second thoughts because you were the only one who really cared about me. But I told myself that no matter what I did, you’d still be around. So I went with Lawrence Coles. Then right after graduation you were gone. A couple of years later, you were back from the army for a few days, and everybody could see who you really were. I was sorry then—but not for you. For me.”
“Just forget it,” he said. “If you go around to all the guys who wanted you and say you’re sorry, you’ll be apologizing to everybody in Craighead County.”
“It doesn’t say that.”
“What?”
“The twelve-step thing. It doesn’t say you apologize. It says to make amends.”
20
Hank Dixon swung the ax, brought it down on the end of the upright log, and split it. He set the next one upright on the stump and took another swing. After about ten minutes he had filled the bin with split pieces he could use to start fires. He carried the wooden bin to the porch under the roof, and then went back for two loads of larger pieces from the cord of wood in the yard. Then he tugged the tarp back over the woodpile and tied it down to keep the wood dry.
He saw Marcia coming back up the path from the lake. She said, “Does this mean we’re in for a cold night tonight?”
“I think so. The forecast says that places over six thousand feet will drop into the thirties tonight.”
“It sounds cozy,” she said. She stepped close and kissed him, and he could feel the cold of her nose on his cheek. “But try not to hit yourself in the shin with the ax.”
“Wood chopping happens to be something I’m good at,” he said. “All those years in New England made me an expert at fire starting, walking on ice, and snow shoveling. I never thought I’d need that knowledge in Southern California, but here I am.” He paused. “Run into anyone down the hill?”
“No,” she said. “Things looked pretty deserted.” She looked down the mountain at the small town below. “Tell me the truth. How do you think we’re doing at this? I mean living here and everything.”
“All you ever know is that they haven’t got you yet.”
Marcia shrugged. “No sense in running up the score beyond that anyway, right? It’s poor sportsmanship.”
They walked to the porch of the cabin and went inside. The cabin was bigger and fancier than most houses. A Los Angeles stockbroker and his wife had built it as a mountain retreat. The stockbroker told Hank that he had imagined they would be retreating to the mountains during the summer to escape the heat, and coming during the winter to ski. Maybe they would visit during the fall to see the leaves on the deciduous trees on the lower altitudes and smell the sap of the tall pines up near the house. In the spring they might come to do some trout fishing in the mountain streams that fed the lake. This fall the cabin was for rent.
When Hank had looked online and seen the photographs of the interior of the house and its furnishings, he had e-mailed and then called the owner to strike a deal. He wondered why the rent was so reasonable.
Shortly after the cabin was completed, the stockbroker’s wife had observed that coming all the way up here from Los Angeles took nearly all day, and the homeward drive took most of another day, much of it through places that weren’t scenic. That meant weekends were too short to make the trip worth taking. After that she had announced that the longer trips he proposed had turned out to be boring. There was nothing to do, with just the two of them in such an isolated place.
The cabin had not decreased the man’s stress. He had spent so much
money and effort to build the cabin that he had no choice but to try to recoup the expense by renting it. It was easy to rent out a cabin on a mountain lake in August when it hadn’t rained in Los Angeles for eight months and the temperature on Wilshire Boulevard was 105. It was even easier to rent during the winter holidays, when people wanted to ski. But it was not so easy after the kids were back in school and the weather in Los Angeles had reverted to being paradisiacal.
When Hank drove Marcia up to Big Bear to the cabin for the first time, he said little about the place except that it was “just right.” He appeared to be preoccupied during the shopping trip in San Bernardino. Hank had stayed in mountain cabins before, so he knew enough to bring all the supplies he could fit in a car.
When he drove up to the right address, they could see the view of the lake was beautiful. Hank said nothing as he took Marcia up to the front door. He simply unlocked the lock and swung the door open so she could see the gleaming black Steinway grand piano sitting across the large living room.
Marcia stepped past him in silence like a woman stalking something that might get up and take flight. She walked across the room, ran her hand along the mirror-smooth black wood, sat on the bench, opened the keyboard cover, and sounded a note. Then she played about seven bars of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major. Finally, she stood up and ran to Hank. She hugged him hard, and when she pulled away from him, he could see she was crying. After a few seconds she whispered, “I love you.”
The log house was well designed, well made, and pristine. The place had probably been occupied no more than sixty days since it was built. The furniture, fixtures, and appliances had barely been used. The stockbroker had bought the piano in Los Angeles in the hope that his daughter would come up with her parents frequently and play, but she had come a few times and used the trip as an excuse to give her fingers a rest. Hank and Marcia moved in to the master bedroom upstairs, where there was a window that had been designed to frame the view of the lake.
They hiked the trails in the mornings. In the afternoons Marcia played the piano and Hank read, and occasionally took the canoe out to explore the lake. In the evenings they cooked, watched the cabin’s television set, and used the computers. They to ok baths in the oversized whirlpool tub and slept on the new California king bed.
Hank made Marcia spend a few hours each day practicing ways he had devised to deal with emergencies. He coached her in telling the life stories of Henry and Marcia Dixon so she would never be caught with a version that contradicted his. When she was flawless at it they tried it again, this time to be sure they didn’t tell stories using the same words.
Hank took care to remain vigilant. He kept the three unused prepaid telephones in their original wrapping so he could be sure Marcia didn’t get tempted to use them to call her children. When she was in the shower or practicing the piano, he would examine the laptop computer’s history to be sure she hadn’t used it to get in touch with her daughter or with anyone else. He even made sure that none of the computer’s history had been erased since he’d last used it. He also kept checking for any sign of news. He checked the Chicago Tribune’s personal ads once a week for any communication from James Harriman.
A month passed in the mountains. The trees at the altitude above the lake were nearly all pines, so they didn’t change colors or lose leaves. But the mornings were all cooler now. The Dixons wore jackets for their early walks, and brought knitted caps and leather gloves that they sometimes put on. Later in the day the sunshine bored through the clouds and burned off the mists, but there was no question that fall had taken possession of the mountains.
One day Hank drove them out of the mountains and into San Bernardino, where they shopped for things that would help them extend their stay at the cabin into the winter. They bought tire chains, antifreeze, ice scrapers with snow brushes on them, pairs of boots, and jackets rated for subzero weather.
On the way home Hank stopped at a gun store and bought two sets of ear protectors and plugs, a pair of shooting glasses for Marcia, and a supply of 9mm and .45 ACP ammunition. On the drive home Marcia said, “Why all the ammunition? Have you seen something I should worry about?”
Hank said, “I thought you and I might go out and get some target practice to keep us sharp.”
“Who said I was ever sharp? I’ve never held a firearm in my life. And where could we even do that?”
“I found a few ranges,” he said. “But I thought maybe we’d be better off just going out into the wild country. Otherwise you have to provide identification and all that.”
“Won’t just going out and shooting get us arrested?”
“San Bernardino County has a lot of space where you can fire a weapon legally. It’s the biggest county in the whole country. It’s got more area than Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey combined. Once you’re ten miles outside of any town, you’re pretty much by yourself.”
“You still haven’t told me why we’re doing this.”
“It’s something I want you to learn,” he said. “You said you would be useful. Having a second armed person to cover me in an emergency would be useful.”
The next day Hank drove out Route 38 to the east of Big Bear, and eventually found a flat dirt road that must have been a firebreak where they could pull off the highway about a mile before the country got too rocky and uneven. He parked among some scrubby trees and walked.
When Hank judged they had gone far enough he studied the area until he found a low hillside he could use as a backstop. He set up a dead tree limb and anchored it in the sandy dirt at the foot of the hill. “This will have to do as a target.”
“Okay. What do I do?”
“First you learn a little bit about semiauto pistols,” he said. “They’re not wildly different from each other.” He unzipped his backpack, took out a small pistol, and held it up. “This is a Beretta Nano. It’s about as small as a good 9mm pistol gets, and it will probably fit your hand pretty well. This catch releases the magazine. On this model there’s another release on the other side of the grips, but that’s unusual. The magazine holds six rounds, and you can also put a round in the chamber if you want to carry it that way. I don’t. If I really expected to have to shoot seven times, I’d go somewhere else instead.”
“All right,” she said.
“You pull the trigger and the trigger bar pushes the striker back against its spring. Right near the end of your pull, the cocking lever frees the striker and it pops forward, hits the primer, and the round in the chamber is fired. The slide recoils, ejecting the brass casing, and comes forward again, letting the next round be pushed up into the chamber. You get to pull the trigger six times, and then there are no more rounds in the magazine. On the last round, when the slide goes back it stays there, with the chamber open like this.”
“Got it.”
“Watch how I load it.” He released the empty magazine and loaded six rounds into it, then pushed it upward under the grips.
“You have to charge the weapon like this.” He pulled back the slide and released it. “That lets the first round into the chamber.”
He had her put in the earplugs and fit the ear protectors over them, and then put on his own.
He turned toward the upright branch he had set up. He held the pistol in a two-handed stance and fired a round into the center. Then he handed her the pistol, grips first. “Your turn.”
He watched her imitate his stance, then adjusted her hands. “The left hand will help your right to hold it steady. You want the front sight dot to sit between the two rear sights. Put it on the target and you’re ready to fire. Don’t drag the sight off the target with your finger. Just use the last joint of your finger to pull it straight back. When you’re ready, fire.”
She fired and the round knocked a chip off the tree limb.
“Very good. Now fire the rest.” He watched her fire, and noticed that she looked more comfortable each time.
When she fired the last round and the slide stayed ba
ck, he took the pistol, reloaded it, put it in his coat pocket, and lifted another pistol out of the backpack. “This is a Colt Commander. It’s bigger and heavier, obviously. It’s chambered for .45 ACP, and it’s not designed for concealed carry. It has a little more stopping power than the 9mm. Its magazine holds seven rounds and you can carry one in the chamber. As I said before, I don’t usually do that.”
He went through the whole process again for Marcia, showing her the parts and the mechanism, and then how to load and fire the weapon. He handed her the Commander and let her fire it. After each shot he made a comment, either a correction or encouragement.
After she had emptied the magazine he taught her how to clear the pistol and reload. Then he had her return to the Beretta Nano, release the magazine, check the load, reinsert the magazine and charge the weapon, and then fire those rounds. When she’d fired the last round she reloaded the magazine, then fired through that magazine.
He made her alternate weapons, firing a magazine at a time. He changed targets, finding smaller branches and placing them farther away, always watching her form and accuracy until she had fired a hundred rounds.
“Are you confident that if something terrible were happening, you could pick up either one of these, load, and fire accurately?”
“I know I could,” she said.
“All right, then,” he said. “Reload them both one more time and then help me collect all the brass.”
“I can help you pick it up first,” she offered.
“No,” he said. “Reload first. We’re not people who can afford to have all our weapons unloaded at once.”
He knelt to pick up the brass casings that had been ejected from the pistols. Then he took both pistols, checked to be sure they were fully loaded, and put them in the backpack. When they had picked up the brass they headed to their car. When they were back at the cabin he cleaned the weapons and put them away.